The World Without Flags

by Ben Lyle Bedard

  “Good,” I say.

  “You in a hurry to leave my company?” he asks me and holds his hand to his heart like I’ve hurt his feelings.

  “No,” I say with a little chuckle. “I just can’t stop thinking about Eric.”

  “Thinking’s a bitch,” he tells me. Then he smiles. “Dreaming is worse.”

  I laugh but I don’t know why.

  That night, after a meal of stew, I climb onto the back of the cart. The stars are out, but I don’t remember any of the astronomy that Eric taught me. Besides the North Star and the Big Dipper, I don’t recognize anything. When I close my eyes, I see Eric standing alone in the darkness. Although I’m exhausted, it’s a long time before I fight my way through the guilt to sleep.

  128

  I wake up miserable. My neck hurts and I can’t seem to get warm, no matter how close I sit to the fire. I don’t remember my dreams, but I feel the wake of them. I feel like my heart’s been dragged through a patch of thorns and thickets. The guilt for leaving Eric is so strong in me that I almost tell Randy that I’ve changed my mind and have decided to go back. For a moment, I figure that Pest and I can find our own place, north of Cairo. We can just walk into the forest and hole up in some abandoned shack or even a cave. But as I eat breakfast and think of a way to tell Randy, I begin to remember the good reasons why I’m here. If there’s anyone who knows of a place where we’ll be safe, it’s Randy. He’s spent his whole life out here, I tell myself. He knows every road and every community, big and small, that scrape out a living around here. He knows how people move, he knows where they go, and, most important for us, he knows where they don’t go. All I have to do is be a little more patient.

  So I don’t return to Cairo.

  But my bad night’s sleep and feelings of guilt don’t make me a very good travelling companion. I don’t do much that second day except nod and scowl. When Randy tries to talk to me, I just give him a dark look that tells him to leave me alone. He doesn’t seem to mind or notice, but just smiles and turns back to the road.

  I’m in this mood all through the long day. We don’t find the place he told me about the night before. “Tomorrow,” Randy tells me. “We’ll get there tomorrow.”

  I spend the day watching the roads, frowning, bitter about every mile that passes beneath the cart, taking me farther away from Eric and Pest. I hardly even say thank you for the evening meal and just go back to the cart to sleep. Thankfully, on the second night, my exhaustion wins over my guilt, and sleep comes to me almost immediately.

  129

  I dream of summer. I’m walking. I’m thirsty.

  When I look over to my right, the man I know as my true father is walking beside me, holding my hand. When I look to my left, it’s my mother, holding my other hand. She smiles down at me, and her face is more clear to me than it’s ever been before. She’s got a thin face and long, straight black hair. Her eyes are golden and her neck is long and graceful. I never knew she was so beautiful.

  Everything is clear in my dream. My father’s voice, my mother’s face, the feeling of asphalt under my feet. My father tells me, “Birdie,” he says. “I know you can do it. You’re going to be just fine, you hear me?”

  I look up at my mother who leans down toward me. “Sometimes when the monster swallows you,” she says sweetly. “It spits you right back up!” She laughs and taps my nose.

  “You’re going to be right as rain,” my father says. “You’ll see.”

  But when he looks at me, his eyes are full of worms, and a river of dark fluid runs from his mouth.

  130

  I wake up suddenly, violently sitting up, protecting my face from the river of filth coming from my father’s mouth. When I realize I’m awake, I sit there, breathing heavily, and, I have to admit, moaning a little. I’ve never dreamed so clearly of my mother and father. Eric told me that I used to tell different stories about them when I was younger. I said they shot each other, I said they died of the Worm, I said they vanished, I said that they were killed by gangs. Over time, Eric and Lucia realized I didn’t really remember. As time passed, Eric told me, I stopped talking about them at all. All these years I thought I had truly forgotten them. These memories shake me. It’s a long while before the dream fades away. I breathe deeply, in and out, the way that Lucia taught me so long ago when I feel overwhelmed.

  I focus on the smoldering campfire and Randy’s figure curled up in a sleeping bag next to it. By the time I settle down, I realize that it’s dawn. I breathe in and out and watch the sunrise. I listen to the birdsong and the wind in the trees.

