I decide I’ll take it. One hour. An eternity. I go to the bunk and lie down. Dusty and Voley stay close to the stove. I’m warm enough that I think I might be able to fall asleep, but nothing comes. I slip in and out of daydreams, imagining again and again what might have happened to Russell and Clemmy. Where they are, what they are doing right now, if they’re alive…
Or they’re sloshing through the waves, like a thousand other bodies I’ve seen. And then, for no reason at all, I say, almost in a whisper, “Dusty.”
He turns from across the room and mutters hmm? I don’t know why I’ve let up—maybe because I’m starting to feel that Russell has to be gone—that my first instinct was right. He’s dead. I’ll never see him again. And for his sake, now that I’m the only one left, I have to ask. Did you eat people? I say softly. Dusty doesn’t respond and I don’t want to look at him and see his face because I know it holds the answer. I just want him to say it. I have to repeat the question: Back at Blue City. Did you eat people?
I hear his footsteps come lightly across the room, and I hear Voley following him. He sits on the bed. He says, like a poison to my soul, You’ve never had to? Everything stops. It’s like I’ve betrayed Russell and ruined my vision of the boy I’m in love with all at once. I can’t look at him. He gets the silence must mean that I haven’t had to eat people, but to him, it’s like I’m the abnormal one. My dad taught me, he starts. He puts his hand on my arm and drags it slowly up and down. An appeal to my mercy. That you can’t afford to waste food, he goes on. No matter what, you can’t. Not if you really want to survive.
Russell and I survived, I say. I say it knowing that it might only be me now, the sole survivor. I imagine Russell dying right now, somewhere out on the mud, because with his last force of will he has refused to eat Clemmy. Dusty doesn’t have an elaboration. No better reason to justify what he’s done other than what his dead father taught him. Finally I think to say, And Ernest, he’s never done it either! I waste my heat through my voice as I remember Ernest’s admission when we first met him—I might if it came to it.
He’s full of shit, then, Dusty says. Because when you’re going to starve, it doesn’t matter what morals you’re clinging to. What is it Tanner? Pride? Pride that you’d die over? I don’t have that, he says.
I think about the word—pride. And how it’s meaning has always been shown to me with two sides. With one side, you’re proud because you’ve done something good. On the other, you’re arrogant, and get yourself killed. And I can’t think clearly enough to decide which side Russell and I have been on for the last fourteen years of my life. I can’t think that it’s all been because of some sort of pride, that we didn’t eat people. It was more than that—it has to be. I don’t know what word to replace it with though. I want to somehow make Dusty understand that it’s essential, not related to pride at all. But I remember the time I asked Russell. When we were starving and there were piles of bodies set to be burned. It was the bonfire in Sioux Falls. And there were civilized face eaters there. That’s what Russell called them. Because they quietly and carefully dragged away bodies from the fire. Just enough that we noticed them do it. We both knew why. They had to eat or they’d starve to death. And I had asked Russell because we were starving too—I asked him what he thought it tasted like. If it could be justified because we were going to starve to death very soon. I’d wanted to take a body so bad. I remember planning it all in my head—waiting until the arms and legs were cooked by the flames, so that there was a disconnect between the charred mound I would stuff in my body and the fact that it was a person. And I’d heard the word spreading throughout the camp there, at Sioux Falls. Cries of how delicious it was. And I had heard in people’s voices new life—it had come back into them. Been sustained and renewed by the meat of other people. Meat we chose to ignore—to waste. I was angry at Russell after that, angry like I’d been when he wouldn’t let me trade sex for food. He came with anger of his own at me. And I was the only one he never showed that side to. But it was there, burning in him, all of it directed at me for my weakness. It hurt. He told me that it was more important to our survival, even though it didn’t seem that way at the moment, that we didn’t eat the people. Starving or not. He’d said we would starve before he let it happen, because it meant we’d die with our souls. Souls. Part of the illusion we create when the veneer is thick. As I look at Dusty I feel old confusion settle on me—why Russell kept that part of the veneer when he always said hanging on to the old world was like carrying dead weight. It slowed you down, prevented you from pushing on. There was only moving, staying warm, staying dry. Why did eating have to be sacred, somehow above those other basic needs?
