Not a Drop to Drink

Seventeen

She crept down the staircase quietly, dodging the patches of late afternoon light in the living room and slinking into the kitchen. Eli was already downstairs; she could hear his muted voice in conversation with Neva, her tone pitched high with concern. Lynn edged down the steps, handed the thermometer silently to Neva and reached past Eli for her handgun.

“There’s someone outside,” she whispered to him. He tensed but didn’t look away from the cot where Lucy lay, her arm dangling over the side. Neva had to hold her jaw shut to use the thermometer; Lucy was too weak to close her own mouth.

“Where?”

“On the roof, for sure. I’m betting more,” Lynn answered quietly, but with her eyes on Stebbs. He noticed and joined their group at the foot of the stairs.

“What?”

“Men on the roof,” Eli said, his voice pitched low to not alarm Neva. “What do we do?”

“Not much we can do. They already have higher ground. You run out there firing and they’ll pick you off.”

“Only if he’s a good shot,” Lynn countered.

“Assume he is. Put down the gun.”

She didn’t move. “They’re not taking my house.”

“I’m guessing they don’t want it,” Stebbs said evenly. “They didn’t meet any resistance coming in. They have the advantage but aren’t pressing it.”

“So what do they want?” Eli asked.

“We go find out.” Stebbs gave Lynn a hard look and peeled her fingers off the gun. “You going to keep your head on straight?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Don’t look like it. You go out first, keep your hands up where they can see them. I’ll follow her, and Eli you come last. Be calm, no reason to upset Neva just yet.”

Lynn glanced back at the cot before leaving. Water from the cloth on her forehead was streaming down Lucy’s face, matching the tears on Neva’s. “Hold on, kiddo,” she said quietly. “We’ll be right back.”

She climbed the stairs stiffly, every nerve in her body protesting the absence of her gun. The door creaked open and she walked into the sunlight, both hands open and visible. Three armed men stood in the yard, a woman kneeling in the mud in front of them, a noose around her neck. Lynn walked forward cautiously, highly conscious of the man on the roof and the prickle of hairs on her neck telling her that his crosshairs were focused there.

“Get off my roof,” she said.

One of the men spat on the ground and smiled at her, showing off gaps in his teeth. “That the way you greet your neighbors?”

“Neighbors that drag a woman around by her neck, yes.”

“Lynn,” Stebbs said quietly in warning as he stepped from the doorway. Eli emerged behind him, his hands held up as well. His eyes were on Lynn, a mute entreaty to keep her mouth shut, until he spotted the woman.

“Vera!”

She jerked at the sound of her name, raising her head and allowing Lynn a good look. She didn’t need Eli to tell her this was Neva’s mother. Her black hair was streaked with gray, the lines in her face were delicate and flattering, a perfect image of what Neva would look like in the future. Except that the light flashing in her eyes was fierce, the determination to live imprinted clearly.

“You got nothing to say to her just yet,” Gap Tooth said to Eli. “I’m the one talking right now.”

“I got a thing or two to say to that one,” a man wearing a blue coat said, nodding at Lynn from his position by Neva’s side. “She killed two of my friends.”

“I see you brought me more.”

“Enough,” Stebbs said sharply. “What do you want from us?”

“Don’t want nothing with you, old man,” Gap Tooth said. “We went to make a trade with your pretty boy there, but he wasn’t home. Thought maybe he was making time with the girl, and here we are.”

One of the men standing with Vera, who wore a green hat, spoke up. “Where’s the little one?”

“She’s busy dying,” Lynn said coldly.

He looked down at his feet, but not before she caught the flicker of shame in his eyes. “I’m sorry for that.”

Vera moaned and her eyes moved to Lynn, a pleading question there that she couldn’t answer. Lynn looked away, swallowing hard. “What’s your trade?”

“Our business ain’t with you,” Gap Tooth said.

“You’re on my property, and I’m the one asking.”

“Goddamn girl, you ain’t learned friendly yet, have ya?”

Blue Coat fingered his crotch. “I’ll teach her, before we leave.”

Eli crossed the distance between them before the men had the chance to cock their guns and delivered a chop to his neck that brought Blue Coat to the ground, gasping. The guns turned on Eli, and he put his hands back in the air. “You came to trade, make a trade. He talks with his dick again, he loses it.”

Gap Tooth considered his comrade, still fighting for air and curled into the fetal position. He lowered his gun. “We want your fancy girl. Even trade for her momma.”