  Finally I feel better and the nightmare loses its hold on me. I don’t forget it exactly, but I can feel it dispersing, drifting away, melting into the dark corners of my mind. I breathe a lot easier, and even though I woke up so violently, I feel much better than I did the day before. Almost immediately, I feel bad for my attitude with Randy. He hasn’t done anything. He didn’t deserve the scowls and grunts I pointed his way the day before. He was, after all, doing us a favor. Wanting to make up for it, I decide the best thing to do is to make him some breakfast, surprise him when he wakes up.

  I start by silently scraping up some hot coals in the fire and then putting a few dry pieces of wood on them. Then, while it smokes and sputters to life, I step lightly over the cart and begin rummaging through the food. I’m looking for a treat, something sweet, something that says, hey, sorry I was such a jerk yesterday. That way I don’t actually have to say it. I don’t find much except dry venison and some vegetables that are so old and wrinkled, they look like the fingers of dead old men. I shiver and continue searching. There must be something more than that. In one of the bags in the corner of the cart, I find them, like a treasure trove, bar after bar of roasted oats, honey, and nuts, wrapped in plastic. They’ll make a perfect breakfast. To make it even better, I find in another bag, resting close up against a sack of water to keep it cold, two glass jars of fresh milk, yellowish with cream. He must’ve got that from Cairo.

  My mouth waters thinking of the fresh milk, and when I hear the fire crackle behind me, I go back to check to see if there’s enough water for tea in the aluminum pot from last night. I’m happy to see that there is and it’s already bubbling at the bottom, tiny pearls of air clinging to the bottom. Nothing seems better to me right now than a hot cup of tea, made creamy with fresh milk. I go back to the cart to get the mugs, bowls, and spoons for breakfast. I sit down by the fire and break up the oatmeal bars in the bowls while I wait for the water to boil.

  By the time Randy wakes up, I have everything ready. He takes his tea in his hand with a smile and then yawns. “What’s this?” he laughs. “Four star service?”

  I have no idea what “four star service” is, but he looks so funny in the morning that I laugh too. His hair is exactly the same as always, exploding out in every direction like some kind of confused meteor shower.

  “Someone feels a lot better today,” Randy says, sipping at his tea.

  “I needed some sleep,” I tell him. This is about as close as I plan to get to admitting I was a jerk the day before or apologizing.

  “So did I,” Randy agrees, stretching and groaning luxuriously. When he’s done with that, he takes the bowl I hand to him and sets it on his lap. He nods and winks at me in way of thank you, and I’m grateful he doesn’t hold my behavior yesterday against me. “Listen,” he tells me as I sit down cross-legged to sip my tea. “We ought to come across that place today. Might even get there this morning.” He coughs suddenly, turns to the side, and spits out into the forest. He wipes his mouth and looks at me with his green, sparkling eyes. “Let me tell you,” he continues, “that place is like the best for you guys. There’s a house and a basement and a little barn and everything.” He takes a drink of his tea. “Best thing is,” he says, “this place is way off the road. I guess there used to be a driveway, but you can’t even tell now. It’s a hike into the forest, all right, but no one goes there. No one knows it’s there. Except fo
r the ole Vandal.” He winks at me.

  “Sounds perfect,” I say. I feel more optimistic than I have in a long time. I feel a little embarrassed for moping all that time and thinking the worse of everything. All I have to do is find this place with Randy and then go back to get Eric and Pest. We should be settled in just a few days. Then I can take care of Eric until. . .well, until. “Thanks,” I say.

  “No,” he says with a grin, “thank you for bringing along some granola! That’s how I know you’ll be just fine. Planning!”

  I laugh as Randy picks up the bowl of cereal and jabs his spoon into it. “Well, I can’t take credit for that,” I tell him. Randy looks up at me as he puts the spoon in his mouth. “I found those granola bars in your cart. I hope you weren’t saving them for anything.”

  Randy’s face goes as pale as the moon. He turns to the side and spits out the granola on the ground. Then he pours the hot tea in his mouth and spits out into the dirt frantically. He springs to his feet and begins to spit into the grass, retching and gagging desperately.

