Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 150878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 754(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 150878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 754(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
I walked over to the abandoned pack, picking it up and then looking around again. The terrain remained desolate. I unzipped the backpack and looked inside. There was a large bottle of water and several food items. I shook my head in wonder. What is this? And why would anyone leave it behind? Something caught my eye, and I pulled it out, my heart clenching as I held it up. It was a label from a can of condensed milk and written over the logo were two words: Thank you.
I craned my neck, peering up again at the area being patrolled, the one that I could see extended much farther than this. The man I’d helped had gathered these things and then tossed them down from above for me to find. Had he tracked me as I walked? He had to have. My lungs tightened and my eyes burned. Then I sat down on the rock, emotion crashing over me in waves. The water eased my parched throat, and I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, letting out a small wondrous laugh. The laugh turned into a shuddery breath, as I moved my finger over that label for condensed milk that had helped feed a hungry baby girl until her parents could get her to safety.
I tipped my head back and gazed out to the horizon, this feeling descending. This inexplicable knowing that clogged my throat and filled my heart. It suddenly seemed so clear to me that redemption was everywhere, in every moment of every day. And so too…was mercy.
forty-eight
Emily
I flew along the shore, the only place I could think to ride the dirt bike where I wouldn’t be met with blockades like the ones we had to pass through to get here. Once I encountered a mass of rocks stretched into the ocean, I accelerated up the embankment and drove on the highway that wound around the shore. Broken-down cars littered this stretch of road, but I maneuvered easily around and through, finding that only a handful of people were out, either siphoning gas, or traveling along the edge.
I was afraid to slow down. Afraid that if I did, someone would attack, causing me and the bike to skid along the asphalt only to leave me broken and bleeding by the side of the road so they could steal my ride.
It wasn’t paranoia. It was reality and the state of the world right now.
The highway turned into a one-lane road, and that led into a community, and the roadblock I’d expected appeared. It was the one we’d passed through on the way here. I drove around it, into the weedy desert terrain. Again, I was free to go as fast as I dared and so I did, racing across the hard-packed dirt, avoiding rocks and brambles, remembering the absolute thrill of a similar ride on a horse with Tuck, his deep laughter drifting to me on the wind.
I distanced myself from the rocks against the incline because I could see people sleeping there. Or maybe they were dead, bodies littered outside the cordoned-off zones. Perhaps more and more bodies would continue to pile up in spots like that as the days turned into weeks.
But I couldn’t think about that. All I could think about was home.
Please be there, Tuck. At my parents’. I need to tell you I love you, even if you don’t say it back. I need you to know even if you decide to go.
It was all that mattered now. Love was more precious than food or water, more important than those chickens worth their weight in gold. And I hadn’t said it because I thought it mattered that he might not say it back.
If I rode fast and hard, even if I had to go around barricades, I could make it home by morning. Please be there. Please—
The dirt bike hit something as though I’d crashed into an invisible wall, throwing me backward violently as I screamed, and the bike came out from under me. For a moment I was airborne and then everything went black.
I woke with a moan, pain radiating through my head and down my spine. I sucked in a breath, and my lungs expanded, feeling raw and achy as though they’d collapsed, and I’d filled them too quickly.
What happened? Oh my God, what happened?
A man stood over me, the dirt bike next to him, and a rope hanging from his hand. “I’m real sorry,” he said. “But I need that bike.” Oh God. He’d heard me coming. He’d used the rope somehow to stop me. “I’m not a bad person. I’m a restaurant manager. Or I was. They—they looted it. Killed two of my employees. I hid under my desk. I—I just need to get away from here. To the ocean. Where there’s food.”