DamNation Prologue

Congratulations!  I finished the second Piggy book and now it's up to the editor to determine what stays and when it is available...although the 'publish date' is about a year later than promised since I spent so much time watching the deadline go whizzing past.

I am currently working on DamNation, a young adult end-of-the-world book.  I am considering adding in an unusual prologue (unusual because it is three chapters) but can't decide how I feel.  Can I get some opinions?  I will post the prologue here, then reveal the first chapter of the book.  You will notice the prologue is past tense, third person.  Here's where it gets tricky.  Both the tense and the voice change. Because the first chapter is Dara's explanation of where she is what what had JUST happened, it is past tense, first person, and from there on, it is present tense, first person.  If it weren't for all these changes, I wouldn't even call the first three a prologue and I would likely keep it.  It fills in so many blanks, but is such a different feel I am not confident in it's addition.  Votes?  Let me hear your take on this. Also, it'd be fun to hear if some readers skipped down to the first chapter and read that BEFORE reading the prologue.  Would that change opinion?

Part One

“Daddy?” she called, even though he was only a few cacti away. She did that often since her mother had left- always checking to make sure he was still there.

Malik popped his head up and found his seven-year-old daughter. “Right here, baby. How’re you doing with that cactus fruit?”

She wrinkled up her nose the way her mother used to do. “Well, It’s prickly. And I don’t like eating these…. I forgot the name. It’s also a fish; I remember that.” She dusted her hands off and tried to angle her fingers so that they missed all the spines. “I wish we had more bags so I could just get all my water from the bushes.” She got quiet then, recalling that she was the one who tore the last two.

They now had only three bags left, each tented over clumps of leaves along their path, worn-out string wound tightly around the branches. The heat of the day would start the transpiration process, and the leaves would sweat out clean filtered water. In four hours, those three bags would collect one cup of water, drop by excruciatingly slow drop. They would share that one cup and still be thirsty for more.

“They are called tuna. They’re safe,” he quickly added to alleviate the fear she must have of drinking anything from cacti. “In fact, back when we had stores, they sold those as fruit. But, my mother called them prickly pears.  I guess you could just call them that.”

Malik caught his daughter’s eyes drifting over to the dam. From where they stood, they could just see the thin line of blue gold shimmering against the heat. It was a good mile away. Or a bad mile, all in how you saw it. And the more he saw of it, the more he was sure it was a very bad mile. Scattered around the edge of blue were animal carcasses, bits that had been blown apart. There had never been signs to warn anyone off. The animal remains left a strong enough message.

“Never mind that, baby. Just put your tuna over here with mine.”

“But….” He could see her working it out in her head. Her brows were creased in frustration, and her mouth pinched with the injustice of it. She turned back to the water once more and moved her fingers through her dust caked hair, probably trying to remember how it felt when it was weightless, floating in water. Something that would never happen again.

Dara turned from the dam and let the subject drop. Her hand fell away from the brown clump of curly hair she held and absently wiped it across her tanned face.

A year ago, she swam. It wasn’t the pool in their backyard - private pools had already been dried up, and the public pools had been closed up for want of water. But one pool, Best Springs, was refilled to ease the complaints. To help the town feel a little more normal. Fighting to help their children feel normal, parents pushed their kids towards the water’s edge. There, normal little boys and normal little girls waded cautiously into the water waiting for the normal thing to happen. Because normally they weren’t allowed to play in water. Normally, they would have been scolded for the wastefulness for using water on your body when every drop was needed for someone’s mouth.

Dara had grown bored looking at the normal kids. Her mother and father had brought her here to enjoy this water so she pushed her way to the middle of the pool, laid the back of her head in water, and lifted her feet. She closed her eyes and floated in that water, imagining the whole world were covered in the stuff. Her daddy said that it had been once. Oceans of the stuff.

How many oceans, she wondered. She knew an ocean once meant ‘a lot,’ but ‘a lot’ meant a full cup. 

Now that Dara saw the dam, she knew. That must be what daddy meant when he said an ocean.

Malik squatted in the sandy dirt, patting the old shirt he laid on the ground. He was still waiting for her to come over and deposit her collection.

A sigh, much too large for her seven-year-old lungs, escaped. The subject was dropped, but not the nagging thoughts in her head.

She dropped another tuna into the fold of her tattered blue dress. Then she hunched her thin shoulders and drug her feet over to her father in protest. She let the small oval fruits fall out of her hands, one by one, and then Dara dropped to the ground as well. “Tell me again. You know, how we aren’t the only ones?”

Since her mother’s departure, their conversations had steadily become one of two subjects, how it used to be, and how it could be. He searched her face for a sign of which way this was going, but all he saw was the creases on her face. Her skin no longer looked plump and rosy; it was parched, like her old playdough left out of its container to grow stale and harden.  

Dara caught him staring. “Oh! Is it my nose again?” her hand reached up to wipe away the blood she thought must be dripping from her dry sinuses.

“No baby, you’re perfect. My little moon halo. And no, we aren’t the only ones. But there are fewer people.”

“But if we aren’t the only ones,” she pondered, and Malik knew which conversation this would be, “then why isn’t everyone fighting to get it back? Like the stories you told me about revolving, and the ones where people knew there was power in more people?”

“Do you mean revolting? Or maybe revolutions? Both come down to the same thing, I guess.” He hated the hopelessness of these conversations and wished he knew how to steer it towards the fond memories of the past. “But, baby, tell me. Who are we going to revolt against? The people guarding the water aren’t there anymore. Just the water and the landmines. Let it go. We’re lucky to have figured out how to get water on our own.”

“But not Mama.”

Malik swallowed an answer. He decided it was time to check on their bush water and had just stood up when he heard a branch snap. He turned his head expecting to see a wild dog, but what he saw, he knew, could be even more dangerous.

Part Two

A stranger stood a few feet away. He was six-foot three and had shoulders you could build a house on. Malik’s eyes followed the length of the stranger: his jeans were worn away at the knees, the beltline ready to surrender to gravity at the next missed meal; his chest was bare and sunburnt, his face like a sheet of paper that had been wadded up and then smoothed back out. Thin wisps of blond hair raked over his eyes, making it difficult to see if he still held his humanity. But the most frightening thing Malik saw stood a few feet behind the man.

