Deep Shadows (35 page)

The only thing Carter knew about Armageddon was how to play the video game. Come to think of it, people found all sorts of strange things to eat in the game.

“I'll go to the school and grab the oven,” Kaitlyn said.

“You can't carry it alone,” Jason said.

“There's a two-wheel dolly in the supply room, and Coach Parish said he'd be there all afternoon. The other team may still be there working on their windmill. I'll get the oven, a bucket, and the dolly and meet you back here.” Kaitlyn hurried back in the direction they'd come without waiting for an answer.

“Help me hoist this up.” She'd wrapped a rope around the deer.

Jason and Carter pulled on the end of the rope until the deer was at a good height. The harvesting went faster than Carter expected. An hour later the woman pointed to a single-story A-frame house in need of painting.

“I live there. Come on over when you've disposed of the carcass, and I'll give you each enough for your family. It has to be cooked and eaten quickly or it'll spoil.”

And then she was gone, pulling the cooler back toward her house.

“She's freakishly strong for someone that age,” Jason said.

“I wish we had some gloves.” Carter stood in the wagon, cut down what remained of the deer, and hopped back to the ground. Jason approached from the other side, and together they loaded it onto the wagon.

They dumped the carcass in a field where there were already two others, and then they stopped to clean their hands in the creek that ran beside the school. The water level was low, but it was still running.

Wiping their wet hands on their shorts, they hurried back toward the woman's house. Not surprisingly, Kaitlyn had beaten them there.

“I think she's in the back,” Kaitlyn said.

That was when Carter noticed the smell of wood smoke.

Walking toward the back of the house, they saw the woman had made a sort of spit over an open fire. The deer meat was already cooking.

“You came along when I needed you. Thank ya.” She handed them
three packages of meat wrapped in old newspaper. “Best get home and cook it up quick.”

They thanked the woman, though Carter still felt as if he was in the middle of a video game. Any minute now, a mutant would jump out from behind a tree.

“Who's going to take the oven?” Jason asked.

“Max has a propane stove, and our gas stove still works.” Carter shrugged. “We can use one of those.”

“We have an old barbecue pit out back.” Jason picked up his skateboard so he could walk beside them. “I have no idea how my mom will fix it up, but I'm sure she'll think of something.”

“Sounds like you should take the oven, Kaitlyn.” Carter knew she and her mom were on their own. She hadn't explained about her dad, but for whatever reason, he was out of the picture.

“Mom will love this. She's always saying we need to rise to meet a challenge.” She raised her voice like a pastor at a pulpit and repeated, “
Rise to meet the challenge, Kaitlyn
.”

They all laughed, and Carter felt better about this strange turn of events. Or maybe it was just that he didn't have digging duty today. They'd made it to nine feet, and the men had spent the morning building a shelter around the latrine. Since he didn't have a shift at the Market, he was free until four o'clock when he was to be at the roadblock.

They split to go their separate ways at the next intersection, where Jason lived two blocks over from Kaitlyn. Carter looked at her and said, “Don't do anything crazy with this,” pointing at the dolly and the oven they had made.

“Tomorrow at nine,” Kaitlyn called out.

Carter waved and turned toward home.

With any luck, he and his mom would have a hot meal sometime soon.

F
IFTY
-E
IGHT

O
n Wednesday evening, Max, Shelby, Carter, and Dr. Bhatti sat around Max's picnic table. For the first time since Friday, Max wasn't hungry. He didn't need a second bowl of the stew, but he reached for one anyway. It wasn't like they could refrigerate it, and Shelby had already delivered a couple of bowls to their older neighbors.

Surprisingly it was Farhan Bhatti who had sliced up the deer meat, sautéed it in onions, oil, and garlic, and added a gravy packet and more seasoning—all inside an old Dutch oven that was now suspended over Max's fire pit. “No need using up all your propane for something that will need to cook for hours,” Bhatti had reasoned.

The smell had tortured him all afternoon as he worked in the house, dividing his possessions between things he would take with him and items he would attempt to trade. By the time Carter had returned from his shift at the roadblock and Shelby had returned from working at Green Acres, the stew was ready.

“Less than a week, and you'd think we hadn't had meat in a month.” Shelby scooped up another spoonful of the deer stew. “Are you sure this won't kill us? Make us sick? I can't afford to spend an evening in the latrine vomiting.”

“No worries. The meat was quite fresh when Carter showed up with it.” Max popped another bite in his mouth.

“I wish you all could have seen her,” Carter said. “This little old lady with a long gray braid hanging down her back. But she was strong, and she definitely knew what she was doing.”

“Good thing the game warden didn't catch her,” Shelby muttered.

“Our game warden hasn't made it back. He was working over by Lake Buchanan when the flare hit.” Max considered licking his bowl, but in the end he placed it on the ground for the old stray tabby cat he used to feed. There wouldn't be any more cat food in the near future, so the least he could do was let her clean his bowl.

The cat began to purr as she daintily licked up every drop.

“The old lady was a little scary.” Carter continued scooping stew from his bowl. “The entire thing was like something from a movie.”

“The old ones have seen hard times before,” Dr. Bhatti said. “They aren't quite as soft as the new generation.”

“Speak for yourself,” Carter said. “Dragging that deer carcass to the field was no picnic.”

“True, but you've changed,” Shelby pointed out. “A week ago you complained about having to vacuum your room.”

“Guess I've toughened up nicely in only—” Carter paused, his eyes going up and to the left. “Six days. Wow. Only six days.”

