The Distance

by Jeremy Robinson

  The phone in my hand, this remnant of human ingenuity, feels heavy. The weight comes from its importance rather than its mass. It connects me to sanity, to August, who is once again, trying to talk logic and sense at me with mixed results.

  “Just because you’re all Ramboed out, doesn’t mean I am,” I say. “I feel like an out-of-shape potato. A misshapen potato, like one you’d find hidden at the bottom of the pantry. Wrinkled and old and neglected. And pregnant and alone and stuff.”

  “I think you’re mixing your metaphors, now.”

  “What do you know, scientist? Go equate something.”

  I can tell he’s laughing, because he’s not making any noise. He’s one of those silent laughers. I enjoy making him do this. It’s usually followed by a sigh.

  He sighs. “Well, how are you feeling? You mentioned feeling anemic. Do you think you need more iron?”

  At times like this I realize I’ve forgotten whole aspects of his life—that he is old enough to be my father, that he lost a daughter only a few years younger than me, that he had a wife, with womanly issues. He can relate. I’m not used to this. My father was hands off when it came to feminine issues, including my birth. He waited in the lobby, reading Robert Frost. So when August, the astrophysicist, who has turned out to be more sensitive than my poet father, talks about birth and pregnancy and supplements, he’s filling my mother’s shoes.

  “Probably,” I say. “I don’t know. It’s just that I’m nearing the end of frozen meat, so I haven’t been eating as much.”

  “And the canned meat still—”

  “There’s not much of that, either, but yeah, Squirt seems to disapprove of canned meats. Makes me hurl. Like vigorously hurl.”

  “And the grocery store is off limits, anyway.”

  I nod even though he can’t see me. There’s no way I’m going back there, and just about the only food still good will be the canned variety, which will do more harm than good.

  “So you’re going hunting, which makes sense. Both of us are going to have to learn how to—”

  “Both of us?” I ask. “What about Mark?”

  “He seems to be a natural. Catches fish and rabbits like he was born to.”

  Mark is fun to talk to. His California accent and relaxed personality put me at ease, and he often gets me laughing. But I lack the connection with him that I have with August, and if I’m honest, I’m a little jealous of him. I can’t wait to meet him, but August is the glue holding the fissure in my head closed. He’s the one I need to get here.

  August clears his throat the way he does before asking a question he fears will insult my intelligence, which is more often than I’d like to admit. My feelings of incapability make me defensive. “Do you know what to do with the animal, you know, once you’ve gotten it?”

  “Oh, please. I’m from New Hampshire,” I say, and I realize that might be too general an explanation. Not everyone in New Hampshire hunts. “My dad used to take me hunting. It was how he harnessed his inner Hemingway.”

  We’re both quiet for a minute. This is how we talk, and we’re both comfortable with the silences. We retreat into our brains for a bit, processing.

  I break the silence first. “August?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m scared.” I hate admitting it, but he can’t help me if I’m not honest.

  “You’re going to be fine. You haven’t seen anyone else in a long time. And they have left you, and us, alone. Mark thinks they’ve gone.”

  He thinks that I mean I’m scared to leave the house, scared to go in the woods. It’s where Leila had lurked for a while, before I ignored all my evolutionary instincts and allowed her into my home.

  “No,” I say. “It’s not that. I’m scared...about giving birth. I start to think about it, and then I hyperventilate and have to lie down.” He’s quiet, just listening to me. He won’t respond before he’s ready to.

  “I think that I can handle the intensity and the pain. Or maybe I can’t. Ugh…I don’t know. I just…what if I have to do it alone? You’re not exactly speeding across the county. I’m going to have to do it alone.” My voice in the living room feels large, animated, the words drawn in fat, cartoonish bubble letters, floating just below the ceiling. I lay down on the couch, my hand propped behind my head.

  “We’re making good time. And no matter what happens, you can handle it. I have no doubt about that.” He says this with such tenderness, his voice quiet, almost a question. I like that he doesn’t bullshit me and promise to be here. We have both seen too much at this point to not be honest, or realistic.

  “Maybe,” I say, which feels like the second prayer of my life.

  “I was my wife’s birth coach, you know. Before it was hip. I even cut the cord.”

