"Oh, I won't." Mackenzie is already skipping by.
"Say, Lil' Mack."
"What?"
"You seen my relief? He's late."
Mackenzie pauses midstep, before carrying on. "Yeah, I saw him. He was getting his coffee ration back at the main building. He's a slow walker, if you catch my drift."
The sentry laughs. "Yeah, he's a biggun. Careful out there, kid. No farther than the old Brennan fields."
"Of course not,” says Mackenzie, halfway over the bridge.
Mackenzie cuts through the old Brennan fields, grown up pastures along the banks of the canal inhabited by moles and the garter snakes that chase them. He scares up a pair of rabbits feeding on clover, but they are bounding out of sight before he can even decide to peg a rock at them. Surreptitious glances ensure the sentry is paying no attention, and many a wildflower goes unpicked as he passes by.
The boy exits the field and skirts the boundaries of the Amish farm along the old road. He soon abandons the road for a deer path that cuts through the thick underbrush that has grown up alongside it. Mackenzie follows the path, through the woods, up and down a small hill and over a small stream. His quick pace keeps him warm— the sun is barely up, and won't be peering through the tops of the trees for a while.
His steps slow, placed more carefully as he approaches an opening in the trees. He hovers at its edges, wary of brittle branches and other things that would give his presence away. He hears his heart and feels his breath, and knows it must be loud, but the feeling is a barbiturate to his youthful brain.
In the opening sits a ramshackle hunting cabin with a chimney cobbled together from small creek stones with lazy smoke curling up and out to meet the morning fog. The dew is heavy on the grounds, and glistens in fresh sunlight that begins to saturate green blades of grass and weathered red paint on the side of a rabbit coop, where Mackenzie fixes his attention, kneeling beside a thorny bush.
And there she is, the girl in the white dress, dirty tangles of hair framing a grubby yet charming face, an innocent face. She feeds the rabbits through the wire of the coop, standing on wet feet, as is the bottom fringe of her dress. Over her dress is a denim coat a size or two too big for her, the sleeves rolled up to let her hands pass through.
And Mackenzie creeps forward, as he has done before, until he is on the opposite side of the coop staring through, fingers clutching at the wire.
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Esther loves to have the children sing, she feels it is as important as the reading and the writing and the adding and subtracting. They are always happy songs; any melancholy notes are implied. Ring around the rosy, that was always an upbeat one, she thinks. So here are children, fed and rising above the basest requirements of existence, singing with voices. The morning is her time, the night is a worry and the day is a chore, but the morning is singing and fresh and full of renewal. Then there is the writing, angry sign painting in cursive, the reading, strike on box, also, no trespassing, the math, one stove plus three cord of wood equals a winter with fewer shivers.
The morning is when she leaves Salvatore's bed and he makes his rounds. He is important and well-regarded, and she has him for the most important times of the day, if not all his waking hours. There are looks and there are laughs, there are eyes and there are implications. But the Steward is going to have to look after the needs of many, so what is the point of worry, and what is the point of jealousy? What is the point of teaching children to sing, she is asked, sometimes, but she answers gracefully, and besides, what is the difference between a dweller of the commune and a Roughie other than the walls and fine company?
The sun is strange, but the children still sing. The sun is strange, but people still eat, just a little less and more of the same. The sun is strange, and so feels Esther, but thank goodness for Little Mackenzie, wherever he may be, because what else is the point of carrying on?
"Miss Esther!"
"Miss Esther!"
"Yes, children?"
"There is a man on a horse."
"Yes?"
"The man on the horse wants to see you."
...
"Miss Esther?"
"Yes!"
"Are you dreaming again?"
"I'm here, children.”
"Wake up, Miss Esther. There is a man on a horse and he wants to see you."
"Me?"
"Yes, Miss Esther. He has a package."
Chapter 20: A Kidnapping
The package, about the size of a notebook and wrapped in brown paper, rests heavy in the pocket of Esther’s apron, and bumps against her thigh as she walks through the routine of her day. Today’s morning is long, perhaps the longest yet, and lunch never seems to arrive. Even as Esther feels the bundle bound by twine against her and wonders what its contents may be, she must deflect questions about it.
“Not often a Pony Express man visits, much less has a package for someone.” Blondie assists Esther in the herding of the children to the massive parking lot on the edge of town. The derelict expanse is a paradise for wheels, and the children stream out with their beat-up skateboards, Radio Flyers and size-too-wrong inline skates to navigate around the potholes. The chill of the morning has eased off, and the activity offers needed distraction for the children who can sense the approach of an unforgiving winter.
“I’m sure it’s not important,” Esther says.
“Is it for Sal?” Blondie asks, knowing it is not, having overheard part of the dialogue between Esther and the deliver of the package. “Sal’s the only person who gets anything from the Pony Express since I’ve been here.”
“No, it’s for me.”
“Quite a large package, wasn’t it?”
Esther helps a child lace on his skates, ignoring the question.
“I mean, most packages are the size of a small envelope.”
“I suppose. I don’t really know.”
“Who’s it from?” Blondie eyes Esther keenly.
“I don’t know yet.”
“You haven’t opened it?”
