Mr. Fall was old enough to remember the water.

Mostly he remembered the news. The television blared in his household, telling his family…something. What, Mr. Fall didn’t remember exactly. Something about a warning, how they needed to get out. Evacuate. They didn’t have enough time, or they hadn’t listened. Red bars scrolled across the bottom of the TV;, a beeping sound emitted from it. Then the water poured in from under the windows.

Mr. Fall remembered the rain: hammering on rooftops, streaming past the overhang. The pounding of their feet to the attic where his family ran, hiding from the water, climbing up and gathering to await rescue, which never came.

Water followed them. The TV was knocked off the counter. When Mr. Fall looked back, it sparked, went to black. His father yanked him upstairs, water trailing like a puppy. Mr. Fall ran as fast as if he was escaping a beating. Faster. So fast, he fell to his knees and crawled.

Water was coming.

He had never liked the attic, as he had never liked the basement. Avoided both. Both smelled funny, of monsters and darkness, spider webs and shadows. The basement shelves crowded with food they didn’t eat, murky jars of things that went bad. After the floods, they would find some of these jars bobbing on the surface, dusty glass finally washed clean. His family would grab them. Eat every one.

As for the attic, junk filled it, broken items that had never had a use, or that seemed to have outlived their usefulness. His life, his life of junk, was only just beginning.

Uncle hung a white sheet out of the attic window with their names spray-painted in black and SOS. Mr. Fall didn’t know what those letters meant. Nobody was answering his questions. He knew it was something to do with ships, the navy—which would be gone soon, along with airplanes except for government and medical use, the internet, commercial trucking.

Whatever SOS meant, it didn’t work.

They waited in the attic for a long time. Uncle had also spray-painted the family’s ages, as if that would help. He was 17. Mr. Fall was 5. His brother, 12. He grew hungry, but there was nothing to eat. He grew too tired to be afraid and fell asleep, curled against a big green jacket, which smelled of mice and bore their teeth marks.

When he woke up, the world was water.

TRASHLANDS

by Alison Stine

Available October 26, 2021

Copyright © 2021 by Alison Stine