Life Sentence

by Kim Paffenroth

  My mom looked back at me and smiled. She was always so busy at home, I knew she liked going out like this. She didn't even have her hair in a ponytail, and it cascaded, unfettered, behind her in the breeze. Such a concession to being carefree always meant she was feeling happy. Even with a few streaks of grey, she still had the most beautiful brown hair, especially compared to my dull, black locks, which neither curled nor shone like hers. I was glad she was looking so happy.

  We turned left down a road, and after a little ways we came to a bridge across a small river. The bridge had collapsed into the water, and logs had been washed down in successive floods to accumulate around the partially sunken, crisscrossing bands of metal. We turned right to follow a smaller road alongside the river. For a while we were under trees, which felt nice, as the rest of the ride had been under the warm, early summer sun. Then we came out from under the canopy into an overgrown parking lot by the river. The river at this point was backed up behind a small dam, over which it spilled; on the opposite side of the river you could see the remains of a run and a mill building that had used the falling water for power.

  We parked our bikes and looked around. There was a line of trees next to the water, but otherwise the area was open on this side of the river. There were the remains of a small building at the far end of the parking lot, and you could still see the metal frames for swings and slides sticking up out of the grass. There were some picnic tables made out of concrete under the trees, and we put our stuff on one. I had my jacket and I draped it over the concrete bench; the HK 9mm was in one pocket and the magazine was in the other. Mom didn't know about that yet, but out here especially I knew to have it nearby.

  We took the two cloth sacks we had brought and started looking for strawberries. We'd been to this field before, so we knew there were lots here, and we weren't disappointed. Oddly, strawberries were one of the things every old-timer swore was better in the old days, even though food in general was something which many found to be superior now. Older people would go on about how much better milk tasted now, or how much bigger and juicier blackberries or corn were now, but apparently human agricultural science had found one of its few victories with the strawberry; I thought it was strange that that was the best they'd been able to do, but I was also sure allowances had to be made for the faultiness and selectivity and wishfulness of people's memories. Either way, the small, bright red berries seemed fine to me, as tart and firm as they were. But long before we had exhausted the supply to be picked, we had worn out our backs; strawberries are one of the worst things to pick, since you're either doubled over, or on your knees the whole time. We grimaced, then laughed as we stood up and went back to the picnic table to rest and have lunch.

  Mom and I ate some of the berries we'd picked as we got out our lunch-crumbly bread and hard-boiled eggs again. We'd brought our own water, as the river could be muddy this time of year, and there were enough animals out here that giardia was always a worry, especially with runoff into bigger streams like this river. We ate in the shade and listened to the water cascade over the dam.

  "It used to take just a few minutes to get here by car when I was little," Mom said. She could get wistful, too, like Mr. Caine, but now she seemed mostly happy as she ran her hand over the gritty top of the picnic table. "We'd have picnics here when I was little, with my parents. And when I was bigger, like in high school, this is where you'd go when you wanted to be alone, you know, with other kids."

  "With boys?" I mostly wondered about them to myself, but since she'd brought it up, I thought maybe I could get some more information on the mysterious other half of humanity.

  She blushed, but not as much as I thought she might. "Well, yes. Things were different back then."

  "Boys were different?"

  She smiled. "Um, no. I'm afraid boys will never change much. But yes, when I was a little bigger than you, sometimes I'd like to be alone with a boy."

  "What did you do then? Did you, you know, kiss? Was that different back then?"

  She looked a little shocked, but she also smiled. "Zoey! And what do you know about kissing boys?"

  Now it was my turn to blush, and with my skin, which I was convinced was so gross and ugly, I knew the florid pink showed a lot more and a lot less attractively on me than it had on my mom. "Just, you know, kids talk about it, that you're supposed to do it."

  She watched me as she nodded and chewed slowly. "Well, yes, when I was your age, and a little bigger, people would talk about kissing all the time, how important it was that you do it. So I guess that part isn't very different. And people talk a lot about things they know very little about, Zoey. I think that's the same now, too. You shouldn't ever do something just because people are talking about how you're supposed to."

  "I know, Mom."

  "I know you do. You'll be fine. Those little shits-pardon my French, but they still make me so upset-all beat you up when you were little. I don't think anytime soon you'll be doing anything for them because they tell you that you're ‘supposed' to."

  I smiled, not at the real content of what she was saying, but at the funny expression about French; I wondered if there was anyone left anywhere who still spoke French. I doubted it.

  "But anyway, what I meant is how different it was when we'd come here to be alone, because when you left town back then, this was about the first place you'd come to where there weren't many people. The whole way out here there were restaurants and gas stations and houses and you'd see people and cars everywhere; and just now we came all the way out and didn't see anyone. And back then, there'd have been a bunch of people even way out here, especially in the summer. If we were here back then, the parking lot would be full. There'd be hundreds of people here, more than we have in our whole community."

  I nodded. I was more interested in boys, but I hardly wanted to press the point, and she had put some of my questions into perspective. "It doesn't sound so nice, when you talk about it that way."

