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three
WHEN IT’S HOT LIKEthis, we try to do most of the hardest manual labor first thing in the morning—even before breakfast. So the next morning I get up, throw some clothes on, and go to work in the garden for a couple of hours. Jackson and some of the guys are reinforcing one of the perimeter walls, so I don’t try to talk to him until that project and the gardening is done.
Then it’s midmorning, and I find a private spot at the creek to bathe since the creek is flowing well this year and it’s a lot easier than pumping up enough water for a bath in the house. I take the time to comb out my wet hair so it will dry without too many kinks and tangles in the sun.
When I’m as clean as I ever get anymore, I check in on Molly again, who shows no improvement since yesterday.
That’s it. I’m not going to wait anymore.
Molly is going to die unless we find her some antibiotics.
I haven’t seen Jackson return to the house yet this morning, so I wander toward the barn to look for him.
I find him shirtless, flushed with heat, and soaked from the waist up, having just sloshed water all over him from a rain barrel to cool down.
The way the water streams down over his chest hair and muscle definition is admittedly rather distracting, but this is too important to let myself get diverted by something so superficial. I wrench my eyes back up to his face as I say, “Hey, we need to talk.”
He flings some water out of his hair and gives his face a quick rubdown with his hands. “What’s up?”
“Molly isn’t getting better.”
“I know. I don’t like it any more than you do, but there’s not much else we can do about it.”
“We can try to find her some antibiotics.”
He doesn’t object immediately. He stares at my face for a minute like he’s thinking or processing or deciding what to say. “We don’t know where to find antibiotics. We’ve scoured every possible source in the surrounding area, and everything else is a crapshoot.”
“Mack—the guy from the network who left the note yesterday—explained about this area out east in Kentucky that hasn’t been thoroughly looted yet.”
Jackson frowns as he reaches out to take the folded note I offer him. I see his hazel eyes moving over each line as he reads it. They look almost green in the sunlight this morning, although they normally look more gray.
When he’s finished reading and keeps staring down at the paper, I say, “See? He says the region was hit by really bad earthquakes, and so most of the people got out of there quickly. And there are no big cities around there, so the area was never hit by a drove. We may be able to find antibiotics there. And a bunch of other stuff we need. We could probably be there and back in two days.”
He inhales and then lets out the breath slowly. He chews on his lower lip, and my heart sinks in my chest. “You act like a two-day trip is nothing, but we’d only have about a fifty percent chance of coming back alive from that. All we’ve got is the word of some random stranger. You really want to risk our lives for that?”
“For Molly.” My voice cracks, and I have to clear my throat. “And I believe him. We have no reason not to. He left us the Tylenol, which we needed.”
“Any antibiotic we find is going to be five years out of date. It might not even work.”
“Most of the medication we find still works. You know most of those expiration dates were arbitrary. I think we should do it. I think it’s worth the risk. She’s going to be dead in a few weeks if we don’t do something, Jackson. You know she is.”
“I know,” he grits out, his jaw tensing for the first time. “You think I want her to die? From a few fucking cuts on her foot? But how is it going to help if two or three more of us die trying to save her?”
“I don’t think we’ll die. It’s been pretty quiet around here lately. No one really bad has come through since that drove that was on its way to Fort Knox last year.”
Droves used to be the biggest threat in the world—hordes of violent people who decimated every mile they passed through—but now they’re fracturing. The drove that hit Fort Knox broke up into dozens of smaller gangs that call themselves Wolf Packs. They’ve mostly moved west toward the middle of the country, which is where most of the people and resources have migrated, but there are still a few hanging out in this region, always looking for trouble.
“Droves are only one of a fucking lot of hostiles out there,” Jackson says. “Downplaying the threat isn’t going to get me to agree.”
I’m frustrated now. Upset at the thought of Molly and how helpless we are against the infection that’s killing her. And angry with Jackson for keeping me from doing what I’m sure we need to do. “I’m not downplaying it,” I say coldly. “I know it’s dangerous. But I don’t think it’s a suicide mission. We have to weigh risks and costs. I think this is worth the risk.”
He thinks for a minute, standing stiffly, one hand fisted at his side. He’s breathing fast and heavy. I know him as well as anyone, but I really have no idea what he’s going to say when he finally speaks. “What about that little store in Chester?”
“What about it? You said it was too dangerous to try to move the rubble.”
A couple of years ago, we ran across an old, local drugstore that looked like it was run over by a truck. The whole building collapsed, and most of the merchandise was looted. But part of the pharmacy section was buried under the rubble. It was possible that there was still unlooted medication beneath the collapsed section of the building, but we weren’t able to safely access it, so we just took the little we could find and moved on.
I actually forgot about it. My heart speeds up as I think about the possibilities.
