10
THE WORLD IS A MUCH SMALLER PLACE
DARWIN SLEPT THROUGH the rest of the afternoon and night, waking the next morning to the sounds of pots banging in the kitchen and the smell of coffee. God, it felt like forever since he’d had a good cup of coffee. Chances were this was just more of the roasted barley fake stuff the Qabal had served.
Sometime in the night someone had thrown a thin blanket over him; he still lay on top of the ones he’d fallen asleep on. He tossed the blanket off and walked into the living room. There was no one there. He thought of following the noises into the kitchen, but the sight of the open doorway leading outside made him change his mind.
He stepped out onto a covered porch. Green paint peeled from the railings and the beige exterior walls looked worn and tired. The porch itself was small, with barely enough room for a single chair, and raised off the ground by a handful of steps. Across the road was a similar building at ground level, its red clay roof tiles missing in spots. Over the closed double doors Darwin could see faded print: District Office, and a sign on the small dead lawn read Lincoln Military Housing.
The doors opened and Teresa walked out, holding a clipboard and pen in her hand. She wore a summer dress, plain white with two straps over her shoulders. Darwin stared, mesmerized by the gentle curve of her collarbone in the sunlight. His angel was beautiful. When she looked up and saw him, she smiled and walked over.
Her smile lit up the world for him. He felt his face stretch into a wide grin, threatening to pull apart the freshly healed cracks in his lips, and struggled to regain some composure.
“You look better than yesterday,” Teresa said as she walked up the stairs.
He grinned again as he followed her back into the house. “Thanks. I had help. Someone took excellent care of me.”
“You’ll still have to take it easy today. Lots of rest and water.”
The aroma of coffee hit him again and he started toward the kitchen. “Is that real coffee? It smells great.”
“We haven’t seen coffee in years. This is acorn coffee. It’s not bad, but nowhere near the real stuff. You can get me one while you’re in there.”
Darwin walked back into the living room carrying two steaming mugs. Teresa put her clipboard down and reached for one.
“You were pretty close to gone when we found you. Another couple of hours and it might have all been over,” she said.
“Yeah.” Darwin sat and leaned back in his chair. He looked into his cup, watching the steam swirl off the hot liquid. It reminded him of the white Threads his angel had used in his nightmare. “I couldn’t stay there. I . . . I can’t stay here either.”
He took a sip of his coffee and grimaced, putting the cup down. “I should really leave right now. I guess I’ll need some water to take with me.”
“And where would you go, boy from New Jersey?” She said it with no malice in her voice.
“Darwin. Darwin Lloyd.”
Teresa’s voice softened. “So where would you go, Darwin? We are already into December. The days are pretty warm, but the nights can get awful cold. Besides, you wouldn’t be able to make it very far with the water you could carry, and some of the communities out there aren’t as nice as we are.”
“I don’t know.” His voice was a whisper.
“No, you don’t, do you? Well, while the rest of my family are in SafeHaven helping with the wounded, I am the healer here, and I don’t think you’re ready to go anywhere yet. You will have a room here for the next few days at least. After that, you will have to talk to one of the elders.”
“You don’t understand—”
“I do,” Teresa interrupted. “SafeHaven isn’t that far from here, really. Especially if you can hole from one place to the other. Enton has already been here to check on you and left behind a couple of teams of Watchers. He doesn’t usually make the same mistake twice. Skends won’t make it anywhere near here without us knowing about it.”
At the mention of SafeHaven and Enton, Darwin felt an unexpected wave of relief. At least the entire town hadn’t been destroyed by the monsters. He didn’t think he would have been able to live with that.
“I told Enton you needed a few more days before I could let you go. He will wait. No one bothers my patients until I say they’re ready.”
Darwin’s insides tightened, feeling like he’d been dealt a blow to the gut. A patient. Of course, that’s what he was after all, just a patient to Teresa, nothing more. He couldn’t help but let a little bite come into his voice.
“So you made me healthy so Enton could take me back?”
“Of course not.” She placed her empty cup on the table and rose. “You needed help. I, and the people of my community, gave you that help. If you want to leave before Enton comes back, you’re free to do so.” Darwin watched as she walked to the open doorway and stepped outside, her silhouette outlined by the bright sun before she walked down the stairs.
