Susan Kim - Wasteland

By the side of the road was an old gas station, abandoned and in ruins. In front, Caleb noticed several rusty old oil barrels. One of them was uncovered and now brimmed over with rainwater from a recent storm.

Caleb walked his bike to the edge of where the grass used to be and released the rickety kickstand. Then he crossed to the barrels and looked down. The water was so clear, you could see all the way to the bottom, where a pink pebble lay. He couldn’t help himself; he stooped to smell it, and at its irresistibly cold scent, he imagined plunging his head into it, opening his parched mouth and swallowing, gulping, drinking as much as he could without coming up for air.

His eyes were closed and his lips were at the surface of the water; at the last second, he gave a shudder and forced himself to pull back.

That would have been suicide.

The trembling surface reflected the cloudless sky above him. It also reflected his face, which shocked him with its gauntness and its look of need.

Making up his mind, he uncapped his green bottle, lifted it to his lips, and emptied it within seconds. It was only a few mouthfuls of hot and metallic water, but he savored every drop.

Then Caleb got back on his bike and headed for town.

AS MOTHS DANCED AROUND THE BRIGHT SPOTLIGHTS OVERHEAD, SARAH waited outside the Source, nervously brushing back her hair.

Before she left, she had primped in front of her cracked mirror, combing her long hair so that it lay across her shoulders in a style she thought was pretty. Now she tried to make it stay that way.

She had never been this close to the enormous building; few in Prin had. She stood in front of the giant steel front door that rose and lowered, powered by electricity. Posted at a discreet distance on all sides were armed guards, silent and hooded. Sarah had approached one with trepidation earlier that day. She had passed along a note, requesting to speak with Levi, not knowing if she’d ever get a response. To her surprise, within a few hours, she received a note back, inviting her for dinner that night, alone.

Now the guards urged her forward and ushered her inside.

Sarah entered, nervous and excited. She adjusted her eyes to a dark and cavernous interior, lit by electric lights kept low.

Towering shapes hulked on all sides. They were giant shelves that rose to the ceiling, all of them fully stocked with oversize cartons. Sarah made out some of the words printed on them: THIS END UP. POWDERED MILK. DEHYDRATED CARROTS. WHEAT GRAIN. 200 GALLONS. POLAND SPRING WATER. HANDLE WITH CARE.

Then, emerging from the shadows was Levi.

Like everyone else in Prin, Sarah had not laid eyes on him in years. Levi was now a tall seventeen-year-old, with dark eyes and a mouth set in a hard line. He wore only black: jeans, button-down shirt, leather boots, all of which set off the extreme pallor of his skin. Yet when he recognized her, he smiled; and in that instant, he became the old Levi again, the boy with the watchful eyes she’d once known so well. The boy she had taught to read and who she thought might one day propose to her.

“Sarah,” was all he said.

Levi escorted her through the dimly lit Source. When they rounded a corner, she almost cried out in shock. A single electric light overhead threw deep shadows into the surrounding cavernous space. It illuminated a large table, laid with a rich cloth and piled high with plates of roast rabbit and salted flatbread, enough to feed at least a dozen for days. There were also strange foods she had never seen before: bowls of steaming, fragrant liquids and soft, glossy breads that were still hot.

As they started to eat, Sarah told herself to focus. She knew that she was there on serious business. Yet for the longest time, she couldn’t speak. She could only eat, ravenously. On the table was something new to her, a bottle of dark purplish-red liquid.

“Have some,” Levi said, hoisting it.

Before she had a chance to answer, Levi was filling her glass. At first, Sarah winced at its sharp taste, but with each sip, she found she liked it more and more. By her second glass, she was simply listening as Levi spoke of small things: her health; Sarah’s sister, Esther; the people in town. Sarah was thrilled by the thought that despite all of his power, her old friend evidently still cared about her and remembered names and details from a long-ago time, their shared youth.

Esther was wrong about him, she thought.

She was only vaguely aware that, unlike her, Levi had eaten very little. He grew silent, watching her from across the table with an unreadable expression as he toyed with a glass of the purple liquid he had barely touched. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something; and she remembered that, of course, that was why she was here.

Sarah guiltily wiped her mouth with a cloth napkin and cleared her throat.

“Levi,” she said, “as you probably know, the mutants have been attacking, and it’s getting worse. There’s no one in town strong enough to do anything.” She heard the contempt that had crept into her voice, but she didn’t care. “They need your help.”

She thought of the twelve-year-old who had arrived in town five years ago and broken into the shuttered and locked Source when no one else could. Before then, Prin was a ghost town inhabited by a few dozen, a wasteland on the verge of extinction. Through sheer intelligence and willpower, Sarah thought fuzzily, Levi had single-handedly transformed it. Sequestered in the white building, he became the hidden engine that kept the town running.

Now he would save it again.

“They need weapons,” she said, in a rush. “Real weapons, not just sticks or rocks. They need knives, arrows, clubs… whatever you can spare.”

Levi inclined his head in a slight nod but said nothing. The purple liquid had made Sarah expansive and uninhibited. She spread her hands out in a naked appeal.

“You’ve been so generous already,” she said. “If you could supply them with arms, they would forever be in your debt.”

There was a long pause before Levi answered.

“I see,” he said.

He picked up his glass but only studied the liquid inside. An idea seemed to come to him and he looked up.

“To be honest,” he said, “I’m not even sure if we have what you want in stock. Weapons, knives, clubs… I don’t know if we’ve seen much of that kind of thing around here. Have we?” He addressed this last part to his guards, who murmured negatively.

Levi’s guards were all clearly armed. Sarah was confused. “Are you sure you—”

Levi set down his drink and stood.

“May I show you something?”

The way he asked it wasn’t a question. Unsteadily, Sarah got to her feet. Swaying from the drink, she took a final, surreptitious bite of rabbit before following Levi out.

The guards kept their distance as Sarah trailed Levi through the endless, murky recesses of the building. She struggled to keep pace with her host. It was not easy, for he walked swiftly, sure of the path. Silver things flashed on his wrists and fingers—rings, watches, bracelets—and Sarah focused on them, as if they were stars in the night sky, to keep from getting left behind.

The crowded shelves towered above her.

In her inebriated state, Sarah knew they represented wealth of the most genuine and therefore precious kind. In a world of poisoned rain, scorching heat, and ashen skies, even a single jug of water, one of the hundreds stored here, perhaps thousands, held the balance of life and death to the people of Prin.

Sarah extended a hand to touch one of the cartons. But before she could, a guard materialized from nowhere and shoved her aside.

“Keep close,” Levi called from a few steps ahead, “and don’t touch anything. There are things that can hurt you if you’re not careful.”