Barren Waters - The Complete Novel: (A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of Survival) (21 page)

“What?” Jeremy cut in. “You’d rather him what? Die?”

“Yes,” she spat. “I’d rather him die than live through that. I’m not ashamed to admit it.”

She lowered her gaze to her hands, inspected them, then lifted them to her face, and quietly began to weep.

Shit. Why were his emotions so close to the surface? Lately he was a ticking bomb with a short fuse.

“Meghan, I’m sorry.”

He leaned forward and rested his elbows against his knees, lowered his own forehead into his hands. The empty disk was cold against his temple. “Meghan, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m no good at this—at ‘roughing it’ so to speak. It’s just that the pills are running out so fast and I don’t operate well if I don’t have a strategy. What will be our plan after they run out?”

She didn’t answer and he felt renewed guilt as he watched her shoulders shake. He pushed himself to his feet and slid closer to her on the couch. Why was he such an ass? Was he so out of practice that he’d truly become this callous? He took a breath.

“Meghan, I’m really sorry. You’re right. We won’t do it. We won’t even consider it or talk of it again. It’s barbaric even to think it.”

She lifted her face and wiped tears from the corners of her eyes. Her voice was weak. “Jeremy, I know you’re just trying to help and I know that in any other circumstance, an amputation would be the right thing to do. But I can’t abide that for Peter.” She turned to face him, lifted her legs, and crossed them on the sofa cushion between them.

Jeremy couldn’t help but notice how close her hands rested to his own. He also noticed the tears that glistened in her eyes and reflected the flames, and her skin, shadowed seductively at the curve of her throat.

“I know Peter will die,” she continued softly, “Eventually he will. But there are many people who live a long time with similar afflictions.”

Jeremy’s voice was hoarse. “Yes. They do as long as they have the proper medicine to do so.”

“Yes. So long as they have that.” She sighed. “I suppose you think I’m being selfish. But what parent wouldn’t be? And what’s the alternative Jeremy? I won’t cut off the leg so what do I do? What’s left for me to do? Do I withhold medicine that would prevent his suffering? Do I allow his wounds to fester just to hasten the inevitable? Of course I don’t.” She cocked her head and ran a thumb across his knuckle. “How I wish we would’ve met sooner. Perhaps this could’ve all been avoided in the first place.” She leaned closer and he could feel her breath against his forehead. “Perhaps we could’ve built something sustainable a long time ago.”

Before he had time to react she leaned forward and pressed her lips gently to his. Her mouth was warm and dry, and though the thought of kissing another woman had previously been unimaginable, the physical act was refreshingly pleasant. Pleasant, yet still wrong. He set his hands to her shoulders and gently pushed her away.

“Meghan, you’re a lovely woman, but-“

“I know,” she breathed dejectedly. “Your wife. You never speak of her, but I can sense your pain.”

He lifted a hand to her cheek. “I’m just not ready yet. To be fair, Meghan, I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready.”

“You might surprise yourself one day, Jeremy.”

He swallowed.
One day
. There it was again. He hadn’t noticed, but his fist was clenched around the flat casing of the disk, and he opened it, rubbed the skin of his palm, dented by the corners of the plastic.
One day
. He rubbed his thumb against the plastic cover and scratched the edge of his fingernail against the engraved word.

Insulidisk
.

He peered over at Peter and Susan. Peter really had made great strides. His condition was consistently declining, yes, but at a much slower pace than it was before. Jeremy remembered the morning he’d watched Meghan push Peter up the road in the broken-down grocery basket. Through the window, she’d appeared exhausted, almost as if she were about to collapse. Jeremy had known she’d been watching he and Sam for several days, known she’d been appraising them, trying to decide if they were good and decent, trying to decide if they were safe.

