DRY - by Neal Shusterman

14) Kelton

Alyssa and Garrett race out of their house, and practically hurl themselves back into the car, slamming the door – and it only takes a moment for us to realize why. A pretty lethal looking Doberman Pinscher comes out the front door, followed by Kingston and another big dog. They follow the Doberman’s lead as it circles the car. Alyssa explains what happened, and Jacqui pulls out my gun.

“No!” I tell her. “Let’s just see what they do.”

Kingston puts his paws up on the back door, looks sadly in the window at Garrett, whose eyes are clouding with tears. Then Kingston follows the other two dogs back inside the house. Alyssa breathes out her relief.

“So you’re just going to give up your house to a pack of dogs?” Jacqui says.

Alyssa doesn’t respond. She won’t even look up. It’s like her brain’s processor just froze with this last straw.

“It doesn’t matter,” I tell Jacqui. “We’re going to my house. We’ll all be safer there anyway.”

Of course, convincing my father to take them in will be fun and a half. Considering the way things have escalated today, he’s probably gone full commando by now – guns locked and loaded, with the truck all packed for our pilgrimage to the bug-out, and pissed off to high heaven that I left this morning with nothing but a note. But I’ll stand firm that going with Alyssa was the right thing to do.

And Jacqui? Well, she’s a necessary gambit. That’s a chess term. It’s the sacrifice of an important piece early on in the game, with an eventual long-term gain down the line. But sometimes that’s what you have to do to win. Take risks. I know that bringing Jacqui here was a big risk. But despite Alyssa’s obvious mistrust of her, Jacqui’s the only reason we’re still alive right now, whether we like that or not. I’m just glad I noticed her infection – because I knew she wouldn’t pass up antibiotics. I can’t help but feel that her decision to join us was a gambit of her own. And now I can only hope that Jacqui won’t turn on us the second she gets what she wants.

We park in the driveway, and I lead them toward my house. I can already tell that my father’s been busy. The spider holes in our yard are covered and ready to be manned, booby traps are set, and the security shutters are down. Dad’s even lined the perimeter with additional surveillance cameras.

Jacqui looks around in sheer awe, stepping off the cement path and onto the grass, and when her foot touches the ground, the dirt gives way. I grip her arm and catch her so she doesn’t fall into the pit, which is only a couple of feet deep, but lined with nail boards, like something out of an Indiana Jones movie.

“Booby trap,” I say. “Be careful where you step.”

Jacqui shakes her head, too cool to be horrified. “And how long have you been preparing for the apocalypse?”

“A while,” I say. “The end of the world is our family hobby.”

She glances around, captivated by the grim awesomeness of our yard. “Beats knitting,” she says.

Now the hard part. I approach the front door, take a deep, deep breath, fumbling with my keys – but before I slip the key into the lock, I freeze up, remembering that Jacqui still has my gun. If my father sees it, the hell that’s already going to break loose will become exponential. The fact that it’s now in her possession doesn’t just make me wildly irresponsible, but one hundred percent culpable for whatever the hell she ends up doing with it.

And then the door opens before I use my key – it’s my dad. It’s like he was waiting for us.

“Welcome home,” he says, with deadpan coolness. “Have fun out there?”

“Not at all,” I tell him. “It’s just like you predicted.”

“And the freeways?”

“Gridlock,” I report.

That’s when Mom rushes out, throwing her arms around me, in a deeply embarrassing hug.

“Kelton! Are you all right? Don’t you ever scare us like that again!” I don’t even have to look to see Jacqui’s smirk.

Dad gestures for Mom to go in and let him handle this. Then he turns to the others. “Brought your friends, I see. Hello, Alyssa. Garrett.”

They offer awkward greetings.

Then he gives Jacqui the once-over. “And who’s this?”

“Name’s Jacqui. I’m the one who saved your son’s ass out there,” she responds, fearlessly stepping forward. “I’m here for the antibiotics he promised me.”

My dad’s face swells with anger. But instead of yelling he takes a deep breath, bottling it up. He nods, keeping his composure, filing his fury away for another time. “Is this true, Kelton?”

“Yes,” I say. “She saved our lives, and got us home safely.”

