DRY - by Neal Shusterman

22) Henry

The secret to a successful group collaboration is a dynamic, responsive leader, and the key to being a good leader is acute observation and subtle manipulation – so subtle that no one knows they’re being manipulated. Come to think of it, that’s also the key to a successful government.

As we drive, I stay quiet, which is against my nature but necessary at the moment. I watch. I listen. I take mental notes.

“So we have our four-by-four,” Jacqui says, and turns to Psycho Ginger beside her. Where do you want me to drive it?”

“I told you,” Kelton says, “Angeles National Forest.”

“So, how. Do. We. Get. There?” Jacqui asks with a vague but persistent threat in her condescension.

“I’m not sure – I’ve only been to the bug-out twice – but I know exactly where it is on a map.”

Alyssa instinctively takes out her phone, but gets an error message as she tries to open the app.

“Damn,” she says. “Maps isn’t working.”

“So use Waze,” suggests Garrett.

Although I want to laugh at that, the way Jacqui does, I say very graciously, “I think what your sister means is that there’s no service. But maybe there’s an actual map in here. Some people still use those, believe it or not.”

“Right,” says Alyssa, “and our uncle might be one of those people.”

I smile. Point for me.

There’s nothing in the glove compartment but the registration, gum wrappers, and a lint roller. The door pockets yield only an empty can of Red Bull, a leaky pen, and more gum wrappers. And then Kelton checks in the center compartment between the front seats. There’s no map, but he does pull out a questionable sandwich-size Ziploc bag.

“What the…?” He tosses it to Alyssa like it’s a hot potato.

Alyssa examines it. No question: It’s a bag of weed. She turns to her brother and they say, simultaneously:

“Uncle Cannabis.”

“Well,” says Jacqui, “we might be dying of thirst, but now we won’t even care.”

The mention of thirst makes Garrett open his canteen, only to find it’s dry as a bone.

“The forest is north of Pasadena, right?” I say. “We can take the 241 to the 91 to the 57 to the 210. That will get us close.”

“Not gonna happen,” says Jacqui. “The freeways are dead. Both directions. All of them.”

“There are other ways to get there,” says Kelton. “Nontraditional ways … but we’ll need a map to get us started.”

Suddenly, up above, a military helicopter roars past at a low altitude. We pass a military truck heading in the opposite direction from us, but other than that there are very few cars on the road. Then, up ahead, we come to a roadblock – also military. Soldiers in camouflage are gesturing to the left, and yell to us.

“This road is for official business only! Take a left! Signs will lead you to the evac center!”

“Don’t listen to him,” says Kelton. “The last place we want to be is an evac center right now.”

“What do you suggest I do?” asks Jacqui. “Crash through the roadblock? Do you even see the size of the guns they’re all holding?”

“Turn left,” I say before Alyssa can say it. “Do what he says for now, until we find a way around the roadblocks.” And although Jacqui clearly doesn’t want to take any orders from me, she has to. There is no other viable choice except to follow, and reinforce my benevolent leadership.

“I agree,” says Alyssa. Point for me.

We turn left, heading down El Toro Road. There are a few more cars on the road with us now, and more roadblocks. It seems that any and all civilian traffic is being directed onto this road.

“We should be going in the opposite direction,” says Kelton.

“Don’t worry,” I tell him, forcing a big-brotherly tone. “Two steps forward sometimes requires one step back.”

“What, did you get that off of a motivational poster in your counselor’s office, Roycroft?” says Jacqui. “How about this one? Sometimes in life you’re just plain screwed.”

“All right, can we just kill the attitude?” says Alyssa. “It’s not helping anything.”

It’s the perfect set-up for what I’m about to say next.

“It’s all right, Alyssa,” I say, with an infinitude of understanding. “Jacqui’s just stressed and scared. It’s how she deals with it.”

“Don’t you dare analyze me!” she snaps, which just proves my point.

Alyssa glances at me, and I offer her a small grin and a shrug. In return, she offers me a commiseration of raised eyebrows – which is one step before a friendly smile. A fine turn of events! I’ll admit that she’s still in charge here, but she’s beginning to see the two of us as a team. This is excellent progress toward a sustainable dynamic. Once she starts deferring to me, I’ll know that I’ve slipped into the virtual driver’s seat, regardless of who’s actually driving.

