“And they took him? Away?”
“No, Cass. He was able to run, when the Beaters saw us. They let go of him for a second and he got away. Everyone ran. We carried Ruthie back inside and…and Bobby ran to the creek.”
“To the creek? Why would he go to the creek?”
“He didn’t stop there, Cass. He followed it down to the cliffs.”
A sick understanding dawned in Cass’s mind, the full horror of what had happened.
“The cliffs…”
A mile down, as it wound past the edge of town, the creek widened and formed a deep pool rimmed with packed-dirt banks and cattails on one side and limestone cliffs on the other. They rose hundreds of feet into the air, pitted and carved by the elements. In the water below lay broken, rock-strewn shelves of shale.
On sunny days, Cass used to take a beach towel and a pail full of toys and lie on the banks, swatting at mosquitoes and watching Ruthie try to catch the frogs sunning themselves on the rocks.
“He jumped.” Elaine’s voice had gone flat. “They found his body the next day, on the rocks.”
22
“HE DIED,” CASS WHISPERED. BOBBY DIED, SAVING Ruthie.
How many people are going to suffer for you?
Was that why she couldn’t remember? Was it guilt? She hadn’t been able to save Ruthie. She hadn’t been able to save anyone.
“You said she was attacked,” she said. “Ruthie. Did they…I mean…”
“Bobby got there so fast,” Elaine said. “She had scratches, but they could have come from when you threw her down, or from the ground. That’s what we told ourselves, anyway. After we lost both you and Bobby in one day…well, no one wanted to believe we were going to lose her, too. And then…”
She took a deep breath and looked off into the distance, where the sun was starting to climb higher above the tops of the dead trees. “We’re out of time,” she said. “I need to get you back before group one comes out.”
“No,” Cass said. “Tell me the rest. You have to tell me the rest.”
“Fine. But I’m making it quick so don’t interrupt—seriously.” She started cutting across the center of the courtyard, toward the doors back inside the building. “Ruthie was fine for almost a day, and then she got the fever, and her eyes…well, you know. Some people wanted to…you know. Put her out. But she was just a baby. We couldn’t do it. So…I said I would take her. I said I’d stay with her, in the mail room, because there was a slot in the door. A quarantine…until we could be sure.”
“Oh, Elaine…” Cass said.
Elaine held up a palm to stop her. “Don’t. Just let me finish. By the next day she was crying around the clock. Picking…well. The way they do. I was careful…I wrapped her in a blanket before I held her, and I didn’t let—you know, her mouth, her saliva. I was careful. But the thing was, I knew I was probably dead. That it would only take one bite. If I fell asleep or looked away at the wrong moment… But I didn’t care.”
Cass waited, her heart barely beating, imagining Elaine in that little dim room, as Ruthie’s tiny body grew hot and damp with sweat, as her wails escalated to screams of pain and anger, as she started to attack herself, her tiny fingers scraping at her own flesh. As the others steeled themselves against yet another loss, as they took the long route to avoid hearing the sounds coming from the mail room.
“That went on for two days. And then…well, I guess you know what happened. She started to get better. I wasn’t sure at first—I thought maybe I was going feverish myself, that I was delusional. But I woke up, I was sleeping in fits and starts, an hour here and there—I woke up and the fever was gone. Her eyes were glassy and she was, like, not there? I mean, she didn’t respond when I touched her, almost like she was in a coma or something. I yelled and yelled to try and yank her out of it, and finally a couple of people came and talked to me through the door. They had a meeting. They wouldn’t let us out, they brought us food and I tried to get Ruthie to eat and sometimes I could get her to drink, but she was…she wasn’t right. That lasted a few more days. Some people thought she had died. That I had…” Elaine shook her head. “Finally someone got the courage up to come in. They saw that the fever was gone, her pupils were normal. Her eyes were so bright, like yours, and I knew when I saw you, you were the same.… And you know how kids are…they heal so fast her scratches were next to nothing. They let us out, then.”
