Морин Макхью - Wastelands - The New Apocalypse

For now, I keep putting one foot in front of the other—but I’m staying alert for any signs of water, food, anything. I think you can get water out of cactuses, but I haven’t seen any on these rocky slopes. I could find one in the canyon, but down there, I might also find a bullet with my name on it.

Got no choice but to tough it out. I can make it to Shantyville, I think. Dehydrated for sure, but alive. With the kittens in hand, they’d be sure to let me past the wall. They’d be fools if they didn’t.

Next thing I know, I’m crashing to the ground and I feel a searing pain in my ankle—twisted it good between a couple of rocks. A curse slips out of me—quietly, thank Chrysler—and I see that the box of kittens has tumbled open. They’re all wide awake now, the little devils, blue eyes glowing in the moonlight. Freedom , I can just see them thinking, and just like that, they scatter .

No way in hell I’m going to leave those beautiful babies to die in the desert, so I scramble to my feet, wincing from pain, and start trying to snatch them up. I get three pretty easy with a piece of string I find in my pocket, but the fourth, the tough bastard, he plays it cool, regards me from a perch high up in a dead tree. I’m torn between amusement and terror. That kitten has spirit, and I’m sure that this little fucker’s going to get me killed.

A couple thrown rocks later and the gray and white bastard’s backed up even further, hissing and spitting, looking at me as if to say, “I knew you’d betray me. It was only a matter of when .”

I don’t know if I’m still being followed, but either way, I’m wasting precious time, and this cat’s chosen his own path, so I start to walk off, as if I don’t need him, as if I don’t care if the bastard lives or dies. I get about fifty feet away and he buys it. I hear this soft pattering sound behind me, and when I look down there he is, trotting along after me. He stops, turns away, licks himself when I turn around, like, “Hey, I was going this direction anyway.” But he lets me pick him up and return him to the box, and finally I’m making tracks again.

I’ve run my baby ragged and abandoned it to the desert, I’m ducking my boss’s killers, I’m even dodging dangerous wildlife I don’t know the names for… but in the end, it’s the Chrysler-forsaken sun that gets me.

I limped on through the night, but come morning the heat just sears me deeper than skin, and my arms and legs start to feel like I’ve been flayed and lit on fire. My eyes aren’t any better. Everything’s blurry and I trip and fall every couple of minutes. Finally, I fall hard enough that time stretches weird and I lose my grip on everything. The sun turns into a swarm of headlights bearing down. I give in; I accept it. Somehow, I always knew I’d turn roadkill.

When I wake up, I’m in the shade, only I first figure it has to be those towering pricks standing over me so I try to jump up, ready to go down in a fight. A soft gasp chills me out, gets me to give up and lie back down, and my eyes focus enough for me to see that I’m lying on a flimsy mattress surrounded by dry, wooden walls, sunlight peeking through any crack it can find. A distinctly male grunt comes from the corner to my right, and I make out someone sitting in a chair there, a shotgun or a rifle across his lap. His face is like a map of canyon country where it isn’t hidden by white beard. There’s a glint of menace in his eye that I don’t have to be psychic to read. I’ve gotta keep myself small and harmless if I’m going to get out of this one.

“Where the hell am I?” I ask with a groan. Not too hard to keep myself small when I’m barely skin and bones and the room keeps tilting to one side like the whole cabin’s about to come tumbling down on me.

“You’re in our home, so I’ll thank you to show some respect and not curse in front of Molly,” the man grumbles.

“Can I see what’s in his box now, Pa?” the girl asks. I turn to give her a look-over, guessing the sight is better than the grizzled desert rat ready to shoot me if I flinch. Sure enough, she’s got long blond hair all pulled up, pretty oval face. I’m guessing fifteen, sixteen, which means post-Crash is all she’s ever known. Hard to believe that people keep making more people in this mess of a world.

“Sorry. I don’t suppose you could spare something to drink?” I ask.

“Fill a jug from the well, Molly,” the man says. “This fella’s gonna need his strength to move on.”

The girl nods, picking up an old plastic milk jug, and heads outside. “Not before I find out what’s in his toolbox!” she says over a shoulder.

“Thanks for taking me in,” I say. “I’ll move on just as soon as I can get my feet under me. Mind if I try and stand up?” I’ve got a pounding headache, a twisted ankle, and some scrapes, but nothing so serious that I have to stay and risk getting shot.

“Go right ahead, just don’t get any thoughts about trying to turn Molly’s good deed into opportunity for worse. We ain’t got nothing worth stealing anyway.”

I sit up again, stretch my neck a little, and test the ankle. It’s swollen, but not badly enough I can’t hobble off when the time comes.

The toolbox begins to make scratching sounds, and Pa shoots me a curious look.

“Just some… mice I caught. Dinner.” Please don’t meow , I think at them.

The little bastards, not knowing when to give up being catty, do, in fact, meow.

“Mice, huh?” Pa sits his gun against the wall and stands, moving toward the toolbox. Even if he has a couple decades on me, I’m in no state to take him in a fight. Anyway, I couldn’t see myself repaying their kindness with more violence.

“Okay, no, not really. They’re kittens.”

Pa’s face splits with a broad, surprisingly toothy grin. “Where’d you get kittens around here? I haven’t seen a cat in ten years at least.”

“Sir, I have to be honest with you. I stole them. Don’t give me that look—ordinarily, I’m no thief. I was just a runner and mechanic for Gunter, over in Crabtree.”

The old man nods. “Thought I recognized your face from the last time I was at the trading post. Now how did that scumbucket get his hands on kittens?”

“The boys brought ’em in—got them off a raid down in Bracken Valley over on the main stretch of highway. None of Gunter’s boys can read too well, so they didn’t understand the shipping markers right, thought they were stealing medical supplies. Anyway, Gunter decided he wanted them cooked up as a little feast.”

Pa blinked. “Good god damn, but that man’s a monster. Even with a world gone to total shit, pardon the language, there’s no excuse for eating a kitten.”

“I don’t remember the old world too well; I was eight when the shit hit the fan belt, but… I just couldn’t stand there and watch Gunter eat these little guys. Besides, they’re too small to do much more than get stuck between your teeth. Go ahead, open it up and see for yourself.”

The old man opens the box, and there’s that grin again. A little sparkle of gold in the world. For a minute everything I been through in the past day feels worth it and I feel good, like someone’s topped up my tank with high octane.

“They’ve been treated pretty well, but they look thirsty,” he says. The one tough little bastard rears up on his hind legs, takes a swipe at the man’s ragged beard. The old man breaks out in a raspy chuckle.

“I think they’re Siamese or something?” I say.

“Nonsense like breed and what-not doesn’t matter anymore,” the old guy says. “Lord almighty. Kittens, here in my shack. What in the world do you plan on doing with them?”