Into the Outside

by Lynda Engler

  “No. Cold – really cold.” She began shaking him. “Wake up, Davin, wake up!”

  Malcolm quickly took the boy’s wrist and checked his pulse. “Isabella, I don’t think he’s going to wake up. I’m so sorry, Belle, but he’s gone.”

  “No, he can’t be! He was getting better. His fever broke – he was supposed to get better…” She sat down hard in the chair and buried her face in her hands and began to sob.

  Malcolm placed Davin’s arms over his body and walked around to the other side of the bed. He took his wife’s hands in his and pulled her up, wrapping his arms around her gently.

  “It’s okay, Belle. He’ll be okay. His soul will go to Heaven. Maybe his mother is already there, waiting to welcome him. It’s okay.”

  Isabella wept openly and loudly, her tears soaking the front of Malcolm’s shirt.

  Violet came into the room with Shia and Andra behind her. “I heard someone crying.” She looked at the motionless boy on the bed. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Tears rolled silently down her face.

  Andra dropped the cat and ran to her brother’s side. “Davin! No, Davin, you can’t die. Mommy will be mad at me! Wake up!” Andra shook Davin’s lifeless body until Malcolm pulled her away.

  He picked up the crying girl and hugged her tightly. “Honey, it’s okay. Your mom isn’t mad at you. We all did what we could but sometimes this is just the way it is. Some children are just born weak and they don’t live long,” said Malcolm, trying to comfort the child.

  He turned to Isabella and said, “I lost two babies before Shia was born; I’ve been through this before. But it never gets any easier.” He held the three year old in his arms, holding her tightly and hugging her small body, trying to console her and himself at the same time.

  “But he was my only brother. Now I have no one – just Pumpkin,” said Andra, very quietly, her sobs ended but her grief only just begun.

  “Not true – you have all of us,” interjected Violet from the doorway.

  “That’s right,” said Isabella, wiping away her own tears with the back of her hand. “You have me and Malcolm and the whole tribe – the whole community – now.”

  “And me,” said Shia. “Don’t forget me. I’m your big sister now and my Papa is your Papa too.” Shia wasn’t crying. She had been lucky in her few years, never having seen another child die and she really didn’t understand what was happening. This wasn’t the same as when her mother died. Everyone knew old people died. Perhaps she would cry later for the little boy she had barely known.

  “Andra, Shia, Belle, we’ll stick together… as a family,” said Malcolm.

  Andra smiled through her tears and hugged her new father. “Good bye Davin. I still love you.”

  * * *

  Luke woke in his small room at Picatinny Arsenal the next morning to a knock on the door. A young, female soldier in camouflage fatigues entered and the door locked behind her. She said, “I brought you breakfast.”

  She placed the tray on the table as Luke sat up in bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  “Thanks,” he said sleepily.

  She nodded and said, “I’ve been ordered to inform you that after your week of isolation, you will be returned to your shelter via military transport. I will be the only one allowed in your room for the next week, to keep the risk of contagion to a minimum, so if there is anything you require, let me know and I’ll try to get it for you.”

  Luke replied, “Um, yeah, it’s going to be pretty boring here for a week. Can you bring me something to read? And a drum set. I’d like a drum set please.” He smiled wickedly at the young soldier.

  But the girl did not see the humor in his request. “No drums available, sorry,” she said in complete seriousness. “I can bring you reading material. What kind?”

  Luke told her he liked survivalist fiction and adventure stories and she nodded.

  “Oh, and I need to talk to Colonel Ericson. It’s urgent and important,” he added.

  “I can get him a message,” she replied as she turned to the door and keyed a code on the keypad next to it.

  “Tell him I need to talk to him about my sister, and I need to talk to him directly, not through a lackey. No offense.”

  “None taken,” she said and left his room.

  “Damn boring place,” Luke muttered to her back as the door locked behind her.

  Luke was quite surprised a few moments after he began eating his breakfast that Colonel Ericson arrived at his room. He honestly didn’t think that a commanding officer would come at a kid’s request.

