Eric points at my sandwich to remind me to eat, but like I said, I can’t. Where my appetite should be, there’s only a dull stone. I don’t know how long it’s been, getting up at dawn, working in the fields until it’s too dark to see, and then going home and collapsing for a few hours before I have to do it again. Eric could probably tell me. He’s the one who still keeps track of the days on a calendar that he makes himself every year. He makes a copy for everyone. He gets me to draw for it, which is fun, I guess. I draw stuff like birds and dogs and people in the fields or a pine tree after a snowstorm, stuff like that. I like the drawing, but the calendar itself seems kind of useless. Who cares what day of the week it is? Who cares what year it is? Just a few months ago, Eric got excited because, he said, it was the new millennium, the year 2000. But for me, 2000 is just a dumb number. Right now, tired like I am, I don’t care if it’s Sunday or Thursday. I must be feeling grumpy. The calendar is useful when it comes time to planning for the seasons or remembering important dates, like someone’s birthday. I don’t know, I need to rest.
I lay down in the grass with a groan. Eric watches me with a frown.
“You really should eat, Birdie,” he says. I close my eyes.
“Don’t worry about me,” I answer. I’m so comfortable, I wish he’d shut up and let me rest.
I feel Eric move a little, in irritation. “You’d feel better if you ate.”
“I’ll feel better if you stop acting like my father.” Even as I say it, I hear it coming out a lot meaner than I meant it. I sound spiteful and cruel and I regret it immediately. There’s silence from Eric. In my mind, I imagine he’s looking away, hiding the hurt I know he feels. I feel ashamed of myself, and I’m thinking about what I can say to say I’m sorry without having to say sorry, which is a little too complicated for my tired mind, when I hear Eric get up and brush off his pants.
“I’ll see you tonight,” he says. If I didn’t know him so well, I would think he didn’t care a bit about what I said. But I do know him and I can detect how I’ve hurt him.
I sit up, wanting to say I didn’t mean anything by it, but Eric is already too far away to stop and I sigh and lay back down. I don’t know why I say things like that or why I feel that way toward Eric sometimes, angry, but for no reason. I wish that I didn’t make things so complicated. Sometimes I wish that Lucia had lived and so hadn’t their baby, and Eric had a real child and no one would assume that I was his daughter. It would make things clear. Even between us. Then I would be. I would be. . .I don’t know who I’d be. I'm too tired to think about it.
Without wanting to, really, I imagine Eric and Lucia, holding a baby, and it’s obviously their baby. It has Eric’s eyes and Lucia’s hair, and they’re happy and laughing. But I don’t feel altogether happy about it. I feel strange and distant and even a little angry. I’m a horrible person. Sometimes I think I’m relieved that they died. Maybe if they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have a place with Eric any longer, not with my frizzy black hair and brown eyes and scrawny, black body. I breathe in deeply and I’m so ashamed of thinking such a horrible thing. It’s like a terrible weight inside me, like I’ve swallowed something unwholesome that’s rotting in me. I loved Lucia. But the horrible feelings continue and I open my eyes and sit up.
I need to run.
I’m tired, but I have to run. Actually, I’m more than tired. I’m whatever comes after that: beat, bushed, spent, wasted, exhausted. But like I said, I have to run. I get up and launch myself forward, away from Eric, away from the goon squad, away from everything. As I pick up speed, jogging down toward the fields, I feel lighter. I don’t really feel my legs. They’re just moving underneath me. By the time I reach the fields and I’m running past the goon squad and ignoring Pest watching me, I’m not tired at all. I’ve gone beyond tired into some other land. I feel light and invulnerable, so I run faster. I run past the farmhouse where Crystal is cooking. Artemis is probably with her, maybe even watching me through the window, though I don’t turn my head to see. I run past the fences which Norman and Anthony are fixing. I wave and they stop for a second to wave back. People are used to me running, so they don’t think anything of it.
