Jenn’s heel was bleeding. With every step, her shoe shaved off another layer of skin. Her softball cleats used to give her blisters, but after two years of wearing them three or more times a week during the season, she’d built up calluses. By her senior year, they didn’t bother her. The shoes still rubbed and tore holes in her socks, but her heels fought back.
Not today.
For over twelve hours now, she and Sam had been walking. Heading south, they quickly came upon Strawberry, then cut east and found the highway, which they followed into Payson. The smoke and their aching backs, legs, and feet conspired to slow them down, and more than a dozen times they stopped to rest. They finished the MRE hours ago, and already, Jenn was hungry again.
The sun had set around the tenth hour of their hike. On her left, the mostly full moon peeked over the treetops. It shone a fiery red, not white. Its rays reflected off the haze and turned the sky a murky, brownish gray, tinging the world in an orange hue and lighting their way in the night.
She put weight on her right foot and swore under her breath.
“You okay?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Friggin’ blister.” She pulled off her shoe. On her heel, a hole larger than a thumbnail had worn off the sock. When she tapped at it with a finger, she felt blood.
She slung off her backpack and dug around inside for a fresh pair of socks. Good thing she brought two. At this rate, she’d wear through this new pair by the time they reached the cabin.
Sam coughed, then doubled over and coughed again. He took a drink of water as Jenn peeled off the old sock. “We’re almost there,” he said.
“How long?”
“Hour? Maybe a bit more. The cabin’s on the far side of town.”
Sucking air through her teeth, she slipped on her fresh sock and her shoe, then continued down the wide four-lane road leading into Payson. They passed an abandoned motel, the neon vacancy sign dark and lifeless, followed by a foreclosed house and a stalled minivan. A breeze rustled the trees. Sam wheezed and dragged his feet on the asphalt with a crunch and a scrape. Her heartbeat drummed in her ears, and the zippers on her pack jingled with each step.
The silence made the hairs on her forearms stand on end. She glanced behind her. Still no one there. Not that she could see in the smoke, anyway. What would be more frightening, seeing someone or not? After losing Sam’s car and running from those men, she didn’t know anymore. What Sam had said about Leviathan and kings and laws and barbarians niggled at her. She wanted to believe that people would come together in desperate times, that they wouldn’t devolve into monsters within a few days.
But what about her? Was she a monster? The security guard at the Go Market might think so.
On the other side of the street loomed the silhouette of a single-story building. Boards covered its windows and doors, and the red moon illuminated a sign emblazoned with LAUNDRY above the front entrance. The parking lot sat empty. Next came an old, closed-down gas station. Beside it was Jimmy’s Hardware. The R and the A in “hardware” had disappeared, and the door hung wide open. Looted, maybe?
“Has Payson always been this dead?” Jenn asked. “I mean, I get that it’s nighttime, but this is a ghost town. Worse than downtown Flagstaff. Way worse.”
“Yeah, it’s been pretty quiet as long as I’ve been coming here. Housing prices were crazy until the crash, obviously. Most of the farmers and ranchers left. Tourism was the last thing, and the war killed that. There’s a golf course, a liquor store, and a supermarket. That’s it, really. There used to be an elementary school, but I think it closed a few years ago.”
“So, yes,” Jenn said. “Ghost town.”
“Pretty much.”
“Why does anyone bother coming up here anymore, then?”
“Weather,” he answered as though he was anticipating the question. “It’s cooler in the summer. You know how it is in the city, even the nicer parts. Payson’s fine if you stick to your cabin and the hiking trails.”
Ahead, an idle cargo van sat under a dark traffic light.
“Left here,” Sam said.
She followed him along another four-lane road before they veered right, down a narrow street with no curbs and no sidewalks. The expansive, empty parking lots of the main strip gave way to single-story houses atop yards with dirt lawns and leafy trees. Orange candlelight flickered in the window of one. Jenn wiped a clammy hand on her jeans and wrapped her fingers so tightly around Sam’s that she might have cut off his circulation. Her neck hurt from twisting and turning and checking behind her.
A block later, a shrill scream pierced the air. Ice filled Jenn’s veins, and she froze. Where had that come from? Was it really a scream? No, it couldn’t be. The last human beings they’d seen had stolen Sam’s car, and that was twelve hours ago.
