Dissidence (11 page)

“All right.
Stay here, I’ll be right back.” I stand, but he grabs my arm.
             

“Wait. You can’t go out there alone.”

“Oh sure,
because you’d be so much help right now.”

Connor only breath
e
s a laugh, and releases me. He knows as well as I do that, no matter
what he says, he’s not going to get very far without some water.

Thankfully, the sun is just breaking over the horizon, so at least I have some light to work with. The entire forest looks exactly the same
,
and my sense of directions is . . . un-evolved at best, but as long as I keep the rising sun directly in front of me, I should be able to find my way back to Connor later. I hope.

I walk forever, or at least it feels that way. How can there be this much green in a place without any water? I contemplate the likeliho
od that I’ve been walking along
side a stre
am this whole time without ever
intersecting
it, and knowing my luck, it’s
probably pretty good. I veer off track a ways just to be sure, but still find nothing. Great, now I’m doubtlessly lost on top of everything else.

The only sounds as I trek through the woods are my feet shuffling through the brush. All of the background noise
s seem to have faded away. T
he quiet only serves to amplify my thoughts as they chase each other endlessly through my fatigued mind.

What if I can’t find water in time? I can’t lose Connor. We n
eed to make it back to colony D,
back
to Peter. He’ll know what to do,
he alw
ays has. When I lost my parents
he never tried to tell me everything would be ‘okay’ like all of those other idiots. He never tried to preten
d things weren’t what they were:
crappy
. He was just there. I could always count on him to be there, and I’m still counting on him to be there now.
We
just need to make it there.

While my mind whirls on out of control, my feet continue to do what Connor told them to, moving one in front of the other until one of them lands in a small creek. Perfect, now my sock and shoe are all wet, things just keep getting better and . . . wait . . . My sluggish brain finally catches up with me, and it’s almost too good to believe. I drop to my knees and plunge my hands into the frigid water, bringing handful after handful of the thirst quenching liquid to my mouth. It cools my throat, and sooth
e
s my parched tongue. I run a wet finger over my lips, carefully prodding the dry, bleeding cracks. All I want to do is lie in the creek and let my body absorb the water through my pores, but Connor needs it more than I do
,
and I’m still a long way from where I left him.

That brings me to my next problem because, inevitably, there’s always another one. How am I supposed to get the water back to him? I glance around like I’m going to find the answers I’m seeking etched into a tree somewhere nearby. Shockingly, I don’t, but what I do find is just as unlikely. Less than fifty yards away stands a house. I can just make it out through the dense foliage, but even from this distance
,
I can see that it’s in bad shape. The front porch is collapsed
,
and it looks like every window has been smashed. A bit further away, a neighboring house doesn’t s
eem to have fared much better. V
ines grow up the front
of the structure and disappear
through yet another broken window.
I knew places like this existed,
pre-war towns and cities. I read all about of them in sc
hool, even saw a few pictures—everything they had and lost—
but it’s staggering to actually see it with my own two eyes.

The government is supposed to be deconstructi
ng all of them little by little,
recycling the resources and opening up space for future growth of the colonies. If there’s anywhere I would be likely to run across a soldier, it would be there. At the moment though, that’s not my biggest concern. Getting water to Connor is, and if I’m going to find something to carry it back to him in, my best bet is inside one of those houses. Besides, I can’t deny my curiosity. I know, I know
. C
uriosity killed the cat. Good thing there isn’t a drop of feline blood in me.

Every step I take is carefully monito
red. I avoid twigs and leaves—
as much as you can avoid twigs
and leaves in a forest anyway—
as I inch my way toward the closer of the two structures. At the edge of the tree line
,
I notice more houses
.
A
whole row of them.
I take another
cautious step forward and freeze. The ground i
s suddenly harder under my feet,
more solid. At first
,
it’s hard to see with so many cracks and weeds growing through it, but beneath all of the plant life trying to mirror the forest floor, is a road.

All of my senses are on high alert as I creep toward the house. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. The birds flit between branches high above my head
,
unperturbed by my presence. The breeze rustles the needles of the surrounding trees. Not too far off, some small creature rustles through the underbrush. There’s no sign that anything dangerous is waiting for me.

White paint is peeling from
the exterior, and one blue shutt
er has come loose on a first floor window. It’s hanging precariously by a single hinge, and slamming at regular intervals into the side of the house, setting a rhythm similar to that of my pounding heart. The front steps are rotted through, half collapsed, so I need to use all of the upper body strength I have left, which isn’t much, to hoist myself up onto the porch. The wooden boards making up the flooring are warped and bent, and have rotted through in some places here, as well. I have to choose my footing carefully as I cross to the front door, which is hanging lopsided in the frame. At least I won’t have to worry about breaking in.

The door swings inward with a high pitched squeal that puts every last one of my nerves on edge. I freeze. Even my lungs have ceased any and all movement. I wait for a siren, for shouting voices, any sign that I’ve drawn unwanted attention.
When only the silence remains,
I
’m
able to resume respirations, exhaling a deeply relieved breath.

