A long time.
It feels natural and yet unfamiliar, like a dream from long ago now remembered, and dreamed, again. Rick positions his still strong body over mine and gently enters me. We find our old rhythm, the rising and falling, the coming together and coming apart.
I delight in the feel of his skin against mine. The squareness of his muscles against my round softness. It is old and yet it is completely new, to find myself this connected to my husband… my husband now of so many more years than the man I used to think of as my “real” husband.
His lips meet mine again and I feel the rough stubble of his chin scraping my face, but I don’t mind. Our bed makes telltale squeaks, but there is no one to disturb, no young children to awaken, and no threatening men in the next room. Rick is breathing hard now and I hear my own quiet moans as pleasure overtakes me and I tremble with sensation.
He rolls me over and I am on top of him. I can see him looking up at me, his mouth parted, our breath coming quickly and a deep groan emanating from him.
“I love you,” Rick gasps just as he finishes, both of us aquiver with the final throbs of delight.
“I love you too, Rick,” I say, and I am surprised that it is true.
12
We are sailing. The water sparkles before me and the sun is so intense that I have to shield my eyes. The breeze whips across our little boat as we skim an ocean that seems endless, all blue and purple and indigo and dotted with the foam from rolling waves.
This is the most beautiful day I’ve ever seen. Why has it been so long since I’ve sailed? I’ve missed it so.
Sailing is my favorite thing. I remember now.
My mother hands me a paper cup of juice and I sip the sweet nectar. It must be from fresh fruit, it is so delicious! I have never tasted juice so bright and tangy.
I hear my father laugh and look over to see him steering the craft as we loop carelessly back and forth through the water. There are no other boats. There are no other people.
There is only us, me and my little family, skimming the waves.
I look down at us from above. I am high—far away, gazing down from the top of the sail. Surely this isn’t possible! But it is. I perch safely up there, swaying with the movement of the boat, content to adore the family below.
I gently slide down the sail and land standing, embraced and then swept off my feet by Donald, my love. My favorite sailing partner. For a moment I’m confused. I thought I was a little girl…?
I must have been wrong. I’m in the arms of my beloved, Donald, who has just married me. We’ve sailed off from the wedding, and I’m still wearing the dress. How beautiful I feel with my long wedding dress flowing in the breeze we make as we slide across the water.
He kisses me, and then hands me a glass of champagne. We kiss again, our mouths sweet with the taste of the bubbly goodness.
This is the most beautiful day!
We walk off the boat which has reached a shore and it is autumn, a glorious golden moment with leaves floating down around us and no sound except the rustling our feet make on a path through the woods. I hold hands with Donald and we are transfixed by the sight of a deer that has stopped right ahead of us, her ears alert and her eyes deep brown and curious. We stop, wanting her to stay, but her head rises and she is off bounding into the forest, only the white flick of her tail identifiable in the brown surrounding her.
The sun slants through the trees, making everything into hues of yellow and red and orange so that the whole world seems to glow.
This is the most beautiful day.
We walk on and come to the edge of the forest. Ahead of us is a spectacular canyon reaching miles in every direction. I see the striations in the rock that were formed over millions of years, and lean out as far as I dare to see a hawk flying, far down below. It is so deep that I can’t make out the bottom. Donald holds my hand tightly as we both lean over the edge.
The sun is going down in long finger-like rays of gold, and the canyon walls are ablaze in shades of pink and ochre, the world on fire.
It is so glorious. This is truly the most beautiful day!
I lean too far. I can’t resist, I love the world so that I want to leap into it. Donald shouts to me, “No, Helen!” but I have let go, I have fallen, I am flying through the air. I am heading into the dark, into the depths, and I realize too late that there will be no getting back.
Deep down into the Silo I rush, the wind roaring by my ears, the stairs spiraling past me, and I know that death lies at the bottom.
I scream. It echoes up and down the concrete walls.
No one hears me.
13
“Karma! Karma, honey, wake up!”
I hear the voice from afar and understand that I have been sleeping. That it was all a dream—both the beautiful parts and the frightening parts.
Rick is looking down at me when I open my eyes. The morning lights in the apartment have turned on… I don’t know what time it is, but night is officially over.
I clutch at his arm. “Rick. I was there. I was back there… in the world. It was so real.”
He nods, understanding in his face.
“It was glorious,” I say, knowing that there are tears in my eyes. “The sun was out. The sun! Do you remember the sun?”
“Yes,” he says. Rick wraps his arms around me and rocks me as we lay on the bed together.
“The wind… the way the world smelled, salt breezes, growing things, flowers! Oh my God, Rick. What did we do?”
I am crying now, because it is over and will never be again. A new world may exist someday, but the world we knew is gone.
“I know, Karma. I know.” Rick takes my hand and holds it up to his face, and I feel a warm tear like ocean water wetting his face. “We were such fools.”
14
I am dressing as Rick heats up coffee mash in the kitchen when there is a knock on the door. I hear him open it, and an angry male voice startles me. Who would that be at this hour? And who can be mad at Rick, who until just a day ago, was the most powerful man in the Silo?
I hook my overalls over my shoulder and emerge.
