Page 134 of Everything Under the Sun

We lay on the grass together afterward, looking up at the blue sky, feeling the heat on our faces.

We said nothing for a long time.

I wondered how he could make me feel the way he could, to make me experience so many different emotions without fainting from the crushing weight of them all.

(I wondered why there was no blood…)

44

ATTICUS

“I think we should go a little farther out,” I told Thais the next day. “We need to see if there are any other cabins nearby; search them for supplies.”

She wore her only pair of pants; her sockless feet were shoved into the oversized hiking boots. We each wore a backpack, packed with only things we’d need for a short trip away from the cabin. And as always, we carried our guns.

We headed north, in the opposite direction of where I’d dragged Mark Porter’s body and covered him with leaves and tree branches.

“You should go back and get it,” Thais said about his backpack full of supplies. “He doesn’t need the stuff anymore. And we do.”

I agreed to go back and get it later.

There was a rustle of leaves, and a squirrel jumped onto a tree, skittered upward and out of sight.

“There are so many squirrels out here,” Thais said. “If we stop catching fish, at least we’ll have plenty of squirrel meat.”

“No, we won’t. We’re running out of ammo.”

“Then we should hunt bigger game—more meat per bullet.”

“We’ll have to,” I said. “Maybe I can build a smoker to help preserve the meat—might get lucky and find a tarp or something else I can use. I’ve never done it before, but I’ll figure it out.” I regretted not paying more attention to the jobs citizens were assigned to in Lexington City.

“But we can’t stay here forever,” I said. “We have to move south soon, and we’ll definitely need the bullets out there on The Road.”

“I think we should stay,” she said. “I want to stay here.”

“I know you do.” My voice was consoling. “We’ll talk about it later. I think I see a cabin.”

We stopped on the trail and gazed ahead through a clearing. On the other side, over tall stalks of yellow grass bending gently to the breeze, a structure sat perched on a rocky hill surrounded by engulfing trees.

“It could just be a shack,” Thais said.

“Whatever it is,” I said, stepping up to the border where the forest met the field, “we’re going to search it.”

We kept to the trees, going the long way around rather than cutting through the wide-open field and risking exposure. We weaved through a rock maze on an incline, and by the time we made it to the top, Thais complained that her feet were killing her.

The rocky ground became compact dirt, spreading outward in a curvy path, flattened by years of human foot traffic and possibly ATV travel. Trees were marked by circular reflectors, red and blue; faded red barrier ribbons hung from a bush here and there. Out ahead, a tire hung from a rope in a tree, and just beyond it there was a cabin, nearly unrecognizable from the overgrowth of vines that covered the front porch and the outside walls and almost the entire roof—a few more months of growth and we never would have spotted the tiny cabin from the bottom.

“Probably overrun by snakes,” I said. “A machete would be really nice right now.”

“Maybe it’s better around the back.”

“Hopefully.”

We went around to the back of the cabin where the overgrowth had been cut away; a porch overlooked the bluffs fifteen feet from the bottom step.

“Whoever owned this place,” I said in a lowered voice, “didn’t want it to be easily found, that’s for sure.”

“What if they still own it?”

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