Two kids, a dark haired boy not much bigger than his Dara, and yellow haired girl, young enough that she probably didn’t remember what a bath felt like. Both had birdlike frames- not much grew without water.

They would be the reason for a struggle, if it came down to it. Malik prayed it didn’t come down to it. Behind him, his own reason to fight stiffened.

Malik spread out his arms to shield her, knowing full well that it was only symbolic. “There’s no water here. We’re harvesting the cactus, which you are welcome to.” Malik hoped he looked strong, but he could feel the tremor in his hands.

“You aren’t eating it, are you?” the blond hulk asked. His voice was a contradiction to his size, as if it belonged to a much older man. The rasp was as dry as the dust that covered their bodies. Malik wondered how weak his own vocalization was, barely drinking enough to make it to the next patch of ground.

Malik glanced back and searched his daughter’s face. She hardly flinched. “Just the tuna. We know about the sickness.”

The towering man snorted, “Knowing and needing aren’t always in agreement.”

A year ago, Malik would have thought that to be a pretentious, nonsensical statement. Today Malik nodded in agreement. “My name’s Malik, this here is Dara. If you guys are going to be in the area, it’d be nice to know your names.”

The visitor kept his eye steady, but his two children leaned around him to get a good look at Dara.

Finally, the hulk spoke. He put his hand on his son’s head, “My boy here is eight.” The boy slid out from under his father’s hand and walked towards Dara. “I’m Mica. Dad says I can be funny, but it’s usually a dry humor.” He turned a sly smile towards his father, “That’s only because it's a dry audience. Get it?” He prodded, “because there’s not much water?  It’s dry!”

His father chuckled. “Yeah, he’s a clown. And that’s my Theodora,” he pointed to the child wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt; she was now wandering over to the abandoned pile of tuna. “But we call her Teddy. See the joke? Everyone thinks it’d be Dora.” He chuckled at his funny, then coughed. “Anyway, she turned four a while back. At least I think she did.” He leaned his arm out, palm extended in a way that people used to do when greeting each other, “And you can call me Tom.”

Malik took Tom’s hand in his own, and when he released it he pointed over at Teddy. He didn’t want to make any movement towards Tom’s daughter, but the child was about to pick up a tuna, and he hadn’t shaved off the spines. “She might get more than thorns from those if we get to peeling them. Do you have supplies?”

As the sun leaned on the edge of the horizon, Malik and Dara still had company. They had feasted on the tuna; afterwards, they gnawed on rabbit jerky from Malik’s pouch and slurped down canned beans from Tom’s. Malik wasn’t worried about the food; although scarce, more could be found. But he still hadn’t mentioned the fresh water he and Dara were harvesting, and with only three bags left, he didn’t see how he could.

The sun lowered, the heat lifted, and they built a small fire. And still the conversation was running strong. Malik hadn’t spoken to anyone in so long. The water could wait.

Tom finished sharing their history, “The divorce never stopped my kids from wanting to find their mother.” Tom’s son Mica nodded his head. His sister had stopped paying attention; she sat and picked at her face like a capuchin monkey attending to social grooming.

“You saw the dam?” Malik changed the subject. He still wasn’t sure which way they had traveled from.

Under all the dirt, the dark haired Mica had his daddy’s sun-blushed skin and blue eyes. He also had his daddy’s wide smile, and it lit up at that word. “A dam?”

Malik pulled his eyes away from Mica and cocked his head at Tom. “So you haven’t seen it?”

“Haven’t seen any body of water in…damn - no pun intended - It’s just, I have no sense of time anymore. It’s been a while,” he concluded. “So there’s a dam near here? I suppose if it were useable you wouldn’t be here licking the seeds off of the cacti with us.”

Malik shook his head. “It’s still untouchable. Parts of deer and mountain lion are-” he caught himself. A moment ago, Teddy was occupying herself with her nose. Now she was staring at Malik, waiting for the rest of his description of this word the strangers had seen, but that her daddy had not. When the three, possibly four-year-old, tired of waiting for Malik’s story, she wiped her fingers on her t-shirt and called out, “The lions don’t come anymore.” And folded her arms over her chest the way her daddy did when he was satisfied with his answer.

Malik smiled as all soft-hearted men do when humoring a child, then turned back to Tom, “It’s over that way.” He stated, flicking his chin to the east. Then, making sure he had Tom’s attention, he added, “If you walk around that direction, keep a sharp eye out for where the kids step.”

Dara wasn’t thinking of the dam anymore. It just blurted out of her mouth, “Have you heard the talk?”

Malik almost blushed. Tom just looked confused.

“She means the rumors. Last time we ran into folks- two women walking from the north- they said there was a lot of water in Arizona. They said they were sent to tell others. They said there was a factory still running and that hard workers were invited to join.” Malik hated spreading that rumor any farther, but if he didn’t bring it up, his Dara would. “There’re a lot of rumors, though, when you find people to tell them. We’ve met others who say that the company that bought out all the water rights is gone. That the owner and all his minions killed each other out of greed, and now the water is just kept from everyone by all the booby traps.”

Tom shook his head. “We were heading down toward the ocean, and we ran into a group that said the ocean was poisoned with radiation.”

“Is it?” Malik asked in disbelief. “The entire ocean?” It seemed too much, but then a world without running faucets had once seemed crazy.

“I believe it is.” Tom picked up a stick and scrubbed it against his exposed leg. Layers of sienna-red skin peeled off leaving behind white flakes. He brushed his hand over the new dried patch, fiddled with the stick a second longer, then explained, “They were heading away from an ocean. If the ocean was still any good to them, why leave? Surely evaporation would bring in more rain near the ocean. But... all those coastal nuclear plants that lost power. All the water, even the marine life, would be irradiated. So many plants...that much radioactive waste would spread out from one body to the next. Any rain falling from that source would do more harm than help.” Tom tossed the stick into the flames, “So, yeah, I think all the oceans are dead.”

Tom looked up to a circle of silent faces. Malik looked crestfallen. Dara, his daughter, looked puzzled to hear of an ocean- or perhaps, Tom thought, to hear of an ocean that could die. Tom’s own daughter was quietly picking at a hole in the hem of her oversized shirt. His son, on the other hand, was making an odd face, and said, “Dad, you have to have a backstory when you’re evil, right?  Yours could be about the time you were bitten by an irradiated snake and mutated into one.” The boy leaned back, shielding his face with his arm, “And gross- all your shed skin is going to infect the rest of us!”