“Stop!” a woman cried out, panic punctuating the word.
Sam’s eyes went wide, and he took off down a dirt alley on their left.
“Sam!” she shouted after him, but he kept running, so she followed him at just shy of a sprint.
Gravel crunched beneath her shoes as a second scream pierced her ears. Sam ducked behind a wooden fence, and she knelt beside him.
“What are you—” she said, but Sam held a hand over her mouth.
“Please!” a woman pleaded. “That’s all we have!”
Cautiously, Sam poked his head above the fence.
“What is it?” Jenn whispered.
“Three people. In front of a house.”
She looked next, and there they were: a man and a woman on the ground, likely a husband and wife. Both carried backpacks. A third, another man, a hood obscuring his features, moved erratically and struggled to pull off the woman’s bag. Coughing hoarsely, he pushed her away and swung a fist but missed wildly.
“It’s a junkie,” Jenn said. “There many in Payson?”
“Not usually, but I haven’t been here for a couple summers.” Sam bounced on his heels. “A junkie? Really? You think?”
“Look at him. He’s tweaking out.”
Sam’s mouth flattened into a firm line. “We need to help.”
“Screw that. This has nothing to do with us.”
For the third time, he peeked over the fence, then said, “We can’t just leave them.”
Her patience was running thin. Why, only twelve hours after the Tesla was stolen and they were chased through the woods by a man wielding a gun, did Sam want anything to do with this situation?
“Yes,” she said, praying he would listen this time. “We can, and we should.”
He bit a nail, and Jenn thought he was about to relent, but he asked, “Think he’s got a weapon?”
“Probably not,” rolled off her tongue. Immediately, she regretted telling Sam the truth. If she’d lied and said the junkie had a pistol or a knife, he might have let this go.
“What about Gary’s gun?”
Her fingers wandered toward the waistline of her pants. “What about it? I’m not—”
“Shut up!” the junkie spat.
Sam snuck yet another glance at the trio, and Jenn realized he wasn’t going to let this go. So she sucked her teeth and said, “Fine.”
As soon as the Glock was free of its holster, he slid through a gap in the fence and shouted, “Hey! Stop!”
Jenn followed him while Gary’s first two rules of gun safety cycled through her mind: Keep your finger away from the trigger until you’re ready to fire and never aim a weapon at something you don’t intend to kill.
“Leave them alone!” Sam demanded and ran toward the junky, who tore the backpack from the woman. Bag in hand, he darted away and disappeared into the smoke and the darkness.
Jenn could give chase, then threaten him with the gun and force him to surrender what he had stolen from these people. The girl from Minute Tire might have done that. But not this one. If she was careless, she could end up walking into a trap. He probably wasn’t traveling alone. Junkies rarely did. Had she given chase, she could have rounded a corner and been tackled from behind by someone she hadn’t even seen.
Sam rushed over to the woman. “Are you okay?” he asked.
She rolled onto her side and wiggled into her husband’s arms. Her hair was short, wiry, and uneven, as if she’d cut it herself with a pair of scissors. Sharp cheekbones accented her defined jawline and prominent chin, and her old Star Wars T-shirt, two sizes too big, was faded and fraying around the sleeves. The husband had hair longer than his wife’s and wore a polo that hung off his narrow frame. A hole adorned the right knee of his cargo pants.
“It’s over,” he cooed, running his fingers through her hair. “He’s gone.”
“Are you guys okay?” Sam repeated and crouched beside them.
Sniffling, she said, “Yes, we’re fine. Thanks for helping. I didn’t think anyone would actually come.”
“I’m Sam.” He waved behind him, toward Jenn. “This is Jenn.”
The woman tapped her chest. “Tara, and this is my husband, Derek.”
Derek opened his mouth to speak but broke into heavy coughing, so Sam asked, “What did that guy want?”
“Water,” Tara said and sat up on her own. “The taps stopped working this morning.”
“Dumb of us,” Derek added. “We didn’t save up while we could.”
“We went to the creek to fill up.” After another sniffle, Tara wiped her nose. “We tried the ponds at the golf course first, but they were dirty and we were afraid the water’d make us sick.”
A hint of hope flickered across Sam’s face. “Creek? Stewart Creek?”
Tara answered with a half nod. “I’m pretty sure.”
“That’s by the cabin,” he said to Jenn.