He sat in silence, finishing the concoction they called coffee. It wasn’t bad if you didn’t think about it too much. No matter how life changes, parts of it always stay the same, he thought. Meet a pretty girl, and if she smiled at him, he was head over heels before he knew it. Stupid.
The hot drink had taken the edge off his hunger, so he stepped back out onto the porch and looked down the street. To the right, he saw a large house painted in the same yellowy beige, but with white trim instead of green. To the left, the street turned into a small cul-de-sac, and he could hear the sounds of children playing. The noise made up his mind for him and he left the porch, turning to follow the cheerful squeals.
The cul-de-sac ended at a small playground, situated just behind a rusted red metal monstrosity. He had no idea what it was meant to be, some sort of art piece was his guess. He stood at the playground’s fence and watched the kids from a distance. They played without a care in the world, laughing, pushing, climbing, grabbing handfuls of the sand beside the play structure and throwing it onto the slide before climbing up and sliding down, pushing most of the sand onto the soft black pads under the play structure. They were innocent, carefree. Just like the kids in SafeHaven killed by the Skends. Was he going to bring the same threat down on them? Could he live with it? Enton wasn’t able to stop the attack before, so what made him think he could do it if it happened again?
He turned and strode back to his room, his mind made up. He’d get what food and water he could carry, if they would let him, and be on his way. He didn’t want, or need, another SafeHaven on his conscience.
Darwin stopped short, his hand still holding the curtain to his room open before he moved slowly in. Enton sat on his bed, waiting.
“Hello, Darwin,” he said. “You left before we had a chance to talk.”
“Yeah.”
“Any particular reason? I thought we had almost become friends.”
Darwin shrugged his shoulders, embarrassed by Enton’s words. He wasn’t quite sure why, but the picture of the rocky grave he had Seen in the images in SafeHaven rose to the surface.
“Okay. I’ll get right to the point then. I’d like you to come back.” Enton paused as if waiting for an answer. “I think you could become very good at using the Threads. There’s no better place to learn than SafeHaven.”
“SafeHaven?” asked Darwin. “That’s made up of two words, isn’t it? Safe and Haven? It doesn’t seem to be much of either of those, does it? How many people were killed or hurt by those—those things? How many more will have to die before you decide to just give me over to them, or worse?”
Enton stood and gazed out the window. For a brief moment, he reminded Darwin of Bill.
“We haven’t made a very good impression on you, have we?” Enton sighed. “You are right, though. SafeHaven has never been attacked before. The fact that there were Skends so close to us is . . . disconcerting. We should have Seen them. I think your being there simply changed the timing of their attack, not the fact that they were going to. People would have died with or without you there. In fact, your being there may have saved lives. Because of the attack on you in the mountains, we kept a lot of our scouts back, so we had more people able to protect us.”
Darwin continued to stand, not saying anything.
“What is it you want, Darwin?”
“I want to go home.” The words tumbled out of Darwin’s mouth without volition. He could feel the walls he had put in place, the barriers to his emotions, beginning to break. Tears filled his eyes. He turned his back on Enton and his shoulders sagged. “I just want to go home.”
A hand came down gently on his shoulder. “I know, son.”
Darwin shoved the hand away. “I’m not your son. My dad is . . . my dad is somewhere, and I plan on getting back to him.”
“And how do you plan on doing that? Go back to the Qabal? They’re the ones who sent those things after you. They’re the ones who brainwashed you, trained you just enough so you wouldn’t fight them when they drilled into your head for information.”
“It was Bill who did that.”
Enton paused, as if letting that fact sink in for the first time. “Yes, it was. But he also gave you more than you needed. I heard what you did at your last lesson. An extraordinary feat for someone who hadn’t been shown how to do it. Bill did what he had to do. The Qabal only want more power, and you were the pathway to that end. Now that you are no longer with them, they would rather see you dead than for you to pass your knowledge on to someone else.”
“But I don’t know anything. I told them I had no clue how I got here.”