“No,” Lynn said without hesitation. “I won’t trade a friend for a stranger.”

“Ain’t your call, girlie.”

Eli stood shivering in the chill, his hands still in the air. “She isn’t mine to trade. I don’t own her.”

“I’ve got food,” Stebbs said quickly. “Vegetables, fruit, water. Whatever you need.”

“We got water and I ain’t hungry, not in that way.”

The back door burst open, all guns changed their positions, and Vera yelped at the sight of her daughter. “Her temp is a hundred and four, I need—” Neva jerked to a halt when she saw the men.

“Neva,” Eli said carefully, “we need to—”

“Mother!” Neva cried, lurching toward her despite the guns pointed at her. She fell to her knees beside the older woman, tears falling openly. Her fingers wrapped around the noose and began pulling it over Vera’s head.

“Hold on there, missy,” Blue Coat said, his hand stopping hers. “We ain’t done negotiating.”

“Negotiating for what?”

“Neva, honey,” Vera said calmly. “Listen to me—”

“It’s simple, fancy lady,” Gap Tooth said. “You come with us, and we leave your mother.”

Neva held her mother’s bound hands in her own, her face blank as she stared back at him.

Lynn edged toward them, hands still in the air. “Neva, you don’t have to—”

Blue Coat swung his gun on her. “Shut it.”

“I’ll go,” Neva said, glancing at Lynn. The rush of energy from Neva that Lucy’s sickness spurred had turned into a cold determination, and Lynn barely recognized the eyes staring back at her from the other woman’s face.

“Eli, get my coat,” Neva said.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he answered.

“Get her coat or she goes cold,” Gap Tooth said.

“Lynn,” Neva said, her eyes boring into Lynn’s, “take care of my sick baby.” Every word punched through the protest Lynn had already formed. Lynn’s rage had kept her from seeing what Neva knew too well; Vera was a doctor, and Lucy needed her badly. More than she needed her mother. If the men knew Vera’s skill they would never trade her, no matter how badly they wanted Neva.

“Eli,” Lynn spoke slowly, disbelieving her own words. “Get Neva’s coat.”

When he didn’t move, Lynn broke Neva’s gaze and glanced at him. He searched her face for a moment and Lynn knew he was weighing the fates of Lucy and Neva in the moment before he went to get Neva’s coat, head down. Neva bent to take the noose off her mother, but Blue Coat jerked her to the ground and began tying her hands before she could. Lynn winced, fury at her inability to stop them boiled over.

“You should know that I’ll kill you all, and soon,” she said.

“Them’s big words, little girl, when I’m up here,” the man on the roof said.

“My voice carried though, didn’t it?”

“Now that looks good on you, Fancy,” Blue Coat said to Neva as he tightened the noose around her throat. “Don’t go running off on me now.” He kicked Vera in the ribs and she fell to her side in the mud. “Been nice knowing you, looking forward to getting to know your daughter just as well.”

Vera remained facedown in the mud, refusing to look at him. Neva kept her eyes on the ground, ignoring Eli as he put her coat around her shoulders. The man on the roof clambered down the antennae, keeping his rifle on Stebbs and Lynn as he backed away. The three others followed, Blue Coat dragging Neva to her feet; Green Hat steadied her when she tripped.

“Tell Lucy I love her,” Neva said to Lynn as she walked past. Lynn’s throat closed up, not allowing her to speak. She only nodded in response, and the figures grew smaller as they moved away, the man from the roof continuing to cover them with his rifle.

“Ma’am, I know it’s been a hell of a morning,” Stebbs said, kneeling in the mud next to Vera, “but we’ve got something to ask of you.”

“Lucy’s sick,” Eli said. “Bad.”

Stebbs cut the rope holding Vera’s hands together, and she rubbed her wrists. “Where is she?” she asked.

“Downstairs.” Stebbs helped her to her feet. “It happened overnight.” He explained as they moved into the basement and gathered around Lucy’s cot. No one noticed when Lynn quietly picked up her rifle and left.

The four figures were easy to spot from the roof. Gap Tooth led, with Blue Coat dragging Neva behind him, and Green Hat walking beside her. The man from the roof had turned his back on the house, assuming he was clear of her range. He wasn’t, but Lynn knew she couldn’t make four clean shots before one of them got to Neva to retaliate. All she could do was watch.

