by Tom Abrahams
Lou snorted a chuckle and sniffed back the snot dripping from her nose. “What am I telling you? You know, right? You had kids.”
The light in her hand dimmed. She didn’t bother to crank it.
“I’m not a religious person. I don’t know if this counts as a prayer. I’m not really talking to God or whatever, so I don’t think it’s a prayer. It’s more of a confession.”
Lou tilted her head back and laughed. “Sheesh. I’m freaking losing it. I’m not making any sense.”
The stones on the ground stared back at her blankly. Lou rubbed her fingers across the one with Sylvia’s name carved into it. She traced the first letter with her index finger.
“Back to the two things. The first one is a thank-you. Thank you for making Marcus the man he is. Without him, I wouldn’t be here. I’m mean, I’m a badass in my own right. My father made sure of that.”
Lou smiled, thinking of her father. He’d taught her everything she knew about survival. He knew there’d be a day when she was alone and had prepared her for that as best he could.
“And Marcus,” she said, tracing the Y in Sylvia’s name, “he can be an ass. I’m sure you know that. The guy has some serious psychological problems. I know I’m preaching to the choir on that one.”
Another chuckle. “Is that even a saying anymore? Where did that come from? Preaching? Me?”
The conversation was easy now. The words came easy. The audience was captive if not captivated.
“Anyhow, thank you. Your sacrifices sent him to me. And he saved me. Even though you didn’t know me or choose to die. I know that’s weird. But I’m grateful.”
A warm breeze rustled through the brittle branches of dead trees beyond the graves. Lou felt it on her cheeks, drying the tears that clung there.
“Second thing,” she said, swallowing past the knot threatening to return in her throat, “is that I’m sorry. As grateful as I am, I’m also sorry.”
She brushed dirt from Lola’s headstone. Her thumb ran along the jagged grooves that made up the first L in her name.
“I know you want the best for him. You want him to find peace, to live the rest of his days as happy as a man like him can be. I do too. But I’m being…I’ve been…selfish.”
Lou half expected one of the women to talk back to her, to say something. She paused, waiting for it. Then she sighed and bit her lower lip.
“I need him again, so I’m pulling him back into the fray, into the nasty world he’s wanted to avoid. I wanted to give you a heads-up about that. And tell you, since he loved all of you so much, that I’m thankful and sorry. I’m both. And I’m glad I met you.”
Lou wiped her hands on her chest and then ran her fingers through her hair. Puffing her cheeks, she held the air in her lungs as long as she could before blowing it out.
She pushed herself onto her toes and then stood awkwardly. A stitch in her side caught her by surprise as she stretched, and she winced. The baby was lower. It was getting into position. Before long, she’d be delivering the kid on her own.
“I don’t know why I did this,” she said to the graves. “I don’t know why I came here, why I was compelled to talk to you. I’m not even sure what I said, really, and I’m pretty sure it didn’t make sense.”
Lou swept the flashlight across the graves one more time. She knew exactly why she came here. She knew exactly what she’d said, as inarticulate as it might have sounded.
She was seeking forgiveness. And she sought it from herself as much, or more, than she did from the ghosts of Marcus Battle’s past.
Rudy was badly hurt; Norma was alone; her children were in danger; her husband was on a fool’s mission. She was putting everything on the shoulders of an old man who’d wanted to spend his final years alone and in peace.
Lou started toward the treehouse. She took two steps when a sharp cramp doubled her over. She clutched herself underneath her belly and suppressed a groan. The sharp pain intensified, swelled. She held her breath and gritted her teeth.
The cramp dulled and the pain ebbed. Lou exhaled and stood up.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said. “Now?”
CHAPTER 14
APRIL 18, 2054, 1:07 AM
SCOURGE +21 YEARS, 7 MONTHS
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
“You’re late,” said the gruff voice on the other side of the wall.
Sally sat against the hard wooden back of her seat. It was dark inside the confessional. It smelled like sawdust and varnish. She pressed her sweaty palms flat against the bench, leaned toward the partition, and whispered, “No, I’m not.”
“Seven minutes,” said the voice.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” she said with more than a hint of sarcasm.
“Not funny.”
“Sorry,” said Sally. She wasn’t. The tone made it obvious. “I got here as fast as I could. It’s not easy moving around at night. You know that.”
“I do,” said the voice. “The longer you do this, the harder it gets.”
Sally turned enough to see the shadow of the man on the other side of the confessional. He had long hair that shaded his features, though a strong Roman nose extended outward at a sharp forty-five-degree angle.
From the sound of his voice, he was middle-aged, and he smoked. Sally could hear it in the gravelly voice and smell the stale pungency of it in the booth. She’d never met him, had no idea who he was other than that he was important enough to be doling out her next assignment.
He cleared his throat. “Last night was a close call.”
Sally didn’t say anything. She wasn’t sure what to say.
“Too close,” said the voice.
Through the opaque screen wall that separated them, Sally saw the man brush his hair away from his face. He put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. The sound of the paper burning snapped in the quiet of the booth. The tobacco sizzled. The man exhaled and the strong odor of smoke filtered into her side of the confessional.
