The Survivors (Book 1): Summer (28 page)

"
A’yup, and watermelon."  Skylar beamed with pride as she rolled the massive melon along the bench and up onto the chopping board.

"
That thing is huge, Skye.  Think I should get the axe?"  I was only half kidding.  The thing really was ridiculously enormous.  She actually paused to consider that option too, before shaking her head firmly.  

"
Nah, I don’t want anything that touched that gross pig anywhere near my watermelon.  Ry, come hold this while I get the knife."

"
Oh god, I’m going to get killed, aren’t I?"  Ryan laughed cheerfully as he trundled over to do her bidding.

I couldn’t help but join in the laughter.
 "Well, I’ll leave you two to it, then.  Have either of you seen Maddy?"

"
Not recently."  Skylar shrugged, unconcerned.  In the three days that we’d been in the area, we had yet to see a single thing that even remotely resembled a threat.  "She followed us towards the garden, but scampered off while we were picking veggies.  I figured she must have gotten bored and come home."

"
Sweet as, I’ll go find her.  Doc says it’s time to come in out of the sun."  I waved to them both and headed out.  My first port of call was to head upstairs and check her room, but when I got there the room was empty.

"
Made-line?" I called as I wandered through our little fortress, sticking my head into each room to check for her.  After a few minutes, I came to the conclusion that she wasn’t inside.  Although I felt a brief stab of concern, I fought it back down and convinced myself that wherever she was, she was probably just fine.

She’ll just be off playing somewhere,
I decided as I headed back downstairs to fetch my hat.  The sun was so intense that I didn’t really want to go back out into it, but I had my orders.  

As I crossed the threshold from the lobby to the street outside, the heat hit me like a wall.
 I lifted a hand to shade my eyes as I peered up and down the street, and called the girl’s name again.  No answer.

If I w
ere a kid, where would I go?

I thought about it for a minute, and ran over the options the town had to offer that would interest a seven-year-old.
 There weren’t many places to play here, except–

With a flash of cognition, I snapped my fingers and jogged off in the direction of the old primary school not too far from our base of operations.
 If I remembered correctly, the place had an extensive but overgrown playground in the yard.  If I were a bored child, that was definitely where I’d go.

I ducked down a weed-choked walkway that ran between two houses, a pathway that
had once been used by children as a shortcut to their school.  The homes had big, old trees in the yard, with branches that hung so low that I had to duck beneath them as they tried to snatch away my hat, but the shade was a welcome respite from the intensity of the midsummer sun.  At the far end of the corridor, I emerged from beneath the trees and stood squinting in the bright daylight.

Sure enough, there was a little figure playing on the swings.
 As I drew closer, I could hear her chattering away to someone or something I couldn’t see.  Since there was no reply, I assumed she was just talking to her dolls.

"
Hey, Maddy," I called to her as I crossed the overgrown field, following her path of crushed grass towards the swings.  Surprised, she turned around to look at me.  After a second she waved happily, and beckoned me over.

"
Miss Sandy, look, look what I found.  Look!"  She squealed gleefully and pointed to a climbing frame nearby.  I followed her finger with my eye and looked up.

Lo and behold, who was sitting up there but my little friend Tigger.
 She’d grown a lot in the two weeks I’d been gone and now lay basking contentedly in the sunshine.

"
Well, look at that."  I grinned, pleased to see the little housecat was fine.  I may or may not have been a little bit worried about her while I was away, so it was a relief to see she had stayed happy and healthy in my absence.

"
It’s so cute!"  Maddy twisted on her swing, looking bright-eyed and excited.  Suddenly she spun the swing around to face me, and stared up at me with enormous eyes.  "What is it?"

"
It’s called a kitten."  I tried hard not to laugh; it wasn’t her fault that she'd grown up in a world without pets.  I reminded myself just how limited her experiences were, and expanded on my answer for her benefit.  "A kitten is a baby domestic cat."

"
Oh, like Puss In Boots?"  Her eyes were so wide I was almost afraid they’d pop right out of her head.

"
Sort of, except real cats walk on four legs, not two."  It was starting to get really hard not to laugh, her expression was just too cute.  "I named this one Tigger when I was living here before.  Like from Winnie the Pooh?"

"
Ohh.  Tigger like a tiger, because he’s got stripes?"  She looked delighted by my childlike logic, and hopped off her swing.  "Tiggers-Tiggers-Tiggers are wonderful things, their heads are made of rubber and their tails are made of springs!"  She chant the old rhyme gleefully and bounced around the yard.

"
Yes, yes they are.  And Maddy-monkeys need to come inside for lunch."  I grinned at her and offered her my hand.  She bounced over to take it, and together we walked – and bounced – back towards our little fortress.

Behind us, Tigger stretched and rolled onto her back to watch us go.
 Just as we were about to leave her line of sight, she hopped up and scampered after us, to follow us back home.

***

Lunch was a noisy affair that day, full of boisterous joy and happy mess.  Madeline had never eaten watermelon before, and she was quick to announce it was her new ‘favouritest food ever’, to the amusement of the adults.

Since I lack
ed Madeline’s sweet tooth, the salad was the bigger treat for me.  Skylar had even added some hard boiled eggs for protein, just the way Mum used to when we were little.  I ate several helpings before I was satisfied, and then sat back in my chair to watch the others stuff themselves.

There’s going to be a few sick tummies tonight
, I thought to myself with amusement.  

The only one not joining in on the feast was Michael, who sat beside me in silence, picking quietly at his food
without much interest.  I watched him for a minute before I finally decided to check on him.

"
Are you okay?"  I asked softly, and reached over to stroke his knee in case my question was lost in the din.  