I run south and pick up speed on the flat, dirt road headed toward the southern watchtowers. I’m not even out of breath yet and I feel like wind, like there’s nothing to my body at all. So I run faster and harder. I feel the wind in my hair and the dark thoughts are burning out of my head like a putrid fog. It feels better than good, it feels divine. I close my eyes and feel my heart beating blood all through my body, my breathing coming in and out and feeding my body like it was a huge, red hot furnace. When I reach the woods, the trees flash by on each side of me. The feeling is incredible and it’s like I can do this forever. I can feel it burning away my thoughts and my feelings, my shame, anger, and confusion. It burns me all away until I’m just fire itself scorching over the land.
When I reach the watchtower, I do a quick U-turn and wave up at Fiona who’s taking her turn at watch. She waves down at me as I pick up speed, heading back to the Village. I plan on running as fast as I can straight to bed, my head cooked clean of all its thoughts so I can sleep in peace. Just the thought of my bed makes me pick up speed again. I run by the same fields and wave again at Norman and Anthony, but I don’t wave at the goon squad as I zip past. When I start going uphill, I run faster, just for the challenge. Now my lungs are starting to hurt and my legs are starting to burn. The pain is nice. Not all pain is bad. This is good pain. It tells me I’m alive and capable because I run through it. I blast uphill, curving in and out of the winding paths we’ve made around our log homes. I almost knock over Beth as she comes out of her house, but I jump to the side just in time.
By the time I get to our house, the burning is so intense that I have to walk around the house, gasping for air. I lean over, and then I feel my consciousness swerve a little. I feel sick. I lean against the house. Sweat is starting to drip off me. I watch them make little wet circles in the dirt at my feet. I think somewhere in my head that it was pretty stupid to run like that when I was exhausted already. I should’ve eaten something. I should’ve just gone to bed. But I’m stubborn. I feel somehow vindicated by my pain, like it’s right that I should feel it and it makes me strong. I stand up and laugh, but I don’t quite know why. It’s like I’m two people. One is very tired and she’s watching what the other one is doing. Luckily for me, this other one stumbles in the house and climbs up the ladder into the loft and before I know it, the both of us are laying down and one of us is laughing, but I don’t know which.
I sleep like the dead.
16
I dream I float on a sea of fire. There are creatures trying to drag me down, down to some horribly hot center where I will be consumed. I open my mouth to scream, but I’m not human anymore. I don’t have lips, just skin where my mouth should be. Something grabs me, and I sink in the fire.
I begin to burn.
17
I am in the back fields when I hear the screams. I stop what I’m doing and stand up tall, listening. I hear it again. An unnatural scream like someone’s being burned alive. You can tell when a scream is given out of anger and when it’s given out of terror and pain. This is terror and excruciating pain. My heart beats in me, and, for a second, I’m confused. Then I see Eric rush by me, running toward the screaming. I follow behind, holding my hoe like a spear. I catch up to Eric soon and then pass him, running toward the barn where the scream is coming from. When we get there, we see a knot of people in front of the barn struggling with something.
From the middle of the crowd comes another scream, and then I see Rebok scrambling away on his back. He’s covered with blood. But the knot of people doesn’t break away. They’re struggling with someone. Rebok starts screaming again, looking at himself. Blood is coming from where his shoulder meets his neck. Rebok is holding his neck like he’s protecting some precious thing. I’ve never seen so much blood, so dark, so liquid, spurting out like water betwe
en Rebok’s fingers. I feel woozy and just stand there, holding my hoe. I don’t know what to do or what is happening. I feel sick and uncertain and small.
Then suddenly there’s another cry. This time the knot of people break apart and back away. It takes me a second to recognize who it is: Crypt. Except he’s standing strange, hunchbacked, his hands held out like claws. His eyes are dark holes and his face is streaked, as if he’s been crying blood. His mouth is dark with blood and so are his hands. I step back when I see that there’s something in his eyes, wriggling. Crypt makes a gurgling sound. He turns his head, but strangely, like he’s listening to something in the sky. Blood drips from his hands.
It’s been a long time, but we remember. It comes back in a horrible flash.