Now there are more cars on the road around us, and all traffic is detoured right. I begin to realize that we have entered a funnel – a funnel leading directly to El Toro High School, where they’ve set up an official evac center. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people in one place. Crowds in the parking lot, crowds in the fields and the tennis and basketball courts – except for one set of courts that’s being used as a helipad. The military helicopter we saw before idles there, offloading water behind an entire gauntlet of armed soldiers.

Up ahead of us, a soldier motions for us to pull over to the side of the road, along with the other cars.

“We can’t let ourselves be herded and corralled like sheep,” says Kelton. “This is how it all starts. This is the beginning of the end.”

“Wow, that’s bleak,” Jacqui comments, which says a lot coming from her.

But Kelton holds firm. “We’ll have to tell them we got lost. Then we’ll turn around before it’s too late.”

A soldier raps on Jacqui’s window, and she has no choice but to roll it down.

“Park here,” he says. “Then follow the crowd.”

“We’re here by mistake,” Jacqui says, heeding Kelton’s warning.

“Yeah,” adds Kelton. “We have somewhere else to go.”

The soldier isn’t buying it. “Then why aren’t you already there?”

And then Garrett, giving his best puppy-dog eyes, says, “My grandma! Please, we have to get my grandma! She’s waiting for us!”

The kid’s clever, I’ll give him that.

And then he adds, “She wouldn’t leave her dogs,” which is the perfect cherry on his story. This kid should run for office. Hell, I’d cast an uninformed vote for him.

Then the soldier says, “Give us her address, and we’ll send someone for her.”

That leaves Garrett completely speechless, and before any of us can keep his little fiction balloon from popping, the soldier leans in, looks down at Garrett, and says, “Mind telling me what that is?”

We all look down to the bag of pot in Garrett’s lap. Garrett says, “Oh shit,” and another promising political career goes down in flames.

The others speak up now, but everything they say just makes it worse.

“It’s not what you think!” says Alyssa.

“It came with the car!” says Kelton.

“It’s just oregano,” says Jacqui.

Graves rarely get so deep.

“All right, out of the truck!” says the soldier using his no-nonsense boot-camp voice. “I SAID OUT! NOW!”

And so we scramble to do what he says, because red-handed is red-handed, and this is martial law, and Jacqui’s motivational poster is truer than anything right now. We are screwed, and I cannot see a way out of this.

He takes the keys from Jacqui, leaving us with without wheels.

“Turn around!” he demands, waving his weapon. “Hands up against the vehicle.”

I try, but I grimace.

“I SAID HANDS UP!”

“I can’t,” I tell him. “I dislocated my shoulder.”

“It’s true,” says Kelton. “I dislocated it.”

“Just keep your hands where I can see them,” he says, mercifully not forcing my arm out of joint again. But now I’m scared. Truly and honestly scared, because I can see that there are others who are sitting handcuffed on the curb. Troublemakers or brawlers, or other sorts of unpleasant characters who required restraint, and God knows where they go under martial law. I try to hold it together, because leadership requires at least a pretense of grace under pressure.

And then Alyssa opens her mouth – and what comes out is downright magical.

“So you’re going to arrest a bunch of kids for having pot? It’s legal now, you know!”

“Not in a moving vehicle,” the soldier says as he begins to frisk us. “And you’re all underage!”

But Alyssa will not be deterred. “Really? Is this your top priority in the middle of this crisis?”

“Be quiet!” the soldier orders. He pats Kelton down, and is about to move on to Alyssa.

“This is the physical and psychological intimidation of minors – not even martial law allows that!” she yells. “I’m sure my cousin at the LA Times is going to love this story!”

And, miraculously, he backs off. But not before grabbing the bag of weed. “I’m confiscating this!” he says. “Now move it! Get in line with everyone else!”

And just like that, we’re free. With so many people to process, I guess arresting us just wasn’t worth the hassle. We hurry away from the soldier, passing all the forlorn people handcuffed by the curb, and join the mob heading toward the school, all of us breathing a communal sigh of relief.