  I laugh. “Really? Did you pass out?”

  He’s silent, the laughing again. “Only once. Listen, Mark is back and we’re wasting daylight. I should go now, Poe. My girl needs me to keep moving.”

  I grin. His girl. Aside from my parents, why have I never allowed this vulnerability in my life before? I always discover things too late, a perpetual late bloomer. I’m the last to jump on any bandwagon, even when the trend is deeply and naturally human, like opening the door to devotion, or relaxing in tenderness. I could observe these positive conditions in others, could assign them value in my paintings, but kept them at arm’s length for myself. Until now, with no one left on the planet. Figures.

  “Hanging up now,” he says.

  “Okay.”

  “See ya.”

  “Bye.”

  Feeling bolstered, but more alone, I stand from the living room couch and shed the afghan. Luke looks up from his sprawl on the rug.

  “Are you a good hunter, Lukey?” He thumps his tail on the carpet, still on his side. “Yeah, right, lazy boy. You would just run up and kiss the deer, huh?” I lean down and nuzzle him. He cranes his neck to reach my chin with his tongue, then jumps up to join me as I get dressed to find the rifle—in the barn.

  It’s warmer outside than I thought. Mid-fifties at least. Luke and I stand outside the closed barn door, staring at the handle. The gun is stored in a locked case in the hayloft, up a ladder. I think my dad should have stored it inside the house, I think that’s a law or something. But, you know, it’s New Hampshire, and our state motto is Live Free or Die. The older dudes take that freedom of expression and action to heart, and pretty much do whatever the hell they want, within reason. I once saw a neighbor across the street from my apartment building, an old Yankee with a long white beard, hurl a snow shovel at a passing car he thought was going too fast. And then he got on his motorcycle and went after him. Pretty typical stuff.

  I can smell the dead. Inside. The rot is potent, even through the solidly built walls. All you have to do is run past them and up the ladder, Poe. Just run as fast as your little pregnant legs can carry you. You can deal with them later. It’s okay. The dead can wait.

  I glance down at Luke. He’s watching the door with the same intensity I am. He doesn’t know what’s in there, not really. But his nose is twitching, taking in scents that he doesn’t have any memory of, but are no doubt triggering some ancient instincts not yet fully bred out of canines. He cocks his head to the side, like he can hear something. Cocks it further. I listen, but hear nothing. Rats, I think. They’re already here. But they won’t bother with me. Short of an animal with rabies, anything that’s found its way inside will run from Luke and me.

  I put my hand on the painted red door. The wood is warm from the sun. With my other hand, I lift the black metal latch. I take a slow, deep breath, hold it and yank the door open.

  The buzzing that explodes outward makes me think that the creatures are back, that they’ve finally come to take me, and I scream. But the scream is cut short when something light and crispy shoots into my mouth. I cough and spit, eyes closed as a flurry of gentle taps bounce over me. I squint my eyes open and see what’s happening. Flies. Thousands of them. Nature is already
taking care of the dead, and I realize that the best way to take care of this problem is to leave the doors wide open. Let the carrion do the job for me. In a few weeks, all I’ll have to clean is bones.

  As the cloud of manic black specks filters out and spreads over the yard, I step inside the barn. Sylvia’s hulking carcass still oddly resembles her, the sweet cow she once was. Her baby, right by the door, mangled, rotting, looks like an alien mash of meat and bones, still living with globs of wriggling fly larva . I breathe through my mouth buried in the crook of my arm, afraid I might be able to taste the rank. The bodies get a wide berth as I skitter through the dirt and hay, to the ladder. My lips sealed tight, breath held, I scale the rungs up to the loft. At the top, I breathe hard, once more through the crook of my arm.

  My father hid the gun case in the corner, behind a stack of hay bales. I drag it out, take the key from my pocket and shaking, I try it in the keyhole at the front of the large rifle case. My hands are fumbly, incompetent. I imagine Leila climbing the ladder behind me…can I hear footsteps? I drop the key. It strikes the slatted wooden floor, bounces and slides into the crack between boards. I gasp and reach, but I’m too late. I hear it clink on the concrete slab below, in one of the stalls where my dad used to keep gardening equipment. I can’t do it. I can’t go back down there long enough to find it.