All of my thoughts coil around in my head in one fiery instant, and in that time I want to pull away from Dusty’s touch, and scold him just like Russell had done to me that night in Sioux Falls. And later, after the bonfire, when we’d raided a survivalist den and found canned food, Russell had boasted about how right he was. He had been full of pride that he’d been right, that once again we avoided it, and made the right choice. Because we were eating, surviving, just the same as all the others, only we weren’t selling our souls to do it. It was pride in him that night—but which kind was it?
I want to tell Dusty everything, even about his dad. But I can’t. I still can’t muster the strength to make the words come out. I can’t because part of me knows he’s right. It hits me—that if I die, and we’re out on the frozen mud, the boy next to me will eat me. But I don’t push him away. I don’t even argue with him. I don’t tell him he’s wrong. I want to call him a face eater. And tell him I hate him, and everything he believes in. But more than that I just want him to lie down with me. Because it might be our last chance. And I remember the other night. Beautiful sex that was everything I always imagined it would be. It had brought my mind to a standstill—all the turmoil and the frustration and the confusion killed in an instant. Just like fighting the waterspouts. Everything a clear, single purpose that made sense. Why do I still hold on to pride? I scold myself with Dusty’s beliefs.
I tell him that I need him to kiss me. He’s startled, like he expected me to recoil from him, separate my feelings forever. Like he thought my pride would keep me above him for the rest of time. But I don’t know if I am above him anymore, and he doesn’t respond to my request. Kiss me, I say again. I don’t want to think about this. I don’t want to think about anything.
He gives in and kisses me, and I grab the back of his head and drive his mouth in. The fire of my body erupts, and that quickly, in a flash of lightning, my confusion is dissolved. He coils around me and shares his tremendous warmth. I am a face eater, I tell myself, as if I’ve already done the act. Thrown in the towel on the last piece of the veneer, with Russell nowhere near to know what I’ve done. I am wrong, but I can’t cut myself off from Dusty.
I am a face eater, I say again in my head. I taste his neck. He tastes me too, and then I think nothing more about what it really means to be a face eater except that it’s not a black and white line like I’ve always been taught. It’s blurred. And maybe Dusty isn’t one. Maybe I’m not either. We have love. Isn’t that enough that we can still call ourselves people, and not them?
He shifts on top of me and there I melt into the passion. I glide away in a singular heat we share, motion and at the same time absolute stillness of time and thought.
When I return to the Resilience, it’s to Ernest’s call. He’s nowhere in sight when it registers he’s shouted at us: Found them. He must have come down and gone right back up, just for a moment to tell us. Found them! I sit up and shake Dusty and repeat Ernest’s words. Together we dress, and in a rush of hope and excitement, we fly up the stairs.
Chapter 4
It’s the motorboat. It’s on an unreachable shore, driven right up onto the bank of a mountain slope. As Ernest brings us in closer, my heart drops into my stomach. I feel nauseous again. I run to the rail and throw up. Acid burn pouring out of me and i
nto the sea. I slowly lift my eyes to be sure: It’s torn apart. Pieces of the motorboat are scattered everywhere. Like the whole thing was split apart on the rocks. Ernest calls out that doesn’t know how close in he can bring us to it. He says he’ll try anyway. I don’t pay attention to the surf that pulls us, trying to send the Resilience into the rocks too. I can’t. I’m searching the distant mud for bodies. I know it’s only a matter of seconds before I see them. And they’ll probably be as torn apart as the motorboat is. Or whole but pale white and empty. Shells.
Finally I come back in to the wheelhouse because I still don’t see anything but the motorboat’s broken skeleton. Do you see them? I ask anyone. Ernest is too busy navigating the ship in to say if he does, but Dusty tells me they’re not there. No bodies. They left the boat. Where the hell did they go? he says. We look together at the gentle rise of the mountain where the boat crashed. It just goes up and up, a thousand feet, until we can’t see anything more. And the rise of the slope points directly toward the whitest stretch of sky. The direction of the snow.
