DRY - by Neal Shusterman

19) Alyssa

Just outside the Dove Canyon gate is a fountain. When the drought was just a normal drought, before the intense water restrictions, the fountain attracted mountain lions. They came out of the hills like house cats to a water bowl. That really should have been a red flag to anyone who was paying attention.

Then people began abandoning farming communities in California’s Central Valley, when it became the Pacific Dust Bowl, overcrowding the already overcrowded cities, like the big cats abandoning the dry hills. As much of a warning as that was, it still didn’t sink in as deeply as it should have – because the official responses were, well, literally, a drop in the bucket. Fines for people who watered their lawns. The Frivolous Use Initiative. Public service announcements reminding people to conserve water. None of that mattered. The water still ran out. Now the Dove Canyon fountain was empty. The mountain lions had either died or migrated, and the humans were now facing the same two alternatives.

There’s only one way in or out of Dove Canyon: a single gate guarded by rent-a-cops. Some are friendly, others act as if they were members of the Secret Service guarding the White House. Today none of them are there, and the gate itself has been knocked off its hinges.

“Talk about your false sense of security,” says Jacqui. “That gate probably got rammed on the first day.”

“Alyssa, look,” says Garrett, pointing.

There’s a bizarre makeshift barricade just beyond the broken gate.

We pull over to the side of the road, leaving the car, and walk through the abandoned entrance, puzzling at the barrier that must have been put in place after the gate came down.

“It looks like it was done in a hurry,” Kelton notes.

The barricade is made up of all the junk pulled from every neighborhood garage. Ladders and old furniture, Ikea bookcases that have seen better days. Lawn chairs and rusty bicycles. Basically all the clutter that would have been sold off in garage sales if the homeowners association here actually allowed garage sales.

“Our uncle said that Dove Canyon still had water after the Tap-Out,” I tell the others.

“Yeah,” says Garrett. “The people here probably had to repel invaders.”

The thought of the soccer moms and country clubbers of Dove Canyon repelling invaders almost makes me laugh … until I remember how our own neighbors attacked the McCracken house.

Since the barricade was designed to stop vehicles, not pedestrians, we’re able to walk around it. And all this time, we haven’t seen another soul. It’s unnerving.

“You would think,” says Jacqui, “if they built a barricade, they’d at least have someone manning it.”

“You’d think,” echoes Kelton. Neither of them wants to follow the thought to a logical conclusion.

Suddenly my brother begins to freak. “Alyssa, I don’t like this. Let’s just go.”

“We can’t,” I remind him. “We need Uncle Basil’s truck.

“No we don’t!” insists Garrett. “We passed plenty of four-wheel-drive trucks on the way here. We can hotwire one of those. I’ll bet Jacqui knows how to do that, right?”

Jacqui glares at him. “I’m insulted that you assume I know how to do criminal things.”

“Do you?” I ask.

“Yes,” she responds, “but I’m still insulted.”

I look ahead at the tree-lined street. The grass on the community greenbelts is still mostly green. Uncle Basil told us that the canyon used its own recycled water to irrigate. Like the McCrackens’ house that glowed bright when everyone else’s electricity was off, the greenbelts of Dove Canyon made the place a target.

“Our uncle’s place isn’t far from the gate,” I tell the others. “Just a right at the first stop sign, and maybe a quarter mile from there.” Then I add, “Hotwiring a car will be plan B.”

Jacqui lifts the edge of her blouse to show she still has Kelton’s pistol concealed there. “In case we run into trouble,” she says.

It just ticks me off. “If we run into trouble, we’ll behave like civilized people.”

“She doesn’t mean she’ll use it,” says Kelton. “Just showing it will get most people to back off.”

I take a deep breath and decide not to argue. I’m surprised to hear him not take my side – especially against Jacqui, and especially on the subject of violence. But then again, he’s the one who brought a gun into our equation in the first place. Maybe it’s less surprise than it is concern. After seeing that look in his eye when he picked up the shotgun, I don’t know who’s the looser cannon now, him or Jacqui.

