Flanked

dingy room stank, filled as it was with whores, almost all of them living in one room, right on top of each other. They’d crossed that space because Boggs was after Joe, and when they found him, Boggs acted like he had a personal interest in his fake-white whore that went beyond business.
It was Devin, of course, not Mr. Fake-White, who had neutralized, at least for a little while, the threat Boggs posed.  Still, though, it was Joe whom everyone listened to. And it was Joe who’d left Peter behind.
Marcus scratched his armpit.
“You’re all cavemen, descended from apes,” Peter mumbled.
Marcus glared and stuck out his tongue. “God didn’t make me outta a monkey.”
“Says you.” Peter stuck out his tongue back, then turned to watch the way Flix crowded Joe. “And God doesn’t exist.”
“God is as real as you and me.”
What an idiot. “Only heathens believe in God.”
Marcus grabbed the front of Peter’s shirt and pulled him close. His lips curled in a snarl. “Say that again.”
Peter’s breathing stuttered. He froze, even though his brain screamed at him to run. He’d never fought, never been attacked, not until the men came...
A warm hand gripped his upper arm roughly, jerking him back to the present.
Mr. Fake-White tightened his fingers on Peter’s arm and shoved Marcus away. “Cool off, Marc.” He dragged Peter down the narrow road. “You stay with me. Flix?”
Flix bounded up to Joe like an eager puppy.
“Help Devin walk.”
The way Flix’s expression fell would have been hilarious if Peter wasn’t shaking and ready to pee his pants. Flix nodded once and wandered over to Devin.
Joe sighed and loosened his hold on Peter. They walked in silence for a few minutes, until Joe said, “Do you know where Minneapolis is?”
Joe hadn’t turned to look at him, so Peter studied his face. The man really could almost pass for white. The pale skin. The dark, curly hair. Not at all the way the brown people looked in the pictures his Society and Culture teacher had shown them. Even Flix didn’t look like that. Those photos showed ugly dolls. Dull, vacant eyes. Dirty. Shoeless and brainless.
“It’s not contagious, the gay, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“I wasn’t... I...” Was it? “It’s not?”
A corner of Joe’s mouth quirked. “Did you go to school, Peter?”
“Of course.” What an asinine question coming from an ignorant streetwhore.
“Was there a girl who liked you, but you weren’t interested?”
Momma had raised Peter not to brag, but, well, he’d been rather popular. “Yes.”
Joe nodded. “It’s the same. You are who you are, and you like who you like. Me touching you isn’t going to turn you gay any more than that girl touching you is going to miraculously make her appealing.”
“Oh.” Peter tried to find some spit to swallow. He hoped they got to this lake soon. He thought of Marnie Venters, her wide, enhanced-red eyes and the line of yellow flower implants down her neck. The way she used to touch his shoulder whenever she passed. Nothing in the world could have made him interested. “Okay.”
“Can you answer my question now?”
What was the question? Oh, yes. Minneapolis.
“I know it’s central. Kind of in the middle west.”
Joe released his hold on Peter’s arm. “It’s where we’re headed. Tell me everything you know about it.”
Peter wracked his brain. “It’s pretty big, way bigger than home, I think. Has at least a few domes. That’s really all I know. Sometimes the politicians talk about moving the government there.”
“Pittsburgh not working out?”
Peter blinked. He hadn’t expected these people to know about New America. “Politicians are babies. It was hard to build the domes there because of the mountains, so they’re small. Air quality is nasty outside the domes, and there’ve been some bad storms the past couple of years.” Huh. Maybe he’d paid a bit more attention in school than he’d thought.
“Fools. Do you know scientists predicted it, The Change, ages ago? Cassandras.”
They slowed as the road curved and opened to a row of large houses angled on a gentle downward slope. Tall grass and weeds, all dead, covered the hillside.
“What does that mean? Cassandras?”
Joe smiled. “Greek mythology. The god Apollo gifted Cassandra with foresight. But she spurned his romantic advances, so he cursed her. She’d be able to see the future, but no one would believe her.” Joe put a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Minneapolis is 1173 miles from Austin, where we escaped from. We’ve gone about eighty miles.”
Peter sucked in a breath. He wasn’t even going to try the math, but he got it. They had a long way to go.
“Try, Peter. Try to get along.”
Joe patted Peter’s shoulder a couple of times, then turned to the others and began giving orders.
***
“Lake” was an overstatement. Joe had left Devin with Flix and Peter back on the road and fought his way through a hundred yards of waist-high brush to stand on the cracked, barren, dry remnant of a large pond. Not a drop of water in sight. They were all dead.
“This is bad, isn’t it?” Marcus asked. He touched Joe’s elbow, skimmed the notched, sharp cut there.
Joe swallowed and tried to make his voice work. Already, he was parched. How long had it been since he’d had a drink? Five, six hours? More? The sun had set already. The temperature wasn’t even high. How would they manage if tomorrow’s sunshine brought heat?
“Joe?”
“We’ll need to go to the houses. Cross our fingers.”
Joe headed back toward the old shoreline, and Marcus fell in step beside him. The cracked lake bed gaped beneath their feet. No evidence existed that the place had ever borne animal life. No fish bones, no clams. Had they been picked clean, or had the lake been dry so long that evidence of their lives had melted into the dirt, been lost to the earth?
Dead vegetation greeted them at the bank. The path they’d followed on their way down had disappeared, and Joe cringed at the idea of walking through the brush again. The area near the old Lady Bird Lake