In the morning, Seth climbs to the fourth floor, where Josh and I ended up staying the night to make sure no one else tried to infiltrate the airport. I mumble, “Rise and shine, sleepyhead.” Seth grunts in response and stumbles into the break room. He emerges, moments later, with a mug. “Is that coffee?” I ask.
Seth nods.
“That’s for the working men.”
He takes a sip, watching me. “So put me to work.”
“That’s pretty risky. What if I ask you to scrub the john?”
“I would do it.”
“Yeah, only because you know there is no john.”
Seth grins.
Looking at him a moment, I put my arms behind my head. “Tell ya what, I’ll let you come on our mission.”
His voice cracks with excitement. “Where?”
“Into town. We’re going to check out a few places, see if we can find some supplies.”
“Can I carry a gun?”
“No.”
Glowering, Seth gulps down the coffee.
Sliding down the embankment, our six-man group dusts ourselves off and stands on the road, which isn’t a road as much as it’s a trail packed into the snow from people walking it. But whoever made the tracks is no longer around. We pass three more mile markers before we reach the small Kalispell suburb—one of the few places, according to our map, our militia hasn’t explored. As always, we split up into teams of two: one man entering the house and one man covering for him in case it’s occupied by drifters. Brian and Dean, Nehemiah and Beanpole Joe pair off. I look at Seth. “You’re coming with me.”
He walks over, and together we approach the first house, with the mailbox number 34514. It’s a cedar-sided A-frame with unstained, rectangular patches bracketing the windows, which suggest that the house’s wooden shutters were removed for firewood. Wind chimes twirl on the porch, and a bald curly willow is in the yard, festooned with a bird feeder like an ornament on a forlorn Christmas tree.
Seth says, gesturing to the teams, “How come they get to carry guns?”
“Because they know how to use them.”
He stiffens. “I know how to use them.”
“Sorry, kid, but I’m not willing to take your word for it. Friendly fire’s a deadly thing.”
Argument closed, we crunch up the driveway and cut left where the sidewalk must be. Ice veins the glass storm door that is closed and, amazingly enough, intact. I push the black button and pull it open—the squeak of hinges reminding me of an entirely different season and time. There is no front door behind it, as it too was probably removed and burned for firewood.
Drawing my gun, I enter the house. The majority of the windows are broken, so the interior is nearly as cold as the outside. Dirt smears the carpet at the entrance, and footsteps march back and forth throughout, so it looks like someone was living here before winter set in, since dirt is now packed beneath layers of snow. Just like the other houses, there are no shelves, books, tables, chairs, wooden picture frames, curtains, or tablecloths. Even the trim work and wooden blades of the fans have been removed and burned for firewood. But you can only expend so much energy finding fuel for a fire before it becomes clear that food is as important as warmth. When both of these necessities are removed, it’s difficult to survive for long.
I come out of the hallway and see Seth still standing by the door. “You coming?”
He takes two steps inside. “What are you looking for?”
I stride into the kitchen—the slush on my boots turning the linoleum’s grime to mud—and peer into the open cupboards. “Oil, canned goods, toiletries, blankets, ammunition.”
“Do you ever find anything?”
“Sometimes.” I shrug. “It depends if it’s already been ransacked.”
“Has this place been ransacked?”
“Looks like it.”
A magnetic dry-erase board is stuck to the side of the fridge. Someone had kept up with the calendar—large black Xs crossing off each day—until November 15. I wonder if that’s when the occupants decided to leave or when they were forced from their home.
I tug open the drawer below the oven. It’s empty, so I pull it out and peer underneath. Nothing but charred bread crumbs. My stomach growls in visceral response at the thought of bread. I pass the time searching the appliance-filled but bare kitchen, thinking of a striped steak sizzling on the grill; of chocolate and mint saltwater taffy being pulled apart—oily and loose—on that machine in Gatlinburg; of strawberries in my grandpa’s garden, so ripe and sun-sweet, they burst in my mouth.