Malik stood quickly and reached for his Dara’s hand. It took all of that time and a little sputtering before he realized that Mica was what Tom referred to as ‘being a clown’. Mica was pointing at Tom’s sunburnt skin.

“I’m sorry.  I told you Mica was a comedian. And he’ll do anything to keep us from focusing on…well, you know.” Tom reached over and ruffled his son’s dark, shaggy hair. “So I’ll lighten up a bit, eh?” Tom was quiet for a moment then, to Mica’s dismay, persisted on, “Not all rumors are true. I heard something about the Darron Paris company-”

“The dairy company?”

“Yeah, them. I heard that they had bought out Nestle’s supplies and then had all the water shipped over to France. But if you’re saying there is a dam…”

Dara spoke up, “Is this happening to people all over the world?”

“Of course.” Tom declared, as if was a silly question. His throat burned from the stress he put on the words and he grimaced. “It started with just two of the soda companies, then the dairy company started grabbing up the water. They pumped it out of our wells and bottled it up and told us this was better than what we could get for free. I remember laughing when the ads started using words like ‘Pure’ and then ‘Safe’, as if it was any safer than what we ran out of our tap.”

Mica groaned. Malik shrugged, “Well, it sure smelled better than what came out of our tap.”

“You know the municipals had to test their water multiple times a day? The iron and minerals in the water made it look and smell funny, but your tap water was safe. The FDA left product testing up to the water companies and whatever standards they wanted to conform to.” Tom smirked, “They never ran the story, but after that, ‘Safe’ was a catch phrase that just hit me funny.”

“I was guilty of buying it, but it was the convenience of carrying my water around. It was sort of like buying dehydrated fruit. All of the fruit, but none of the mess and so easy to stuff the bag of it in your jacket pocket for later.”

Mica’s head drew up and his grin spread wide. He asked the group, “Do you know what a humanitarian is?”

Malik was unsure how to respond to this odd question.  Was there even such a thing any more? There wasn’t much humanity left to give rise to humanitarians, and there weren’t the resources to do anything for the people remaining. He looked uncertainly at Tom when Mica impatiently interjected, “Humanitarians are like vegetarians, except they don’t eat vegetables...” 

Teddy’s eyes shifted owly and she anxiously asked, “What do they eat?”

“What do you think they eat?” Mica asked innocently.

Tom shook his head, “It’s a joke, Teddy, the answer is: They don’t eat, they donate their food to help others.” Tom met Malik’s eye.  “I said he was a comedian, I never said he was a funny one.” He turned to Mica, “Why are you trying to scare your little sister?”

Mica complained, “I’m ready for a story- a real story.”

Tom explained, “Stories are the only thing we have plenty of. Stories of ancient gods, stories of pretty princess. We usually avoid stories of water…I’m sorry Mica. But I’ve been thinking of how we got into this mess for a while now, and I guess I’m sounding really cynical.” Tom looked back at Malik, “You know, how we started out wanting it, for convenience, or for the idea of it being safe. But then we needed it. Because once the water rights were bought up, if you didn't pour it from a bottle you didn't get any. How did we get from one point to the next?”

Malik remembered when the price of bottled water became more expensive than the gas he used to run his truck. “You can't tell where life will take you. Remember when we worried that we'd overuse oil and run out?”

Both men shook their heads, their children watching them, waiting for story to get interesting. Because, as Tom said, stories were the only thing a person didn’t run out of.

But this story wasn’t going anywhere and quiet little Dara joined in Mica’s efforts to end it. She squished up her nose and said, “So? Which of the rumors are true?”

Both men realized how far they had strayed from Dara’s question and laughed. “Probably none of them.” Tom finally said, “That was the point we were making, wasn’t it Malik?”

Mica smiled over at Dara and for a moment she felt proud that she was a part of ending the adult’s conversation. But the conversation died down with no stories to replace it and soon the campfire was the only sound, snapping and spitting as it burned through the mesquite branches.

Finally Tom spoke up, “We should probably start walking soon. Don’t know about you two, but we do our traveling at night.”

Malik looked at his daughter. She knew what he was thinking. “We do too. I think we’ll stick around here a little longer, put out the fire and then pick a direction. Seems almost pointless any which way.”

When Tom stood and led his family away, Malik called out a reminder, “Watch out for the dam.”

Part Three

Dara watched the other kids walk away. She had a sinking feeling then, to be alone again, feeling like she and her father were the last people on earth. Then she helped her father kick dirt over the dying flames and followed him down the path.

It was dark enough to make finding their hidden water bags difficult. Dara’s eyes were still young and sharp though, and she was the first to see the plastic glinting in the waning moon light.

“Over here!” she called, making her way to the bags. She reached in to unwind one of the bags, and then remembered the last two she tore. “Don’t worry, I’ll be caref-”

Her hands froze, arrested in front of the bush. There the plastic hung, shredded across the branch. Her mind battled for a reason the bag would not be intact, a reason why they had no water collected at the bottom.

“Baby! What is it?” Malik demanded, jumping forward and pushing her back. He worried that she had been confronted by a wild animal. His eyes cast around but all that was to be seen was a bush with their life supply ripped right out. He searched out for the other two bags and found they had met the same fate. Circling around each of their ripped bags were small prints and drag marks.

“A rat?” Dara sobbed.

Her father shrugged, uncommitted. “Possible.”

Although what had chewed through their bags was no longer important- would never be important again. There were no more bags for anyone or anything to rip. He grabbed Dara’s hand and pulled her away. “Hurry. We must catch up to Tom.”

Dara was taken aback. “We’re going with him?” They had never followed other people. Her feet pumped as quickly as they could as she raced across the desert to find the group who could survive without the bags.

Tom had led his children towards the dam. Part of him didn’t want to believe there was one. To have water so close you could see it was a cruel joke. The other part of him was terrified of what else it could mean.

He had learned of explosives surrounding a dam a while back, at the only other dam he had come across. Five months ago, he had been in Texas, and he had seen the glint of water, felt the pull of hope.

There had been more people back then. And he and his children had run into a family with all sorts of tales. The wife, with her oversized orange hat bobbing up and down emphatically every time she spoke or agreed with anyone else who spoke, said they were heading up to Canada. According to her, there was no way to stop a person from drinking melted snow.

