They were headed to Colorado, Amelia learned. Up into the mountains, above the tree line, where the undead creatures could not roam. Amelia could hear her parents whisper worriedly in the front seat, but she tried to ignore them. She played card games with her little sister Amy. She tried to think optimistically about what lay ahead.
They were told to take a roundabout route to Colorado, avoiding sites that were hit by Russia or North Korea or someone’s bombs. Amelia’s brother Austin teased them about bears and wolves up in the mountains, and Amelia thought about Jill. Traffic was moving faster as they cut up through New Mexico. Amelia’s father strayed off from the route marked by the military, but the highways weren’t closed. “We’ll save a lot of time,” he said.
Amelia was dozing in the backseat with her sister when a loud popping sound woke her up. She looked around, terrified, convinced they were being attacked by zombies. She’d seen a few wandering around in the dark as they’d traveled along, none close enough to the road to get a good look at them, but they were out there. This was the end.
But they’d simply blown out a tire. It was pitch dark out, and Amelia’s father cursed softly as he got out of the car. He ordered everyone else out, and Austin assisted his father while Amelia’s mother held the flashlight. Amelia held Amy’s hand as they watched them jack up the car. “We’ll have to take it slow on the spare,” Amelia’s father said as he loosened the lug nuts. “I don’t know where I’m gonna get tires.”
Amelia was the first to notice the approaching truck, its bright headlights bearing down on them. It parked in front of them on the narrow gravel road. The driver kept the lights on as he hopped down from the cab of his truck. Amelia’s father put down his wrench and got up to greet the driver. “Hi,” he said. “We’re fine. Unless you know where we can get a couple of tires…?”
The truck driver wore a baseball cap, the bill pulled lower over his eyes. He reached into his corduroy jacket and pulled out a handgun. “Everybody up against the side of the car,” he said, his voice so low that he could barely be heard over the noise of his diesel engine.
But he had their full attention, and the five of them didn’t hesitate to follow his orders. “Just do what he says, let him take what he wants,” Amelia’s mother said, trying to reassure them.
The trucker stuck the gun in her face. “Shut up,” he said. She obeyed.
Amelia was shaking as she grasped her sister’s hand. The trucker was looking in their direction. Amelia couldn’t see his eyes, but she could see his lips curl in a smile before he took his gun and shot Amelia’s father, mother, and brother in the head. They all crumpled to the ground before Amy started screaming.
“Shut up,” the trucker said. He pointed the gun at Amelia’s face. She peed herself a little. “Move,” he barked, gesturing towards his truck. Amelia looked around, trying to think of some way out of this. She was in shock, and there was a gun pointed at her. “Go,” the trucker ordered, nudging her with the barrel. Amelia grasped Amy’s hand and walked with her, past the glaring headlights, to the back of the truck.
When they reached the tailgate, Amelia felt a sharp pain in the back of her head. She was out before she hit the ground.
*
Sadie postponed a planned trip to La Ronge when Amelia fell into one of her dark days again. It was more likely to happen in the winter, Sadie found. She wondered why. She couldn’t bring herself to ask her lover, so she speculated. Perhaps she was remembering cold days and nights, shivering in the back of a semi, waiting to be raped, tortured, or beaten again. Wishing for death.
Sadie knew that Amelia was ashamed of what she’d done. But Sadie was proud of her. Amelia got to live on. Justice was served, as much as it could be in their world.
Sadie left Amelia to herself while she stayed in bed, covered in layers of denim quilts. Sadie didn’t have much to do that day, besides prepare meals. Christian was off in the yard, wandering around, thinking his secret thoughts, while his mother lay in bed, thinking her own. Sadie did some reading, then took the radio out to the garage and tinkered around in the truck, noting that it was just a bit above freezing that day. Not that bad, comparatively speaking. Spring was on the way.
As Sadie changed the oil, she heard a soft-spoken man on the radio. He was talking about leaving the city…she thought he was broadcasting out of Winnipeg, maybe Edmonton. “Two guys I’ve been squatting with got into a fight the other day,” the man said. “Suffice it to say, one of them is now dead. The city ain’t where it’s at, guys. I’m heading out to the northwest coast. British Columbia.”