Daphne – our uncle’s sometime girlfriend – has a big house here that was left to her by her mother. Before coming down here, she was a realtor up in Modesto, the same town where Uncle Basil had his almond farm. But almond trees use more water than almost everything – and with rationing set so low, the almond farms failed first. He declared bankruptcy, let the bank take the farm, and moved in with Daphne – who for a whole five minutes thought she was on top of the world, because she had a ridiculous amount of real estate listings. But since no one in their right mind was buying homes there anymore, she couldn’t make a single sale. Property values plunged. Then they started calling the Central Valley the Pacific Dust Bowl, and that put the last nail in the region’s coffin. I imagine Modesto is mostly a ghost town now, along with Bakersfield, Fresno, and Merced. Anyway, they had the sense to leave before the Big Bail, and beat the rush. They packed up their belongings in a U-Haul and moved in with Daphne’s mother, who was conveniently dying and left Daphne the house in Dove Canyon.

Then she kicked Uncle Basil out, and he moved in with us. Twice.

I get it, though. I mean, I don’t blame her, that is. See, it wasn’t just that Uncle Basil couldn’t find work – it’s that he really wasn’t looking. I think he was kind of broken from losing the farm. She cared about him enough to give him a second chance, but I guess it was just more of the same, because he was back in our house again – and the second time, we were pretty sure it was for good.

“Until I get on my feet,” he always told us. But how can you get back on your feet when your life’s been cut off at the knees?

We get to Daphne’s street. All the while we haven’t seen a single person.

Although the community greenbelts are still alive, people’s lawns look like the lawns in our neighborhood. Some are just plain dead. Brown grass and leafless trees. Others have been replaced by desertscape – cactus, succulents, and river stones. About a third of the homes have ridiculously green artificial turf. A suburban pretense that nothing is wrong. Daphne’s house is the latter kind. It’s easy to spot because it also has a fake ficus tree, taking the fiction a step beyond absurd. It’s the only green leafy thing on the street, which makes it kind of embarrassing.

Uncle Basil’s truck is not in the driveway. I figure it must be in the garage.

“What if they’re gone?” says Garrett. “What if they bailed, like they bailed from his farm up north?”

It’s something I should have considered but hadn’t. I don’t answer him. Instead I go up to the front door, ring the doorbell, which of course, doesn’t ring. Duh. Then I knock. Loudly.

Nothing for a few moments. I begin to wonder if maybe Garrett was right, but then the door creaks open, and there’s Uncle Basil.

“Alyssa? Garrett?” He’s both surprised and pleased to see us, but his response is muted. “What are you doing here? Where are your mom and dad?”

It’s a question I don’t want to think about. I’ve compartmentalized it in a corner of my mind to keep me functional. I can’t even say we don’t know out loud without my eyes clouding with tears, so I don’t answer him.

“Can we come in?”

“Yes, yes of course.” He steps aside and we file in. The house is hot. Uncomfortably so. Daphne’s house has a southern exposure with lots of windows, and not enough blinds to cover them. Sheets have been tacked up to keep out the light and the heat, but they’re not doing a very good job. And there’s a smell about the place. Musty and gamey, like a sick room that hasn’t been aired out. That should be my first hint that something is wrong – but it’s just one more thing in a long list of not-my-reality that has become too numerous to count, much less process.

Our uncle looks dehydrated. Worse than dehydrated. He’s pallid, and his face seems to sag, like his skin has grown tired of clinging to the bone. His eyes are dark and a little sunken. He looks like a drug addict, but I know that’s not it. Aside from the occasional weed, Uncle Basil’s not that way. No, this is something else.

“You want water?” he asks us. “I’ve got plenty.”

“You do?” says Garrett, just as surprised to hear that as I am.

“Hell, yeah, I’ll have some,” says Jacqui, with no hesitation.

He leads us to the kitchen, where there’s a box of bottled water. Six bottles are left. He gets some plastic cups and pours us all a small drink. But after he pours, he hesitates, gripping the counter and closing his eyes, wincing a bit. He seems weak on his feet.