“That,” I tell Alyssa, “was masterful.” And it’s not even like I’m sucking up. I mean it. “You completely saved us back there – and you didn’t even have to lie!”

“Actually,” says Alyssa, “I don’t have a cousin who works for the LA Times.”

And suddenly I think I might be in love.

 

 

23) Alyssa

Maybe, I think, maybe this will be okay. Now that the Tap-Out is being taken seriously – now that all these resources are being mobilized – it will be okay. We won’t have to brave the journey to this mysterious bug-out, which always sounded sketchy to me anyway.

But Kelton is like an animal in a trap, and he’s ready to chew off his own foot to escape. He halts, refusing to walk any farther, standing in the middle of the path. The four of us have to fight the current of people to not get swept away with it.

“We can’t be here!” he insists.

“But we are,” Jacqui tells him, butting back. “Deal with it.”

Considering all that Kelton has been through, I think he needs better than a tough-love approach from someone who doesn’t actually love him, so I try to be a little bit gentler.

“Maybe this is a good thing,” I tell him. “It’s not like we’re prisoners – they aren’t making us stay if we don’t want to. And who knows, maybe we do want to.”

But now that we’re standing here like boulders against the relentless flow of people entering the evac center, it doesn’t feel like much of a choice at all.

“Maybe Mom and Dad are here,” Garrett shouts over the clamor of helicopter blades. Though I think if they were here, they would have left to come to get us. Or maybe, like the soldier was going to do for our imaginary grandma, they sent someone to get us, but we were already gone.

“It’s possible,” I tell Garrett, because I don’t want to shatter his hopes.

And then Jacqui yells, “Where the hell is Roycroft?”

I look behind us, and he’s not there. He’s vanished completely.

“Forget about him,” growls Kelton. Someone knocks into him and he almost loses his footing. “If he wants to stay here let him, but we can’t!”

“Stop it!” Jacqui yells. “This is stressful enough without you freaking out.”

Kelton grits his teeth, anger growing. “You all have no idea, do you?” He points to the football field, which is just up a small hill. “You think there are no prisoners here? Take a look at that fence! Go up there, and ask the people on the other side how long they’ve been waiting. Go on!”

And just to placate him, I do. “I’ll be right back,” I say. “Stay together.” And I push through the crowd and up the grassy embankment. As I reach the football field, I’m hit by just how crowded it is. The stands, the track, the field. You can’t even see the grass – it’s all people. There are umbrellas and awnings set up to keep them in the shade, but not nearly enough.

The fence is fairly high. All high school football fields have fences. They’re to keep the fans of opposing teams from getting into fights with each other, and to keep out people who didn’t pay for a ticket. Today, at every gate, there are multiple armed soldiers. As much as I hate to admit it, Kelton’s right. In the here-and-now those fences are all about keeping people in. They’ve quarantined water-zombies. Thousands of them.

“Excuse me,” I call through the fence to anyone who’ll respond.

A bony woman with long, unkempt brown hair comes over to me. “Did you see?” she asks. “Did you see where they took it?”

But I’m not sure what she’s asking.

She gets impatient. “The water! Did you see where they took it? We all saw the helicopter, but where did they take the water?”

I did see them beginning to unload it, but I don’t know where the water went. There are so many staging areas around this school, it could have gone anywhere. “No,” I tell her, “I’m sorry, no.”

She slams her hand against the chain-link fence and it rattles. She bites her lip. She squints and starts blinking, and I realize what she’s doing. She’s crying. She’s crying but there are no tears left in her.

Finally I ask the question I came to ask. “How long have you been here?”

“We came yesterday afternoon,” she tells me. “This is only the third helicopter that’s come since then, and the line never moves! We haven’t seen any water. You have to find out where it’s going!”

And then I hear Jacqui behind me. “The gym,” she yells over the crowd. “I saw them taking it to the gym. There’s a lot of people there, too.”

The woman desperately grabs the fence so tightly her fingertips turn white. “You have to get some for us! You’ll do that, won’t you? You’ll go to the gym and bring us some of that water?”

