Hugh Howey - Sand

“Pretty much all of Springston,” Vic said. She stirred her stew. “The east wells will have to be re-dug. They’re buried. The pumps with them.”

Conner stiffened. “I need to go see about the pump in Shantytown. And I need to find—”

“The Shantytown pump won’t be enough to water everyone,” Vic told him. “How many people from that side of town came over here to the cisterns?”

“What about Dad’s advice?” Conner asked, turning to their mom. “Maybe we should go west like Father said.”

Vic’s spoon froze halfway to her mouth. Stew dribbled onto the bar. “When did Dad ever say we should go live in the mountains?”

“Not in the mountains,” Rob told her. “ Over them.”

Vic turned and studied her little brother, who was perched on a barstool. “You need to stick to water,” she told him, thinking he’d been into the beer.

Rose placed a hand on Vic’s shoulder. Palmer was looking at her funny. “What?” she asked Palmer. “What’s that look about?” It was as though everyone else knew something she didn’t.

“Don’t freak out,” Palmer said. “I just learned a few hours ago.”

“Let her eat,” their mother said. Then, to Vic, “Finish your stew, and then I need you to come upstairs with me.”

“Upstairs?” Vic felt her palms go clammy. Felt that old terror swell up within her. She didn’t think anything would get her up those stairs ever again. She had a sudden compulsion to yank out the few nails she’d driven in, to yank them all out so no one could ever climb those stairs again, not her or her mother or anyone. “Why do you want me to go upstairs?” Vic asked.

“Finish your stew. And then I need you to meet someone.”

Vic couldn’t very well sit there and eat with everyone acting strange, watching her like that. Her appetite was gone, anyway. “Who?” she asked.

It was Rob who blurted out what no one else would say. “Our sister,” he said. And when Vic shot him a look, he showed her his jar. “It’s water, I swear.”

“I don’t have time for games,” Vic told her mom. She stopped at the bottom of those stairs, her hand on the rail, unable to muster the courage to lift her boot. “What I need is to get back to the sarfer and get to Low-Pub. The people who took down the wall are hitting it next.”

There was a hand at her back, urging her up. Just like before. Like when she was sixteen. Vic resisted. Her mother went past her to the bottom step, turned, looked out over the lantern-lit and pathetic crowds, and then lowered her voice.

“I don’t know what the hell is going on,” Rose said, “or what you might be involved in. I don’t know what’s happening out there.” She looked to be on the verge of tears, and Vic forgot her terror for a moment and truly listened. “This is all too much at once. It’s too much.” She shook her head and covered her mouth with her hand. Vic saw that her brothers were watching from the bar.

“Mom, you need to get some rest. What can be done is being done. There’s no one left to save. All of this can wait until morning.”

“Your father is still alive,” her mother blurted out.

Vic gripped the railing. The Honey Hole slid back down into the dunes and spun around her. “What—?” Her mother held her by the waist to keep her from sagging to the ground.

“I don’t know how all of this is happening at once, what games the gods are playing at, but Conner and Rob brought a girl here the day after you came to see me. The morning after I saw you, they came in with a starved and injured girl who made it out of No Man’s Land.”

“What?” Vic whispered again. She didn’t understand. “How long had she been gone? How far did she get?”

“She didn’t wander in from over here ,” Rose said. “She crossed all the way. Come upstairs. Please.”

Vic found herself coaxed upward. It felt as though her mind and senses were floating above the ground. “What do you mean, Father is still alive? Why did Rob call her my… ?”

“Your sister. Half-sister. You need to hear what she has to say.” Vic glanced back and saw that Palmer and Conner were following them up the stairs. Rob was climbing down from his barstool.

“And Dad?” She looked to the balcony.

“He’s being held on the other side of No Man’s Land against his will. I’ll explain. But it means you have to put Low-Pub out of your mind. Your brother is right, that going west might be the only way. I think that’s what the gods are trying to tell us.”

Vic felt a flush of rage at the mention of the gods, at the talk of destiny. She’d seen too many dead to think of that bitch, Fate. She found herself standing there on that balcony, high over the scene of so many hurt and wounded, so many sobbing and mourning their loved ones. Listening to their soft wails, smelling the sweat in her dive suit, thinking on all the buried she’d seen that day, all the horrors visited on that already miserable place, the image of Marco shot dead, seeing a man’s face stove in behind Graham’s workbench, all the bombs over the years, the rape, the scars, the buckets of hurt more numerous than the sands.

“No one is watching over us,” she told her mother. She turned to her brothers, who were gathered on the stairs, looking up at the two women. “There isn’t anyone up there looking down on us,” she told them all. “Those constellations you see up there?” She jabbed her finger angrily at the ceiling. “Those are the backs of gods we see. They’ve turned from us. Don’t you understand? Our father is dead. I don’t have a sister. Now I’ve got to get to Low-Pub.”

She pulled away from her mom and forced herself down between her brothers, nearly knocked Rob over. Her mother yelled for her to wait. Vic stopped at the bar and screwed a lid on a jar of beer. She grabbed a heel of bread from Palmer’s plate and hurried toward the door. She started gathering her gear.

Conner rushed to her side. “Vic, don’t go.”

“I’m sleeping on the sarfer so no one steals it. I sail at first light. I’ll come back and check on you all once whatever happens in Low-Pub happens.”

“Low-Pub is nothing,” Conner said. “You’ve got to hear what this girl has to say. There are entire cities out there—”

“Like Danvar?” Vic slung her tank over her shoulder. “Stop dreaming, Con. Start digging. This is the only life we’ve got.”

“Well, if you won’t stay, then I’m coming with you.”

“Suit yourself.” Vic nodded to the other dive tank and the gear.

“Okay. Good. I will. We’re leaving at first light?” Conner rubbed his hands together. He seemed shocked that she would have him along. In truth, she needed him and twenty more like him. “If so, I’m going to see if I can be of use here for a few hours. Let Mom know where we’re headed.”

Vic shrugged. “You know where the sarfer’s parked. You get there after dawn, it won’t be parked there anymore.” She turned and shoved her way out the door. It felt good, fleeing that place again. Here was where she had learned this skill all those years ago, where she had learned how good it felt to run away.

Conner stood by the door and watched his sister go. It was a familiar sight, her leaving. It didn’t seem possible that he would see her later that night. He was used to it being months. A year. He was used to the fear that she would perish on her next dive and he would hear about it from someone at school. That loss would be even greater now that they had soaked the sand with their sweat together, had dived side by side to rescue who they could. His sister, always a bright and distant star in his life, had grown bright as Venus. It left him no space to stay behind while she went off to Low-Pub.