“Uncle Herb?” I say, using his real name instead of our nickname for him. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” he says. Which means that at this moment, he’s not okay.

“You don’t look fine,” says Jacqui, annoyingly blunt. “You look like crap.”

“It’s nothing,” he insists. “I’ve just got the runs, is all.”

The runs. Maybe he ate something from the fridge that had spoiled once the power went out. Our uncle was always scavenging our refrigerator for leftovers that my mom would toss if she got to it first.

“Where’s Daphne?” I ask.

“Resting,” he tells me. “She’s not feeling well either.”

Kelton gives me a worried look. I’m not sure what it’s about, but as I lift the water to my mouth, he stops me. Then he checks his own cup, sniffing it, then taking a sip.

“It’s good,” he says.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” I look at the bottle our uncle poured from. It’s ÁguaViva, which, as I recall, is ridiculously expensive. You can buy wine for less.

“You hungry?” our uncle asks. “Still got some canned stuff. Not much variety, but what are you gonna do?”

I take a look in the pantry just to see how well stocked they are. It’s mostly condiment bottles – like a dozen different kinds of salsas. There are Sara Lee cake mixes, and the types of canned goods that sit for years until you need them. Things like pineapple chunks and sliced olives. Plenty of them, but no one’s choice for a meal.

“No thanks,” I tell him. “We’re good.”

And upon seeing what’s there, no one disagrees. We’re all hungry, but had eaten well at Kelton’s house the day before. And if this is all they have for themselves, I don’t want to take it.

Then Kelton does something weird. He goes to the faucet and turns it on. Of course nothing comes out, but then he sniffs the spout. He turns to our uncle. “So I hear there was water here after the Tap-Out.”

“Yeah, for a while,” Uncle Basil tells him. “They hooked up the old water tank. Kept the water flowing a couple of days. Just dribbling really. Not enough to bathe with, but enough to drink.”

Kelton nods, then turns to me again. “Alyssa, could I talk to you for a minute?”

Then he takes my arm and leads me into the dining room.

I shake his hand off once we get there. I don’t like being pulled places. “What’s so important that we couldn’t talk in there?”

“Alyssa, we have to get out of here,” he says in an intense whisper.

“I’m working on it,” I tell him. “I can’t just show up, take his truck, and leave.”

“You don’t get it!” he says, in that same whisper that’s almost maniacal. “Don’t you think it’s strange how quiet the streets are?”

And come to think of it, I did find it strange. Everywhere else we’ve been, however quiet, it still pointed toward life, but this place doesn’t even show the slightest trace of it.

He gets closer to me. Not as loud, but still just as intense. “I’m pretty sure that the tap water was bad. Worse than bad. I think your uncle has dysentery. Maybe all of Dove Canyon has.”

I don’t know much about dysentery, other than that it’s seriously bad diarrhea that people in third world countries get.

“So … what do we do?”

Kelton shakes his head. “There’s nothing we can do. Not without a whole lot of medicines we don’t have.” He takes a moment to gauge me, making sure he has gotten through. He has, but it doesn’t mean I have to like the message.

“We shouldn’t touch anything,” he says. “And definitely shouldn’t eat anything.”

“It’s all in cans!” I argue, even though I have no intention of eating it.

“Yes, but anything he touches could be contaminated!”

I can’t argue with it. As paranoid as it sounds, it’s probably true.

And when we go back into the kitchen, Uncle Basil is serving Garrett a bowl of pineapple chunks.

“It wasn’t me!” Garrett says. “Uncle Basil insisted.”

Our uncle puts a spoon in front of him. “You need your energy. I know it isn’t much, but I won’t let you guys go hungry on my watch!”

Resigned, Garrett reaches for the spoon.

“Don’t!” I say sharply. I almost slap the spoon away. I turn to our sick uncle. My action spoke pretty clearly, so I don’t hide my reason.

“It’s the tap water that made you sick, Uncle Herb,” I tell him, to cut through any denial he might be in. “It’s dysentery – which could be contagious, so we shouldn’t eat anything you’ve touched. I’m sorry.”

