Dry

When they arrive at Dove Canyon, Alyssa thinks about how the government neglected to make sufficient interventions in response to signs of worsening drought. The gate at Dove Canyon is a makeshift barricade, but no one mans it. Garrett gets nervous and wants to leave, and Jacqui pulls out the gun, but Alyssa and Kelton don’t want her to shoot anyone. Alyssa thinks about Daphne, Uncle Basil’s off-and-on girlfriend, who inherited her house in Dove Canyon. They then push through the barricade and arrive at Daphne’s house, although Uncle Basil’s truck isn’t in the driveway. When he invites them in, Alyssa realizes that he’s severely dehydrated. He offers them all water, admitting that he has been sick, so Kelton takes a test sip. Kelton announces that the water is bottled and good, and Uncle Basil explains that their old water reservoir lasted only a few extra days. At this point Kelton pulls Alyssa aside, insisting that they should leave because everyone in Dove Canyon has dysentery from the old water. Alyssa stops Garrett from taking any food, explaining that Uncle Basil might be contagious. She tries to tell her uncle that he and Daphne should leave Dove Canyon, but her uncle doesn’t take her seriously.

Jacqui doesn’t feel well, so she goes to the bathroom to take her medicine. On the way she passes the master bedroom, and it smells foul. She goes in and thinks that Daphne is dead, only to realize that she’s merely close to death. Back in the kitchen, Jacqui thinks, “This gated community has become a high-end morgue” (203). Alyssa asks her uncle for his truck, but he says that he traded it with a kid for the fresh water. They head off to find this kid, and when they get to his house, Alyssa demands that he return the truck. When the kid refuses, they all push in. The kid pulls a gun, but Kelton quickly disarms him, dislocating his shoulder and revealing that it was only an airsoft gun. Kelton resets the kid’s shoulder, but the kid insists that his trade with Basil was fair. The group realizes that this kid doesn’t seem to know how serious the Tap-Out is, since he has been isolated in this house without watching the news. They turn on the news, but everyone is shocked at how positive it is compared to the situation’s reality. In addition, they see that a mandatory evacuation is in place, although many people are flooding into the forest where Kelton’s bug-out is located.

Henry is determined to deal with this group of people he finds irrational. He admits to himself that the Tap-Out is worse than he thought, so he may need to leave his house. He sneaks off to plan his escape and decides to negotiate his way out of the situation. Henry tells the others that he’ll give them the keys to the truck if they take him with them. As they all drive off, Henry observes the destruction in Dove Canyon. Alyssa begins to chat with Henry about the sports on his jacket. Henry begins to guess at the ethnicities of everyone in the car, and he privately decides that this group needs better management. He resolves to rise to the occasion and take charge himself.

Alyce is a national guard pilot airlifting drinking water to the Tap-Out zone. Like everyone else, she hadn’t realized how bad the drought was until the Tap-Out, and she has been checking in vain to see if her family in the area is safe. As she flies, she passes over a crowded shopping center. Alyce becomes emotional when she realizes that she can’t carry nearly enough water to help everyone, even at her actual destination.

Hali is a teenage girl in the crowd at Target. Everyone keeps expecting the military to bring water to the makeshift camp, but none of the helicopters flying overhead land. Hali’s mom is determined to keep her spot in the hopeful water line, even though they have no water. Hali knows that she and her mom were poorly prepared for the Tap-Out, so they’ve resorted to flirting or helping other people in exchange for water. As she walks around the camp, she runs into a friend, Sydney, who has water. However, Sydney got her water by sleeping with an older man who hangs around near the camp. The man wants Sydney to bring Hali to him now, but Hali initially refuses. When the next helicopter flies over, not landing, Hali decides to take a new course of action and heads over to the man.

The group of kids heads toward the forest where Kelton’s bug-out is located, but when they realize that they don’t know the way, they start searching the truck for a map. In the glovebox they find some weed, but before they decide what to do, they run into a military roadblock. The military directs them to an evacuation center, and Henry continues trying to manipulate the group into putting him in charge. He thinks he’s making progress with Alyssa, but soon he realizes that they’re being funneled to a high school. There, a soldier stops them and, when he sees the weed, orders them out of the car. Alyssa manages to lie their way out of trouble, and Henry decides he might be in love with her.

The crowd sweeps Kelton, Jacqui, Garrett, and Alyssa away at the evacuation center when they realize that they’ve lost Henry. Kelton is desperate to leave, and he yells at Alyssa, “You think there are no prisoners here? Take a look at that fence!” (239). As Alyssa looks more closely at the crowd behind the fence, she realizes that Kelton is right. A woman tells Alyssa that she has been there for a day already without water, and Alyssa realizes that she’s unable to help these people.

Henry didn’t plan to separate from the others and thinks it’d be beneficial for him to find the group again. He walks around the center, only to see that the high school pool is drained and being filled with body bags. Henry heads back to the others.

As Alyssa and Garrett are pushed around in the crowd, someone announces that the evacuation center is at capacity. The military begins funneling people toward buses, when Henry reappears with the keys to Uncle Basil’s truck, which makes Jacqui mad. Suddenly, another boy runs up, yelling the name on Henry’s jacket, which turns out to not be Henry’s. Jacqui steals back their water supply, which Henry had traded for the truck keys, and they speed away. Alyssa is mad at Henry because she thinks he endangered them, although he claims that he was trying to save them. He asks Kelton for directions to the bug-out.