“Exactly.” Aunt Mavis chuckled.
Sunnie winced. How long until laughter seemed appropriate again? A shudder rippled through her, and she adjusted the vent. Outside, urban decay pressed against the windows. Soot streaked a burned out Sonic Drive-in. The red car awnings hung like shredded banners from their supports. Prophetic messages of doom clung to the side of the pharmacy in blood-colored graffiti. Concrete barricades surrounded an empty gas station.
This new world sucked.
Sunnie splayed her fingers on the glass. “Do you think the city will ever recover?”
The Civic slowed as they approached the intersection. Dead traffic lights bobbed over the tank lodged in the center of the four-way. Two Marines sat on the turret, SAWs in their laps. The silly looking guns spat so many bullets they could literally cut a man in half within seconds. One used his weapon to wave them through the empty intersection.
Raising a hand in acknowledgement, Aunt Mavis turned left onto the street leading to their neighborhood. A large, white banner flapped from the eaves of a chain grocery store, announcing the grand reopening tomorrow. What good would stocked shelves do? Few had been able to work in the last months. Most didn’t have any money, relying solely on the aid packages from the Guard.
Aunt Mavis’s attention flitted to the burned-out strip mall on the corner opposite the grocery store. “Some of the buildings were abandoned before the Rattling Death hit. The work went to China, India or elsewhere and wasn’t coming back.”
Aunt Mavis chewed on her bottom lip and white dotted her knuckles.
Sunnie ripped a sliver of dry skin from her thumb. Pink flesh winked at her before blood oozed into the opening. Outsourcing. The favorite refrain of her aunt’s generation. So much so, that the complaint had been as common as the weather. “Yeah. And…”
“And, we’ll find it very difficult to build the items we need if China does push us into war.” Aunt Mavis eased the Civic down the street.
Collapsed rafters were visible through the shattered storefronts. On each side, graffiti marked the six-foot high concrete walls edging the road. The wind moaned through the skeletal remains of charred shrubs and loose bone-white limbs of the eucalyptus trees clattered against their trunks.
Sunnie pinched the collar of her jacket tighter and adjusted the vent. Some life had returned. Fuzzy, green bougainvilleas shuddered and splattered the ground with their crimson blossoms. Yellow puff-balls swayed at the tips of the weeds.
“The neighborhoods are the worst. All those empty homes where neighbors once lived.” Aunt Mavis maneuvered around a cluster of burned out vehicles and braked. She stared down the road as if she could see the taped and boarded up homes in the neighborhood.
Sunnie shrugged. She had barely met most of the neighbors before the quarantine went into effect. But Aunt Mavis and Uncle Jack who had lived here since their marriage, had raised their son here. Now all that was gone. Now, the men were gone. Forever. Sunnie’s nails bit into her palms. At least, Aunt Mavis had photos of her family. Who knew if she’d ever be able to return home and collect remembrances of her mother, brother, sister and stepfather?
Metal creaked, jerking her thoughts back to the Civic. A sign proclaiming that trespassers will be shot swung from the chain lashed between two eucalyptus trees, blocking street access to the neighborhood. Tipped onto its side, a blackened Jeep Liberty attested to the will of the neighborhood to enforce the sign.
“I thought North Korea was threatening war not China.” Sunnie combed her fingers through her hair.
“North Korea wouldn’t do anything without China’s blessing.”
“So you think there’ll be a war then?” Sunnie scanned the area. Seven firebombed vehicles—three with bullet holes punched in their sides and one with arrows in its tires. Victims of the gauntlet created by two rusted dumpsters near the first street and lots of tall trees on either side.
Aunt Mavis honked the horn twice, waited a beat then hit it one more time. Shifting the car into park, she leaned forward until her chin rested atop of the steering wheel and stared through the windshield. “I would have thought Mr. Quartermain would have challenged us by now.”
Sunnie rolled her eyes. Really? First the movie premiere then this. Did her aunt think she’d be put off twice in an hour? And who cared about old Mr. Quartermain? The man could wake up at dawn, and it would be noon, before he managed to reach the foot of his bed. She set her hand on Aunt Mavis’s. Sunnie wanted, no, needed answers. Real answers. Like yes and no.
“Do you think there will be war with North Korea or not?” She spoke slowly like her mom had done when she was younger and stupid. Mom. Her chest seemed to shrink and her vision wavered. She swiped away her tears. How long until her insides didn’t feel like they’d been run through a grater at the thought of her family?
Aunt Mavis’s sigh fluttered through her auburn bangs. “It’s a complicated situation.”
Adult speak for either I don’t know, or I don’t want to explain it to you. But Sunnie was an adult now, had been for a year and a half. Crossing her arms, she leaned back and let the leather seat cup her spine. No one stirred in the empty street. “Since Mr. Quartermain moves at the speed of a snail on fly paper, I think we have time for you to explain it to me.”
Aunt Mavis squeezed her eyes closed and her lips slowly moved. One. Two. Three.
Good God, didn’t adults know how irritating that was? Or did they do it on purpose, hoping the kid would just give up and go away? Cold air crept into the car. The engine ticked as the metal cooled. She eased her toes back into her sneakers.
Twelve. Thirteen.
A gust of wind scooped up dirt and leaves, spinning them into a cyclone that crossed the empty street. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked.
Sixteen. Seventeen. Aunt Mavis uncurled along the bucket seat. “I think China is up to something.”
Complicated or off-topic? Sunnie rubbed her fingers together, until the friction built-up enough heat to drive away the chill. “China? But they’re not threatening us; North Korea is.”
Aunt Mavis’s lips pursed like she’d chomped on a rotten lemon. “If North Korea is saber-rattling, then China is up to something. They’re using the Koreans as a distraction.”
Sunnie snorted. “Why? Why not just challenge us themselves?”
“Why not, indeed?”
“No, that was my question.” Sunnie tugged her ponytail free and shook the silky stands around her shoulders. God, adults could be such a pain sometimes. “I’m asking you why they’d do that?”
“Taiwan, maybe?” Aunt Mavis jerked on the chrome handle and her door sprang open. “To test our strength and resolve. They’d never do so outright. They have too much to lose. But using a proxy is clever and hard to prove.”
Taiwan. What did that have to do with anything? “But—”
“Wait here.” Grabbing the keys from the ignition, her aunt slid out of the car and slammed the door shut after her.
Frustration rumbled through Sunnie’s chest. She was so tired of being treated like a child. Clawing for the handle, she jerked on the latch and shoved at the door. Wind whistled around her and leaned against the car. She pushed out of the Civic and jumped clear before the door slammed shut.
“Aunt Mavis?” Hair tickled the back of her throat. She finger-combed her hair into a ponytail and tucked the tresses under her jacket collar.
A gust whipped the hair out of Aunt Mavis’s face and muted the rattle of keys in her hand. She scanned the pine trees across the street. “Mr. Quartermain should have been here by now.”
Like it really mattered where the old geezer was. This was war they were talking about. War. There could be a draft. Women could be called to fight. She could be called to fight. “About China, Thailand and North Korea…”