“She’s…like me,” Cass said. An outlier.
“I stayed with her around the clock, in the conference room. And when she woke up, I was there.” They reached the doors, and Elaine didn’t look at her as she pulled the hood tighter around her face and held the door for Cass. “I’m taking you back to the room. Remember what I said. You need to go. To Colima. And you need to forget.”
Cass followed wordlessly, watching the rigid set of Elaine’s back. At the door of her cell, Elaine put a hand on her shoulder. Cass looked into her careworn face.
“Cass. When she woke up…” Elaine bit her lip, looked at the floor. “Her first word was Mama.”
Then the door shut and Cass was alone in the dark.
Time took forever to pass. Without even a sliver of light under the door, the dark was absolute, and it started to play tricks on Cass’s mind. In her thoughts she saw faces: Evangeline’s and the other Rebuilders, their expressions hard and suspicious. She remembered Elaine before, the way she used to hiccup if she laughed too hard, her sadness when she talked about her cats, her brother in Oakland. She remembered other faces from the library. Some she could put names to, others she couldn’t. She wondered which of them still lived here, and what had happened to the rest.
She thought of Ruthie, the way she’d laughed and laughed when she saw the dandelions in the library’s untended, dead lawn, tucked here and there among the kaysev.
She thought of Smoke, the way he’d looked at her in Lyle’s guest bed the night before, the way his eyes glinted when she pressed his hand hard against her.
After what seemed like an entire day had passed, someone brought her lunch. The door opened and she squinted in the sun, bright enough to let her know it was afternoon. A tray was set on the floor and the person left before Cass’s eyes had a chance to adjust enough to see who had been there, whether it was a man or a woman, someone she recognized or a stranger.
She ate by feel, a hard biscuit made from kaysev flour and flavored with rosemary, a surprise. Where had the spice come from? Was it dried and stored from before—or had it managed to return, scratching out a foothold to renew itself Aftertime?
Cass drank the tall bottle of water—gritty, bitter, no doubt boiled stream water—and did several sets of push-ups and sit-ups. A while later she did more. And then more. Maybe, if she did enough, if she pushed her body hard enough, she would grow tired enough to sleep.
Tomorrow she would be forced to go to Colima. Somehow, she had to find a way to escape. And far better to escape near the outset than later in the journey, since every mile would take her farther and farther away from San Pedro and the Convent.
Maybe forgetting would be better. Maybe if she could fill her days with other things, with chores and routines and conversations, until finally there was no room for all the memories of Ruthie—maybe then she could find some peace. But Cass knew there would never be such a thing for her, and though she pushed her body until she was drenched with sweat and collapsed on the thin mattress, the desperate need to find Ruthie was undimmed, and she lay in the dark listening to the pounding of her own heart, feeling the ache of what was missing.
When the tapping started, Cass thought it was in her imagination. It was a soft scratching sound, but then there was a snick of a dead bolt turning that was definitely real. Cass scrambled to her feet as the door opened. For a moment Cass blinked, adjusting to the light, and then an unfamiliar man came into the room and quickly closed the door behind them, plunging them back into darkness.
It was not a large room and Cass backed up into the corner opposite the m
attress, feeling for the walls with her hands, panic blooming inside her. The man was bigger than her by far; her brief glimpse gave the impression of a solid build, thick arms, doughy hands. There was nowhere to go, and nothing she could use to defend herself.
But she coiled herself anyway, ready to throw everything she had into one fierce jab at the eyes or stomp on the instep, whatever it took to hurt him before he hurt her.
