I involuntarily look down at myself, caught in a lie, unable to look her in the eyes. “No, I just decided to turn the heat up instead.”
If she buys the lie, I can’t tell. She looks lost now. Her one hand rests on the keys, not playing. A puzzled look twists her face. She looks up at me with a frown.
Before I can ask her anything, she says, “How’s the baby, Poe?”
I stop in place. Did I already tell her about Squirt?
My few and recent memories of Leila start to replay.
“She’s doing fine,” I say, keeping the peace. “I guess. Hard to tell. You know. Luke’s not exactly an obstetrician.” We both look down at Luke, who raises his head and thumps his tail at the sound of his name. I am wracking my brain, remembering our conversation in the kitchen, every word we’ve said since meeting outside. Did I tell her about the baby?
“Good, good. So how do you know she’s a girl?” Leila plays a few chords, soft and slow, but they’re not fluid, like a melody. They’re discordant. They don’t match—like walking in one stiletto heel and one Birkenstock. The sound matches the confusion I’m feeling.
“I mean, I guess I don’t really know. I just sort of have a feeling. Helps to assign a gender. Visualizing, or something.” I remain still, frozen by the breadth of this woman’s knowledge. How long did she watch me? Listen to my conversations with Luke? Could she hear me talking to August last night? Does she know I’m hiding him from her?
I didn’t tell her. Maybe I’m showing more than I thought?
But would that explain everything she knows?
“How far along are you?”
I don’t blame her for spying or snooping. I get it. But she could at least pretend not to know all this about me. But I see what she’s doing now. I get it. This is girl talk. We’re harkening back to a time that existed before the event, when women would gather and bond over their periods, procreation and comfortable-yet-supportive bra choices. In other words, a few days ago. Except that I never quite fit into that time, either. My boobs have always been too small, my discussion ideas too large.
“Three months,” I say.
Some mental math slides through my mind like unbidden flash cards.
Six months.
I will give birth to another human being in six months. There will be no physician, no nurse or midwife. No hypno-birthing classes, birth ball or birth tub. Who will help me? Even if I could Google this stuff, how many people give birth on their own?
August. He had a daughter. Didn’t strike me as the kind of person who would be absent at the birth. He’s a smart guy, too, so maybe he remembers some of the details. When to push. When to breathe. The kind of information my own parents would have conveyed when the time came. But what if he doesn’t make it? What if he fainted when his daughter was born and doesn’t remember it?
I can’t do this alone. I’m not that strong.
I start to get lost in this foreboding, when I notice Leila is scratching incessantly at her shoulder, her legs jiggling up and down, up and down. She’s moving nonstop. And then she plays another few chords, again unattached to each other, then returns to digging at her shoulder, pulling at her clothes.
The playing stops suddenly. Leila turns to me with a crooked smile. “So tell me how you’ve been feeling. Healthy? Morning sickness?”
She scratches the shoulder again, rapid fire, like a rodent limb. The buttons of her blouse pop free. The shirt opens. I see an arch of black skin beneath, a fraction of what could be a broad circle on her chest, like some kind of horrible infection. My mind runs through the symptoms of various plagues I know precious little about. The black death sounds right, but I don’t think it looked like this. Ebola...no. Small Pox would be bumpy. Even the latest plague to strike mankind, Hochman’s, didn’t turn skin black. Those people just fell apart. I glance at Leila’s missing arm and dismiss it. If she had Hochman’s, she wouldn’t be up and about. She’d be dead.
I stand up. “Leila? Are you...okay?”
She cocks her head to the side, my question unheard. “Is everything gestating properly? Have you been monitoring your temperature? How many millimeters is your uterus currently measuring?”
I stare at her. The line of detailed questioning confuses me. “I’m sorry, what? Gestating?”
She starts to ask another question, interspersed with the piano chords and the itching. I interrupt her.
“Enough about me,” I say, forcing cheer into my voice and casually waving my hand. “I’m really interested in hearing your story. How you survived the...event.” I lean back on the chair arm, not comfortable with the idea of fully sitting, a vulnerable position.
