Barren Waters, A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of Survival

Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.

- Lao-Tzu (600 B.C.)

Chapter 22

Present Day

When they crossed New Mexico’s southern border, they followed I-20 to the long-awaited I-10, pedaling fast through the charming yet barren cities of Luna, Las Cruces and Deming. Jeremy loved the flat expanse of the desert, which was cupped in the palm of majestic mountains, visible in every direction. The landscape was dramatically different than Tennessee. It was brown instead of green, sparse instead of lush, yet uniquely beautiful in its own right. The air was clear and dry. The sky overhead was immense and blue, so big it was strangely humbling. Land sprawled as far as the eye could see, which imparted to Jeremy a sense of security he hadn’t experienced in months. Nothing could surprise them out here. Nothing hid. Nothing could spring from behind a large elm, or hide behind the crest of a hill. Visibility was absolute.

But it was hot.

Heat was the trade off. The southwestern heat was punishing and thick, and wafted from the pavement in shimmering waves. It sapped moisture from his eyes and burned his throat. But it was a dry heat, right? Bah! Right! Nuts to that. Hot was hot. Melting was melting. Though thankfully dry heat had its advantages. The aridity wicked sweat from their shirts and cooled their backs. The gentle breeze—when it actually blew—was a comfortable fan of air across their faces.

Sam and Seth had never seen the desert, and Jeremy found himself enjoying their reactions as much as he enjoyed the landscape. They oohed and awed at the peculiar plants, at the unique colors of the sand and sunsets. They pointed at spikey yucca, with strange center stalks pointing straight toward the sky, their tips crowned in creamy white flowers. Seth likened smaller cacti to hunched porcupines, while Sam gushed at their delicate fuchsia flowers. There were regal fields of Joshua trees, which reached for the heavens with gnarled arms. Sunset quickly become their favorite time of day. The sunsets in the east, at the tops of the Smokey Mountains, had always been beautiful and breathtaking, but were incomparable to the sunsets in the west, particularly when clouds carpeted the sky. The sun would dip below the horizon, and shimmer across the desert’s velvety sands. It would alight the clouds with fire, painting the sky a rich pallet of oranges and reds, which would eventually fade to pinks and purples, culminating in a sweeping amaranthine field. Sometimes the little company would choose those moments to stop and rest and enjoy the view, and drink small sips of water. They would sit and limber sore muscles at the side of the road, content to exist in this peaceful place.

Once, Jeremy recalled, they’d even tried to sleep beside that lush landscape, beneath an overhead blanket of gleaming stars. The memory brought a smile to his lips.

“Why coop ourselves up in some rotten old house?” Sam had said as she marveled at the setting sun. “We haven’t seen anyone else for weeks. If we exit the freeway, we’ll just waste time. Why don’t we camp out here? No one is crossing these roads, but us. No one has enough water to make the trip. And if we stay out here and sleep by the road, we can wake up early, save ourselves an hour, start from the same place we stopped. Think about how much time we would save.”

That first night’s attempt was an utter failure. Truth is rarely as beautiful as fantasy. They’d circled their pallets, built a fire in the center, eaten a hearty meal of oats and lentils. Jeremy had passed around crumbling tablets of Vitamin C, while Sam read pages from The Deathly Hallows. They enjoyed the sounds of the gusting winds, which whispered their secrets across the flat sands—until the coyotes appeared, of course. That first low howl was all it took. Seth leapt from his blankets and scampered to Sam. She closed the book, held him tight, and shivered.

“What the hell was that?” Seth whispered, eyes wide.

“Language,” Sam admonished him lightly.

“Coyotes,” Jeremy muttered, awestruck by the sound. “It’s the sound of howling coyotes. I’ll be damned.”

It was amazing to discover coyotes living here—amazing that they still lived at all, he supposed. It had been so long since they’d encountered wildlife that fear battled with their reverence and awe. They had encountered no dogs or cats along this journey, no squirrels, or chipmunks, or rats, or field mice. But to Jeremy the coyotes made sense. Desert animals were accustomed to this environment, having acclimated to it a long time ago. They were conditioned by thousands of years of evolution. Arid lands were a home to them. Their world, he supposed, was the least bit changed by the death and starvation of the oceans.

Though Jeremy would have loved to stay and catch a glimpse of just one coyote, the children would have none of it. They scampered about to pack their belongings, shoved blankets and books into their packs with haste, and food and water into their panniers. In a matter of moments, they’d packed the entire camp, while Jeremy struggled to stifle his laughter.

