Eden did not live up to its name in terms of beauty.

  We weren’t there when the initial camp went up during the first few days after the Mastodon’s arrival, so I had no idea how it was structured then. It sprawled across the middle of nowhere, well away from farmland and cities, and people had ransacked the interior before staking out their spots. That itself was a problem: it rendered pathways useless, and often took upwards of twenty minutes to weave through the tent city to get from one side to the other. There was very little planning, and so Eden became inherently ugly and confusing to look at from afar.

  At the front of the encampment sat several abandoned cars, all pushed in from the highway and blocking the perimeter from intruders. It was only one line deep and couldn’t stop a single Bee, but Marshall didn’t like to hear it. He was the one with the idea, and he swore it had been executed perfectly. Behind that were a few guard stations, with one perched on top of Flying J’s roof. A medical tent with a lopsided cross spray-painted on its side sat just behind the guard posts.

  Maggie drove while I rode passenger, and Hutch sat in the truck bed with our supplies. I figured they’d arranged it this way to keep me from jumping out and going back for that mystery girl.

  Our whole drive home had been in utter silence. I wished I could turn the radio on, but it would just sputter haptic feedback until I switched it back off again. We had no cassette tapes yet, and the truck came with none. So I just stared out the window at the green winter fields passing by on our way back from town, watching the sun set across the sky. The only time Maggie spoke was to warn me she was jerking the wheel around the line of abandoned cars.

  When we pulled up to Eden’s outer gate, she let out a long sigh and cut the engine.

  “Happy to be back?” I asked her, raising an eyebrow.

  She looked away from the camp. “There’s things to be happy about. Eleanor probably heard the truck.”

  As if on cue, the medical tent’s flap opened and a gray-haired woman in a pink cardigan shuffled out to peek.

  Eleanor Greenbriar looked like an average churchgoer, with a sweet aging face and rosy cheeks. She wore safety glasses, and her silvering shoulder-length hair was pulled up into a clip at the back of her head. When her eyes landed on the truck, she broke into a big grin, like her grandkids were surprising her with an overnight visit.

  Then I watched her set her shotgun back down when she realized it was just us, and waddled our way, waving her arms over her head.

  Hutch jumped out of the truck bed and jogged over to meet her first. Eleanor threw her arms around his neck for a big hug, then patted his back.

  I smiled at the two of them, relieved to see Eleanor was okay. For some reason, I didn’t like leaving her behind in Eden. It felt like feeding a rabbit to the wolves.

  Maggie pocketed the key before exiting the truck, and I followed her out.

  Eleanor hugged me next. She grabbed the back of my neck and forced me to buckle my knees so she could kiss my cheek. “You look a bit sunburned,” she said, scanning my bare arms and neck. I smiled and recoiled from her scrutiny as Maggie sauntered up for her share of hugs. “Did you three spend all day in the sun?”

  “You could say that,” Hutch told her.

  I smiled flatly at Eleanor as she took in Maggie’s frazzled appearance. None of us had to say anything, because that would insult Eleanor’s intelligence. She knew we’d been around a Bee recently.

  “And you smell like cooked meat,” Eleanor added after a moment.

  “Too bad the freezers are out everywhere,” Hutch told her. “I’m craving a steak.”

  Before she could ask more, several Eden guards popped their heads up and began walking toward us. I knew their names, or at least their nicknames. Fuzz, Abel, and June all wore civilian clothes but carried rifles and tried to look tough while they walked. Hutch immediately turned away in annoyance and headed back to the truck bed for the supplies.

  Abel was the quasi-leader since Dex and Marshall weren’t around. I had no idea why, other than that he seemed up to the task. He stationed himself behind Eleanor and cleared his throat. “Jack,” he said, nodding to me. “You’re a few hours late. What happened?”

  “Ran into some company,” I explained quickly, averting my gaze from Eleanor. She wouldn’t be happy knowing how serious that encounter was, but I could deal with her later. For now, I needed to explain why we were at the warehouses. Curiosity wasn’t a valid excuse. “We’ll debrief once we’re done with inventory.”

  Abel’s grip tightened on his rifle, as did June’s and Fuzz’s.

  Surely they thought company meant human, since none of them had left Eden before.

  Most people in the metropolitan areas died quickly after the Fall, and the survivors typically clustered close to where they’d been when the initial blasts began. It was hard to move when Bees patrolled constantly, crawling through city streets like lice. Not to mention that many of them were probably starving by now or warring with their neighbors for basic needs.

  Things were different out here in the boonies. People left their homes because they feared the ships flying past, and Flying J was here. But those ships didn’t stop at Eden, and the Bees patrolled cities and towns, not random highway strips. Resources were plentiful, danger was minimal, and most people just talked about the EMP. The invasion itself was a footnote in their stories.

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  I cautioned Abel with a hand. “Not humans.”

  “Then…?” Abel paused, thinking. “What did Dex call ’em?”

  “Bees,” Maggie told them flatly. “They’re called Bees.”

  “Are they small?”

  “I wish.” She turned and stomped over to Hutch, who was hopping out of the truck bed with a handful of coffee beans bags.

  Abel tried to ask more questions, but I asked him to hold off until we got the supplies to the right tents. Fuzz and June just glared at me silently, readying for an argument until Abel ordered them to follow Hutch and Maggie back to Alice Markle’s supply grotto.

  I grabbed a case from the truck and gestured for them to go ahead. Instead of following Abel into the tent city, though, I handed the cardboard box to Eleanor and picked up another one.

  She opened the flap and peeked in. Her smile was worth the day’s effort. “Thanks,” she said, nodding at the medical supplies. “I was about to fight Alice myself for more bandages.”