“Well, I don’t know if... Huh.” She looks down at her hand, rubs the top of her thigh, as if trying to warm herself up. She’s nervous, too. But, I don’t try to comfort her. I want to know what happened. Maybe within her story is some key to finding out what we need to do? What really happened? And why. So, I wait, feeling done with the weird line of pregnancy questioning. I glance down at my still mostly flat middle. No way she could see I was pregnant.
“I was at home when it happened,” she says, not looking at me. She plunks a couple of keys on the piano, then a chord, C E G. It’s like she’s adding a soundtrack to her talking. She plays another chord; jiggles both legs up and down. The scratching above her missing arm resumes.
“So, you were at home? I was here when it happened. I...lost my parents.”
She glances around the room, swinging her head wide, like suddenly my lost parents will appear, like they were hiding this whole time. “Have you looked for them?”
There’s a negative shift in the room’s energy, moving toward instability. My muscles tense. The fissure in my brain cracks open a bit, a little rift in a dry lake bed. A tangent.
Leila stands abruptly, knocking over the piano bench. She steps around it, leaving it tipped over on the braided rug, my mother’s collection of music books spilled out. She scratches again. “But...but your baby. She’s fine. She’s healthy.” She’s stuttering and pacing the room. “Right? I need to know. I need...I need...”
It’s her arm, I think. She’s in denial, focusing on the baby so that she won’t have to acknowledge that she lost the arm. Which means it’s recent.
Overcome with sudden mercy, I stand and walk calmly toward her. “Leila, you’re safe now. You survived. We both did. But you need to move past it now. Because I need you—the baby needs you—to get better.” I’m no psychologist, but I’m pretty sure burying crap like this is the wrong way to go about it. Better to deal with it and move on. I think. That could just be the Yankee in me.
“Leila, were you underground?” I ask, remembering August’s story. “During the event? Did you lose your…um…arm when, you know…the dust?”
I can practically see her arm raised up, maybe holding on to something, maybe reaching, turning to powder before her eyes, breaking her mind. It must be what happened.
“My what?” Leila stops in the middle of the room. We’re a few feet apart. She stares down at me, reminding me that I’m short.
I’m not entirely sure what to say, so I ramble. “Your arm, Leila. I’m sorry to bring it up. But you have to face it. I’ve heard that some people can still feel missing limbs. Severed limb syndrome, I think. If it hurts we can probably get something strong from the pharmacy. It’s not like we need a prescription.” I take a step toward her, wanting to comfort her, wanting now to connect, finally. I feel very tired.
“My arm?” She looks at the open air where her limb should be, but isn’t. Then she stares at me, her large gray eyes unblinking. “What. The. Hell. Are. You. Talking. About?”
24
POE
“Your arm, Leila,” I say, quiet, stepping closer toward her. I gesture to the space where her arm should be, was, is now not. She looks at the empty space, seeing what only she can, before turning back to me, like I’m the one who is crazy. Her gaze intimidates me, partly for the wild look in her eyes,
but also because they guide her body, which is twice my size. Easily.
I once worked as an art therapist at SafeHaven, a treatment facility for adults with disabilities. Sometimes the older guys, the ones who used to live in the institution before it closed down, who were most mistreated—beaten, hosed off for showers, electrocuted—would explode, throwing chairs, or people, unable to speak or express what they wanted to tell us. Their anguish. The room would clear, and they would call me in, the short artist, weighing a third of their weight. I never tried to figure out what they needed, because I don’t think they even knew. I respected them enough to know I couldn’t read their minds. So I would just allow my quietude to fill the room. I would extend gentleness to them, like a single flower in my hand. I would be gentle enough for both of us. I would be their calm. It worked every time. And then I would whisper their interests to them, remind them who they were. A little bit of emotional redirecting, a sleight of hand.
Leila is like them. Not well.
Her breath comes in gasps, gray eyes savage. I respect her enough to know that I cannot read her mind. I slow my breathing, way, way down.
“Never mind,” I say. “I’m just tired. Probably the baby.”