So far, Tara and Derek seemed harmless, but they didn’t need to know about the cabin. They looked poor, hungry, and desperate. Jenn knew the type: the ones whom the economic downturn of the 2040s and 2050s had reduced to a subsistence-level existence. Like most middle-class Americans, the Jansens struggled when Jenn’s parents lost their jobs, yet they survived, mostly by selling the house before the market imploded and then renting a smaller place, where Jenn and her brothers shared a single bedroom. Later, during the war, Andrew and Jason sent home their military pay, keeping the family afloat. Tens of millions weren’t so lucky, and they had to fight for every scrap, even if it meant resorting to crime and preying on others. Jenn wouldn’t risk telling these people any more than necessary.
Tara and Derek exchanged glances, then inspected Sam’s shoes, pants, and shirt. “Where are you from?” Tara asked.
“Flagstaff,” Jenn said, wresting control of the conversation from Sam. “We came from Flagstaff.”
“Why?”
“We’re picking someone up,” she said and changed the subject. “What happened here?”
Sam held out a hand for Derek, who took it, pulled himself up, and then helped Tara to her feet. Standing upright, she looked even thinner, like a soft breeze would blow her to the ground. “The power,” Derek said, “it went out all of a sudden and our phones wouldn’t work.”
“Is it out in Flagstaff, too?” Tara asked optimistically.
“It’s out everywhere,” Sam said. “Well, everywhere we’ve seen.”
Derek coughed some more, and Tara patted his back. “We have an old radio that runs on batteries,” he croaked. “We heard about the attack. It told us to stay inside. We did for two days. This morning, our taps wouldn’t work, and we—” He stopped himself and covered his mouth with a fist.
“You what?” Jenn asked.
His voice was thick with shame: “We sent our dog outside to see if it was safe.”
“So? There’s no fallout here.”
Tara reached for Derek’s hand. “We know,” she said. “Well, now we do. It was a hard decision to send Rocky out like that, especially with all the smoke. We thought it might be radioactive. We’re still feeling guilty about it, but we had to do something.”
“We understand,” Sam said. “So who was that guy?”
“He’s from the city, I think. Must be. More have been coming up in the spring and summer over the last few years, maybe to avoid the heat. They find a place to squat and hide out, then go down again in the winter.”
Jenn’s throat itched. She cleared it with a grunt and asked, “How? The cops don’t stop them?”
“What cops?” Derek scratched the patchy stubble on his chin. “The sheriff’s responsible for the entire county. They do their best, but there’s not enough of them to make much of a difference anymore. Now, with all the cars broken? We’re on our own.”
Tara added, “We thought it’d be safe at night in the dark. Thank God you showed up. What can we do to thank you?”
“You don’t need to thank us,” Sam said. “We were just trying to help.”
“No, I insist.” She reached for the backpack hanging from Derek’s shoulder.
“Hon, we shouldn’t be—”
“Derek, stop. We’d have none if it wasn’t for them.” From the bag, she pulled out a one-gallon jug of water and presented it to Sam. “Here. Please, take it. We have two. But you should boil it first.”
“No,” Jenn said. The offer washed away her apprehension about these people, and it became clear that Tara was a kind, generous soul. “You keep it.”
Tara dipped her head. “Thank you.”
“We should go,” Derek told his wife. “Your mom and Jayden are going to be worried.”
“Jayden?” Jenn asked.
Tara tucked the jug into Derek’s backpack and zipped it up. “Our son. He’s eight.”
Liam and Erin’s daughter, Debbie, was about the same age. Children younger than ten or twelve knew only the depression and the war. To them, normal was an unemployment rate nearing thirty percent and a half dozen bananas selling for forty-five or fifty dollars. They might not have even tasted bananas before. Now, with the EMP and the bombs, would they ever?
Derek put a hand on Tara’s hip to lead her away. “Thanks again,” he said. “I hope you find who you’re looking for.”
—
“We need to talk about what happened back there,” Jenn said.
They followed a thin, winding road out of Payson and into the hills. Long driveways branching off both sides led to multistory homes. Tall ponderosas hid most from view, but the houses that peeked through were dark and lifeless. No flickering candlelight here.
“What do you mean?” Sam asked.
