To the Last Drop

Sam poured out one of the FreshLight pouches into her cantine. “Better than nothin’,” she said.

Luca stared at her. His eyes grew menacing. “How many more o’ those you got?”

“Only two besides the four we’re leaving for Tiernan. And we’ve got to plan for a week. You had water yesterday. We need to split one when we get there and we can have the other when we get back.”

“You so sure we’re gonna get there and back?” Luca asked, rubbing his left leg. The gunshot wound stung. It had passed directly through his calf below his knee, and did very little damage. That was last night. Today, the bleeding had largely stopped, but med supplies were low, and Sam had just finished one of the three remaining pouches of fresh water.

Their only water.

Luca licked his lips, which were chapped already. He worked at biting off a hanging piece of dry skin from his bottom lip, and when he succeeded, he spat it on the floor.

“Here,” said Sam. She handed him a bottle of penicillin she found on the floor underneath the broken glass. “There’s still four or so in there. And I found some acetaminophen as well. Don’t take it all now. You’ll need it tomorrow after we’ve walked.”

Luca inspected Sam from afar. She was covered in blood, there was a spot on her arm that looked to have been cut, though not deeply, and her normally gorgeous black hair was matted down with dirt and sweat. He always thought she was a pretty girl, for a sister, anyway. But she was tougher than any man he’d ever met.

Now, with their crew all dead except for the two of them and Tiernan, they only had one option — head to the next reservoir and try not to die. Tiernan moaned on the floor beside Luca. They were going to have to leave him behind. His wounds from the fight were many, and he had lost a lot of blood from the shot through his leg. If they were lucky — or blessed, or whatever you called it these days — they would find an unscathed clinic between here and Clearlake. Until then, the best they could hope for was a miracle, or another restaurant like El Jalisciense Mexican Grill in Arbuckle, California.

“Tiernan. Tiernan.” Luca patted him lightly on the shoulder. The man turned his head slightly so that Luca could see his face. He was pale. His eyes did not open, but Luca tried to sound calm. “Hey partner, you’ve got four packs of FreshLight here.” Luca took Tiernan’s hand and set it on top of the little packets of sterilized fresh water. “Do not drink it all at one time. If you do, you’ll die before we get back. And then I’ll have to beat you up.” He patted him on the cheek. “Don’t want to lose you, bro.”

Tiernan smirked through the pain, then winced. He made a slight nod with his head. “Love you guys,” he rasped.

Sam came over from the window, averting her eyes from Luca, who knew she had been crying anyway. She knelt by Tiernan’s limp body and kissed him gently on the mouth. “You’ll have to deal with me before Luca gets to you,” she said. “Only one pack of FreshLight every day or two, okay?”

Tiernan nodded again. Then he took her hand and placed it on his chest. “I promise.”

They barricaded the door from within with an old freezer they found in the restaurant. Luca practiced putting weight on his leg, which handled it fairly well, to his surprise. He gasped after a few steps, then shot a hesitant glance at his sister.

“Luca,” Sam said. “We’ll just have to take it slow. I figure you can manage at least ten miles a day.”

“Maybe more than that!” he said, sounding sarcastically hopeful. “Eleven…” He grunted as he sat back down.

Sam found clean tablecloths and set them beside Tiernan, along with some unopened bags of chips, cans of beans, a can opener, a flashlight, and one of their two G19s, along with extra bullets.

“If anyone comes in here, you let them know who you are and why we’re here,” she said to Tiernan, who only nodded. The morning sunlight came up to the point that it just barely caught the blue in his eyes. He smiled again at her, then flashed the sign for “I love you,” just as Sam and Luca climbed through the small window above the door.

Two hours later, Luca caught his second wind. Sam didn’t ever say it, but she looked up to him. He’d been there for her when Smith died, and been there when she first knew Tiernan would help clean up the pieces. He always took her home at Christmas, sometimes forcibly, and he always made sure their parents didn’t ask her the wrong kinds of questions. This was her chance to be there for him, so she was trying hard to be as tough as everyone thought she was.

“Keep it up, greenhorn. Maybe we’ll make it a mile by tomorrow. This how they taught you to act in the Army?”

“Shut it, you paper-pushing Air Force goon,” he said, laughing.

“That’s the best you can do?”

“Well, I had worse, but I think that part of me bled out back at El Jalisciense. Plus, if you’re the last person I ever see, I’d like to be remembered as more of a nice guy than a joker.”

