Wasteland (Wasteland - Trilogy) (5 page)

“I . . . I don’t know,” she was saying. “For one thing, I don’t know what good it would do. I’ve never been to the Source. I can’t even remember the last time I spoke to Levi . . .”

Esther pulled back, as if struck. “Hey.”

“What is it?” Skar asked, opening her eyes.

“It’s my sister. Sarah.”

Frowning, Esther sat back on her heels. In that position, she could see the place they were talking about, where Levi lived. The Source lay to the northeast of town and was something she saw every day, as much a part of her landscape as the sun. Although it was nearly a mile away, it was hard to miss from anywhere in town.

The gigantic white building was like a beacon, huge and blindingly lit with electrical lights. They threw deep shadows across the trenches that lay next to it, black gashes in an overgrown field. The holes were just three of the dozens of pits scattered across town that the people dug day after day when they were unlucky enough to be assigned to the Excavation. The front and side of the Source faced a monstrous asphalt field marked with fading white lines and still crowded with the dusty remains of cars.

Now, it seemed Rafe and his followers wanted something from Levi, something new. And they apparently needed Sarah, the childhood friend who once knew him best of all, to be the intermediary.

Esther didn’t like it.

She glanced at Skar, who was amusing herself by tossing a small knife up in the air and catching it. She wasn’t even paying attention, and for that, Esther felt a stab of exasperation. Skar was, after all, only who she was—a great friend, but one who was easily bored, like a little child.

And little children needed to be protected.

Esther knew it would be up to her. She was not sure how she would do it, but at least she knew where to start.

It was evening. Shadows cowered low to the ground and scurried through the streets and alleys of Prin.

They were feral dogs, rooting through piles of garbage for something to eat. They snapped and fought over whatever they could sniff out, anything that was remotely edible: the stale and salty ends of flatbread, rabbit bones that had been sucked of their marrow, the burned crust of rice porridge. The dogs of Prin were dingy and skeletal, cringing yet vicious beasts accustomed to skulking in the shadows and traveling by night in packs.

There was, however, one stretch of sidewalk that had been swept clean. The storefront window behind it had not only been patched over with flattened cardboard and gaffer’s tape; it looked like someone had actually taken the trouble to measure it so it fit properly. A cracked and battered sign above what was once the window read
STARBUCKS COFFEE
in block white letters on a green background. And above the sign, a light was visible in the second-floor window.

Agitated shadows moved across the curtain. Behind the thin fabric, Esther was getting in her sister’s face.

“But you can’t go,” she was saying.

Esther was trying hard not to raise her voice, because she knew losing her temper would only cost her the argument the way it always did. Instead, she tried to sound reasonable, clasping her hands tightly behind her back.

“You can’t ask Levi for weapons,” she said. “This whole thing is starting to get crazy.”

Sarah stood at the kitchen counter, cleaning out the firebowl with a rag. The older girl acted as if getting rid of every last trace of soot and ash was the most important thing in the world. She was doing what annoyed Esther the most: ignoring her because she was focused on something more meaningful, something
adult
.

“Pass me those,” was all Sarah said, nodding at the forks and spoons.

Frustrated, Esther picked up the handful of dirty silverware. She couldn’t help herself; as she handed them over, she slammed them down on the counter harder than she intended to. At the noise, her sister jumped, to Esther’s private satisfaction. Then Sarah turned all her attention back to cleaning up.

“How could you listen to those people?” continued Esther, still trying to sound calm. “Rafe? He’s a big mouth, that’s all. And the others—they’re just thugs who want an excuse to hurt people.”

“I didn’t say I was definitely going to see Levi,” Sarah replied. Unlike everyone else in town, she spoke in a fussy, formal manner she had probably picked up from all her reading. It was yet another thing that irritated Esther about her sister. Sarah pushed a few grains of uneaten rice into a plastic container, which she sealed and put away. Then she finished wiping the silverware.

The plates, bowls, and cups were chipped and cracked, yet they were mostly a matched set, what had once been a pretty green and purple. Thanks to Sarah, the entire apartment was tidy and clean. Unlike the other homes in Prin, filled with piles of filthy blankets and clothing and utensils, their place was almost stylish, and the curtains in the windows were white.

The walls were decorated with tattered ads Sarah had found in town—mysterious posters for Absolut vodka, Continental Airlines, New York Yankees. There were even several shelves of books, which Esther had barely glanced at. “Besides,” continued Esther, “why do you think Levi will even talk to you? You haven’t seen him in years. And all he cares about is how much gas people bring him. He don’t care about anything else.”

“
Doesn’t
, not
don’t
,” said Sarah, her face flushing. “And he’s not like that. He’s a good person.”

Esther shot her sister a look, sensing something in her she hadn’t seen before. She knew that when they were much younger, Sarah and Levi had been close friends and that she had taught him how to read. But that was about all she knew. Esther had a hunch she might be able to find a new point of vulnerability. “Well, if he’s so good, how come we never see him?”

Sarah shrugged, seemingly unaffected, as she stacked the plates, her back to her sister. “Levi’s a busy man,” she said.

Esther scowled, looking down. There was a design on the countertop that she jabbed at with her finger. “Busy bossing everyone around.”

Sarah’s voice hardened.