  "Hmm, I suppose not-not to someone who's not used to those kinds of crowds. But it was nice, in a way. Like when all different people were having picnics-my gosh, the things you'd hear and see and smell. I would walk around while my parents fixed lunch, and I could go walk all around here for several minutes without hearing any English, just all kinds of other languages. And the food-I mean, we'd have sandwiches, and some other people would have other regular stuff like hamburgers, but I'd also smell curry and lamb and chili and all kinds of spices I didn't know, things I'd never expect to see at a picnic. I remember Indian women in their colorful saris, and one time, over on the other side of the parking lot, I saw a whole crowd of maybe thirty people, all facing the same way. I thought they were posing for a group photo. Then they all fell to their knees at the same time. They were Muslims, and it was time for their prayers. I sometimes wonder if there are any Indians or Muslims left anywhere. Do you ever think of that?"

  I nodded. In school, Mom taught us Spanish, and Mr. Caine did the best he could to teach French-though he admitted it wasn't what he was good at; I often wondered how many other languages were now gone forever, every last speaker of them reduced to mute undeath. But most of the time, speculating about what might have happened to other people made little sense when we were busy enough here.

  She shook her head. "I hope there are. I miss all those wonderful differences between people. It's just that life is so plain now." She smiled and ruffled my hair with her hand. "Except you. You're as fancy and beautiful as anything I ever need."

  I frowned and pouted. That summer I could be insufferable, which I half-realized even at the time. "Stop it, Mom. My hair and my skin and everything looks funny. I wish I looked different. And I know after the vows, I'll look even worse."

  "No, you stop it. We just talked about not listening to what stupid kids say who don't know anything."

  There was a moist, slapping sound off to our right. We both turned. A wet sneaker had made the sound on a large, flat rock next to the river. The sneaker was
on a foot, which belonged to about three-quarters of what had once been a man, sometime back before I was born. Now it was a shambling, slimy bag of clothes and flesh. And death. It had plenty of that, and was eager to share. It rose up as it brought its other foot out of the water and turned towards us. It grinned. Well, let's say it opened its mouth in a way that made me think it was very eager to get closer to us, though the normal, human feelings of joy or humor were long gone. It took another step, slowly but very deliberately and somewhat more dexterously than I'd been taught to expect.

  My mind went completely over to my training and the cold analysis of the situation. I scampered around to the other side of the table, where my jacket lay. Mom had jumped almost as fast and was rummaging through the picnic basket. "Shit," she muttered, a little alarmed, but overall much more in control than I might have expected. "I know I put a.38 in here. Here it is!" She brought up a short-barreled revolver, not the standard four-inch barreled one I usually used. "The ammo is in my jacket pocket."

  "Don't worry, Mom."

  "We'll have to shoot it. We can't leave it wandering around this close to town, inside the outer fence. Milton is way out in the wilderness."

  "I know, Mom." I had the 9mm out and was sliding in the magazine. I racked the slide and chambered the first round, just as Mom slapped a handful of cartridges onto the table. By the time I turned and raised my weapon, the thing had taken another two steps; as I said, it was way faster than I liked, and I was glad we wouldn't have to load the revolver in this situation. Its right arm was gone, but otherwise it was in better shape than most, unless they'd been hiding in buildings and protected from the elements. This one still had some clothes and both its eyes and ears. When it grinned, I had seen that it still had most of its teeth. I made a note to ask Dad if maybe the water preserved them better, so we could plan accordingly. I squeezed the grip as I sighted. Then I squeezed the trigger as I exhaled.

  I placed my weapon on the table. Mom and I sat down, still looking over at the wet pile of clothes and flesh. "How'd it get here?" Mom asked quietly.

  I shrugged. That was not part of my training. I noticed my hands shook now.

  "Maybe it was pinned under water until it could tear its own arm off and get loose," Mom said. "Maybe it washed downstream with the spring floods. I guess there's no telling." She looked at the 9mm on the table, then at me. "When did you get the gun?"

  "Dad gave it to me. Don't be mad."

  "I'm only a little mad you didn't tell me. I knew you'd need a gun of your own soon. You and your dad will pardon me if I wanted to put it off as long as possible."

  I got up, thinking of everything I'd been trained, remembering my duties. "You think we can burn it in the parking lot without starting a brush fire?"

  She shivered as she gathered our stuff. "I guess we have to."

  "Honor the dead. It's our duty."

  We dragged it over to the parking lot, so it could dry in the sun while we made a pile of grass and sticks. We placed the body on top, and I ignited the pyre with a knife and a piece of flint. We unfortunately could not stay upwind the whole time it burned, as we had to keep moving around to stomp out the little fires where sparks had blown off the conflagration. It was a smoky, nasty affair and it took much longer than either of us would have liked.