An hour or so later, Sam threw a can at him. “Catch, numbskull.”

“You packed food? My Samma-Banana is so smart.”

“Use your knife to get it open,” she said.

They stopped under the roof of what used to be an old barn to rest and eat.

“Thank God it’s not hot today,” said Luca.

“I don’t think God has anything to do with the seasons, Luca,” Sam responded sharply.

“Well, maybe not now, but, you know, when he, like, uh, made everything?”

“I hate you,” Sam said sarcastically.

“I love you too, sis,” Luca said, making a kiss noise with his lips in between gulps of beans. “Why do you think we were —”

“Attacked?” Sam asked, cutting him off. “Probably something to do with the tech we swiped back in L.A. You know, one of the world’s last full-spectrum DG water cleansers? The one we left back at El Jalisciense with Tiernan?”

“Oh, yeah!” Luca said, feigning surprise. “What I meant was, we saw the gang leaving, we saw the last vehicle turn away, and then, out of nowhere, it was like a mob of civilians chasing us. We haven’t even stopped to talk about the fact that Malaya, B.D., Joon, Jake, Dasha, and Pete are all dead.”

“What’s there to say?” Sam yelled. “People die! It’s what we’re built for! And if we don’t get some water back to Tiernan, he’s going to die too. Just like —”

“Just like Smitty.” Sam walked out of the barn and was nearly all the way to the road. “Sam! Sammie! I’m sorry…” Luca hobbled up to where she stood. “I’m sorry.”

Sam buried her head on his shoulder and sobbed. “We’ve got to save him, Luca.”

“We will. Have a little faith, Sam. Hermano’s here.”

The two of them walked side-by-side for the next half hour, nearly unspeaking except for occasional check-ins.

Then Sam froze. Ahead was the vague outline of a town. Just as the sun was starting to cool on their left, casting a jagged shadow of short buildings and structures along the I-5.

“The town of Williams, I think,” said Luca. “We got here much faster than I thought we would — staying off the road and out of sight and all.”

“McDonald’s is still standing?” Sam asked out loud in utter disbelief. “All of California is ruined, but McDonald’s in Williams, California? Still like new.”

“Royale with cheese?” Luca asked, trying to impersonate someone.

“Come on, is that from some dumb movie? I’m going to tell Mamá you broke her favorite mug when you were ten if you make any more movie references.”

“Me, come on? You come on! It’s Samuel L., baby! From Pulp Fiction?”

Sam rolled her eyes.

“It’s really bloody, and really gritty, but man, can that guy act! And by the way, stop using that threat about Mamá. I told her last year.”

“Well, there are plenty of other things that you did wrong. And she can still whoop you.”

“What, are you from Georgia instead of Portland now? Who says, ‘Whoop’?”

Sam sighed at Luca’s carefree attitude. The truth was, “home” was another concept entirely since the events of the last year. The American government had purposely poisoned all the drinking water sources in hopes of keeping the Eschebo from eradicating the population, but had unintentionally killed a third of the population with the poison instead. California’s gangs were more organized than ever, creating umbrella agreements in their communities to fight to bring clean water to all — but at a price. Preppers everywhere were living out their dreams, running around with guns, hunting without licenses, pretending like they were living in an episode of The Walking Dead. And regular civilians were panicking.

It was those civilians who were somehow tipped off to the fact that a DG water purifier was in Arbuckle at the restaurant. Instead of asking questions or seeking help, they came, guns blazing, shooting anyone they saw. They hit Luca in the calf, hit Tiernan in the shoulder and thigh, causing him to bleed out, and killed the rest of their friends. Sam and Tiernan were both cut all over from shattered glass flying when the window was broken at the restaurant. Instead of shooting back, the group of largely ex-military friends had shot warnings into the air and thrown flashbangs at the mass of civilians, scaring them away.

Her mind wandered far from California as they stood there, staring at the McDonald’s. She couldn’t help but think there would be another crazy episode at this restaurant like there was at the last. Luca took her hand, which she didn’t necessarily want, but didn’t refuse. He squeezed her hand the way she’d seen old people do in their church when they were kids — it was always more than just a handshake, but just slightly less than a hug. Like the hands were saying, “I’m here for you,” but silently, tenderly, and full of time-earned trust and friendship.