  “What’s wrong?” I stand up, confused. For a moment, I think the milk must be spoiled and I’m about ready to laugh, but then I see them in my mind. They flash eagerly in my mind. The granola bars wrapped in plastic. Randy gave them to us at the Homestead. I remember how most everyone ate them and then the Worm came. Then the bar I slipped into Eric’s pocket. Squint ate that one, just hours before he turned. That granola bars. I jump to my feet and stab out an accusing finger at Randy. “You infected us with the Worm!”

  Randy turns toward me. His face is no longer marked with careless laughter. His green eyes flash. He wipes his mouth of spit and vomit and strides toward me. “You had to poke around,” he tells me darkly.

  I stumble back as he lunges toward me. I try to raise my arm to protect myself, but the last thing I see is Randy’s arm swinging wildly toward me and a brief, beautiful flake of the morning sky as I tumble into darkness.

  131

  I can’t see properly, like I’m walking through fog or smoke or that I have a thin cloth stretched tight over my eyes. I feel myself walking. One step after another. But it’s not like me. It’s me, but it’s like I’m riding in myself, like I’m watching things happen from a distance. To each side of me are people walking. I look up and it’s my father, a big, burly, hulk of a man. On the other side is my mother, beautiful, thin, delicate with long flowing hair. The world around us is on fire.

  I see my father then, his round face, his deeply caring eyes. He takes my face in his hands. “You’ll be okay, Birdie. Do you understand?”

  Then he begins to twitch. He closes his eyes and when he opens them, worms begin to writhe out of them, curling in the air, reaching for me. I can’t move. They come closer and closer.

  “You’re going to be fine,” my father says as the worms begin to tap at my face as if searching.

  Somewhere my mother is singing.

  132

  I wake up choking. I roll over and sit up. My hands and feet are tied so tightly that they’re numb. I take deep breaths, trying to rid myself of the nightmare.

  “She’s awake,” I hear. It’s a voice I recognize and my blood chills.

  “I told you she was tough,” answers Randy.

  “Still it was unwise to risk striking her so forcefully.” The both of them are behind me, and I struggle to turn around to face them. When I get turned around, I almost wish I hadn’t.

  Sitting next to a crackling fire is Randy, smiling at me, revealing his long donkey teeth. Next to him, sitting on a log is Doctor Bragg. He isn’t smiling. He has a long, jagged red scar on his forehead where he was knocked unconscious with the glass jar. It’s angry and red, not entirely healed. His dark, empty eyes are looking at me, but I can’t read that emptiness. Worst even than that is what they have tied up near them. It’s Squint, now entirely claimed by the Worm. His eyes are writhing white clumps of worms. His jaw is crudely sewn shut with barbed wire. The wire enters beneath his chin, through his jaw, and emerges just beneath his nose before the two ends are twisted around each other. Dark ooze drips from this wreckage down his shirt. The two nostril holes where his nose used to be have little metal cones shoved into them. I look away as quick as I can.

  “Oh yeah,” Randy laughs. “He’s gruesome, ain’t he?” He laughs again.

  “Crude,” Doctor Bragg says unhappily.

  “I ain’t having him bite me,” Randy snaps at him. “I told you that.”

  “And I informed you,” explains Doctor Bragg with exaggerated patience, “that he is harmless.” He sighs. “You’ve reduced his useful lifespan by half.”

  “You’ll have plenty to work with,” Randy says, smiling toward me. “Trust me.”

  “You don’t seem to understand,” the Doctor continues. “She is a different specimen. I haven’t had nearly enough subjects of African heritage. I have to infect her differently. She won’t be of any use to me afterwards. Not like him.”

  “There’ll be others,” Randy says, still smiling at me. “Lots of others.”

  Doctor Bragg looks at me with his long face. For a moment, I see a shock of sadness, like a kind of horror cross his face. But then it’s gone, leaving nothingness in its wake. “No doubt.”

  Looking at Randy, a sudden thought fills me, and although I didn’t want to say a thing, I blurt out, “Did you poison Cairo too?”

  Randy looks over to me, his green eyes shining in the firelight. “You were supposed to be there to see the whole thing. By this time,” he tells me, “that town is burning its dead.”

