Back at their shelter – a derelict plastic shack abandoned somewhere in the 2200s – Seymour spent his rage.
"What are the rules? What are they, Adelaide?"
She didn't meet his eye, scrunching lower in her lawn chair at the lopsided card table.
"One: we only go out at night." Seymour paced the length of the shack, one hand behind his back while he counted off with the other. "Two: we stay away from the water." He spun around, and she felt his gaze boring into her. "And what's four, Adelaide?"
"Mind your own business," she muttered, staring down at her hands.
"Exactly. Mind your own damn business. Don't interfere with the UnKept. Don't interact with one unless you have no choice. Did you have a choice tonight, Adelaide?"
She twisted, guilt swelling. "Yes."
"YES. Yes you did. You could have stayed hidden. That boy would have looked around the room, seen nothing, and gone back out calling for a false alarm. But no. You had to take out some unreasonable aggression out on a –"
"Unreasonable?" Adelaide's head snapped up, her lips pursing into a thin line. "They destroyed the last pure water source! They desecrated a sanctuary for both plants and humans alike with their selfish, disgusting..." she tapered off, unable to think of a wicked enough word to use against the UnKepts. "Monsters," she finally hissed, folding her arms.
Seymour pinched the bridge of his nose and sucked in a steadying breath. "Six years. Six years I've gone over this with you, and it just won't stick. How many times do I have to warn you of the dangers we face before you actually listen?"
Adelaide glared at the thin plastic of the shack wall, the chill of the night seeping into her bones, resting in her aching muscles. "If you would just let me go see if there were plants by the ocean –"
"Enough with the ocean! We don't go to the ocean. That water is polluted and unsafe."
"But plants could still grow there."
"Plants growing in oil-infested waters? I doubt there'd be much edible there. Let it go, Adelaide. If I've told you once I've told you one thousand times – there's nothing for us down by the ocean. We don't go there. It's dangerous."
"I'm eighteen. I can make my own choices. You're barely twenty-four. You can't tell me what to do."
"If I didn't, you'd be dead tonight."
"I had the situation handled. You don't always need to protect me. I could have stopped him." She felt her face flush at the lie.
The withering glare from Seymour cowed her defiance. "I took you in as a useless twelve year old, gave you food and shelter, and kept you alive. If you want to repay me for all my hard work by running to your death, by all means – the door is right there." He swept his arms toward the sheet they'd hung over the entrance.
Adelaide didn't move, tears filling her eyes. In her periphery, she saw Seymour's broad shoulders relax, his head tilting back as he stared at the ceiling only a few inches above his head.
"I know you don't understand, but I'm trying to keep you safe. I've lost enough people to know the risks, okay?" He moved to kneel before her. "I don't want to lose you, too."
There had been others, she knew—others he'd lost before he met her. Adelaide knew what'd become of them. The UnKepts had a very specific menu selection for people who stole from them.
"You won't," she said, meeting his soft brown eyes, wanting to see something there – something more than just frustration and friendship, but was once again disappointed.. "Thank you for saving my life."
Seymour's mouth quirked in a half smile, and he patted her knee. "I won't let anything happen to you. Not ever." He straightened, bearing down on her. "Get some rest – we'll have to try and find new supplies, and the sun's coming up in a few."
Days were too hot to leave the shack. The thick, dark plastic had been built with heat reflecting panels, the only thing keeping them from cooking during the sun's hours. Adelaide huddled up on her mat, willing herself to sleep. Every time she closed her eyes she saw the lake again, dried up and useless. The song from so long ago still echoed inside her, whispering, beckoning.
Come to the water, let your heart be free.
Come to the river, your spirit with me.
Come out of the desert, where the land folk roam.
Come to the ocean, dearest come home.
She shook her head, trying to get the words to go away. She didn't know how she knew them, maybe she'd made them up, but they haunted her more now than ever.
The faint hum of heavy machinery far off caught her attention, and Adelaide tensed.
Machines? There are never machines this far out. Pushing to her feet, Adelaide snuck across the shack, pulling the curtain back to peer out into the desert wasteland.
Sun blinded her, and she blinked past the pain, eyes watering as her vision cleared. In the distance, she could see the enormous metal tank of the UnKept trudging forward through the sand. They used them by day to hunt for survivors, blocking their sensitive skin from the sun.
Never, not once in all her years or Seymour's stories, had the UnKept traveled past their western gate. It could only mean one thing.
"Their food is running scarce."
Adelaide jumped at the sound of Seymour's voice, whirling around and smacking him in the gut with her elbow. He grunted in pain, doubling over as she yelped an apology.
"What are they doing out here?" she asked, disgusted by the tremor of fear in her voice.
"After what we saw last night? I'm guessing all the food east of the gate is gone along with the lake. They don't have a way to keep their prey alive, not even what they've stored for later. They need fresh water and crops – food to fatten those they plan to consume. They are probably running low on their free range critters as well."
Adelaide glowered up at him. She hated the way he described the humans the UnKept chased down. "They were human once, too. How could they come after their own kind?"
Seymour didn't meet her eyes. "We do what we must to survive. We've all made our choices."
"But there are more people, aren't there? In hideouts? I heard once that there were loads of people up in Alaska, and that there's a wall in Montana where –"
"Too far for us to travel."
"But what about the Californians?" Adelaide asked, eyes widening. "Maybe they could help us."
Seymour snorted. "They aren't real."
"But I heard just last month from Uka that the Californians were going to launch an attack on the UnKept – that they're living secretly underground, biding their time."
Seymour turned a blank stare on her, his jaw tight. "Do you want to know what the Californians are? Really?"
Adelaide nodded, and Seymour gestured for her to follow him back to his mat. He pulled out his satchel, a ragged piece of canvas which kept all his treasures, and tugged out a chewed up piece of paper. Unfolding it, he lay it out before her.
Holes riddled the design, which looked like some of the other maps he'd shown her, but covering more ground. Dotted lines cut territories up.
"See these?" He pointed at the lines. "They're called 'borders.'"
"I know that," Adelaide said, rolling her eyes. "All the territories have borders."
"But these aren't territories. They're states."
"States." She repeated the word twice, trying to place it to no avail.
"Before world war five, all of these areas were united, joined together as one country. Alaska and Montana used to be states, not territories." Seymour pointed to a chunk near the left of the map where a little blue circle sat in the middle of a dotted line. "This is Lake Tahoe, where we are."
"That's not right." Adelaide shook her head. "Your map is wrong. Look, it shows all this land in the west. There isn't any."
"But there was." Seymour ran his finger along the strip of land. "This was a state called California." He paused, and Adelaide's heart sank. Seymour nodded. "Californians lived here. They were some of the first to be attacked during WWV, and when that country I told you about – Japan – had that horrible earth quake, the water rose and swallowed up what was left of California. It hasn't existed for almost a hundred years."
Adelaide sat back on her knees. "They – they're all dead?"
"All of them. California is now part of the ocean."
Tears stung Adelaide's eyes, and she bit down on her lip. "But-but there was a city there. That means that maybe down beneath the ocean, there's still – "
"Adelaide!" Seymour's shout silenced her, and she flinched away from him. He gripped her shoulders, forcing her to look him in the eye. "We can never go to the water. Never."
She nodded, glancing back at the doorway as an excuse to change the subject. "What are we going to do? They'll find us."
"We'll have to move deeper into the desert. We'll go tonight."
"But won't they reach us," she asked.
"Not today. The sun's halfway into its arc and those beasts run on solar power. They'll shut down before they get here. We have time."
(word count 1592)