A Matter of Days (13 page)

“Your sister talk?” Zack asked Rabbit.

“Not so much anymore.” Rabbit patted my arm like I was an old lady.

“I talk,” I grunted.

Zack laughed. It was rusty and unused, more a bark of shock. His expression flashed surprise. I found myself smiling in answer.

“This will wait.” Zack gestured around him. “Come on. Where you from?”

“Near Seattle.”

“Home of fancy coffee? Long way to come.”

“Where’re you from?”

“I’m from California.” Zack led us toward a building that looked like a cross between a town hall and a police station.

“Why aren’t we going toward the grocery store?” I asked.
Suspicion was getting to be like my own shadow—I didn’t know it was there until I turned around and spotted it, but I wore it now like I’d always had it.

Zack shrugged. “You can go to the store if you want, but there’s nothing left in it. I’ve got everything useful down in the jail.” Zack jiggled a large key ring on a piece of twine around his neck. His suspicion and distrust seemed almost more paranoid than my own. “You can come in, or I can bring stuff out. You want a Coke? Beer?” The last was said with a hint of sarcasm.

“Orange juice?” Rabbit asked.

“Sure. I think I’ve got some bottles of that left.” Zack paused at the door.

“Is there anyone else here?” I asked.

Zack turned and met my eyes as if he understood the importance of the question. “Nope. Just me.” He disappeared.

“I think we should go with him,” Rabbit said to me.

“Really? What if …”

“Nadia, we gotta trust someone. Besides, wouldn’t it have been easier if he’d, you know, robbed us immediately? It’s not like he needed to know our names.”

In any other world I would cross the street to avoid walking near Zack. He gave off an air of menace, like a criminal who simply hadn’t been caught yet. But then again, grannies had held us up. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Rabbit motioned me to put the safety back on the weapon and opened the door to the station. “Hey, Zack, we’re coming in.”

“Cool! I’m down the stairs!” Zack yelled. His voice sounded muffled and far away.

The front offices smelled like air freshener. Paper was piled in neat stacks. Whiteboards were covered in to-do lists in shorthand:
plant gardens by May first, find solar panels or generators, wood for winter—need to install fireplace or woodstove with chimney
. I walked closer and saw stacks of library books with how-to titles that pertained to everything on the list.

We climbed down the stairs, unsure what to expect.

“So there are three orange juices left. Sorry, they’re warm. I don’t have power for a refrigerator yet.” He’d tossed on plaid board shorts and a clean T-shirt.

“No problem, thanks.” I studied the rooms around us. The three jail cells were stacked high with canned goods, jars, cartons, and plastic bins of other nonperishables. He’d moved a full-size bed next to them. The bed was unmade, sheets ruffled as if he’d slept there last night. Where I expected desks or workstations, he’d brought in armchairs. Stacks of candles and more books. The only windows down here were small, barred basement slits; the rest of the light was provided by a very bright set of lanterns. Jugs of water and a couple of buckets rounded out the decor. The place smelled like Rabbit’s sweaty socks and a grocery store.

“Why are you being nice to us?” I blurted out. “I mean sharing and everything.”

“Jeez, Nadia!” Rabbit guffawed.

“Hey, Toad, leave your sister alone. It’s a good question.” Zack moved toward the far wall. “Here’s my calendar—the way I see it, if I work for fifteen hours a day until the first snow, and it’s a very mild winter, I have a good chance of surviving until spring. You have any idea how many things in this world would be easier with another set of hands? This is a map of the
town—I’ve cleared the church, the grocery store, and two sets of condos. The rest is still like it was when I found it, except—” He shook his head and didn’t continue.

Rabbit nodded. “Fifteen hours a day?”

“I get up with the sun and go to bed when it sets, so maybe more than that.”

“Why stay here when winter comes?”

“Why not? I figure I’ve got to start over somewhere, right? I know people—they’ll gang up and it’ll be a war zone wherever they all land. At least here if I live, or die, it’s because I worked hard, or not hard enough, right?”

“Why are you burning up the people?”

Zack sat down and took a long drink of juice before answering. “I’d be lying if I said respect, or God, or anything like that. I figure I’m less likely to be haunted by vengeful ghosts if I at least try to do right by the people. I can’t bury them all—I’d have to take them too far away from here and I want to use the land close by for planting food. I’m cleaning out the town of bodies so the smell will improve, make this place livable long term. The flies are driving me nuts. And just because I didn’t get that flu doesn’t mean I can’t get something else.”

