For the Extra! Extra! contest, based off of National Geographic's recent issue on water. This title is replaceable-- any opinions on that would be welcome.
*
On my eleventh birthday, the snatchers took Camille away, and I watched from the front porch as they dragged her down the steps and hurled her into their white van. There were other faces that peeked out from behind the tinted glass—haunted scarecrow faces, their eyes shining like polished buttons, their hands scratching feebly at the windows like wilted straw—but I wasn’t supposed to think about them.
Before the snatchers drove away, Camille managed to remember two out of Lora’s three rules.
First: leave your shoes before they take you.
She thrashed against the men as they dragged her down the sidewalk, somehow managing to rip her sandals off her feet and fling them across the front lawn behind her. They landed right beside me, in the dirt of the flowerbeds. I could’ve easily bent over the staircase-rail and grabbed them, but I was suffocating in the gloom of the murky skies and swollen smog, and I was rooted to the spot.
Second: yell out the code on the inside of the door.
Lora said that in every snatcher car there was a five-digit code stamped inside the door. I didn’t know why it was important for her to hear that code each time, but there was a certain one that she was waiting for, because each time someone screamed out the digits she visibly deflated.
The two men yanked Camille by the wrists, slinging her through the open door like she weighed barely anything—which, come to think of it, she did—and she gasped as her head slammed against the side of the car. I clapped my hands over my mouth and smothered a shriek.
They tried to shut the door on her, but then she was throwing herself halfway out of the car, shouting out in a blur of numbers.
Distantly, I noted that through her flailing she had managed to get smudges of dirt on their pristine jackets. Snatchers were perfectly white in all the ways that the rest of us never were—white vehicles, white clothing, even gleaming white teeth and milky white skin. Nothing stayed white in the city. Even the purest of things were eventually buried under our dirt and grime and blistering hot sun.
Third: do not cry, and do not scream.
The last rule was the one that Camille broke. The two men slammed the door against her, trapping her fingers in the crack. She cried out only once before the sound was cut off by the purr of an engine, but even after they had driven away the scream lingered in the air like a barely forgotten dream.
Everyone else slipped inside, but my hands were still clamped over my lips, forcing myself to swallow sobs that burned going down my parched throat. Emotion was weakness, Lora said. I would not be weak.
I stared into the street and watched the agitated dust settle back down onto the pavement, erasing the scene like nothing had happened.
When I forced myself to look away, Graham was there. His shadowed expression made him look older, but he was eleven, too. I can see the sunset behind the bouncy curls piled on his head.
He frowned, pointing towards the discarded shoes lying in the dirt.
“I think she would’ve wanted you to have them,” he said, cast his eyes downward, and followed the other inside.
I staggered barefoot down the steps and stepped onto the sun-scorched lawn, dead grass crunching under my feet. For a moment I saw the flowerbeds as they could’ve been, if there was enough water, brimming with loud colors and soft petals, but then the image wavered and all that was left was dirt. I pulled the shoes on. They wouldn’t have fit even with some extraordinarily thick socks. The worn leather was soft against my feet, though, and I silently thanked my big sister for the birthday present as I climbed back up the stairs. The watery sunset cast a shadow behind me that looked like a watchful guardian angel.
Her scream followed me inside, even through the firmly closed door, ringing in my ears and leaving a sharp taste on my tongue. I blinked away the image of her fingers crushed in the door—emotion was weakness, Lora said.
*
That was four years ago exactly. Today, I'm turning fifteen. I wake up feeling like my execution date has been set, and I haul myself out of bed at the crack of dawn, hoping to get to the stream before the heat and haze get too intolerable.
Diluted sunshine leaks through the bedroom skylight, creating the illusion that it might be a bright, pretty day. I tiptoe between my snoring roommates and pull open the room’s only window to let a wisp of fresh air in, and then slip out into the hallway.
As I reach the top of the staircase, I step into Camille’s shoes, which fit now. It makes sense—she was fifteen when she was taken. Always the magic number. Lora says that making it to fifteen is an accomplishment, but I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished anything. Soon enough, the snatchers will come for me. If they don’t, which happens occasionally, I’ll go crazy anyway from the water.
The downstairs hardwood floor has this endearing quality of creaking like hell whenever anyone steps on it, so there’s no point in trying to be delicate while crossing the living room. It groans under my feet, understanding my pain, sympathizing with my dreaded birthday.