He sighs, realizing I’m right, and maybe mad at himself for not considering that already. “Then open a fresh can. I have some hand sanitizer.”

But Garrett pushes away from the table, no appetite for anything.

“It’s okay, I’m not very hungry anyway.”

I’m realizing now that our uncle has no idea how sick he and Daphne might be. And then Jacqui says, “I’ll take you up on that hand sanitizer.” As I look to her, I can tell she’s having a flash of fever again. She points to her wound, which is oozy, and clearly needs redressing. “And gauze too, if you have any.”

“Sure,” my uncle says. He grabs the hand sanitizer, but first cleans his own hands and the bottle before handing it to her with a pained smile. “Upstairs, second door on the left. Should be a first-aid kit under the sink.”

I watch her go upstairs, and then I realize something. Jacqui has antibiotics. I’m not sure where they are now. In her pocket? Still out in the BMW? Or, in the commotion, did she leave them back at Kelton’s house? Would I take them from her to give to my uncle? No, I tell myself. I might not like Jacqui all that much, but I won’t steal from her. I would never hurt one person’s chances to help another – even if that other person was someone I cared about. If I did, I’d be no better than the marauders.

“You should leave,” I tell my uncle. “Both you and Daphne. They’re setting up shelters. They might not have water yet, but they’ll have medicine – I’m sure they will.”

But he swats the idea away. “I don’t think Daphne is really up to travel. And we’ve gotten through the worst of it already.”

I don’t know if he means the worst of his sickness, or the worst of the crisis. Either way, my response is the same.

“I think the worst is still coming…”

Still, nothing I say will persuade him. “We’ll be fine.”

And more than anything, I want to believe him. But my days of sitting still and hoping for the best are over. Now hope is a thing in constant motion, like a shark.

 

 

20) Jacqui

I find the bathroom, shut the door behind me, and reach into my pocket, pulling out one of the two orange containers of antibiotics. I can’t remember which one I started with, but why does it matter? I examine the little two-tone green capsules. Astonishing to think that these tiny pods rolling around in the palm of my hand mean the difference between life and death. I’ll bet they’re worth their weight in gold a hundred times over right now. Then again, you can never put a price on human life – so it’s down the hatch they go.

Next comes the bandage. I find the first-aid kit right where Basil or Herb or Dill, or whatever the hell his actual name is, said it would be. The bandage sticks to my arm as I peel it off, the wound healing into the cloth itself. Well, at least it’s healing. I clean it thoroughly, and painfully, with alcohol swabs, careful not to touch anything that might infect me, then redress the wound. Good as new.

I wander a bit upstairs, checking the place out. This is some house. The kind I wouldn’t mind squatting in under different circumstances – although the decor is a little too prissy for my tastes. Basil’s girlfriend must be the doily and lace type. What was her name again? Should be Rosemary, I think, which makes me chuckle.

I make my way back toward the staircase, passing the double doors to the master bedroom, and notice that one is slightly ajar. Through the crack, I can make out the silhouette of a woman lying motionless in an all-white bed. There’s an acrid smell wafting from the room. Dark and decrepit. Where anyone else would walk away, I’m pulled closer, drawn to the scene with a gravity I find hard to resist. The Call of the Void. I push the door open wider and take a single step over the threshold. It’s like leaning into the wind at the edge of a cliff.

Over the bed flows one of those decorative mosquito nets fit for a queen, but here, it seems to be keeping disease in rather than out. Daphne – that’s her name. This ailing empress must be Daphne.

The silence in here is overwhelming. And then I realize why.

The woman isn’t breathing.

Now it’s more than just the void pulling at me. It’s the scene of a car crash. It’s the rubble after a tornado. I have to get closer. I won’t touch her. I won’t cross the barrier of that net, but I have to see. I have to look at her chest to see if it rises and falls. I need to know. And the smell now, it’s terrible. Bile and sulfur and all the fetid organic stenches we fight all our lives to keep at bay.