“Thank you for that, Jacqui,” my father says. “But unfortunately, our antibiotics are not my son’s to give away.”

Jacqui glares at him, practically growling like the Doberman in Alyssa’s house, and my mind is already racing, knowing this won’t end well. She takes a threatening step toward him.

“Yeah, that’s not gonna work for me,” Jacqui says.

I think about the gun concealed in her waistband. What my father would do if he saw it. How he can never find out. Before the moment ignites, I step in between the two of them. “Like Jacqui says, she saved my life!” I remind my father, pretending to be indignant, and then realizing I don’t have to pretend because I am. “Are you saying my life isn’t worth some lousy antibiotics?”

“Kelton, you’re missing the point —”

“Next you’ll probably tell me that we can’t take Alyssa and Garrett in!”

“They have their own home!”

“Which was broken into, and is unsafe! And now their parents are missing!”

Then he gets closer to me, speaking quietly. Not quite whispering, but not loud enough for anyone but me to hear.

“We’re not having this conversation. You know how things are.”

And I blow it up, yelling, so that Mom can hear inside, and probably anyone else in listening range.

“Yeah, I know exactly how it is! And you’re right, we’re not having the conversation. Because I’m out of here.”

I turn and storm toward the BMW.

“Kelton!” yells my father.

I can’t fight the urge to halt when he calls my name like that – but I use it to my advantage. I turn back to him. “Now I get why Brady got the hell out of here the second he could. But I’m not waiting until I’m eighteen.” Then I look at the others. “C’mon, we’re leaving. Jacqui, we’ll get your antibiotics from someone who gives a shit.”

I’m hoping that Jacqui gets what I’m doing and plays along – because in a real situation, this girl would never take an order from me.

But she does get it – because she looks to my dad with a smile and a shrug and says, “Later, dick.” And for a moment I wonder how she knows my dad’s name. And then I realize that she doesn’t.

We make it halfway to the car – then my mother comes storming out of the house.

“Kelton!” she says with even more command than my father. “Don’t you dare get in that car!”

I turn to her, waiting for this to play out.

“Alyssa, Garrett – of course you can stay with us,” she says. “You too, Jacqui. We have all the water and food you need.” Then she turns to my dad, and says with thrilling defiance, “And antibiotics.”

She hustles Alyssa and Garrett into the house right past my father, who’s powerless to stop her.

“Marybeth, can we talk about this?”

“No.”

And she pushes past him, his authority overridden.

I feel triumphant, and worried at the same time, because my dad keeps a tally of slights. I know this will someday come back to bite me. But not today.

Jacqui saunters past my father, slathering him in sarcasm. “Thank you for your hospitality!” Mercifully, she doesn’t add “dick” this time, but she does grab the pink community meeting flyer taped to the door and hands it to him – like she’s doing him a favor.

As for me, I keep a poker face and don’t look at my dad as I pass. But inside I’m smiling – because, for the first time in my life, I’ve made fear a tailwind rather than a headwind.

My circle of friends is usually limited to Scouts, preppers, or the random offspring of other dentists – so having Alyssa, Garrett, and Jacqui here is kind of a minor big deal for me. I give them the grand tour, starting with my favorite place in the house – our safe room. It’s where we keep all the supplies that we are never usually allowed to touch. First-aid kits, water jugs, guns, ammunition, and nonperishable canned food. It’s behind a hinged bookcase. I tug on a book that pulls back like a handle, and the entire shelving unit swings open.

“My dad modeled it after an old James Bond movie,” I tell them, hoping to maybe redeem my father for them. They are duly impressed. This is also where Dad stashed the antibiotics – various vials and pill containers in Ziploc bags.

“Any antibiotics allergies?” I ask Jacqui.

“No.”

I hand her two orange pill bottles of Keflex. “One round should do it, but if not, a second round definitely will.” I hold the two containers out to her, and she looks at them as if maybe it’s a trick. Then she snatches them from my hand, opens one of them, and pops two pills dry.

“Finally.” She exhales, stuffing the bottles in her pocket. Then she smiles at me, and for the first time it doesn’t come off as mad-creepy. “Thank you, Kelton,” she says, and I think she actually means it.

Alyssa looks around. “Is there a lock on the door?” she asks.