There’s nothing I can say to her.

“Please promise you’ll do it. Please!”

“Alyssa, let’s go.”

“I’m sorry…” I say. “I’m … I’m…”

Then Jacqui gets in front of me, blocking my view of the woman, and moves me backward, down the hill. “Don’t engage,” she tells me. “It won’t help anyone, least of all you.”

I think to the box of ÁguaViva in the bed of the pickup, hidden beneath a blanket. Is it still there? Did it get taken? Should I open it and start hurling bottles over the fence? But then I remember what happened yesterday when I brought water bottles to the Burnside house. And these people are far thirstier than that.

Don’t engage.

How do you just walk away? And yet I do. I have to.

“So what did you find out?” asks Kelton, when we get back to him. He already knows the answer from the look on my face.

 

 

24) Henry

I hadn’t planned on leaving the others – I was just too busy being observant, taking in the situation around me, and when the line diverged, I went the other way. But that’s okay. I know where the others are, and although, under any other circumstances, I’d be better off as a free agent, I’m thinking our strange little fellowship might be worth maintaining. Or at least the Alyssa part of it. We’ll see.

I focus on the situation at hand. There are opportunities in every circumstance – even a circumstance as complex and troubling as the one around me … but as I take everything in, I’m finding it hard to see any opportunity whatsoever. Thousands of thirsty people. Water barrels being carried into the gym, with a heavily armed entourage, and people trying to push their way through to those barrels with all the anguish of a baroque painting.

My heart is still racing from the encounter with the soldier back at the truck, but everything I see just makes it worse. The line I’m in is driving people toward the baseball field, but I can see it stopping before the entrance. That field is full, too. What the hell are they going to do with all these people?

As the line devolves into a great milling mob, I slip away. There are soldiers everywhere, but plenty of spots are unguarded, and so far I haven’t heard gunshots, so I’m assuming they’re not shooting people who live outside the lines. I make my way to a less crowded area, keeping an eye on the entrance to the gym, and those water barrels. My father always said when you want to go somewhere you’re not supposed to be, just walk in like you own the place, and nine times out of ten, you’ll get in. But I’m pretty sure this is that tenth time. And if I do get in, what then? I’m just one of thousands of people waiting for a taste of that water. That’s not an opportunity, it’s a dead-end deal.

As I round a corner, I get a glimpse of the pool. Empty. They ran off with all the water in high school pools to use elsewhere, before they realized they’d be turning some of those schools into evacuation centers. There is no limit to short-sightedness in this world. But it’s not the lack of pool water that troubles me. It’s what I see on the pool deck.

There are body bags there.

Not just one or two, but at least a dozen. And something tells me there’s going to be more.

All right. All right. This isn’t funny now. All right. All right. Maybe it never really was. All right. All right. There are dead people. In bags. And the helicopter flies away, and I have no idea when it will be back with water to keep other people from finding their way into bags. And I’ve never wet my pants, and I never will, but I swear to you, I come really, really close.

“Hey! You! You’re not supposed to be here!”

I don’t need to be told again. I double back, heading to the place where people are still walking and breathing. Kelton was right. We can’t stay here. And now I know exactly what I have to do. This is going to be a tough one – but if there’s anyone who can swing a deal to end all deals, it’s me.

 

 

25) Alyssa

The line suddenly stops moving. More people come in behind us, and we’re pushed up against the people in front of us. All crammed like cattle. I keep a hand on Garrett, just to make sure we don’t get separated. It’s the soldiers behind us – they’ve begun to press against the crowd to clear a path in the road – and then empty school buses pull in, like it’s just an ordinary school day.

“Your attention please!” a voice blares over a sibilant bullhorn. “This evacuation center is at capacity,” which is an understatement if ever there was one. I don’t think it was equipped to handle even a fraction of the masses here. “These buses will take you to an overflow facility.”

“Where?” someone yells. “Where the hell are they taking us?” But no one gives an answer.

