The Last One(55)

I can’t depend on them, she thinks, and she looks around at the others. Her eyes lock on Zoo, who is digging dirt out from under her fingernails with a pine needle, and she thinks, Yes.

Zoo notices her staring, sees her intent. She keeps her gaze firmly on her own fingernails, willing Waitress to look away. The last thing she wants is a useless someone depending on her.





13.


This time, I break the window with a rock. I throw it as hard as I can from about ten feet away and almost miss.

“In you go,” I say.

“You’re not coming?” asks Brennan.

I shake my head and he looks at me like I’m already leaving him behind.

“It’s a boutique,” I say. “I can see the back from here.” Which, of course, I can’t, but the blurriness beyond the window doesn’t feel very deep. We’re in a tourist-trap kind of town. All little cafés and kitschy gift shops. This store—its name in loopy cursive I don’t have the patience to decipher—has a variety of handbags and satchels hanging in the window. I wonder how much the store owners were paid to be just what we needed.

Brennan slips through the broken window. “Ow,” he says.

I turn away, rolling my eyes.

“Mae, I think I cut myself.”

“Are you bleeding?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Well, then, at least you know.”

I hear rustling; he’s in. I imagine he’s looking back, watching me. Making sure I don’t run. As if I have the energy for anything so dramatic.

“Hurry up!” I call. Above me, the gray sky rumbles. I think of the plane, but this is only thunder. “You should probably get a rain jacket too,” I tell him. “Or a poncho.” This seems like the kind of place that would stock ponchos. Not practical, packable ones like the one I have, but something heavy and rainbow-colored, for irony.

A minute later he’s out. He doesn’t have a coat or a poncho, but he’s holding a backpack. It’s shiny and striped like a zebra.

“Is that the only one they had?” I ask.

He kneels and starts tucking his supplies into the pack, plastic bags and all. “I like it,” he says.

“To each his own.” Maybe I shouldn’t be belittling a featured product, but it’s an ugly bag. Brennan zips the backpack closed and swings it over his shoulder. I start walking.

“Mae, look what else I found.” He holds out his hand and I stop to look. Matches. Six or seven booklets, dark blue, with the same indecipherable scrawl on the cover as was on the storefront.

“Good,” I say. “We won’t have to stop again.” I take the matches and put them in my pocket with my glasses lens.

A few steps later he asks, “Do you have any Band-Aids?”

“How bad is it?” He holds up his arm. His sleeve is pushed back. I can’t see any blood on the dark expanse of his arm, it’s too far away, the cut too small. I shrug off my backpack and take out my first-aid kit. “Here,” I say, handing him antibiotic ointment and a pack of bandages. He seems surprised. Maybe he expected me to dress the wound for him. “Time’s a-tickin’,” I say. That startles him into action, and he tends to his arm. The sky rumbles again, louder. I predict Brennan will soon regret not taking something waterproof from Loopy Cursive.

I’m right. Hours later he drips and shivers in the rain. “Mae, can we please sleep inside tonight?” he begs. My pants are tucked into my boots, my poncho hood up. My thighs and shins are wet, but otherwise I’m fine.

“No,” I say.

“The owners are gone. They won’t care.”

I suck in my top lip to keep from yelling.

“Mae, I’m freezing.”

“I’ll help with your shelter,” I say. “Show you how to keep the wind out.”

He doesn’t answer. His sneakers squelch with each step. Lightning cracks the horizon. Seconds later, thunder booms. I feel the ground shake. We’ve moved out of the tourist-trap town and into the suburbs. This is why they broke my glasses, I think. So they can send me through areas like this and all they have to do is empty the houses for a few hours. I wonder what that costs, a couple hundred per family? All to fuck with me. And to gain viewers, because I have to admit, if I weren’t here, if I weren’t a contestant, I’d watch this show. I’d soak in their vision of mangled familiarity, and I’d love it.

Another rumble of thunder. All the houses are taller than we are, so I’m not worried about lightning strikes. Although, there isn’t much detritus for building shelters here and we might not reach forest by nightfall. I might have to compromise. A shed, I think. I won’t go into another of their staged houses, but I could compromise with a shed or a garage.

“Why can’t we just wait until the rain stops,” says Brennan. “This is stupid.”

You’re stupid, I think. He’s the one who didn’t take a jacket when he had the chance. His contract must prohibit covering his sweatshirt, the cameras hidden there. In which case he’s stupid for signing it.

Not that I was any smarter, signing mine.

“You’ve already slowed me down enough,” I say. “I’m not losing the afternoon.”

“Slowed you down going where?” he asks, stopping. “The city? It’s empty, Mae. Trash and rats, that’s probably all that’s left by now. We need to find a farm, somewhere we can stay.”