Leila stands still, listening, but the mania is still bubbling at the surface.
“Who taught you how to play?” I motion to the piano.
Her eyes dilate slightly. She leans back, bringing her upright again. I hadn’t even realized she was leaning over me.
“You seem like a natural,” I say.
She turns her eyes to the piano. “My mother taught me. It was supposed to be a lesson in discipline. I think she was disappointed I liked it so much.” She smiles and laughs to herself, lost in a memory. She holds up her hand, looking back and forth between it and the missing one. Her fingers are powerful and callused. “If not for these hands, I might have done something with it. But the speedy tempos...” She wiggles her fingers. “I’m just not fast enough.”
Feeling a fresh downward spiral en route, I redirect again. “You said you were hungry. Let’s see what we can find in the kitchen.”
I don’t touch her, but walk with total confidence right past her, through the living room into the kitchen, expressing my trust. But it’s a charade. As much as I loved those damaged men at SafeHaven, I never really trusted them. My heart patters around. I am alone with this woman. I ache to hear August’s voice.
I start taking boxes of things from the cupboards, a bit of bustle in my step, trying to act normal. What would my mother do? What food is a peace offering? Something friends would eat. My eyes are drawn to a box of chocolate chip cookies, but my mind is elsewhere. Does she really not know her arm is missing?
Leila steps into the kitchen, forehead channeled into several deep rivers. I see her as a woman gripped by some kind of amnesia, or an out-of-body experience. She looks like she’s climbed from a car wreck, physically shaken but mentally incomplete.
Is this what I looked like when I left the pod?
No, I decide, and I put the open cookie box on the table, all smiles. It’s her eyes that throw me, that make me think she’s missing something else, something deeper. Beyond my understanding, but still somehow detectable.
“Cookies again,” she says, the words a critique, and an accurate one. It seems that my default snack is cookies. I could have offered pie. There are enough of them. But she’s already digging into the box. “At least there’s some chocolate in them this time.”
I need to be alone. Away from her for a few minutes. I’m not seeing things clearly. Not seeing her clearly. I lean against the counter, watching her gingerly sit on a chair. My arms encircle my little body, wrapping around to grab each poking elbow.
It’s okay, Squirt.
August, get here, like yesterday.
We nibble for a few minutes. She remains eerily silent the whole time, squinting hard while she eats, small rabbit bites, her cheeks up near her eyes. I dare not disturb whatever stasis I’ve created. I won’t be mentioning the arm again, at least not today. The stairs beckon me, drawing my eyes every few seconds. I want to run up them, lock myself in my father’s office and call August. I need a father’s perspective. A second brain. At the very least, a sympathetic ear.
But how to get up there again without drawing attention? And will the phone even be charged enough?
Leila leans back in her chair, looks like she’s about to say something. I interrupt.
“Leila, did you know I have some animals? In the barn?”
Her eyebrows rise in time with her slowly turning head. “Oh?”
“The chickens need to be fed, if you’d like the honors.” It’s not true, but chickens can always eat. “I’m sure they’d be happy to meet you. I think they’re sick of me already.”
“Probably,” she agrees, and the knots in my back spring to life.
I show no reaction to the jab. “The feed is in the bucket, just to the right of the barn door. Just sprinkle some around to them. They’ll love it.”
At least my powers with people have not faded. She nods, still frowning, and walks to the kitchen door. She slips on her boots and heads out to the barn. No coat. Oblivious to the cold now curling into the kitchen through the left open door. She won’t last long out there without a coat, but I’ll take it. In my current state, my own fallible brain malfunctioning, I can’t maintain the emotional sleight of hand for long.
I watch to make sure she enters the barn, and then I close the kitchen door and lock the deadbolt. Hesitation roots me in place. Should I lock it?
Will she believe I could have done so by accident?
Do I even care? I know nothing about her except, if I’m honest, that she frightens me. I don’t want to let her back in at all. But is there a choice? She’s not a dog I can just leave to die, and look how well that turned out. She’d probably just turn on me like the dog did. And it’s not like the house is Fort Knox. Getting inside would be as easy as breaking a window, and then I’d be in real trouble. What if she broke all the windows? Would I have to leave the house?