  “What can I do for you Luke? Make it quick, I’m a busy man,” he said gruffly.

  “You’ve got to go find my sister, please! I’m worried she caught TB like I did and she’ll die out there without drugs,” Luke pleaded with the old soldier.

  “Luke, I really don’t have the manpower to go searching for a runaway who not only doesn’t want to be found, but won’t return home even if we do find her. She’s honestly not my problem, or my concern. I told you before, she’s a write off.” The old man shook his head, as if he were truly sad that the human race had lost a perfectly good piece of female breeding stock and was reaching for the keypad when Luke grabbed the Colonel’s arm and turned the old man toward him.

  “Listen to me!” he shouted into the soldier’s face.

  “Let go of me, you insolent child,” said Ericson and pulled his arm away from the teenager.

  “Just go get her! You need to bring her here and test her for that damn coughing disease, old man! I thought you said you were my grandfather’s friend. How can you just let her die out there?” Luke was just short of screaming hysterically at the old fool. He had chased after Isabella, trying to save her and now this old man was writing her off and sending him home. He had failed in his mission, but he couldn’t give up yet. He wouldn’t give up.

  The decorated soldier stood ramrod straight and put his arms behind his back, grasping his wrists. He was only an inch taller than Luke, but about 50 pounds heavier than the gangly teenager. He looked Luke in the eye and relented. “Okay son, I’ll send a small team out to round her up. I’m pretty sure she’s up there at Telemark, the mutant community by the lake. We’ll bring her in, by force if necessary and test her, inoculate her and treat her for anything else she’s picked up. But no promises on anything further. She will resist and she won’t go home. She’ll want to stay with the mutants and she might as well. She’s a drain on resources since she’s not fit for reproduction anymore.”

  Luke resisted the urge to throttle the bigger man for being so unfeeling but instead just breathed out, “Thank you for not letting her die.”

  “Think of it as a favor for an old class mate. Tony was a nice guy. I can do that much for his granddaughter.” The Colonel turned and left, satisfied he had done his good deed for the day. The door sealed behind him with a click.

  Luke hoped they could find Isabella within the next five days before they sent him home. At least he would get to see her and warn her of the danger she was in if she opted to stay with the mutants. If they shipped him off before they found her, perhaps he could leave a warning with Nurse Lady Anderson.

  He decided to ask for note paper and an envelope and write Izzy a letter explaining everything, all the trouble he had gone through to find her, the danger she faced if she left again with the mutant tribe, everything. He might even sign it with an “I love you Sis,” even if she was the biggest pain in the ass in the world.

  * * *

  Davin’s body was washed and wrapped in white cloth, every bit of it except his face, then placed on the bed on a wool blanket. In the custom of Violet’s people, she placed corn flour on Davin’s face and said a traditional Navajo prayer for the dead. The people of Telemark had incorporated many traditions into their daily lives, drawing on their Native American, European, Asian and African roots. The rest of the day was spent with various visitors coming to Oberon and Violet’s home to say prayers, give their condolences and e
ven perform ritual dances.

  The following morning, the little boy’s body was placed on a board covered with another blanket then taken to the graveyard for a farewell service.

  The men of Malcolm’s tribe – Kaedo, Guy, Garith and Malcolm himself – acted as pallbearers. They carried the board with Davin’s body solemnly to the cemetery. Isabella walked behind them, each of her hands grasping one little girl’s hand. Overhead, the clouds had grown thick, as if heavily weighted with grief themselves.

  “The pallbearers are the only ones that are allowed to handle or touch the body and the grave during the service,” Violet explained to Isabella and the girls as they walked. “They are secluded from all other members of the community before the funeral, then, of course, they must be cleansed after the service. Last night some older boys dug the grave – you’ll see it soon.”

  The ground was hard and dry, even a bit dusty. It had not rained since the night they arrived in Dover. That was six or seven days ago – Isabella couldn’t remember. The last few days had all run together. She didn’t even know what day of the week it was anymore. It no longer seemed to matter.