“Only on the inside,” I say. “It’s a safe room, remember. Why?”

“Because,” says Jacqui, “she thinks I’m going to raid it in the middle of the night and take off with all of your stuff.”

“Not everything’s about you,” Alyssa says, but the way she evades Jacqui’s glare tells me that this time it is. And maybe for good reason.

“No worries,” I say, with a secret wink to Alyssa. “There’s a motion-sensor alarm inside, so if anyone goes in during the night, we’ll know.” Which isn’t exactly true, because all the motion sensors are on the perimeter of our property, but Jacqui doesn’t need to know that.

I lead them out back, showing off my target practice area. And point out the porta potty. “We’re not wasting water on internal toilets, so that’s where all business is done.” And although no one loves a porta potty, none of them complain.

In the kitchen, I show them the stainless steel drum that holds our primary water supply. I unscrew the rubber safety stopper and prep the tap. “My dad will ration the water,” I say, looking around to make sure he’s not around. He’s back out in the garage being diligent again. “But for now you guys can fill up.”

Jacqui’s practically salivating, eyes large like saucers. I can tell she’s already warming up to the place.

Alyssa and Garrett fill up the canteens I gave them. Jacqui fills up her water bottle. I notice, though, that Alyssa’s not drinking. She’s just looking down the dark hole of the canteen’s mouth.

“What’s wrong?” I ask her, just after her brother and Jacqui leave the kitchen.

“Nothing.” She tries to shake it off, bringing the canteen to her lips, but as soon as she does – her eyes begin to well up, and I sense a pressure building within her until suddenly her floodgates break. She throws her arms around me, hugging me tightly. And I hug her back – not with the girl-next-door kind of infatuation I maybe would’ve had in the past, but with a sincerity that I hadn’t felt before. It both surprises me and makes total sense. She pulls away quickly, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I’m being stupid.”

“What? No…” I say. I’m not exactly sure what to do in a situation like this.

She wipes her wet eyes. “What a waste of water.” And she laughs.

“We all need to waste a little water sometimes,” I tell her. “Better than wetting the bed.” Which may be the stupidest thing I’ve ever said to another human being, but it makes her laugh some more. Not at me, but with me. Or at least next to me.

“Last week I would have called your house bizarre,” she admits, “but now I think it’s pretty incredible.” She meets my eyes. “Thanks. For everything. For putting yourself on the line back there so we could stay.”

I give her a slanted grin. “Eagle Scout, remember?” I say, trying to get a smile out of her. It works. “And anyway, I had to do something to make up for being so useless at the beach.”

“You weren’t useless,” she tells me.

“We had to have our asses saved by the Queen of Darkness,” I remind her.

“Would it have been better if you actually pulled the trigger and killed that boy?”

That gives me pause for thought. My father always told me you should never draw a weapon unless you are fully prepared to use it. I was not prepared. And maybe that’s a good thing.

We catch up with Jacqui and Garrett, who have already gone upstairs and are checking out our game room. Jacqui’s in the middle of a game on the classic Twilight Zone machine. “My life, in convenient pinball form,” Jacqui says, slamming the flippers and keeping the metal ball bouncing. Garrett’s examining a Pac-Man console, and declares it lame.

“Forgive him, Lord, for he knoweth not what he says,” I say to the ceiling. Alyssa challenges him to a game. He plays it once and is addicted.

I notice that Jacqui, however, has given up on her own machine, with a ball still in the chute. She’s sprawled out on a beanbag, looking even more feverish than before.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she says. “Leave me the hell alone.”

I go to the bathroom and come back with some Advil for her. “The antibiotics will take a day or so to kick in. This’ll bring down the fever.”

She takes the bottle and downs three with a swig of water. She doesn’t thank me this time. Maybe she rations gratitude the way the rest of us ration water.

I go downstairs to watch TV with my mom for a bit. She’s not watching the news; instead she’s watching Back to the Future, which you can’t not watch when you channel surf across it. Doc Brown’s talking about the 1.21 gigawatts needed for time travel, but mispronouncing it “jigawatts,” which always bothered me.

It doesn’t surprise me that she’s not watching the news, which always emphasizes the gloom and doom. We get enough of that from my father. My mom generally subscribes to the more positive, optimistic school of thought, and my dad believes the doomsayers are underplaying the truth. I guess you could say they balance each other out.