“Not yet.” You would have seen me, Esther thinks. You’ve only been by my side since I got it.
“If it was me, I couldn’t hold back. I’d open it right off.”
“If it were you, then I’m sure you would. But I’d rather wait.”
“I wonder what Sal will think,” says Blondie.
Esther spreads her blanket on a berm overlooking the lot and watches the children race and shout with laughter. Blondie makes herself comfortable next to her.
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After wrapping up the excursion, Esther excuses herself—it is her day for a midday break, and she spends it preparing lunch for Sal.
She slips the package, still unopened, into the bureau drawer, where she keeps her needles and threads, before carrying on to the kitchen. Sal has too much on his mind, she reasons, to be bothered with the package today, and besides she would like to open it first. She told Sal almost everything, but the package was different. It pricked her imagination.
Amish baked bread is sliced, and lettuce over salted pork makes a sandwich dressed with apple butter. Her hands move quickly; Sal will be arriving any moment, and she likes to have his food ready. He will smile, and embrace, and sit down at the wooden table under the window and eat his sandwich, sharing this tidbit and that about his day, and she will listen, and smile too. But she won’t tell him about the package, at least not yet.
The sandwich is made, plated, and set on the table under the little window that has forsythia tendrils brushing up against it. And it sits, and waits, with Esther, who thinks about the package until she thinks about Sal and why he may be late, and then thinks exclusively about Sal and his big, jovial expressions and thick hairy arms that reach out and squeeze without prejudice. Salvatore Ellis, Steward of the commune, liked and respected by all. Liked, respected, and desired, by the needy eyes and jealous hearts.
So the package waits and so does Esther, who nibbles at her lunch until i
t is gone, and the hour is through. The tiny bites interspersed with little waits haven’t satisfied her, but it is time to go back to her under-appreciated work and finish out the day until the adults come back from the fields and the forest and collect their precious belongings.
Lil’ Mack didn’t come in for lunch either, but that’s not to worry. The boy is a leaf who will blow this way and that. His absences are verified by the trees in the woods and the stones in the stream that he stepped over. But, she does hope he will bring home her wildflowers. She could use them, in the house.
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Behind the row of houses, yards have grown into unruly fields of tall grasses. Esther calls back into the house, no, Sal is still not home. She retrieves the package and takes it through the back door and follows a footpath through the tall grass. The heads of the grasses lean in and brush against the bottom of her face and chest, until she turns off the path and into a little circle of matted down stalks. She sits here sometimes, to meditate, or to dream, to stare up at the sky. Today she looks down at the package resting before her. Her fingers work at the knots holding the twine in place, loosening them until the strings can be slipped away. The brown paper is marked on the front with her name, and a signature. Crinkles and a small tear in the corner attest to a long, rough journey from sender to receiver.
Miles are not long enough to describe the distance it has traveled. No adequate unit of measurement exists. A mile is not the mile before the end of the world, smoothly walked or carried on spinning wheels. Miles are arduous, treacherous and many. They measure spans that go from nowhere to nowhere else, and each step along the way is a dagger waiting to slip into your unresisting skin.
This package traveled light years, and it crossed space itself.
The brown wrapping paper is folded away and the contents are in Esther’s hands, sheet after sheet of various papers, filled with handwritten notes, every space filled. She reads, and she is lost in them.
Letters, from Roger, and from within the apocalypse itself.
A second is a minute and a minute is an hour, and here are Sal’s deep tones echoing over the tops of the grasses, calling her name. Esther traces the ink and pencil lines, touches Roger’s name. Her own name is repeated, louder and louder, but it is outside of her being. Finally, she breaks from her thrall and places a stone over the letters to keep them from drifting away.
“Esther!”
It is Salvatore’s voice, urgent and imperative. He must know about the delivery. He will want to read the letters. He will see what she has seen. Know where she has been asked to go. Maybe she can sit in the circle of the long grasses forever, letting the new shoots grow up and around her legs, pulling her into the ground as she slowly decomposes.
“Esther!” Salvatore’s voice reverberates.
“Yes?” Esther calls back as she rises. “I’m here.”
“Esther,” calls Salvatore, “It’s Mackenzie. They have him.”
Esther spins from one dream to another, stumbles toward the house. “What?”
“The Roughies. They’ve kidnapped Lil’ Mack.”
Chapter 21: The Roughies
In the end, the world is a strange place. The sun has devolved into a many-fingered monster that tickles your skin and lifts the hairs on your arm when it pulses. And after the big change, the great big old change, nothing ever changes again. The uncertainty is predictable, constant and fair, although rarely kind. Amidst this strange landscape Esther gave birth to a son, and now she is desperate for him. Ten years against the grain of death and withering, sending out roots to nurture and raise up a new generation. He was the first, a child of the apocalypse. He knew no other life outside of the womb. This sun was his sun. This world was his world. And now, Esther mourns, somewhere between disbelief and acceptance of reality, that this world has taken him from her.
“They had this.” Salvatore holds up a red t-shirt.
“His shirt?” Esther’s stomach curls at the sight. “They took the shirt off my little boy?”
Salvatore is calm. “They said he’s unharmed.”