The others didn’t notice, but he did and shrugged absently.
 I looked at him closely and noticed that the sunburn was getting darker as the burn settled deeper into his skin.  I resisted the automatic ‘I-told-you-so’; just as we had predicted, he hadn’t realised how bad the burn was until hours after the damage was already done.  Now, he was in pain.

I knew that pain well, and so I rose to fetch another bottle of cool water for him from the fridge.
 Without a word, he took it and drank deeply, then gave me a weak smile.  "Thank you."

"
Of course."  I rubbed his knee softly, sympathy twisting my gut.  Sunburn could be a terrible thing.

Finally, the doctor noticed the conversation and joined in.
 "I made him some aloe vera gel, if you want to help him put on another dose." He fished a jar out of his pocket, and offered it to me across the table.  I accepted it with a nod and then looked at Michael, who rose from his chair without a word.

He followed me out of the kitchen and plodded up the stairs behind me to his room.
 There, I sat him down in an old wooden chair beneath the window.  He slumped into it with his chin resting on the back rung, staring miserably out the window.

"
Ah, you poor thing," I murmured as I knelt on the floor behind him to study his burns.  He was in too much pain to have put on a shirt.

"
Doc says it’ll take days to get better."  He flinched as he folded his arms under his chin to give me better access to his burned back.  He heaved a long sigh and murmured plaintively.  "Make it better?"

"
You know that I would if I could."  I opened the jar of cream to examine the contents.  The gel smelt strange and pungent, but I scooped out a generous helping anyway and lathered it across his broad back.  His sigh of relief just about broke my heart, and he immediately relaxed beneath my touch.

With gentle fingers, I spread the gel over his shoulders and upper biceps, then up the back of his neck.
 Even the tips of his ears were burned, so I added a dollop on each and gently rubbed it in.

"
You should lie down for a nap," I suggested as I tended to him, to which he grunted inarticulately and didn’t answer.  "I mean it.  You’ll feel better, and it’ll keep you out of the sun."

He looked back at me with those sad puppy eyes.
 He’d already learned I was vulnerable to those kind of silent, appealing looks, but I was building up a resistance to it.  Unrelenting, I helped him to his feet and guided him to his bed.  I lay him down on his tummy and leaned over him to fluff his pillow.  A hand tried to sneak up beneath my top while I was bent over him, but for once I pulled away.

"
Sleep," I told him firmly as I disentangled myself, and he sighed sadly.

"
I should have listened to you."  His voice was muffled by the pillows.

"
Everyone has to learn their own lessons."  I ruffled his short hair reassuringly.  "Sleep, honey.  I’ll bring you some dinner later on and you’ll feel better tomorrow."

"
Thank you," he mumbled and closed his eyes.  I stood to leave him, in case I distracted him with my presence.  I left the jar of gel beside his bed and I slipped out of the room, closing the door behind me.

When I turned to walk away, I almost ran straight into the doctor, who was waiting outside.
 I backpedalled to avoid running him down, then stopped and stared.  There was a very strange look on his face.

"
Ms McDermott, might we speak?"  His voice was low, almost a whisper.  He shot a glance back over his shoulder to make sure we weren’t being observed.

"
Of course."  I was a little bewildered, but followed as he turned and lead the way back towards his room.  When we arrived, he closed the door behind us, and then he stuck his head into Maddy’s room to check if she was there.  Evidently she wasn’t, because he returned a moment later with a deep frown on his face.

"
Ms McDermott – Sandy – I need to ask you for a favour."  He sounded strangely nervous. "It’s regarding your sister."

Suddenly, I felt a cold chill run through me.
 "Skylar?  Is she alright?  Is the baby—"

"
She’s fine at the moment, but I am concerned for her," he said, cutting me off.  "She is at a very delicate stage of her pregnancy, when she should be resting and taking it easy, but as you know she resists all attempts to convince her to rest.  I have tried to speak to her about it, but she brushes it off and ignores me."

"
You want me to talk to her?" I cringed at the very thought.  "I can try, but I don’t know what good it’ll do.  We’ve only known one another as adults for two weeks."

"
But you are sisters, and blood runs thicker than water.  She loves you.  I hope that she will listen to you, or else…"

"
…She could lose the baby?"  I whispered, horrified by the thought.

The doctor shrugged.
 "That is one possibility; more likely she will injure herself.  But, we are in a dangerous and unsanitary environment, and she neglects to acknowledge that she is particularly vulnerable right now.  If she were to cut herself and get an infection, like you did, it could complicate the pregnancy.  Given our limited access to medical technology, complications of any kind drastically increase the chance that she could lose the baby – or her own life."

I grimaced, feeling a surge of mixed emotions.
 Part of me was worried, while part of me filled with cold anger.  What was it with the people in my life deliberately putting themselves at risk?

"
I’ll talk to her right now."

The doctor nodded, but his concern did not seem to lessen.
 I felt like time was of the essence, so I let myself out of his room and hurried off, looking for any sign of my sister.

I spotted her downstairs doing exactly what she probably shouldn’t be: Lugging a heavy box from one room to another.
 Ryan was trailing along behind her, protesting, but she was too stubborn to let him take it.  The anger welled up to overwhelm my caution, so I raced down to intercept them.

I took the stairs two at a time, and then sprang around the corner to take them both by surprise.
 Without giving her a moment’s notice, I snatched the heavy box from Skylar’s grip and shoved it into Ryan’s arms instead.

"
Hey!"  Skylar exclaimed in alarm, but I wasn’t having any of it.  I grabbed her by the arm and dragged her off towards the nearest room, and didn’t give her time to protest or pull away.