Mom lowers the volume and turns to me. “You need to make things right with your father,” she says.

“Now?”

“It will only be harder later.”

And I know she’s right.

I find him welding something new in the garage. Some sort of hybrid shovel with an ax at the opposite end. I’m not sure whether it’s a tool or a weapon. It doesn’t look very practical for either. I stare at his back for a while, cogitating, unsure of how to begin.

“ – Dad,” I finally manage.

He disengages the welder without turning around. “Yes, Kelton?” he says frigidly.

“I need to talk to you about what happened at the beach.”

“Let me guess – the desalination plants failed and people rioted.”

“Was it on the news?”

He lifts his visor and shakes his head. “There are too many things to report now for the news to catch it all. But if you look at the history of crisis mismanagement, it’s an easy prediction.”

“Yeah, well, we didn’t actually see it go down, but by the looks of it, it was pretty bad.” I clear my throat and finally get to what I’m really there to say. “I’m sorry I put you on the spot back there. But you really didn’t give me much of a choice.”

“We’re leaving tomorrow morning,” he says quickly, neither accepting nor rejecting my apology.

“The bug-out?” I say.

He nods. “It’s time.”

“But what about Brady?”

“We can’t wait for him anymore, Kelton.” I can tell that this was not an easy decision for him. “I have to believe that he took at least some of the lessons we taught him to heart,” my dad says, “and that he kept his own emergency supplies – maybe even has his own bug-out.”

“What about Alyssa and Garrett?” I say, less worried about Jacqui than I am about them. But I knew the answer before I asked.

“We can’t bring them,” my father says firmly. And this time I know there’s no getting around him.

“Then let them stay here,” I suggest. “There’ll be water and food – and we can teach them how to use the security system.”

Dad considers. He doesn’t shut me down, which is a good sign. I give one more push.

“We can’t just throw them out on the street…”

Then he meets my gaze, but rather than his typical bone-chilling glare, his eyes are different. Shimmering and glassy. Vulnerable. An honest display of emotion that I’ve never seen before. And in this single look I feel as if I’ve opened his personal .zip file; suddenly years of compressed emotional information comes bursting out, and I’m hit with an overwhelming truth. This is what lies beneath his indignation. All of the larger-than-life doomsday toys I adored as a kid, the anger and manipulation that pushed away Brady and threaten to push away my mother, are all just the threads of a veil woven to hide his own terror.

As a kid you idolize your parents. You think they’re perfect, because they’re the yardstick by which you measure the rest of the world, and yourself. Then as a teenager they just piss you off, because you realize that not only are they not perfect, but they may be even a little more screwed up than you. But there’s that moment when you realize they’re not superheroes, or villains. They’re painfully, unforgivably human. The question is, can you forgive them for being human anyway?

Like an exposed raw nerve, he just stands there, holding that bizarre hybrid terror tool, and I realize that thing is the physical manifestation of everything he fears. And I don’t know what to say except, “The booby traps work.”

He’s caught off guard by that. “They do?”

“Yeah, Jacqui almost fell into one. Never saw it coming.”

He snaps out of his zip-file state and smiles, as I hoped he would. “Awesome!” he says, like some little kid. “I mean, it’s reassuring to know that it worked.”

“She thought it was really cool,” I tell him. “Even if it almost maimed her.”

He looks to his weird tool thingy. “Let me finish this,” he says, the tension between us dissipated. “I’ll be out in a bit, and I can show your friends all the features of the house.”

I decide not to tell him that I already have.

 

 

15) Alyssa

“All circuits are busy now. Please try your call again later.”

The voice sounds like Siri crossed with Google Maps. Cheerful, sure of itself, and utterly soulless. I’m trying to call hospitals near Laguna Beach, hoping to track down my parents, but that would require actually getting through to the hospitals. I hang up and try again.

“All circuits are busy now. Please try your call again later.”

So is Verizon as dead as most people’s phones now? How can circuits be busy if most phones in Southern California have run out of juice? I hang up and send a text to Garrett.

Ignore this, I’m just testing the system.

