The Great Dry Spell

Sweat poured down my face collecting on the collar of my shirt. The sun is being particularly brutal to us today, and the only protection I have from its harsh rays is this straw hat I found in an abandoned shop we looted about two towns over, in some place called Keats. The only thing keeping me sane on this journey is the familiar sound of Jess complaining and Campbell’s uncanny ability to ignore her so completely. This of course only makes her squawk even louder pushing me ever so closer to insanity. I couldn’t be that far off from it at this point.

My feet feel more and more like lead with each step that I take; I’m not sure how much longer I can walk before I eventually collapse. As I look at my companions, they seem to be sharing my sentiment, or at the very least they look it. I pull my backpack around my torso and reach inside searching for the rolled-up map my mom gave me before we left. My heart clinches as I think about her, and I’m forced to take a deep breath to try to regain my composure that’s slowly slipping away. She should be here with us, but she knew better than anyone how sick she really was, much too sick to survive a journey all the way to the northern most part of this country. Even still it breaks my heart to think of her back on our old farm with barely enough food to survive the next year. She wasn’t worried about that though, that’s just the kind of person she was…is. To her the most important thing was making sure that I was able to get out of there and “find something sustainable,” her words not mine. If it were up to me, I would have stayed right by her side to the very end. Now, I’ll never actually know when that end comes. She packed us all the things she thought we might need and then some: a map, food and water that would be sure to last us a few weeks if not a month, a med kit, a change of socks and before I left, she pressed into the palm of my hand her most prized possession, her mother’s old heart shaped locket. “This way if you ever get lonely out there you can give it a squeeze and I’ll feel it.” Was she always so sentimental?

I shake my head trying to refocus on the situation at hand. Until we find somewhere to rest, I can’t afford to let my mind wander like that.

I check the map searching for the place we circled as our next potential rest point. I chuckle dryly at the word potential; people are a lot less hospitable to “vagabonds” like us. Kinda like a “one bad apple spoils the bunch kind of situation.” Can we really blame them, with no real government in place most people have to do their best to police not only their own citizens, but those that come in looking to steal their land, food, and women. We obviously mean them no harm, but that wouldn’t really be a risk I’d personally wanna take either. That’s where Campbell comes into play, our smooth talker/ communication specialist. He just has this way about him that makes most people want to trust him. My guess is it has something to do with those honest, soft almond eyes of his that can make just about anyone feel like the most important person in his world. It could also be that even when the world is falling apart pretty people are just treated a little bit better than the rest of us.

A squat tattered pine green sign with gold and white print held up by two rustic stone pillars came into view. WELCOME TO RILEY, ESTABLISHED IN 1870. I looked down at the map and saw where it mirrored the information on the sign, Riley County Kansas, better known as our next stop. “This is it,” I announced to the group.

“So, what’s the plan,” Jess asked moving away from Campbell and up to me to get a better look at the map.

“Well, if there are people there, then we leave it up to Campbell to talk us into a good night’s sleep and maybe as close to a full belly as we can get. If the place is empty, we loot anything valuable we can find and hope for the best.”

Everyone nodded their heads in agreement, and we moved forward into the town. It was still the middle of the day, but exhaustion mixed with this heat we were enduring was making it really hard for me to focus, something I usually had no issue doing. My mind drifted to our new home, and what it might look like, what it might be like. Honestly, we had no idea if this place even existed, all we knew was what we heard from rumors. Something about some amazing oasis up north in a place they’re calling New Canada, but who cares how amazing this new place is if we can’t make it there. Which means this quaint little town we’ve found better have some food and water, or the next thing we’ll be doing is digging each other’s graves. Our food supply is running dangerously low and what we have of water may only last us, at most, a day. I peer down at the unforgiving ground, as dry and brittle as ever, and I slowly track my eyes forward looking at the buildings just too short to protect us from the suns oppressive heat. Eventually my eyes look up at the sky, not a cloud in sight. Maybe if we weren’t on the brink of death, I would have thought that such a clear blue sky was sorta nice, but instead all I felt was dread that a clear sky meant no rain, and no rain meant we had to find another source of water. Not that it’s rained anywhere in a while, longer than a while really.