Then, before I’m close enough to get a good look, she moves, shifting slightly beneath the covers. My heart pounds in my chest so loud that I think she hears it, because she slowly lolls her head in my direction, and when she looks at me, her eyes are dark and glassy. She’s too weak to speak, or even to wonder what a stranger is doing in her home.

She’s not dead, but her body doesn’t know it, because I think it’s already beginning to decompose – and although she still looks at me, our gazes somehow don’t connect. That’s when I realize that it’s not me she sees at all.

She sees the void.

A few moments later, I’m downstairs again with the others, but I’m quiet. To myself. Because over everything, I see Daphne’s image burned across my retina. Alyssa is trying to convince Basil to go with Daphne to an evacuation center, but of course, he refuses. And the more she tries to convince him, the further he’s pushed away. I wonder if he realizes how bad off Daphne is. On some level he must. And although he’s holding it together for his niece and nephew, I don’t think he’s all that far from crawling into that bed with her and letting the end come. Then I realize with a shiver that the scene upstairs is likely happening in many of the homes around us. This gated community has become a high-end morgue.

Alyssa hasn’t asked for her uncle’s keys yet. This polite streak of hers is going to get her killed, and us along with her. Apparently Kelton’s patience has also run out, because he’s the one who cuts to the chase.

“If you’re not leaving, then let us borrow your truck. We need four-wheel drive to get us where we’re going.”

“I would if I could,” he says, embarrassed, some color actually returning to his face. “But I traded it.”

“You what?” I blurt out.

“For that ÁguaViva you’ve all been drinking. I’ll get it back as soon as this whole thing blows over,” he says, looking down. “I mean, I’m sure a thing like that can’t be legally binding.”

“Who’d you trade it to?” Alyssa asks.

Again, he looks down, ashamed. “Some kid up the hill.”

The house is obnoxiously huge, like the rest of the houses around it, built out to as close to the edge of the property line as allowable by law. It’s freshly painted in an off-brown color, like someone tried to give it a Brazilian spray tan. It’s what’s commonly referred to as a McMansion. An ostentatious home thrown up in an assembly line fashion while you wait.

The garage door is cracked open about three inches from the ground, and spewing fumes. I can hear a generator inside – which means the house has its own electricity source. Apparently, actually putting the generator outside where it belongs leaves it open to theft. This kid’s no idiot. Over the drone of the generator I can hear electronic dance music playing inside the house. Okay, maybe he is.

Alyssa ignores the big brass Oz-like knocker and pounds directly on the door. Nothing – I can tell she’s getting pissed, because she starts pounding and doesn’t stop until the door finally opens, revealing a good-looking, well-groomed kid in a dark blue letterman jacket from Santa Margarita Catholic High School, and a polo shirt underneath. A letterman jacket in this heat. Yes, the generator is keeping the air-conditioning on, but the jacket still seems off. I tuck it away in my weird-crap-I-don’t-care-enough-about-to-question file. Basil told us that the kid’s parents were out of town. A silver-spoon preppy type left home alone. God help us all.

He smiles brightly. “How can I help you?” he says, like we were about to order a cheeseburger and fries from his McMansion.

“I’m here for my uncle’s truck,” Alyssa demands.

He exercises his right to refuse service to anyone. “I’m sorry, I can’t help you.” Then he quickly tries to shut the door. That’s when I jam my foot in. He leans against the door, keeping pressure. “One foot in my home constitutes trespassing!” he belts, trying to sound much more intimidating than he really is. Maybe the Oz knocker is appropriate. “There are severe legal ramifications if you don’t get your foot out of my door.”

I lean my shoulder into it. “Open the door, asshole.”

Alyssa and Garrett join in, applying pressure.

“My father is a lawyer – he’ll shove a lawsuit so far up your —”

Before he can even finish his idle threat, Kelton hurls himself against the door as well, and his added force sends the door flying open, knocking the preppy kid down. He scrambles to his feet, treading Persian rug.

Then he suddenly turns, reaches into a foyer credenza drawer, and produces a gun.