The text goes through. He texts back K, because “OK” is too long for our modern world. Satisfied that at least some cell towers are still in operation, I try one more call. I dial 911.

“All circuits are busy now. Please try your call again later.”

I fight the urge to smash my phone, knowing that the momentary satisfaction will not be worth the loss. There’s a bright side to this, though, that is actually a little bit comforting. Because if I’m trying this hard to find my parents, it’s likely they’re trying equally hard to get through to us. It would be much worse if phone service was working perfectly and we still didn’t hear from them.

I try to take my mind off it all by checking what the others are up to. Jacqui’s still passed out on a beanbag. Kelton’s father is out in the garage making masculine metallic noises, and Kelton seems to be everywhere at once, like a watchdog obsessively checking that everything in his world is secure.

“You okay?” he asks for, like, the third time in an hour, as I pass him on the stairs.

“Yeah,” I tell him. “Still good.”

It’s endearing that he’s worried about me, but enough is enough. Kelton McCracken, endearing? I have stumbled into a very strange universe.

I can see Mrs. McCracken out in the greenhouse, busy with their hothouse tomatoes, and whatever else they’re growing out there. While my mom stress-cleans, it looks like Kelton’s mom stress-gardens. Then I spot Garrett in the dining room, staring blankly out the window. I watch as he picks up a decorative bowl from the dining room table and moves toward the front door. I have no clue what he’s up to. He pushes through the door, and as much as my big sister instincts want to stop him, he moves with such intent, I just watch to see what he’ll do, quietly shadowing him.

He goes out the front security gate and to our driveway next door, where he puts down the bowl, takes the canteen that hangs over his shoulder, and pours its entire contents into the bowl. And now I get it.

It’s water for Kingston.

Garrett just stands there, not wanting to go all the way up to our front door. It’s still wide open, and though I don’t see or hear any of the dogs, they could be anywhere. They could be gone for good, and it pains me to think we might never see Kingston again.

Garrett, turning around, finally sees me. His cheeks go rosy, embarrassed. “It was always my job to make sure Kingston had water,” he says, unable to meet my eye. “But I always forgot, so Mom would do it for me. But now she can’t.”

I can tell that he needed to do this for a whole lot of reasons. And although it’s not our water to give, sometimes doing the right thing means doing the wrong thing first. With that in mind, I realize there’s something that I have to do, too. A thing where the right far outweighs the wrong. But I realize I’ll need an accomplice.

“Garrett, I have a mission for you.”

“A mission?” Garrett is instantly interested.

“I need you to ask Kelton what chess boxing is.”

He looks at me, confused. “I don’t want to know what chess boxing is.”

“It doesn’t matter. I need you to have Kelton show you.”

Knowing Kelton, this should buy me at least an hour out of his scrutiny. And with Mrs. McCracken occupied in the garden, and her husband playing with sharp objects in the garage, I’ll have just the window I need.

Garrett agrees, not getting it, but trusting me.

* * *

We slip back into the house and I immediately locate the little trash bin near the foyer. I dig through tissues, wrappers, and bits of paper until I finally find the pink flyer – the one that was on the door, giving the specifics of the community meeting.

I read it over, this time more carefully. It’s at the Burnsides’ house. It started half an hour ago.

I grab Kelton’s backpack, empty out the school stuff, then, making sure the coast is clear, I go to the bookcase near the stairs – the entrance to the safe room.

I can’t remember which book opens the door, so I have to try a whole bunch of them until I find it. Finally the deadbolt disengages, and I pull the door open, revealing the treasure trove of survival gear. Weapons, tools, canned food, and most importantly, cases of bottled water.

I start stuffing half-liter bottles into the pack. I’m able to fit only ten in. Then I freeze, suddenly realizing that I’m not alone.

Kelton’s mom stands in the doorway.

Caught, I stammer, trying to come up with some kind of explanation, because I know how bad this must look – but Mrs. McCracken’s face softens. She offers a light, encouraging smile.

“You can fit two more in the side pockets,” she tells me, and hands me the bottles. “The meeting’s already started, so you’ll have to hurry.”

I’m so caught off guard, I can’t respond. Then, without another word, Mrs. McCracken steps away from the doorway and quietly disappears into another room, as if she never even saw me.

* * *