What Comes After

September 5

I just realized that it was the one-month anniversary of Mira and Leon's wedding.

I know it's not as special as a year-long anniversary, but who knows how we're going to be in a year, so might as well enjoy it right now. I think that might have been in Mira's mind when she left May and I some time around two o'clock and returned later in the evening with a handgun in her holster and an announcement that she'll be out every night from midafternoon to sunset patrolling the streets.

Anyways, going back to the beginning of the day, instead of handing us canvas bags for gathering kindling, Dad handed Mira, May, and I plastic buckets.

"What are these for?" May asked and eyed the buckets suspiciously. I think she thought that we were doing something with poop.

I had to clean my own bucket this morning after I finally used the restroom after two days of keeping it in. I nearly vomited at the smell, and even with the rubber gloves on, it still was disgusting and uncomfortable. When I went to dump it into the allotted trash can, Mom told me to put a couple of scoops of ash on it. Apparently, it'll help with the smell, acting kinda like sawdust.

"Your mom and I decided that we're splitting up the work today," Dad said. "We've got enough kindling to last a lifetime, and we badly need wood and water, so you three are going to get water while your mom and I get wood."

"I want you guys to get at least fifteen buckets today in total. Five for each person," Dad said.

"Fifteen," May shouted. "Are you trying to kill us?"

"The walk to the creek is only ten minutes," Dad said, and with the three of you, you won't be out for more than two hours.

"Can we get the wagon at least," May said, practically begging.

Dad shook his head. "Your Mom and I are taking the wagon. We're going to be in the woods all day gathering timber for the winter. The weather's good right now. Sunny and not too hot and too cold, so we're planning on spending all of today and tomorrow with the wood."

"But what about the ash?"

"We'll be fine," Dad said. "You guys just make sure to get the water and take a shower. This living room stinks."

"Maybe go and scavenge a bottle of Febreze," May said, testing the waters with Mom and Dad to see how mad they'll get if they find out we've been taking stuff from the Hunters. "One of those downtown stores or abandoned houses might have them."

"I'll check our garage to see if we have a bottle," Dad said, completely ignoring May's probing statement, and left the room. But that was definitely a non-response to her inquiry since we've never bought a bottle of Febreze ever in our lifetime since Dad was very much into the organic lifestyle, and for a second, May looked a bit scared. Was Dad purposely avoiding the question because he knew that it was something that we'd need to be doing in the future or was he avoiding it because he didn't consider scavenging to be an option at all? These are the times when better communication would solve everything, but better communication will expose May's and my secrets, and we can't risk that.

Five minutes after Mom and Dad left for wood-gathering, Mira, May, and I had gathered our buckets and put on our thick jackets and masks. Mira had updated Grandma, who was practicing memorizing things like the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights for her citizenship test, and Grandpa, who was make little fishing baits out of bits of plastic in our drawers, about what's happening since she's the only one out of the three of us that spoke halfway decent Chinese.

And when we stepped out into the sunlight, I announced, "We're like the three musketeers."

"With buckets," May drily added. "We couldn't even get something a little bit cool like swords."

"Our buckets are our swords," I said. "We'll bucket people to oblivion."

"That's like spooning someone to death," she replied and began walking towards the creek. "C'mon. I just want to get this over with."

Five minutes later, she was already complaining about everything. "How much longer?"

"We'll get there faster if you spend more energy walking and less energy talking," I said.

She groaned and shuffled her feet, dragging the plastic bucket behind her with a loud scrape, as grit and ash eroded the hard plastic slowly. "You know, literally everyone in the neighborhood can hear you right. And who knows who will be watching?"

She huffed and then lifted the bucket and carried it as I turned to her with a follow up. "When'd you start caring so much?"

"About what?"

"You know what?" I asked. "Death and stuff. You used to be so sarcastic all the time."

She shrugged. "Why do you care?"

"I don't. I'm just saying," I said and kicked a stone down the street as we neared the banks of the creek.

"Did you guys ever figure out if we're ever going to the dentists again?" May asked, suddenly changing the subject. I didn't know if Mira and I were going to tell May about what happened at the hospital, and we both looked at each other before Mira said, "There's nothing much at the hospital."

"Is it quiet there?"

"Yeah," Mira said before looking down, probably in remembrance of the couple that lost their lives. "It's a bit too quiet there."

"Do you know what happened with that couple that we all saw on Saturday?" May asked. "I hope they didn't die."

But they did die, and for once in my life, I nearly told May the truth because I guess she deserved to know since I think she's old enough to handle it and because even though I hold too many secrets, I hate when secrets are kept away from me or when things are censored unnecessarily, like Mom and Dad's obsession with bleeping out swear words on the popular songs even though we've heard those swear words hundreds of times at school already. Hell, Mira and May have even used those swear words a bunch, though I haven't still broken out of that childhood vow.

But Mira beat me to the chase. "They're fine. I heard the nurses talking about them. A couple of broken ribs, but nothing that won't heal in a couple of months."

"Oh," May said. "At least we'll have less competition, gathering wood and water, for a couple months."

There was an odd bit of silence.

"You sound like Mom," Mira said. "We need to care about everyone, including them."

"I do care," May said, more annoyed now. "I'm just saying that there are upsides to people getting hurt, and it's not like I'm wishing for them to die."

"Getting hurt is like dying, especially given how run-down the hospital is right now," Mira snapped back.

"You just told me that the hospital was fine and now it's not," May retorted back.

"It's fine, but it's not running at full capacity, so if you're not lucky, then you won't get proper care and die."

"Well those people are still alive, so who cares?" May basically shouted back at Mira before muttering. "You don't need to be so preachy about it."

"I'm not being preachy."

"Yeah you are," May said. "Literally all of last week and this week, saying stuff like 'we should help everyone' or 'I'm so cool and perfect because I care.' The only reason that we're alive is because we took stuff from the canned food section that other people needed. We've probably already got blood on our hands, so don't act so high and mighty. If you want to help people, walk your talk."

"But actually act like you have morals, May," Mira said before she was cut off by May.

"I do have morals, and I'm living by them," she replied. "While you literally aren't doing anything. It's not like you're giving food out to the starving or protecting anyone."

"I will be," Mira said more quietly but firmly.

May rolled her eyes. "Totally. Whatever you say."

We had reached the creek and we reached and dipped our buckets into the deeper end. Because it's the end of summer and the creek is relatively shallow and muddy, we got a ton of algae and silt in our buckets, but that didn't matter since we had a vegetable strainer to deal with all of that, so we hauled our thirty-pound water buckets up the banks and headed back home, taking copious breaks on the way back.

We repeated this process four more times, each more long and excruciating than the one before. Every time we got home, we would dump water into old bins rummaged up from the garage that used to hold ski equipment, and then Grandma and Grandpa would filter the water and boil it. Across literally the whole trip, May and Mira were practically shooting daggers at each other as I dodged snarky one-liners and passive aggressive comments that occasionally punctuated the silence.