“If he didn’t run things,” she said, “we all would have died a long time ago. And I don’t see you turning down food you don’t work for.”

Esther’s hunch was right; she had touched a nerve. Still, she flinched from the uncomfortable truth.

She could not deny that she lived off the food that Levi provided and that Sarah not only earned, but prepared as well. Esther didn’t know the first thing about how to pound the otherwise inedible rice and beans into flour, or how to mix it with water and pat it into flatbread. She had never once stoked the firebowl with charcoal or cooked watery porridge on its blackened grill. These were all Sarah’s jobs, and while Esther had always taken that for granted, she realized that it did not strengthen her position. If anything, it made her even more of a child, someone not to be taken seriously.

“Besides, who’s better?” Sarah said. “The mutants?”

“Don’t call them that,” Esther said under her breath.

Her sister didn’t stop. “At least we didn’t go around attacking people, like the
mutants
.” She emphasized the hateful word. “We’re better than that.”

“Whatever’s happening now, it’s not their fault,” said Esther. Sarah rolled her eyes, but her sister continued. “Maybe they’re just hungry. Besides, they mostly don’t hurt people . . . only buildings and things.” And despite herself, she opened up. “They’re nice, Sarah, they really are. Maybe one or two of them are bad, but—”

Sarah snorted. “Oh, please,” she said as she started putting the dishes away. “I wish to God you’d stop socializing with them. You and your little friend Star—”

“Skar.”

“And that lunatic in that building, with all the cats. What’s his name? Joseph? You’re not a baby anymore, Esther. It’s about time you weaned yourself away from all of them.”

Esther tried to rein in her emotions, but she could feel her control slipping as tears sprung to her eyes. “Why do you hate my friends?” she asked.

“I don’t hate anybody,” said Sarah. Her voice sounded frozen. “I’m only looking out for you, since apparently you can’t do that yourself.”

A sob escaped. Furious and ashamed, Esther pushed her fists into her eyes to keep tears from falling.

Sarah sighed, and her tone softened. “I just wish you weren’t so . . . naive, Esther.”

Esther felt a new stab of annoyance. “You know I don’t know what that word is,” she muttered.

“Do you really think they want to be your friends?” Sarah said. She spoke softly, almost gently. “They’re all probably waiting to break in here so they can rob us blind.”

“Rob us? Of what? Our matching coffee cups?” Esther managed to say. Tears were running down her face and she wiped her nose with her sleeve.

Sarah gazed at her; you could almost see something settle in her mind. It was what Esther feared all along and she cursed herself. She had once again driven her sister in the opposite direction.

“Thank you,” Sarah said. “If I wasn’t sure about whether or not to see Levi, I am now. Why all this trouble is going on, I honestly don’t know. But I’m sure he’ll put an end to it.”

Esther was overwhelmed with bitterness—at her failure to keep her sister from going to the Source, and her inability to control her emotions, to play it cool. To strategize, as Skar would say.

“Fine,” Esther yelled. “Fine!”

She pushed past her sister.

Sarah’s voice betrayed mild panic. “Where are you going?” she called after her. The only response was the slam of the front door. Inside one of the many cupboards, something fell off a shelf and broke with a small crash.

Once outside, Esther walked blindly through the darkness for several blocks before she calmed down enough to think. She could sense rather than hear a pack of feral dogs rummaging nearby. The animals were cowardly yet, when desperate, had been known to attack anybody unwise enough to be outside at night, alone, without a weapon.

Esther sat on a street corner, her ears keyed to a possible attack, adrenaline coursing through her body. She knew it was stupid to be outside, yet she needed to make a physical statement, to create some distance.

After an hour, she went back.

She suspected her sister would sit up waiting for her, as she had so many times in the past; in fact, she secretly wanted it to be true. Yet when Esther returned, she found Sarah in her room, asleep. As she stood over her, Esther experienced a strange, twisting sensation in her stomach. She had an impulse to touch her sister’s long, black hair, fanned out on the white pillowcase and framing her face, but at the last second, she changed her mind.

Instead, she went back to the main room and sat alone in the dark. Stubbornly, she decided she would wait to watch the sun come up.

Hours later the first rays of light found her sound asleep, fully dressed, curled like a cat on the far end of the couch.

Miles away, someone else was watching the sun rise.

It was a solitary boy on a bike, on the major roadway that passed by the outskirts of Prin. At sixteen, Caleb was lean and deeply sunburned, with a strong jaw and hazel eyes that, despite his distrustful gaze, had once been gentle.

Like Esther, Caleb chose to protect himself from the sun in his own way. He wore a long-sleeved denim shirt, jeans, canvas gloves, and a battered Outback hat. In his backpack, he carried a few belongings. His vehicle was a scuffed black mountain bike with patched tires that had seen many miles.

He had been on the road for months and could finally see his destination on the horizon: a glimpse of the lone church spire that marked the town of Prin.

And still, he hesitated.

He unzipped his backpack, took out a green steel bottle, and swished it around. As he feared, it was nearly empty. The sun had only just risen and the morning was still cool. Yet the sky was cloudless and he knew it would be another day of blazing heat.

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.

A
S MOTHS DANCED AROUND THE BRIGHT SPOTLIGHTS OVERHEAD
, S
ARAH
waited outside the Source, nervously brushing back her hair.