Sadie wiggled out from under the truck. He was talking about Sanctuary Coast. He had to be.
“If you’re hearing this, come out of hiding, come out of the sewers,” the DJ went on. Sadie sat up and listened, leaning against the front bumper of the truck. She didn’t think this particular guy sounded crazy, at least not for someone who’d spent over a decade scrambling to survive as he watched friends and family die. “The dark ages are over, people. It’s time to get up and reclaim our world.
“Here’s a little something to help you feel good until we get there.” He put on a song that Sadie vaguely recognized from her early childhood.
She went back under the truck. This was now the third time she’d heard about Sanctuary Coast, or someplace similar. Maybe Manny was right all along. Maybe she was there, rebuilding her life into something exciting.
The soft-spoken young man didn’t come back on the air. The station went dead as soon as the familiar song ended. That happened a lot. The radio stations were only running if someone took it upon themselves to make them, or if there happened to be power in the city at any given moment. Sadie got up and turned off the radio, not wanting to waste the batteries.
The oil changed, Sadie took the radio and went back into the house. She got a bucket of water, drawn from the well, boiling on the stove before popping back into her bedroom to check on Amelia. She found her as she’d left her, as she always was during her dark days. Sadie said nothing and left her alone.
Christian came in as Sadie was washing up. She was glad that she’d decided not to strip all the way down. “Hi, Sadie,” Christian said as he sat down to take off his boots.
“Hi,” Sadie said. “Been out playing?” Christian shrugged. “Go check on the chickens.”
Christian didn’t argue that he’d just taken his boots off. He put them back on and went back out to the yard. He returned with a few eggs in the basket. “They’re okay,” he said.
Sadie took the basket. “I don’t feel like cooking much for dinner,” she admitted. “Would eggs and toast be okay?”
“Sure,” Christian said. He sat down and removed his boots again. “Is my mom in bed?”
“She’s tired.”
“She gets sad, doesn’t she?”
Sadie didn’t look at her brother as she dried her arms with a worn old towel. “She’s got a lot to be sad about.”
“Yeah,” Christian said. Sadie wondered what the kid knew about it, but she didn’t ask.
“You know what I bet your mom would like?” Sadie asked as she got out the old skillet. “She’d like it if you drew her a picture.”
Christian said nothing to this as Sadie started the stove, putting a little oil in the skillet. “I’ve seen your pictures,” she went on. “They’re…they’re kind of good.”
“Thanks,” Christian said.
“So, go draw something for your mom,” Sadie suggested. “I think it’d make her smile.”
Christian looked thoughtful for a moment. “Okay,” he said, and he went back to the office. It had now kind of become his territory. He’d once only had a closet, and now he had his own bedroom, and an office to hang out in. If anyone’s life had improved with Glenn’s death, it was his son’s.
Sadie made enough for three, just in case Amelia got up. After all, she’d shrugged off her dark thoughts the last time she fell into a brief, intense depression. But Amelia didn’t get up that day, not
until Sadie was changing for bed later that evening.
As Sadie got undressed in the dark, she kept her eyes on her motionless lover. She was surprised when Amelia suddenly sat up. “What time is it?” she asked, staring at Sadie with wide eyes in the dark.
“Um…it’s getting kind of late,” Sadie said. They couldn’t keep real time, hadn’t had a working watch or clock in years. What did exact time matter, anyway? But they could usually venture a guess. “10 or so?”
Amelia swung her legs out of bed. “I’m gonna take a walk,” she said.
Sadie gaped at her lover as Amelia went to their set of drawers, pulling out a pair of jeans. “It’s, uh, it’s pretty cold out.”
“Yes, I know,” Amelia said.
“Do you want me to…?”
“I won’t be long,” Amelia said. Sadie sat down on the bed as Amelia piled on a couple of her homemade sweaters. She left the room, and Sadie could hear her putting on her boots and coat before heading out the back door. She lay in bed in the dark and waited for Amelia to return.