Dammit.

No sudden movements, I think, as my hand very slowly creeps toward the gun hidden in my waistband.

“That’s right, stay back. Hands where I can see them,” he says, quoting something I’m sure he saw on TV.

We all freeze – except for Kelton. Instead Kelton strides toward the kid. He really has lost it!

The preppy kid tightens his grip on his gun and shouts, almost maniacally, “I’m fully within my rights to shoot! I swear I’ll do it!”

But Kelton is fearless. He suddenly lurches forward, grips the boy’s wrist, and all in one motion, twists his arm behind his back.

The kid yelps, but Kelton isn’t finished. He pushes the kid’s arm up behind his back and twists him around so his own momentum is his enemy. His arm is now bent at an obscene angle, and we all hear a POP.

The preppy kid falls to the floor screaming bloody murder, and Kelton holds the gun. For a moment he looks just as surprised as we do. As if he’s saying to himself, Holy crap, it worked. While the kid still writhes on the floor, Kelton examines the gun.

“Kelton, are you out of your mind?” Alyssa says. “He could have killed you.”

“Nope,” Kelton says. “This is a WG Panther. It’s an airsoft gun, which means it’s nothing but a toy. Look, the orange tip is colored black with a Sharpie.”

I’m so infuriated that I was tricked by a freaking airsoft gun, I get the sudden urge to kick this kid in the gut. And then I remember that his arm is totally popped out its socket. Serves him right.

Kelton gets down on one knee to help him, but the preppy kid scrambles back and points with his working arm. “No! Keep that psychopath away from me!” he screams. It’s refreshing to hear someone else be called a psychopath for once. Ironically enough, this guy should be thanking Kelton for what he did. Because if he hadn’t disarmed him, I would have done it myself. And real guns don’t shoot plastic pellets.

“Let him help,” Alyssa tells the kid. “He knows what he’s doing.” And for some reason, he listens. People seem to trust Alyssa, for better or worse. I trust her like I trust kung pao chicken in a frat guy’s mini-fridge. Just enough to not vomit.

Kelton has the kid lie on his back, and firmly holds his arm. “Take a deep breath and hold it,” Kelton says, gripping tight. “Ready? One … two —” And on three Kelton pops his shoulder back into place. The kid yelps, but a little less loudly than when it was first dislocated.

He then sits up and leans against the wall, sweating. “Ice. Get me ice, will you?” he demands, to anyone.

The words almost don’t even register. Ice? This kid has ice? Come to think of it, he has a lot of things that other people don’t.

“In the kitchen,” he says, mistaking our shock for stupidity.

“Sure thing, Roycroft,” I say with a smirk, and nod to Garrett, who goes off to get it.

The kid glares at me, now as confused as he is angry.

“Don’t be so surprised,” I say. “Your name’s on your jacket.”

“Oh. Right.”

“There, now we’re on a last-name basis.”

“I still don’t know your name.”

“No, you don’t. Funny how that works.”

I look around, trying to calculate our current situation, but the numbers just aren’t adding up. It’s an embarrassment of riches. A stack of laptops, multiple Xboxes – who has multiple Xboxes? There’s a bunch of signed sports memorabilia – and at the far end of a hall is some sort of tank with a giant —

I spin around, barely even able to look at it.

SNAKE!

I center myself – take a deep, calming breath, reminded of the one thing I have in common with Indiana Jones besides proficiency with a whip. But that’s another conversation.

I turn to him. He’s moved himself to a leather sofa, still holding his shoulder.

“So what’s with all this stuff?” I ask.

He somehow manages to flash a cool smile, even in his most emasculated state. “Assets that I’ve acquired, fair and square.”

Alyssa steps forward. “Was it fair when you took my uncle’s truck?”

“Of course,” he replies, taken aback by the mere suggestion of impropriety. “I have all the paperwork.”

“You took advantage of him!”

“The price of water has gone up,” he says, getting defensive. “Don’t tell me that’s my fault.”

