Aftertime

by Sophie Littlefield

  “When we found out the Rebuilders were coming-a scout came first, so we knew-we sent all the girls-every female under sixteen-to the Convent.”

  The Convent… Cass remembered the words in Elaine’s hasty scrawl in the bathroom. “What is it-like a church?”

  Elaine laughed without humor. “Not like any church you’ve ever seen. Like a cult, I guess. I don’t really know. No one’s been in it. Once you go in, you don’t come out. No one I know about, anyway.”

  “Where is it?”

  “It’s up in San Pedro,” Elaine said.

  San Pedro: not too far from Sykes, where Sammi’s dad was. Maybe fifteen miles to the south. The girl’s heart-shaped face, her wide gold eyes, flashed through Cass’s mind-a promise she should never have made-but she didn’t have time to dwell on the girl now.

  “That’s forty miles from here.”

  Elaine nodded. “It’s in the old Miners stadium. They’ve taken over the whole damn thing, apparently.”

  “Who?”

  “These…women. They’re like, I don’t know, fundamentalists, I guess. Sort of Christian…but they have a lot of their own beliefs. Kind of whacked-out is what I hear, into some strange rituals and shit like that.”

  “And you sent the children there?” Cass tried and failed to keep the accusation from her voice. “You sent Ruthie?”

  “Yes, we did,” Elaine said, turning to face Cass head-on, and in a trick of the light, a bright beam from the sun that had just crested the roof of the library, her face was fully illuminated, and Cass saw the network of fine lines around her eyes, the deep groove between her eyebrows. The evidence of the toll the weeks had taken on this woman who had once been her friend. “And you would have, too. Because no matter what they’re doing with the girls at the Convent, what the Rebuilders do is far worse.”

  21

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN-” CASS ASKED, THE WORLD falling away from her, the air sucked from her throat. “What were they going to do?”

  – to my baby, my darling, the person I’d die for-

  “No one knows, Cass. Don’t lose your shit here, no one really knows.” Elaine stared straight ahead, sped up her pace, swung her arms as though she was racing against herself. “But there were rumors.”

  “What rumors?”

  “Quiet,” Elaine snapped, reaching for Cass’s arm. She dug her sharp fingernails into the soft flesh of her wrist, kept digging until tears sprang to Cass’s eyes and she finally, reluctantly, nodded. “Look, you can’t put too much stock in this. We don’t really know what’s going down in Colima. They keep us in the dark. You know, they have their propaganda…”

  “Just tell me.”

  “All right. The vaccine they were talking about? You know, against the fever? No one really thinks they can do that. But what they are trying to do is develop a test. To see if you’re immune or not. And people say they’re close.”

  “But what does that have to do with the children?”

  “They say they’re taking the kids and testing them first. The outliers are going to be raised together down there. Kind of a superresistant colony, get it? They’re going to get the best of everything-food, medicine, whatever it takes. They’re being raised drinking the Rebuilder Kool-Aid.”

  “But what happens to the ones who aren’t?”

  “No one knows. But it can’t be good, right?”

  Cass felt her blood go cold. “What do you mean…”

  “Look, Cass, they’re zealots. They use everything, twist everything for their purpose. I think some of them are even glad Before is gone, gives them a chance to reshape the world in their image. I mean, they’re not going to waste an opportunity just because it goes against what regular people think of as unacceptable.”

  “What, Elaine? Just say it-”

  “The rumor is they’re putting the rest of the kids to work. The ones who are old enough. They’re sending them out on raiding parties, into the buildings first, places an adult can’t or won’t go. They probably have them washing dishes and emptying latrines and carrying water, the things no one else wants to do. The slave labor jobs.”

  Cass felt faint with dismay. “But the babies-”

  “Who knows, Cass? Infirmary or cradle camp or something. Come on, they’re not going to let them starve. But you can bet they aren’t getting much attention. Probably just enough so they grow up to join the labor pool.”

  Cass slowed, her body going numb with the horror of it, but Elaine did not slow down. After a moment Cass had to jog a little to catch up. “You could be wrong… About all of it. I mean, you yourself said you don’t know.”

  “You’re right,” Elaine said. “I could be wrong. You want to take that chance? You think any mother here wanted to take that chance? That’s why we sent the ones away that we could.”

  “Their own children…”

  “Look, Cass, you haven’t seen the others. You wouldn’t recognize them. You want to know why I got this job? Why I’m a trusted member of the team around here?” The sarcasm in her voice was painful to hear. “Because I didn’t fall apart like some of the others. The parents. Do you want to know how many suicides we’ve had since then? No…you don’t. Trust me, you don’t. The Convent would only take the girls. The families with boys? They…”

  She shook her head, went silent. Cass walked beside her, making almost an entire lap, both of them lost to their thoughts.

  “The boys went with the Rebuilders,” Cass finally said. “The girls went to the Convent.”

  “Yes. That’s what I’ve been telling you. And you need to be grateful. Maybe they have to listen to Jesus talk morning, noon and night. Maybe they practice witchcraft or worship phases of the moon. Does it really matter? They’re safe. They’re safe enough for now, Cass, and that’s enough. That’s all we have anymore.”