  The funeral procession topped a hill and Isabella saw a huge cemetery spreading out below. Grave markers of all types grew out of the hillside like weeds along an abandoned road. There were stone and marble headstones from before the wars and newer wooden carvings and crosses formed of white wood. As the procession slowly walked down the hill, they reached the new hole dug last night. A large group of people from the community waited there and parted to allow the four men of Malcolm’s tribe admission to the grave.

  A short man, his head shaved bald except for a small circle of hair at the top of his head, stood at the head of the grave. He wore a homespun robe, coal black in color and reaching nearly to the ground and his feet were clad in leather sandals. A wooden crucifix hung around his neck. The pallbearers moved closer to the grave, which had a thin frame of wood across the top of the hole. The bald religious man – was he a monk? – motioned the men to lower the blanket-covered board to rest on the frame.

  Davin looked so tiny laying on top of the colorful blanket, as if he was just asleep, his features calm and expressionless, his skin a yellowish-white from the corn flour. But knowing the little boy would never wake from this slumber, Isabella began to sob uncontrollably, all her grief and fears tumbling out in a great torrent. Others in the crowd also wept, but once the monk began to speak, his voice resounding in the heavy air, the crowd quieted.

  “Blessed be God, Jehovah, Yahweh, Allah, the Triple Goddess and Great Spirit – hear our prayer! One so young among us has passed from this life into the next. Weak on Earth, we pray to you that he will be strong in Heaven. We pray to you to open the glorious gates of Paradise to admit young Davin into your realm. We pray to you to take care of him always, give him strength, happiness and love. We pray to you to reunite him with loved ones already passed. Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth, hear our prayer.”

  The rest of the ceremony was conducted in silence. The monk mimed to Malcolm and Guy to tie a rope to each corner of the wooden frame, while Kaedo and Garith moved to opposite sides of the grave. Malcolm grabbed one set of ropes and Guy held the other while Kaedo and Garith pulled the supportive framework out from under the board. In unison, Malcolm and Guy slowly lowered the board cradling Davin’s body into the hole until it rested on the dirt six feet beneath.

  Isabella wasn’t sure if Malcolm’s people practiced the same sort of funeral rights, but the tribe appeared to know what they were doing. Perhaps the monk, or priest, whatever he was, had briefed the four men of the Calloway tribe on the procedures while they had been sequestered this morning before the ceremony.

  The men of Malcolm’s tribe looked so strong, not just in body, but in spirit. Not a single tear was shed between them.

  The black robed man handed Malcolm a white branch, carefully stripped of its bark and roughly the same length as Davin’s body. Malcolm raised the stick high into the sky, then broke the branch in two even halves before tossing the broken segments into the grave, on top of Davin.

  In a deep voice, the monk intoned, “It is done! His spirit has been released from his body and now ascends into Heaven. Farewell sweet child and Godspeed.” Those closest to Davin in life came forward and walked once around the grave counter clockwise, sprinkling handfuls of dirt into the grave. Then the pallbearers took shovels and filled the hole, covering Davin’s body, the blanket and the stick with six feet of soil.

  Andra said quietly, “I’ll love you forever, Davin.” They were the same words Chloe had said to her children when they left her in the woods.

  The people began the long walk back to Telemark and Isabella followed along, numb and in slow-motion, but still holding Andra and Shia’s hands. Others talked quietly as they walked, but not Isabella or the girls. The clouds loomed as heavy as Isabella’s heart.

  When they arrived back at the Chief’s house, they were told that the house and the pallbearers had to be cleansed with smoke. Heals-with-Hands had arrived first and began burning incense in clay pots throughout the house. She now held a pot of burning incense under the face of each of the four men from Malcolm’s tribe and circled around them. Once the medicine woman was done with her task, she pronounced everyone purified and they could now join the community as they gathered for a meal. The immediate family members ate inside, but others had brought food and sat outside the home – over a hundred people sat on the grass, on rocks and on logs, all celebrating Davin’s passage into the next realm. They sang, they danced, some prayed, but everyone looked genuinely happy. Even the clouds evaporated from the sky.

