by Nathan Combs
By lantern light, Noah examined her. She was even more of a mess than she’d appeared in the campfire light. Her face was a mass of bruises. Her lower lip was twice its normal size and her left eye was swollen shut. Crusted blood took up residence on her chin, and her hair looked like it belonged on Medusa.
“Well, you’re not gonna win any beauty contests for a while, but you’ll live. Do you have any pain other than your head? Ribs? Anywhere else?”
She continued to stare off and said nothing.
“Look, I know you’re hurting, but if you’re going to stay with me, I need to know what your injuries are. We’re probably not through with those assholes yet, so I need to know about injuries that aren’t visible so I can take care of them. I don’t want any surprises. So I’ll ask you again. Do you have any pain anywhere other than your head?”
She started to cry. Silently. Tears welled and flowed from her one good eye and ran down her filthy face while a trickle of tears seeped slowly from the closed one. She sobbed and gasped for air.
A wave of pity swept over him. He reached out and softly caressed the un-bruised side of her face. In a soft voice, he said, “I’m really sorry that happened to you. Your face will heal, but I really do need to know if you have any other wounds.”
The girl grabbed his hand with both of hers and, through sobs, said, “No. I hav—I have no oth—other ’njuries. Bah I—I… I ’ad be… I ’ad be dead if you, if you… Th—thank you.” She shivered violently.
Noah knelt down and took her hands in his and smiled. “After we eat, I’m going to rig a shower and heat some water. Then we’re going to clean you up and I’ll treat your injuries. I’m pretty sure there are clothes here that’ll fit you. After that, we’ll grab some sleep. We’ll face tomorrow when it gets here. Okay?”
She nodded.
He lit off his mother’s space heater, rigged the shower, in the shower, and, after the water was heated, gave her soap, shampoo, and other hygiene items he took from his father’s cache. Because his sister and the girl were about the same size and no one had taken them, he laid out clothes for her to wear. Then he made a quick perimeter sweep and came back to the room.
He entered to find the girl dressed and sitting on the bed. She looked a billion times better and smiled hesitantly. Noah smiled back. “Wow. What a difference. Let’s take a look at your face.”
After a cursory examination, he told her, “Your injuries are superficial; mostly cuts and bruises. It’s my professional medical opinion nothing’s broken. In two weeks, you’ll no longer resemble Frankenstein’s bride.”
Her laugh was musical, mystical, and it bounced around inside his head like a song you couldn’t remember the name of. She said, “Yah’re a dacter?”
“No. Doctors save lives. I take them.”
She smiled.
He smiled. “So. You don’t remember your name or who you are?”
She shook her head no.
“It’s just temporary. But I’d prefer not to call you hey-you. No name comes to mind?”
Her swollen lips made speech difficult, and she slurred. “Ahna? Bah I don’ know if dat’s me.”
“Anna?”
She nodded.
“Good name. I like it. Until you remember who you are, that’s your name. Okay?”
“Otay.”
“After we eat, you take the bed. I’ll make a pallet on the floor and we’ll get some sleep.”
She stared at him and tears welled again. “I know dis will soun’… I don’ know, twashy, but… woud you sweep wif me? I mean… jus’ sweep? Jus’ faw t’night? Pwease?”
Noah understood and nodded. He turned out the light and slid in beside her. She was on her side and he hesitated, then put his arm around her. After a minute she relaxed and snuggled against him. They slept.
Daylight was hours away when the twitching of Anna’s body woke him. At first he couldn’t place the warm body spooned against him. Then he remembered and peeked over her shoulder. She was sound asleep but moaning softly while her body jerked.
She’s entitled to a nightmare.
He looked at the luminous dial of his watch and decided 0500 was as good a time to get up as any, and since nature was calling, he carefully got out of bed so he wouldn’t wake her. The space heater raised the temperature in the room from what felt like fifty below to about sixty degrees. He shined the flashlight into the tank and determined that enough fuel remained for several more hours. Slipping into his boots but leaving them unlaced, he went into the living room. It was shockingly cold. Holy shit.
The front door’s loud squeak sounded painful as it opened to a winter wonderland. With M4 in hand, he stared at eight inches of new snow. And it was still coming down. In the twenty-one years he’d lived in this area, this was the heaviest snowfall he had ever seen. He stepped to the side of the door, feet crunching, and urinated. Don’t eat the yellow snow, flashed through his mind as he watched the stream of urine devour the pristine whiteness and steam upward.
When he returned to the room, Anna was awake and sitting up. Her face told him she thought he abandoned her, or at least that’s what he thought her look was saying, so he said, “Had to take a leak.”
Anna’s face showed obvious relief and she replied, “I haf ta go too. Whea’s the baaffroom?”
Her speech was still slurred and he couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, for now, it’s outside. Anywhere you want, but it’s snowin’ like a bitch. And it’s colder ’n hell too.”
“I don’ sapose dere’s any twoilet haper ’round?”
He smiled. “Get those shoes on. I’ll see if I can find some.”