During the Siege there came a day when it became clear that the law was a concept that no longer had any meaning. Coalitions from Before were revealed to be more fragile than anyone guessed: prisons were opened and sheriff’s departments disbanded after the National Guard admitted it could no longer call up sufficient numbers to quell riots. Restraining orders went unenforced; predators prowled and bullies sought out the weak. Plaintiffs awaiting justice ran out of hope; defendants quit pleading innocence; old animosities based on skin color and native tongue reared their ugly heads once again. There were no more good guys in charge, no upholders of reason, no reason at all. The only rule in place was the rule of might, and crimes went unpunished as long as the perpetrators were bigger or stronger or more willing to take risks than their victims.
Most people behaved according to the same moral strictures they always had, but unexpected acts of violence and heroism stretched the ends of the spectrum. Some ordinary people discovered a taste for justice, and threw themselves into protecting the innocent, even when it cost them their lives. But at the same time, rapes and beatings and murders skyrocketed. Grudges were consummated in fits of spectacular rage, and those who had harbored violent fantasies against neighbors and rivals and even strangers acted on them with impunity.
So when instead of a body pressing her into the wall, Cass heard a low voice say, “Don’t be afraid,” she was seized by confusion rather than relief. The scream that was on her lips died in a whimper. Her hands, clenched into fists, trembled.
“Who are you?” Cass managed to whisper.
“A friend. My name’s not important, but I’m on your side. I’m here to help you get out of here.”
“Elaine said—”
“There’s been a change of plans. We need to get Smoke out, and the feeling is that you won’t be safe here once he goes missing. Look, he’s going to take you to the Convent. And for what it’s worth, we advised him against it. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“What would they do to Smoke?”
“Considering that he killed three of the top guys in the Rebuilder command, I’m guessing the maximum sentence in what passes for a justice system down there,” the man said stonily.
“Smoke killed them? Are you sure?”
“Look, no disrespect, but we don’t have time for this. Getting you out just compounds the risk for all of us, and frankly we probably would let you take your chances with Evangeline, except Smoke wouldn’t leave without you.” He didn’t bother to hide his irritation. “Now, can you pay attention? We don’t have time for me to tell you twice.”
“Okay,” Cass muttered, chastened.
“Nearly everyone’s at dinner right now and I have to get back. When I open this door I’ll go create a distraction in the courtyard. You’ll only have a moment. Run to the east entrance—you know the one? You remember?”
“Yes…”
“Smoke will meet you there. He’ll have your packs. He’ll know where to go. Do not talk, just follow him.”
Cass nodded, and only when the man opened the door and let a swath of light in did she notice that he was wearing the khaki shirt of the Rebuilders.
23
THE STRANGER SLIPPED OUT AS QUIETLY AS HE’D entered. Cass waited, listening hard. She heard his footsteps retreating down the hall, then nothing. She tested the door and found it unlocked.
But the thought that she would need to run away from the place that had meant safety to her just a short time ago seemed ludicrous. How was it possible to find enough to disagree about Aftertime that you could fight and kill over it?
The priorities were so stark. Live another day. Protect others, if you can. Eat and drink and sleep. Care for the children. Everything else—washing, learning, creating, loving—were luxuries rarely indulged…but they haunted people’s minds still. The dream of starting over ran deep.
At first, the rumors flew that the End Times had arrived. That the planet itself was dying. Defoliation would kill everyone on the planet in a matter of weeks—that was a popular theory for a while, until people figured out that not all of the plants were threatened. Then the kaysev seeds sprouted and the new panic was that it would choke out all other species and leach all the nutrients from the earth, but soon it became obvious that where kaysev grew, other plants that had survived the Siege returned and flourished.
Over and over the apocalypse theories were proved wrong. Earth did what She would; She chose life. If She was indifferent to the fate of humanity, She seemed unstoppable in her determination to restore health to Her forests and mountains and waters, as every new day seemed to bring a sprig or seedling of some species that was thought to be lost, or a flash of a silvery fish tail in the stream, or the sound of birdsong in the morning. And that’s when people started talking about a future, one in which the planet found a way to host the survivors.