“There is still snow?” Tom asked, and “Have you heard the rumor, something about a place where they are offering bottled water?” Everyone had heard that rumor. No one had found the purported oasis.

“Psssh.” She said while her hat flopped around in disagreement, “You’ll never see me falling for the same trick twice. Give me a plastic bottle and I’ll slap it out of your hand, that’s what I say.”

After parting with the orange hatted lady and her family, he and his kids continued their journey a little further north. One of the tales the family had shared was of a dam, less than a mile away.  They had just passed it themselves and eagerly described the way the water was protected. They spoke in private to Tom, thankfully, of exploding animals who were tempted to go in for a drink when they saw the body of water.

The night of the orange hat, he and his children walked through the dark as they always had, but a sound startled them from their thoughts. Tom heard a loud popping sound that night. And then another. The explosions? The dam would be just ahead, but he hadn’t seen any flashes of light. Then he realized that the sound he was hearing was more like a rifle than an explosion. And that the sound was coming from somewhere behind them.

They might be in dangerous territory; it was no longer safe for his kids to be walking around. They waited the night out hidden away. The following morning, he left his kids to sleep. He dug around, looking for any spots in the ground that felt moist. After fifteen minutes, he located a patch that felt a little marshy. He dug it out about a foot down and placed their glass jar into the hole. Then he covered it with a plastic trash bag and secured that with a few rocks. While the children slept, this would collect a bit of water.

Instead of returning to rest with them Mica and Teddy, he set out to find what else was nearby that might be worth protecting…that for reasons unknown, could not be protected by landmines.

That night, so many months ago, Tom stood on a rise and looked down on the shinning ripples of water at the dam the orange hatted woman had described. The thirst slammed into him like a tidal wave, washing away the fear and filling him with hope. Then he saw a leg, forty feet from the water’s edge. And what looked like the head of a deer, except it lacked a face. And fur.

His eyes surveyed the ground around the lake; smaller animals leaned into the water. Rats danced around a thick thigh- of what Tom couldn’t even guess. So, the explosive pads were weight sensitive? Could a child walk across?

How much longer could they hold up with a jar collecting water from the ground?

If Teddy could walk across the explosives, would he want his child to pass through the graveyard of rotting carcasses, or be swarmed by a legion of rats? A child light enough that she might not set off the traps, but young enough that she would be helpless against predators? His stomach revolted at the idea of not being able to help her through.

He decided right then not to mention the dam to them, and looked to the west. Not far off was a green building, almost blending with the vegetation around it. It could be just another leftover from the Free Water days, but something told him to take a closer look.

The building seemed to grow in size as he approached. He was close enough to see it was a compound of some sort, perhaps an old business? The compound was set up like a large oval, coming to a rounded point on the North and South ends. On either end, there appeared to be entrances. The one he faced at that point had warning signs in place, lining the path up to the gate. Tom walked through a thin grove of trees sprouting around the compound; he circled around to what had looked like the second rounded end. It had certainly looked like another entrance from the other side. It had the same tall arch the first ingress had, but rather than warning signs, he saw a far stronger warning. Tom’s stomach revolted again, and before he could be spotted he slipped back through the trees and ran back to where his sleeping children lay.

Now, having just heard about another dam from Malik, Tom walked his family in the dark, hoping they might not see the water, might not feel the hope ripped right out of them when they understood they could never touch that water. What Tom was looking for was another camouflaged building, one with the two ingress points like the last. He’d had plenty of time to think about what it meant, and to wonder when he would be willing to take that risk.

“Daddy,” his little Teddy called, “I’m so tired. Can’t we sit again, just for a little?”

Mica sneered down at his little sister. “We’ve only been walking for ten minutes! For crying out loud. Dad,” he looked up at Tom with his chin jutted out strong and proud, “I’m not tired, I could even carry her, if you needed me to….” He seemed unsure of his offer once it was said aloud, but Tom knew his boy would fall over dead before giving up on his brag.

But Tom had already decided. Water was getting harder and harder to come by, and hard choices were on the way. The least he could do was spend a few extra minutes sitting with his children.

“We’ll sit down for a few minutes.” Tom debated telling them his suspicions, but perhaps they needed to be prepared. “I don’t think we have far to go tonight anyway.”

He could see Mica’s mind was already trying to process the irregularity. They always walked from dark to first light. If they didn’t have far to go tonight, did they have a destination? He raised his eyes to meet his fathers and opened his mouth to ask, but before the words came out he heard a voice searching out in the dark.

“Tom! Tom, you guys out here?”

“Mica!” a smaller voice called. Almost franticly, the young girl’s voice repeated his name over and over in-between her father’s query.

The three sat in silence for a moment. Perhaps they waited for the last member of their family to be called out, or perhaps they just wanted a few more minutes to themselves. But the voices grew louder and Tom knew they couldn’t survive on their own any longer.

Tom’s little family was already on their feet when he guided Malik and his daughter over to them. He hadn’t answered the question in his son’s eyes, but yes, they had a destination tonight. And perhaps they weren’t the only ones.

Tom carried Teddy in his arms, no longer asking her dehydrated body to pull its weight. Mica resolutely mimicked his father’s steady gait, his long legs stretching out as far as they could to match his dad’s. Dara laughed at the comical imitation and trailed alongside the boy, stretching her shorter legs as far as they could go and still falling back, she skip-ran to catch up every few steps.

Tom saw it, a faint glow to the west.  He didn’t bring it up; he only veered a little closer to the glow, his heart thumping hard as he questioned his resolve. Teddy had fallen asleep, her small bottom resting on his forearm, her thin arms half draped over his shoulders. Tom raised his other arm and caressed the back of her sleeping head. When Malik noticed the compound, the form had already begun to take shape. The long oval sat sinisterly among the sparse vegetation. Tom suspected that this time the compound was painted a dusty shade of brown.

Malik’s face looked at the compound with veiled excitement. “Do you suppose there could be any water bottles left there?” He whispered in Tom’s direction. A few weeks into the water being cut off, a person could get lucky, finding forgotten supplies in abandoned homes and businesses. But after a year, there was no longer any building that hadn’t been scavenged by someone. Tom shook his head. However, it was time to tell Malik what he suspected they were up against.

