He was five now, older than just about all the kids at the day care. But he was still wetting his bed.
Two big girls had come and taken the singing girl away. Justin had no one to take him away.
But he knew where his house was, his real house with his old bed. He never used to wet that bed. But now he had a stupid bed on the floor, just a mattress, and other kids stepped all over it, so that was probably why he was wetting his bed again.
His old house wasn’t very far away. He’d gone there before. Just to look at it and see if it was real. Because sometimes he didn’t believe it was.
He had gone to check and see if Mommy was there. He hadn’t seen her. And when he opened the door and went inside he had gotten too scared and he had come running back to Mother Mary.
But he was older now. He’d only been four and a half then, and now he was five. Now he probably wouldn’t be scared.
And he probably wouldn’t pee in his bed if he was at his real home.
SIX
57 HOURS, 17 MINUTES
DAYLIGHT, BRIGHT AND clear.
Sam and Astrid walked through the Mall. It didn’t take long. There was the fish stand, already almost bare, with just two small octopi, a dozen or so clams, and a small fish so ugly, no one had yet been brave enough to buy it.
The fish stand was a long folding table dragged from the school cafeteria. Plastic bins were lined up, the gray plastic kind that were used to bus dishes. A droopy cardboard sign held in place by duct tape hung from the front of the table. It read, “Quinn’s Seapreme Seafood.” And below that, in smaller print, “An AlberCo Enterprise.”
“What do you think that fish is?” Sam asked Astrid.
She peered closely at the alleged fish. “I think that’s an example of Pesce inedibilis,” she said.
“Yeah?” Sam made a face. “Do you think it’s okay to eat?”
Astrid sighed theatrically. “Pesce inedibilis? Inedible? Joke, duh. Try to keep up, Sam, I made that really easy for you.”
Sam smiled. “You know, a real genius would have known I wouldn’t get it. Ergo, you are not a real genius. Hah. That’s right: I threw down an ‘ergo.’”
She gave him a pitying look. “That’s very impressive, Sam. Especially from a boy who has twenty-two different uses for the word ‘dude.’”
Sam stopped, took her arm, and spun her toward him. He pulled her close. “Dude,” he whispered in her ear.
“Okay, twenty-three,” Astrid amended. She pushed him away. “I have shopping to do. Do you want to eat, or do you want to…dude?”
“Dude. Always.”
She looked at him critically. “Are you going to tell me why you were covered with mud this morning?”
“I tripped and fell. When I saw the girl, Jill, in the dark, I tripped over my own feet.” Not exactly a lie. Part of the truth. And he would tell her all of the truth just as soon as he’d had a chance to sort it out. It had been a weird, disturbing night: he needed time to think and work out a plan. It was always better to go to the council with a plan worked out; that way, they could just say okay and let him get on with it.
The Mall had been set up on the playground of the school. That way the younger kids could come and play on the equipment while older kids shopped. Or gossiped. Or checked each other out. Sam found himself looking a bit more carefully at the faces. He didn’t really expect to see Brittney walking around here. That was crazy. There had to be some other explanation. But just the same, he kept his eyes peeled.
What he would do if he did actually see a dead girl walking around was something he’d have to think about. As strange as life in the FAYZ could be, that was still one problem he hadn’t had to face.
In no particular order the Mall consisted of Quinn’s Seapreme Seafood; the produce stand named Gifts of the Worm; a bookstall identified as the Cracked Spine; the fly-covered stall of Meats of Mystery; Totally Solar—where two enterprising kids had scrounged a half dozen solar panels and would use them to charge batteries; the Sux Xchange where toys and clothing and miscellaneous junk were bartered and sold.
A wood-fired barbecue grill had been set up a little apart. You could take your fish or meat or vegetables there and have them cooked for a small charge. Once grilled over the coals, pretty much everything—venison, raccoon, pigeon, rat, coyote—tasted the same: smoky and burned. But none of the stoves or microwaves worked anymore, and there was no more cooking oil, certainly no more butter, so even the kids who chose to cook their own food ended up duplicating the same experience. The only alternative was boiling, and the two girls who ran the place kept a big pot simmering. But everyone agreed that grilled rat was far superior to boiled.
The “restaurant” changed names every few days. It had already been Smokey Sue’s, Perdido I Can’t Believe It’s Not Pizza Kitchen, Eat and Urp, In ’n’ Get Out, Smokey Tom’s, and Le Grand Barbecue. Today the sign read “WTF?” and in smaller letters, “What the Food?”
Kids lounged at two of the three rickety dining tables, chairs tilted back, feet up. Some were eating, some just hanging out. They looked like a junior version of some kind of end-of-the-world movie, Sam thought, not for the first time. Armed, dressed in bizarre outfits, topped with strange hats, men’s clothing, women’s clothing, tablecloth capes, barefoot or wearing ill-fitting shoes.
Drinkable water now had to be trucked from the half-empty reservoir up in the hills outside of town. Gasoline was strictly rationed so that the water trucks could be kept running as long as possible. The Council had a plan for when the last of the gas was gone: relocate everyone to the reservoir. If there was still any water there.