“Okay,” he’d agreed as he stretched out his legs. “I suppose we’ll have to find a house. Probably safer that way, anyway. I mean, Coyotes are one thing, but what about snakes? Don’t snakes and tarantulas hunt at night? And I suppose there’d be scorpions too, wouldn’t there?”

Sam had yelped while groping for her flashlight, while Seth tap-danced in the middle of the road. The memory was precious. Jeremy had tucked it away. And yes, he thought, remembering, New Mexico was beautiful. He’d enjoyed every moment and the memories they’d made. But now that they’d reached the barren lands of Arizona, things were starting to unravel again.

They’d spent more time in Odessa than Jeremy cared to admit. Finding a solution to their problem hadn’t been easy. The local Walmart hadn’t borne fruit. There had been no bicycles or bicycle parts, no inner tubes, tires, or oil for the chains. The store was nothing but a burned out shell. Someone had erected three tents in its center, but Jeremy hadn’t lingered to find out why. The Sears, down the road, hadn’t helped much either, and The Sports Authority had proved much the same. Having failed at several other stores after that, Jeremy finally agreed to check the small green one. It was a mom-and-pop shop, a specialty store, ugly green with pink framing. From outside its weathered doors, it hadn’t looked promising, but Sam had been close to tears by then, so Jeremy agreed to check it out. It had been their fifth day in that ruined little town, and the stress of their predicament had begun to affect her. She had started to wilt like a dying flower, while Jeremy secretly panicked inside. He was barely able to conceal his fears. He was short of temper, tense, and irritable. His movements were jerky and fitful, and a permanent frown pulled the corners of his mouth. Seth tried his best to bolster Sam’s withered spirits, but even he had succumbed to repeated disappointments.

They had entered the store and picked through the rubble: helmets, empty water bottles, piles of multi-colored biking shorts. Apart from a few panniers, which they took, they found little to help their situation. There didn’t seem to be a single tire in that store, and it was only after they nearly gave up that Jeremy remembered his mother’s sage advice.

Stop looking for a needle in a haystack, she whispered. Work smarter, Jeremy, not harder.

With sudden hope, he pushed himself to his feet and rifled through piles of old mail and unopened bills, behind the front counter of the store. He was looking for ledgers or accounting journals. How crazy it was, he remembered thinking, that the owner hadn’t used computers to manage such things, but the lack of technology, in the end, was a blessing. Triumphant, he emerged from behind the counter.

Sam had been less than optimistic about his discovery. “What’s so great about that?” she complained. “A pile of mail and old papers? Big whoop.” She tossed a water bottle to the floor with disdain. “Is there a map to a bike warehouse in that stack? ’Cause that’s the only thing that would get me excited.”

“Nope. It’s better than that,” Jeremy countered. “It’s the address to the shop-owner’s house. You remember what grandma used to say, don’t you? Stop looking in obvious places. This guy owned a bike shop, didn’t he?” When Sam shrugged her shoulders, Jeremy lifted a hand. “Come on. Hear me out. This is going somewhere. All we need to do is find the shop-owner’s house. There’s bound to be all kinds of stuff over there, because if the man sold bikes, he owned bikes, too. Doesn’t that just make sense?”

“I suppose.” Muttering to herself, she pushed herself to her feet and followed him soberly to the man’s modest home. By then, her tire had flattened completely, the grasses and weeds having lost their buoyancy. Jeremy feared irreparable damage to the rim, but thankfully, their efforts were handsomely rewarded. The house, when they reached it, was vacant of course, but replete with bicycles and bicycle parts.

The rim of Sam’s bike, as Jeremy had feared, had been destroyed and bent beyond repair. And though he’d tried to fit a new tire to the rim, he’d given up quickly amid a torrent of cursing. It was Seth who pointed to the bike-owner’s car, behind which two new bikes were wedged. A rack on the east-facing wall of the garage housed boxes of tires and plump inner tubes, and Jeremy replaced old items with new. As Seth had suggested just days before, they fashioned backwards tire-necklaces and wore them like sombrero hats.

Framed photos lined the mantel of the man’s fireplace. Their benefactor, it seemed, had been a father and a husband, and Jeremy thanked him for his contributions. They spent a night beneath the man’s roof, and awakened the next morning to set out.

After Odessa, they followed a rigorous schedule. They’d lost a week and were crumbling under the pressure. The ominous rattle of their last bottle of pills offered Jeremy little to no comfort. Why had he been so stupid? He should have experimented with the pills when he’d had more disks. It had been a long time since Sam had taken them. It was difficult to say how effective they would be. How many would it take to lower her sugars? How many would be required in an emergency situation? He scolded himself. He’d never know now. He should have done something when the conditions weren’t extreme. With a sigh, he pushed the thought aside. At this point, ‘should’ and ‘would’ were ridiculous concepts to ponder. Better to strategize about what would come next.

