I cringed, shoving the paper away from me, back into the dark cupboard.
Those were the exceptions, not the norm, Melanie thought quietly, trying to keep the fresh horror of my reaction from seeping into her memories of those years and recoloring them.
Can you see how we thought we might be able to do better, though? How we could have supposed that maybe you didn’t deserve all the excellent things of this world?
Her answer was acidic. If you wanted to cleanse the planet, you could have blown it up.
Despite what your science fiction writers dream, we simply don’t have the technology.
She didn’t think my joke was funny.
Besides, I added, that would have been such a waste. It’s a lovely planet. This unspeakable desert excepted, of course.
That’s how we realized you were here, you know, she said, thinking of the sickening news headlines again. When the evening news was nothing but inspiring human-interest stories, when pedophiles and junkies were lining up at the hospitals to turn themselves in, when everything morphed into Mayberry, that’s when you tipped your hand.
“What an awful alteration!” I said dryly, turning to the next cupboard.
I pulled the stiff door back and found the mother lode.
“Crackers!” I shouted, seizing the discolored, half-smashed box of Saltines. There was another box behind it, one that looked like someone had stepped on it. “Twinkies!” I crowed.
Look! Melanie urged, pointing a mental finger at three dusty bottles of bleach at the very back of the cupboard.
What do you want bleach for? I asked, already ripping into the cracker box. To throw in someone’s eyes? Or to brain them with the bottle?
To my delight, the crackers, though reduced to crumbs, were still inside their plastic sleeves. I tore one open and started shaking the crumbs into my mouth, swallowing them half chewed. I couldn’t get them into my stomach fast enough.
Open a bottle and smell it, she instructed, ignoring my commentary. That’s how my dad used to store water in the garage. The bleach residue kept the water from growing anything.
In a minute. I finished one sleeve of crumbs and started on the next. They were very stale, but compared to the taste in my mouth, they were ambrosia. When I finished the third, I became aware that the salt was burning the cracks in my lips and at the corners of my mouth.
I heaved out one of the bleach bottles, hoping Melanie was right. My arms felt weak and noodley, barely able to lift it. This concerned us both. How much had our condition deteriorated already? How much farther would we be able to go?
The bottle’s cap was so tight, I wondered if it had melted into place. Finally, though, I was able to twist it off with my teeth. I sniffed at the opening carefully, not especially wanting to pass out from bleach fumes. The chemical scent was very faint. I sniffed deeper. It was water, definitely. Stagnant, musty water, but water all the same. I took a small mouthful. Not a fresh mountain stream, but wet. I started guzzling.
Easy there, Melanie warned me, and I had to agree. We’d lucked into this cache, but it made no sense to squander it. Besides, I wanted something solid now that the salt burn had eased. I turned to the box of Twinkies and licked three of the smooshed-up cakes from the inside of the wrappers.
The last cupboard was empty.
As soon as the hunger pangs had eased slightly, Melanie’s impatience began to leak into my thoughts. Feeling no resistance this time, I quickly loaded my spoils into my pack, pitching the empty water bottles into the sink to make room. The bleach jugs were heavy, but theirs was a comforting weight. It meant I wouldn’t stretch out to sleep on the desert floor thirsty and hungry again tonight. With the sugar energy beginning to buzz through my veins, I loped back out into the bright afternoon.
CHAPTER 12
Failed
It’s impossible! You’ve got it wrong! Out of order! That can’t be it!”
I stared into the distance, sick with disbelief that was turning quickly to horror.
Yesterday morning I’d eaten the last mangled Twinkie for breakfast. Yesterday afternoon I’d found the double peak and turned east again. Melanie had given me what she promised was the last formation to find. The news had made me nearly hysterical with joy. Last night, I’d drunk the last of the water. That was day four.
This morning was a hazy memory of blinding sun and desperate hope. Time was running out, and I’d searched the skyline for the last milestone with a growing sense of panic. I couldn’t see any place where it could fit; the long, flat line of a mesa flanked by blunt peaks on either end, like sentinels. Such a thing would take space, and the mountains to the east and north were thick with toothy points. I couldn’t see where the flat mesa could be hiding between them.
Midmorning—the sun was still in the east, in my eyes—I’d stopped to rest. I’d felt so weak that it frightened me. Every muscle in my body had begun to ache, but it was not from all the walking. I could feel the ache of exertion and also the ache from sleeping on the ground, and these were different from the new ache. My body was drying out, and this ache was my muscles protesting the torture of it. I knew that I couldn’t keep going much longer.
I’d turned my back on the east to get the sun off my face for a moment.
That’s when I’d seen it. The long, flat line of the mesa, unmistakable with the bordering peaks. There it was, so far away in the distant west that it seemed to shimmer above a mirage, floating, hovering over the desert like a dark cloud. Every step we’d walked had been in the wrong direction. The last marker was farther to the west than we’d come in all our journeying.
“Impossible,” I whispered again.