by Hakok, R. A.
THERE’S A SOUND FROM BACK IN THE DARKNESS, faint, like I think I remember the flutter of birds’ wings, and when I swing the flashlight around others are appearing from among the shelves. They take up positions all around me, by sofas or armchairs or backed against the wall. Others hop up on the counter, like it’s nothing to them. Some are small, little bigger than the kid. With the exception of maybe Vince none seem older than I am. They keep coming, one after another, until I count maybe twenty.
When the last of them has emerged I turn back around. Vince is standing right in front of me now. I take a half-step backwards, surprised by his sudden proximity. I hadn’t heard him step closer.
‘So y’all are the one the prisoners been out looking for.’ The smile disappears and his face creases into a frown, like something’s troubling him. He leans in, tilts his head, like he’s testing the air, then looks over at the girl. ‘Why ain’t he more afraid of us, Cass?’
My brain’s still trying to come to terms with what I’m seeing, but I realize he’s right. My heart’s doing a little giddy-up, for sure, but there’s something else, another feeling, for the most part keeping the fear in check. It takes me a moment to recognize what it is.
Relief. I’m almost light-headed with it. The stuff with Mags and the kid, I’ve had it all wrong. They’re not sick anymore, not like Marv was. They’re on their way to becoming whatever Vince and Cass and all these others are.
The girl with the pink hair shrugs, like she could care less. She takes to studying a fingernail that’s already been bitten back to the quick.
‘I dunno, Vince. Could be he’s too dumb to realize the fix he’s in.’
The once called Vince looks me up and down, like he’s considering this.
‘Could be, Cass, could be. He sure don’t look that bright, even for a warmblood.’ He glances around, as though waiting for a reaction from the others. ‘Tall enough though, ain’t he?’ He leans back on his heels, cups one hand to his mouth. ‘Hey, up there! Y’all got a name?’
I shake myself from my stupor, manage to stammer out an answer.
‘Gabriel. Gabe.’
He stares up at me for a moment, like he’s considering that. I feel like I should say something. I have so many questions, but my mind’s still running ’round in herky-jerky circles, which makes it hard to put them in any sort of order.
‘What are…I mean, how did you come to be this way?’
The one called Vince holds my gaze a second longer then turns to the girl with the pink hair.
‘Where’s this guy been, Cass?’
She doesn’t look up from her fingernails.
‘Hidin’ out inside a mountain, Vince.’
I open my mouth to ask how she knows that, then close it again. Vince has slipped his finger through the trigger guard on Hicks’ pistol and has taken to spinning it, slow lazy rotations, first this way then that. It seems like I should pay attention to that.
‘So waddya think, should we hand him over to them?’
Cass just shakes her head.
‘You could, Vince, but it’d be a mistake. I keep telling you: the prisoners, they ain’t a problem. Hell, they don’t even know for sure we exist. That’d soon change if you give this one to them, though. You can be sure he’d tell them where we’re at, too.’
Vince’s face scrunches into a scowl and he glares at me, like I’ve already done the thing I’ve been accused of.
‘What should we do with him, then? Give him to the crazies?’
Crazies? I look over at Cass, but she’s already shaking her head.
‘You don’t want to get them any more riled up than they already are.’
Vince stops twirling the pistol for a second and looks at her.
‘I ain’t afraid of their kind.’
She flicks the hair from in front of her face
‘I never said you was. All the same.’ She hesitates a moment then looks up from her fingers, cuts a glance at the pistol. ‘You let me have that back, I’ll take care of him for you.’
Vince looks at her.
‘Y’all would?’
She takes a step closer, nodding quickly.
‘You were right about this one, Vince; I can see it now. He’s different. Pokin’ his nose in where it don’t belong; stealin’ our stuff; wavin’ his gun around at us.’
A slow smile spreads across Vince’s lips, like he likes the way that sounds. I start to explain I hadn’t been looking for them; that me stumbling in here was just chance. He swings the pistol in my direction so fast it makes my head spin.