The basement door’s also been removed. I walk down the rickety steps with Seth following behind me. “The idea’s to be thorough,” I explain, whispering as if there’s someone here to disturb. “To find the stuff even the owners forgot about, or thought they could hide.”
Most of the daylight in the basement’s been covered up by the grayish snow piled outside the French doors. A large flat-screen TV is mounted on the wall. A plastic and metal foosball table sits untouched in the corner. The wooden pool table’s been hacked into pieces. The cues are gone, but the pool balls make a colorful triangle in the rack on the floor. I walk into the mechanical room, where the water heater and breaker box are stored. I reach behind the water heater—a favorite hiding place—but my hand comes away gloved with dust.
Seth calls from the main room, “Hey, Moses . . . check this out.”
I leave and cross the floor to where he’s standing. The wall is inscribed with three letters, all caps: ARC, along with a straight line and two smaller lines branching off it.
Seth says, “You know what that means?”
“No clue.”
Nehemiah, Beanpole Joe, Brian, and Dean are already waiting when we exit the A-frame. They are standing on the curve of the cul-de-sac. Their backs are to us and they’re facing the houses, discussing something. As we approach, I call out, “Did y’all have better luck?”
They turn. Brian says, “Not sure you’d call it luck.”
Nehemiah asks me, “You didn’t find anything?”
“We found some graffiti, but that was about it.”
The men look at each other.
Brian adds, “You didn’t find anything beneath the graffiti?”
“No.” My patience wears a little thin. Clearing his throat, Dean looks at Seth. Finally understanding their hesitation, I say, “It’s all right. He can hear too.”
Dean, once a buttoned-up tax assessor for Flathead County, nods. “Looks like this ARC group came in and killed two of the families.”
“Shot right through the head,” Brian adds. “All of them. Mafia-style.”
Nehemiah says, “So we went and checked out the rest of the houses. All six had ARC written on a wall somewhere, but only two houses had bodies inside them.”
“Any clue what that means?” I ask.
Beanpole Joe adjusts the strap of his gun. “Maybe they let some go?”
“Or,” Dean counters, “they forced them to go with.”
Nehemiah says, “Maybe the ones who refused to go got shot.”
“I think I know what ARC stands for,” Seth says, startling us all so much that we look at him simultaneously.
“What?” I prod.
“Agricultural Resurgence Commission. That’s the name of the organization in charge of the work camps. This informant told us about them. He said he’d shoot us if we didn’t go with.”
“So . . . what happened?” Nehemiah asks. “How’d you get away?”
“I shot him first.”
Brian turns and claps Seth’s shoulder. “Dude.”
I give Seth a disappointed look. He won the men’s respect by providing them with key information, but he sure lost mine by telling a lie.
Leora
I empty the chamber pot in the outhouse. Though I know I should immediately return to Grossmammi’s bedside, I find myself taking my time as I pass the community fire and the other cabins, subconsciously aching for fellowship but too exhausted to seek it ou
t. And then I spot Esther Martin, hanging clothes on the line. This would not be so incongruous if she weren’t barefoot in frigid temperatures, and if her unkapped hair weren’t tousled down her back.
Our community is unusually quiet because of the illness, and therefore it appears that Esther’s behavior hasn’t warranted any attention until now. I walk over and murmur softly, “Esther?” I set the chamber pot down in the snow, but I do not touch her. Esther’s bloodshot hazel eyes are void of emotion, calling to mind the night I discovered Anna walking in the field.
Esther turns from me to hang another garment: a tiny white gown. Claudia’s. I look down the line and see her dresses, sweaters, and bonnets. This woman is giving voice to her grief by washing her deceased daughter’s clothes. My throat tightens. I walk over and stand beside Esther. “Come,” I say, reaching for the worn cloth diaper. “Let me do that for you.”
Wordlessly, Esther lets me take the cloth. Her fingertips are icy as they brush my skin. I hang the diaper on the line, securing it with the wooden clothespin she is holding out. I quickly fill the rest of the line with laundry, and then wrap my arm around Esther’s back, opening the door to the cabin and drawing her in. Her husband, Benuel, is not home, but her three young children—James, five; Mary, three; and Tabitha, eighteen months—look up from the floor of the cabin, where they’re playing, completely unconcerned over their mudder’s absence.