As the parade of school buses continues to pour in, the soldiers make room for them in the lot. We’re all uncomfortably close together, and I can smell everyone’s breath, which isn’t particularly good. Kelton doesn’t even have to lean in to whisper within earshot. “They won’t answer because they don’t know,” he says. “They’re probably still trying to figure out where to send the buses – but wherever it is, it’s not an evac center. They don’t have the time or the manpower to set up any more. All they can do is dump people in ‘overflow facilities.’”

Jacqui has her elbows out, trying to keep her personal space. “Why is it that you know all the answers?”

He doesn’t bother to answer her. Instead he says, “Do you know the concept of social triage? No? Because I do. In a mass emergency, you help the ones you can, and the ones you can’t help, you move out of the way.” Then he looks to the first bus, where people are already beginning to obediently board. “I can guarantee you that half the people who get on those buses are going to die, because wherever they’re going, it’s away from water.”

I stand on my toes and look over people’s heads at all the soldiers moving the giant herds. One of them kindly helps an elderly woman onto the bus. It’s not like it’s their intention to kill anyone, but after days without water, death needs no invitation.

“There are no fences around this parking lot,” I point out. “We’re not trapped yet.”

But before I can formulate a plan, Henry comes into sight, bounding out of nowhere, out of breath and eyes wild.

“Lookie what I got,” he says, and holds up Uncle Basil’s key chain, stupid rabbit’s foot and all. It changes everything.

“How did you do that?” I ask, hardly able to believe my eyes.

“I made a deal,” he says. “But we have to hurry. Come on!”

We run after him, fighting the current of people heading toward the buses. “Wait – you traded with the guy who took the keys?” Garrett realizes, profoundly impressed. “He was going to arrest us, how did you make a trade with him?”

“Because it’s what I do!” says Henry. “Come on, we don’t have much time.”

We get to the truck, and I immediately see the blanket in the back has been overturned, and the box that was hidden beneath it is gone. “The water!”

At the mention of water, a dozen eyes turn in my direction.

“Forget about it!” insists Henry. “That’s what I traded for the keys.”

Jacqui looks at him, incredulous. “You traded the last of the water for keys? Did it occur to you that we could hotwire it – or run the hell away from here and find another truck? One that actually has air-conditioning?”

But before he can answer, another voice broadsides the conversation.

“Hey! Roycroft! Wait up!”

It makes Henry scramble even faster.

A muscular meathead type pushes his way through the crowd. Chapped lips, glassy-eyed, but not quite a water-zombie yet. He grabs Henry by the shoulder and turns him around – then the kid looks at Henry a little funny.

“Hey, wait a second – you’re not Trent Roycroft…”

Henry ignores him, and turns to the rest of us. “Just get in the truck!”

But the jock will not be ignored. “Who the hell are you? Why are you wearing Roycroft’s jacket? Where’s Roycroft?”

Henry fumbles with the keys and drops them. They skid underneath the truck.

“Hey!” says the meathead. “I’m talking to you.”

Then Henry dives underneath the truck, not like he’s trying to get the keys, but like he’s trying to escape. And now I realize that Jacqui is gone.

“Alyssa!” says Garrett. “He said to get in!”

The door isn’t locked, and Garrett climbs in the back seat with Kelton. I look for Jacqui but can’t see her anywhere. Damn her! Henry emerges from underneath the car on the opposite side from the meathead, but right by the driver’s door, and he has the keys again.

“Hey, I asked you a question!” the meathead calls to him. And now with a car between them, Henry gives him an answer.

“Go screw yourself.”

Then Henry gets in, slamming the door hard.

The meathead is more stunned than angry. “You know, I don’t even think you go to Santa Margarita High School!”

Henry starts the truck, and I jump into the passenger seat.

“We have to wait for Jacqui!” I insist.

“We don’t have time!”

It’s like something’s snapped in Henry. If his name even is Henry. I have no idea of anything anymore. He throws the car into reverse, and we smash into the Toyota behind us that’s boxing us in. He throws it in drive and does the same to the Audi in front of us. Then he reverses into the Toyota again, forcing the cars apart to give us space to pull out.

And then I finally see Jacqui. She’s running toward us. And she’s carrying the ÁguaViva box!