“I don’t think we’ll find bottles,” he whispered back, “but I do think there is water there. And people.”

Malik’s expression moved around his features like melting plastic, morphing into a look of surprise, then hope, and finally when he understood the shadows that surrounded Tom’s sagging face, Malik’s went slack with fear.

“You think it’s Them?” He hissed.

“A part of Them,” he replied, “I saw another part in Texas. I suspect they have these facilities all over the world.”

“So you knew all along that They hadn’t died?” Malik hissed again, pretty sure his whisper was getting loud enough for the kids to hear. He recalled how much Tom seemed to know about the water shortage back at the campfire. Malik tried to get his emotions under control; he turned his head back toward the building, “You’ve been looking for Them, haven’t you?”

Tom kept his pace steady, though his legs wanted to fall out from under him. “I’ve only seen this once before. I didn’t know if there was anything to look for. But when you mentioned the dam, I had to know. I could be wrong about what they are doing, but if I am right...you might want to reconsider following us. If you follow, I suspect you’ll need to say goodbye to your daughter.” He swallowed down his next thought and waited for Malik to ask the question that any good father would want to ask. But Malik held his tongue. His mind seemed to be muddled as he looked back at his daughter trying to keep pace with Mica.

Tom hitched Teddy a little higher, causing pins and needles to explode across his arm, “I believe that is the only hope for the kids. But I don’t think they want adults.”

Malik continued his silence, but it looked like he was going to bite his tongue off in the process. Tom tried to explain again. “Since this all started, I’ve asked myself over and over, Why? I’m sure you have as well. Everyone has.”

Malik nodded. Everyone had. And quite openly. Although as the months passed the question changed to How. How could they have let it happen? How could they find their next drink of water? The Hows took over the Whys.

Tom continued, “I figure at first it was greed, plain and simple. Buy up water rights and sell your product. But who are they selling to now? No one can buy it. So, again: why?”

Malik tried to put it together. “They aren’t dead, but they aren’t selling. So they are…” he was stumped. Why would you buy all of one thing and not share it or sell it? “They are waiting for the price to go up?”

Malik’s guess was so innocent, Tom tried not to laugh. Although, a good laugh was what he needed. He shifted Teddy to his other arm and leaned into Malik. “And with what money would anyone buy it? Since there is no water, there are no factories or farms. Without those jobs, all other jobs go away as well. Come on, you can figure it out.”

But Malik couldn’t. He turned back to watch the children. Mica was still trying to keep his father’s pace, reproducing Tom’s body movements like a little clone. Beside him was Dara, imitating her new friend’s style as best as she could with much shorter legs. It was cute how Dara had always picked up on mannerisms, mimicking her mother’s famous nose scrunch, or his own scowl.

Now, as he watched the two kids, he realized that was how all children learned. They watched how their parents treated others, or how they cleaned up after themselves, or how they spent or saved. And then they took what worked and tried to fit into their world by reproducing those behaviors. If you took away all the people tossing their dirty diapers into the parking lots, and leaving their carts parked behind another person’s car, if you took away the video games and the entitlements, if all the laziness and self-involvement was removed, would the next generation get back on track?

“What made you think they only want the kids?” Malik asked, finally realizing it might actually be true.

“The last building. I saw the parents of a family we had met earlier that evening- but only the parents. They were dead.” Tom recalled that night with clarity. It had never left his thoughts. Outside the gate were two bodies. He might never have recognized them if it hadn’t been for the bright orange sunhat that the wife had worn. It was tossed over the bodies like a second thought thrown out for good measure.  He hadn’t dared to go closer, but he had always wondered what had happened to the kids they had with them.

“Over the past several months I gave it a lot of thought. Why would the parent’s bodies be there at all? Clearly they were not wanted, but more than that, they knew something that couldn’t be shared, so they were disposed of. And the kids? The parents might have had them hideout while investigating the compound- that was my first thought since it’s what I would have done. But I tracked back to where they left us, I found their prints in the mud, all four of them. As well as my eyes could see they all headed in the direction of the compound, and as I followed the path they had taken, I never spotted the kids. Kids make noise you know, especially when they are scared. There was nothing. In fact, that was one of the quietest nights I had ever known, like the whole forest was holding its breath.”

At those words, Tom remembered to breathe himself, and after a slowly released sigh he continued, “So that brought me to one conclusion. The kids were in the compound, and for some reason they were wanted.”

“And you know why.” It was more a statement than a question. Malik was sure he had caught up with Tom’s reasoning.

“Kids could be cooperative slaves, once they’ve been brainwashed. There’s always that. But it doesn’t fit the…I don’t know, goals? The more I thought about it the more it seemed there had been an objective in the last few years of water hording. So I thought, what if they wanted to restart the earth? What if they raise the kids the way parents used to raise their kids- with parental examples and a watchful eye. None of this, ‘go watch the TV, mommy’s napping’ shit.”

“And you would let them have your kids to restart the earth with? What if you’re wrong?” Malik argued, although he knew it fit. All the way down into his soul, he knew it fit. But what if… “What if it’s something far more sinister than even that?”

Malik had forgotten to keep his voice down. Teddy popped her head up and delivered a reproachful stare. Then she blinked, rubbed her tired eyes and tried to stretch her legs, inadvertently kicking her father in the process.

They were within fifty feet of the compound and Tom knew his decision. He set Teddy down and leaned into Malik, “If I’m wrong, then they still don’t have a chance out here. Malik, my kids will be dead before the week is out. Will your daughter last that long?”

All of Malik stopped. His legs stopped, his heart stopped and even his brain skidded to a frozen halt. Then, as if restarted with a jolt of electricity his eyes darted back to find his daughter’s thin frame.

His vision blurred, although no tears came out. Baby Dara was all he had left in this horrid world. They had just lost their last means of survival. Now he stood, his feet planted firmly in the dust. Only a short walk away was the hardest decision he ever had to make.

One way or another, he was about to lose her. “How do we do it? Just throw them towards the gates and hope for the best? Or do we walk in with them, and have our bodies carried out the back?” His panic had brought his voice up an octave.

Mica and Dara caught up, then. Mica collided into his dad, calling out in a squeaky attempt at a deep voice, “You’re holding up the line, man. Where are your marching pants?” Nobody laughed, or even smiled.

