Savages

by Christina Bergling

  All of the waiting for him to wrap me up and walk away from me. He did not want me. I was not good enough, even when there was no one else.

  “Let’s have it,” he said, sitting beside me and staring down.

  “What?” It was difficult to unclench my teeth and force the word out.

  “I know you’re pissed.”

  “Do you? Why am I pissed?”

  “Come on.”

  “No. I’ve just been rejected by the last man on Earth. Why would I be pissed?”

  He breathed out slow and long. I still didn’t look at him. I remained wrapped around myself, trying not to let the pain show, trying not to care. I felt that same dead weight of rejection as against a junior high locker as my first real crush walked away.

  “You know,” he finally said, taking his time and speaking slowly. “You have to know. I would not save you, not from them, not from becoming them, not from yourself, if I didn’t love you.”

  My mind abjectly refused to interpret his words. They filtered into my brain then faded back out. I only heard that he didn’t want me. I only heard that he had left me standing there so vulnerable.

  “You think I’ll become one of them?” I asked. Maybe he didn’t want the savage in me.

  “You think we are all them already.”

  “You love me, but you don’t want me?” I had no reason to be coy anymore. I let the thoughts fall out of my mouth unfiltered.

  He laughed. “Yeah, that’s not it.”

  Laugh. How could he fucking laugh at this?

  “What? Sex is savage, too?” I snapped.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw the stiff smile fall off his face. His features slacked, and he stared forward silently. He breathed deeply for a long moment.

  “I still see her face,” he finally said quietly.

  Now, I could say nothing. I choked on my rage. My contempt broke for a moment, and I looked over at his now stoic form. Every cell in my body knew what he meant. Dante haunted my every step.

  “When I look at you now,” he said, “I see him. Him sleeping on your chest, him in that hole.”

  Again, he spoke words that resonated in my own soul, echoes of my own torments. Dante nuzzled up against me by dying firelight. He wrapped his arms tight around me, put his chin into the curve of my neck, kissed my skin. I could only lay there and stare into the embers, haunted by Jordi’s broken body and Eli’s green face.

  It was the last time I could have made love to him.

  He shifted on his seat and turned to face me. He looked at me, and I looked down as he started to speak again.

  “My wife never saw me pull the trigger until a target stopped moving. She never forgave me for slaughtering half of a village to come home to her. She never knew this part of me, this savage as you call it. I used to worry in the desert; I used to sit in that horrible fucking green light inside an MRAP and worry about what she would think of me, if she saw me, if she knew. That thought almost got me killed more than once. I don’t think she could have loved me through this.”

  “You’d be surprised. I loved Dante every bloody second until he died. Except when he retrieved Jordi and burned Eli. Then I hated him for giving them to me at all.”

  “This. This is easier. This is training. Light the fire, kill the food, kill the threats, walk. How do you go home after war? How do you step back into a place where it seems like none of it ever happened?”

  My anger had dissipated. I couldn’t think about sexual denial or his rebuff with talk of our dead still burning my lips. It was trivial again; it didn’t matter again. It had always been foolish.

  There was nothing else to say, no words to fill the now awkward silence.

  As the sun abandoned the sky, all the warmth in the air contracted into the tiny flames. I felt the thin bite of the night air against my face as chill nibbled through my clothes. My skin quivered first before the tremble migrated into my muscles. I clutched myself tighter as I heard the shiver in my own breath.

  “I told you it was going to get cold up here,” he said. “Come here.”

  I looked over at him out of the corner of my eye. He lifted his arm to encourage me over. My flesh wanted to leap into him, but my wounds restrained me. The many times I had wanted to dive into him; now, I hesitated. I huddled against myself and turned back to the fire.

  “Stop being such a girl and get over here. It’s all about the body heat. You can go back to being pissed in the morning.”