“No,” said Sally.
“No, it wasn’t too close?” he asked.
“No. I don’t mind if you smoke. Thanks for asking.”
“Oh.” The man chuckled. “Sorry about that. It’s a bad habit, I know. I should quit. Yet there are so many other things that are more likely to kill me, I figure a vice like smoking isn’t so bad.”
“Whatever,” said Sally. “You do you.”
“Plus, the smoke masks the smell of alcohol that flooded the booth when you entered.”
Sally flushed. Did she really reek?
She’d brushed her teeth, put on deodorant, thought about showering.
“What’s the point of this?” barked Sally. The tone was more acerbic than she’d intended, but she didn’t walk it back.
The man took another drag. The end of the cigarette glowed red and faded. “We’re moving you,” he said, a stream of smoke pouring from his nostrils as he spoke.
“I figured as much. You sent the porter to my apartment. When that happens, I move. I know the drill.”
“You misunderstand. We’re moving you out of Atlanta.”
A wave of nausea washed over her. Her stomach sank. “What? Why? When?”
“I’ll take those questions one at a time,” he said smoothly. He flicked the cigarette with his thumb and took another pull. After he exhaled, he shifted in his seat and leaned toward the partition. “First, the what. We are moving you from Atlanta to another location. You’re needed elsewhere.”
“Where?”
“Let me explain the why next,” he said, his tone even and unflinching.
Sally thought the more agitated she became, the calmer his voice was. It was like he was a parent coping with an upset child.
“We are moving you because you’ve done what you can do here. You’ve been at this for a long time. It’s taken its toll. That’s obvious to all of us.”
“All of us? Who is all of us?”
He ignored the question. “When you’re not on the job, you’
re drinking heavily. You’re reclusive. When you are on the job, your work is more…frenetic…than it needs to be.”
“Frenetic?”
Every answer drew another question. Sally curled her hands into fists, her fingernails dragging along the wooden bench.
“Last night you almost lost your passenger. You almost got caught, you compromised a safe house, and you killed Pop Guards.”
All of it was true. She couldn’t deny it. Things happened. It was a dangerous business. People almost got caught all of the time. Safe houses were compromised. That was why they moved them constantly. And guards, as regrettable as it might be for their cause, got killed. It was them or her. Simple as that. Them. Or. Her. Still, she didn’t have a response. The shock was taking hold.
Moving her? From Atlanta? Taking her from her home?
“As for the when,” he said flatly, as if relaying a recipe for unleavened bread, “it’ll be a couple of days. Maybe more. You’ll be in a holding pattern until then.”
Sally was stunned into silence. She brought her hands to her temples and rubbed them. Her eyes burned from the smoke. Her throat was dry. The world was spinning around her. This was like a hangover but worse.
Okay, she thought through the haze, maybe not worse.
But it was bad.
“As for ‘all of us,’” he continued, “you know the railroad is multilayered. We have cells that run autonomously. One may not know what the other is doing. Names are withheld; plans are secret; routes change. There are—”
“I know all of this,” said Sally. “What’s your point?”
“Despite the independence of cells, there is a hierarchy. The railroad has leadership. The leaders all know what the cells are doing. So we’re aware of everything that rolls along the tracks, so to speak.”
Sally always assumed this. The railroad couldn’t run as efficiently as it did, save as many women and children as it did, if there wasn’t someone at the top coordinating it all or, at the very least, staying abreast of it.
“All of the leaders know about you, Sally.”
Sally. He said it. He said her name. That couldn’t be good. The urge to puke rose in her dry throat. The smell of the varnish, the sawdust, and the cigarette smoke made her head swim. She tasted the sour sting of bile on her tongue and gagged. She swallowed, sending the acid back down her throat.
“We all know you’re an asset,” he said. “We know how many families you’ve kept together and how many guards you’ve had to kill to make that happen. We know how many sleepless nights you’ve had and how many bottles of liquor you keep under things in your apartment.”
“How many?” asked Sally.
“What?”
“How many? You said you know how many families, guards, sleepless nights, bottles of liquor, whatever. So how many is it?”
“I understand you’re upset—”
“You don’t understand me,” she said through her teeth. “Don’t begin to tell me what you think you know about me or what I’ve had to do.”
He shifted in his seat, the dark shape of his body moving against the screened wall. He appeared to tuck his hair behind his ears. “Fair enough. I won’t do that. What I will do, though, is tell you what you have to do now.”
Sally pressed her face to the screened wall. “Have to do? You’re telling me I have no choice?”
“You don’t. You have to do what comes next.”
“Or what?”
“Or we provide your name to the Pop Guard,” he said. “They find you. They execute you. Or worse.”
That was not the answer she expected. Truth was, she hadn’t expected any of this; not the in-home visit from a virgin porter, the summons to a church confessional, the suffocating cigarette smoke, the ex-communication from the railroad, and certainly not the do-or-die ultimatum.