New Mexico had been a welcome respite. The beauty and stillness of its peaceful landscapes had done wonders to enliven their spirits, but the rigors of Arizona were upon them now: the unforgiving heat, the ever-increasing elevation. That, he thought grimly, and their dwindling supply of water.

Water had become a pressing need. Since Fort Worth, they’d encountered no rain, and though they’d foraged a few bottles, their supply was dwindling. Jeremy would have to start rationing soon. But how could water be safely rationed when those who drank it biked fifty miles a day? The two ideas were diametrically opposed. The Arizona sun was hot and punishing. A tight ration schedule could quickly result in dehydration. It was a riddle without an answer, and it plagued him constantly.

The southwestern states had battled water rights for years. For back then, the Colorado River had been the most metro-dependent river in America, and when the oceans soured and society began to crumble, people horded as much as they could find. Water became the currency of the west. It was the main reason for the migration of its people. Water refugees became the norm back then. Over nothing more than a few of bottles of Evian, convenience stores were held at gunpoint. While people on the east coast starved, people in the west died of dehydration. Nothing could survive this cruel heat without water.

“Dad,” Sam said, “you promised,”

“Promised what?” They’d finally found a place to hunker down for the night, an adobe-style ranch, just a mile from Interstate 10. They had just eaten their last can of soup, and Jeremy was trying not to dwell on water. “I’m sorry, Sam. Promised what?”

She sighed. “You promised you’d be honest with me. You promised you wouldn’t keep secrets from me anymore.”

Jeremy set down his bowl, cursing inwardly. Jeez. Was he that transparent?

“I didn’t realize I was hiding anything.”

“Oh please. I can read you like a book. You’ve got that funny look on your face again, and that crease you get in your forehead. And you get tiny crinkles around your eyes and mouth.”

“I get crinkles and creases because I’m an old man.”

She tightened her lips to avoid grinning. She wouldn’t allow him to deflect with poor humor. “Oh yeah. You’re old. No one’s denying that.” Stretching out flat on her stomach, she peered up at him. “So let’s have it, old man. What’s the problem now? What’s got your panties in a bunch?”

He frowned. “Oh, I don’t know. Let’s see. Maybe it’s the meter on your belly running low, or the week we lost in Odessa. Or maybe it’s the heat or the food in our packs that seems to be drying out more and more each day. I don’t know, Sam. Take your pick.” Her mouth twitched and he instantly regretted his words. “I’m sorry, guys. I’ll tell you the truth. I’m worried about water right now. If you haven’t noticed, it’s damn hot out there, and we haven’t found water since Odessa.”

Sam spooned a ball of rice into her mouth. “Okay, so what’s our plan? You always seem to have one. In the infinite wisdom of Jeremy Colt, how do we find an elusive underground spring? How do we find that magic well? That vault of water bottles, hidden in a bank?”

Jeremy flinched. Did she see him like that? As someone who could always solve her problems? Astonished and speechless, he stared at her. She met his unwavering gaze. Dear God! She actually thought he had answers. The revelation was both humbling and frightening, and for a moment, he fought back a smirk. She had just let her teenage-mask slip. Only a bit, perhaps, but enough to show the truth. Though she hadn’t meant to, she’d confessed her dependency. She trusted him, he realized with a start. She thought he actually knew what he was doing. Dear God, how he hated to rain on that parade.

“I don’t think we’ll find a hidden spring here, Sam. You’ve been reading too many Harry Potter books.”

“Okay, so what then? What do we do?” This from Seth who had curled his body closer to Sam’s.

Jeremy popped a rice ball into his mouth, and tried to make light of a crappy situation. “We start rationing. That’s what.” The two of them were simultaneously aghast. “Just a little bit, guys. It won’t be so bad. And there are a few more things we can do, as well. We can travel at night, when it’s cooler outside. I, for one, am sick of the sun. It’s killing my perfect complexion.”

Neither one of them cracked a smile. “Makes sense,” Sam said, “But the nights are still hot. We’ll still have to drink.”

“I know. That’s what worries me the most. We’ll have to slow our pace to search for water.”

“We can’t.” She lifted the corner of her shirt for effect. “I’m at forty-three percent. We’re running out of time.” Turning away from him, she scoffed. “Though you still haven’t told me what this journey is all about. What’s this oasis you’re taking us to? A rotten ocean and a deserted old town? What’s in San Diego? A store full of hundreds of boxes of disks?”

“Yeah,” Jeremy replied quietly. “Kind of. That’s about the sum of it, Sam.” He caught her gaze and held it fast.”

