No Shelter (#1) A Post-Apocalyptic Love Story

CHAPTER 4

  “You’re not helping him,” Isaac whispers.

  Daedric bounds toward the cave with a spring in his step.

  “Isaac’s right,” Eve whispers. “He could be a spy.”

  Daedric enters the cave and kneels next to Isaac. “He needs watuh.”

  “Throw me the canteen,” I say and Mary tosses it to me. I lift Isaac’s head and place the canteen on his lips. This is the third time in two years we’ve had to nurse each other back to health. “We’ll help you find your sister, but not until he’s better. We need him.”

  “But, my sis is locked up—”

  “It’s my terms or we don’t help you. It’s as simple as that.”

  Daedric nods and sits back at the mouth of the cave.

  “And get rid of the accent, or we’ll turn you in to the Guardians so fast you won’t even see their boots before they stomp your head in.”

  It wasn’t the first time I went against my better instincts, and Isaac’s advice. The last time I defied Isaac we feasted on cougar jerky for weeks. I can only hope this act of defiance proves as positive.

  Isaac opens his eyes for the fourth time in thirteen hours. “Nada.”

  I bring the canteen to his lips and he takes a few sips. “How are you feeling?” I ask, as I wipe water from the corner of his mouth.

  “I had a bad dream,” he whispers hoarsely. “You left me for a blonde dude.”

  I shoot a look at Daedric that knocks the stupid grin off his face. “Go back to sleep,” I tell Isaac.

  I stroke his hair until his mouth falls open. Dead with sleep.

  “We need more firewood,” I tell Mary. “You and Daedric go gather some.”

  Mary glares at me as if I’ve asked her to single-handedly stop the next world war. After a short staring contest, she relents and follows Daedric outside. I lay my hand on Isaac’s forehead. He has a fever again. We only have four penicillin tablets left.

  He wakes at my touch. “Hey, beautiful.”

  A wave of anger rolls through me. Why does he keep calling me that? He stopped calling me beautiful months ago, right after Mary showed up. He’s probably trying to make sure I don’t let him die.

  “Go back to sleep,” I tell him, but I don’t stroke his hair this time. The helplessness of the situation is starting to set in. Isaac needs more than I can give him. If he doesn’t get a full course of antibiotics soon, he could die.

  This is all too familiar.

  A few minutes pass and Daedric enters the cave with a bundle of small branches for the fire. He sets them on the ground and slides in next to me. “I know where you can get him some medicine,” he says, his accent much less detectable after three days of lessons from Mary.

  “So do I, but I can’t go without Isaac.”

  Isaac is the talker. He always knows what to say to the dealers whenever we go to the trading post. He can talk a person into trading a gallon of water for a bunch of herbs we picked along the way. It’s what he does best.

  I blot the sweat from Isaac’s brow and hand the damp cloth to Eve. “Daedric and I are going to the marketplace. Take care of him while I’m gone.”

  The straps on my backpack cut into my shoulders. I’m holding three gallons of water and Daedric has the other two. The path to the marketplace is a four-mile trek through three miles of thick forest and one overgrown valley of parched pine trees. The trading posts are hidden between two cliff-sides; a shady crevasse for shady transactions.

  The scent of roasted sausage hits my nose from half a mile away. The sausage vendor lures everyone in with his deer sausage. It’s a simple mixture of venison, mostly organs, with some wild onions and herbs, but it smells like heaven. He asks two gallons of water for one sausage. A sucker’s bargain.

  “What’s that smell?” Daedric asks, lifting his nose to the air and sucking in a deep breath.

  “Forget the smells and don’t talk to anyone. We’re here for one thing and nothing more.”

  The marketplace is bustling with traders today. Women and children peddling handmade blankets and scarves squeezed in next to creepy thugs trading solar-powered radios and lighter fluid. No matter what they are hawking, they only accept one form of payment: water.

  Water is the new currency in the ravaged parts of the world. Isaac and I used to own a solar-powered radio. That’s how we know some segments of modern society survived the storms. There are areas of Australia and Brazil where modern society remains mostly intact. But those areas are cordoned off and the space inside those communities was auctioned off to the highest bidders. They’re locked down tighter than a maximum-security prison.

  Then, of course, there’s the underground city of Umbra in Washington D.C. where those who won the survival lottery and a few privileged Americans were welcomed before the deadliest wave of flooding and freezing hit. Umbra is run by a group of scientists and humanitarians who hope to preserve the human race. Years before the storms, they began converting the miles of underground structures beneath Washington D.C. into housing. All the entrances to these underground structures were sealed and the only people who know how to get into Umbra now are those who already live there.

