I shook my head, trying to make any sense at all of what this kid was saying. I looked at him a little closer, trying to figure out if maybe he’d lost his marbles, being alone for these last couple months. But he seemed mostly normal, if not a bit too thin, even for someone who was on a survivor’s diet.
“I’m not one of anything. I’m just me, trying to find some food. I’m tired of noodles and beans, that’s all. But I’ll go back to my house now and leave you alone.”
“Ha! So you can come back at night and eat my heart? I don’t think so.”
I smiled. This kid had no idea who he was messing with. The only reason I hadn’t taken that gun away from him and immobilized him with a quick jab to the throat was because I didn’t want him freaking out any more than he already was. Plus, I hated hurting people who were nearly half my size and almost that small in weight. “Dude, what are you going to do? Shoot me?”
“Maybe,” he said, stubbornly.
“Yeah, right. I don’t think so. Not today, anyway.” I turned to go.
“Wait!” he said, a desperate tone in his voice.
“What?” I said, half turning.
“Did you say you have noodles?”
“Yeah. So?”
“I have sauce.”
My eyes widened. Sauce on noodles sounded like a ten-course meal at the fanciest restaurant in the entire world to me right now.
“You lie,” I accused. I wasn’t sure what his game was, but I wasn’t interested in playing. Who would have spaghetti sauce left in times like these? At this point, the only thing anyone had was the crap no one wanted to eat.
“No. It’s back in the other room. I’ll show you, if you agree to share your noodles.”
I thought about it for a second. Noodles and sauce. It would almost be like a normal meal. My earlier ideas about not eating any more starch seemed not so important anymore. Plus, I could just eat the sauce plain if I didn’t feel like having the noodles.
“Fine. I’ll trade. No need to show me, I trust you.” The kid didn’t look like he could hurt a fly, and I had no doubt that I could protect myself against him, gun or no gun. I tried not to think about the man responsible for my confidence because it would only make me upset to think about him being gone.
“No, not a trade. We combine.”
“Sure, whatever. Where?”
This was the sticky part. If we were going to eat together, one of us would have to abandon our house - which meant it would become a target for one of the gangs. They had too many eyes on the comings and goings of people in the streets to fool for long. I feared leaving my house for anything these days. Even now, for this, I had taken a chance.
“Backyards. At the fence. You cook the noodles and bring them. I’ll bring the sauce. We’ll divide it in half.”
“I should get more than you. I’m taller and heavier,” I said. I was guessing this twerp was about twelve, just the age that had saved him - or cursed him, depending on how you looked at it. Anyone not in the middle of puberty was long dead. Those furthest away from it had gone first, the old people and the babies.
“No. Even split, fifty-fifty. I need the calories.”
“Fine. Whatever. What time?”
“One hour.”
I shrugged. Dinner for breakfast. But it was still early enough that I felt relatively safe going out of my house just to my yard. And at this point, I was no longer recognizing foods as appropriate for certain times of day. I ate when I was hungry, and I ate what was at hand.
“See you then.” I left his house without looking back, not really worried that he was going to shoot me in the back. He knew I had pasta now, so I was a valuable friend to have. At least until it was gone.
***
I cooked the pasta using the gas stove in my kitchen, using as little water as possible. Since entering survivor mode, I always drank the pasta water after it was done cooking, even though it was pretty gross. It was a precious resource I couldn’t afford to dump down the drain. Today I put it into two glasses - one for me and one for the kid living behind me.
An hour after our meeting, I snuck out my back door, now doubly nervous about being seen. I still wasn’t completely convinced this kid was telling the truth about his sauce, and it was getting closer to the time that the raiders would be waking up. I had to be back inside before anyone came looking in my windows.
I got to the fence and whispered, “Are you here?”
“Yes,” came his response.
I held up the bowl of rigatoni that I had cooked, bringing it level with the top of the fence. “Here’s the pasta. Put the sauce in.”
I heard some noise on the other side of the fence and then something hit the side of the bowl.
A few seconds later he said, “There. I’m done.”
I pulled the bowl back down, and sure enough, a big blob of sauce sat on the top of my sad-looking noodles. I smelled it and nearly swooned at the tomatoey goodness. I didn’t care one bit that it was cold.
“Do you have a bowl?” I asked.
A plastic cereal bowl with a built-in straw on it appeared at the top of the fence. I poured half of the pasta inside it and passed it back over, wondering if he’d slurp the sauce up when he was done with that straw. My dad would have written that off as a germ catcher and something to be avoided. Straws were a bad idea if you were trying not to die of food poisoning and had no way of washing them out well.
“I have water for you too, if you want it. It’s kind of starchy since I cooked the noodles in it.”
“I’ll take it,” he said in a quiet voice.
I passed the small plastic cup of water over to him and felt, for the briefest of moments, a tremble in his hands as he took it from me.
“See ya,” he said.