Neva stumbled awkwardly over the rough fields, lost her balance, and fell on all fours. Her coat slid off her shoulders as she struggled to her knees. The noose pulled tight, and Blue Coat turned around just in time to see Neva put the derringer to her temple. Lynn saw her body slump sideways before the sound of the gunshot reached her, a flat snap that could have been mistaken for the breaking of a twig.

Blue Coat turned in time for blood to spray his jeans, and he kicked Neva’s lifeless body. Wrath rose in Lynn’s throat so thickly she nearly choked on it as the other men pulled him off Neva. He turned back to the house, drawing his finger across his throat in an unmistakable gesture. Lynn’s finger curled around the trigger, the need to add a dead body next to Neva’s so deep that it almost won over her common sense. Mother could have taken them down at that range, but Lynn wasn’t confident and a wasted bullet would bring all four of them fanning back around the house, and trouble to Lucy’s bedside at a time when every second counted.

But they went south instead of carrying out the threat. Now that Lynn had the high ground and they’d lost the element of surprise, the odds were against them. Green Hat waited until the other men had put some distance between themselves and the body before he knelt down and covered Neva’s face with her coat.

Lynn was numb as she fumbled with the door, the image of Neva’s lifeless body lying alone in the frozen field stamped on her brain.

“Stebbs,” Lynn called down the steps. “I need you out here.”

He came to the bottom of the stairs. “What?”

“Up here,” she said. He climbed the steps and shut the door behind him when he saw the look on her face.

“Neva’s dead.”

“How?”

“Did for herself, with the derringer I gave her. Not long after they walked off. They left her out in the field.”

Stebbs sat down on the stone steps, resting his head in his hands.

“What do we do?” Lynn asked.

“We’ll have to go get her, but right now we’ve got worse problems.”

“How bad is Lucy?”

“I don’t know much about sickness, but by the look on her grandma’s face, I’d say it’s bad.”

Lynn sat beside him, ignoring the freezing water that soaked through her jeans. “What do we do?”

Stebbs put his arm around her, and she leaned into him. “Kiddo, you and me don’t do so well in situations we can’t control. There’s nothing you could’ve done for Neva, and we can’t help Lucy now. It’s not up to us.”

She rested her head on his shoulder, tears of futility pricking at her eyes. “Don’t think I care for that.”

The door burst open behind them, and Vera ripped past, Lucy’s shaking, naked body clutched in her arms.

“Jesus, woman!” Stebbs yelled.

“She’s seizing!” Vera screamed, and disappeared over the bank of the pond. They ran after her, Eli on their heels, and crested the bank to see Vera plunge the white form into the icy blackness of the pond.

Lucy’s eyes snapped open and she screamed, scratching frantically at the strong arms holding her body under the water. Lynn grabbed Vera and yanked her backward, but her strength was outmatched by the older woman’s determination. She landed on her back, the wind knocked out of her.

“Get off me!” Vera yelled. “We break the fever or she dies.”

Lucy kicked weakly, her efforts sending ripples through the water that broke against the ice still covering the depths. Vera pulled her out, and her limbs fell limply to the side, spraying Lynn’s face with freezing droplets.

“Take her,” Vera handed her off to Eli, who raced back inside.

Vera slumped next to Lynn on the bank, clutching her wet arms to her sides. “It was the only thing I could think of,” she said. “Once the fever gets past a hundred and five there can be serious brain damage. I had to cool her, fast.”

“Did it work?” Stebbs asked.

“She stopped seizing, but it will spike again.”

“What’s wrong with her?” Lynn asked.

“I’m guessing it’s a bacterial infection, though it could be viral. Her medical history makes me think the former; she’s always been susceptible to the bacterial kind.”

“Neva said Lucy’s fevers always went real high,” Stebbs said.

“Some people’s bodies burn higher than others.” Vera rose to her feet, looking at the ice crystals re-forming where she’d broken through with Lucy’s frail body. “It’ll spike again, and I’ll have to dunk her.”

“I have some medicine,” Lynn said. “It’s mostly expired, but there is some aspirin. That can bring down a fever, can’t it?”

“It can, but if it’s old it can’t do much against what she’s facing. It’s probably too much to hope that you have some antibiotics?”

Lynn shook her head and followed Vera as she started back to the house and her patient, wet arms clutched against the rising wind. The older woman kicked in anger at a frozen clod of dirt. “I smuggled some medicine out of the city when I went, but I hid my pack when I ran into those men on the road.”