  I sit down in the hay for a minute, slowing my breathing.

  Do I really need meat?

  There are plenty of vegetarians and vegans who have perfectly healthy pregnancies. They also have access to fresh food and beans and any ingredients they want to combine together to form amino acids and whatever. I feel dizzy, and a wave of nausea.

  I kind of lied to August. My dad took me hunting once, and I just watched. I didn’t have the heart to pull the trigger. I also watched him take care of the deer afterward, so I think I can manage that, too. Maybe.

  I need to get the key. Spring is here. The deer will be hungry and plentiful, especially with no other hunters for possibly miles, or forever. We can do this, Squirt. Harness your inner Hemingway.

  I stand up, stick my chest and round belly out, and blunder down the ladder, around the dead animals, to the back of the barn, where the key rests. I know where it fell, because I heard it. After a few minutes of looking, I see its glint. And next to it, recognizable boxes. Rabbit traps!

  A plan forms.

  The smell and dead around me are momentarily forgotten. I retrieve the key, and then the old hunting rifle—a long black affair with a large scope mounted on top—along with a box of .308 ammunition. But it’s the traps that give me hope. Even if I fail to shoot a deer, the stationary traps, with their wily ways, will snag a meal. Rifle over my shoulder, I drag the traps out of the barn and leave the door open. Have at it, I think to the scavengers. Just leave the rabbits for me.

  My plan is simple. Step one, set the traps. Step two, my baby and I are going hunting.

  33

  POE

  I stand at the precipice, before the woods where wild animals lurk, hunting and hunted. I feel like taking the next step will be like stepping back in time, to when distant hunter-gatherer ancestors eked out a life. That’s who we will become. All the still-working technology around us will rot and fade. Fuel will run out. Parts will wear down. The fireplace has an unending source of fuel, if you can cut it and dry it, but food will become scarce in the great cold North. August once suggested we head south, where food can be grown year round. I balked at the idea, but not for any sensible reason. I just didn’t want to leave this house...and my parents behind. But he’s right. Canned food might sustain us for another winter, but we’ll have to head south...and probably should after Squirt is born.

  So this is it, my baptism into primal living. I snap my fingers at Luke, not wanting to make the transition on my own. He barrels into the woods, bounding through the melting, slushy leaves, full of joy and vigor, before plunging into a muddy puddle formed by the house’s perimeter drain.

  “You’re not very sneaky,” I say, and I whistle him over, giving him a few brisk pats before taking hold of his collar and leading him back to the house. I open the kitchen door, and he understands what I want. He goes in, tail and head down.

  I lean into his big soft head, speaking into his ear. “I know, Luke. I’ll be back soon. You guard the manor.” I hesitate, remembering what happened the last time I left him alone. I returned to him frolicking in the front yard with Leila. Nothing is going to happen. He’s safe.

  Besides, I’m doing this for him, too. While I might be able to subsist on vegetables, he needs to eat meat, and his carnivorous ways have sent us plowing through most of the canned goods in the house. I have no typical dog food, and since the smell of canned meat makes me vomit, the chicken, tuna and soups have all gone to the dog.

  I know there is always another option, the last resort known as the grocery store. Right now, that place frightens me too much. But I know that if I can’t catch my food, I’m going to have to risk that trip again.

  I return to the woods, alone now, and pick up the rabbit trap, which is designed to not hurt the rabbits when they are caught. I have mixed feelings about this, because I will have to kill the rabbit myself if we want to eat it. Rifle slung over my thin shoulder, I think, Annie Oakley. She is the only riflewoman I know of. Then, Laura Ingalls Wilder, who may or may not have ever shot a gun. I am trying to step into a role, give myself a little boost. Ellen Ripley, I think with a grin. Given the otherworldly nature of what happened to the world, and August’s violent encounters, the alien-hunting Ripley is probably the most appropriate role model. If only she were real. I step forward, crossing the precipice, and stop. “Shit.” I have no bait for the trap. I’m wasting too much time.