‘Now y’all just need to stay quiet while us grown-ups discuss this.’ He looks back at the girl. ‘Sorry about that, Cass. Rude. Go on, now.’
‘Like I said, Vince, you had it right, before. I should’ve just let you deal with him, with all of them, back when we had the chance.’
Vince waits a moment, like he’s thinking on it, then he tosses her the gun. She catches it effortlessly then waves it in the direction of the door, like whatever she has planned for me, she’s anxious to be getting on with it.
‘Alright, let’s go.’
I open my mouth, meaning to protest my innocence again. I get rewarded with a jab of the pistol to my ribs. Not hard enough to hurt, but the speed of it surprises me. I step towards the door. As I pass Vince he leans in. His nostrils flare and then his face creases into a smile.
‘Hey, Cass - I think he’s finally startin’ to get it.’
*
OUTSIDE IT’S ALREADY FULL DARK; the cold bites before I’ve even stepped through the door. My snowshoes are where I left them, up against the wall. Cass pokes around in the snow a little further along, then picks up what looks like a tennis racket, the bindings improvised out of duct tape. Her fingers are bare, but if the temperature bothers her she shows no sign of it. She bends to retrieve another then drops both to the ground and steps into them.
Vince appears in the doorway behind me.
‘Where y’all bringin’ him?’
‘The railway line.’
‘Why don’t y’all just do it right here?’
‘Really? You wanna have to step over him every time we go outside?’
Vince scratches his head, like he’s considering this. The thought of him stepping over my frozen corpse brings home to me the trouble I’m in, and I feel the first quickening tendrils of panic wrap themselves around my insides, urging me to bolt. I take a deep breath, push the fear back down. I wouldn’t make it more than a half-dozen paces. I’ll go along with the girl, for now. Wherever she means to take me, I have a better chance away from the rest of them.
I step into my snowshoes without waiting for an instruction. Vince watches me. He waits till I’m done tightening the straps, then points at my feet.
‘Hold up now. Fancy snowshoes like that are hard to come by. It’s not far to the fence. He can walk it.’
Cass gives a little shake of her head, sighs.
‘Alright, you heard him.’
I bend down and unsnap the bindings, step out of them. My boots sink into the snow, but not too deep; the trailer provides a measure of shelter and in front of the building the snow hasn’t had the chance to drift. I stamp my feet, anxious now to get moving. It won’t be long before the cold makes my limbs unreliable, and however I plan to escape, I need to do it before that happens. Cass waves the pistol into the darkness, motioning me on. I wind the flashlight and set off, following the direction she’s indicated. Vince and the rest of them hang back by the door, watching.
Beyond the trailer the snow deepens. Within a few paces it’s above the tops of my boots; I have to lift my knees high to clear the drifts. It’s an effort, but at least it’ll keep my muscles warm, least for a while. I risk a glance behind me. Cass isn’t close enough that I might try reaching the gun.
And you think if she were you could take it from her?
I might not care to hear it, but a part of me knows the voice is right. I’ve seen how quick she is. I’ll have to be sm
arter than that. I wait till I reckon we’re far enough from the others then I stop, pretending like I need to get my breath back.
‘So what are you, exactly?’
I say it mostly for something to say, to get a conversation going while I come up with a plan. But even as I hear the words I realize part of me desperately needs to know. Satisfying my curiosity doesn’t seem to be high on Cass’s list of priorities, however. She just tilts her head and shows me the gun, like Really, this is what you want to talk about, now?
I start forward again.
‘But you’re some kind of fury, though, right?’
I don’t expect a response; my brain’s already trying to come up with something else to say that might distract her. This time her answer comes back quick, however, and now there’s an edge to it.
‘Wrong.’
I stop again, like I need another rest. I try to turn around so I can face her, but the snow’s up around my knees and it’s too much effort. I look over my shoulder. She’s a little closer, maybe, but still keeping her distance. I don’t know how much farther the railway line is, but whatever I’m planning on doing, I’ll have to get to it soon. The fingers that grip the flashlight are already starting to ache with the cold.