The Worm.
The air is shattered by gunshot. Crypt’s head snaps back and he stands up real straight for a second. He teeters two steps forward, like some freaky dance move, and then collapses in a heap. When he falls, we can see the back of his head is missing. There is something writhing there in his skull. Something white. Moving.
I lose it. I’m on my knees, heaving up everything in my stomach and then some, retching and feeling my stomach cramp painfully. I feel a hand on my shoulder. When I look up, I see Eric. He’s holding the gun. His lips are moving but I don’t understand. He could be speaking Chinese. I don’t understand.
The Worm.
I stand up. I’m not the only one stunned. None of us are right in the head. Matt is there, holding a bleeding hand. His mouth is open like he’s screaming, but there’s no sound coming out. Pest is there, not moving, staring at Crypt, dumbfounded. Gunner is standing behind Rebok, who is crying and holding his neck. I see other people running toward us. Norman, Crystal, Diane and her little girl, Amber. The girl has never seen the Worm. She doesn’t know. I look at her. I wonder what she’s thinking, what she could possibly understand. From the corner of my eye, I watch Rebok slump over and I know he’s dead just from the look of him and I think, clearly, we have to burn him now. Right now. I don't think anything kindly of him. I just want to burn him to ashes with what’s left of Crypt. Amber starts to cry and Diane grabs her.
Then sound comes back, like a rush, suddenly.
“Are you all right?” It’s Eric, still holding my shoulder. I nod. “Get up!” he tells me. I don’t know why he’s so adamant about that until I see I’m on my knees in my own vomit.
I stand up, staring around me in shock.
No one knows what to say.
Matt starts crying. “You have to kill me,” he says. He’s holding his bleeding hand. He keeps repeating, “You have to do it. You have to.” We just stand there, doing nothing, frozen in the horror of our memory.
18
In the Lodge, we argue about the Worm. It’s back, we all agree with that, but it’s not the same. No one remembers seeing them squirm out of people’s heads. None of us remember strange white eyes, writhing with worms. There are even long, thin, pale worms snaking out of Crypt’s ears; when we moved his body, his mouth opened and a black river of bile gushed out of him, bubbling with white grubs, like maggots but thinner, with tiny hooks on one end. The smell of ammonia was horrible and more than nauseating. It caused the stomach to clench. We burned Crypt right where he died, covering him with seasoned wood to make it burn as hot as possible. Then we threw Rebok on the fire too while it was burning hottest. We didn’t even say anything over the bodies. No one thought of it.
There was some whispering about shooting Matt and throwing him on the fire too, but no one dared do more than suggest it. No one but Matt himself who just repeated, “Kill me. You have to do it. You have to.” We were stunned and frightened and I watched as the people I knew began to look at each other with mistrust and fear. Who else had it? Who could we trust? It was horrible to see my community splinter so quickly. I thought we were loyal to each other, but just one glimpse of the Worm and we were already talking about murder.
Now, after burning the two bodies, we gather in the Lodge. People are angry and frightened. “This isn’t like what I remember,” says Crystal. “I don’t remember seeing any worms. It was just a name.”
“I saw some worms,” says Norman. “But nothing like what I saw come out of that kid.”
“Who cares what they look like?” cries Peter. “It’s the Worm, isn’t it? What’re we going to do about it?”
People are quiet for a second. We understand Peter is really talking about Matt. Are we going to kill him? Matt slouches on a bench, his hand wrapped in an old shirt. I sit uncomfortably in the silence. I don’t know what to do either.
“We have to be careful,” Eric says finally. His voice is measured and quiet. He’s not angry. He’s not scared. He’s reasonable. People look at him and wait for him to continue. “Norman and Crystal are right,” he says finally, standing up. “This isn’t like the Worm that I remember. It’s different. That means we have a lot to learn.”
“It’s been gone for so long,” moans Luna. “Why did it come back?” This is less of a question than a cry of despair. Luna is just a little younger than me. Her face is streaked with tears.