I help Esther into bed and pull the quilts over her. She begins to shiver, her lips tinged blue with cold, so I add another log to the fire smoldering in the hearth. I wipe the children’s grubby faces and hands with a washcloth and stack the lunch dishes on the sideboard. I don’t have time to do anything else, not with my grandmother suffering in our cabin four doors down.
I walk to the bed to let Esther know I’m going for help, but her shivering’s abated and she is already falling asleep. Leaving the cabin, I begin to cross the compound to Judith’s when I notice Charlie and Jabil talking together under the lean-to next to the barn.
I approach them and ask, “Have you seen Benuel?”
Charlie says, “We just got back. He was out hunting with me.”
“Could you tell him his wife needs immediate attention?”
Jabil turns to me. “Everything okay?”
I nod, wanting to protect this woman I barely know, though she’s been my neighbor for years. “I don’t think she’s doing very well.”
“And Eunice?”
I look away from him, determined not to break down in front of Charlie. “Okay,” I reply, though I’m not sure of this at all.
Charlie says, “Your brother still not back?”
My body language hardens into a shield. “No. He left to join the militia in Kalispell.”
Charlie’s eyebrows lift beneath the front of his fur hat. “Really.” His entire opinion is summed up in that one word. “The men and I actually found the body of a soldier in the woods today,” he adds. “Or what was left of him.” He pulls out a card and passes it to me.
I have no choice but to take it, though I am sure my face blanches as I look into the pencil-sketched face of the man I killed in the woods. “Was he part of the militia too?” I ask, hoping my facade of ignorance will hide what I know for fact.
“Doesn’t look like it,” says Charlie. “The card has some kind of agricultural seal.”
“Interesting,” I reply, though my mouth is sandpapered with anxiety. “Do you mind if I show this around? Ask if anyone knows anything?”
Charlie shrugs. “Be my guest.”
I turn from them both. My fingers tremble as I hold the dead boy’s ID in my hands.
Grossmammi Eunice’s breathing becomes labored around dinnertime. The room swells with the struggle until my own panicked breathing overtakes the sound. I set the platter of cabbage fried in bacon grease on the table. Anna doesn’t dish up her plate like usual but watches me, innately sensing something is wrong. “Esse,” I say to her while gesturing to the food.
I walk over to our grandmother. I rest my hand on her forehead. Her skin is dry and hot; her features warped as if she’s crying in her sleep, but there are no tears. I turn her wrist over. The rapid pulse vibrates against my fingers. “Grossmammi?” I call. “Can you hear me?”
No response. I call her name again and lean forward to lift her eyelid. Her eyes are rolled upward, just the bottom portion of the iris and pupil visible. I rise from the bed and turn toward Anna. “I’ll be right back,” I murmur. It takes no effort to steady my voice. A preternatural calm has descended upon me, which I experience during each life-and-death event.
I leave the cabin and walk over to the Snyders’. I knock on the door and a voice says, “Come in.” I enter reluctantly, fearing I am spreading the illness to them. The family is sitting down to supper. Mrs. Snyder smiles and says, “Evening, Leora.” Her warm greeting and smile, for some reason, make me want to cry.
Jabil rises from the head of the table. “Is your grandmother . . . ?” He does not finish.
Looking down, I murmur, “She’s gotten worse.”
Jabil pushes back the chair and motions for me to follow him out. He lets me exit the cabin first, then pulls the door shut behind us. We face each other on the narrow porch. The night sky is strangely starless—the low-hanging clouds like gray sheets, weighted with snow.
He looks at me with concern. “What can I do to help?”
Taking a breath, I allow my desperation to usurp my pride. “I—I’m not sure she’s going to make it, Jabil.” Those words, thought but never spoken, conjure forth the ending that I’ve known for days. “I think Seth would like to be here—” I swallow thickly—“when she goes.”