Not everyone looked ahead, of course. There were those who gave up. Who believed it was only a matter of time before the Beaters prevailed or the blueleaf redoubled or the kaysev fell to winter frosts.
But the numbers of the hopeful were greater. Had been, anyway. People were hungry for leadership—that was why Bobby had risen so quickly and easily. No one opposed him; everyone was happy to defer to his natural ability to organize and encourage and parcel out tasks and resources and decide disputes.
But Bobby was dead.
They found his body on the rocks.
Cass’s heart contracted at the thought, and she leaned against the door frame, struggling under the weight of her guilt and the pain of yet another loss, when she heard the clatter.
It was muffled, but there was definitely the sound of crockery breaking on the floor, followed by cursing.
She didn’t wait. Her feet moved on their own; she flew down the hall past the conference room before her thoughts caught up, and by then it was too late to do anything but keep running. She took the corner fast. This was the worst of it, the place where she could be spotted by anyone looking in her direction. She heard the voices much more clearly now, as she flattened herself against the wall and slunk toward the door to the outside. When her fingers touched the metal bar of the door’s push mechanism, she took a chance and looked backward. Silhouetted against the light pouring into the hall from the door to the courtyard was her rescuer, holding a large plastic tub while several people knelt at his feet picking up broken dishes.
Cass took a deep breath and pushed against the door.
Before, it would have been electronically armed, but without electricity the security system was useless. Now the door had a bulky padlock, but it swung free, the arm looped through only one half of the device, and the door opened and Cass found herself in a pool of late-day sun that made her blink.
“I’m here. Come on, now.” Smoke’s voice, and then Smoke’s hand seized hers and pulled hard and she was running next to him, straining to keep up. Her eyes adjusted to the light and she saw that they were headed for the alley running behind the library and city hall, across the staff parking spaces and the bike rack, skirting a row of dead shrubs and abandoned cars.
Halfway down the alley was a low brick building with a flat roof, a restaurant of some kind. There was still a smell of rotting garbage that lingered even after all these months, and Cass—who had seen and smelled things a thousand times worse—found herself gagging on the smell as Smoke pulled her beneath an overhang of wood slats.
“Take this,” he said, handing her the pack that Elaine had taken from her. It was heavier than it had been the night before in the library.
“What’s in it?”
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“Supplies. Rations. Weapons. You can look later. For now, we need to put as much distance between us and them as we can before they find out we’re gone. And that’s going to be just a few minutes, I can pretty much guarantee it.”
Cass pulled the pack onto her shoulders and shrugged it into place.
“Can you handle the weight?”
“Yes—” Cass broke off when she saw that Smoke was holding a compact handgun. “Where the hell did you get that?”
“Our…benefactors,” Smoke muttered. “I wasn’t expecting it. Wish I could say I was confident I could use it.”
“You don’t know how to shoot?”
“I’ve shot some. When I was a kid. Rifles, mostly, duck hunting with my uncles. I know enough not to shoot myself or you by accident, let’s put it that way.”
Cass thought about what the stranger had told her, that Smoke had killed three men. Tried to imagine him staring down the barrel. Pulling the trigger. Found that it wasn’t that much of a stretch. There was something about him, some dormant powerful fury, that she could sense lurking under the surface. To her surprise, it didn’t frighten her. It almost seemed…familiar, a bitter mix of regret and deadly determination.
Cass herself could handle a gun. She had learned to shoot her dad’s .22 on a series of clear, cold January mornings when she was ten. She’d shot magazine pages nailed to trees, her father clapping her on the back and laughing whenever she hit one.
“I don’t suppose you have another, do you?”
“Sorry,” Smoke said. “But would you rather be the one to carry it?”
Cass raised her eyebrows, surprised that he was willing to put his safety in her hands. “Um, no, that’s okay.”
“Okay, well.” Smoke faltered. “Anyway, I’m hoping we won’t need it. We’re only going about three-quarters of a mile.”
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