  “I don’t understand,” said Isabella to Violet as she helped ladle out soup from a large pot on the stove. “Why are they so happy? They all seemed so sad at the grave, but now… they’re dancing!”

  “It is a joyful occasion. Death is sorrowful but the afterlife should be met with joy. By dancing and singing, they are sending their prayers to Davin’s spirit as it floats up to Heaven. They want him to be happy there – if they were sad now, Davin could spend all eternity unhappy.”

  Never having experienced a religious service before, Isabella was awed by the emotions and good wishes of so many people, most of whom had not even met the little boy. Yet they all seemed to care. The people Outside continued to surprise Isabella every day.

  Twenty-One

  The day after Davin’s funeral, Isabella Bellardini moved into her first above ground house.

  “It’s your own dwelling, Belle,” said Malcolm, as they walked through the front door. “Do you like it?”

  “I love it,” she forced a smile while looking around at the log cabin.

  Oberon walked around, inspecting the home one last time, like a cattle rancher about to turn over his best heifer. “This cabin was last lived in by a young couple who bore and raised three children in this home. They were happy here. But they’ve passed on now. It’s been vacant for at least a year.” He showed them each of the three large bedrooms. “I thought it would be perfect. Your two little girls could share a room, giving Davin the smaller bedroom.” But that wasn’t going to happen now, his unspoken words said loudly.

  I would have liked that, thought Isabella sadly.

  Oberon nodded at the young family before leaving.

  Shia and Andra ran around the house exploring, giggling and jumping on the furniture. “Good to see you happy. So, who wants the bigger room?” asked Isabella, finally capturing both little squirmers, each of her hands firmly placed on an excited girl’s head.

  “I do!” the girls shouted in stereo.

  “Let them stay together, Belle,” suggested Malcolm gently.

  Of course, thought Isabella. Andra probably won’t be comfortable staying alone without her little brother, especially at night. She wanted to make this a comfortable and homey place for her new family.

  The girls ran into the middle bedroom and Isabella looked into Malcolm’s deep green eyes
. “I’m afraid I underestimated how hard the Outside world would be.” Malcolm hugged her to his chest and she went on, her words almost lost in his big frame. “All these years I longed for adventure and love… and even a corny desire to change the world.” She tilted her head up at him and forced a weak smile to her face. “I never imagined gruesome Eater attacks. But losing Davin was so much worse than that. I never expected to love a child, so thoroughly and so quickly; and then to lose him so unexpectedly. Is this what it really means to live Outside?”

  “Oh my sweet Belle,” said Malcolm quietly. He hugged her tightly until she stopped shaking.

  Their new house was one block from the community’s library where Isabella planned to teach some of the community members how to read. She truly hoped running the new school would be a distraction from her sorrow because she couldn’t go on being this sad for very long.

  She started her lessons with the youngest children the very next day. The four Calloway tribe kids and about ten children from Telemark, all under eight years old, piled into the main room of the library for their first reading lesson. They gathered on the floor in a disorganized crowd, some sitting Indian style, others leaning on a wall and one little boy lay sprawled on the floor, propped up on his elbow. But they all attended to their new teacher’s words.

  Isabella began with the alphabet, alternatively showing them written letters and singing the song her grandmother had taught her when she was just a little girl. The kids were delighted with the singing and by the end of the two-hour lesson, most could identify the majority of written letters. Isabella remembered her own confusion over “b” and “d” and smiled when they made the same errors. The Telemark children never seemed to get frustrated; they only laughed when they made mistakes and tried again.

  She could feel bits of her sadness drain away with each small child’s giggle.

  * * *

  For four days, Luke read everything that the soldier girl brought him, he did sit ups and pushups, he ate meals at the little table in his room and was even escorted down the hall to a shower once. But he was utterly bored. He knew that Colonel Ericson was going to send out troops to find Isabella, he even knew that the Colonel was pretty sure he knew exactly where Izz was, yet he had heard nothing about his sister. Time was wearing on his soul and he was going stir crazy just waiting.