  It was damn cold. I looked over at him again. He opened his coat, and I couldn’t resist. He welcomed me in, spreading the blanket over us and wrapping himself around me. I pressed my nose into the fabric of his shirt, felt his warmth on the texture of the fibers. His scent wafted over me, the smell of the dirt we trudged through, the sweat long dried on his flesh.

  “My wife used to have this three day thing,” he said into my hair. “If I pissed her off, which was often enough with how stubborn we both were, she made me suffer for three days. Three days of cold shoulders and snippy comments, maybe even the couch. Then it was over. On to the next.”

  How could we ever really live a new life if all we saw were flashbacks of the ones we lost? How could I be anything more to him with the ghostly memories of his dead wife always pluming around me?

  13

  The road felt strange beneath the soles of my boots. Unnatural. We had not traced it out of some mountain town like he had planned. Rather, we had just stumbled upon a forest service road. The trees halted, and our footsteps crunched on gravel. The sound was unnerving, almost deafening on the silent mountainside. He led us along it, chasing through the vegetation and pinecones along its winding trail, until it spilled us onto asphalt.

  The lonely veil of civilization felt intrusive upon our wilderness. I found my body recoiling. I didn’t want to walk on it; I didn’t want to be anywhere near it. The survivalist in me kept reminding me of the hazard, of the exposure. Even if it was colder and more remote up here, they could still be teeming. I didn’t like it, didn’t trust it, but I followed him. Just over this pass. Then we could slip back off the grid again.

  We didn’t speak of the previous night. We didn’t speak much at all. He was on alert as we stepped into risk; I was trapped somewhere between what we had lost and what he had denied me.

  When I tried to lose myself in the present, I found myself thinking how much I wished I had seen these mountains in my past life. I could imagine driving our white crossover SUV through the winding curves, silhouettes of the trees echoing off the windshield, snow teasing in the air. Jordi and Eli in the backseat in ski hats, sharing a tablet between them, watching some cartoon. Dante swirling his finger around a map on his smart phone.

  I apparently could not live in the present.

  He strode just ahead of me, locked at attention. He had his shoulders rolled back and down, drawing his head up straight at the summit of his spine. One arm engaged his sword, keeping it tensed and ready. The other teased at the butt of his gun, flirted with it, reminded it they would play again at any moment. He looked the most in his skin in moments like this. The fight was his element. Threats gave him something to understand and to deal with. I only complicated his simple survival.

  “Are you still mad?” he finally asked as we crested the pass.

  The world opened up and sprawled out below us. The view was breathtaking. I could see the mountain range lazing out to our sides in random peaks. The mountain sprawled down from our feet and splashed out into the distance, rippling in foothills. Miles unfolded exposed and naked before us, unable to hide or conceal from our vantage point. I allowed myself to come to a complete stop for just a breath and truly see it, feeling superior for the briefest of instances. Our boots turned downward and marched into the horizon falling off in the distance. We could abandon the treacherous road now and descend in cover.

  The miniaturized terrain shifted and changed in colors and textures, like brushstrokes on a painting. I felt like I could reach out and run m
y fingertips along the transitions as I always had the childish desire to do in an art gallery. I could see towns glinting in the landscape below. I could even see the desert menacing the edge of the mountain terrain, peeking out in the hazy distance, crouching and stalking us.

  Straight ahead and far away, I could make out the forgotten silhouette of a city. At the sight of lines so branded and ingrained in my memories, my heart seized. I had always preferred the urban lifestyle, felt at home in the concrete jungle. I wanted to take the L to a Cubbies game. I wanted to find pizza after last call. I wanted to be bumped by strangers hurrying down the street. I could barely make out the shape of skyscrapers glinting in the sun, yet my mind summoned the comforting sight of the Chicago skyline reflecting off the water. The structures beckoned me on an instinctual level, somehow suggesting they could be safe and familiar once more.

  “No,” I said as we weaved between trees again. And I even believed I wasn’t. “It was a stupid moment.”