Fifteen minutes later, Luca sat down on the order counter of the McDonald’s. “Thank God we found more FreshLight,” he said. Luca laughed as he gulped down two of the precious packets. The government might be off their rocker, but they at least thought ahead enough to provide rations of sanitary drinking water in durable, non-toxic packaging, in case some kind of catastrophic event occurred. Which it did.

Sam found some alcohol that she used to clean out Luca’s wound. “How does it feel, hermano?” Sam said, slapping him lightly just above his wound and winking.

“Ugh! Why would you do that?” Luca moaned. “It was fine until you laid your paws on me!”

“Get a little more rest, Luca. At this rate, I think we can get to Clearlake by nightfall.”

“Did you find any food back there?”

“Not really.”

“Must have been ransacked the day after the Poisoning.”

Sam looked away. That was the day Smitty died. Luca cleared his throat, realizing he shouldn’t have brought it up.

Just then, they heard it. The low hum of what sounded like a gang vehicle. It was coming from the west, the very direction they needed to travel. Sam carefully made her way to the back window to see whether or not it was approaching.

She opened the door slightly, then found that, not only was the sound approaching, but it was here. A slender, sliver-gray female Eschebo stood at the door, peering down at her, and it was all she could do not to scream.

{I don’t know what to do}, said the female to Sam. This is what they did — without moving any kind of lips on their giant faces, they spoke by humming sounds that vibrated directly into your ears. The word was that they also preyed on people who were out alone, caught in situations like this, like an elderly or sickly gazelle at the outskirts of its flock. And they said no one knew what the Eschebo did with the humans once they had them.

{I said I don’t know what to do}, the female Eschebo repeated. Sam, stunned, took a step backward, opening the door to her. {Maybe… maybe you can help us?}, she asked, pushing gently past Sam into the McDonald’s kitchen.

An overwhelming sense of pity for the Eschebo washed over Sam. She suddenly felt quite at ease, as if she had known the female for years.

Luca stood and pointed his gun at her. “What are you doing here? What do you want? We just want water… we want to be left alone, to survive.” He was shaking, his weight entirely on his right leg, his face and hands clammy from anxiety.

“She wants help, Luca,” said Sam calmly, surprising herself.

{This is my… we don’t have a word for it.} The female held out the thing that dangled across her arms. It was thin, shriveled, and strangely powdery-looking all over. Sam and Luca were both shocked at the female’s lack of hostility toward them. They were so shocked that, barring the idea of being the creature’s friend, they felt a strange camaraderie with her — trusted her.

As they got closer, they took in the limp thing’s full form. It was an Eschebo male. He shivered in the female’s arms. {He is from…}, the female tried to explain it again, to no avail.

Sam felt oddly sorry for the female. “Is it your mate — do you procreate with this male?”

The female Eschebo stood tall, her red eyes looking eerily human at the moment. {No, that is not it. Our origin is the same.}

“Is he your brother?” asked Luca, his face contorted with thought.

{Brother? I do not know this word. The female who bore me also bore him. Is this what you mean?} She stared deeply into Luca’s face, and he gulped..

“Yes, brother means a male from your own mother.” Luca looked at Sam.

{That is your brother?} hummed the female plainly to Luca, then looked at Sam.

“She is my sister, because she is a female,” said Luca.

{Then I am his sister? We have no words for this.}

“He looks hurt, what happened?” Sam asked.

{He drank your water, from the lake behind us. Many Eschebo have died because of your water.}

“Many humans have died as well. It was a dumb move for our government to make, and now we’re all burying bodies,” said Sam. Then the thought hit her. How was the Eschebo still fighting for life? Maybe he had only ingested a light solution of the poison. “Do you want me to try to help?”

Luca cleared his throat again. “Help?” he whispered.

“They obviously don’t mean us any harm… maybe the others were just being protective? I don’t know.” Sam shrugged at him.

{What would you do?} hummed the female Eschebo, staring at Luca in a way that made him visibly uncomfortable.

“Here,” said Luca. He hobbled toward the Eschebo, motioning for her to lay the male on the ground. He ripped open a FreshLight pack, held the male’s head up, and indicated he needed to open his mouth. The male groggily complied, and Luca poured the water into his strange, circular feeding orifice. Luca was sweating profusely. He emptied another, and another, until they only had one pack left. The male seemed to be responding well to the fresh water.