“Of course, of course.” He nods after each phrase. Absently, he reaches out and touches my arm. “So I should go to the airport in Kalispell?”
“Yes.” I look down. “I’m sorry, Jabil. I know that’s so much to ask.” My buckskin slippers are wet from walking through the snow. I may have been calm, but I didn’t have the presence of mind to change into boots before I left the cabin. The image blurs as my eyes flood with tears. Jabil places a hand on my chin, lifting my gaze to meet his.
“I’ll leave tonight,” he says, “and try to have him here by morning.”
“No. That’s impossible.” My voice breaks.
“It’s nothing. I want to do this—” his calloused thumb strokes my cheek—“for you.”
Moses
JOSH AND I ARE, once again, sitting up in the traffic control center, passing the small hours by passing a thermos of coffee back and forth, which we use to refill our mugs. The hot beverage tastes stronger than the standard one-quarter cup of grounds.
I ask, “Did you leave any coffee for the other guys?”
Josh gives me his annoyed look, which means the rules he made don’t apply to him. “It’s almost the last of it,” he says, “so just be happy I’m sharing with you.” He takes another sip and adds, “This guy from Carter County gave me a sack of bur oak acorns in exchange for salt. Said if you boil and bake the acorns, they’re about as close to coffee as you can get.”
“Sounds like you got the raw end of that deal.”
His head snaps up. “Hey—don’t question my bartering skills.”
I lift my hands. “I won’t, as long as you don’t force me to drink the stuff.”
“Believe me. You’re going to be eating your words once I’m done.” After our coffee’s down to its dregs, he asks, “What’s this I hear about Seth killing a soldier?”
“Who knows.” I lift my shoulders. “He also told me his sister’s the one who did it.”
“Interesting.” But I can tell Josh isn’t all that interested in a teenage boy’s efforts to prove himself a man. “And the soldier was part of an agricultural resurgence project?”
“We have no idea who he was. But it looks like EMP survivors are being forced from their homes into work camps, where they grow food for an organization of some kind.”
Josh shifts in
the rolling chair. “And who organized it?”
“No clue about that either. Maybe the ones who set off the EMP? Maybe a homegrown terrorist group, trying to use the labor of other refugees to survive?”
We are silent for a while. Josh and I have learned to pace our conversations, since we’ve got to spend the whole night finding topics stimulating enough to keep each other awake. Pouring more coffee from the thermos, I say, “Sometimes I wonder what our purpose is.”
He glances over in the dark. “Our purpose as humans or as a group?”
“Both, I guess.”
He doesn’t reply right away, and I wonder if I’ve offended him, but then he says, “Sometimes I wonder that too.” Leaning forward, he slides his mug on the span of desk between two of the blank-faced computer screens. He sits back and gestures to the bullet holes branching across the fourth window pane. “I was here,” he says. “That day those shots were fired. Some of the travelers stranded at the airport just lost it when the food ran out. They thought the airport personnel were hoarding everything up here, so they got together and stormed the place.”
“How did you respond?”
Josh shakes his head. “Most of the travelers were carrying weapons made from stuff they’d found around the airport. They were out for blood, Moses. You could see it in their eyes. It was down to us or them.” He pauses. “But the crazy part is that, slowly but surely, the rest of us started turning on each other too.” He rolls the chair forward. His pinkie ring flashes as his long fingers tap across the computer keyboard in that ASDF JKL; pattern that’s equal parts familiar and strange. He asks, “You ever heard that phrase, ‘It’s a dog-eat-dog world’?”
“Sure.”
“Well, it was kind of like that—kill or be killed—so I did what I had to. The same as in Vietnam or when those stranded travelers stormed the center. I decided, after burying the last person, the only way to thrive in a communal setting was by creating a strict chain of command.”
“So that’s why you established the militia.”
He nods. “But even now, I feel like I’m just holding my breath, watching and waiting for that tipping point, when everything starts spiraling again.” Josh looks out through that cracked glass to the snow-covered airport. “Are we supposed to keep doing what we’re doing—living day to day, trying to keep ourselves alive—or should we be doing something more?”
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