Dara knew the men had gone back to their serious talk, and although she wanted to stay with Mica, a part of her sensed the danger in catching up to the strangers. She wrapped her daddy’s hand in hers, like a puzzle made to fit.

Malik looked down at his baby. He knew he would die without her.

He knew then, what he must do. He would die with her.

THE END

(That is the end of this short story, and as you may have figured out, its premise is the desperate lengths we will go to for our children. There is a three book series coming to finish the chronicle, so let me ease your pain and assure you that Dara and Malik live on and this is only the beginning of Dara’s adventure. It picks up eight years later when Malik dies, and Dara must unite with a remnant group of surviving children. And good news: Mica and Teddy live on as Perfects, a group of cared-for children, Mica is trapped as a Perfect, and Teddy thrives as a horrific snitch bent on making everyone miserable. Dara will see them again when the remnants cross over to take back the water.)

Now......

Chapter One

I was seven when the world went dry. But it wasn’t just the world that went dry.  It was my throat, my nose, and most disturbingly, my tongue. My tongue was so dry it was coated in paste instead of spit. 

For two weeks, my father and I had been following a trail of bushes.  Clumps of deer grass, milkweed, creosote and nearly ripe tumbleweeds. They advanced across the sandy earth like a dotted line drawn on a map. This puzzled us.  What was so special about the ground here?  

Malik didn’t want to say water.  Neither one of us could be so cruel as to say it out loud.  But we followed that trail like we were following a stream, and Malik’s bedtime stories of a God who could magically grant your wishes soon became stories of water that poured from the sky, and trees growing everywhere, all of them so heavy with fruit they looked like (rows of fat ladies bending forward).  We each secretly imagined the trail would lead us to another world. Instead, it led us to another dried up cluster of buildings.  

From a distance we could see the rising monuments of a former lifetime.  Soaring apartments and offices and churches, all growing larger each day we walked.  We saw a road ahead, leading to this cluster, and our scraggly path of vegetation limped towards it at an angle until it finally caught up to the crumbling asphalt.  And there it stopped.  

As if hesitant to face us, the last struggling creosote bush bent its wretched branches up and over its rootball like curved arms shielding itself from our frustration.  We stopped at stared at the traitor for a moment before I said, “Maybe there’s still more. It’s just the road got in the way…” My voice died away as we both looked passed the tarmac, scouring the ground for signs of life and finding only a barren field. For good measure, I pounded my sneaker against the eroding surface where the creosode’s pale sage plumage hung limply, I found satisfaction in bitterly pulverizing small lumps of dirt that had hardened around the scrub.  “Maybe on the other side of the cluster?” I pushed, knowing I was trespassing into the borders of Malik’s superstitions.  

He gave me a shrug.  “We need vitamins. I might find some here.” He motioned towards the eroded rock plaque welcoming visitors into the cluster.  We were a quarter mile from the entrance, and I stood moodily as Malik set up our tent. The shelter was for me to wait in while Malik was gone.

“Shouldn’t I come this time?” I argued.

“Why?” Malik asked as if there was nothing different about this stop.

I clamped my mouth down and folded my arms over my awkwardly growing chest. Whether we spoke of the bushes or not, we both wanted to see where they led.   

When my silence turned into a frustrated growl, he grinned. “I’ll let you know what I find.”

The last time he went into a cluster he found a new shirt for me.  It was blue, and like most shirts, it was an advertisement for some unimaginable treat.  But there were no holes in it. This time he could see if he could replace the ripped jeans I wore. Or the sneakers I was still doing unspeakable damage to, kicking narrow dusty trenches in protest. 

He could find those simple necessities. Or he could find more bushes.  And perhaps the bushes would lead to water and the water would lead to people and the people would lead us back to a world my father has never forgotten.    

Either way, Malik was not going to let me follow.  From a distance, I had to watch Malik walk into the cluster. 

I waited for Malik all that day.  I sharpened my knife, although it didn’t need it.  I poked lines in the dusty ground, kicked at the dunes. I passed the time telling myself some of Malik’s stories of when the world was a better place than it is now.  My favorite was the one about water that endlessly poured over a mountain of rocks and the girl who washed her hair for so long that it came out white.  

“Dara….”

I almost missed it, but I heard my name and jumped up off the mound, my straw hat falling to the sand as I searched for the far off voice.  Only it wasn’t far off; Malik was only ten feet away. He was leaning on his side, pulling himself forward. Whispering my name.  

I rushed to him and when I saw the blood oozing through his old tartan shirt, I wanted to cry.  My eyes could never waste the water though, so I only made retching noises as my throat backed up and pressed closed.    

I couldn’t move him, so rather than dragging him to our camp, I dragged our plastic tent over to him.  The shade inside helped hide the way the color had left his skin and leaked out onto my hands.  

We each had only one shirt, and his was torn and useless as I tried to get to the hole under his ribs.  I found our bag of first aid supplies. From this pulled out two jars, one a collection of cobwebs cultivated from branches and shadowed rocks.  The other jar had dried chili peppers. I crumbled two of the peppers and sprinkled them into his wound to staunch the bleeding and numb the pain.  Then, to act as a plug, I pulled out the webs, the stringy silk sticking to my fingers as I pushed clumps of the stuff into the gash under his ribs. 

“There were people.” He said, as if it wasn’t the most obvious thing with me trying to stuff this deep slit that only people could have sent him back with.  

He pushed my hand away, “Pack your things.” 

I stopped stuffing his wound and looked at him.  It was only then that I noticed that his lips were trembling.  His eyes were red rimmed and knots formed over his brows. I may have used too much chili, perhaps it was digging its way through his blood, healing and burning at the same time. 

“It’s okay.” I patted his head, the way he did for me when I was a little girl: when he and Mom and I all started out on our own; when he and I watched Mom die of cactus sickness.  This is what he did each time our last chance at survival was torn away and there was no way I could imagine anything being okay again. But with each setback, he patted my head and somehow another day started where the last one left off.  And as long as I patted his head, tomorrow would come. It had too.

“I didn’t stop them…” Malik opened his hand revealing a decorative hair comb.  I pulled it out of his hand, unsure what to make of its presence. It was cheap tortoise shell plastic, but over the top band was a beautifully carved and polished bone.  It was affixed to the comb with thread. Malik raised his hand to show me what I was missing. He stopped short as his face contorted with pain, and blood painted the edges of his cracked lips. 