  “But why didn’t the parents go with them? The mothers, at least-if they allow women-”

  “The Convent refused,” Elaine said. “Only the children. The Convent takes new acolytes sometimes but only the ones they feel are called. They wouldn’t take the mothers because they said they weren’t called to join, but the girls were still innocents, so they could. Their leader, this woman they have, she makes all these decisions. I don’t know, maybe she reads tea leaves or whatever, but she sent the word down. They took eleven girls. Ruthie was the youngest. The oldest was fifteen.”

  Ruthie, given away again…how many times in her short life had she been passed along to strangers? Cass felt the guilt and grief encroaching and gritted her teeth so hard her head pounded. “When did they take them?”

  “Almost three weeks ago. After the scout came…they took them the next morning.”

  “Who? Can I talk to them?” Maybe she could find out more about the Convent, maybe they could tell her how to get in, who to talk to, how Ruthie had done on the journey, if she was frightened or sad, if someone had been there to take care of her-anything, anything at all. “No, Cass,” Elaine snapped. “Don’t you get what a risk I’m taking just talking to you? I just wanted you to know. The best thing for everyone is for you to go tomorrow. Go down to Colima, be grateful-let them do their experiments and feed you and take care of you, and forget all about Ruthie.”

  Her voice broke at the end in a little choked sob, and Cass put a hand on her arm, forcing her to stop. Elaine shrugged it off, yanking her wrist back and rubbing furiously at her eyes.

  “What?” Cass demanded. “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” Elaine mumbled. “Nothing, okay? Only don’t you think-don’t you know-can you really-”

  Elaine looked wildly around and then Cass realized that her old friend longed to bolt, to leave Cass standing there, that only a sense of duty and fears about being watched kept her rooted to the spot. She was acting as though…a thought occurred to Cass.

  She had been gone two months. Two months was a long time, especially Aftertime. Time enough to grow attached to someone. “You took care of her, didn’t you,” she said softly.
“You took care of Ruthie.”

  Elaine wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Someone had to. You weren’t here.”

  “Oh…Elaine.” Cass said. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry. I’m-thank you. How can I ever thank you-all that time, and I-if you hadn’t been here for her-I got here as fast as I could. You have to know that.”

  “But you weren’t here after it happened.”

  “After I was attacked? I know, Elaine, and I-”

  “No!” Elaine spat. “No! Not you. You weren’t here for her after she was.”

  Dread bloomed in Cass’s gut. Oh, God…no. Not that-

  “When she was attacked! God damn it, Cass, don’t pretend you don’t remember!” Elaine spoke in a furious whisper. “I saw you watching! I saw you screaming when it happened. The whole time, when they were dragging you off-you were screaming her name and-”

  “I don’t remember!” Cass said, half pleading, half begging. “I don’t!”

  Elaine made a sound in her throat, a gasp of choked fury. “How many people are going to suffer for you? How many, Cass?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Elaine looked at her for a long moment, the anger slowly draining from her face, leaving her pale and tired looking.

  “What do you mean?” Cass repeated, whispering. Trembling, she let go of Elaine’s arm.

  “I’m sorry,” Elaine said after a moment. She had resumed the same stoic look that had apparently gotten her through the turbulent weeks past. “I shouldn’t have-I know you’ve suffered, too. I was out of line.”

  She started walking again, trudging more slowly than before. Cass kept pace, as they made a second pass around the courtyard.

  “Please, just tell me,” she begged. “I swear to you I don’t remember anything after-after I saw them coming, after the first one got to me. I remember throwing myself on top of Ruthie-”

  Because the Beaters had been loping and lurching, colliding with each other, tripping over each other in their mad rush to reach her. And she had covered Ruthie as well as she could, pushing her down, wishing she could send Ruthie into the ground where she could be cradled and protected by the earth itself.

  Elaine sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Well, you…they got to you and…took you. Four of them.”

  Cass nodded. By then, the Beaters had worked out a system. They didn’t fall upon their victims in the street anymore; they took them back to their nests, where they could devour them in peace. Four Beaters: each took a person’s arm or leg and then they hauled their victim away, taking care to keep their quarry from dragging on the ground, oblivious to their screams.

  “And then?”

  “There were two left. And then Bobby came running out.”

  Bobby? Cass racked her brain, trying to remember. Elaine at the door with a group of women, talking in the sunshine. But Bobby? Had he been there?

  “He heard you screaming. He ran out of the library,” Elaine went on. “You wouldn’t stop screaming Ruthie’s name and he ran to you. Everyone was yelling at him…but it was like he didn’t hear them, like he didn’t care. He was almost all the way to where you were when you…”

  “I what? I what?”

  “You were being dragged, but you were holding on to Ruthie and you screamed at him to take her.”

  Cass widened her eyes, incredulous. “But that means…”

  “He did. He got her,” Elaine said quietly. “He fought hard. He got between them and Ruthie, even though they were…they bit him. He held them off long enough for us to come and get her. Barbara and me. We waited until they were focused on him and then we ran and got her.”

  “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?