She instantly brightened and rose to her knees. “Really? Okay. Then let’s follow your plan: sleep during the day, travel at night. Doesn’t sound complicated to me.”

He spread his hands in supplication. “That’s all I’ve got, unless you’ve got something better. But traveling at night won’t be easy, guys. Sleeping during the day is a hard thing to do. Our bodies won’t want to do that. While the idea sounds easy, the execution will be tough. I know from experience, Sam. Your grandfather and I used to forage at night, when the human body is trying to sleep. We’ll be pushing ourselves while wanting to rest.”

Seth rolled to his ankles. “But we’ll be in San Diego in just a couple of weeks. Can’t we suck it up and just get there?”

“Suck it up?” Jeremy suppressed a smile.

“Yeah. I mean we’ve made it this far. Just a little farther to go. Let’s suck it up, and get there already. If we need to bike when we’re tired, let’s do it.”

In that moment Jeremy couldn’t have loved Seth more. He let his smile stretch wide across his face. “Okay. Then let’s start sucking it up right now.”

“Right now?” Sam frowned. “But we just got here, and we’ve been riding all day. You want us to ride all night, too?”

“Nope. But we need to do something to shift our circadian rhythms. That means forcing ourselves to stay awake tonight.”

Seth groaned, lowering his head to the floor. “Okay,” he muttered. “But how do we do that? ’Cause I’m already really tired.”

Sam plucked the idea from Jeremy’s head. “By staying active. That’s how. By finding something important to do. If we’re short on water, we forage for water. We take all night, if we have to.”

So they did. They finished their meal and stretched their tired muscles, and fighting their bodies’ instincts to sleep, they laced up their boots and stepped outside. It was as good a plan as any, Jeremy thought. At least it was different, a welcome change of pace.

The night air was crisp and clean, and though tired, they tried to make the best of things. They walked and talked about water and fish, and explored all manner of homes. The world was full of tiny treasures, and like pirates, they claimed them for themselves. They were cautious, though not overly so. Jeremy didn’t think many Arizonians still inhabited this place, for hunkering down in the middle of the desert wasn’t a good idea. Arizona was nothing but an afterthought now, a stopover at best, a blip on the map. Animals and insects had reclaimed this land.

With the encroaching dawn, they returned to the house, blacked out the windows and made up their pallets. Their efforts had been handsomely rewarded. They’d found six bottles of water and a box of stale crackers. Seth had jettisoned his navy T-shirt, trading it for a lighter one that didn’t smell as bad, and Sam found a pair of hiking boots that didn’t pinch her toes.

The Arizona days were as quiet as the nights, yet sleep teased and eluded Jeremy. He tried his best to match Seth’s rhythmic breathing, but his eyes kept snagging on a slice of bright sun, peeking through a gap in the curtains. Shifting quietly, he stared at the ceiling fan above. Dust had gathered along its blades, and like the lace hemming of an elegant dress, an impressive spider web connected each plank. He focused on the delicate gossamer threading, was hypnotized by its quivering movements in the air. What moved the web? The breath from their lungs? Air that seeped through cracks in the house?

Breath from their lungs would find those blades. Molecules would strike other molecules, he mused, which would in turn strike other molecules. It was chaos theory, something from Liam’s vast curriculum. It was the theory of the butterfly effect. It was the supposition that even the smallest change had far-reaching effects on future consequences. So what effect was Jeremy causing now? What decision had he made recently that would irrevocably alter their course? What significant breath had he exhaled? What word had he uttered that would change their future?

It was at once a comforting and debilitating thought, and he pondered it as sleep claimed him. His dreams were psychedelic and bright. It was a strange stream of unconsciousness, born of extreme exhaustion, worry, and fear. In the first dream, he was a sailor aboard a ship, surrounded by cresting black waves. The sun pierced the clouds and glittered across the water, as he stumbled about the decking like a drunkard. He lifted bottle after bottle of water to his parched lips, only to taste brine and the salt of the sea. The next dream brought him to the solitude of the desert, where he flew over the mountains on the wings of a hawk, searching for prey but finding none. He was a furry brown spider burrowing into cool sand, only to boil with the rising sun. He was a man once again, standing beneath seething sky. The clouds were smoky black and choked him. He found himself sputtering and fighting for air.

Throwing back his blanket, he shot to his feet, and spinning around, tried to adjust to his surroundings.

Sam was already awake. “What’s wrong?”

Seth rubbed his eyes beside her. He raised his face and squinted into the dark. “What?” he asked, his voice hoarse. “What is it?

“Get your things,” Jeremy whispered. “I smell smoke.”