He’d watched her push that cart, her back strained, arms trembling with the effort, and he’d practically run out the door to help her. Until he’d laid eyes on that leg. Like before, Peter’s legs were lifted and dangling over the edge of the cart. Thick blanketing, soiled and pilled, was piled beneath his leg and it bounced ominously as they approached. He’d grabbed Sam by the shoulders and shaken her, struggled to find the right words.

“Sam, there are people coming.” Alarm had shone in her eyes and her body had immediately tensed. “No,” he quickly backpedaled with a shake of his head. Jesus, he was such a fool. Nothing scared Sam more than thoughts of other people. “No, honey. Not bad people. People that you and I can potentially help. People I met in town. That day you found the books. Remember? The day we first spoke again.” He ran a hand over her hair, smoothing it, and admiring the light as it shone off the flaxen strands.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked slowly as she pushed his hands away. “If they’re not bad people then why are you so upset?”

He squeezed her arms. “I just don’t want you to be frightened. Shocked I mean. I don’t want you to become upset. I need you to stifle your reactions.”

“Stifle my reactions? What the hell are you talking about?”

He’d ignored the curse word and drawn a breath to steady himself. “It’s the boy. He’s ill. Quite ill. It’s his leg.”

“Dad, I can handle a bad leg.”

Without further explanation, she’d grasped his hand, pulled him outdoors, and the two had watched in silence as Meghan rolled her son up the road. Sam had actually hidden her revulsion quite well. He’d been proud of her. Her eyes were round and skittish as she fought the instinct to stare, but she’d been kind and open to the possibility of helping others in need.

It was only after she’d seen the pills that she’d become troubled. She’d cornered Jeremy one night behind the house when he was chopping wood for the fire. Anger had flashed in her eyes as she accused him.

“Peter’s a diabetic? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why do you care that I didn’t tell you?”

“You’re deflecting.”

“Deflecting. Is that the word of the day?”

Like a child she’d stamped her foot. “Stop joking. You were trying to keep this from me. Admit it. Why can’t you ever tell me the truth? When are you going to start respecting me?”

He’d dropped the ax and stood there stupidly. She was right. Of course she was right.

“I’m sorry, Sam.”

She’d crossed her arms impatiently. “And how many more times are you going to say I’m sorry? Dad, just tell me things. That’s all I ask. It’s what we promised each other we’d always do.”

“I will Sam. I will from now on. I swear.”

She’d dropped her hands to her sides. “Okay. Then why don’t you start right now. So he’s a diabetic. So what? Why wouldn’t you want me to know that?”

He had no choice but to tell her. He and Susan never really had reason to explain what the consequences of mismanaging her disease would engender. The disks had made it easy. Life just went on. You pop in a disk, live a normal life, and thirty days later, pop in another. There was no fuss. No hassle. No real thought went into any of it. Sam had never spent time in a diabetic hospital ward with other sufferers, nor had she seen photographs of people in advanced stages of deterioration. She’d been sheltered from the more gruesome aspects of her illness. She simply didn’t know.

He crouched low and took her hands in his. He felt her flinch and try to pull away, yet he held her fast. “Sam, you’re one of the lucky ones. You’ve always had the disks. Peter hasn’t. Your illness has always functioned on autopilot. It was never an issue at home, and as long as we have the disks, it’s not likely to become an issue now or at any time in the future. Peter hasn’t lived that kind of life. He’s had to fight for his health and forage for pills on a daily basis. Sam, without the pills Peter will die.”

“Without the disks
I
will die,” she answered smoothly.

He corrected her quickly. “Without medication, anyone in your condition
could
die. But we won’t let that happen.”

She rolled her eyes. “Dad, I already know all of this. I know the risks and I know how important the disks are. But why are you upset about-”

Suddenly her mouth clamped shut. Her eyes narrowed and her hands began to tremble. “Dad, what are the side effects if I don’t have medication? You always tell me I get fuzzy, or faint, or that I could fall into a coma, but what happens next? What happens after that? It’s his leg isn’t it? That’s what’ll happen to me.”