Esther begins to see Sal and the handful of men accompanying him, begins to breathe. “I don’t understand why they’d do this.”
“It’s about Randy Jr. They’re using Lil’ Mack as a hostage to negotiate for the bastard.”
“A trade? When? How?”
Salvatore looks down. “It’s not that simple, Esther.”
“Why wouldn’t they trade? Isn’t that the point?”
“Randy Jr. killed Samuel Zook. He passed away during the night.”
Esther feels far away from Salvatore, from the men standing around digging their boots into the gravel, waiting for the Steward to explain to his lady friend the way it would be, the way the Steward said it should be. The uncompromising Salvatore Ellis and his stalwart lackeys against his number one woman, who is suffocating in a bag.
Salvatore steps closer to Esther, who in turn steps back closer to the grasses. “We have a pact with the Amish, and the Roughies broke their truce with us when one of their own killed Zook. The Amish have gotten us through the winters, and we’re going to need them again. They don’t bear arms, and we do, when we must. If we let Randy Jr. go, the pact will be compromised. We need them for the harvest, or it’s going to be the first winter again. You remember the first winter?”
Esther is stone. “Do you remember our son?”
“I will do everything I can to get Lil’ Mack home.”
“Not everything.”
“If Mackenzie stayed in the commune like he was supposed to, we wouldn’t even be in this situation.”
“You mean if I were a better mother we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“I don’t have time for this,” says Salvatore. “The council is meeting with the Amish tonight to discuss our options. The Roughies expect to hear from us tomorrow morning. I need to round up the militia and spread the word about the lockdown.” Sal sends Esther one parting jab. “Try to keep an eye on the children.”
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Lil’ Mack holds his knees and ducks his head under the top of the crate. Hairs from some fearsome dog-beast mat the floor and stick to the metal bars. Lil’ Mack has always wanted a dog of his own, but not this one, an infamous Roughie canine, practically a wolf, could eat you whole or so the elders of the commune would warn, and now here he is, locked in the den of one.
This morning he had been staring through the wires at the little Roughie girl, as they both clutched their fingers through the biting loops. He had been visiting the glen for a week, watching from the woods, mesmerized by this girl. He learned when the dog was tied out on the opposite side of the house, when the father would leave to hunt, and when the old lady would still be inside.
He knew he shouldn’t be off the commune grounds.
He definitely knew he shouldn’t be near the Roughies.
He knew better, but here he is.
Her eyes were green, and she had stared right back at him. Yesterday she had spotted him amongst the ferns and had whispered to him, “come over here,” but he darted off running zig-zags through the woods until he collapsed behind the rotten trunk of a fallen tree to catch his breath.
He had been scared, but he came back.
Lured into the open, muscles tensed and legs said flee, but a piece of his brain could only look at her.
She had said hi as she fed the rabbits their rations and the drizzle dripped off the roof of the hutch. So had he, and then there they were.
“My name is Mack,” he had said. “What’s yours?”
“Jem.”
And then rough hands clasped him from behind, grabbing him up. Jem screamed from the surprise, and Lil’ Mack kicked and bit like he was taught, but the grasp was strong.
“Gotcha, ya little spy,” said Jem’s father, who apparently was onto Lil Mack’s forays and had only pretended to head out on his usual hunt this morning, circling back around the perimeter of the camp instead.
So here is Lil’ Mack in the cage, wondering if the great big old dog is going to show up to eat him. Beyond his bars, the cabin is rough yet clean. Walls, ceiling and floor are clad with rough cut planks that imbue the scent of pine with the smoke from cooking fire. In one corner, a black woodstove sends its rusty pipe up through the ceiling, and in another a ladder leads up to a loft.
Bare feet carefully step down the rungs of the ladder and drop softly onto the planked floor. Jem puts a finger to her lips and approaches the crate. “Sorry, Mack. I didn’t know,” she whispers, eyes as large as full moons. “Is it true that you’re a spy?”
“I’m no spy,” says Mack.
“Shh. Gram’s gonna hear you.”
“Why they’d take my shirt? Mack asks, quieter.
“Fuck if I know,” says the girl.
“You swear?”
“Whatcha mean, ‘swear’?”
“You said a swear word,” says Mack.
“Fuck if I know what you mean. You hungry?” Jem takes a piece of dried meat from the pocket of her skirt and offers it through the bars. Mack accepts, and nibbles the end. The meat is salty, but nourishing.
“Jem!” The door from the outside swings open with the groaning of a rusty spring and slams shut behind the old lady Mack had seen before. “Get ‘way from that cage. He’ll bite cha.”
“No he won’t, Gram.”
The old lady raises her hand and tilts her head askew. “Don’t make me broom yer behind. Now git up to your room and stay there until I calls ya.”
“Yes, Gram.” Jem scurries back up the ladder like a squirrel, but keeps her head peeked just over the ledge to watch.
Gram picks up a broom leaning against the wall and raps the handle against the bars of the crate, encouraging Mack to retreat to the back corner. “Here now, it’s the commo spy. You know what we un do to spies roun’ here?”
Letters from the Apocalypse (Book 1) Page 12