  “They’re useless to me burned,” says the Doctor unhappily.

  I ignore him, seething with anger, and concentrate on Randy. “But why?” the sound comes to me like a hurt cry. I want to sound tougher than that. “You were our friend!”

  Randy scoffs. “Yeah, the Vandal is everyone’s friend when he’s got something. When he has something they want. But when he doesn’t, oh, that’s a different story then.” He turns toward the fire. “There ain’t friends anymore.”

  “I don’t understand,” I whimper, tears coming to my eyes. “I don’t understand why you’d do this.” Tears fall from my eyes, even though it’s the last thing I want to show the traitor.

  “You don’t have to understand,” Randy tells me. “It’s just how it is. Like the rest of this world.”

  Suddenly the Doctor lurches toward me with a needle in his hands.

  “NO!” I shout, trying to move away from him.

  “I’m not listening to this all night,” the Doctor says, jabbing a needle in my leg.

  Almost immediately, I feel my muscles turn to water.

  Darkness begins to leak into my vision and I feel myself fall to the side.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” I hear Randy say as if from very far away.

  “I did,” answers the Doctor. “Yes, I did. You would tell her everything.”

  Their speech melts into night and even though I feel them speaking, like a vibration in my bones, I don’t understand a word. I am aware of nothing but the burning light of the moon and a feeling somehow of barbed wire.

  133

  A blink later, it seems, I wake up alone in a familiar room, in a familiar metal chair. I’m back in the warehouse I escaped only days before. It seems for a moment that I never left, that Eric is in his cell, and that I never made it to Cairo at all. All that is different is that my head pulses with pain like it’s being struck by a shovel. But the feeling of familiarity ebbs away, and my fear tells me this is new and it’s going to be worse. I was lucky before. This time, there’s no hope of escape.

  In front of me, in the place of the aluminum surgical table, Squint is standing, naked, his eyes dripping white worms that fall and writhe at his feet. When I try to move, pain shoots up from my wrists and ankles, as if they are burning. Looking down, I see that my wrists are bloody from the ropes that bind me. I hear the generator running and the hum of the bright lights above me. Otherwise there is only my own
scared, uneven breathing, and the booming pain in my head.

  I try to do what Eric told me all those times to do. Think, he told me. But any coherent thought is ripped to shreds by the painful boom boom booming in my skull. I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping that the darkness will give me some relief, but instead it makes me feel sick. I open my eyes but I feel nauseated and I have to fight to keep from vomiting. I don’t know how long this struggle continues. The pain in my head is so intense, it distorts time. Has it been an hour? A moment? I don’t know, can’t understand anything. Finally I feel the wave of nausea pass over me and recede.

  “Oh thank you,” I hear myself breathe. It seems so pathetic that I have to repeat it. “Oh thank you.” I don’t know who I’m thanking. I’m just so relieved. The headache and the nausea together were unbearable, but with the dizziness gone, it seems like something I can endure. “Thank you,” I repeat a third time. Suddenly I remember Lucia in the cabin. I remember how we trembled, how we shivered, how fear gripped us like the winter’s cold around us. So long ago, that first winter. I never think of it. Never. Hardly ever think of her. She holds me and tells me to breathe. “Breathe deeply,” she tells me. I feel her hand in my hair. I feel her hold me close. Lucia.

  I breathe deeply. In. Out.

  I feel the headache recede. Not entirely. Only just a little relief. And just like that, I can’t remember Lucia anymore. She’s just gone, but she has left me this. I breathe deeply. In. Out.

  Think, Birdie.

  “Yes, the headache is terrible,” I hear. I lift my head. Doctor Bragg is in front of me. He looks at me with fake sympathy. Or is it real? His dark eyes give me no comfort. There is something in them that I don’t understand: pity, self-hatred, defiance, or a kind of terrible determination to continue like a fatally wounded animal that nonetheless tries to flee. “It’s the quality of the anesthesia, I’m afraid,” he continues. “I have to make do with what is left behind, you see. We all have to make do with what is left to us.” His long face doesn’t change as he says this, although there is something shimmering in his eyes, but I can’t understand it. My heart races inside my chest.