“Rebecca didn’t believe that.” Enton sighed again and sat back on the bed. “You have the potential to control Threads that many have never Seen before. She didn’t know that when she asked Bill to train you, but she’s a fool if she didn’t see it at all. And she’s no fool. Maybe she thought if the Qabal could control that power . . .” Enton paused, emulating Darwin’s shrug. “But until you learn to use the Threads, to control them, you’re as weak and vulnerable as a newborn.”
“Could I control them enough to go back home?”
“I don’t know. No one has been able to cross worlds besides you. That I know of.”
Darwin turned and looked into Enton’s eyes. “That you know of?”
“It is a big world, Darwin, and we lost the ability to communicate with most of it a long time ago. For all I know, no one is left in Europe or Australia. Or anywhere. Or there could be people in Bolivia that have done it. We just don’t know.”
The curtain was thrust aside and Teresa stood there panting. “Qabal. Lots of them. We need to get out of here.”
“Qabal? Are you sure?” Enton rose from the bed and pushed past Darwin as he headed for the front door.
“Of course—”
“Damn. How did I not See them? That’s twice they’ve pulled the wool over my eyes. How did you See them? Where are my Watchers?”
“I didn’t,” Teresa replied, “our lookouts saw them. You guys rely on the Threads so much, you’ve forgotten how to use your own damn eyes. They’re out by the old mall.”
“Show me.”
Darwin followed as Teresa led Enton out the door. Enton stopped and turned back as they walked through the living room.
“Stay here.”
Darwin stopped in his tracks. “What?”
“Stay here. Once I see what’s happening, I’ll come back.” Enton continued out the front door, catching up to Teresa just outside.
Darwin felt himself come to a slow boil. What the hell was that about? He hadn’t done anything in SafeHaven when they’d been attacked, and he wasn’t about to make the same mistake here. He didn’t know anyone who lived here besides Teresa, but there was no way he was going to let anyone get hurt through his inaction again.
By the time he reached the front door, Enton and Teresa had jogged to the end of the street, moving against the flow of people walking in the opposite direction. In contrast to what he had seen in SafeHaven, everyone here seemed calm. There was none of the mad, panicked rush. These people were apparently prepared to leave, to move on at any time. Each person had a backpack, even the smaller children, though sticking out of the top of one was the head of a teddy bear, its glass eyes staring back into the crowd.
He picked a path between the buildings and the moving people and ran against the stream, trying to catch up to Enton and Teresa. Turning the corner they’d gone around, he automatically scanned the street sign as he ran past. Fauna Drive. To his left he saw Enton disappear between two houses where the road ahead curved. He ran faster, already feeling the effects of the dehydration. It shouldn’t be that hard to catch up to an old man.
Between the houses stood an empty children’s slide, the plastic worn smooth by use. Just beyond that was an eight-foot-tall chain link fence. Teresa held a section of link aside, allowing Enton to crawl through. She smiled as Darwin got close, and he almost stopped, taken aback by how beautiful she was. Once Enton was through, she stayed, holding the chain link for him.
“Thanks.”
“Any time,” she said.
When Darwin was through, he held the fence for her.
“I told you to stay back there and wait for me,” Enton said.
“And I told you I wasn’t your son. You have no right to tell me what to do.”
Enton shook his head in exasperation. “You have no clue. This is the Qabal we’re talking about. These people want you dead, and I’m trying to stop that from happening.”
Darwin straightened his back and stared at Enton. “Yeah, and I’m not going to stand around and wait for them to try. Like you said, it’s me they’re trying to kill. If I don’t have a right to be involved, who does?”
“Okay, guys,” Teresa said, “if you want to see them, then we should move now. You can argue all you want later.” She pushed on through the remnants of a second fence line, following a dirt path overshadowed by tall, white-barked trees. “We’ll go past the reservoir to the road. There’s a bit of a hill covered by scrub. We should get a half-decent view of the mall from there.”
They jogged past an old public washroom adjacent to a small parking lot. To the right, just beyond the parking lot and through some trees, Darwin saw the glint of sunshine off of water. Past the washrooms, the landscape changed to brown and gray scrub. They continued to jog, following the dirt path past an old sign warning them to watch for snakes as it meandered past the scraggly growth. He struggled to breathe but wasn’t about to say anything.