  “Hopefully this holds you off for another week,” I told her, smiling.

  Eleanor shook her head slowly. “Pleas just fall on deaf ears with that woman, I’m telling you. Jack, it took me ages to requisition cough medicine. She acts like I’m going to skim some off the top.”

  “Well, who knows?” I asked. “You very well might, Eleanor. You’re too calm sometimes.”

  “That’s Hutch’s whiskey, not cough medicine.”

  I laughed as I carried my box behind the wall of cars, finally entering Eden. Eleanor quickly pivoted to the medical tent to stow away her contraband before someone else could see and snitch on her. Hopefully she could use it on people in Eden without rousing some suspicion, but I didn’t get my hopes up. Marshall and Alice were probably inventorying injuries at this point.

  By the time I got halfway to Alice’s tent, Maggie and Hutch were already walking back to the truck with empty hands. Hutch stopped, picking up my load from me. “It’ll be easier than trekking all the way back.” He dropped his voice. “Did you get Eleanor her present?”

  I nodded. “She’s happy with us.”

  “Good.” He glanced to each side of us, where tents were drawn shut. We had no idea if people were in them or not, but people had a habit of leaking information back to Alice or Marshall if it gave them a chance at a better chore. Chores were hard to come across in Eden right now, and many of them were not quite nice. I’d be a bit pissed off if I had to shovel shit daily while guards broke the rules. “I’m talking to Marshall about what we saw.”

  “I’ll be there with you.”

  “Let’s discuss first.” He turned and walked back to Alice’s tent before I could disagree.

  I knew why he wanted to talk first. If we mentioned the woman, Marshall would consider this a stupid endeavor. He didn’t like wasting resources on another people. We had to frame the narrative precisely, and Hutch wasn’t good at that. He could skate through sometimes, but when you factor in other people’s accounts, he quickly unraveled.

  After two more trips, I finally dodged Hutch from taking my share of the load early and walked the full distance to Alice’s grotto.

  It was an oasis for survival. And a pool of greed.

  Alice’s tent was actually several fashioned together, cobbled from local stashes to make some sort of vinyl monstrosity. Most of the entrances were duct-taped shut, but the one that was open and taking in supplies was staffed with a plastic table and a foldout chair. Sitting in it was the world’s most average-looking soccer mom, with clipped blonde hair and giant eyeglasses. Her tiny frame made everything around her look ridiculous in size. Today, Alice was wearing khaki capris, slip-on shoes, and a sweater. She had her pen and paper ready.

  “Hello, Jack,” Alice said with a smile.

  “Hi.” I set the box down on the table and unloaded it. The pickles, a couple of medical kits, fistfuls of what I found in different purses and backpacks, and a few dry goods that were stored in the restaurants. Nothing particularly enticing, but we had to make do with what we could.

  Alice’s eyes widened anyway. “Good haul today.”

  “Definitely.” I told her.

  “Great job.” She smiled and began to write.

  The paper was carefully marked with the date, the contents of the box, and specifications of each item. It looked crazy to me. She picked up and weighed each tampon like it was a piece of gold, then added it to the paper. Tampax, heavy flow (1).

  “Do you have your rifle with you?” Alice asked me, not looking up from the paper. “I’ll check it in now.”

  I paused before I spoke. Hutch would’ve been asked the same thing—what did he say? “It’ll be explained in the debrief,” I told her, “but I don’t have it anymore.”

  The only reason I wasn’t turned to ash by her glare was because I knew it was coming and I straightened my spine beforehand.

  Alice clicked her pen to preserve the ink from drying out.

  “Hutch said something similar,” she said slowly, cocking her head slightly like a cocker spaniel. “What happened?”

  I shook my head. “I gotta discuss it with Marshall first, ma’am.”

  “Those bullets have been hand-counted, Jack. We’ve been over this a million times by now.” She exhaled through her nose.

  “Do you know how precious everything is now?”

  Of course I did.

  I really, really fucking did.

  I was one of the few people who left Eden to go find all of the shit Alice entitled herself to hoard away. And I lived in Eden, so I felt the effects of going without. It didn’t matter if you wanted an additional toilet paper square to wipe with, it had to go through Alice. Her tent was the only one guarded, and the two people stationed at it in the night were Marshall and Alice’s own son, Eric. Everything short of the breath we inhaled was cataloged and kept by Alice in her little tent. One of the reasons why we even left Eden was to make sure Eleanor never ran short of medical supplies. They, too, were kept under lock and key. As was our food, our ammo, our clothing. I would never walk back into a town again if I didn’t know people would suffer as a consequence of it.

  I chewed on these words for a minute before I finally worked out how to not bite her head off.

  “There was nothing we could do, Alice,” I told her calmly, straightening my shoulders. “When Marshall debriefs you, it’ll make a lot more sense.”

  She shook her head and pulled out a three-ring binder that was crammed with papers, slamming it on the table. “I guess I have to cross all of that off my list, then,” she snapped at me, fingers flying through pages to find the lost supplies.

  I couldn’t care less, because those guns couldn’t take a Bee out anyway. They were just security blankets to keep us satiated. Everyone thought if they guarded the Flying J, then we could all sleep easily at night knowing that people were volunteering to protect us. They had no idea what was out there, and only a few us had the capability to warn them.

  If only it didn't constantly fall on deaf ears.

  “I’ll see you later,” I told her, backing away slowly.

  Behind me, Maggie came up with a box, but she looked just as annoyed as she slammed it down on the plastic table and began walking away.

  Alice was too pissed off at us to say thank you. I watched as one of her helpers—Eric—emerged from the tent and took in the jars of pickles, and knew we would very likely never see those again.