“There she is.”
It’s Sheriff Aponte. He walks toward me with a purposeful stride and takes me by the arm.
Rick puts his arm on the other man’s. “Aponte, what is this? You have no right—”
“I have every right, Brewer. And you aren’t in a position to stop me, either. Your wife here, Judge Brewer, killed a man while all of you were down in IT. I just heard about it or I would have been down here last night.”
“She was about to come up and explain—”
“I can speak for myself, thank you.” I step back a foot and firmly remove the Sheriff’s hand from my arm. “Rick is correct, Sheriff Aponte. I was about to report to your office to give a formal statement. I’ll be happy to come with you now and describe how Jeff was trying to murder Rick in his sleep.”
Aponte takes handcuffs from his belt.
“Hey,” Rick says.
“There’s no need for those,” I say, and walk toward the door before it turns into a tussle. “As you know, Sheriff Aponte, I’m an officer of the court, and I will gladly cooperate with the investigation. In fact, I applaud you for being eager to get the facts out in the open.”
Rick’s eyes catch mine as I reach for the doorknob. “I’ll come up with you.”
“No need, but thank you,” I say, keeping my voice even with an effort. “I would feel better if you stayed here. You can explain to Athena that it’s only a formality. I’m sure that Sheriff Aponte can be relied upon to treat me fairly.”
Aponte grunts under his breath and follows me out the door. Rick looks concerned but nods in agreement.
As we head for the stairs, I see the sheriff take his gun out of the holster. I know that it’s just a show of power, but I feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. He is mumbling as he walks, and there is a strange look in his eye.
One by one, we
start to climb the levels to the very top.
15
I tell my story—our story—to Aponte, leaving out anything about Mars communicating with Silo 1. I can see that he’s skeptical when I tell him that Jeff killed Hazen, and attacked me. As I describe the night Jeff tried to suffocate him, I feel my body tense up.
“He couldn’t breathe. Jeff was holding a pillow over his face, and Rick’s arms and legs were jerking around—”
“So that’s the point where you say you happened to come around the corner and see them?” Aponte sits behind the sheriff’s desk, still holding the gun in his hand, slapping it against his open palm. “Awfully convenient that you did, wouldn’t you agree? And that you managed to have a knife in your hand—”
“I didn’t just happen to come around the corner.” I try to keep my voice calm. “I heard Jeff grunting, and the strangled noises Rick was making. And no, the knife wasn’t in my hand. Rick had given me the knife to put under my pillow after the night Jeff chased me around the room trying to…” I hesitate. “Trying to attack me.”
Now Aponte gets a mocking look in his eye, and smiles. “So you say Jeff was… interested in you. He has a pretty attractive wife. Had.”
I don’t take the bait. “Jeff was bored and angry and drunk most of the time. I was the only female down there. It wasn’t personal.”
Aponte grunts. “So then what happened?”
“When I saw that Rick was being asphyxiated, I grabbed the knife and stabbed Jeff. To protect my husband—who at the time was injured, weak, and unable to defend himself.”
He looks at me with an expression that’s hard to read.
“Jeff was a big man,” he says.
“Yes.”
“You, personally, with no help from your husband or your son, stabbed him with a knife and he died.”
“Yes.”
“A lot of blood when you kill somebody that way. A lot of pain, too.”
“Yes.” I wonder where he’s going with this.
“A bunch of us lost people in this uprising.” He looks away for a moment. What is he talking about?
“Did you… lose someone?”
“Deputy Herring. She was killed.” He averts his eyes again.
I remember that the Deputy was sweet on him, and he, on her. They might have been a couple waiting to make it formal.
“I didn’t know. I’m sorry to hear that.”
He nods, grief showing in his face.
“How long had you… how long did you work together?”
“Six years,” he says, reaching for his handkerchief and making a show of blowing his nose. “Good worker.” He clears his throat. “Good woman.”
“She was,” I say. “That’s a loss. To you, and to the Silo.”
He bows his head slightly in agreement, and I continue. “How did it happen?”
“She was down on the classroom level… investigating that fire. Same one your daughter was caught in.” He pauses, and stuffs his handkerchief back into his pocket. The atmosphere between us has changed. “Terrible shame about her face.”
I nod now, in return, each of us acknowledging our losses. I realize once again how little it matters that Athena has a scarred face, as compared to his loss.
“Did Deputy Herring get caught… in the fire?” I shudder to think of dying that way.
“No.” He turns his head away again and looks at the wall. “She was stabbed.”
No wonder hearing about a stabbing made him angry.
“How… terrible,” I say. For just a moment I picture the lively Deputy, her blonde curls bobbing, smiling at him in this office just a few months ago. And then I imagine that same young woman dying from a knife wound. “Who…?”
“We don’t even know,” he says, spitting out the words as though they taste foul. “Don’t know if it was the people who set the fire—probably from Mechanical—’cause no one from up here would start a fire so close to where the kids go to school.” He looks away from me again. “Or just someone who had a grudge against me—or the law in general. It was chaos out there. And IT running around with guns, explosives. Of course we know it wasn’t one of them, since they are on our side.” His voice rises and his eyes meet mine. “Whoever the hell it was, though, I’ll find him, if it takes me the rest of my life.”