It didn’t take long to reach the top of the small knoll, and as they crawled the last few feet, staying below the height of the plants, he could tell the view was pretty crappy. In front of them was a large four-way intersection, and just past that the dull slate of a huge parking lot. Beyond the empty parking lot, he could barely make out people milling around in small groups.
“My god!” Enton muttered. “Even now, I can’t See them. How are they hiding themselves from my Sight?”
“Like I said, you guys have forgotten how to just use your eyes. You rely too much on the Threads,” said Teresa.
Despite her comment, Darwin took a deep breath and allowed the Threads to come into view. He had no idea what he was looking for, or what he was doing, but he knew he was able to follow the Threads. He’d done it back in the mountains with Wally and Carlos. He found one moving in the right direction and rode it in.
From what he could See, everything felt normal. Then again, he didn’t really know what normal was. The Threads moved randomly, weaving a pattern that he couldn’t quite understand. Slowly, he followed them further out, riding the Threads without manipulating them. If the Thread he was on drifted off course, he moved gently to the next one, and the next, until he found one that took him closer to the people below.
Darwin closed his eyes, concentrating on the Threads instead of relying on vision. For a split second, he thought about Teresa’s admonishment. But he’d already used his eyes. Now he wanted to know what he could See. He opened his senses to the Threads more, pulling on the theories Bill had taught him long ago. Without warning, things were different. He could feel the asphalt under him. But that was impossible, he was lying on his stomach in the dirt. His mouth filled with a bitter taste, and a dark oily smell hit his nose. As the Thread moved, the texture of the concrete changed for just a second, smoother and . . . it tasted blue. It was like his synapses were misfiring, changing color to taste, texture to smell. He had the distinct impression of old paint. This was different. He’d gotten used to the Threads and the images, but this was disconcerting.
The Thread he was riding angled off, a curve to the right followed by another one to the left, returning to its original path. It was a short ripple, languid, feeling like the Threads’ natural movement. But something was off. Something didn’t ring true. He had no idea what made him think that. Leaving the Thread, he moved to other ones until he found one that would bring him back to the oddity. The Thread rippled again, but this time he got the distinct taste of blood in his mouth and the smell of a dark heavy cloth pulled against his face. The cloth tasted old and dirty.
Blood and cloth? A body? Darwin opened his eyes. He couldn’t see much from here, but the people seemed clearer and closer.
He rode the Thread back to the intersection, passing through a wave of intense heat, and closed his Sight, suddenly dizzy. His stomach roiled and he pulled himself back into a crouch, breathing roughly through his mouth.
“That was amazingly well done. Even I couldn’t follow you,” Enton said.
Teresa knelt beside him, one arm across his shoulders and a hand holding his drooping head. “Are you all right?”
Enton pushed through, opening a flask and holding it to Darwin’s mouth. “He’s obviously not used to using Threads. He’s got some basic skills but doesn’t have the stamina for it yet.” He raised the flask to Darwin’s lips. “Drink.”
Darwin leaned back and took a swig. Fiery liquid burned down his throat and he gagged, wiping the tears from his eyes.
“Good. You need to be more careful. Until you get more training, you’re liable to go insane doing what you just did. Bill must have told you an untrained mind can lose the path entirely if it’s not too careful. Hell, a trained mind can. I’ve seen it happen.”
“Here they come.” Teresa’s voice had gotten small and thin.
Darwin got his voice back and looked at the parking lot. He couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there. “They have Skends.”
As Darwin spoke, groups of people and Skends streamed out of the old Sam’s Club building, heading toward the hill they were on.
“We need to get out of here, now,” Enton said. He pulled Darwin to his feet, catching him as his legs buckled. “Come on, girl, help me. I am too damn old to do this by myself.”
The Skends moved inhumanly fast, crossing the parking lot and intersection and starting to move up the hill.
Teresa put her hand under Darwin’s arm and helped Enton so they supported Darwin’s weight together. He tried to move his legs under his body, but they barely listened to him. The two of them dragged him yards down the hill before he got some control back.