  He stopped walking and turned back to face me.

  “Not stupid,” he said.

  I didn’t want to look at him. I didn’t want to connect with him over unsuccessfully throwing myself at him. He pushed his sunglasses onto his forehead.

  “Look at me,” he said. I reluctantly turned my eyes up to meet his blues. “You and me. Stay with me. Nothing changes. West.”

  “Westward, ho.”

  He smiled, slid his sunglasses back down, and led us on.

  We were walking away from the city, yet it still grew as we moved farther down out of the mountains. I caught my eyes wandering in their direction every couple of steps. I kept correcting my boots to follow him, to stay on course just a few feet behind and to the side. I felt the sun on my face and heard the soft splashing of the fountain in Grant Park. I heard the footsteps of a jogger falling beside me, the rumble of a bike tire on the asphalt. I heard Jordi, “Look at the flowers, Mommy.”

  I bid farewell to the trees and the grass and the plant life as the dirt and sand gradually overwhelmed the ground below us.

  I could feel that distant city on the side of my mind as we walked, pressing against my focus, whispering to my resolve. I thought of St. Patrick's Day in downtown with the river dyed green, Dante and I in a proper pub cloaked in dark wood. The sounds of people—real, living, breathing, civilized people—echoed in my mind, chanting out an Irish drinking song. A wave of isolation swelled in me so far out in the wilderness, so alone with only him beside me. My chest throbbed to climb back into that city memory and tuck it in around me.

  Back in the desert. How long had it been since he had found me in the desert? Dante and I had just wandered, ran, fled in any direction. Anywhere away from our dead babies, from where we died as parents. Farm bled into prairie bled into mountains bled into desert. The dry dirt crunched under my feet, and I remembered it felt appropriate to be somewhere so barren. As dead as I felt.

  “We need water if we’re going to get across this desert, babe,” Dante said as I trudged behind him.

  “Where are we going?”

  “South, I think. Maybe it’s different in Mexico. Maybe there’s something.”

  The desert was too familiar. Like a crying infant in my arms, it plunged me headlong into a history of demons. The present was burning at the edges, going dark as the past lit up before my eyes.

  “Is the desert doing it?” his voice broke into my fog. “Bringing it back?”

  I didn’t want to think about what he would remember from the desert. He would see me waiting for three savages to slaughter me. He would see me completely broken, in a lumpy puddle on the sand. He would hear me sniveling uncontrollably for days, sloppy and drunk with grief. He would hear my raving, calling him a cunt, begging him for death. He would remember me at my lowest and most desperate.

  His hand found my shoulder. He turned me to him.

  “Don’t fight it,” he said calmly. “Just let it come and let it pass. Talk to me. Tell me.”

  I breathed ragged and desperately as he eased me down beside him, brimming flashbacks continuing to menace me.

  “They weren’t savages,” I started. “Not like these now, at least. They approached us in the desert. Spoke to us. Like Uriah. Talked about what happened where they were, how they thought it was some disease related to the government. Conspiracy theory shit. They lulled us into complacency. It wasn’t hard. We had just buried our sons; neither of us was very sharp. I was the fucking walking dead, only stumbling on for Dante. I couldn’t take his whole family from him.”

  I stopped. My tongue shriveled and cleaved to the roof of my mouth. I choked on the memory as it began to swell high over me.

  “They turned on you,” he said for me, throwing me an anchor to the moment, to him.

  “Yes,” I sputtered. I never thought I would be telling this story. “Just before night fell, in the twilight, while we tried to scrape together food. They had their guns on me, knowing Dante would do whatever they wanted. They took everything. Our little food and water, our bags, weapons. All I had was the club in my hand and the Army figures in my pocket. As they were turning to leave us to starve or get maimed by the next horde, one of them turned back.”