“Give it all to him — to the last drop,” Sam said. “We can find more. We’re survivors.”

Luca opened the last pack and poured it into the male’s feeding orifice. He hummed softly, a low, bass tone, then by all outward appearance, fell into a peaceful sleep.

The female Eschebo looked from Luca to Sam. {Thank you}, she hummed. Sam nodded.

“If the poison is water soluble, it makes sense that more fresh water could wash it out of his system. We have at least 20 packs here… Luca and I need to take some for our trip to Clearlake, but you can have the rest — to the last drop.

{Hmmbee}, hummed the female Eschebo. {You don’t know what to call me. Hmmbee. His name is Mmveeh}.

“Sam, my name is Sam. That’s Luca. Keep feeding these to him as often as he’ll take them. We need to get going. Otherwise we have a friend who might die, too.

{I could take you}, hummed Hmmbee. {I could fix your friend}.

Luca and Sam looked at one another with the same question in their eyes — was this something the government had overlooked? Did the Eschebo have a sort of moral center? Sam felt a pang of anger. Did the government poison the water for no reason?

Hmmbee held out her hand. {You do not want to go to the lake. Much danger is there. Humans with guns, much death. Come with me.}

Sam looked at Luca and nodded her head. Luca shrugged and said, “We can’t go to Clearlake with me on one good leg, only one gun between us, and no backup — not if there’s danger there like she’s saying. Do we go back?”

“I say we go with her. What do we have to lose?”

“Ay, Dios ayúdanos!” Luca exclaimed, making Sam laugh. They grabbed hands, then Sam took Hmmbee’s. Instantly they were back in Arbuckle, at El Jalisciense, standing over Tiernan. He was pale from blood loss and cold to the touch.

“Tiernan! Wake up!” Sam cried out, shaking him. But he didn’t respond. She began to cry. “He’s not breathing!”

{What is the meaning of your words and actions?} Hmmbee asked. She loomed a head taller than Luca, looking down with broad ruby eyes out of a pale, silvery face at the scene. {If this is grief, you should know that he will be fine.}

Sam and Luca watched Hmmbee as she started to hum in a different way. Sam stood, gawking, because as she hummed, the dried, blackened blood in the bandages on Tiernan’s shoulder and leg became red liquid again, and the smell of iron filled the room. Slowly, the red left the color of the bandages, until they were completely white again, save for some dirt that had gotten on them from the floor.

Luca looked at his own bandage, and it was the same — clean, except for the sweat and dirt from their trek. “What’s happening?” he whispered into Sam’s ear.

Tiernan gasped for air, and instantly the color returned to his face. Then he jolted completely awake, sat up, and screamed, “Eschebo, Eschebo! Everyone take cover!”

Sam pounced on him, kissing him on the cheeks and mouth, trying to say quickly and firmly, “She’s okay! She’s with us! She fixed you!”

{On our planet, we sing a song. It means, You do for me, I do for you, every one do for each other. You gave Mmveeh clean water even though you were scared of us. I take care of this human, even though I am scared of you.}

Tiernan stood. “I’m sure one of the two of you is going to fill me in later?”

“Bet on it, dude,” Luca said. “Although we’re only in about thirty minutes more than you. We think maybe… maybe this Eschebo and her brother mean no harm.”

{Of course we mean no harm}, hummed Hmmbee. {We came here because we need water, and you have plenty. We thought you would help us. But you killed us and you killed yourselves. Now that we are… I don’t know the word.}

“I’d say we’re friends. Amigos,” said Sam.

Luca nodded. “Friends. You healed our buddy we thought was dead.”

{Friends. In peaceful relation. Now that we are friends, we should go back to my… brother. And after, I will help you find safe water. That can help us.} Hmmbee nodded at the DG filter in the box near Tiernan’s feet. {It won’t help us, though, if the scared humans shoot us before we are able to use it.}

Hmmbee held out her hand. Sam grabbed Tiernan’s hand, crying happy tears, and clutched it across her heart. She nodded at Luca to take Tiernan’s other hand.

“Glad you’re back, bro,” he said. “We’re in for a ride.” Luca clasped Tiernan’s hand firmly.

“What?” asked Tiernan, looking confused at Luca’s hand holding his.

Luca nodded at Sam, then picked up the DG box by its handles.

Sam held on to Hmmbee’s outstretched hand, and in that same instant, they vanished.