  I’m out of fresh vegetables, and there won’t be anything but sludge left in the grocery store, if that was an option yet. I’ve been eating my parents’ canned and frozen vegetables, carefully harvested and squirreled away peas or rhubarb, the tanginess of which I’ve been craving. I head inside once more, resting the rifle on the kitchen table, and avoiding Luke’s love. I go down into the basement and search through the icy chunks near the bottom of the big freezer. There isn’t much food left. Miraculously, I find a bag of frozen, chopped carrots from my mother’s garden. I chip away at the ice with the dust pan handle with which I attempted to sweep up my parents. The carrots are freezer burned but still smell strongly. They’ll work.

  Back in the kitchen, I douse the carrots in apple cider vinegar, something I remember my mother doing. When I catch a whiff of the stuff, I think it’s to help the rabbits smell and find the bait.

  I step into the woods again, third time’s a charm, no looking back. My boots suck at the wet, slushy leaves, the bare earth now a sloppy mix. The snow left in the forest is patchy, but the smooth surface still tells a story. I see lots of tiny tracks, mice and squirrels, some deer prints—which is promising—and then the distinctive hopping track of a rabbit. I follow the tracks deeper into the woods.

  It’s so quiet out here, as always, but as my body reacts with the usual convention to a serene place—slowed pulse, deeper belly breathing, relaxed facial muscles—despondency encases me. I no longer need this escape, and I loathe the quiet. The emptiness and aloneness. I grieve for so much more than I first thought. The loss of tiny habits, frequent activities, comfortable needs and predictable emotions that defined my puny life. I haven’t painted, drawn or even doodled since the end began. This brink scares me, the edge indefinable. A few more steps straight ahead and I could surrender, fall off some mental cliff, limbs limp. I want my old desires back. I’d even take my old neuroses.

  Maybe even Todd.

  Ten minutes in, I spot some scat on the snow, deer prints leading away from it, into thicker forest. I lay down the trap and crouch beside the mount. When I hunted with my father, we came across a similar pile and he picked it up like it was the most normal thing in the world. Told me the deer was close, because its scat was still warm. Lu
ckily, I don’t need to pick it up. Coils of rising steam tell me it’s fresh. Very fresh.

  As quietly as possible, I set the rabbit trap by a tree, placing the apple cider doused carrots inside. Then, rifle in hand, I head out, deeper into the woods, feeling adventurous, but also extremely pregnant. How long does it usually take a hunter to find and kill a deer? My energy is waning already. How am I going to pull a dead deer back home? My stomach rumbles. In pieces if I have to.

  A light rain starts up, so I pull my hood over my hair and go slowly, enjoying the water pattering on the melting snow. Soon there will be torrents, rivers through our forest, streams burbling over with spring thaw. They’ve probably already started.

  I allow my mind to daydream about beginning another art piece, a painting of water, with a figure reaching up from the current, arms extending. I did something purposeful today; I set a trap. I’m hunting. Maybe it’s time to create.

  My thoughts are on an embryonic painting idea when I hear a rustling in the woods. And then, a snapping of twigs and more rustling. Anxiety sears through my blood, Leila, the shimmer from the store, another human. I’ve got the rifle scope raised to my right shoulder before I even think to do it. I scan the woods with the scope, everything magnified.

  A grayish-brown texture fills the scope’s sight. Sixty feet away from me, on the path, stands an enormous white-tail buck, his backside to me. You’ve got to be kidding me. He’s so beautiful, probably weighing at least two hundred pounds, his legs long against the white slush, the slope of his strong back big enough to ride on. He yanks and nibbles on something in the brush.

  I focus on the animal, trying to place the crosshairs just above his legs. That’s where the heart is, I think. I don’t want to have to shoot him twice. He stops eating and stands erect, antlers high. Goodness, he’s huge. New Hampshire Fish and Game suggest we have more than eighty thousand deer living here. Philosophy conundrums whirl through my brain. Not now, I think. Whose life is more meaningful, this large, beautiful buck’s, or mine, Squirt and Luke’s? It’s so much easier to just eat the meat, rather than have to kill it. As usual, indecision will be my downfall. The buck takes a few steps. I hear my father’s voice in my head, press, don’t pull the trigger. Be surprised by the gun going off, don’t anticipate it. I aim again.