Sadie hoped that it would be too cold for Amelia to do more than take a quick trip to the outhouse. But she was gone longer than that would take, and Sadie was contemplating getting up and searching the grounds for her, when she suddenly heard a loud blast. It was her rifle, certainly.
Sadie didn’t bother tying her boots or zipping her coat as she hurried out of the farmhouse. “Amelia!” she screamed. “Amelia!” She wasn’t sure which way the rifle shot came from.
Sadie ran down the plowed driveway. She slowed her pace when she saw someone standing at the gate. Amelia, holding the rifle. She was looking at Sadie, but Sadie couldn’t read her lover’s expression in the dim moonlight. She was okay, though. That much Sadie could tell.
She didn’t see the creature, lying on the other side of the gate, until she caught up to Amelia. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Amelia nodded, clutching the rifle. She didn’t say anything, just glanced at the creature again. She’d blasted a hole in its face. It wouldn’t be eating anybody anymore. “It wouldn’t have gotten us in here,” Sadie assured her. She didn’t usually waste ammo on a lone zombie in wintertime.
“I wanted to kill one,” she said. “Just to see what it was like.” She swallowed, finally looking away from the rotten creature. “To see if it’s any different from, like, killing a living person.”
“Is it?”
“No,” Amelia said. “I don’t feel bad about the zombie, either.”
Sadie chuckled as she took the rifle. “Good shot. Are you sure you never fired it before?”
“I’ve held it and aimed,” Amelia admitted. “When you weren’t around. But no, I’ve never fired it.”
“Come to La Ronge with us tomorrow,” Sadie said. “If we see any, you can blast them for us.”
But Amelia frowned and shook her head. “I’m not sure if Christian should go along.”
“He’s all right.”
“I just…” Amelia’s face crumbled, and Sadie took her lover’s hand.
“Okay,” she said softly. “If you don’t want Christian to go, he doesn’t have to go. Am I gonna tell him?”
“No, I can do it,” Amelia said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Sadie said. “Don’t ever be sorry. Not about this.”
Sadie and Amelia clasped hands as they walked back to the farmhouse. They found Christian sitting at the table, a single candle lit as he waited for them. “What happened?” he asked.
“Everything’s okay,” Amelia assured him, joining him. Sadie took the gun and put it in the case in the living room. She wondered if she should lock it up. Christian knew better than to touch the gun, but what about Amelia? Sadie didn’t like the thought of her getting the rifle on one of her dark days. What if she’d…?
Because that’s what Sadie thought as she ran out into the farmyard. My lover’s dead. She killed herself. She’s dead. Her head still pounded a little at the thought. She went to bed alone, leaving Amelia to tell her son that he wouldn’t be leaving the farm the next day.
*
Sadie was leaving her room, heading out to use the outhouse before spending some more time reading, when she heard Amelia call her name. She wasn’t sure if she heard correctly at first. Amelia’s voice sounded weak, and it sounded like she was in the defunct bathroom.
The door was cracked, and Sadie opened it. Amelia was slumped down against the bathtub. There was a small pool of blood on the tiles next to her. “Oh, my God,” Sadie said. “What happened?”
Amelia let out a shuddering sigh. “I lost the baby,” she whispered. Sadie gaped at her. She didn’t know Amelia was pregnant, but she now thought she should have been expecting it. Amelia and Glenn had been sleeping together for a few months.
“Are you okay?” Sadie asked. She didn’t know what to do. There was so much blood. Was Amelia going to die?
“Can you help me up?” Amelia asked. “I didn’t want to get blood on the sheets…”
“Here,” Sadie said. She knelt down and grabbed Amelia under her arms. It wasn’t difficult to lift her. She weighed practically nothing.
Amelia looked down, saw the thick blood on the floor. “Oh, God,” she gasped, putting a hand over her face.
“Come on,” Sadie said. “I’ll deal with that.” She led Amelia to her bedroom, the room Amelia shared with Glenn. Sadie hadn’t been in there in…geez, maybe never, she realized. She tended to avoid her father, more so now than ever.
