Waterproof (2 page)

“You will,” Vivienne replied, already jogging away from me into the woods.
Her long black ponytail bounced in her wake; a camouflage like the dark outfit she donned.

I picked up the last two bottles and ran after her. In no time at all, the flashlight beams disappeared and we were thrust into darkness. Vivienne moved quickly, like a stealthy
ninja focused on her next kill. A deadly vixen.

“Stop laughing, Zach,” she snapped at me.

I hadn’t realized I’d laughed out loud, but now I couldn’t stop. “So how many is it now?”

“Shut up.”

“No really, Vee. How many heads have rolled under your sword?”

“It’s going to be one more if you call me that again,” she warned.

“Thirty? Forty?” I kept pushing, I couldn’t help it. “You certainly are a sight for sore eyes. All angry and bitter. It’s like you visualize the thing you hate the most and then chop it in half.”

“That’s exactly what I do.” Her tone sounded harsh and I worried I’d gone too far.

“Listen, Vee. I’m sorry I left-”

“
Shh,” she stopped and reached back to slap a hand over my mouth. I batted it away and glared at her.

“I’m not a child,” I spat at her. But she shushed me again.

“Do you hear that?” she whispered.

I stopped focusing on her and paid attention to my surroundings. At first I didn’t h
ear it and almost said so, but then I froze. The distant sound of an engine spiked instant fear in me.

“They found us,” I whispered.

“Come on.” Vivienne broke into a sprint and I followed along at her heels. We’d been safe for too long, I should have known this day would come.

“Ca
n you tell which direction they’re coming from?” I yelled at her.

“I think they’re behind us,” she said. “Maybe they found the other camp?”

I heard the faintest glimmer of hope in her voice. The mercenaries hired to retrieve deserters were nothing if not evil.

“Maybe,” I said. “Come on, we’r
e almost there.” I pushed past her like an opposing player and focused on getting us to safety.

“You’re an ass,” she said, and I smiled. Vivienne couldn’t stay mad at me very long.

We ran hard through the night. I hadn’t realized the camp was so far away. I guess I’d been too intent on getting the water that it seemed like a simple jog through the woods. Instead the barren pine branches whipped at our faces and dirt covered rocks tried to trip us up. With only a quarter moon, limited light penetrated the forest. Most of the trees died years ago, yet their skeletal bodies hung like pioneers accused of treason, daring us to walk by.

With
a scratched face and a bruised ego, I ran in silence hoping the mercenaries weren’t coming after us. Some days I wished we could turn back time.

Some days I worried that my luck would run out.

TWO

Vivienne

Zach’s boots crunched on dried leaves a
nd broken tree branches. He might be fast, but I swear he couldn’t hear the amount of noise he made.

I wanted to kill him. Not really kill him, but teach him a lesson. I should have let him fight his own battle tonight.
Serves him right for being so stupid. But I couldn’t stand back and do nothing. I didn’t think he realized how close that guy came to grabbing him.

Shivering with the thought
, I focused on Zach’s question. How many had I killed since the war? Thirty-five I think. No, thirty-seven now. Thirty-seven men and women who only wanted the same thing I did - not to be taken to the factories. You would think we’d be supportive of each other, but if I’d learned anything over these past few years, it’s that humans are inherently a selfish species. Survival of the fittest at its best.

Too bad humans were the ones to put us in this predicament in the first place.
Too much pollution, population growth, and development contaminated the water. Sure, the oceans were still here, but we destroyed every last desalinization plant in the world. First in China, then in India and Japan. Eventually global greed led to a nuclear holocaust and virtually ended any chance humans had to make it through.

If not killed in the crossfire of war, we faced disease outbreaks of monumental levels. With no clean drinking water left, people resorted to homemade sterilization techniques
and martial law. It worked for some, but countries with large urban populations didn’t last a year. A world that once housed eight billion people had been reduced to a polluted wasteland with a population of less than a million. At least that’s what we guessed. Once the nuclear attacks started, no one reported casualties anymore.

Zach and I grew up in suburbia near Philadelphia. We each had a perfect little family with parents who had perfect little jobs. Once evident that the world was coming to an end, our parents moved us deep into the mountains of West Virginia. I didn’t understand it then, but somehow they knew their children would be safer off the grid. There we met others like us who hoped this would eventually pass. Deep down I knew it wouldn’t, but it wasn’t until I lost my family to disease and other deserters that I realized there was no going back.