Too many questions. Too many potential outcomes.
But I need to talk to August, and I need to do it alone.
The door remains locked. There is more chocolate in the house I can use as a peace offering.
I run upstairs to my father’s office and close the door behind me, no lock on this one. I hover above the phone. Something looks different. And then I realize the change. A small green light on the top of the phone is glowing. I shake a bit as I lift the phone and punch the numbers written on my wrist. I end up dialing what I’m hoping is the wrong number first, because nobody answers.
I try again, carefully depressing each number. The slowness of it feels like a man’s fingers around my throat.
It rings.
Again.
On the third ring, “Poe?”
“It’s me,” I say, melting with relief, but then realize he didn’t sound right. “Are you okay?”
He tells me that the phone surprised him, that he’s in a Walmart, of all places, and now that I have him on the phone, I just want him to talk at me. I just want to hear him breathe, listen to his movements through the phone, imagine his physicality and gestures. Pretend to know his face. Leila fades away.
He’s telling me something about shopping. I’m listening to the texture of his deep voice. He will laugh from his toes. He will give great bear hugs. He’ll have that distracted, over thinking presence of the geniusly smart. I slide down to the floor.
“Poe,” August says, his voice serious, snapping my thoughts back to the here and now. He says something else, but I miss it, focusing instead on the sound of creaking floorboards just outside the door.
The office door opens slowly and Leila steps in. I forgot to lock the front door. I look up at her, confused by her clothing, which looks darker, stained dark red, and moist. Was she painting in the barn? Did I leave some old art supplies out there? Red spots speckle her face. Is that a rash?
Something in my mind clicks. The black skin. A rash. Hochman’s or some other disease? Do I have it now?
“Who are you talking to?” she says, standing above me. Then the smell hits me, a corrosive, rusty stench.
It’s blood.
She’s covered in blood.
25
AUGUST
Warmth on my cheek rouses me from unintended sleep. The air is stale. My lungs feel dry. The morning sun sends its rays through the SUV’s windows, which trap the infrared spectrum inside, warming the interior. I only vaguely remember my pell-mell drive to Albuquerque, fearing the whole way that I would be hunted down by the strange alien being. But I made it without incident, only slowing for the empty cars littering the highway. When I arrived in the city, the lights were still on. I spotted the Walmart sign from the highway, just two blocks away. As though my arrival were a trigger, the power winked out and the city plunged into darkness just minutes after I’d put the SUV in park between a hulking RV and a cherry red Corvette. Sandwiched between midlife crisis and late life acceptance, I fell asleep, escaping the pain shrouding my body.
I’d considered going into the mega-store while the power was still on, but once things got dark... Not a chance. I’d rather sleep in the SUV and have wheels beneath me than be caught in the pitch black, dusty-floored aisles with an invisible hunter-killer.
Now that the sun has risen, its orange glow strikes the storefront, and its windows, head on. If it gets much later, the sun’s light won’t penetrate the store’s depths. Even now, most of the light will be filtered out by the tall aisles and stacks of smiley-faced sale displays. If there were any other path, I’d take it, but everything I need to start my cross country trek, sans locomotion, is inside that building.
I lift my arm and take hold of the steering wheel. The muscles in my shoulder, bicep and forearm painfully declare their resistance to the movement. I haven’t felt this stiff...ever. At least my hand is pain-free, and my grip on the wheel solid. With my left hand, I toggle the seat back, which is fully reclined. I sit up, lifting with my gut and pulling with my arm. If there were anyone alive within a five mile radius, I’d be embarrassed by the way my stomach muscles jitter and struggle with the half sit-up. Hell, I’m embarrassed for myself. Of all the people left on Earth to cross the country in search of another survivor, I’m probably the least likely candidate to succeed. All I really have going for me is commitment. And it moves me, first outside the SUV and then one aching, lumbering step at a time, to the front entrance of Walmart.
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