Alyssa curls a fist, ready to dislocate more of his body parts. Which I’d actually pay to see.

“He came to me,” the preppy kid says, still offended by the indictment of his character.

Kelton is already growing impatient. “The water here is tainted. What’s the point of having all of this junk if you’re just going to get sick like the rest of them?”

“I didn’t drink it; I have my own means of hydration.”

“You haven’t left here, have you?” Kelton realizes. “You haven’t seen what it’s like out there.”

And this seems to give him pause for thought. It must be true; this little prince has been living on his own personal planet since the Tap-Out.

“Why are you here alone, anyway?” I ask.

“My parents are on a cruise. They left me to watch the house. I’m sure they’d come home if they weren’t in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.”

“Lucky them,” I say.

Garrett hands him a skimpy bag of ice, and he holds it to his shoulder.

“Have you been watching the news at all?” Alyssa asks.

He shakes his head. “The TV drains too much power from the generator.”

He leads us to a family room that looks more like a home theater, with a sixty-inch TV which, as he said, eats up so much juice from the generator, the lights dim when he turns it on. Kelton grabs the remote and finds the local news channel – except now the entire channel is just color bars.

Kelton tries the other local channel.

Static.

I want to believe it’s a problem with the provider, and not with the stations themselves. Kelton flips to a national broadcast – CNN – and we finally see a report. But I almost wish we hadn’t. Although it shows us what we already know, somehow seeing it in huge high-def color makes it worse.

There’s a map of southern California, a circle around it, like the highlighted path of a hurricane. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA TAP-OUT COVERAGE is what the chyrons read at the bottom, like this was some kind of event for everyone else’s entertainment. I’ve been on the receiving end of broadcasts like this from other places – but this is the first time in as long as I can remember that I’m standing in the epicenter of the disaster area.

I turn to the others and realize that they’re all just as shaken as I am – even the preppy kid.

“It’s finally happened,” says Alyssa. “The rest of the world finally noticed and is taking the Tap-Out seriously.”

“The rest of the world is too late,” says Kelton. And he’s right. You don’t wait nearly a week until mobilizing serious resources for a disaster of this magnitude. The reports flash across the screen and blend together – my brain hardly able to register it all:

A reporter in a chopper flies over downtown Los Angeles, showing rioting that makes the LA riots of the ’90s seem like a tea party. There’s a journalist reporting from the fringes of Riverside, at a safe distance, peering inside the fishbowl of chaos – afraid to travel too deep. A group of elementary school kids in Florida hold a bottled water drive – as if any of their water will actually get here in time to make a difference. There’s a shot of FEMA officials – actual FEMA, not just their reserve volunteers – handing out water in an evacuation center, but a wider shot reveals more crowds than they can possibly handle. Rock stars plan relief concerts to raise funds. Celebrities promote charities. All the usual self-congratulatory stuff. The only difference is that we’re the victims now, rather than the ones sitting comfortably in our homes, sending five bucks on a charity app and patting ourselves on the back because we’re so goddamn generous.

“If you’re getting this report, and you’re in the Southland right now – there is a mandatory evacuation,” says Anderson Cooper. His image is accompanied by shots of military personnel helping families evacuate onto massive trucks, handing out water to long lines of people. “Evacuation centers are being set up throughout Southern California in school gymnasiums, churches, and malls – but there seems to be a staggering number of people who are choosing not to cooperate with these government mandates.”

“Look on the bright side,” I say. “At least malls have a purpose again.”

The next shot shows mobs of people flowing like a human river down a winding mountain road, and disappearing beneath a forest canopy. “These families are making their own way toward Lake Arrowhead and the Big Bear Lake area, but reports on the ground tell us that people who have been entering many of these woodsy areas aren’t coming out on the other side…”

Everyone watches silently, and then I turn to Kelton. “Hey, bug-out boy – if they’re not making it through the forest, what makes you think we will?”

“I told you, we’re not going where they’re going.”

And that’s good – because if all those people aren’t getting to the high lakes, there’s only one of two places they’re going. And neither of them are places you come back from.