Amelia whimpered a little as Sadie helped her out of her nightshirt. Sadie tossed it aside before Amelia noticed the bloodstain on the backside. “Here, I’ll get you something,” Sadie said. She went to Glenn’s drawers and found one of her father’s nightshirts. She tossed it to Amelia.
Sadie left Amelia alone while she got a couple of buckets of water boiling. After she took a little bit of bleach from their supplies and scrubbed the bathroom tiles with hot bleach water, she went back to Amelia and Glenn’s bedroom. She found Amelia sitting as she’d left her, her arms crossed over her tiny chest, tears streaming silently down her face.
“Come on,” Sadie said gently. “I got water for you to wash up.”
Sadie sat at the table and watched as Amelia took off Glenn’s nightshirt slowly. She was as thin as ever, and Sadie thought that she couldn’t have been very far along. But there was so much blood…
Sadie stuck around to make sure Amelia was okay. Amelia was trembling a little as she silently washed herself, spending extra time washing the blood off her thighs. Sadie wondered if she should offer to help, but that would have been strange, she thought.
“Glenn’s still gone?” Amelia asked as she pulled the nightshirt back on. Sadie nodded. She could have gone to town with her father, of course, but she didn’t like the idea of spending time alone in the truck with him. It was a good thing she hadn’t gone and left Amelia by herself…
“Need help with anything?” Sadie asked. “I’ll take care of the water,” she added as Amelia tried to lift the bucket out of the sink.
Amelia nodded. “I’m just gonna go back to bed.”
“Okay.” Sadie watched as Amelia went back to her bedroom. There was just a little bit of blood on the back of Glenn’s nightshirt, where she’d been sitting down. She thought of getting Amelia’s bloody nightshirt and letting it soak in some bleach water, but she didn’t move from the table until her father finally got home.
“Back of the truck’s loaded up,” Glenn announced as he came in. When Sadie didn’t move, Glenn set his box of supplies on the counter. “What’s the matter?” He glanced at the bucket and winced, noticing the bloody water.
“Why couldn’t you just leave her alone?” Sadie demanded. She stomped into her room, slamming the door, and refused to help bring in the rest of the haul.
Chapter Eight
When there was no answer at the Charles family’s store, Sadie worried that Remy and Johnny closed up to head down to Winnipeg, or one of the other places th
ey went for supplies to stock their shelves. But after she knocked a third time, the peep hole slid up. The door opened just enough to let Sadie slip inside.
Johnny, now the second oldest Charles brother (and only one of two remaining in La Ronge) stood there, wearing jeans and no shirt. “Sorry,” he said. “I was washing upstairs.”
“No worries,” Sadie said. “I’ve got some stuff to bring in.”
“Oh, yeah, let me grab my coat,” Johnny said. He helped Sadie bring in the boxes of preserves, potatoes, onions, and the last of the sweaters that Amelia would be making until they somehow got more yarn. There was also another few ounces of weed. Sadie always sold to the Charles brothers in increments, not wanting to spend the whole supply before the end of winter. They had enough to smoke and sell at least through the end of summer yet.
“Where’s Remy?” Sadie asked as Johnny shrugged off his coat, continuing their transaction bare-chested. Johnny was all right, but she’d always liked dealing with Remy more. He got down to business, but he had a good heart, deep down. She’d seen him give food to people in town who had nothing worth trading for it. The Charles family were good people, and it hurt Sadie to see them falling apart.
“Down in the Peg,” Johnny said. He frowned. “He was supposed to be back yesterday, I think. Might be waiting on an order or something.”
Sadie nodded, biting back a frown. No use in adding to Johnny Charles’s worries.
Johnny had something interesting that he’d set aside for Sadie. “So, that plow on your truck doesn’t do you much good after the thaw, eh?” he asked.
Sadie narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. “Not really,” she conceded. “But I couldn’t do without it in the wintertime.”
In Another Life Page 9