“You didn’t get sick?”

He shook his head.

“At all?” I pressed.

“No.”

“Your family?” Rabbit asked.

Zack shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t know if I was lucky or unlucky. You guys passing through, or you want to hang around?”

“Is there a veterinarian clinic here?”

“You sick?” Zack might have smiled fleetingly while he
flipped through a notebook of streets and addresses. It looked as if he kept track of where supplies could be found.

“Nah, but our dog is,” Rabbit answered.

Zack glanced at me and I tried to tell him with my eyes that this was serious. He said, “There’s a guy who worked out of his house. I haven’t cleared it yet, but I think it had animal stuff in it.”

I wasn’t sure how Rabbit would survive it if Twawki died.

Zack grabbed a backpack. “Let’s go see what we can find. I’ve got all the human medicines in the back office, so if we don’t find something there, we can work from books.”

“You read a lot?”

“Not before I needed to. Now pretty much every day for something. The streets of Los Angeles didn’t really have much in common with here.”

When we got there, Zack didn’t bother to knock and didn’t seem like he even considered it.

Turned out the farm animal vet had died in his bed, but not before he’d let his bird out and left bathtubs full of water and scattered seed everywhere.

A voice called down from upstairs, startling us all. The fluttering of wings and a talkative, “Hello? Name’s Al. How are you?” An African gray came flapping down the stairs as if it hadn’t flown for a while. Bare-chested, it looked plucked like a chicken in the store.
Is it sick?

It landed on Zack’s shoulder and bobbed its head.

“You look like a pirate.” Rabbit laughed at Zack’s expression. The bird settled in like it belonged there and began singing a song about being a virgin. I tried not to let the heat that flushed my cheeks show by turning my head and letting my hair fall forward.

“I don’t know where he came from. I checked all the houses when I got here … in case …” Zack didn’t finish his thought, but I knew.

“Maybe he was scared?” Rabbit’s expression clouded as if he knew exactly why a bird, or a boy, might hide.

“I think the office is down this way.” Zack pointed and led the way.

Bright sunlight poured through big squares of old glass. We opened windows.

Al picked his way up into Zack’s curly black hair and danced on top of his head. Zack tried to ignore the bird completely and I couldn’t stop smiling.

“Hey, Fish, why don’t you go outside and see if you can find any crickets or worms, or something, to feed Al here?” Zack asked. “Just stay by the house and we can hear you. There’s nobody around.”

I nodded.

When Rabbit left, Zack turned to me and asked, “What’s wrong with the dog?”

“He had glass in his paws. They got infected.”

Zack nodded.

“We gave him a few antibiotics, but we didn’t have enough!” Rabbit yelled from outside the window.

I sighed and shook my head. “Twawki is Rabbit’s new friend.” I hoped Zack read into my statement all the things I couldn’t bring myself to say aloud.

“Don’t worry, Pig, we’ve got meds.” Zack leaned through the open window and gave Rab a thumbs-up. “We just need to figure out what to use.”

“I think we need to clean and disinfect his wounds again. I haven’t been able to do much except—”

Zack touched my arm before the tears threatened. “It’s okay, we’ll figure it out.”

His words almost made me want to cry harder. The number of times I’d needed, hoped, and prayed to have someone, anyone, tell me that everything would be okay I couldn’t count.

We loaded up gauze and Betadine solution, two vet school textbooks on wounds and treatments, and anything else—tools, wraps—that seemed relevant. And then we headed back to the town hall and Zack’s home.

On the way out, Zack grabbed a couple of IV bags filled with fluids and antibiotics.

“I don’t know how to use those,” I said.

“Trust me, I can stick him if we need to,” Zack said. “Hey, Bunny, can you see if Al will sit on your shoulder for a while? See if he’s hungry?”

We left Twawki in the shade while we set up our makeshift surgery center in a conference room that had massive windows and bright light. A long flat mahogany table served as the operating table. Rabbit hovered around us with his hands pushed deep in his pockets and a frown scrunched between his brows.

Zack and I returned to the Jeep and glanced at each other. Twawki barely lifted his head and didn’t try to put weight on his paws. I saw the pain in his pleading expression.