  Isaac and I got rid of our solar-powered radio after we realized we didn’t need an announcer to tell us how little hope we had. We’re aware our chances of making it past the age of twenty-one are slim. Even if twenty-one is only two years away for Isaac, at this rate he’ll be lucky to survive another two weeks.

  My eyes scan the marketplace looking for the longest line. The medicine man always has the longest line of patrons. He also has the most bodyguards. The black bandannas tied over their mouths and their black combat boots are standard Guardian uniforms. They stand on either side of Dr. Henry as he dispenses medicine and medical advice.

  We slip into the back of the line behind more than a dozen people desperate for medication and guidance on how to care for this ailment and that injury. A young blonde woman in front of me has a festering sore on the corner of her eye oozing a thick yellowish-brown liquid. She keeps blotting it with a dirty scarf. The old man in front of her has long wiry hair, but he appears healthy. He must be here for someone else, like me.

  Daedric’s accent and mannerisms are a liability in the marketplace, but his ability to kill a cougar and save Isaac’s life also makes him an asset in case the Guardians recognize me. He opens his mouth to say something and I shake my head to silence him.

  More than an hour later, we reach the front of the line and Dr. Henry appears exhausted.

  “What do you want?” he says, brushing his long brown hair out of his face. He looks more like a hippie than a doctor. Of course, most people look more like hippies than doctors these days.

  I try to keep my chin tucked into my chest as I approach the doctor’s table. I don’t recognize the Guardians on either side of him, but there’s no telling when they’ll recognize me.

  “I need a full course of antibiotics,” I mutter, trying to force my voice deeper to disguise myself.

  “Who is it for? Height, weight, age, and sex?” Dr. Henry replies.

  “It’s for a male, nineteen—I mean—twenty years old. He’s about six-foot and 170 pounds,” I say.

  I’m not sure if changing Isaac’s age from nineteen to twenty and taking an inch off his height will make a difference or if it will just raise their suspicions. If Isaac were here he would know what to say.

  “Tablets and ointment, or just tablets?”

  “Both.”

  “Six gallons,” Dr. Henry replies.

  “I have five,” I reply, trying to hide the desperation in my voice.

  “You can have the tablets for four.”

  “How many tablets are in there?”

  “Standard thirty. Three tablets a day for ten days.”

  Isaac has already had three days of antibiotics. “How about twenty tablets and the ointment for five gallons?” I reply.

  Dr. Henry shrugs. “Fine. Five gallons it is.”

  But Dr
. Henry gives me the entire bottle of thirty tablets and the ointment for five gallons claiming he doesn’t have time to take the ten tablets out of the bottle.

  “Thank you so much, Dr.,” I say with a bow of my head.

  “Next!” he shouts and Daedric and I duck out of the marketplace without another word.

  “You did pretty good back there,” Daedric says when we’re almost home.

  “Isaac usually does all the talking. I guess I picked up some of his techniques.”

  “I don’t think you need Isaac. You seem to do just fine without him.”

  “You don’t know what I need,” I say. “So, how did you lose your sister?”

  Daedric is silent for a moment. “Salton Sea. The Guardians got her locked her up.”

  My heart nearly stops. I never would have agreed to help Daedric find his sister if I had known she’s imprisoned at the Salton Sea.

  The Salton Sea, a village surrounding a fifteen-mile-wide saline lake, is the last functioning city in the Western Sector. The water in the lake has been filtered to sustain the residents for over two years. Before the storms, the Salton Sea was a ghetto of hippies preaching against the evils of capitalism. Now it’s the only sanctuary for those in the West, but no outsiders are allowed.

  “How did she get in there?” I ask.

  “I didn’t think they’d take her,” Daedric replies, the guilt in his voice is palpable. “We heard about the Salton Sea a few months ago. They said it was the safest place outside Umbra.”

  “You can’t get into the Salton Sea,” I say.

  “I know that now,” he replies.

  “Then, how did your sister get in?”

  Daedric holds out a hand to help me over a steep area of the hill we’re walking on. I tread past him and grab a thick vine to pull myself up.

  “Well?” I say.

  “She was kidnapped,” he replies.

  “That doesn’t make sense. Safety and population control are their first priority in the Salton Sea. They wouldn’t kidnap an outsider.”

  Daedric walks briskly ahead of me and I jog a few paces to catch up. “They found out who she is… Actually, I told them who she is. I thought it would give us a better chance of getting in. I didn’t think they would take her.”

  I’m not sure what Daedric is getting at, but I don’t like the sound of it. I have to ask the question firing like a shotgun in my mind because he won’t tell me unless I ask.

  “Daedric, who exactly is your sister?”

  He heaves a long sigh and stops in the middle of a clearing surrounded by soaring pines that glow with the warmth of the setting sun. “She’s the illegitimate daughter of President Kane.”