“We’re not going to make it at this rate. I’m going to have to hole us out of here. You take Darwin through, I’ll follow you.”
“I can’t,” said Teresa. “My family—”
“Your mother and brother are still in SafeHaven. You’ll never see them again if we don’t move. I’ll bring us back when things are settled.”
To Darwin, the hole seemed to appear instantly. He shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs that thickened and slowed his thoughts. Where was the delay, the preparation he saw when Wally or Carlos created holes?
The sounds of brush and scrub being trampled crested the hill behind them.
“Quickly now, get him through. I’ll start dismantling the hole so it will be gone by the time they get here.”
“But what about the—”
Enton interrupted again. “I am not daft, girl. I’ll be right behind you.”
Darwin felt a push on his back and Teresa’s hand tightened under his arm. He teetered into the hole. The cold came in a sudden rush, biting into his skin and searing his lungs. When the warmth came back, the hand under his arm let go and he fell to the ground, his head resting on Teresa’s shoulder. The biting cold had cleared his head at least. He rolled over as quickly as he could to watch the hole. He knew there wasn’t much he could do if one of the Qabal, or worse a Skend, came through. But somehow, knowing seemed to make it better.
The hole started closing, destabilizing to the point he could barely See the Thread that reached back through it. Enton popped out, his eyes wide, the whites filled with a pattern of fine red lines. His face had drained of color, and the hole closed behind him.
Not all of him had come through.
“I . . . I may have cut . . . cut that one a bit close.” Enton’s voice sounded disjointed and faint. His eyes fluttered shut and his breathing deepened.
Teresa sat up, shaking tiny shards of ice from her hair. “Is it always like that?”
Darwin looked at her. “Yes. Help me with Enton.”
“Enton? Why? What . . . ? Oh.”
Her gaze moved down to his legs, and Darwin could see the realization of what had happened displayed on her face. Enton was missing half of his left foot and all of his right. The cold had frozen the wounds, sealing the blood vessels instantly. There wasn’t a single drop of blood on Enton or his clothes.
“Christ.” Teresa paused. “I don’t have the training to deal with hole injuries.” She paused again. “I need to seal the cuts before they thaw, or he’ll bleed out before I can even try to help him.”
“Whatever you need to do, I think it’s going to have to wait,” said Darwin, thinking of how quickly Rebecca and Frank had followed them. “I don’t know if it’s possible to follow holes after they’re closed, but if it is, we’re sitting ducks.” Darwin stood and his body swayed on shaky legs. He bent down to grab one of Enton’s arms. “Come on, grab the other one.”
“You’re not going to make it; you look like can barely stand.”
“I have to. If they come through . . . the farther away we are, the better. So let’s move!”
At his shouted command, Teresa jumped and grabbed Enton’s other arm. They both pulled, dragging Enton down the weed-choked street and around a corner.
“Do you know where we are?” Teresa asked.
He looked around. Widely spaced houses stood on either side of the curbless street. Wherever they were, the place didn’t look like it had seen a human being in years. Wilderness had taken over the yards and houses, encroaching on the street in waves. In another year or two, there wouldn’t be much trace of humanity left. Still, the whole feel of the place screamed small town and the air had a cold edge to it. He could feel winter in it. The leaves on the trees had changed from green to a bright yellow, though most of them still clung desperately to the branches. They had definitely moved north. None of that gave him the answer to her question.
“No, but he does,” he said, tilting his head toward Enton. “Let’s get him into one of the houses. Find a place to rest. If the Qabal were going to come, I think they would have done it by now.”
They headed toward the closest house and walked through the open door, laying Enton on the dirty hardwood floor of the living room.
“Let’s get him on the couch,” said Teresa, looking back at his feet. Blood flowed from the stump from dragging him across the street, and the heel of his left foot was scraped. Somewhere along their path, Enton had lost what was left of his shoe.
“I need some water and clean towels,” Teresa said.
Darwin reached for Enton’s flask. “It’s not water, but it may help sterilize the cuts while I’m looking. I’ll see if I can find something in the kitchen.”