“Will he bite me if I carry him?” Zack hesitated.

“No.” Rabbit shadowed, anxiety rolling off him in waves.

“I don’t think so.” I shrugged, not making any promises.

Carefully, Zack let Twawki sniff him and lick his fingers. When he leaned over to pick up Twawki and carry him, the dog didn’t struggle or even make a sound.

Zack’s strength was noticeable in his lean and muscular arms. Twawki had wasted away with the infection to a whimpering mass of hair mats and bones. Rabbit followed us, humming a soundless tune that sang of worry.

“I think we should keep the kid out of here,” Zack said under his breath as we situated Twawki on the table.

“I can’t make him stay out,” I answered in a low voice, petting Twawki’s head.

Zack nodded and leaned out the door. “Hey, Bear, this is gonna take a while and we’re gonna want to sleep when we’re finished. Upstairs in the offices, I’ve stashed a lot of pillows and blankets and stuff. You think you could take Al with you and bring ’em down for you and your sister?”

“Shouldn’t I help with Twawki?” Rabbit stepped forward as if to argue.

“Nah, we’ve got it under control.” Zack gave off an air of nonchalance that I envied.

Rabbit darted in and kissed Twawki on the nose before scampering off.

I turned toward our patient and all the instruments we’d picked up at the vet’s.
Why didn’t Mom teach me anything useful? Where am I going to use geometry in this world?
If she was still here we’d have an emergency room nurse to do this.

“This is going to hurt—a lot. We can’t risk trying to figure out sedation or anything. Is he going to bite us?” Zack repeated his earlier question while picking up a textbook.

“He hasn’t tried yet.” A dog bite in this world could be fatal and we both knew it. Hell, everything in this new reality was freakin’ death waiting.

Zack squinted down at the book. “You a good reader?”

“Yeah.” I nodded.

Zack handed me the book. “Then it’ll be faster if you read and tell me what to do.”

I don’t know how long we worked hunched over books and supplies trying to figure out from the pictures which gadgets were which. “It says if the animal is seriously dehydrated to put them on fluids and antibiotics.”

“I think he counts.” Zack wrapped a leg, found a vein, and slid the needle in before I had time to think about what needed to happen.

My jaw dropped. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

“Before.” Zack didn’t say anything else.

We fell into a rhythm of cleaning out a paw, soaking it to remove even more infection, then wrapping it so it continued to drain. Zack found a couple more slivers of glass that had worked their way to the surface. Twawki seemed to know we were trying to help him, and aside from whining occasionally he let us work. At some point I started cutting the rest of Twawki’s hair off, so tangles and clumps littered the floor.
We need to find a dog brush. If he lives
.

“I’m done!” Rabbit called. “I inflated a couple of air mattresses too.”

“Thanks, Rab,” I answered, trying not to gag over a particularly putrid abscess Zack had sliced open.

Rabbit appeared in the doorway.

“Why don’t you take my keys and decide what’s for dinner? Make sure you check out all the choices.” Zack nodded at me to take the key ring off his neck.

“Sure. You guys want anything special?”

“Whatever, Rabbit.” I wasn’t sure I’d be able to choke anything down, even after we were done.

“ ’Kay.” His brow was furrowed and his face pale with worry. “How’s it going?”

“We’re making progress, okay? We’re about ready to change the IV bag and that’s good—it means he’s got fluid in him to fight.” I tried to sound encouraging and optimistic.

Rab leaned down and whispered in Twawki’s ear, “Fight, boy, please. I need you.”

I turned away, blinking frantically so tears didn’t fall.

“We’re doing our best, Lion Man, go figure out dinner.” Zack met my gaze and he shooed Rabbit from the room.

By the time we stripped off our gloves we’d done the best we could. Much less restless, Twawki seemed to sleep deeper. Rabbit’s meal consisted of SpaghettiOs with meatballs, green peas, and a jar of cherry pie filling over vanilla pudding. He was becoming creative with the food; it wouldn’t surprise me if he ended up a new kind of chef.
Supposing we need careers and jobs in the future?

With Rab snoring almost as loudly as a jet engine, even if I’d wanted to sleep I couldn’t have. Rather than grow frustrated, I gave up and found Zack reading with a lamp outside the room where Twawki snored almost as loud as Rabbit.