He knew. He must have. An hour ago, he rushed to help two strangers. Jenn had warned him not to, but he didn’t listen. Instead, he acted on impulse. That wasn’t like Sam; he was the cool, composed, and rational one, not Jenn. When had that changed? Why had it changed?
“You took off toward a random scream, Sam.” The words came out laced with acid, so she breathed in through her nose and added, “I get that you wanted to help, but you could’ve gotten hurt.”
Rubbing his eye with a knuckle, he said, “We couldn’t walk away. That’s not us. We’re better than that.”
“That doesn’t make sense. You’ve never done anything like that. Remember the tire place and what I did? You told me to sit down and relax. Same as when I tried to drag you and Gary to Carla’s that night. You talked me out of it, and suddenly you’re charging headfirst into trouble?”
Sam stopped, his height making Jenn feel small. She found herself cowering away from him. “That was then,” he said. “This is now. Everything’s different.”
“Different how?”
“People are taking advantage of the situation. Things were bad enough as is, and now they’re doing whatever they want because they won’t get caught. The car, Tara and Derek’s water.” He pointed a finger at her. An accusing finger, she thought. “Your food at the Go Market. You stood up for yourself then. Gary and Maria, too. How is that different from me trying to help Tara and Derek?”
“Because you didn’t know them. I think getting hurt for someone you love is a lot more worth it.”
His eyes wandered away from her—rolled, maybe—and the corner of his lip twitched. Was he smirking at her?
“What?” she barked. “This isn’t Arcadia, Sam. You can’t trust every random person on the street.” She wanted to stop, to hold Sam’s hand and walk with him to the cabin, but he needed to hear this. His gated-community naivete had become a liability. “Out here, in the real world, these people won’t hesitate to stab you for a phone or a wallet. I grew up in this, remember? I’ve seen what happens when things get bad. It’s not pretty. Now everything’s crazy and a hundred times worse. You need to be smart.”
He clamped his mouth shut, then showed her his back and continued toward the cabin.
Heavy guilt settled in the bottom of her stomach. She’d never used Arcadia against Sam, and he’d never used Peoria against her. It was an unspoken rule in their relationship. Their pasts and differences didn’t matter. Together, they were greater than the sum of their parts. The last few days had proven that.
“I’m sorry,” she said, rushing to catch up with him. Each step brought a fresh burst of pain from the blister on her heel, but she ignored it.
She reached for his hand, but he hid it in his pocket.
“Sam, wait. I didn’t mean it.”
“Yes you did. But it’s fine. We come from different worlds. I get it.”
“No, we’re not—”
“The right thing is the right thing, Jenn.” He rarely used her name, and it sounded wrong, like he was disappointed in her. “Doesn’t matter who it is or what happened. Trying to help Tara and Derek? That was the right thing. Besides, you agreed and took out the gun Gary gave you.”
“You’re right,” she conceded. He wasn’t, but she would say anything to make him kiss her on the head the way he always did. She couldn’t let him be angry with her. Not now. Not when they were in the middle of nowhere, with sore feet, ash-filled lungs, and no car. Not after she’d lost her parents and her home. If she lost Sam, where would that leave her? What would she do?
She shouldn’t have said anything in the first place. Sam only wanted to help. Was that so bad? He helped her and Gary and Maria. Now he was out here in this empty town, doing the same for his sister and narcissistic mother who treated him like trash.
He took her hand in his, and something relaxed in her chest and shoulders. “Listen,” he said. “I get why it bothered you. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have run off. But after the Go Market and my car, we need to stand up for ourselves and help when we can. It can’t be every man for himself out here.”
It could, Jenn thought. And it is. Still, she admired Sam for his selflessness. He only needed to be more careful.
Two blocks later, he pointed to a cul-de-sac that terminated at a wall of ponderosas. “We’re almost there. At the end of this street, in that loop down there.”
Both of Jenn’s legs had turned to brick, and her calves ached. Not even the hike in Prescott all those years ago had taken this long. She imagined the couch in the cabin. Hopefully it was soft and deep, the type she could sink into. Ice would be good, for her feet, and a hot shower to scrub the smoke out of her hair. If she didn’t wash it soon, it’d smell for weeks. Her stomach rumbled as she considered what Sam’s family would have to eat in there. Fruit? Real meat? At this point, she’d settle for some more soy bacon and potatoes or another spaghetti and meatballs MRE. His stepfather had money, so he might have wine, too. After a couple glasses—white, preferably, but Jenn wouldn’t discriminate—and a healthy buzz, she’d throw on a housecoat and fall asleep beside Sam. Wishful thinking, she knew.