“It could have been in the forest all these years,” Norman speculates. “Maybe it’s just been out there all this time. Changing.”
“What does it matter?” asks Matt. It’s the first time he’s spoken since the incineration. “It’s here. We can’t do anything about it. We do what we had to do then. We get rid of the infected and take care of ourselves.” He holds up his bandaged hand. “I’m infected. You have to take care of this. You have to kill me.”
More uncomfortable silence. Matt has only been with us for a couple years, but he’s part of us now. He’s family. Looking over at him, his eyes like knots of darkness, his body loose and careless, I realize that Matt wants to die. I always sensed something strange and violent about him, but I had never been able to put my finger on it. Now I know. Matt is one of those people who secretly want to die. He’s relieved his life is over. Some of the old people are like that. They get closer to death and they’re happy about it.
“He’s right,” Eric says, to everyone’s surprise. “We have to take care of ourselves and each other.” He moves to stand next to Matt. He puts his hand on Matt’s shoulder. “That means we move the infected into one house and we watch them, twenty-four seven.” He stands taller. “That means from now on, we boil all the water. No one swims in the river.” The Worm used to get spread in the water. I kind of remember the people who had the Worm walking down into the river to die. The Worm made them do it, made them thirsty. They would drink themselves to death. Then the Worm would crawl out of the corpse, infect the water, and when anyone took a drink. . .
“Franky and Wesley,” Eric says. “We’re going to need a lot of boiled water. Can you get a system going?” They nod, even though usually they don’t like to work together. “Crystal, Diane, and Fiona,” Eric continues. “We need to set up a place for Matt and anyone else who shows symptoms of the Vaca B.” It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that term. Vaca B is the more scientific name for the Worm. Leave it to Eric to resurrect that from the grave. Eric continues. “The Worm seems to have changed, so maybe the symptoms have as well. Did you notice anything about Crypt before this happened?” Eric directs this at Pest, who is quiet and uncharacteristically unfocused. Pest looks up, surprised. He’s holding a hat in his hand, and I recognize it as Crypt’s, a baseball cap with the old Red Sox logo on it. I never pegged Pest as sentimental.
Pest stands up and takes a deep breath. “He was sick last night and the night before,” Pest recounts. “I could see he had a fever, but I thought it was just a flu. I saw he had red eyes, but I didn’t think it was. . .anything. I didn’t see him this morning. Next time I saw him. . .” Pest doesn’t finish the sentence.
Eric nods at Pest. “Two days,” Eric says, as if to himself. For a second, I think Eric is going to drift away again into his thoughts but after a second, he continues. “So the symptoms don�
��t seem to be too different. High fever. Red eyes.”
“The eyes bleed,” Diane adds. “At the last stages, they start to bleed from the eyes.”
People don’t really need to be reminded of that. No one has forgotten that, not even me.
“Remember,” Eric says to them. “Most of the people who had the Worm were harmless. They just went into a catatonic state and eventually died. Only a few of them cracked and became dangerous. I want to make this clear to everyone. We are not going to kill anyone until they become a danger. Is that clear?”
There’s a lot of nodding to this and some audible agreements. No one wants to kill anyone anyway, so it’s an easy thing to agree to. I imagine the only person who is disappointed is Matt.
“Did they always die when they got the Worm?” This question comes from Artemis. She’s like me, a little too young to remember the Worm distinctly.
The question hangs in the air. Because if Crypt could get it, any of us could have it. Maybe we are all going to get sick. I feel a knot in my stomach thinking of the worms that could be inside me already, tunneling their way up to my brain, attaching themselves with their hooks into my skull. I shudder and try to push the thought away.
“People didn’t always die,” Eric says. There’s some intake of breath at that because everyone has been told forever that there was no cure for the Worm. Whoever had it, died. That’s what I’ve always been told. I look up at Eric like everyone else, waiting for a further explanation. “I know a woman named Good Prince Billy. She says she saw a couple people come through the Vaca B. She says it was rare, but it happened. She took care of them, and, somehow, they made it. A couple.”
The World Without Flags Page 6