  I stopped again as I saw the man. I noticed that he was well fed. He was not lean or disintegrating like the rest of us. He still had the phantom of a belly pressing against his ragged shirt. His teeth were ruthless, and he showed them often, leaving his mouth perpetually hanging open to reveal the crooked and yellowed shards. His long black hair was slicked back with its own grime, left in sick curls down the back of his neck. He was enjoying this, every moment of it; his eyes twinkled in pure sadism.

  He waited calmly for me to resurface and continue.

  “He smiled and said, ‘Why should you get to keep your pretty wife?’ Then Dante was in front of me. I heard the shot echo as he collapsed. They just laughed as they walked away. They were the last ‘people’ I ever saw, beside you.”

  “How long before I found you?”

  “Days. Maybe.”

  “No wonder you were such a mess,” he said with levity.

  “That is an understatement.” I laughed as the tide of memory began to recede back under the surface.

  “You good?” he asked, reaching up and pressing his palm to my cheek.

  I closed my eyes and leaned into the touch just briefly. I breathed the dust in the air deep into my lungs and back out. All the flashbacks and reliving wouldn’t resuscitate them. All of the memory wouldn’t bring me back. There was only his hand lingering on my cheek now.

  “Yes,” I said before opening my eyes.

  He swept his arm under mine and guided me to my feet. He pressed a hand on both of my shoulders until he seemed assured I was stable once again. I had no secrets from him now. He knew how I failed my entire family; he knew how I quietly lusted for him. Somewhere deep down, I was sure he knew how savage I truly was. Naked, turned inside out, he saw me now.

  As we marched over the dead land, the city continued to tease my peripherals. The hazy shapes of real buildings taunted me, whispered to me in the distance. Something about it, something I couldn’t articulate. It was drawing me from my very center, somewhere deep inside me that didn’t make sense.

  I tried to ignore the sensation. I tried to focus on the way his head bobbed slightly as he walked in front of me or the way cacti still managed to bloom flowers. Yet it insisted on nagging me. My muscles itched. My clothes felt uncomfortable. My pack was trying to rip off my arms. My head started quietly to throb. We were going the wrong way. The farther we walked away from the city, the more my body began to protest. It called to me, somewhere in my bones, and it was becoming physically impossible to ignore.

  “I think we need to go into that city,” I said.

  “What city?” he said without looking back.

  “That city, in the distance over there. The one we could see from the pass.”

  “I told you, cities are suicide.”

  “I know. We n
eed to go into that city. I just know we need to go there.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. No.” He said it shortly, immediately, with finality.

  I felt a defiant flare flash over me.

  “No? I’m sorry. What do I look like, your subordinate? Do I have some stupid fucking symbol velcroed to my chest? I’m going into that city.”

  I turned my boots toward the figment squatting on the edge of our world. He moved quickly to step in front of me.

  “Why? Why this out of nowhere? You know that is the place most likely to be crawling with them.”

  “I don’t know. I just need to. I follow you. I have always just followed you. But I need to go there.”

  “Pulling indirect suicide on me. Is this about your husband flashback? Xavier?”

  I took a step closer to him and looked him directly in the sunglasses, seeing my own dusty, puffy eyes staring pathetically back at me. I didn’t even recognize the warped reflection.

  “I have wanted to die every day for months, years, whatever. Every day. Today, I just want to go into that fucking city.”

  “There is nothing there. It is just going to get you killed.”

  He looked back at me in silence, waiting for me to agree, waiting for me to follow. Step in line and march behind. Holding his eye, I sidestepped around him and headed toward the buildings jutting out of the horizon. For a moment, my own footsteps were the only sound, shuffling alone in the sand. Then I heard him trailing behind me, crunching the few shrubs. I looked back to find him just behind me and to the side.

  “You are the craziest bitch I’ve ever known,” he said.

  I wasn’t sure why I needed to go to the city. I could only feel my heart banging against my chest to push me that direction. I only knew if I had to trudge over any more desolate miles that looked like Dante’s grave, I would find a direct way of killing myself.