He found some tea towels in a kitchen cupboard and grabbed a couple from the middle of the pile, where the dust and dirt hadn’t gotten to them yet. The mice had, and feces and nests of dead grass and other debris fell to the floor. Hanging on a hook over the sink was another towel.
“There’s no clean towels,” he said, walking back into the living room.
Teresa had rolled the bottom of Enton’s pants up. She gripped his shirt just above and below the shoulder and pulled, straining to rip the material apart. It finally gave and she poured the contents of the flask over it. Enton didn’t wake up when she carefully began to clean the dirt from the cuts. “I’ll need some water. If you could find a way to boil it, it would be better.”
Darwin moved toward the front door. “I’ll see what I can find.” What he really wanted was to be alone for a while. He could feel his defenses collapsing under the stress, and he didn’t want anyone around when it happened.
Teresa, bent over Enton’s feet, didn’t reply.
He decided to turn left leaving the front door. They had come from the other direction when they’d holed in, and there didn’t seem to be too much that way. With some luck, he’d find a small store or gas station that hadn’t been completely ransacked. He hoped these small towns didn’t have the frenzy and panic of the big cities. Maybe there would be something left he could use.
It didn’t take him long. The street dead-ended on Front Street, marked by a bright green sign covered in withered vines. Wherever they’d ended up, the plants loved it. It almost felt like he was in a jungle. A small grocery store sat on the corner with two cars still parked at an angle in front of it. Except for the flat tires, they looked surprisingly ready to go. The store windows were intact, and the door was closed. Taking that to be a good sign, he leaned against the wood siding and looked through the glass.
He waited a few minutes, scanning the dark interior. The place looked empty, just like the rest of the town he’d passed through. He tried the door. It was unlocked, and when he walked in, a tiny brass bell tinkled overhead. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he saw the shelves weren’t bare and breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe it was small-town courtesy that stopped people from taking everything. Whatever it was, Darwin didn’t have that problem. He grabbed a couple of bags from behind the open cash register and walked through the store filling them.
He only made it through half of the tiny space before he felt the walls caving in and he collapsed to the floor near empty wire racks that once held potato chips and other junk food. The tears fell hot and fast and a chasm opened in his chest, filled with memories of what his life should have been like. The drudgery of classes filled with nameless faces and professors droning at the front. Being able to talk to his dad about anything. He’d know what to say that would send Darwin back on a solid path, back to being able to deal with life.
He didn’t have that now, and he missed the connection so badly the pain was almost physical.
Trying to pull himself together, he collected the items that had fallen out of the bag, jamming them back in with barely controlled anger. Enough of this bullshit. His dad wasn’t here—would never be here—and it was up to him to pull himself together. He was supposed to be an adult. And he wasn’t alone, was he? Enton had saved both him and Teresa and was paying the price for it. He hadn’t needed to do that, he could have saved himself, but he didn’t. Enton wasn’t quite a friend, but he wasn’t somebody to be pushed away either.
And then there was Teresa. She was in the same position he was, far from home and mostly alone. She had taken care of him, so maybe it was his turn to take care of her. He laughed out loud. For one, she could more than likely take care of herself just fine without him. And two, how had he gone from someone who wanted nothing more than to be left alone, to someone who was suddenly willing to help people he barely knew? He didn’t want to follow that line of questioning too far. It felt surprisingly good to help them. It was something he hadn’t felt in a long time.
He made up his mind. If Teresa was willing to accept his help, he’d do what he could to get her home. In the back of his mind, his old demons stirred, interjecting the thought that SafeHaven seemed to be his best chance to get himself home, so they were both heading in the same direction anyway. He stood on shaky legs and went back to searching the shelves.
By the time he was done, one bag was filled with canned and boxed food. It was so heavy, he thought the thing would split, and triple bagged it just in case. He had no way of opening or cooking some of the items, but that would be a bridge he’d cross when he got to it. The other bag held drinks. He’d found a couple of large bottles of water. The rest were soft drinks. On the way out, he grabbed a jar of instant coffee and a bottle of Advil. The coffee was for him and Teresa, and the Advil was for Enton. He didn’t think it would help much, but even a little relief was better than none.