But I saw it now.  The comb wasn’t tortoise shell, it was mottled with dried blood. “See?” he asked. “I hurt one of them. You have to hide.”

I dropped the comb.  I didn’t want to think of how much blood Malik had already lost.  Or how impossible it would be to move him. The comb fell into the supply bag and later I would carry the bag away with everything I thought imperative towards my survival.  Only I never knew that comb was part of it. 

At that point, I wasn't ready to give up on Malik. I wiped my hands on my threadbare jeans and reached down into my sock. I pulled out a small bladder, squishy with liquid.  I held it up to his cheek. “You need this.” I twisted the cork loose to pour some water into his mouth. He wrested his head away.  

I return the cork and went back to patting his hair.  It was black where my hands rubbed away the dust. Much blacker than my own, and so straight.  

When he rolled his head back to me I was surprised to see him crying. “There were two men.  They tried to help, my little moon halo.” He sobbed, “I ran. That comb...I pulled it from her hair and...and tried to blind her.  Couldn't stop her." He rested a moment, then grabbed my wrist, "You have to leave here.”

“Shhh,” I whispered.  “I’ll pack, you rest or you won’t have the energy to move.  Close your eyes.” I put my hand over his eyes to get him to listen.  

I lifted my hand but his eyes were still open and anxious. “No, Dara. You go. Find home.” He seemed desperate for me to understand, but he was delirious.  What woman would overpower my father and two other men?  

But he would not rest with me there.  So I nodded. I packed and left him. 

We’ve been without a map all these years, I don’t know how he imagined I’d find home.  After walking a short distance, I called out to him: “I love you, Malik. Goodbye.”

The sun slid below the dirt, and for most of the night, I paced.  Malik's cries had quieted. The entire world had quieted. The muted grind of dirt as I dug down to find a moist patch of ground was the only sound.  I pulled an empty jar from one of my packs and placed it in the hole, sealing the hole with plastic.  

Hours passed and then Malik woke.   

I heard his thrashing, then his cries.  I ducked back into the tent. I went back to shushing him, patting his hair some more.  After a quiet minute he asked, “How could you just say goodbye like that?”

Something about the way he asked threw me. 

“I didn’t really leave.” I wept, explaining the obvious.  "I just wanted you to rest." 

“Tom,” he called, confusing me even further, because like the sound of running water, there was something distantly familiar about it. I was sure I heard this name before.  He tried to sit up, instead he slumped, his eyes opened and staring right at me. No; they were staring right through me. “How would Mica and Teddy be safe?”

I remember the name Mica, the boy from my dreams.  

When I was seven.  When we were learning to survive.  

Each dream starts there, with Malik showing me how to eat the spiny fruits he found, with my nose wrinkled with distaste, the way my mother used to wrinkle hers. I hear a twig snap, I feel Malik freeze, and then the strangers appear.  Malik’s body is suddenly between me and them. They are as battered as we are, disheveled and gaunt, drained but refusing to die. Malik is protecting me from them, and I am wriggling around his shielding form staring in wonder at a dark-haired boy my age who is peering around his own father’s legs. There is a little blond girl stretching in her daddy’s arms, but she is so little, she is easily forgotten.  

I recall traveling with them.  Tom and Malik are arguing about how to survive. And this is the part where I think the dreams I have are good dreams, because Mica is making me laugh.  In every dream I have of him, he always makes me laugh. When the men start to yell, the boy in my dream finds something funny to point out, some little thing to make everything feel alright again.  And the men forget to be angry. 

I never forgot the boy, but on this night I remembered Tom, too.  My world was collapsing around me, but at that moment, I smiled. 

Malik yanked me out of the memory, his hand reaching out, his eyes panicked, “No, don’t go, Dara!” His eyes were still focused miles away, and I realize he was still sleeping with his eyes opened.  I whispered again, “I didn’t go, Malik. I’m still here.” I patted his head some more. Tomorrow would be here soon.  

I drifted into sleep with my head on my shoulder, my hand stretched out to Malik.  I dreamed of the dark-haired boy with blue eyes and a wide smile. He was laughing at me, teasing, and I was following him everywhere he went.  Then his father was saying goodbye to Malik and I was following the boy even then. I was following him into the darkness of a portentous building, and then my wrist was yanked back, Malik on the other end, pulling me away.

When I woke my hand was still moving, mindlessly patting, soothing both Malik and myself. I turned to look at him, to see if he had gotten any stronger.  But the morning sun only revealed how white his face was. How red the cobweb bandage was. I pulled the webbing out and replaced it with more. I twisted the cork off the bladder and poured a little water onto his lips.  He felt so hot, I trickled a few drops over his forehead and chest as well. Then I stood and stepped out of the tent. 

With the trail of bushes we followed here, it was easier to catch food. I wandered further from the tent; found the biggest weed I could and spent the morning crouched behind it- what parts of me fit.  Before lunch I was rewarded with a skinny, long eared prairie rat. My knife targeted its hindquarters, pinning it to the ground. I removed its head and hung it upside down a few minutes before skinning it. That rat was my hope that afternoon.  I cooked it, and returned to the hole I dug the night before and pulled out the jar. Very little water had collected in it overnight.

I returned to the tent with a meal for Malik, one that would help him regain his strength.    

The sun was overhead when he spoke. “Dara,” his voice was dry, “Don’t.”

I waited.  His eyes were still closed, maybe to conserve his strength.  But something inside me was edgy, I needed him to finish his thought.  Finally I prodded him. “Don’t what?”

I waited again.  Nothing.  

I patted his cheek, I needed him to wake back up and finish his sentence.  I needed him to eat. I needed him to be Malik again. His cheek was not as hot as it was earlier, and I took that as a good sign.  He was cooling off. He would be better.

Before the day faded I changed out the webbing again, but the bleeding had stopped.  I felt his temperature; his body was cool. I grabbed his hand. It was stiff.  

"No! Don't. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't..."  I sobbed, throwing his word back at him. Malik couldn't be gone.  I had survived the loss of my old life because I had my mother and father. I had survived the loss of my mother because I had my father.  How would I survive the loss of my father? What did I have left to lose? 

