September 12

I noticed that Dad was picking at the pink tape on the bottom of the axe in the morning, the one covering up the Hunters' name on the axe.

"Stop picking at it," I told Dad.

"It's bothering me," Dad said. "And it's getting dirty from all the sweat and ash."

"Just keep it," I said, trying to come up with a reason for him to not rip the pink tape off and expose all of my lies. "It's good for your grip."

"It just makes the axes slipperier when I hold it," Dad said. "And it's placed too low to provide enough grip. I'll rip it off this afternoon."

That sent me into a panic, and my hands were clammy as I searched for a solid excuse before coming up with a half-decent one that would at least stop him, just until I could figure out a good way to permanently end this problem. "I borrowed it from the garden, and just in case they need it back again, I don't want to return it damaged or without the pink tape. I think they were using it for identification or something like that. Just don't mess with it."

"That's a good point," Dad said before stopping his picking at the duct tape, the first edges already partially ripped off. "But why do you care so much?"

"Just don't touch it. Leave things the way that they are. Inertia is great."

Mira suddenly entered the room, with a thick jacket on and a scarf tucked around her neck. "Inertia is a property of matter."

And, to the utter bewilderment of Mom and Dad, who probably thought we were going a bit crazy because they had literally no clue about what was going on, we both started laughing and faux shouting, "Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill Nye the science guy."

"God, you two are so weird," May said while Dad added, "I might need to check the water to make sure that none of us are getting lead poisoning."

And then we had a small laugh before going wood and water gathering. Mondays truly did suck, and even though I should be used to carrying buckets since this wasn't my first time, by the third round of water gathering, my arms were burning, and I was panting into the water bucket. The sun was shining between the skeleton-gray branches of the sycamore trees, but the weather was stubbornly cool, and the world was quiet around us.

Well, at least until we were on our fourth round, when we saw a gray-haired woman dipping their bucket into the creek, the bright blue plastic bobbing on the murky water. She stood up and nodded at us with a smile. "Good afternoon."

"Good afternoon too," Mira said, as she reflexively put herself in front of us.

"You folks doing alright?" she asked.

Mira nodded. "As alright as we can be."

"Well I suppose that is the best that we can do," she said before pausing. "I haven't seen you folks before. Well, I haven't seen much of anyone recently. Are you guys from the east side of town?"

"Northeast," Mira said, her lie coming out so quickly and smoothly that it sounded like she was telling the truth. "We only come down here because the water is clearer."

Both of those were lies because we live in the southwest part of the city, and the water in the creek was muddy and filled with sediment, and going to the reservoir in the northern part of the city would have much clearer water. I think the lady knew that we were lying because she then approached us, and Mira put her hand on her waist, instinctively reaching for a gun that wasn't there.

"That must be terrible," she said. "I've heard from many people that most of the houses there collapsed during the collapse. Is yours alright?"

We all looked at each other. Mom and Dad would probably know how to defuse this situation or confront her, but we didn't know what to say. I couldn't even tell whether she was trying to pry information from us or whether she was just being nice and polite, and that irrational paranoia has infected even us too. Thank goodness that May had a good response, "I thought you said that you haven't seen or talked to anyone in a while."

"Well, yes." The woman gave an awkward smile and picked up the bucket. "It was nice meeting you folks."

Mira gave her a terse wave as the women put on a straw hat and walked up the banks of the river and down the road. We waited a couple minutes in silence, dipping our water buckets into the creek and letting them sit there for a while until we were confident that the woman wasn't in earshot.

"I thought you said all people were good," May said, looking straight at Mira.

"Most people are innately good."

"So then why'd you try pulling at your gun that you don't have?" May said. "I saw you reach for your waist, so don't deny it."

There was an awkward moment of silence. Mira let out a long sigh before replying, "I panicked, and I got worried that she would get close to you both and hurt you, so that's why—"

"So you don't believe that people are good," May replied. "You believed that lady was going to pull out a gun and shoot us or something, and you were going to shoot her. So what's even the whole point of protecting other people if you think everyone's dangerous."

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Mira could barely stammer out a reply before May added, "You're such a hypocrite."

There was a long silence. I tried walking up the banks so that maybe they would follow me, and that their fight would end because we'd all be too tired from walking while carrying these heavy water buckets. But they stood by the creek, the water rushing over the stones, and imagining hard enough, I could hear the chirps of crickets and rustle of leaves on branches.

"I— I am a hypocrite," Mira said. "And I'm trying to be better at not letting the cynicism of the world around us get to me because it's so easy to get scared and worried, especially after the town hall meeting, where normal people, good people decided to go and storm the cities to the north of us for food."

"Then stop wasting your time," May said. "If good people are becoming bad, then who knows when the people you're working with are going to turn against you. Against us."

"They won't if we have community. That's the most important part in keeping people looking out for each other, and that's what's going to keep us safe," Mira said. "Because it's easier to hate and turn on people that you don't know, so I'm keeping us safe by keeping us in touch with other people. And I'm keeping everyone, including us, safe by going out every evening to make sure that people aren't looting other people's homes or killing other people or—"

"What if you saw someone looting a home?" May said, and I shot a warning glance at her because it was far too dangerous for her to mention that.