The same thought had been circling in Max's mind all afternoon. How could so much change so drastically in so little time? And what did that indicate about the future?

“Tell us about where you're from,” Shelby said to Dr. Bhatti.

She'd been watching him since the meal had begun. Shelby clearly did not trust this man, and her instincts were usually good. Max needed to find out what he was hiding, not to mention what he had buried. He knew Bhatti was holding back something, but wasn't everyone? He hadn't told Shelby how frightened he was—how certain he was that things would get much worse before they had a chance of getting better.

And she was up to something. He didn't know what, but he'd known her too long to miss the signs—staring off into space, abruptly changing the conversation—and the look on her face after Ted Gordon had talked about Austin? Fear and desperation, followed by a hard, determined frown. Yes, Shelby was planning something she didn't want to tell him about.

Bhatti studied her with a somber expression, and Max thought he wouldn't answer—but he nodded once. Instead of jumping right into his personal story, he pushed back his bowl, tapped his pocket as if to find a
pack of cigarettes there, and finally settled for folding his hands over his stomach.

Bhatti wasn't an old man—approximately Max's age if he had to guess. And yet many of his mannerisms were of an older man—like patting his pocket for something he had forgotten, resting his hands on his stomach, and thinking long and hard before he spoke. Perhaps it was because he was no longer hungry, or because of the peacefulness of night falling around them. Whatever the reason, the doctor seemed more relaxed than at any time since Max had met him—which admittedly hadn't been all that long.

“I'm from New York, which I'm sure you're quite familiar with.”

“We went once,” Carter said. “My mom had this writer conference thing.”

Bhatti arched his eyebrows, but he didn't respond to that.

“Mostly we saw the touristy part of the city,” Shelby explained.

“Which is not where I lived. But having grown up there, I feel comfortable in most areas—both touristy and otherwise. I must say, I wouldn't want to be there now.”

“And your parents?” Max asked.

Bhatti shook his head, not bothering to explain.

“You don't sound like a New Yorker,” Carter said. When his mother bumped his knee under the table—Max knew without having to actually see it—Carter said, “What? I'm sure he knows he has an accent.”

“Indeed I am aware.” Bhatti glanced at each of them. “My parents spoke both English and Urdu, the national language of Pakistan. Their accent was much heavier than mine. My grandparents, however, spoke only their native language.”

“Urdu?” Carter asked.

“Yes. I visited my grandparents from June to August each year, so I became much more fluent than I otherwise would have. During those summer visits my accent would grow stronger. When I would return to New York, my accent would fade. What you hear now, I suppose it's a blend of the two.”

“So you lived in Pakistan every summer?”

Max sat back and let Carter quiz the doctor. Teens had a natural interest in all things different, and Bhatti seemed much less defensive when speaking with Carter.

“Until I was in college. My grandparents lived—still live as far as I know—in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city.”

“How big?” Carter asked.

“Over nine million.”

Carter let out a whistle, and then he said, “Plenty bigger than Abney.”

Max understood Carter's reaction to the idea of that many people. He had felt the same way when he'd moved to Austin—which was also plenty bigger than Abney. At first there had been an allure to that, but he quickly realized that he didn't fit into the hustle and bustle of a metropolitan area. Though he'd be the first to admit that the food was tastier, the parks were better, and the entertainment was far superior. The traffic? It was worse.

“Karachi is a big city, but there are still markets with fresh meat, where my grandmother—my nana—would go every day to purchase that evening's meal.”

“Every day?”

“Many people in Pakistan have only a small refrigerator, so you purchase what you need for the next twenty-four hours. Anyway, that is how I learned to cook freshly harvested meat. It can have a gamey taste, but with the right spices…”

“The stew was delicious. Thank you, Farhan.” Max felt strange using the man's first name, but he couldn't keep calling him Dr. Bhatti either.

“How did you end up in Texas?” Shelby asked, leaning forward, her arms crossed on the table. “And why did you leave Austin?”

“You are quite curious about my past.”

“I am.”

“And yet I know very little of yours.”

“I didn't show up in your town, claiming to be a doctor.”

“I have not claimed anything, although it is true that I am a doctor.”

Checkmate.

Max had to give the guy credit for not backing down. But he had lived in a city with nine million people. Surely he could handle one suspicious Texas woman.

Instead of jousting with Shelby, Farhan stood and picked up his bowl and spoon. “I will just clean these up, and then I told Miss Connie I would look in on one of her patients. So if you'll excuse me…”

They sat in silence for a minute, then Max asked, “How's work, Carter?”

“It's over. Nothing left to sell at the Market. Graves said he'd get hold of us if anything comes in, but I'm not holding my breath.”

His mom looked at him quizzically. “Where would he get more supplies?”

Carter doubted they'd approve of Graves's scheme to find the corporate supply trucks and take what was on them, but he told them anyway.

“I won't have you selling stolen goods,” Shelby said. “We're desperate, but we're not criminals.”

“Don't waste your energy worrying about that,” Max said. “I imagine those trucks were looted the first night of the aurora.”

“I'm pretty sure the stuff is gone,” Carter said. “The last shift I worked, Graves was all out of sorts. Turns out someone took his list of trailers and routes. Whoever took the list probably already got their hands on the goods.”

Max pulled off his baseball cap and stared at the rim. When he looked up, he was smiling. “Well, if anyone suddenly has a truckload of groceries that they're selling out of their front yard, we'll know who our culprit is.”