He located a partial roll, and after Anna walked to the side of the house, she stopped and turned to look at him.
He looked expectantly to see what she needed.
The eyebrow over her good eye arched.
“Oh… sorry.” Closing the door, he returned to the bedroom and heated water for breakfast.
When Anna returned, the hot water was in the process of rehydrating the quick oats and blueberries in the foil-lined survival food packages.
Favoring her swollen lip, she wolfed down the oatmeal. When she finished, she looked at him, and what passed as a smile appeared. At least one side of her mouth went up.
He asked her if she’d like another.
She said, “Yeath, pwease.”
He laughed again and, knowing what he was laughing about, she laughed too. “Pwease don’ make me wauf. It hu’ts.”
Noah put his hand over his mouth to stifle the laughter and failed miserably. He laughed so hard tears flowed.
Anna was laughing too. “Pwease. Pwease. Stop.”
It took effort, but after another minute he gained control and the riotous laughter trickled down to occasional snorts. “It’s not funny, I know. I’m sorry.”
“Id’s okay.”
They talked until feeble daylight filtered through the broken windows. The storm was abating. Ten inches of new snow lay on the ground, and clung like cotton to every branch of every tree. They spent the day talking and, as the day wore on, the swelling in Anna’s lip receded and her speech began to approach normality. Noah attempted to help her recall who she was, but she couldn’t remember anything of her past. Nothing. Not a single memory existed. Noah told her of the country’s collapse, the war, and the plague, and gave her a brief history of his trek across the country. She sat with mouth open, one eye huge, hearing of Armageddon for the first time. Besides not knowing who she was or where she was from, she had zero knowledge of how she survived the events he described.
After hearing the details, she shivered. “How can I not ’emember any of dat?”
“Well, I’m not an expert on amnesia, but my guess is that your memory will come back to you in bits and pieces. Th
at’s what happened to Jason Bourne.”
“Jason Bourne?”
“Never mind. It’s not important. Your memory will come back.”
“What if de’re bad mem’ies?”
“Honestly, Anna, I don’t know how they could be good ones. The point is, in time you’ll remember.”
Noah decided fixing his childhood home was impossible, so they spent the next two days searching the area for a suitable house. They found one four miles away. Located at the end of a dead end road, it was dusty but intact. There was an old-fashioned well with a hand pump between the house and a detached garage. A moldy aluminum canoe with an out-rigger and paddles lay forgotten in back of a garden shed. Best of all, there was a wood-burning cook-stove in the kitchen and a wood-burning heater in the family room. It took them two days to move the survival cache and other valuable items from his old home to the new one, and another two days to clean it, rig a barrel with water for bathroom flushing, cut some standing dead wood, and make it livable.
By the time they pronounced the house “theirs” a week after “the rescue,” other than yellowish bruises, Anna’s face was healed almost completely. Noah teased her. “You don’t look like Frankenstein’s bride anymore. More like her little sister.”
“I guess that’s funny, Noah. But what makes you think I remember who Frankenstein was?”
“I know you don’t ’cause you weren’t offended.”
“How do you know I wasn’t offended? Maybe I didn’t want you to know your bedside manner sucks.”
Ouch, he thought. Where have I heard that before?
The first day at Noah’s old house, Anna found a scale in the master bathroom and weighed herself. She weighed seventy-five pounds. I am definitely bony. Now, a week later, she weighed herself again and was gratified to see she had gained eight pounds. She looked in the mirror and decided to cut her hair short.
When she came out of the bathroom fifteen minutes later, Noah’s eyebrows shot up and he said, “Whoa!”
“Long hair’s a pain right now.”
“I like it. You look like an elf.”
After cutting her hair, the slight greying at her temples was highlighted. Noah noticed it and asked, “How old are you, Anna?”
Her mouth opened, then closed. Her eyes teared. She shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Noah. I’m really not a crybaby. I’m not. But, God, I don’t even know how old I am.”
Noah gently pulled her to him and held her. “It’s gonna be okay soon. Trust me.”
During the next few days, Noah gently coaxed her to remember as much as she could. She told him she was receiving shattered images she couldn’t decode. “They’re pictures I see for a nanosecond, but they flicker on and off kind of like a strobe light in black and white. They never come into focus. I don’t know how else to describe it.”
“It’s going to take some time, Anna. Be patient.”
Her first decipherable memory appeared two weeks later. They were eating breakfast. She dropped her spoon and gasped. “Noah… I remember… I remember… like… being in the woods.” She stood, eyes wide. “I—I wandered around for… I don’t know. Days, I guess. I found things to use in old houses and—and I ate bugs. I was in Tennessee. I can remember the license plates on the cars.” She concentrated hard. “I—I went through Delano, and I… there was a sign for a campground and… and when I got closer I smelled food. I—I… I went in that direction. Then… then three guys on horses showed up and one of them picked me up and threw me over his horse. I vaguely remember the campsite. I guess that’s when you showed up and rescued me. Oh my God, I remembered something. It’s not clear, but Noah, I’m starting to remember! You were right.”
