The Variables

“Our plan was Vegas,” he said, his voice still muffled. “Hoover Dam can run for years without humans. Did you know that?”

Darla couldn’t muster genuine excitement.

“Who would imagine that Sin City would become a Mecca for travelers in a post-apocalyptic world? Of course, the stench. All those people dead in the casinos, it would be a prime breeding ground for disease. A cesspool right now is what I’m imagining. Of course, away from the Vegas Strip might be enticing, but I don’t know. Isolation is the key. And if you stay isolated, they won’t get you.” Lou talked fast and quick, eager to share his knowledge.

“Oh yeah?” Dean questioned, shuffling along. “Who wouldn’t get you?”

“I’ve called them the Sweepers. Don’t know who they are or where they are coming from, but they’ve been hitting cities, suburbs.”

“How do you know?” Darla asked. She slid through the hallway lined with framed pictures of her attackers unmasked. Lou and Cricket’s wedding day: he wore a powder blue tuxedo and the lace on her dress stopped just below her chin and fell shapelessly around her body. They gri

“There was an AM radio cha

“Spooky,” Ainsley replied. “He didn’t think anyone was listening?”

“Soldiers,” Lou continued, ignoring her, “were coming into his city and trying to flush people out.”

“How?” Dean asked.

“Fires, mostly. They’re letting entire cities burn. This guy was broadcasting when they got him. Yelling and then gunshots, and after that? No radio. It was like there had been an oversight and this guy found it, then they swooped in and cleaned up the mess.”

“Any others?” Darla saw a picture of the twins in high school. Baggy jeans and fla

“No. He thought he was the only one left until the Sweepers came through. We thought we were the only ones left, too, until we heard his voice.”

“You think we’re Sweepers? You think we discovered your little hideout and came to flush you out?” Darla asked.

Lou narrowed his eyes. “Where were you headed?”

She stared, unblinking, in the dark.

“Exactly,” Lou continued. “Secrets mean I can’t trust you. So, until you’re willing to divulge your plan...you’re a potential threat to me and my family.”

“You seen anyone else?” Dean asked, changing the subject.

“The diary boy, from the radio, he had seen others. A family on their way south. Mom, dad, baby. All alive. He had hope of following them, but...” Lou’s nostrils flared.

“He asked about you,” Darla said.

“No,” he answered after a beat. Lyle shifted behind her and Cricket looked to the floor. It felt like the air had been sucked out of the hallway; everyone remained rooted to their places, trying to remember their lines.

“Right.” Darla was unconvinced.

“Well, then, we both have secrets,” Lou answered. “What, exactly, am I supposed to think about you? Gun-toting survivors in a hurry in an empty world? You didn’t know anyone else was alive, but you have somewhere to go?” He narrowed his eyes. “You think I’m stupid,” he whispered.

Darla wanted to concede that he had a point. It was the way Lou’s voice trembled as he spoke to her, or how he couldn’t hold eye contact for longer than a second that made her realize that this family feared them in a powerful and visceral way.

“You don’t make any sense,” Darla whispered back. “Let us go. I’m asking you as a fellow human being.”

“No,” Lou replied. “Not yet.”

With a burst of anger, she pounded the wall with her fist, dark hair from her bun came loose and tumbled into her face, and she wiped her hand across her eyes. A picture tilted and then threatened to drop, and Lindsey scooched past her brother to put it back into place.

“Tomorrow morning, we would have packed up and left,” Darla said. Everyone had paused. They stared at her like she was a bomb about to go off. “No harm to you and this little system you have going for yourself. If we’re so dangerous, why not just kill us? If you thought we were Sweepers, or whatever you want to call them...and I get that, I get making up arbitrary names for things and attaching meaning to them...”

“She was a Raider,” Ainsley added with a nod.

“Yeah,” Darla replied. “Thank you, Ainsley.” Then she turned squarely toward Lou and took a tentative step forward. “A Raider, right. No, I wanted to feel important. Like I had a purpose in all of this. It wasn’t just looting, it wasn’t just trying to trade what I had for what I needed...it was a job. It gave me fewer hours in the day to dwell on all my losses. But you have to understand something... I’m sure you are well intentioned, but if you think you can get people to tell you what’s going on out there by coercion, and then things will be better, they won’t. You’re just someone else who has hurt us.”

“You’ve suffered a lot,” the man stated. He brought up his hand and adjusted his mask.

“Lou, you’re nothing but a roadblock to me.”

“And you are potentially dangerous to me.”

“Yeah,” Darla nodded. “If you don’t untie us, put your weapons away, and let us walk outside of this home tomorrow morning, then there’s no potential about it. I will be dangerous. Count on it.”

Cricket made rabbit and mashed potatoes and gravy. The whole kitchen smelled gamey and sweet; the prospect of a warm meal usurped their anger and exhaustion. It was difficult to be simultaneously angry and grateful. Darla picked at the white rabbit meat with a plastic fork and, despite the rope around her ankles and her pounding headache, she devoured every bit of the food provided to her. The Hales sat and watched; Cricket sat like a pleased housewife oohing and aahing over every enjoyed bite.

“You’re not afraid of the rabbit being contaminated?” Dean asked as he took another bite, a small fluffy white piece of mashed potato stayed in the corner of his mouth. “One bite of rabbit and then,” he made a noise and drew his finger over his neck.

“Oh,” Cricket smiled. “These aren’t wild rabbits. We’re breeding them for meat in the basement.”

Ainsley choked a bit and then set her fork down against the side of her plate. She pushed the plate away. “A family slaughterhouse? No, thank you.”

Darla shrugged and reached her fork over to Ainsley’s piece and jabbed the prongs into the meat. Then she transferred the rabbit over to her own plate and began to pick out the juiciest pieces. “Makes no difference to me.”

“It’s quick and I bleed them out and then cook them immediately,” Cricket said. “The rabbits were always one of our major protein plans.”

“You just...pla

“Well, that’s the answer, isn’t it?” Lou replied with a smile. “We’re alive.”

“You’re alive because you’re immune. You’re well-fed because you pla