Mindy McGinnis - Not a Drop to Drink

“It’s all right,” Lynn said. “I want her healthy. I’ll be fine. When are you leaving?”

“I’d like to take the meds back to the stream today, and get a proper bed set up for her there. If we could all be safely tucked in by nightfall I’d be pleased.”

“Take the cot she’s been using.”

“You’re sure?”

“No need for it here,” Lynn said. “It’ll just be me.”

She made it a point to be up on the roof when they left. Vera sloshed through the muddy yard, a sleeping Lucy slumped over her shoulder. Eli followed with the cot and Vera’s backpack. Stebbs walked beside him, weighed down with medicine, extra blankets, and Mother’s rifle, with instructions to leave it with Eli at the stream house. Lynn knew he would’ve refused it if she’d tried to give it herself, and was relying on Stebbs’ prolific common sense to overrule Eli’s objections.

Eli made it as far as the wood cord before he put down the cot and turned back. Lynn sighed and put her eye back to the scope for a distraction. Vera and Stebbs had stopped to wait for him, and she saw Vera leaning close to Stebbs while he spoke to her. Closer than necessary. Lynn bit her lip to keep the smile from spreading. “Wily asshole,” she said under her breath.

“Hey now,” Eli’s voice came from behind her. “I know you’re not happy with me, but I don’t think I quite deserve that.”

“Not directed at you,” Lynn said, nodding toward the older couple standing in the distance. “Don’t make them wait too long. Lucy needs to get indoors.”

Eli sat beside her on the shingles, ignoring the fact that her attention was focused on the rifle and not him. “I don’t want to go.”

She made sure she had control over her voice before she turned to him. “Vera and Lucy need you.”

“And you don’t.”

The words came out clipped and bitter as the air they landed in, dropping between the two of them like icicles. Lynn dropped her head back to the scope, close enough that her eyelashes brushed the cold metal.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It’s true though.” Eli looked to the south. “I’m worried about what you’ll do once we leave.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Just promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”

“Done.”

Eli sighed and put a hand on her shoulder. She hesitated a moment, then gripped him back. “Come back,” she said, her shaky voice betraying her. “When you can. When they’re safe.”

“Soon as possible,” he said, his voice husky. Then he was gone. He emerged in the yard, shoulders hunched against the cold, head down against the wind. Lynn covered them with the rifle, not allowing tears to blur her vision until they were out of sight.

When darkness fell, she put on hunting camo, strapped her rifle across her back, and filled a canteen. “It’s not stupid, Eli,” she said as she closed the door and headed south across the field.

South Bloomfield had once been a nice place to live, according to Mother. From her perch in the tree on the ridge, Lynn saw in the rays of the rising sun that most of the homes were brick two-stories with ancient, sagging porches. A few had swimming pools in backyards that now stood empty, except for the carcasses of the animals with the bad luck to fall into them. The town was upstream from Eli and Lucy, at a point where the water widened. The bridge spanning it had been rebuilt just before the Shortage, reinforced with steel guardrails that still held a reflective sheen. A relic of the past loomed over the village—a cell phone tower where Lynn had spotted a sentry once the sun rose.

She envied the tower sentry his position. From his height, the only thing preventing him from seeing forever was the curve of the earth. The bare branches didn’t offer much cover. Lynn knew that once spotted she’d be dead, so she was stuck in the tree until dark fell again. The sentry had been exempted from the daily work in town, which meant he was an excellent shot. Lynn marked him as her first target.

The first activity in town came midmorning. The man she thought of as Blue Coat led three women out of a yellow house near the center of town. He was armed. They were barely clothed. They shivered in the chilly air but didn’t try to cover themselves. The men passing by barely glanced at them; they’d already seen everything on display.

As much as she wanted to kill him, Blue Coat wasn’t her highest priority. He seemed to be in charge of the women and though he was armed, she doubted his capabilities under fire. He’d run his mouth too much when they’d come for Neva, and Lynn had noticed how his eyes were always squirreling away from hers, bouncing off everything in sight. Blue Coat didn’t have the cold stare of someone who could shoot well, or the sense to keep his mouth shut to cover up his nerves. He deserved a bullet, but she’d have to give him his after those more capable.

Blue Coat marched the women to the stream, and they disappeared down the near bank. Lynn watched through her binoculars as they emerged minutes later, dripping wet and clutching themselves to conserve heat. Green Hat walked alongside the youngest girl, and Lynn saw him slip something into her hand before she disappeared into the house again. As tightly as the girl clutched the gift, Lynn guessed it was food.

Lynn kept the binoculars on Green Hat and the line of women filing back into the yellow house. His actions caused a ripple of doubt on the placid surface of her cold rage. He had said he was sorry for Lucy’s illness when they came to take Neva, and Lynn could tell by his eyes that they weren’t empty words. The child’s illness had bothered him, and he had helped Neva up from the frozen ground as she’d stumbled toward her death.

In the past, it had been easy to know who her enemies were—anyone not Mother. But even though he was clearly a part of the group of men, Lynn couldn’t bring herself to watch him through the rifle scope with her finger curled on the trigger. Slipping extra food to the starving, nearly naked young girl wasn’t an action she could account for in someone she needed to kill, and so she marked Green Hat as a question mark. She’d kill him or not, depending on how he reacted once the lead was flying.

The man who had been on her roof watched everything from his position in front of the town hall, the only building under guard. He sat in a lawn chair in the parking lot with a rifle across his knees. Green Hat wandered away from the yellow house and made conversation with him for a few minutes but didn’t succeed in fully gaining his attention. The guard was constantly watching the movement in the streets, the other men, and the people who had come to trade. Green Hat couldn’t distract him, and he changed his position when men not a part of their group came into the village so that he could cover them with his gun. Lynn marked him as her second target.

Traders were filing into town as noon approached, the sun glinting off the melting snow and giving Lynn a headache. People filtered in and out, more than she would have guessed existed in their small corner of the world. She couldn’t see well enough to know what everyone had brought to trade, but red gasoline containers were easy to spot, as were the round portable propane tanks.

A man and woman appeared on the road, walking hesitantly toward town. She held a bundle protectively against her chest. Lynn squinted into the binoculars and could see a tiny fist jutting from the top of the blanket, entangled in her hair. As they approached the center of town, a man emerged from the largest house and hailed them from the porch. Lynn switched to her rifle.

He was unknown to her. Tall and broad through the shoulders, with red hair and a confidence about him that immediately said he was in charge. He greeted the couple with familiarity. Lynn could see by the wary look on the woman’s face that she knew enough about him to be frightened. The husband gestured toward the baby in his wife’s arms. The redhead nodded and smiled as if he understood but shrugged off their questions, pointing to the church next to the town hall.