Like most small-town grocery stores, there was a section for liquor. It was the only section that was empty. He was disappointed. He could have used a stiff drink or two.
Enton was still out when he got back to the house. His body was drenched in sweat. Darwin rested the bags on the living room table, his arms aching from carrying them. Teresa had wrapped both of Enton’s feet in towels. They weren’t the ones he had seen in the kitchen. Blood seeped through one of them. He heard noise coming from the back of the house and walked toward it, entering the small kitchen.
He had been in such a rush to find towels for Teresa earlier that he hadn’t noticed how old the place was. The only modern convenience seemed to be the fridge. Even the stove looked like it had been built sometime in the last century, baby blue and clunky looking, with the oven beside the two burner elements rather than below them. The whole thing sat on four spindly legs. It must not have been working when the owners had left, since beside it on the counter was a camping two-burner propane cooktop.
“I found some bottled water and food.” He lifted the coffee out of the bag. “And some coffee, if we’re boiling water anyway.”
“Did you find anything to eat?”
Darwin emptied the plastic bags on the countertop. “Canned beans, some canned soups, rice and pasta. Pretty basic, but I think we got lucky with the store.”
“It all looks good to me. Do you know how to cook?”
“Yeah, a bit.”
“Good. How about you cook some rice and heat up a can of beans. When it’s all done, we’ll mix them together. It won’t be fancy, but it should taste all right. I’ll be with Enton. Oh, and I think we’ll stay on the main floor. The original owners of the house are upstairs. There’s not much left of them, but we can at least let them rest in peace.”
Teresa left the room before he could say anything. He glanced up the stairs to the second floor and shuddered. Staying downstairs sounded like a good idea.
Cooking rice and beans was easy. It seemed being left at home alone after his mom died, while his dad worked, had some benefits. He started Teresa’s water first. When it was on, he found a mug and filled it twice with water, pouring it into another pot, and set it to boil as well. The beans could wait until the rice was cooking.
When Teresa’s water boiled, he brought it out to her, and quickly retreated to the safety of the kitchen when he saw what was left of Enton’s feet. The tender skin and sealed cuts had been ripped open as they’d dragged him from the hole site, and the raw wounds were still dripping blood. Teresa sat by Enton’s side, her eyes closed and a vertical crease on her forehead.
The rice water was boiling, and Darwin turned down the heat, poured in a mug of rice, and put the lid on top. He knew they were in trouble. Enton needed a doctor or a healer, whatever they called it here. Teresa was a healer, but even she had said she was still in training, and that she didn’t know how to deal with this.
The rice was done in twenty minutes, and he fished through the drawers, found a can opener, and just opened the can of beans and threw them in cold. By the time they were mixed, they would be warm enough to eat. He carried two cups of coffee into the living room before going back for the rice and beans. Just pouring the water over the instant flakes made his mouth water. Anything was better than the barley or acorn stuff he’d been drinking, and a nice shot of caffeine wouldn’t hurt either.
When he went back into the living room, Teresa was already lifting one of the coffee cups to her nose.
“I haven’t smelled coffee in years.”
She breathed in deep and took a sip, closing her eyes as she smiled. Darwin’s heart beat a little faster.
Enton woke up as they both sat on the love seat in the corner, shoveling food into their mouths between sips of hot black coffee. Teresa was beside him instantly, her food all but forgotten.
“Here, have some water.” She lifted his head and brought a cup to his mouth. He took a couple of sips and sagged back down.
“I may have cut that one too close,” Enton whispered.
“Just a bit, but don’t worry about it now. You have a fever and need to rest. Just lay still, and I’ll take care of you.”
Enton did as he was told, and in seconds was back asleep. She sat back down beside Darwin and put her bowl into her lap.
“We’re in trouble, aren’t we?” Darwin asked.
“Yeah. Even if his fever breaks, we have no way to move him. He is too heavy for us, unless you can hole right from here.” She looked at him, half expectant, half hopeful.
“If I knew how, you would already be back home.”
Teresa leaned her head on his shoulder and a rush of heat infused his body.
“Don’t worry,” she said, “we will figure something out.”