Contaminated by Megan E. Hart

Author:Megan E. Hart [Hart, Megan E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Howling Unicorn Press

Chapter

Twenty-Nine

I don’t turn. One foot in front of the other, I keep a steady pace, heading for the back roads and not the highway, which would be the shorter route home. It’s not illegal to walk, I remind myself. They have no reason to detain me.

No reason to test.

My feet move faster, no matter how hard I try not to run. If I can get beyond this house, I’ll be out of sight and able to dodge through the fields. My breath catches in my throat as I quickstep through the unmown yard and around the side of the small, shabby building.

The timid rap of fingertips on the glass storm door straightens me up. The woman inside wears a collar and a shapeless housedress. She’s bald, but in patches, and as I watch, she uses the hand she’s not tapping the glass with to tug out another few strands of her hair. She lets them fall to the floor without looking at them and reaches for another.

I don’t wait around to see more than that.

I’m so late getting home that Dillon’s already back from work. He can see something’s wrong, but we both put on brave faces for Mom and Opal as I unload the rations. Quickly, in the privacy of the pantry, I tell him about the near-riot. I describe the woman who wanted peanut butter.

“It was ours, Dillon. I couldn’t let her just take it.”

He frowns. “You should be more careful. Next time, I’ll go.”

“You can’t miss work.”

In order to qualify for benefits, someone in the household has to work at one of the designated work details. People still eat and drink and poop and throw stuff away. Even with so many of us gone, there are more people using up the resources than there are people to provide them. Dillon’s been assigned to garbage detail. Despite the way the world has turned, lots of people are still wasteful. Yesterday, he brought home a bagful of sweaters and old jeans that Opal will be able to grow into.

“If something happened to you…” he trails off, his voice tight.

He doesn’t have to say more. We haven’t been able to find out where his parents were taken, or if they’re even still alive. Me, Mom, and Opal—we’re all Dillon has.

“I’ll get dinner started,” I say, hesitant. Wishing I could do more for him. Be more to him.

After dinner, Dillon helps Opal with her schoolwork. Everyone else in this house is more patient with Opal than I am. They work on math problems far more useful than any I ever learned in school. Instead of lame story problems about two trains meeting, he quizzes Opal on converting measurements and figuring out how much square footage of garden plots you need in order to plant a certain number of seeds. Mom works on a pair of soft, thick socks she’s knitting from the yarn she pulled from an old baby blanket. I go upstairs.

When I come out of the bathroom, after a

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.