“Nooooooooo!” yells Henry when he sees her. Finally he’s created enough damage and made enough room to pull the truck away from the curb. He lurches forward, scattering people heading toward the buses. By now the soldiers have taken notice – and the one who made the trade is chasing Jacqui, but she’s too fast.

Henry swings a violent U-turn that takes down a little crepe myrtle tree on the island between lanes, and we’re beached there, spinning our wheels, kicking up leaves and pink flowers.

It gives Jacqui enough time to reach us. She throws the box in the back, and, realizing Henry has no intention of waiting for her to hop into the cab, she climbs the bumper and jumps into the bed along with the box and whatever other junk Uncle Basil has back there.

Henry stomps on the gas, cursing, and rather than telling him what to do, I reach over and engage the four-wheel drive.

Now when he hits the gas, we lurch forward, making sawdust of the little tree, and careen away from the school, leaving gawking people, and frustrated soldiers who don’t seem to be following us. They’re just glad we’re no longer their problem.

“Are you insane?” I scream at Henry. “You nearly killed us back there!”

He looks at me with those wild, snapped eyes. “Killed you? Killed you? I just saved your lives! At least you could show some gratitude!”

“Slow down!” I demand. He’s so frenetic, he can’t seem to find a lane. If there were more cars on the road, we’d have totaled the truck by now.

He grips the wheel tightly, looks straight ahead. “All right. All right,” he says, taking a deep breath. He steadies the car, eases up on the accelerator. “All right, all right. It’s all under control now. It’s all good.” Then he turns to me. “There were body bags, Alyssa. Some of them were already full, but there were stacks and stacks and stacks of empty ones.”

“There were?” says Garrett, wide-eyed, like someone just proved to him that the boogeyman was real.

“Do you see why I had to get us out of there, Alyssa? Do you? I had to save us, because if I didn’t, no one else would have. Do you see?”

I nod. “Just keep your eyes on the road.”

He turns to face forward. “All right. All right,” he says again, tamping down his panic. Pretending it wasn’t panic at all. He’s not driving well, but who would under these circumstances?

And then Kelton says, “There’s nothing scary about a body bag. They’re for transport and to prevent the spread of disease. I have one in my room; I use it for laundry.”

There’s a rap on the little back window of the cab. Jacqui’s hair is windswept and she doesn’t look happy back there.

“Stop the car,” I tell Henry. “Let Jacqui back in.”

“I will be happy to let her in once we’re far enough away from that place.”

And apparently twenty more yards down the road is far enough away, because he eases on the break, and pulls over to the side of the road. Jacqui hops out of the truck bed and storms to Henry’s window.

“Get the hell out, I’m driving!”

“In the back seat or not at all,” Henry tells her.

“Not gonna happen,” says Jacqui.

“Fine, then not at all,” and he throws the car in gear and pulls out, leaving her behind in a cloud of dust.

“God DAMN it!” yells Jacqui, running after us.

“You can’t just leave her here!” I yell.

“I’m not!” he tells me, now calm as can be. “This is a negotiation and I’m playing hardball.” He stops the car to let Jacqui catch up with us. “If you want to tie down a loose cannon, you can’t give it much rope, follow?”

Jacqui catches up with us, spewing wholly original combinations of foulness. Henry is not fazed.

“In the back seat,” he says. “Or I drive off, and we part company for good.”

Disgruntled, Jacqui hops in the back, pushing Garrett into the middle, and slams the door. “Remind me to kill you in your sleep, Roycroft.”

And then I remember she wasn’t there when the jock blew Henry’s cover. Henry, having found his comfort zone again, remains unfazed.

“So who’s Roycroft?” I ask.

Henry doesn’t even hesitate. “An asshole who traded me his letter jacket for two bottles of ÁguaViva.”

“Wait, what?” says Jacqui. “You mean you’ve been lying to us all this time?”

“I never said my name was Roycroft – you just assumed. And I just went with it.”

“So what is your name?” I ask.

“You know my name.”

“Not your last name.”

“We’re on a first-name basis, so why does it even matter?” Then he turns around to glance at Kelton. “So how do we get to the bug-out?”