“No.” Jeremy shook his head vehemently. “We won’t let that happen to you.”

“But that’s what it is right? That’s what caused his leg to turn black. It’s the uncontrolled diabetes.”

“Yes. It is. Without the medication, a diabetic cannot produce enough insulin, and as a result, one’s sugars become unmanageably high. High sugars cause cells to break down and die.”

“Die,” she repeated softly. “Die like in rot. That’s why his leg smells so bad. It’s rotting off his body.”

“I’m sorry Sam. This is why I get so crazy about your health. It’s why I annoy you so much about your sugars and your number.”

He watched her chest rise and fall as she slept. They’d had a good talk that day, and he thought he’d finally gotten through to her. That afternoon she’d been forced to accept some difficult concepts and she’d done so with dignity. Again he rubbed his thumb against the raised lettering of the disk and flipped it over.

Meghan’s voice pulled at him. “How many do you have left?”

He ignored the question and raised his head. “I think you should learn how to shoot a weapon. I also think we should plant a garden out back so you can grow food.”

“So
I
can grow food?”

He sighed. “Meghan, have you given any thought to what we’ll do when we run out of pills?”

She eyed the slim case of plastic in his palm. Her reply was soft. “So that’s what this is really about isn’t it? It’s about you. Leaving.” He met her gaze and was startled to discover that her eyes were wet. “You’re leaving because you’re running out of disks.”

He shook his head. He’d become a decent liar.

“I’m not. I just think there’re still certain things you should learn. And I think we’re being short-sighted if we don’t come up with a plan for when the children need more medicine.”

She rubbed her palms against her thighs in rapid, nervous motions. “Well, that’s easy. We just search for more. There are hundreds of hospitals across this state alone. We don’t ever give up. That’s all. We carefully measure our progress and expand our search grid with every trip. We keep searching, Jeremy. That’s all there is to it.”

He considered her choice of words. Searching. He flipped the disk between his fingers. Searching for what? Several bottles of pills here? A case of bottles there? Again, he traced the word on the front of the disk then flipped it over against his palm. On the back, the words were small and faded, yet still clear enough for him to read.

Bigeye Pharmaceuticals.

“Yes,” he murmured absently. “We keep searching.”

She grasped at his words as though she thought he’d acquiesced. “Exactly, Jeremy. We keep searching. Forever if that’s what it takes. We search one area until we exhaust the supply completely. Then we move to the next area. It’s as simple as that. We’ve already been doing it for months. What’s suddenly changed?”

He met her gaze. “It’s the pills that’ve changed. They’re weakening. Every year they become less potent.”

Her smile was sad. “You’re such a pessimist.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“But you really are. Yes, the pills will continue to weaken, but Jeremy, the United States is a big place. There are an unlimited number of places for us to search.”

She was right. Their search grid
was
enormous. But if they continued in this manner, then how could they ever put down roots? If they adopted the life of a scavenger then how could he ever give Sam the kind of stability he so desired? In this vision of life, he never could. It was unattainable. They could settle long enough for her to become good and comfortable, and then what? He’d have to uproot her and move her again? How could they ever have their garden or plant a grove of trees? How would they ever cultivate crops or know the comfort and security of a permanent home? They would be forever nomadic. Hamsters in a wheel. They’d be wanderers. Gypsies. It was no life. It certainly wasn’t the life he and Susan had planned. Not for him. Not for Sam.

He glanced around the room as if it were suddenly foreign. This was a plan that’d always had an expiration date. He knew that now. But what was their alternative? If not this, then what?

The pitter-patter of the rain, so gentle and innocuous before, now chanted ominously. It beat against the roof, a two-beat trot of horse’s hooves that suddenly sounded like opportunity passing him by.

Again his gaze fell to the disk in his hand and he cocked his head.
Bigeye Pharmaceuticals
. The manufacturer. The lettering beneath the company name was small and the light was dim. He lifted it closer to his face and squinted.