I don’t tell him what I know about IT and the divided loyalties, or how dirty I think Jeff’s men would have fought. I don’t see how it will help him to say that I imagine they might have used a knife, and could have killed anyone who got in their way.
“I hope you do,” I say, and he gives me a brief expression of appreciation.
Standing up, Aponte points to the holding cell behind us. “I want to do this by the book.” He moves over to the door and unlocks it. “I have no deputy. As you know.” He gestures for me to go in. “There’s a lot of killing been going on around here. But I’m still the Sheriff. Even over IT.” There is a certain look of satisfaction as he says that. “And you are the subject of a murder investigation. I’ll have to hold you here while I complete the investigation.”
I stand for a moment before I walk into the cell. “How long… before you complete the investigation?”
“Hard to say. Since the only witnesses are your son and your husband, some of this will depend on forensics. The body will need to be examined by a medical expert.”
I close my eyes and swallow. I step forward into the cell, and Sheriff Aponte swings the metal door until it connects with a thud. He locks it.
Turning away, he says, “It shouldn’t be more than a few days.”
16
I was in this cell before. Twenty years ago, contemplating what I imagined would be my death the next day. I was scheduled for Cleaning, but the Cleaning never happened. At least, it didn’t happen to me.
From in here I have a view of a different wallscreen, one that shows the other side of the Silo. For decades we have been looking out from the cafeteria wallscreen at the same dead bodies in deteriorating suits. My friend Andy, the first Cleaner, and the dozen or so who followed in the decades after him. Behind them are the hills they tried to scale, and behind those the towering ruins of Atlanta.
I gaze out at the hills on this side. Much the same. Except that there are no bodies. On the other side of the Silo, everyone cleaned the lenses on the cameras, and everyone set out toward what looked like a promising destination. No one got there. Each person dropped, one by one, as toxic clouds—made out of whatever hellish substance has taken over the Outside—ate through his suit and clawed its way into his lungs.
I watched only one Cleaning. Andy. I watched him with my heart in my throat, knowing that he had initially wanted to go out—and then had been forced. We didn’t understand, then, how bad it was. We do now.
A memorable lesson for those of us watching from the Silo:
Do not seek to go Outside. There lies death.
My eyes wander, now, across the barren landscape, making out what I can between the shadows of the dark swirling storm that seems always to be raging. There is never a sun to be seen, but there is occasionally a lighter patch.
I fix upon a lump… a bit of something quite close to the Silo. Or so it appears. I’m not sure where the cameras are affixed in relation to where I am, so I’m not sure what my view is. It couldn’t be a body, because the decaying bodies I’ve seen are all much farther away.
But… then I remember what Grace did. She was the only one who didn’t march off toward the towers. Instead, she cleaned the lenses carefully, apparently on each of the four sides, and then waved goodbye and walked out of sight of the wallscreen in the cafeteria, so that we wouldn’t have to look at her suited corpse forever.
Tears spring to my eyes as I realize that this is Grace. The woman who traded her life for mine.
17
I hear someone coming down the hall toward my cell. A light step—a female. It will be nice to talk to another human being. Sheriff Aponte hasn’t been here in hours. Perhaps it�
�s someone bringing food. I ate nothing at all before I came up here, and I’m hungry.
My visitor is Rose, the very first student from my faux art class. It was she who brought along Delta—another victim of Jeff, whom Delta was unfortunate enough to have as a father. After Delta showed up to be part of the group who remembered, four other young girls eventually found their way to my door. Willow, Rachel, Steph and Mercedes were the entire original class… the first cell… along with Rose and Delta. These days, I suspect that we have hundreds of sympathizers all up and down the Silo, doing their best to keep the truth alive.
As I stand up to greet Rose, now a beautiful, olive-skinned woman in her thirties, I quickly wipe the tears from my eyes. Ever the teacher, ever the mother figure, I don’t want to alarm her. It’s bad enough that she sees me locked up in here.
“Karma!” she says as she runs the last few steps and reaches through the bars to take my hands. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Rose. Only bored. And a little bit hungry.”
She looks over her shoulder as if food could be coming down the hallway behind her.
“Aren’t they feeding you?”
“Well… they should be. I can’t exactly go out for deli.”
She laughs, because she’s retained all her young memories of the world before. She remembers fast food and traffic and airplanes and horses and all the myriad things that are no longer, both good and bad.
“You must be starving. I’ll get you something,” she turns to go.
“No! Don’t leave yet.” I’m startled to hear the note of desperation in my voice. “Just visit with me for a bit. I’m sure Sheriff Aponte will be here soon, and he’ll have somebody bring me breakfast… or lunch, or something.”
“Okay. But then I’m going to the cafeteria and make sure they get you some food.”
“That would be great. My stomach thanks you.” It rumbles, as if to prove the point.
Rose is still clutching one of my hands. “I’m so sorry you’re in here, Karma. What is it… what was it? They’re not talking about sending you…”
Karma of the Silo: The Collection Page 16