Five years ago, our government, or what had been left of the structure, decided to initiate a draft. All persons age eighteen and older were forced to give two years of service to the factories. They are the only facilities where clean drinking water is produced and there are two in our country. The problem was, once people went in, they never came back. It didn’t take very long for the citizens to figure this out and rebel. At seventeen, I fought alongside of them, dreading the day I, too, would be old enough for the draft.

“Penny fo
r your thoughts, Vee?” Zach asked, startling me out of my haze.

I punched him in the shoulder. “I said stop calling me that.”

His face crinkled in pain. I’d hit the good arm, or so I thought. Grabbing his jacket, I forced him to stop moving. “Where is it?” I asked.

“Where’s what?” I knew I was right the second I saw his face.

I punched his shoulder again, and this time he whimpered. My gut twisted with that sound. Zach always had to act tough and one day that would get him killed.

Sliding my h
ands slowly over his shoulder, I felt for blood or bone. Instead I found another tear the size of a bullet hole. “Zach! Were you shot?” Panic made my voice squeak.

“No, it’s just a scratch.” I grabbed his face
between my hands and forced him to look into my eyes. He smiled and said, “I promise. It only grazed me.”

His
eyes sparkled in the limited light. Mischief glinted at the surface, but there was a something else lurking underneath. Then he surprised me with a kiss. Not on the lips, but on my nose.

“Stop looking at me like that. I’m fine.”

Startled by his boldness, I stepped away. He chuckled, which of course made me angry. Zach and I had a close relationship, but not one that involved kissing. I couldn’t even remember the last time I kissed a guy…

“The lights
are up ahead,” Zach said, pulling me back to the present again.

I walked behind him as the torches came into focus. Our camp of desert
ers felt we were far enough in the wilderness to build a fire. I’d have to tell Sasha about the mercenaries. She’d make us move again for sure.

Once we got close enough, I noticed something missing
from Zach’s outfit. “Where are your knives?” I may be good with a sword, but Zach was lethal with a blade and his aim.

He looked down as though noticing the empty sheaths for the first time. “Umm…I guess I forgot to grab them.”

“Zach,” I sighed. “How is that possible? Where did you put them?”

“Through a leg and a hand…oh, and a hea
d. You should have seen that one. I pegged him before he even knew what was coming.” He shrugged. “Damn, those were three of my favorites.”

“Sasha’s really going to be pissed now. I don’t think we have any extras.”

“That’s okay, I’ll just borrow your sword.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Well, look what we have here. The two love birds decided to grace us with their presence. Our leader will be so pleased.” A short, muscular man stepped out of the woods and blocked our path. His shaggy hair and growing beard made him look like a dwarf. The stench put him more on par with a pile of manure.

“Get out of our way, Trevor,” I said, pushing past Zach and nudging the annoying dwarf with my shoulder.

“She’s still fighting your battles for you, huh, Zachary?” Even though almost forty, Trevor had a bad habit of pushing everyone’s buttons. The wrong ones. “When are you going to start wearing the pants in this relationship?”

I turned around fast enough to throw a punch. But instead of landing on Trevor’s smug face, Zach’s hand wrapped around my wrist.

“Well that’s more like it,” Trevor said with mock admiration. “Keep it up and pretty soon she’ll be waiting on your every need. I knew you’d get your bitch in place- Ah!”

Trevor’s rude comment ended the moment Zach’s other hand
struck him in the face. The dwarf dropped to the ground, covering his nose and spitting curses at us. We walked away from him without saying another word. I felt satisfied with Zach’s response. I secretly loved it when he stuck up for me.

“Why does Sasha
keep him around?” Zach asked, shaking his hand and massaging his knuckles.

“Comic relief?”

“Huh,” Zach grunted. “You’re much funnier, Vee.”

I smiled and my heart did something funny. Zach had always called me Vee, and even though I used to beat him up for it when we were kids, the n
ickname meant more to me than I would ever let him know. I didn’t have anyone left. Just Zach.

“And you smell better,” he added with a chuckle.

“Thanks,” I said, unable to contain my smile. “You know, you’ll probably be forced on latrine duty for punching him.”

“I don’t care.”

“Okay,” I replied, knowing how much he hated digging the holes each time we made camp.

We continued down the short path to the first set of torches.
Our group consisted of ten deserters. Well nine, really, and one juvenile boy not quite old enough for the draft who had just spotted us in the distance.

“Zach!” The younge
st in our group ran over to greet his idol. “Where did you go? Did you kill anyone?” Hunter’s obsession with gore still fascinated me. It must be a boy thing.

“Hey kid. No, I didn’t kill anyone. She beat me to it,” Zach nodded in my direction and Hunter looked up at me in awe.

“Awesome,” he said, head bobbing up and down in approval.