Covering my nose and mouth with my hand, and breathing as little as humanly possible, I push through to the kitchen. A large bay window overlooking the backyard is also smashed, but the surfaces appear more mold resistant in this part of the house. The dust is still everywhere though
,
evidence of decades of neglect. Pieces of linoleum tiling are peeling or missing entirely from the
floor. A
yellowed stove with a rusted oven door hanging open is situated in one corner, and a fridge, which I wouldn’t open for the last sip of water on the planet, is positioned against the far wall beside a cracked granite counter. In actuality, the structure seems to be in pretty good condition
,
all things considered. I’m surprised it’s still standing at all
, to be honest. I’m s
urprised but grateful, as I root through the kitchen cabinets and find them stocked with all kinds of dishes.
There’s an entire shelf of cups,
several of them cracked or damaged, but a few that are still solid. Not ideal for carrying water through the woods, but better than my hands, that’s for sure.

Ever mindful of the likelihood of some small, fuzzy, razor
-
toothed animal jumping out and biting my face off, I yank open a few of the lower cabinets. Luckily
,
no such wildlife seems to be residing in the cabinetry. In the second to last cabinet, however, I
do
find a couple of faded
plastic bottles with screw on lids. The images and letters that once decorated them have long worn off, but they look solid enough to hold water.
Score!
I take one last look around. There are a few cans of food lining the shelves, but they’re all outdated, like
seriously
outdated, so I figure it’s probably best to leave them alone. Collecting the two bottles, I head back outside where I take a welcome breath of fresh air. I was starting to get lightheaded in there, and I’m no
t sure if it was from the smell
or the tiny amount of oxygen I was actually allowing myself to breath, but I’m grateful to be back outside.

I retreat back into the woods where I rinse the bottles several times before filling them both to the brim, and securing the lids. The sun is beginning to set, so once again
,
I follow its lead,
to the west this time. As I stumble my way through the quickly encroaching dusk, nothing looks familiar, or maybe everything does because every tree looks like
the one next to it
and the one next to that. 

I pick up my pace, twigs and roots clawing at my feet and calves as I rush through them. It’s
become a race against the sun. If I can’t find Connor before dark
,
I may not be able to find him until morning
,
and I’m not sure he can last that long. As night falls, the forest quiets down. The squawking calls of birds are replaced with the soft hum of insects, and even the wind seems to come in hushed breezes through the leaves. It’s a good thing
too,
otherwise I may not have heard Connor calling weakly to me from somewhere north of where I am. Switching directions, I follow the sound of his voice back to where he is sitting propped against the same tree I left him by earlier.

“There you are.” His voice is so faint it scares me. “Where have you been? I was worried.”

“I was getting you this.” I drop to my knees beside him, and shove the first bottle into his hand. “Now shut up and drink it.” It’s not easy to ignore the way his arm is shaking as I help him lift it to his lips. “Come on, all of it.”

“You have some.”

“I’ve had plenty. Besides, I have my own.” I flash the other bottle in front of him to forestall any more arguments.

He drains the bottle dry, but still looks awful. “I’m really tired,” he mumbles almost incoherently, his eyes already sliding shut. “Would you
mind
if I took the first rest?”

The idea of him closing his eyes frightens me. What if he doesn’t open them again? But what else can we do? “Of course not, go ahead.”

I’m pretty sure he’s already asleep before the words ever even leave my mouth. I wait, and I wait, and I wait. The night passes slowly. As the temperature drops, I huddle closer to Connor’s side, and wait some more. I don’t wake him. I know he needs the rest, but by the time the sun starts to peek over the horizon again, I’m growing anxious for him to rouse. I nudge his shoulder lightly a few times, but get no response, and that concerns me. I’m just considering poking him harder when he shifts and rolls his neck. A moment later
,
his eyes open and he stares down at me, confusion clearly written on his face. Then he blinks it away, stretching out his back muscles.

“The sun’s up.” Well, at least his eyes are working. “How long was I out?”

“Just for the night.”

“You didn’t wake me.”
Brain function normal, besides the apparent need to state the obvious.
“You must be exhausted.”

“I’m fine.
Here.
” I shove the remaining, half
-
full water bottle into his hand.

“This is yours.”

“You need it more than I do, and we can refill them once we get moving. There’s a stream not that far east of here.”

“You have to rest, Girlie.”

“I’ll rest back at the stream. We can refill the bottles, rest a bit, and then head out again later.”

He doesn’t look thrilled with the idea, but he can’t argue that it’s the best plan we’ve got. Connor’s still stumbling here and there, but at least he’s upright and moving again.
The tension that had me so wound up all night begins to ease, and exhaustion starts to claw its way in.
I can barely keep my eyes open as we make our way bac
k through the forest yet
again,
shuffling one foot in front of the other and trying to keep up with Connor’s rejuvenated pace.

Once more
,
we follow the path of the rising sun. I don’t know if it was the panic, or the dehydration, but I must have been moving very slowly yesterday
,
because today it doesn’t take long at all to reach the creek. Just a few hours, but by the time we arrive, I’m dead on my feet.

Connor drops down on the bank, and starts gulping handfuls of water. It looks good, but I
just don’t have the energy anymore. I collapse beneath a nearby tree. Just as I’m slipping into blissful sleep, I’m roused by a rough shake.