“Is it far?”

“Too far on foot to do Lucy much good. They picked me up in their truck and we drove a while before we got to their camp.”

“How long?”

Vera gave a shudder that had nothing to do with the temperature. “Long time.”

“Did you have a general sense of direction? Could you find it again?”

Lynn opened the door for Vera and they descended into the basement together. Eli had wrapped Lucy in the extra blankets and had her lying in the cot near the fire. Vera put her hand on her forehead, frowning. “I had a compass on me, and a map. They took them both. I know we traveled east to get here, and I could recognize the area again. By the time we found the meds and came back though, it would be too late.”

“I have a truck,” Lynn said. “I’ll drive you.”

Vera tucked the blankets tightly around her granddaughter, her decision made the second she put her hand against Lucy’s burning flesh. “We leave now. Eli—stay close to Lucy. If she seizes again, you’ll have to dunk her. I know it’s ugly, but it’s the only way to keep her temp down. Let me see those aspirin.”

Lynn handed the coveted bottle over to Vera, ashamed at the rattling of so few pills inside.

“These are years past effectiveness,” Vera said critically. “Usually I’d say the drug is broken down past any use, but we don’t have a lot of options.” She handed the bottle to Eli. “Crush up two of these and mix it with some water, try to get Lucy to drink it. You—” She pointed to Stebbs. “Strip the other cot and start some water boiling so there will be clean bedding ready. And keep the water boiling to sterilize the dirty. If this fever breaks, she’ll be covered in sweat, and vomiting will probably follow. That’s the best-case scenario.”

“What’s the worst case?” Stebbs asked.

“It doesn’t break.”

The truck started without a problem, and Lynn let out a sigh of relief.

“You were worried?” Vera asked.

“Don’t drive much, except for emergencies,” she answered. “Truck doesn’t always want to start up, and that’s the kind of day it’s been.”

“Right.”

Lynn headed straight west, her hands drumming against the wheel in an effort to channel her energy. Words bubbled up from her chest, looking for an outlet. “We’re lucky they didn’t come until after the melt. Even in this truck we couldn’t have managed the roads in all that snow.” The idea that something as simple as a snowmelt could dictate whether Lucy lived or died left her feeling shaky and unanchored.

“They talked about coming sooner,” Vera said calmly. “But Roger—the one who did all the talking—”

“Gap Tooth?” Vera gave her a blank look. “The one missing teeth?”

“Yes—that’s Roger. He said they should wait. They wanted Neva, but they knew they would have to take you by surprise. If they used the trucks, you’d hear the engine and be on the roof in a second, and they couldn’t make the walk until the snow melted a little. Roger said from what they knew of you they had no guarantee you wouldn’t shoot us all, including me.”

“A couple of months ago, I might’ve,” Lynn admitted.

“How did Lucy end up with you?”

Lynn was quiet for a moment, weighing her words. Vera still didn’t know Neva was dead, and it would fall to her to tell her.

“They couldn’t care for her,” she said slowly. “Surviving out here is hard, and they weren’t ready for the weather. They thought they’d have shelter sooner.”

“Why didn’t they? It seems like there’s plenty of abandoned houses around.”

“Their original plan was to stay in my house, near a source of water. When they saw I was there, they knew they couldn’t take it. They were worn down and weak. Neva didn’t want to leave the stream, so they stayed there.”

“Living where?”

“Eli did a decent job of building them a little shelter. Stebbs—that’s the man back at my house—he talked me into coming over and visiting them. Eli and Neva decided that Lucy would be better off with me.”

“They should have never tried it,” Vera said, placing her hand against the passenger window and splaying her fingers. “I could’ve aborted her pregnancy and they would’ve stayed in the city.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Neva wouldn’t do it. She said she’d rather have her baby out here than stay in the city and give it up.”

“She lost it,” Lynn said. “It was a boy.”

“Carried to term?”

“Uh . . .”

“Was she really big when she had the baby? Was the baby fully formed?”

Lynn remembered the fading warmth in the little bundle that Stebbs had handed her, and Eli unwrapping it to see whether he’d had a niece or a nephew.

“I think it was, yeah.”

Lynn thought about Neva’s hunched form at the tiny grave, faithfully visiting every day no matter how cold it was. The same determination had been in her face as she traded her life for her daughter’s, and Lynn felt her gut twist at the thought that Neva had known what she was about to do even as she walked away.

