I couldn’t sleep, so I came out to the front porch to get some fresh air and escape Jimbo’s snoring. He and Mrs. Renshaw dragged their king-size mattress over from next door and flopped it across my parents’ queen-size bedframe last night, and Carter tossed his mattress on the floor in our junk room. Now the whole house smells like smoke.
It smells like their house.
Because it is their house now.
The morning fog has settled in Old Man Crocker’s field across the street. It looks like a fallen cloud being pierced by orange and pink lasers as the sun rises behind the pine trees.
And that’s when I realize … I’m outside.
I haven’t been able to come outside without having a panic attack in weeks, but here I am. Not panicking.
Probably because there’s nothing left to fear.
I step off the porch and walk down the stairs where Wes and I sat just yesterday afternoon.
My feet carry me past my daddy’s rusted old truck—the one that Wes siphoned all the gas out of the day we met—and they don’t stop.
They take me down to the end of the driveway, where about six envelopes are scattered on the gravel. I pick them up one by one.
Franklin Springs Electric.
Franklin Springs Natural Gas.
Franklin Springs Water and Sewer.
First Bank of Georgia.
They’re all addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Williams.
I run my fingertips over their names, but I feel nothing. Just the slick surface of the clear plastic film covering them. Then, I fold the stack of unpaid bills in half and tuck it into my hoodie pocket.
I pick my fallen mailbox up next. The wooden post is broken off at the ground level, so I shove what’s left of it into the soft Georgia clay next to the driveway. It only sticks about two feet above the ground now, but I don’t care.
I don’t care about anything anymore.
“Welcome to Fucklin Springs!” the sign across the street greets me as I pass, not reading my mood.
I haven’t walked down the highway into town by myself in months. Not since the crime rate skyrocketed, the roads got clogged with wrecks and cars that had run out of gas, and the local cops stopped showing up for work. After that, I mostly kept to the trail that snaked through the woods. But I’m not worried about the bad guys getting me now.
In fact, I hope they do.
The birds seem to be singing louder than ever as I walk past the torched and dilapidated farmhouses that used to belong to my neighbors. Maybe it’s because I haven’t heard one in weeks. They’re damn-near deafening now.
I have to walk in the middle of the street because all the wreckage has been shoved to the sides of the highway. Thanks to Quint. When the world was busy going insane on April 23, he grabbed his little brother and his daddy’s bulldozer and figured out a way to get the hell out of town.
A lot of good that did. Quint almost died in a bulldozer explosion, and now Wes is going to be executed for saving his life. I wish we’d never followed them out of town.
The second I think it, I want to take it back. If we hadn’t followed them, if we hadn’t been there, Quint would have died. I picture him and Lamar, all alone with that evil bitch, Q, and her crazy gang of runaways, and I shake my head. She’s gonna eat them alive.
Maybe I can convince Carter to take the truck back to the mall and get them, too.
As the glowing Burger Palace billboard rises over the trees in the distance, King Burger appears to be galloping toward me with his French fry staff held high. In the place where it used to say, Apocasize it! above a photo of the King Burger combo meal, it now says, Natural selection is the king’s way! with a digital slideshow of all their combo selections below.
The sign disgusts me so much it makes my stomach turn. A wave of nausea brings me to a halt, and I barely manage to pull my hair away from my face before I buckle at the waist and puke on the side of the road. Once the last heave leaves me, I prop my forearm on the wrecked minivan next to me and drop my forehead onto it. As the hurricane in my stomach dies down, I open my eyes and glance at the woman reflected in the tinted glass.
“You’re pregnant,” she whispers to me again.
“I know that,” I snap back.
Pushing away from the burgundy van, I continue walking, but this time with a destination in mind.
The closer I get to Burger Palace, the louder the sounds of civilization become. Cars stretch down the street in the oncoming lane, waiting to pull in to the parking lot. Toddlers tantrum and mothers yell and grown men curse at each other from their driver’s seats as they jockey for position and cut each other off in line.
In front of Burger Palace, walking up and down the side of the highway, are street vendors pandering to the captive audience.
“AK-47 for sale! Perfect condition! Only fired once!”
“Spare change? I gotta feed my babies, y’all! Spare change?”
“Hydro! Oxy! Adderall! Viagra! No prescription necessary!”
“You fellas like to party? Fifty bucks each. Seventy-five if it’s at the same time.”
I flip my hood up and stick to the opposite side of the road. Cars and trucks and four-wheelers and even a few tractors pass me as they pull out of Burger Palace, but nobody stops.
They can tell I’ve got nothing left to offer.
I walk past the hollowed-out shell of the old library and inhale the scent of scorched books.