‘You must have been once, though, to be the way you are.’
She brings the pistol up, in a single fluid motion. It happens too fast for me to see it, but I hear a click as the hammer cocks.
‘You’re just as dumb as all the rest of them.’
I’m not sure who the rest of them might be but I jerk my hands up, worried she means to shoot me right here.
‘Sorry!’ I pause, trying to choose my next words carefully, worried they might be my last. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it, really. I don’t understand how it works, any of it. I want to, though. I have these friends…’
The gun drops a fraction.
‘The one you call Johnny?’
I want to ask how she knows about the kid, but it seems like she might be about to tell me something else, something more important, and I don’t want to interrupt her.
‘He’ll be fine. It’s not him you should be worrying about right now.’
‘How…how do you know?’
I wait for an answer, but I don’t get one, so instead I search for something else to say, a line of questioning less likely to get me shot. Maybe it’s the cold - I can feel its barbs sinking into me now, slowing me down - but I can’t think of anything. I raise my hands a little higher.
‘So I get that you weren’t a fury. You must have been infected, though, right? I mean, to be the way you are.’
She doesn’t say anything for a moment.
‘I was. I’m not any more.’
‘But, how?’
‘That thing with the sky.’ She shrugs her shoulders. ‘I don’t remember much more than how bright it was. But when I came to I wasn’t sick anymore. None of us were.’
She pokes me in the ribs with the gun again.
‘Alright, Gabriel, question time’s over. Start movin’.’
The snow’s settled around my legs and it takes longer than it ought to work my boots free. When I finally manage it I set off again, lumbering through the drifts in the direction she indicates. I’m shivering inside my parka now, in spite of the effort it takes to keep moving. Cass isn’t exactly dressed for the outdoors, but if the cold’s bothering her she gives no sign of it.
‘S-so, are there more…more of you, then?’
She shakes her head.
‘We’re all there is.’
The virus does its work quick, I know that; there’s only a small window between being infected and turning. What Kane did to the skies would have had to coincide with that. Still, though; something about what she’s said doesn’t seem right.
‘Isn’t…isn’t that s-strange?’
‘What do you mean?’
I don’t answer her right away. I sense we’re getting close to wherever she means to take me, and I need to draw her in. This might be my last chance.
‘It j-just doesn’t seem enough. N-not for a city…the s-size of Durham.’
She goes quiet and for a while I’m not sure I’m going to get an answer. I shuffle around to face her. Her eyes narrow at the flashlight, but she doesn’t look away. The gun’s pointed square between my shoulder blades; behind it her expression has hardened. I begin to suspect I’ve made a terrible mistake continuing with my questions.
‘There used to be more of us, but then the soldiers came. They didn’t care; they hunted us down, just the same as the crazies. First winter took care of them, though; took care of all of you. Your kind aren’t a threat to us anymore. There’s only a handful of you left now, hanging on to life outta little more than habit. Soon enough you’ll be gone.’
She gestures for me to move on.
My teeth are chattering, and I don’t seem able to stop them. I start to tell her what I was trying to explain to Vince, back inside: I wasn’t looking for her, or any of them. I was on my way to The Greenbrier, to trade the prisoners for a medicine for Mags and the kid. A pointless errand, seeing as it turns out neither of them need it. I don’t get very far into the story before she cuts me off.
‘Save your breath. I’m not interested.’
I lift a boot from the snow, stumble forward. Somewhere in the darkness ahead I think I hear the creak of fence wire, and when I point the flashlight that way it finds a stretch of chain-link. There’s a section right in front where it’s been breached, the diamonds cut, pulled back to create a gap.
I feel the panic rising up inside me as I realize this must be where she means to do it. I freeze, trying to think of something to say, anything to make her change her mind. Something hard jabs into the space between my ribs.
‘Quit stallin’.’
I shuffle forward until I can feel the snow crumbling under the toes of my boots.
‘Okay, that’s far enough.’