I spent that night holding Malik, trying to think of what I would do to these people who took away my father.  I tried, but my thoughts raced through my mind with none of them slowing down enough for me to collect them. My head was filled with my father, and yet, every thought was incomplete and quickly lost to me.  I was a sieve, cracked and empty, seeing only the ghosts of my thoughts, always too late to grapple anything tangible.  

Yet, there was one thought that kept returning.  Like all the others, the thought began to take form, then sank back into the fog of all I had lost when I lost Malik.  But it rose back up, again and again, until my brain began circling the edges of it, exploring its potential.  

In the back of my consciousness, I traced the image of the bushes Malik and I had followed here. I thought back to every word we refused to speak aloud. I counted all the times this week that I had witnessed Malik knocking his knuckles against his skull to ward off the evil eye of this vengeful universe because he was too superstitious to even think about the possibility of what those bushes could mean. But I thought about it as I lay beside my father’s ossified body.  

The old memories, the world Malik was searching for, that was what I had left to lose.  

I forced myself to think about it; fought to breathe past the crushing weight pressing against my chest, whimpered in pain as a vice gripped my heart, squeezing until there was no room for the blood to return to. Instead, the fluid collected in the front of my brain, A throbbing warning that I was being a fool. I squeezed my eyelids together and choked past the pain. 

And I thought about it.  

There was a way to keep Malik with me.  I would find the rest of that trail and follow it.  I would find the dream that filled Malik's memories, the way dreams of the blue eyed boy had filled mine.  

I would find the water.  

I closed my burning eyes and rested my head over his.  I kissed his rigid cheek. My brown curls tumbled down, covering his lips; the lips that would never be able to form the words to finish what he needed to tell me. 

I already knew what he needed to say:  Don’t.  

But I would.  They took my father from me; I most certainly would.

When the sun rose, I had to pull away from Malik.  Reality tore through me as I realized he wasn't pulling me back in for one last hug.  He had always wanted that extra second of holding on to me, always pulled me back to him, reminding me he would always be my father no matter how hard I squirmed in my adolescence rush to be his equal.  Never again would his arms lock themselves around me like the protective cage they had always been, keeping me close to him; keeping me away from the world. They would never yield to my cries. They would never bend to my demands.  His arms were locked over his chest, where they would remain forever.  

He would never be able to pull me back in for one last hug; I leaned back in to do it for him. 

As the sun arced overhead, I prepared a place for my father to rest. I scraped at the earth, my nails torn and caked with soil, a mound of dirt growing behind me.  This was the first time I ever had to dig a hole for anything larger than a water jar. By late afternoon I was ready to move Malik into the depth of the pit, into the makeshift shelter where nothing would disturb him. I cradled his head on my lap and locked my hands under his folded arms, pulling his body with me as I scooted backwards.  Foot by foot, I pulled us both down into the cavity of earth I had hollowed for him. Then I crawled back out and sat at the edge of Malik’s earthen bed, waiting for my bleary eyes to focus. They wouldn’t. 

“It’s okay.  It’s going to be okay.  Just breath,” I commanded myself.  I rubbed my dust-caked nose over my shirt, trying to collect myself. I wasn’t sure what I could say to him that could make any of this okay. I tried anyway, but my dry throat only loosed a small croak. Malik needed more, he deserved more from me.  “Because you have always risked everything for me.” I cried, finally finding my voice. “That’s why you’re…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. “But I need you to know it’s not over. I’m going to find your water. I’m going to find home. And I am strong enough; I don’t want you to worry about that.” 

Then I prayed just the way Malik had taught me, bowing my head for my father’s god who magically granted wishes; I prayed that Malik would never thirst again.  I wished I could have dug deep enough to lay him in a bed of water. Deep enough to wash his hair white.  

It was time.  I began to push a heap of dirt over his feet. The sand tumbled forward, cascading down the rim of the grave like Malik’s beloved waterfall.  As I studied the grains toppling over his toes, I could hear his voice describing the image of that frenetic, cerulean brute scrubbing the rocks below in the world he once knew.  

I pushed a more dirt around the edges, laying Malik’s blanket of earth over his legs, his arms, his neck. It was that last bit of dirt over his face- that purest window to my father - which I struggled to cover.  I pulled away, leaving his face undisturbed. 

I scooted back, wrapping my arms around my knees.  What was Malik feeling? I bowed my head against my thighs and closed my parched eyes, shielding them from the burning sun.

I imagined it was me laying in the soft cradle below.  I haven’t felt a soft mattress in over two years. But with my eyes closed, I imagined the loosened earth bed; it was so soft.  I allowed myself to feel the weight of the earthen blanket hugging my legs, my hips, my shoulders, tucking me in and holding me safe.  It felt good; I knew Malik would have liked it.  

But if the blanket were pulled higher?  I nuzzled my head against my arm, flattening my nose against my bony muscle until it became hard to draw a breath.  My heart began to pump harder, faster, trying to make up for the lack of oxygen. Could I do this to Malik? 

Malik didn’t need oxygen, I knew that. No, it wasn’t the nose that I struggled to cover.  I rolled my head deeper into my bicep imaging the blanket advancing towards my eyes. To be forever blind.  Forever trapped inside the stygian of nothingness, of nowhereness. That was the final death. The worst of it.  To be condemned to an abyss where you no longer exist, not even to even yourself.   

I imagined my consciencessness drifting away; seeing nothing, feeling nothing, knowing nothing. I sat there, blinded under the shade of my arm for a while, thinking of what that would be like.  And then the truth, the painful, obvious truth hit me: It wouldn’t feel like anything. And perhaps that was the part that hurt the most. The reality I was trying to avoid. Malik was gone. Really gone.  He would never get the chance to see that lake, or...I had to struggle to remember the word...was it ocean? Yes. That was the largest body of water, and he would never see it again. 

I stretched my arm out over the last small pyramid of sand standing sentinel at the edge of Malik’s tomb.  I brushed my hand over it’s peak, scattering the course bits of earth over the slope, slowly directing it towards his sleeping face. 

That was the last I saw of my father. That was yesterday.  Tonight, I am following the road Malik had walked only two days ago, walking toward the towering shadows several miles away.

Chapter Two         

Time passes differently when you no longer know where you are going.  Malik never had a map, but he always knew we were heading home. I understood now.  Home was where the world made sense, and you can’t find that on a map. You find it with faith and courage, and with someone you love to light up the path.