This is as close as we get, Ernest says. The ship stops about fifty feet from a new stretch of shoreline where whitecaps are ripping into granite jags that sharply rise out of the froth. But it’s still gentler than the spot where the boat wrecked. We either set anchor and swim, search on foot, or we end it here, Ernest says. He says it plainly, matter-of-factly, like he has no more stake in the decision making. Like he’s given it up to me. Somehow it’s my decision. But I know he loves Clemmy. The last person he knew. And I think by the look on his face that he wants to reach the mud as much as I do.
“We’ll never make it,” says Dusty. “What about Voley?” We all stop and look at Marvolo. He’s wagging his tail, paying attention to us like some kind of very important decision is about happen. The image of what happened last time springs into my mind—Voley frozen up, them drowning together. But I know we can’t leave him on the boat alone. I volunteer to swim ashore by myself.
“Young lady, we just met. I shouldn’t have feelings for you. But I do. And that’s not an option,” Ernest says. He goes on to say that he hasn’t been so worn down by the wind and rain to let a young woman push into the fray alone.
Dusty responds firmly that he won’t go, he won’t leave Voley. And that we’ll have to go in without him. I ask him if he’s sure, and he says he is. But I see the conflict on his face. He asks Ernest if he can bring the ship in any closer. He really doesn’t want to be left alone. Ernest says he can if we want to lose her. Then, for a long minute, Ernest stares down at the dog. He’s trying to work things out. And I’m only thinking about if we can bring anything with us to the shore. I don’t know how long we’ll be out there on the mud. The mountains beyond might be filled with face eaters. Food and guns. Shelter. We’ll have no way to dry off when we get ashore. And I’ve never felt wind so cold. Everything seems so impossible that I suddenly get the urge to run below deck and take some of the drug. Like it might provide me with the answers I need, the strength I need. But I don’t. I wait for Ernest. Then he says, with complete certainty, “I’ll get him to the shore.”
What? replies Dusty. I’ll make sure Voley gets ashore, he repeats. I’ll swim with him. Dusty protests, saying he tried to do it before but she panicked. Started kicking and going under. Damn it, boy, Ernest replies. I’m a man of my word. He won’t drown. Or you’ll stay here with him. But I’m not bringing the ship in any closer.
All the trust of the boy and his dog fall on Poseidon. He’s older than Russell, but he’s built like a tank. And I think he can do it. I believe in him. It’s only fifty feet. How far did you make it last time? I ask Dusty. Was it fifty feet? He says he has no idea, but it felt like ten feet. I’ve carried men to shore, Ernest says. A dog won’t give me a problem. He says this like he’s been in water this cold before. And he bends down on his knee and looks Voley right in the face. Voley leans in and gives him a kiss. Innocence and trust. You going to swim with me, boy? says Ernest. Voley kisses him again, as if to say yes. Dusty paces back and forth in the wheelhouse, staring out at the breaking waves. It takes him too long to make up his mind, and Ernest knows how important time is now. He’s thinking what I’m thinking—that the longer they’re out there, the more chance they’ll die from exposure. And all of our efforts become pointless. That’s if they haven’t died already. And it’s a long shot at all that we’re not chasing ghosts, but we have to try anyway.
Well boy? asks Ernest, looking up from the floor next to Voley. Dusty just nods. He’s broken. Alright, I’ll get some gear together. Because you’ll carry the gear, understand? Ernest disappears below deck to gather supplies. I have no idea what he plans to bring with us. I don’t see how we can bring anything. Not through fifty feet of ocean. But it’s not my job to figure that out now. Just to get ashore and find Russell. All of a sudden I can’t wait to get in the water.