“We can’t have you on the street anymore, Sally. You’re a liability. If you can’t see that, then we have to see it for you. If you can’t leave the city under our plan, you’ll leave it under somebody else’s.”
The defiance was gone, now came the bargaining. She had to change his mind, find a happy medium with which they could both live.
“Look,” she said, “I know last night was rough. I walked us into a bad situation. That’s a one-off. Think of all the good I’ve done, all the lives I’ve saved.”
The man put another cigarette between his lips. He lifted a lighter and flicked on the flame. Tendrils of smoke drifted from his lips and the end of the burning paper.
“I can stop drinking,” she said, the words spilling from her before she’d thought them through. “Well, I can cut back. Seriously, this is a good wake-up call. This is what I needed.”
The end of the cigarette burned red. It glowed, almost strobing as the man sucked at its opposite end. A long pull on the stick and then streams of smoke plumed from his nostrils.
Sally used her hands to emphasize her understanding of the situation. This was a warning, that’s all. “I get it,” she said. “This is the wake-up call I needed. I’ve been taking too many risks. I should have timed last night’s run a little better. The helicopters always run the same schedule. The Pop Guard is so predictable.”
She chuckled nervously and folded her arms over her chest. She scratched her forearm with nails she should have trimmed. A stray hangnail raked uncomfortably across her skin. The man on the other side of the wall took another drag. He flicked the ashes onto the floor and held the cigarette pinched like a blunt between his thumb and index finger.
“I get it,” she said. “Message sent.”
The two sat quietly for long moments. Sally stretched her jaw and wiped her mouth, ridding it of the dry white spittle in the corners. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. She had to lean in to hear him.
“It’s not a message,” he said. “It’s not a warning. The decision is made.”
Sally wanted to explode. She couldn’t sit or stand or grit her teeth or scream.
“I don’t like doing this,” he said, “but it’s best for all of us. Do this last thing for us and you’ll live a good life. It won’t be this life. And it won’t be in Atlanta.”
She was cornered. Stuck in a box. The literal box had a door. She could get up and walk out. The figurative one was locked. It was filling with water and she was chained to the floor.
Bargaining, which was momentarily the edge of mania, gave way to resignation.
“Fine,” she said. “What is it?” Maybe they’d send her to Loretto, Kentucky. She’d heard rumors that there were black-market distilleries opening there.
“We’ve got a woman coming from south of the wall. An old friend down there tipped us off. They’re heading to Atlanta. When they get here, you’re going to take them to the Harbor.”
“The Harbor?” she asked. “That’s real?”
The man dropped his cigarette, stomped his shoe on it, and ground it into the floor of the confessional. The sound echoed in the small space. “Of course it’s real. Where do you think we’ve been sending families all this time?”
“I never thought of it,” Sally said. “I never thought of what happened after they’d left me. I focused on the next one coming up the line.”
“Huh,” said the man. There was a long pause, then, “That’s interesting.”
“Where is it? The Harbor?”
“You know I can’t tell you that. This will work like everything else. You’ll get information as you need it.”
“They’re coming from Texas?” she asked. “Will they make it?”
“I have assurances they’ll make it. If they don’t, we’ll find another task for you. The timing is right with this one. It’ll be a few days before they’re here. You need some time to sober up.”
“I’m sober.”
“Please,” he said, tucking his hair behind his ear. “I can smell the liquor in here. Why do you think I keep lighting up? I’m trying to dull my senses so I don’t get high from the proximity.”
“Now or later?”
“Both.”
“Now you go to the address on this piece of paper,” he said. “You’ll stay there under supervision and await further instructions.”
The man stuck a small rolled-up piece of paper, similar to the cigarettes he’d been smoking, into a slit in the partitioned wall. She took it and held it in her fist.
“Look at it,” he said. “Memorize it.”
Sally did as instructed. Squinting in the dim light, she eyed the address. It wasn’t far from here.
“Got it?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Now swallow it.”
“What?”
“Swallow it.”
Sally pinched the piece of paper and set it on her tongue. Saliva flooded her mouth and she broke up the paper with her tongue and teeth. She swallowed. “Okay.”
“Then you’re good with what to do now?”
“Yes,” she said. “And later?”
“TBD.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means it’s to be determined,” he said. “You’ll be taken care of regardless. Wait here for five minutes. Then get up, leave the church, and go straight to the address on the paper you swallowed.”
The man stood in the booth, slid open the door, and was gone. Outside the confessional, she could hear his heavy footsteps echoing on the marble floor of the cathedral.
Her shoulders drooped and she slumped into the corner, resting her head on the hard, solid wood. Sally fought the urge to cry. Instead, she reminded herself how miserable she’d been.
This could be good, she thought. It’s a fresh start in a new place. New people, new experiences. Less death.
She laughed at herself. Less death. There was no such thing in this world, regardless of where she lived. Sally was convinced of that. Death was everywhere. Even when it wasn’t staring you in the face, it was hiding in the shadows and lurking around the corners.