Jill Williamson
Where Adventure Comes to Life
Shockingly, they actually did drive us all around to a bunch of houses.
Of the eight of us, (I changed it to eight from last week’s twelve) I was the youngest by far. Most of the people looked somewhere between their twenties and middle-aged. We were each given a slip of paper that listed eight address and were told to rank our top four. The guide—a lady in a fancy brown suit—told us that she’d do her best to make us all happy.
The Enforcers took away our protest signs. We were searched, handcuffed, and divided between the two vehicles, girls in Officer Harvey’s car, guys in with Officer Miller. The Enforcers drove us up the hill to the Champion compound.
Construction around the showers was well underway. They were not simply raising a couple of kiosks. They were building a full-on fence around the place.
“They really must want to keep people from sneaking into the showers,” Zaq said.
Hello, readers. Well, I tried. I really did. But life happened and there just weren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done. I had to prepare for my talks at this year’s amazing One Year Adventure Novel conference, so my regular night for writing my THIRST chapter was taken, so I tried to… Continue Reading
The next morning at breakfast, Reinhold and Kimama had already packed their things in his rig. They were ready to go. I kind of wished I was going with them.
No sign of Dad, so I went to check on him. I pushed open the door to the room he’d shared with Reinhold. He was sitting on the side of the bed, his back to me.
“Hey, Dad? Reinhold and Kimama are about to take off.”
He jumped at the sound of my voice, sniffed. “I’ll be right out.”
The kids are home today, so rather than ignore them by working non-stop, I’ve decided to take this day off from THIRST in order to steal away a little fun time with my family. I’m sorry to make you all wait an extra week to find out what will happen to Eli. The time will… Continue Reading
“We don’t know for sure that Riggs is here,” I said. “Someone might have the same car.”
Jaylee points to the pewter skull hanging from rearview mirror.
Well, nuts. “Someone might have stolen his car.”
“Eli! Why would you think such horrible things about Riggs?”
Because I’m a horrible person, apparently. I just looked at her, unable to form any words that might make me look better.
Dad and Reinhold kept walking, so I did too.
The city of Gunnison had been ravaged. As we cruised through town, I didn’t see one store that hadn’t been looted. Every window seemed to be broken, every door hanging open, and every few block yards we’d see a body on the ground. Reinhold, my dad, Zaq, Hannah, and I made it three steps into the lobby of the Gunnison Valley Heath Center when I saw this would be ten times as horrible as I’d imagined. Dad sent Zaq back out to warn the others to wait in the vehicles. With Hannah in the lead, we made quick work of the place. She seemed to know exactly where both the drugs and the medical supplies would be kept. There were plenty of medical supplies to help ourselves to, but Hannah seemed to think that someone had already picked over the drugs. Still, we left the place each carrying a heaping box. We put the stuff in the back of Reinhold’s truck since he had packed light, thinking the rumors of clean water were bunk and he’d be back home tomorrow.
My son, Luke, and I have been hard at work on the second book in the RoboTales chapter book series, Mardok and the Seven Exiles. In case you didn’t know, RoboTales is a chapter book series of fractured fairytales that I wrote with the help of my son Luke (click here to learn more). Tinker is a retelling of Cinderella, but our Cinderella is a boy named Tinker who works in his uncle’s fix it shop. It has been challenging to find time to squeeze in these books between my deadlines, but Luke and I almost have book two ready to release.
Zaq may as well have punched me in the gut. I couldn’t believe I’d just thought he was worthy of my sister.
“Zaq,” Lizzie warned.
“Yeah, my bad,” Zaq said. “I’ll ask something else.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Jaylee said. “He has to answer. Go ahead, Eli. Who did you like?”
I stared at her, speechless, wishing I would say anything at all. It suddenly seemed extremely warm in the house and I wished I could escape outside where the night was sure to be cool.
Jaylee’s eyes narrowed. “Is it someone here?”
“Sorry, man,” the guy said. “Looked like you were stuck. You sure got a lot of stuff packed in there. You guys headed up to Mount Crested Butte?”
“Uh, Cortez,” I said, instantly wondering why I’d told the truth. I didn’t like anyone looking at our supplies or knowing our business.
I moved cautiously, shining my light over every inch of floor before I took a step. From the intensity of the pungent sweet smell, I was expecting to find a dozen dead people, but Cree led us to a lone body, lying on two couch cushions—likely the missing ones from the lobby. The woman had dark, Native American skin, but her body appeared black and blue in places, almost a sickly green. Flies swarmed and crawled over her skin. Cree plopped cross-legged onto the floor beside the cushions and slipped her hand into the dead woman’s.
I had no words. I closed my eyes and began to pray. I didn’t know what else to do. Why was all this happening? The poor kid had been sitting around with her mom like this? How many others had been abandoned like this?
If I was going to be the leader, I couldn’t freak out like some middle schooler because Jaylee had picked Zaq. I had to be a man about this. Deal with it. Move on.
Be cool, McShane.
I was debating whether to walk away or say something scathing when Zaq’s hand slid down to the girl’s waist, revealing the number 14 on the back of her shirt.
96598 / 92055
4500 / 80000
17592 / 20000
124 / 110