“No, not awesome,” I grumbled. “They’re just like us tr
ying to survive. I wouldn’t even have had to do it if this guy wasn’t such an idiot.” I pushed against Zach’s back, causing him to stumble a few steps forward.

Zach laughed. “Ask her how she did it.”

“Stop encouraging him,” I snapped back.

“You cut
off their heads, didn’t you?” Hunter looked from me to Zach with nothing but anticipation in his eyes. He bounced on his toes, waiting for one of us to confirm the story. “Cool. Was it bloody?”

I stepped around the boys and continued on to the camp without answering his question. I heard the two of them chatting away behind me, Zach being sure to embellish every detail, including
admission about his own kill. Hunter continued to ask the most inappropriate things, but Zach catered to his morbid curiosity. In a world filled with so much violence, I didn’t understand why this boy wanted to live it over and over again.

I reached the torch laden perimeter before Zach and Hunter. The bonfire in the center glowed in the black night, and carried a familiar scent of home. I’ve lived in the forest for almost
half of my life. Acrid smoke and ripe human bodies were something of a comfort to me now.

“Hey, Vivienne,” a deep voice acknowledged me.

I turned my head to see Jackson sitting at his post with a crossbow in his lap. Dark hair and dark skin, a token of his Caribbean ancestry, contrasted nicely with his bright smile. Just a year older than me, Jackson had finally grown into his body. Where he’d once been tall and lanky, his broad shoulders and fuller face made him easy to look at. Not that I looked at him that way.

“You got stuck with the night shi
ft again, huh?” I asked.

He stood, towering over me with his impressive height. Not many people could look down at me. “I volunteered. Sasha’s really pissed at Zach and I don’t want to be around when she lays into him.”

My stomach dropped. If easy-going Jackson was worried about the upcoming tirade, I felt bad for Zach. “Maybe I’ll come join you,” I teased.

His eyes
lit up and the smile spread wider. “That would be great.”

I didn’t know how to reply to that.

Uncomfortable with the tense silence, I walked away. Jackson had liked me since we met a few years ago, but I could never return the feelings. I didn’t really understand why, he just wasn’t my type.

Not that a girl could be choosy in this post-apocalyptic day. Our group had four women and six men, one being Hunter.
Our leader, Sasha, had dibs on Max. They acted like a married couple, even though the institute of marriage was all but worthless anymore. My kind-of-friend Carrie liked Jackson, but spent most of her time teasing Trevor. Back in my old life, we would’ve never been friends. It was only after the world pretty much ended that I’d been forced to deal with her. Zach tolerated her too, as his patience far outweighed mine, but I knew he couldn’t really stand her. How she’d survived this long was still a miracle to me.

“Where’s Zach?
” Sasha’s red hair glowed in the light of the fire, anger oozing from her body. I swear the blaze grew stronger when she spoke. Her petite frame often deceived foolish adversaries who underestimated her strength. And her fierceness.

“He’s right behind me,” I said as neutral as possible. Bending forward to grab a piece of meat fro
m an abandoned plate, I avoided all eye contact with our leader. She waited patiently. “He’s fine. He got a few bottles.”

“A few?” she asked, stepping closer bu
t looking past me toward Zach. “How many is a few?” she asked. I shrugged.

“Three,” Zach answered
. His voice sounded under control, but I knew I detected a hint of fear. He must have seen Sasha’s face.

“You risked the safety of our group, not to mention the life of our best fighter
, for
three
bottles of water?”

I lifted my head
up at the compliment, but with one look at her pinched lips and hand flexing over the pistol holster on her side, I decided to keep my mouth shut.

“She’s not the best fighter,” Zach said with humor in his tone. I shot him a glare and watched him smile at me. He loved egging me on like that.

Sasha dashed over to him and knocked the bottles to the ground. She really was pissed.

“You’
re not the only person here. When are you going to learn that?” Spit flew from her mouth yet Zach refused to back away from her. At least he kept his snarky comments to himself. “You can’t go running off on your own, Zachary. We have rules for a reason!”

Sasha paced back and forth in front of my friend. I knew she was contemplating what to do with him. A crowd had now gathered as we waited for her decision. Zach didn’t move. Even Hunter had nestled down beside me for protection.

“I don’t even know what to do with you,” she finally said. That comment pierced through my heart. I’d heard my parents speak those words to me so many times in the past. Our life before moving to the mountains hadn’t always been pleasant. The rebellious streak in me started a long time ago. I felt the tears building in my eyes, so I focused on Zach instead. No time for reminiscing. Thinking about the past would only wear me down.