What are we doing, Tanner? Dusty asks me desperately. Why did we leave Blue City? He’s losing it. I tell him that place was under attack. It’s always been under attack, for the last couple months. We were doing fine with the attacks. Fucking fine, he sulks. He doesn’t know we left because of what he admitted to me last night. If he knew, it would destroy him. The pointlessness of all this. I walk away into the rain because I don’t give a shit about his feelings right now. The sight of the wrecked motorboat has jolted me wide awake. Adrenaline rips through me in anticipation of the swim. I think of Russell—he’s out there somewhere. The awful Rockies—his own promised land. Not alone, I tell myself, quelling my fear. Clemmy is with him.
Ernest comes back up with two waterproof duffels. Don’t let them go unless you’re going to drown. They’re light, he says. He gives one to me and one to Dusty. He doesn’t tell us what he’s put in them. Mine feels like it weighs ten pounds, and I have no idea what Dusty’s weighs. Alright, no better time than now, he says.
He leads us to the stern of the ship where the rope ladder is. All at once, he lifts up Voley with his right arm, holding him close into his chest, and goes over the rail. He works his way down fast, and then, he’s in the water. I watch Voley flail at first, trying to kick away. I imagine the pain of a thousand knives cutting into them both, as they move through the cold, but there’s no sign of it from Ernest. He’s talking to Voley, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. And then, as if by magic, Voley is going along beside him, faster than Ernest, in the direction of the shore. They’re already fifteen feet out when I start down. I look back up at Dusty, and he’s relieved. His eyes are on Ernest and Voley, and he sees the change. Voley isn’t panicking this time. They’re going to make it.
The pain of the water is worse than I could have ever imagined. The breath sucks right out of my lungs, and it’s fifteen seconds until I’m out of shock and able to start moving. The pack feels like lead dragging me down, and right away I want to drop it. It drags behind me like a sea anchor, keeping me stuck. I hear Dusty splash in the water behind me, and I’ve barely made any progress. It feels like the sea is sweeping me sideways and out, away from the shore. I glimpse Dusty and then Ernest and Voley—they’re way ahead now, almost to the first rocks. Come on, Dusty says, and he kicks past me. I kick and throw my head into the water, holding my breath, numb now, and bolt forward with everything I’ve got. My feet paddle and I keep the bag in front of me, tucked under my right arm like Ernest did with Voley. I’m moving.
When my head pokes back up I hear screaming. I see shapes on the shore. It’s Ernest and Voley. They’ve made it and they’re cheering me on. Come on! he’s calling. You can make it! And Dusty is way ahead of me now too. I see him turn back in terror. He wants to swim back to help me, but Ernest tells him no—keep coming. He’s sure we’ll pull each other down. I heave forward with my right shoulder, and then throw my left arm into the water and pull myself forward. My feet kick like mad and I dive under again.
Underwater it’s easier. I feel like I’m shooting, a bullet. I paddle hard, pushing with stabbed muscles, lunging unt
il I feel like my lungs are going to break my ribcage apart. They burn, the only sensation I’m aware of. Everything else is numb. I rise into the air again and suck in before a swell slaps my face. It almost goes down my throat but I spit it out. Chemical salt.
When I come up again, I see Dusty’s almost made it, and Ernest is still crying out for us. He’s convinced I can survive this. Voley is dancing back and forth, running far down the bank, stepping back in the water for a moment, and then retreating. He’s excited. Thinks this is a game. My head dives back under and my feet start to work again.
I’ve become a crystal. As clear and single-focused as last night. All the fears of my own death, of losing Russell, of drowning in the ocean, have dissolved. It’s only the motion now. And it’s no longer cold. No more burn. It’s just endurance. Rhythm. I sink back again and charge my body full of electricity. It completes the pattern I ask it to. My feet work up and down furiously, and when I come up again, it’s to Dusty cheering me on now too. They’re all waiting for me, telling me I can do it.
I know I’ve made it when a jagged rock cuts across my shin. It’s not pain, it’s the finish. Letting me know I’ve made Russell proud. I crawl like some ancient sea creature, on all fours, up onto the crumbling bank. All on my own I stand up. The wind cuts right through me. And I start to laugh. I can’t stop. I’m hysterical. The pack’s still tucked under my arm.
The Snow (A Post-Apocalyptic Story) Page 3