They drove through a crossroads, Lynn blithely ignoring the stop sign at the corner. “There’s a town up here, to the south, but it’s abandoned. Was there anything like that where you were?” She didn’t know if prompting Vera would help or hurt, but blind driving would get them nowhere. Lucy’s chances dipped with the sun and every turn of the tires.

“I don’t remember any towns. I was in the bed of the truck, most of the time, and on my back, but I had a little peripheral vision and I wasn’t looking anywhere else.”

Lynn’s stomach rolled at the implications. “If you didn’t see much, it probably was west. There’s not a lot in this direction.”

They drove a while in silence. Lynn’s hands were tight on the steering wheel, her knuckles white. “Any of this looking familiar? Are we too far out?”

Vera stared out her window, shaking her head. “Nothing looks right, but I think we were farther out than this. I do remember seeing a church spire, and thinking it was odd to see a church that big out here in the middle of nowhere.”

“Was it white?”

“Yes, but the bell had fallen out and crashed down the front of the tower.”

Hope blossomed in her chest like a crocus pushing through the winter’s ice, and Lynn swung to the right. “I know that place, it’s the old Methodist church. When I was really little, Mother used to take me hunting with her, ’cause she was afraid I’d wander outside alone if she left me behind. She’d hunt there for wild turkeys. The bell was still hanging then.”

“Your mother?”

“Gone now,” Lynn answered. “This past fall.”

“I’m sorry.”

Lynn drove fast in the fading light, scanning the horizon for the spire of the church. She hadn’t been this far from home since Mother had brought her out as a child, and though her sense of direction was keen, she didn’t trust her distant memories in the dark.

“I need to tell you something,” Lynn said. “About Neva.”

“I can’t think about her right now,” Vera said. “I can’t stop what they’re doing to her. It’s best to focus on Lucy and something I can help.”

“She’s dead.”

“What?” For the first time, Vera looked away from the window, her strong composure breaking with the single syllable.

“She shot herself in the field, not long after they took her.”

Vera closed her eyes and rested her head against the cold glass. “Neva, my poor girl. I’m so sorry, baby.”

Tears pricked at Lynn’s eyes and she stared ahead, uncomfortable in the small truck cab with Vera’s mourning. The church spire stood black against the setting sun, the red rays of evening pouring through the hole that the falling bell had torn.

“Here’s the church,” she said, driving past slowly. “Do you know where you are now?”

Vera opened her eyes and wiped away a few stray tears. She cleared her throat. “I wasn’t far from here, there was a little cemetery around the corner. I had just passed it when I heard their truck coming. I was smart enough to hide my pack behind a tombstone, but stupid enough to not hide myself. I was hoping I’d be able to get a ride.”

“It’s not like the city out here,” Lynn said. “You’re better off to distrust everyone at first and make them earn it.”

“Then it’s exactly like the city.”

Lynn drove to the little cemetery silently, parking so that the headlights cut across the graves, giving the stones long, black shadows.

“You remember which one?”

“I’ve got a general idea,” Vera said as she opened her door. “Everything was in my backpack and I ditched the whole thing.”

“They didn’t think it was odd you were traveling empty-handed?”

“They weren’t thinking with their brains once they caught me.”

Vera and Lynn fanned out through the center section of the graveyard in the long evening shadows. Lynn’s feet sank into the soft ground as she walked. The backpack was hunched sadly against the back of a leaning tombstone, the underside dark with moisture. “Got it,” she called out, hefting the backpack up with one hand.

“Careful,” Vera called out. “There are syringes in there. If they break, it’s pointless.”

Lynn handed the pack over to Vera and watched as she checked the contents. “They’re injectable liquids, we’ll have to hope they haven’t frozen since I left this behind.”

“Will they still work?”

Vera shrugged. “Only thing we can do is inject her and wait.”

They headed south, Lynn’s foot heavy on the pedal now that they weren’t looking for landmarks anymore. Full dark fell, and she noticed that Vera tensed every time they flew through a crossroads.

“Sorry,” she said when she noticed Lynn looking at her. “It’s an old habit. When I see a stop sign, I still think ‘stop.’”

“Mother used to stop at every one,” Lynn said, smiling. “She said running them felt wrong.”

“It’s a different world now,” Neva said. “I am sorry about your mother.”

“I’m sorry about your daughter.”

“Right now, I’ll concentrate on saving Lucy, and mourn later.”

Lynn sped up.