Apocalypsis 01 - Kahayatle

cereal bowl with a built-in straw on it appeared at the top of the fence.   I poured half of the pasta inside it and passed it back over, wondering if he’d slurp the sauce up when he was done with that straw.   My dad would have written that off as a germ catcher and something to be avoided.   Straws were a bad idea if you were trying not to die of food poisoning and had no way of washing them out well.
    “I have water for you too, if you want it.   It’s kind of starchy since I cooked the noodles in it.”
    “I’ll take it,” he said in a quiet voice.
    I passed the small plastic cup of water over to him and felt, for the briefest of moments, a tremble in his hands as he took it from me.
    “See ya,” he said.
    “Wait!” I said, not even sure why I wanted him to hang around.   Being outside and not inside guarding our houses was risky.   If anyone caught a whiff of our meal we’d be toast.
    “What?   I have to get back inside.”
    “I know, me too.   I just wanted to ask you what your name is.”
    “Peter.   What’s yours?”
    “Bryn.”
    “Bryn.   Is that short for anything?”
    “No.   Just Bryn.”
    “Oh.   Okay.   See ya, Bryn.”
    “See ya, Peter.”
    I returned to my house to eat my breakfast of rigatoni and sauce, scarfing more than half of it down before I’d even reached my back door.
    ***
    It was five in the morning the next day when I happened to look out into my backyard and saw Peter’s head at the top of our fence.   His eyes had not yet gotten over the edge.   Whatever he was standing on wasn’t high enough to get him there.
    I opened the back door slowly, not ready to let him know he’d been seen.   I stayed close to the back of my house and then carefully crept down the side fence that divided my yard from the Slotnik’s - my former next door neighbors.   Their place was unoccupied and long since emptied.   I’d heard it being raided on more than one occasion - the sounds were unmistakable and almost always included breaking glass.
    I reached the spot where I’d seen Peter’s head and jumped up, grabbing the top of the fence with my hands and lifting myself in one swift motion.   I thought a surprise attack might be my best bet.
    Peter’s face showed a split second of abject fear before he lost his balance and fell backwards onto his weedy grass, yelling as he went.
    I was surprised at first, then worried.   He’d been too loud.   Now anyone around would know he wasn’t inside.
    “Get back into your house, you idiot!” I said in a low but urgent voice.
    “I need to talk to you!” he said from his butt on the ground.
    “Later.   At six.   Make sure no one’s out first, though.”   I wanted to be certain no one had heard us and was coming to investigate a possible empty house before we spent too much time outside again.
    “Okay,” he said, as he got to his feet and scrambled off, disappearing into his back door.  
    I looked at the vinyl and metal kitchen dining set chair that was lying on its side in the bushes below.   The goof was going to totally give us away leaving crap like that lying around.   I pulled myself the rest of the way over into his yard, just long enough to grab that chair and wing it over towards his back door, before jumping back over to my side and running to my house.
    I got inside and locked the door, breathing heavily.   It became clear to me as my chest heaved in and out that I’d lost a little bit of my cardiovascular strength, staying in this house all day, all the time; so I made a pact with myself to start doing what I could to rectify that situation.
    I looked at my watch.   Fifty-one minutes until our meeting.   Time to do some pushups and pull-ups, then some basics to keep my krav maga up to par.   My dad would have been proud to see me pushing myself like this and that made it easier.
    ***
    At six o’clock on the dot I went out into my backyard again, only this time I didn’t bother with the sneaking stuff.   I realized now that surprising Peter had been a bad idea.   The doofus had a huge gun and was easily startled.   I hated my life, but that didn’t mean I wanted another hole put in my head.
    Peter was waiting at the fence, this time his head coming up about four inches higher than the last time.   I jumped up and pulled myself to the top with my biceps, only shaking a little at the muscle fatigue I’d caused with my hour-long workout.   As my eyes cleared the edge of the jagged wood