I point the flashlight down but there’s nothing, just a black chasm into which the snow twists and tumbles. This is it, then. The end of the road. I meant to do something, to fight, to run, but I’ve left it too late. There’ll be no struggle. No last-minute attempt to overpower my executioner, to wrest the pistol from her grip. I can’t even turn to face her; my boots are wedged too deep in the snow. I hold my arms out.
‘Listen, Cass, y-you don’t have to do this. Just…just let me go and I p-promise, you’ll never…’
I don’t even get to finish the sentence. There’s a bang, shockingly loud, and something hits me hard, right between the shoulder blades, knocking the wind from me. My mouth opens in surprise, even as the force of it pitches me forward.
And then I’m falling, breathless, into darkness.
*
NOW, YOU COULD SAY I’M NOT OLD ENOUGH to know for sure, but I reckon there are moments in your life you don’t ever forget, no matter how long you live. You take those snapshots because the thing that happened in that moment is significant, remarkable. It can be something good; something you desperately want to cling to. Or the opposite: something so terrible your mind just won’t let go, much as you might wish for it. Memories like that don’t fade, or dim, because every time you call them up the details get etched a little deeper, until each is a record cut so deep it will endure a lifetime. I have a few of them. Sprinting hand in hand with Mags across the White House lawn on the Last Day. The first time she kissed me, on the roof of the mess, back in Eden. My first glimpse of the fury in Mount Weather’s tunnel, bounding towards me out of the darkness.
One of those moments is from the farmhouse outside Eden, the place Marv and I would visit, before we’d head out scavenging. I didn’t know it then, but it was the last time I’d be there with him. He was sitting opposite me in the kitchen. There was a pistol on the table between us, wrapped in a Ziploc bag. I was afraid, certain he was about to shoot me with it. A question had popped into my head, nevertheless; in the circumstances a stupid, pointless curiosity. I’d read
somewhere, in a book or maybe a magazine, I forget now, how you never hear the shot that kills you. Something to do with the bullet travelling faster than the sound it makes.
These shots I hear just fine.
The pistol booms a second time, even as I’m falling. A third shot follows, fast on its heels, and an instant later something hits me, hard, like a hammer, from a direction I wasn’t expecting. The impact is even more shocking than the first. I feel something inside me give, even as the force of it spins me around. I open my mouth, but there’s no air left in my lungs to give voice to the cry. My shoulder bounces off something unyielding and I land heavily. Pain explodes up the side where the second bullet found me, sending starbursts swirling and exploding across my vision. The sheer magnitude of it threatens to overwhelm me.
Another shot rings out, but I don’t even have it in me to flinch. I just lie there, like a stood-on bug, waiting for the bullet to find me. A pause, a final shot, and then a thud, directly above. Snow rains down on my head and then it grows quiet, save for the crunch of powder beneath me as I rock back and forwards, trying to force air into my lungs. Each attempt sends a fresh spike of pain down my side, but I can’t stop; the need to breathe again overrides everything else.
After what seems like an eternity I manage a shallow, hiccupped breath, then another. My mind switches to the task of gathering reports of the damage I’ve suffered. The pain isn’t so bad where I got hit first, between my shoulder blades, but rather worryingly I think I can feel something wet trickling down my spine there. The real action’s coming from my side, however. The pain there is medieval; it feels like someone’s jammed a pry bar between my ribs, spread them, then ripped my lungs out through the gap between.
For a while I just lie there, rocking back and forth, mouth agape, marveling that somehow I’m still alive. The cold seeps inside my parka, wraps itself around me. It’s oddly soothing. Little by little the pain starts to recede, becoming almost distant.
I know what comes next, though. I can’t stay here. I need to find shelter; I’ve already been outside too long.
I lift my head from the snow. I’m not even sure where I am; it’s too dark to make out anything. The flashlight’s still tethered to my wrist, but I don’t want to wind it. Cass might still be up there, considering whether she needs to come down and finish me off. Instead I reach out a hand, grope around in the snow. There’s an excruciating reminder from my side that all is not well there; I have to push my face into the snow to stifle a cry.