  When it was done and we left, I wondered whether we were supposed to honor the dead man by coming here more often to gather strawberries, or if, instead, we were to honor him by avoiding this place for anything as frivolous as gathering bright, little berries right by his burnt bones. Desecration and sanctification seemed so close in life. As I watched my mom's back, I also wasn't sure what she would say; she had somewhat surprised me with how calm she had been during the whole attack, how composed and resigned to what we had to do. And though I had some preference for the kind of honoring that would include berry-gathering, I couldn't tell if that was only because I liked strawberries. I would have to ask Milton about it, as I was unable to decide which was right. Perhaps both were. Perhaps neither.

  Chapter 8

  In the days that followed, Lucy and I explored other storage units. I found so many books I had to prioritize them, deciding which I would like to read first, and which things-like books of tax laws or computer programming-could just be left out for the others to rummage through, since they seemed to like that. We hadn't found anything yet that Lucy liked as much as I liked books, though I felt sure that soon we would.

  She wasn't as visual a person as the rest of us. Shiny, bright, or colorful things didn't seem to interest her. This would explain why she'd picked an outfit of completely mismatched, dark colors. I liked this about her because it made her different from the others, but it also seemed sad, since her one good eye was so much clearer and prettier than those of the rest of us, yet it didn't seem to function as well for her. I couldn't remember the word for that at first, but then I found it in one of my new books. It was ironic. But not funny in the humorous way, I don't think, just sad.

  Lucy seemed serious and not given to humor in general. And she really seemed to be searching for something in the boxes, intent on finding something we hadn't uncovered. Every afternoon, after looking all morning, I'd settle on the sofa to read, but she would keep looking. I didn't mind; I knew she'd be careful with everything, not like the others, and she'd put everything back where it had been. Sometimes she'd bring me a book, and I thought that was nice of her. Then later in the evening, as it got dark, she would join me and we would just sit. She would sit closer to me now, leaning against me, and I liked that. Like pain or tears or speech, I understood what sexuality was, but I knew it was not a part of me now. Nonetheless, I liked Lucy to be near me, and I wished I knew what she was looking for, so that I could help her find it.

  Then one afternoon, as I sat reading, Lucy sat down next to me with a small black case. In it there was a violin and bow. She tuned the instrument, though my hearing was either not trained, or sensitive, or perhaps undamaged enough to distinguish the difference or improvement. Then she held the violin between her chin and shoulder and started to play.

  Again, I'm no expert-I'm not even sure whether or not I like violin music-but from Lucy it sounded divine. In a way it was the perfect complement to her stunning, feminine beauty, that she could make such captivating and enchanting music. And best of all, I could see how happy it made her to play like this.

  I looked past Lucy to where the others were shuffling around. They continued moving restlessly about, occasionally stopping near us, seeming to listen for a moment, the way they would occasionally grab something from a box, examine it for a second, then wander off. I understood how lucky Lucy and I were to have at least some of our senses intact. It also helped me understand why we didn't have the same preferences. Lucy's sight and her ability to process or understand visual images must have been diminished, along with some of her ability to move her whole body, while her hearing and her love of music were still acute and her dexterity with her hands was exceptional. And I had trouble focusing, I wasn't very dexterous, and my hearing was not especially attuned, but I had retained the ability to read.

  And the other people? I still wasn't sure what they were capable of. I suddenly felt scared and sad that each of them might have some little part of themselves that still worked perfectly, but they couldn't express or share it with others because of all the clumsiness and inertia of their bodies, the same reason poor Lucy had struggled for so long before she'd found her violin.

  As for Milton and Will, they were a complete mystery to me, what their abilities or deficiencies were, beyond their ability to speak, which all of us here seem to lack. Maybe they had fewer deficiencies overall, and that's why they were in charge. Or was it just because they could hurt us, the way Milton had implied when he'd seen me looking with fear at Will? But he'd also said we were locked in here to keep us from hurting other people. Overall, the situation confused me, but at the same time I felt much better than before, now that Lucy was happy.
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  Lucy and I would still spend our mornings together, searching through the treasures in the storage units, though she didn't have the same urgency and frustration as before. Mostly she would find more books for me, and sometimes she'd find other things she liked, especially if they made some sound, like music boxes or other musical instruments, though everything that needed electricity or batteries was useless. We found an old bicycle, and although neither of us was coordinated enough to ride it, it had a bell on it that made the most welcoming tinkle, so Lucy wheeled it over to our area so she could ring it now and then. Then we would spend the afternoon together on the sofa, though now we both had something we liked, and that made it so much nicer.

  One afternoon as we sat there, I could hear the others getting more agitated and making noise. I put my books away, because I suspected it was Will and Milton. I gently touched Lucy's hand, to indicate to her that she should put down her violin too. Then I noticed she was sniffing the air, baring her teeth, and growling. I knew then it must have been Will by himself, or someone like him, someone the others perceived as both a threat and food.

  I stood up and held my hand in front of Lucy as I shook my head. I had wondered whether she still tried to eat, and I had no way to tell her that she shouldn't, but I was worried for her-worried either that the others might hurt her as they fought to get at Will, or that Will would hurt her. I wanted her to stay here with me. She remained seated, but she kept sniffing and growling.