“Wait!” I said, not even sure why I wanted him to hang around. Being outside and not inside guarding our houses was risky. If anyone caught a whiff of our meal we’d be toast.“What? I have to get back inside.”
“I know, me too. I just wanted to ask you what your name is.”
“Peter. What’s yours?”
“Bryn.”
“Bryn. Is that short for anything?”
“No. Just Bryn.”
“Oh. Okay. See ya, Bryn.”
“See ya, Peter.”
I returned to my house to eat my breakfast of rigatoni and sauce, scarfing more than half of it down before I’d even reached my back door.
***
It was five in the morning the next day when I happened to look out into my backyard and saw Peter’s head at the top of our fence. His eyes had not yet gotten over the edge. Whatever he was standing on wasn’t high enough to get him there.
I opened the back door slowly, not ready to let him know he’d been seen. I stayed close to the back of my house and then carefully crept down the side fence that divided my yard from the Slotnik’s - my former next door neighbors. Their place was unoccupied and long since emptied. I’d heard it being raided on more than once occasion - the sounds were unmistakable and almost always included breaking glass.
I reached the spot where I’d seen Peter’s head and jumped up, grabbing the top of the fence with my hands and lifting myself in one swift motion. I thought a surprise attack might be my best bet.
Peter’s face showed a split second of abject fear before he lost his balance and fell backwards onto his weedy grass, yelling as he went.
I was surprised at first, then worried. He’d been too loud. Now anyone around would know he wasn’t inside.
“Get back into your house, you idiot!” I said in a low but urgent voice.
“I need to talk to you!” he said from his butt on the ground.
“Later. At six. Make sure no one’s out first, though.” I wanted to be certain no one had heard us and was coming to investigate a possible empty house before we spent too much time outside again.
“Okay,” he said, as he got to his feet and scrambled off, disappearing into his back door.
I looked at the vinyl and metal kitchen dining set chair that was lying on its side in the bushes below. The goof was going to totally give us away leaving crap like that lying around. I pulled myself the rest of the way over into his yard, just long enough to grab that chair and wing it over towards his back door, before jumping back over to my side and running to my house.
I got inside and locked the door, breathing heavily. It became clear to me as my chest heaved in and out that I’d lost a little bit of my cardiovascular strength, staying in this house all day all the time; so I made a pact with myself to start doing what I could to rectify that situation.
I looked at my watch. Fifty-one minutes until our meeting. Time to do some pushups and pull-ups, then some basics to keep my krav maga up to par. My dad would have been proud to see me pushing myself like this and that made it easier.
***
At six o’clock on the dot I went out into my backyard again, only this time I didn’t bother with the sneaking stuff. I realized now that surprising Peter had been a bad idea. The doofus had a huge gun and was easily startled. I hated my life, but that didn’t mean I wanted another hole put in my head.
Peter was waiting at the fence, this time his head coming up about four inches higher than the last time. I jumped up and pulled myself to the top with my biceps, only shaking a little at the muscle fatigue I’d caused with my hour-long workout. As my eyes cleared the edge of the jagged wood plank, I looked over the edge at his feet.
I was laughing so hard, I had to drop back down. My muscles had turned to jelly.
“Shut up,” he said.
“Dude,” I gasped, bent over to catch my breath, “you’re wearing ladies heels. What do you expect me to do?”
“It’s the only way I could get high enough to see over the fence.”
I tried really hard to stop laughing, but I couldn’t. I hadn’t seen anything that funny in months. They were electric red and about three sizes too big for him. Whoever had owned them had been one hell of a large woman.
“Seriously, shut up. Someone’s going to hear you. The canners.”
I finally calmed down, that stupid word he kept saying being the thing that got my attention enough to control my hysteria. “Why do you keep saying that? Canners. What the hell is it?”
“You don’t know?”
“Obviously not, since I’m asking you.” I wondered how much time this guy had spent in the company of others before the end of the world as we knew it had come. He seemed a bit off.
“Kids who eat other kids. Cannibals.”
It took my brain a few seconds to process that one. “Say what now?”
“You heard me. Cannibals.”
“Peter, are you feeling okay? Did you drink some bad water? You know you either have to heat it up or bleach it before you drink it.”
He sighed loudly. “Don’t believe me if you don’t want to, but I know what I know. I’ve seen things,” he said mysteriously. “I just wanted to talk to you about maybe joining forces.”
“No,” I said immediately. I didn’t even have to think about that one. “I’m not into joining gangs.” I knew I was much better off with only myself to worry about, especially since this Peter kid was obviously one pork chop shy of a mixed grill.
“I’m not talking about a gang. A gang implies several people. I’m talking about just two: you and me.”
“I don’t need a gang,” I said simply. And it was true. I had never needed much companionship before, and I didn’t miss it now. I could run faster than any girl I knew and I could beat down any moron that tried to get a jump on me, thanks to my dad and his passion for krav maga. The last thing I needed was a kid who was afraid of his own shadow hanging around with me, attracting all kinds of unwanted attention.