With the other hand, I pointed into the field and shouted, “Go! Bring one back!” just like David Doakes had done on the farm.
But the dog did not move; he started to, but half a second before his rear end came off the ground, he stopped, and became still again, his gaze focused on my pocket; drool dripped from one side of his snout in a long, snot-like string that jiggled and dangled as it hung there.
Thais and I shared a worried look.
I tried again.
“Go!” I shouted, and pointed into the field. “Bring one back!”
But still, the dog did not move.
Getting agitated, I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “He might want to reconsider,” I mumbled, “before he becomes the meal.”
“Atticus!”
I was only kidding, and Thais knew as much.
“Let me try.”
Thais snapped her fingers, and Trick reluctantly turned back to her—he was still curious about what I had in my pocket.
Thais reached into the folds of her skirt as if searching inside a pocket, held her hand there, pointed into the field and shouted, “Go! Bring one back!”
Still, the dog did not move.
I tried to hide my grin by chewing on the inside of my cheek harder, but Thais had seen it. She made a face at me that said “Oh, hush!” and then she focused her attention on the dog once more.
“You want a treat?” she asked Trick.
The dog’s ears perked and his tail stopped wagging in an instant. He didn’t blink; he didn’t move; I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing.
“Uh huh,” she said with confidence, “that’s the trigger word, isn’t it? You want a treat, boy?”
Trick barked a loud, booming bark.
Thais pointed into the field again. “Go! Bring one back!”
Trick shot up on all four legs, and set off like an arrow into the field; within seconds he was nothing more than a black dot moving in and out of the shadows again.
“So, what now?” I asked, since she was clearly the only one of us who knew what she was doing—I actually loved that about her sometimes.
“I guess we wait,” Thais answered, and sat down on the grass beside me.
And so that’s what we did—we waited. Minutes became hours, and the hours stacked up, and we were starving and thirsty and tired—always so tired—and when we were awoken by the sound of an engine—an actual working engine—in the early, dark hours of the morning, Trick still had not returned with anything for us to eat.
“Stay flat on the ground,” I told Thais, throwing my arm over her back and pressing my body as closely to hers as I could. “And don’t move.”
We were lying on the grass, stomachs and heads down; I bit through the excruciating pain of my fractured ribs pressed against the hard ground, but I did not move, and I barely breathed.
A truck, the shape but a silhouette in the dark moving across the horizon east of the field, bumbled along the dirt road, its headlights bounced around in the darkness, the engine and exhaust sputtered and spit and backfired. After several tense moments, the red glow of the brake lights disappeared over a hill, and the ailing grumble of the engine faded and then it was gone.
“We can’t stay any longer,” I whispered; I rolled onto my back, grimacing with the effort, and then just lay there to catch my breath.
“Then let’s keep moving,” Thais whispered back.
We went another twenty-four hours without food, but we pushed on. Though the only thing we had left anymore to keep us moving was determination.
Another twenty-four hours, and even our determination had given up on us.
THAIS
I tripped over my own feet, and when I hit the ground I just lay there, unable to move; something pointy dug into the small of my back and my arms and legs and my head. Atticus tried to help me up, but he could barely stand, either, and when he reached for my elbow, he fell.
“I can’t…I can’t do this anymore,” I said, my voice strained and weak.
ATTICUS
Physically, I was worse off than Thais: the fractured ribs and broken fingers were draining enough, but the infection in my leg had become debilitating. I lay there beside her, too weak to even open my eyes, almost too weak to breathe on my own. I felt many hard, pointy objects jabbing me everywhere, but I could not move. I heard a crunching sound as Thais adjusted next to me, and something gave me a chill in my heart about wherever we’d fallen, but still, I was too weak to investigate, or even to care.
THAIS & (ATTICUS)
My eyes were getting heavier; I tried to keep them open, but I could not. I could taste blood in my mouth, copper, metallic, but I hadn’t a clue on how it got there. My head ached so terribly I could feel the veins throbbing in my temples. My lips were so dry they stuck together like glue whenever they’d touch, and I had to break them apart when I wanted to speak.
“Do you still…think we’re…in Arkansas?” I asked, watching silver spots dance on the back of my eyelids.
Atticus’ breathing was shallow, and he was slow to respond. “Yeah, probably.”
A day and a half ago we determined we were in Arkansas, judging the license plates on almost every abandoned car we’d passed on the road, and those we came across still parked underneath carports and inside garages. But whereabouts in Arkansas, or how far south we’d traveled through it, would remain a mystery.
“Atticus?”
“Um-hmm?’ he mumbled, too weak to move his lips, or to open his eyes.
“I know it’s…cruel to say…but…I’m glad the world ended…or I never…would’ve met you.”
(I felt myself smiling, or maybe I was only thinking it.)
“Me too, Thais…me too.”
We wanted to touch each other, to hold hands, to lie beside one another, to hold one another, but we could not move. We slept, and slept, and slept, past the morning, past noontime, through the heat that burned our faces, and the grumbling engine of another truck—or the same one—driving past us on another nearby road.
“Was that a truck?” I thought I’d asked, but I couldn’t tell if I was awake or asleep.
Hours later, in the early evening before sunset, my eyes pried apart slowly as my mind registered the slimy feel of something against my face, and a smell that was both hot and unpleasant. Opening my eyes the rest of the way, but my mind still trying to wake from dreamland, my vision was blurry, and all I could make out was a dark figure hovering over me, licking my face, nudging me awake with its nose.
“Atticus, it’s Trick,” I spoke weakly. “He found us.”
I heard Atticus moan next to me.
Lifting from the ground, I clenched my eyes and kneaded my back with my fingertips as I tried to relax the stiffened muscles. I felt dizzy and faint, but managed enough strength to sit up straight and be aghast at the dead opossum laying across my lap, its mouth and face bloodied, its stomach torn where its insides protruded.
“Atticus, we have food.”
But Atticus did not move.