I walk past Shartwell Park, careful not to step on any used hypodermic needles.
And finally, once the sun has risen above the tree line and the sweat has begun to trickle down my back, I see it.
Fuckabee Foods.
The nausea returns full force as I look across the nearly empty parking lot and remember what happened here just a few weeks ago. The three thugs who died right outside those sliding glass doors—one from overdosing on the pills Wes had given him to pay our way inside, the other two from a spray of bullets.
Fired by me.
Even though the few businesses that haven’t been looted or torched are up and running again, I knew better than to expect Huckabee Foods to be one of them. The redneck mafia of Franklin Springs would rather burn this place to the ground than relinquish control. Which is why I’m not at all surprised to see a new red-bandana-wearing, facial-tattoo-sporting, machine-gun-carrying asshole sitting in a lawn chair outside.
The sight of those guys used to make me want to turn and run in the opposite direction, but that was back when I still cared about what happened to me.
Now all I care about is getting what I need and getting the hell out of here.
I pull the gun out of the back of my jeans and approach the front door with it pointed toward the ground.
Captain No-Neck looks up from his cell phone and does a double take when he sees me.
“Daaaamn, girl. That sassy walk you got is makin’ my dick hard. Come on over here and give me some sugar.” He spreads his legs and rubs the crotch of his pants. “I’ll make it worth ya while.”
I feel my heart begin to race as I stop about fifty feet away. From here, I can see that the glass in the sliding door has been replaced with a blue tarp, and there’s still a red stain on the cement in front of it.
“Here’s how this is gonna work,” I say, trying to keep my voice as steady as possible. “You’re gonna go inside and get me all the prenatal vitamins you can find, plus some canned fruits and veggies and soup with meat in it. It’s gotta have meat. When you come back out, there’ll be a hundred-dollar bill tucked underneath the windshield wiper of that blue Toyota.” I tip my head in the direction of the car closest to him. “You take the money and leave the groceries, and nobody gets hurt.”
The guard snorts through his nose before erupting into full-blown laughter. “Homegirl, the only thing that’s gonna get hurt around here is yo’ pussy.”
“That’s what the last guy said who was sittin’ in that chair.”
His face hardens. “What the fuck did you say?”
“He was a big fella, too, just like you. In fact, I think that’s his gun you’re holdin’. I know ’cause I used it to shoot your two friends over there.” My eyes cut to the red stain on the cement next to him.
His jaw snaps shut, and his eyes narrow in hatred. “You tellin’ me you killed Skeeter and Lawn Boy?” His voice sounds like a dangerous combination of rage and grief, so I soften my tone.
“Only ’cause they fired first. Like I said, I don’t wanna hurt anybody. But you got what I need in there, and I ain’t leavin’ without it.”
The tattooed testosterone machine’s nostrils flare as he considers my proposition. Then, he stands up and swings the Uzi toward me, biceps flexing as he squeezes the handle in anger. I close my eyes and hold my breath, but the br-r-r-r-r-ap never comes.
“Two hundred,” he finally says with a frustrated growl. “For Skeeter and Lawn Boy.”
I nod solemnly. “Two hundred.”
When the behemoth turns and passes through the sliding tarp door, I exhale in relief and dig a wad of cash out of my back pocket with a shaking hand. It’s everything I had hidden in my sock drawer. Figured I’d better keep it on me now that my house has been overrun by Renshaws.
With knocking knees, I walk over to the blue Toyota and tuck all my twenties under the passenger windshield wiper. Then, I retreat to the F-150 a few parking spaces away.
Visions of an ambush flood my mind while I wait. I picture the guard running out with five, ten, fifteen thugs on his heels, all of them blasting the parking lot with semiautomatic weapons until the dumb girl in the baggy hoodie is just another red stain on the cement.
Maybe that’s the real reason I came here.
Maybe I want them to kill me.
But they don’t. What feels like hours later, the tarp door slides open again, revealing guard number two holding four plastic grocery bags and looking none too pleased about it.
He makes murderous eye contact with me as he lumbers toward the blue sedan. Then, he drops the bags on the hood and snatches the cash out from under the wiper blade. Counting it twice, the leathery redneck spits on the ground in my direction. Then, he turns and walks back to his station.
I wait until he’s back in his lawn chair and as far away from me as he’s going to get before I approach the car. He watches me walk with a predatory stare but doesn’t make a move as I inspect the bags. It’s all here—the vitamins, the soup, the fruits and veggies. This time, I can’t keep my tears at bay as an overwhelming mixture of pride and disbelief swells in my chest.
“Thank you,” I say, my voice cracking as I give the ogre a small, sincere smile.
“Fuck you,” he replies, dropping his eyes back down to the phone in his lap.