Her excitement was contagious and infected Noah too. “I think the memories will come faster now. It won’t be long.”
“But it drives me crazy that I can’t remember. I know how to talk, what things are, and I know how to do things, but I can’t remember me.”
The weather was several degrees warmer, if you considered forty-degree highs in February in Tennessee warm. The snowstorms had tapered off, but the biggest gift was the sun. It paid occasional if unwarming visits, spring was in the air, and Anna was in love.
He’s the best thing that ever happened to me. At least I think he is. She thought about it for some time, and wondered if she was married in her old life or at least had someone special. She examined herself and was pretty sure she didn’t have any kids. She ended up concluding that regardless of who she was before, she indeed loved Noah now. And she loved him with all her heart.
Ten days after moving into the new house, they had sex. Since that memorable night, they had sex almost every day. While Noah was an accomplished and gentle lover, she didn’t think he felt the same way she did. He seldom said anything endearing, and she was certain it was sex to him and nothing more. She hoped he wasn’t performing it out of a sense of duty. Or pity. Afraid to tell him how she felt, she thought, if he’s sleeping with me because he enjoys being with me and no other reason, maybe I should be content.
Cupid wasn’t biased, and his dart didn’t miss Noah either. It was the first time in his life he felt responsible for the safety and well-being of another human. He wondered if his feelings for Anna had anything to do with “broken wing syndrome.” He laughed to himself and thought, I don’t even know if there is such a thing as broken wing syndrome. He thought about it some more and decided his feelings were genuine. Anna was funny, gentle, intelligent, never complained about anything, was a tireless worker, intuitive, and all woman. She was also the most beautiful female he had ever laid eyes on. He adored her. He couldn’t imagine she might reciprocate his feelings, so he never let on how he felt.
“Don’t misunderstand me, Noah, I like hanging out with you, but maybe we should start thinking about what we’re going to do in the future. I mean… maybe we should start looking around for other survivors, other than the derelicts. There must be a few.”
Nodding and smiling, he said, “You’re right. Let’s pack some bags and see what’s happening in our little chunk of paradise.”
The next morning, they hiked to Delano. They checked out the campsite where Anna had been held captive. There was hardly any snow on the ground, and near the crater where the gas dump had been, numerous mindless bodies stared at nothing. Heading west, they neared Delano, and from the shelter of a knoll above town, Noah glassed the streets. Total silence. Nothing moved. Which didn’t mean no one was there, just that he didn’t see anyone. They picked their way cautiously to the main street and paused under the ragged canopy of a decimated sporting goods store. Noah told her to stay behind him, but she surprised him by telling him she remembered combat tactics and knew how to clear streets and buildings. “I don’t know how I know that, but I do. And I knew how to use an M4. Maybe I was in the military?”
“Huh… yeah. Maybe you were. Okay. I’ll take the right side, you take this side, but Anna, I don’t want to risk losing you, so—”
Anna wasn’t sure what not losing her meant, but she decided to throw caution to the wind. She threw her arms around him and looked into his eyes. “I love you, Noah. I want you to know that before we take one more step. I love you more than anything in the world.”
Noah pulled back. His mouth opened wide and he stared at her.
Anna thought he was insulted. Eyes huge, she put her hand to her mouth.
He moved his face to within inches of hers and took her face in his hands. “Anna, I’ve been in love with you since day one. And it has nothing to do with the situation we’re in. I’d feel the same way if we were in any other world. I love you too. I couldn’t live without you.”
Tears formed. She threw her arms around him, head on his chest. The embrace ended and they stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment, then gently kissed. Anna smiled and said, “I think I lik
e your green eye better than the blue one.”
They held each other again for another long moment. Then Noah laughed and pulled away. “We probably shouldn’t stand in the middle of town making out. Com’n, let’s check it out.”
Delano was devoid of life. But it was a live memory bank for Noah… an old silent movie; fragments of another time. There was the grocery store he shopped at with his mother, the hardware store his dad worked at, and over there was the church he attended in his youth.
The four hours spent checking around town revealed nothing of value remained. Delano was dead.
“What now?”
“I’m positive we’re going to run into Nirvana somewhere along the line, although, I don’t think they’ll come anywhere near our home. It’s too remote, and there isn’t any reason for them to go that far off the beaten path looking for slaves. It depends on what you want—what we want.”
He smiled and pulled her close. “Do we want to live in sin by ourselves or would you like to find other survivors and maybe a preacher?”
She was flabbergasted. “Oh my God, Noah, are you proposing?”
Getting down on one knee, he grinned sheepishly and said, “Yes.”
“Well, then you have to say the words. I’m not one of your trollops.”
“Trollops? Jesus, maybe you were the daughter of a Baptist minister.”
She laughed. “You only get one shot at this, soldier. Don’t screw it up.”
With an ear-to-ear grin, he said, “Anna. I love you. I want you to be my wife. I want to live with you forever. Will you marry me?”
She stared down at him looking up at her and her eyes filled with tears. “Nothing would give me more pleasure. Yes.”