I like to think that the house will be sorry when I’m taken. I’m the only one who ever cleans it.
Graham is in the kitchen, leaning up against the counter and sipping a mug of our sorry substitute for coffee. He’s so dark from gardening and scavenging that his skin is the same deep brown as the drink, and when he flashes me a grin, it’s white against the rest of his coloring.
I return it, feebly. “That coffee is going to ruin your dazzling smile.”
“Nonsense. I’ve got enough whitening toothpaste for a small country,” he retorts, which is true. When the crops started dying and the smog came, those who evacuated the city took everything they could get their hands on—except toothpaste. We have at least a hundred travel-sized tubes of the stuff stashed somewhere in the basement. I wonder if it’s edible, for when our hunger gets really desperate.
He extends the mug to me, but I shake my head, even though my throat is burning and I haven’t had anything to drink since yesterday morning. I walk over to the table and collapse into a chair. It creaks in chorus with the floor. “I don’t know how you can drink that,” I say.
“Easy.” His tone is light, but it’s a touchy subject between us, and he meets my gaze. “Otherwise, I’ll die of thirst. Like you.”
“I’m not dying of thirst.”
“You’re right,” he amends. “You’re dying of hunger, too.”
I run a hand through my hair, which is wilted from being washed too infrequently. Unlike toothpaste, shampoo is hard to come by.
He sits down across from me and reaches across the table to grab my hand. His is warm, callused, and familiar. “Don’t be angry. Happy birthday.”
I glare. “Thanks for the reminder.”
“Big fifteen, huh? Want me to break out the confetti?” His smile isn’t genuine anymore, and his lips are spread into a thin, closed line that makes it look like he’s been inhaling lemon juice.
“No confetti.” I sit back in my chair. Stray shafts of sunlight are on the table, seeping from the kitchen window; the air is already hot and sticky, and it can’t be later than seven. “Although I wouldn’t say no to a homemade cake.”
“Yes, you would.”
He’s right.
I look down into my free hand, which is creased with dirt. It looks like the grime of the city has been embedded into my skin, and no matter how often I try to wash it off, the filth is always there, reminding me of where I am.
I form a fist and realize that Graham is standing over me with a small cup of water. There are shiny sediments in it, like pieces of glitter, and I push him away halfheartedly.
“C’mon, Sav,” he pleads. I hate that nickname, but I can’t get him to call me Savannah. “I won’t let you dehydrate. Not on your birthday. Just a cup.”
God, I’m so thirsty. I take the glass and raise it to my lips, allowing myself three tiny sips before forcing it back into Graham’s hand.
He frowns. “Finish it. You’re not going to go insane with one cup.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Do you see how much water I drink?” he demands. “Four full glasses a day. And I’m still here, aren’t I?” He puts his face right up next to mine. His breath smells bitter from the fake coffee. “Look at me. I’m not crazy.”
I look away. “Not yet.” I live in the fear that one day I’ll wake to Graham’s screaming in the night, walking in circles around the house, muttering gibberish while he stares blankly out a window. I dread the day when the poison in our water finally works its way into his brain and breaks him down, like it has to everyone before him.
“You don’t think it can happen to you,” I whisper. “But it will. It always does. We’re fifteen now. It’s either the madness, thirst, or the snatchers—one of them will get us eventually.”
His expression is grim as he pulls me up from the chair and raises the glass to my lips. He’s too strong for me to pull away from, when he has his arm around my waist like this, so I let him win for now and dutifully drain every last drop of water. I swear I can feel the glitter particles attacking my brain.
He sets the empty cup down on the table, and I rub the sleep out of my eyes. “One year older, Sav,” he murmurs. “We’ll figure a way out of it. We’ll live as long as Lora.”
Graham’s optimism is touching, although it’s outrageous. Lora is a miraculous exception to the water madness—if she knew a way out, she’d have told us.
The sunlight's increasing warmth on my back tells me that we’re losing time, so I wrap my fingers around Graham’s and drag him out the front door to fetch the water before everyone else wakes up thirsty.
“Happy birthday,” he says again. I can’t help but disagree.
I also wish I had submitted this earlier, but I hadn't been sure I'd be able to finish it for the contest. (I'm still not sure, really!)
So probably nothing too serious. I'll try to look for some of them, though.
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