Page 27 of Haven

“This isn’t normal wear and tear,” Jackson says, pulling off the road and driving on the grass beside it. “This has got to be earthquake damage. We must be getting to the right place.”

I hold on to the support bar because even the unpaved ground is all torn up and so the ride is bumpy. “This area must have been hit really hard. No wonder everyone made a run for it. Look, that used to be a church.”

It’s not even a building anymore. Just a pile of debris with half a cross sticking out from a section that used to be the steeple.

I pull out the roadmap again, comparing it against the sketched map on the note. “It looks like there are several old towns here worth checking out. Mack says that a few of the ones farther north have been resettled, but there’s a lot down this way that haven’t been fully explored yet.”

“We need small farms or acreages. Places that are likely to have smaller tractors.” He pulls to a stop and leans over to study the maps with me. “And along the way we’ll look for drugstores and pharmacies.”

We plot a route and follow it, stopping at several different rural properties. They must have been hit by other groups in the past because most of the houses and barns have been cleaned out.

Since the area we’re in has already been pillaged, we drive farther south, away from the bigger towns. On a small farm, we get excited since we find cabinets full of canned food in the house. We leave the cans for someone else, since we’ve got plenty of better food at New Haven, but it’s proof the place hasn’t been looted yet. There’s also an old pickup truck in the driveway that won’t run but that has a tank full of gas, so we siphon off enough to fill up our ATV.

“I can’t believe no one has found this place yet. Let’s check the outbuildings,” I say, breathless with anticipation as we get back into our vehicle. “Maybe they had John Deeres.”

Jackson is excited too. I can see it on his tense face. He drives us toward what used to be the large shed or workshop. The walls have fallen down, but it’s not too hard to move them out of the way to uncover two tractors painted in a familiar green.

I clap my hands and hug myself as Jackson runs over to check the models.

One of them is the exact model of the one in our barn—not all that surprising since it used to be a popular model. Jackson pops the hood and carefully disconnects the pump we need. He also takes some of the other parts so we’ll have backups.

He’s actually grinning as we load them into our storage compartment.

Maybe because I’m happy. Maybe because it feels like a miracle. Maybe because Jackson is smiling. But I do something I never would have expected to do.

I throw myself at him in a hug.

He hugs me back. His arms tighten around me almost bruisingly as he swings me halfway around toward the ATV. My face is buried in his shirt. He’s big and hard and strong and smells hot and natural. Like Jackson.

It’s longer than it should be before we pull apart. I’m flushed and self-conscious, and he clears his throat and stares at the ground.

Shit. Why did I do that? Our relationship has never been like that.

“Now we’ve got to find a pharmacy,” I say, trying to move us past the weirdness. “There’s got to be one around here somewhere. Is there a town anywhere close?”

We study the map again, and that helps. We find a town about eight miles east, so we set off toward it. The area is so deserted we decide it’s safe enough to stick to the road. We’re not familiar with this region, and we don’t want to get lost.

Before we reach it, we pass a strip of what used to be stores. We stop and check the old signs. A restaurant. A laundromat. A pop-up fireworks store. And a Tractor Supply Company.

“Too bad we don’t have room for big bags of chickenfeed,” I say, looking at how much is available under the half-fallen building.

“We don’t really need it, and think about how much gas it would use to cart all that back.”

“Yeah. Too bad there isn’t a pharmacy.”

“We’ll keep looking.”

We do scrounge around in the wreckage and find some tools that might be useful. Then we keep going toward the town we identified.

We’re about a mile away from the town when something terrible happens. The ATV sputters. Jerks. And then rolls to a stop.

“What the fuck?” Jackson mutters, staring blankly down at the controls.

“We know it’s not out of gas. Maybe it’s an easy fix.”

I don’t know where that optimism comes from. We lucked out with the tractor parts, but that doesn’t mean anything else is going to go well for us. But Jackson gets out and pops the hood.

“It’s the drive belt,” he says, sounding tired but not upset.

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