Free Thirst by Benjamin Warner

ground was soft enough beneath his flip-flops that his knee didn’t hurt. The yard was empty, though he could still hear the chatter down the street.
    Something snapped behind him, and he knew it was a man.
    He spun and fumbled with the flashlight and felt the nearness of the footfalls as they passed him, the heat of a body, and the wind it stirred up. Tools crashed at the side of the house, and the beam illuminated the fabric of a shirt.
    “Hey!” Eddie shouted, but he stood planted where he was. His heart was doing something strange to the gravity in his chest.
    He hurried inside and took Laura’s wrist to pull her out of bed. He didn’t want to leave her alone in there.
    “What?” she said. “What?”
    They walked down the street in their nightclothes, Laura in a T-shirt and boxer shorts. They could hear the voices beforethey saw the group of people. It was just a block away. Patty was there. Eddie could see her outlines even in the dark.
    “Someone was just in my yard,” he said. The words came out too loudly and stopped the neighbors’ chatter.
    He was lucky Patty was there. “High school kids,” she said, in a way that made it clear she knew him, that he hadn’t been accusing them of being in his yard. “It happened in oh-eight, too. They ran a little wild. They broke into my car and took the change out of the console. I had CD s in there, but they didn’t touch those.”
    “They didn’t like your music!” someone quipped.
    Patty laughed until it turned into a smoker’s cough. “Ah, screw you,” she said.
    “Any of you have water yet?” Eddie said.
    “No,”one of them said.
    “Did anyone try the police?”
    The cluster of bodies was just a darker patch on the street.
    “The power must have done something at the pumping station.”
    “That didn’t happen before?” Laura’s shoulder was close enough to rub against him. Their hands brushed.
    “No, and I been here twenty years,” said a man whose voice was pitched as if by nose plugs. “Anybody fill their bathtub?”
    “Did you ? Who saw this coming?”
    In the darkness, their conversation floated untethered around Eddie.
    “I’m just worried about Mrs. Kasolos. She’s eighty-five now.”
    “I’ll check on her,” one of them said.
    “My husband already did,” Laura said. “She’s okay.”
    “She has a watercooler,” Eddie said. “It’s almost full.”
    There was a silence as they contemplated Mrs. Kasolos’s cooler.
    “You know what the cops told me after those robberies on Keswick?” Patty said. “Don’t do anything stupid like leave your doors unlocked. Well, duh.”
    “But the cops aren’t around now,” Eddie said.
    “I’ve been here twenty years and I’ve never called the cops once,” the nasal voice said. “So what’s your point? This is a good neighborhood. Go to sleep, and when you wake up everything’ll be back to normal. They got crews for this sorta thing. They learned their lessons in oh-eight.”
    “I just think we should protect ourselves, is all,” Eddie said. “People act differently when they’re desperate.”
    “Who’s desperate? You’ve got a roof over your head. Trust me. This is not desperate.”
    Patty turned her shadow to address Eddie and Laura for the benefit of the others. Even in the dark, he could tell that she was smiling. “You two can bunk with me and the Mikes if you want.”
    Someone said, “Oh, now it’s an open invitation?”
    “I didn’t say you , Paul,” Patty said, and the mood was light again.
    Back in their yard, Eddie took Laura around and waved the flashlight over the grass. Having her with him settled his nerves. When the beam passed over the side of the house, he saw that his shovel and rake had been toppled. He didn’t say anything, and she hadn’t asked him what he’d meant when he told the group that someone had been in their yard.
    “The guy was right,” she said. “Let’s just go to bed. We’re exhausted. I’m exhausted. Let them do their