"Maybe we should go," I was going to say before Mira cut me off.

"I'd give them a warning," she said. "That's what the Shepards taught us to do."

"A warning shot or what?" May asked.

"Verbal warning. A warning shot might get someone nearby injured."

"What if they don't listen? Because you guys aren't the real police, and the real police don't exist anymore."

"Then we'll move towards them, and we'll announce that we are armed, and that we have guns. We'll pull them out just in case they think that we're bluffing or lying."

"And if they don't listen?" May asked. "And what if they have a knife or a gun of their own because everyone carries them around since it's the freaking apocalypse?"

Mira didn't say anything, but I think we all knew the implication was: she and her partner would shoot that looter and injure them, which would be akin to a death sentence considering the state of the hospital. After a long moment of silence, Mira said, "I— I don't know. It's complicated and—"

"So you'd shoot them?" May said, basically stating out loud the idea that Mira was too afraid to talk about. "For just grabbing things from abandoned houses? What if they have a family to feed? What if—"

"Just stop talking," I said because I was fed up with their arguments, and because if there's one thing that I hate more than anything, it's people fighting and arguing because no one gets anywhere. "Let's just go. Hurry up."

There was a long moment of silence, neither of them speaking, and then, surprisingly, May and Mira dropped their argument, and Mira trudged forwards, some of the water splashing out from the sides of her bucket as she sped down a different street from where we came street, leaving May and I trailing pretty far behind.

"Where are we going?" I shouted.

"Scenic route," Mira shouted back and continued walking quickly. I knew what she meant. We were taking a detour, a long way around the sprawl of our suburban neighborhood to make sure that we weren't being followed directly back home by that woman and whoever she was associated with. I doubt that many people were surviving well alone.

I turned to May, who was panting hard, just like me, as we lugged the buckets. "You know if you want to continue doing your scavenging trips, it might be better to have Mira out of the house more often."

"Our trips don't even align," she said. "And plus, it's a waste of time. And I hate people that waste their time."

"It's not a waste of time for her," I said. "And it's good that it keeps us safe."

"She's being stupid," May said. "Those people she's working with, they know where we live, and they will turn on us."

"They won't."

"How do you know?" May said, kicking at a stone on the ground, sending it skittering across the ash-caked sidewalk, and stopped walking and placed her bucket on the concrete as we took a small break. "They've got big guns, and all we've got is a tiny little handgun and an axe."

"We've just got to trust them," I said. "You can't be this cynical about everything."

"Well, if cynical means being very careful and keeping us alive, then yes, I can be cynical, and there's nothing wrong about it."

"That's not even what— Never mind. We may have a problem with Dad," I replied. "He's picking at the pink duct tape."

"I know. I saw him this morning. How long until he picks it off completely?"

"A couple weeks. Hopefully," I said. "I wrapped probably more than ten times, and it's duct tape, so it sticks pretty hard, but I don't know. We've got to do something about this."

"No duh," she replied as we picked up the buckets and continued to walk. "We'll start figuring something out on Friday. I just want to have my birthday in peace."

"So no dangerous scavenging missions this week?"

"Maybe," she said with a shrug. "I'll see."

"You heard what Mira said," I said. "Or what she didn't say, about them shooting the looters. You could get hurt."

"Eyes," she said. "I've got perfect 20/20 vision. And plus, because she couldn't say it out loud, I doubt that anyone would be able to shoot even if they saw me. You need to stop worrying. We've already had this conversation a billion times."

And so we walked around the neighborhood, following Mira's ashy footprints around partially collapsed houses and twinkling windchimes hanging from porches and the occasional creaking of doors and cars abandoned after the earthquake. We walked for a while before we saw Mira, just standing on the sidewalk, waiting for us. She pointed somewhere in the distance, and I saw a thin line of smoke drifting from a chimney.

My heart leaped, but I wasn't really sure if it was because there was a good chance that there were other people doing well or because there was another person that could kill us or rob us. Maybe it's something in between, but either way, after seeing that, we all walked a little closer, eyes watching the rusting mailboxes and white picket fences stained with crumbling ash since we were in an unfamiliar neighborhood. By the time that we had reached home, our arms were on fire, and Mira decided that we would finish grabbing the water tomorrow.

So we waited around and watered the plants as they raced towards our phone lights perched on top of the greenbox, as we entered the soaring phase of the skipping stone, where nothing special was going on at all. Mom and Dad entered the house late at night, while Mira was going on her night watch duty, and just drifted right to bed, as I put on some heavy-duty gloves to grab the firewood and put it next to the fireplace. I feel bad that I have to wake Mom up, but I guess that's just life.

I didn't pick up the book today, mostly because I was thinking about what I wrote down yesterday, about caring. I think I know why that idea is freaking me out. It's because when you tell someone you care or that you love them, it's just so honest, and to let someone know that is just so vulnerable and invasive. I don't even get how you can do that, and I guess I don't get it because I'm not even being honest to anyone about how I feel about anything.

Hell, I can't even be honest to myself about how I feel about guys.