SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

“Puta madre, Ren. Mi padre, when he finds out—”

“We’ll be fine. Let me do the talking. After they’re done, go peek behind the counter. I saw a fútbol magazine. Iniesta is on the cover.”

“Serious? Iniesta?”

Ren opened his mouth to reply and the sound of footsteps slapped around the corner. Their pace told him two things. One, she had rushed all the way from Old Town.

Two, his mother was furious.

He pulled his hood low as Jeanie rounded the building, coming to a ragged stop. She stepped forward, sleeves rolled to her elbows from doing laundry with the last of their morning water.

“Mom, it’s all my fault. I—”

“Mom-I-nothing. Dude, you are in sooo much trouble.”

She wiped her brow, winded as she glared. His mother had raced from Old Town, he knew, passing Ronda’s abandoned eastern apartments. He glanced away when she pointed to the staircase and raised an eyebrow. “Outside the barricades? Again?”

“We were just—”

“You’re lucky someone found you before you did too much damage. I’ll give you credit—no one expected a store out here—but when Hector hears you broke a bottle of olive oil? Really? When was the last time we had olive oil?”

Ren tossed another rock, knowing he should shut up, but not wanting to. “Get more water, Ren. Dig a new ditch, Ren. The old walls don’t mean shit anymore and I’m sick of doing stuff for other people. Look what we found—”

“Shit? What if you got hurt? Did you think of that?”

“Maybe the store will lift spirits for New Year’s?” Óscar added, softly.

Jeanie sighed as she turned. “Maybe, Óscar. Maybe. After Christmas, Ronda certainly deserves good news.”

“We could look for medicine on the shelves,” Ren muttered.

“There could be aspirin, yes. But no antibiotics. Not in a corner store.”

“And Selene?”

“Her fever is getting worse.”

Ren pulled his legs up and hugged them. He liked Selene. The only Greeks in town, she and her husband were always nice to him and Jeanie, unlike most locals. Dmitri had taught Ren to whittle and make small traps, and occasionally they played fútbol in the town square.

“You can’t keep pushing, kiddo. Bored or not. Not with rationing coming up again. You know Hector—”

Óscar groaned as his father rounded the corner, running without running, anger in each step. Stout and ruddy-faced, his button up shirt tucked into his slacks.

“Hector,” Jeanie interrupted, palms up. “See? Both boys are fine.”

His thick mustache curled beneath his nose as he towered above Óscar, forehead dappled with sweat. His finger went from Óscar, to Ren, back to Óscar.

“Papá, I—”

Hector cuffed Óscar across the face so hard his glasses fell off.

“Pick them up,” he commanded.

Ren stiffened and moved to speak. His mother shook her head once, sharply.

Not our place.

“Americana, this is a second time in a month your son has ignored el perímetro. We no longer guard the barricades, but Ronda still has rules.” He whirled to Ren. “Because you are the youngest, you think you can get away with everything. But you’re not special, you’re—”

“They’re just being boys, Hector. Look, they found a store.”

“A store? What if they died? Or woke something up?” He bristled over them, face purple with anger. Then he paused. “The Greek?”

“Rests inside Santa María with her husband,” Jeanie replied. “Luc stays with them, day and night. Without medicine, we run out of options. The pueblos are picked bare, Hector. Luc is right. We must send someone to Sevilla. Look for medicine, food, before—”

“No,” Hector said, ending the discussion with a swipe of his hand. “I will not risk the cities. We widen our search in el campo. Go further north this time.”

Hector pulled Óscar to his feet and shoved his son toward town. When he motioned for Ren to follow, Jeanie nodded.

Go.

“Los malcriados can spend the rest of the day gathering wood for a bonfire,” Hector added. “Pray the Greek does not die at night. If she turns, we should all be ready. Ronda has not seen such evil in some time.”

“I’m sick of this mierda.”

Ren tossed his wheelbarrow end over end as they reached the mid-span of the bridge, sending scrap wood tumbling onto Puerto Nuevo’s cobbled way. They crossed the gorge from La Ciudad—Old Wown—where foreigners lived in the Moorish buildings damaged during the fallout—toward El Centro, where the Spaniards resided in the finer apartments near the bullfighting ring.

“Por favor, Ren. No more trouble. Mi padre—”

“How long are they going to treat us this way? We’re not kids. But after we finish the pyre you know they’ll send us for more agua.”

The water containers grew heavy, filled at the cisterns near the Arab Baths. After fighting them up the streets, Ren would become so hungry his stomach would cramp. Sometimes the pangs were so awful he spent all night clutching his belly. Lately even his fingernails hurt. He hadn’t known nails could hurt.

He kicked a piece of wood and glared at Hector’s home. Nestled above El Tajo canyon, its faded HOTEL DON MIGUEL sign above the door. Across the Plaza de España, the grander Parador Hotel perched high above plains dotted with the skeletal remains of cork trees.

During the days after the electromagnetic pulse, half of Ronda’s residents had holed up inside the Parador, hiding in its lower floors. Now the luxury hotel stood as an empty testament, as his mother called it, to Ronda’s survival.

Raising his hand to shield his eyes from the sun, he stared into the ravine. A hundred meters below, Río Guadalevín trickled through the canyon. Dead plants were mixed in with a few living ones, mostly brown, struggling grasses. Sometimes, if he waited long enough, he would spot a bird in the underbrush. They reminded him of the swallows of the Alhambra. He often wondered if they still survived.

“What about the Bruja?” he asked, and flicked a thumb toward the Serranía de Ronda mountains. “Everyone says the old woman has medicine. She took army stuff from the garrison, right? Who knows what else she has stashed in her cave. Maybe food.”

“La Bruja?” Óscar fidgeted. “No one has seen her in months. Mi padre thinks she and her son died over the summer, or they would have come to trade.”

Ren spit off the bridge, and both boys watched it disappear into the gorge. “We should go,” Ren said, his wavy hair billowing in the breeze. “See if she has medicine for Selene. The adults—they’re too scared.”

“The cave is an hour away. We’re supposed to finish the pyre. We’d never make it back before nightfall. Ren, mi padre—”

“Rides you all day long, amigo. I think—”

“—says we grow lazy, that we neglect the barricades. That moving to the villas is dangerous. That we forget what it was like.”

“I’m tired of rules. Living like I’m already dead, afraid of every rusty nail I see. Let the old folks live that way. We get medicine, we won’t need a bonfire. Your padre can’t be angry if we bring back antibiotics. He’d be proud. On New Year’s Eve?”

“But what if one of them is out there? They’re—”

“—all in the cities and you know it. Likely shriveled up and dead, too. No, we ride to the cave and back before anyone notices we’re gone. The highway runs straight there.”

“You should have told the adults about that dead hombre.”

Ren’s eyes shined as he pulled out the clerk’s revolver. “Oh, I’d love to see their faces when they find that old bag of bones. Come on, compinche. Target practice on the way?”