As I start to glance back down, I notice a tall brick bell tower topped with a cross in the not so far distance. “Let’s start there,” I point at the church. In my experience since the Great Dry Spell started most people began to centralize and move their shared resources to buildings close to everyone, like churches and schools. What better place to start our food search? “Something doesn’t feel right, everything’s too quiet,” I hear Campbell say in a hushed tone. He doesn’t usually complain or express worry in most situations, so him feeling off about this place spoke volumes.

“We’ll be fine,” I tried my best to reassure him, but honestly even I’m starting to feel a pit begin to form in my stomach the further in we walk. This place definitely gives off a “get the hell outta here” kinda vibe. Everything looked so run down and uninhabitable, but I couldn’t shake this feeling that we were being watched. That said, it’s not like we have much of a choice. It’s either find food and water now, or risk dying on our way to the next town that hopefully isn’t so spooky. I feel childish even admitting that I’m getting a little spooked. “The best we can do is try to loot fast, find food and water, and hopefully find a place to camp out that’s not in this weird ass town.

The inside of the sanctuary was beautiful and well-preserved. It looked as if someone regularly came here to clean it, and unlike the rest of the town this place was definitely revered. There were two levels with at least twenty rows of pews on each side at the bottom, and ten rows of pews on each side up top. They definitely had a large congregation in their prime.

“Guys come check this out,” Jess yelled from behind a door that was next to the alter. “There’s at least five barrels of water in here.”

She was right! I look at both of them, shock evident on my face, and I rush to the closest one taking large swallows of water using my hands as a cup. The water is so good, and I haven’t had anything for days. It feels almost appropriate that the water we found was in a church, like a gift from God. I look over at Jess and Campbell and freeze when I notice the door, we came in is no longer unoccupied. Instead, I see a shadowy figure watching as we drink our fill of water that doesn’t belong to us. I knew there was a good chance that someone was here, but I still jump in surprise. “Oh, I’m so sorry! We didn’t realize anyone was still living in this town,” I lie. “We hadn’t seen anyone else, so I guess we thought it would be okay to try to find a place to restock.” I tried to quickly explain why we thought it was okay to steal this person’s water when water was one of the rarest commodities to date. “We really weren’t trying to steal from you.” I got nothing but a blank unsettling stare. “My name is Chandler, this is Jess, and this is Campbell, we were just hoping to get some water and food and then we would be more than happy to be on our way.” Again, no response, no movement, just a blank stare. Everything around us began to shake, and the air seemed to suddenly grow thicker until it almost solidified. I looked over at Jess standing to my left and my heart almost stopped beating when I saw her. Thick red blood dripped from her eyes like tears; her normally vibrant skin rich with youth and a well-earned tan was now pale, almost translucent. “Campbell,” I whispered, “we need to help Jess, something’s wrong.” I looked over at Campbell only to see that he was gone. I know that he was just standing beside me a second ago. We came in together. He was just drinking water - right there. I look back over at the door and the woman with the deep blank stare was still watching me, silently standing there as the walls of the room seemed to move in making the already too small cellar even smaller. I have no where to run, and no way of helping my friends. I can’t believe that this is how we die. I feel myself losing consciousness, but before everything fades to black, I hear a voice whisper “don’t drink the water.”

I slowly open my eyes, having trouble doing so as they were glued shut with a hard crusted over mucus. My head is pounding and I can’t remember where I am, or how I got here. “Jess! Campbell!” I dart up way too quickly unsettling my stomach causing me to vomit up stomach acid and take deep breaths in order to collect myself. I look up and wait for my vision to clear. There they are. I spot them laying under a tree a few feet away from where I was laying. I slowly approach them, images of Jess with blood dripping from her eyes flashing in my mind. Was that a dream? As I stand over them, I see that they’re perfectly fine, we’re all fine?