A driveway lined with long pines snaked away from the cul-de-sac and up a gentle slope. At the end stood a proper house, not a cabin. It stretched two full stories and had a peaked roof above tall windows. An SUV was parked in front of a detached garage, and a set of wide stairs led to double doors, both of which were open.
Jenn thought about what Derek and Tara had said: squatters.
Instinct told her to run, down the driveway and away from this place, but her hand lifted her shirt and found the handle of Gary’s gun.
Sam took a long, cautious step forward. She held out an arm to stop him. “Wait,” she said, then eased the pistol from its holster, reminding herself there was still a round in the chamber. “I’ll go first.”
Weapon at the ready, she crept up the driveway. No movement at the door. None in the windows, either. She breathed loudly. So did Sam. The tap of their shoes on the pavement sounded like thunder.
She climbed the steps leading to the front doors, Sam a few paces behind. On the front porch, she paused and peered into the house, seeing nothing but pitch black. The flashlight would help, but that might give them away and alert anyone hiding in here.
Blindly, she stepped through the doorway, and with a slow, deliberate exhale, she lowered herself to a knee and gave her eyes a moment to adjust. Sam sidled up beside her and laid a comforting hand between her shoulder blades.
The form of a hallway came into view, but Jenn could only make out basic shapes. It didn’t matter if someone could see her in here; without more light, they could take her completely by surprise. So she pulled her flashlight from her pocket and switched it on, illuminating walls adorned with framed paintings of landscapes.
Inching forward, the gun in one hand and the flashlight in the other, she passed an open door. The white of her light lit up a toilet and a sink. In the living room, couch cushions lay on the hardwood floor, and the rectangular coffee table was overturned. A bracket on the wall marked the spot where a TV once lived.
The kitchen came next. Around the central island buzzed a cloud of flies. One landed on Jenn’s hand, but she didn’t dare brush it away. All but a few cupboard doors hung open. The fridge was open, too, and the air tasted sour, conjuring the image of the dead woman in the woods. Jenn searched for a body but found only shattered dishware and a spilled tub of flour.
She led them upstairs, where the carpet muffled their steps. Nicole’s room came first. The bed was unkempt, and on the sheets lay an empty jewelry box. But no blood and no bodies.
The master bedroom looked much the same. Like in the living room, brackets hung on the wall in place of a TV. In the en-suite bathroom, the medicine cabinet above the sink had been flung open. Bottles of pills, a few with the lids twisted off, rested on their sides.
Again, no blood, no bodies.
Once they’d checked a third bedroom, another bathroom, and a loft with two couches and a desk, Jenn lowered the gun. The flashlight, aimed at the floor, illuminated Sam from below. “No one’s here,” he said.
“Where are they?” she asked. “Think they were in town when it happened and they stayed there to hide?”
“I doubt it. My mom’s not a morning person. The EMP went off early. She was probably in bed.”
“So where’d they go?”
“No idea. The car’s here, and nothing’s really walking distance.”
The car. “Do they usually park in the garage?” Jenn asked.
“Yeah, I guess so. Never thought too much about it. Why?”
“It’s parked out front.”
Sam’s mouth fell open. In a flash, he rushed for the stairs. Jenn followed, her light bouncing off the walls. Outside, he darted left, toward the garage, and waited for her at the side door. There, she switched off her flashlight, tucked it into her pocket, and gripped her weapon with both hands.
He tested the knob. Locked. Jenn couldn’t decide if that was a good sign or not. Squatters wouldn’t live in the garage if they had the whole house, would they? If anyone was on the other side of this door, it would be Sam’s family. It had to be. “Call to them,” she said.
“Nicole!” Sam yelled while knocking with his knuckles. His voice carried in the silence of the night, and Jenn tightened her grip on the gun. It felt heavier every second. “Mom! Kevin!”
Twice more he knocked, and after calling out to his sister again, Jenn was convinced the garage was empty. She prepared to turn away and search for clues in the house, but a lock clicked and the door eased open, revealing a young woman dressed in striped pajamas.
With a wide, relieved grin, Sam said, “Hey, Nicole.”