Z for Zachariah

by Роберт C. О Брайен

  I slept restlessly, and woke several hours before dawn. I got up quickly and ate, and reviewed the order of events to come. There was no time to waste in fear or doubt. I gathered the few things I would take with me—an extra shirt, the torch, a knife, my notebook and pencil—and put them in the burlap sack. I added a bottle for water: once I had stolen the wagon there would not be time to stop at the pond, but I knew there was a device inside the wagon that would purify water from radioactive streams and wells. I put in the remaining boxes of bullets, the binoculars, and a little packet of dried berries and mushrooms I had picked. Finally I picked up the sack, and with the gun under my arm, I left the cave. It was dark on the ridge, and I did not look back.

  I walked along the ridge and through the woods. The sky was filled with stars and the moon was full and lighted the tops of the trees ahead of me. I came to a clear space: the floor of the valley was thick with darkness, but the pond shone as round and clear as a mirror. It was a kind of beauty that was strange to me, and although I was still in the valley, I began to feel that the journey had begun. I descended from the hill.

  At the pond I filled the water bottle. I would have to drink sparingly; the water would have to last until I came to another stream or creek outside the valley. I came to the road and walked north. My load was heavy now: the sack, the gun, the filled bottle; and it was hard to see in the dark. I followed the road to the top of Burden Hill. I hid my burdens in the ravine beside the road, and covered them with brush. I marked the spot with an upright branch, then turned and followed the road back the way I had come.

  I knew that there were many ways the plan could fail. There was a chance that Mr Loomis would see my approach from the window, and shoot at me; I would have to be closer to the house than I had been since the day I was wounded. He might see through the ruse, and refuse to leave the house. He might pretend to go and then turn back, and catch me in the act of stealing the cart and suit. He would surely kill me then. I was frightened, but I forced myself to keep walking.

  I came in sight of the house. It was only a dark square in the half-light; there were no lights on, and to a casual traveller on the road, no sign of life. I left the road and circled round the back. I found a heavy, round stone under the walnut tree, and took the folded paper from my pocket. I had worked for hours on the note, choosing my words, rehearsing the message. Now those words were barely visible. I slipped along the side of the house and on to the front porch. I unfolded the note and laid it in front of the door, and set the rock on top to hold it down. There was no way he could miss it. I retreated to a hiding place near the creek.

  The note said this:

  I am tired of hiding. If you will come to the south end of the valley, I will meet you at the flat rock where the road curves. We will talk. Come on foot. Leave your gun on the front porch. I will be watching you—I will not harm an unarmed man.

  Lying in the tall grass under the willows, I watched the sun rise. The sky above the hills turned grey and the stars faded slowly, one by one. Slowly the land began to resume its shape and colour. The sky in the east turned orange, and then the sun appeared above the ridge. Tomorrow I will watch it from a strange place.

  Then, almost before I was ready for it to happen, he was there. The front door opened and he stepped out on to the porch. He looked around him and saw the note almost immediately. He snatched it up and gave a hurried look around, and retreated into the house to read it. He stayed inside the house for quite a while. I lay in the grass with my eyes on the door. I tried to imagine what he was thinking. I remembered the first time I had seen him close up, when he was lying sick in the tent. He looked much better now: his face had grown brown from working in the fields, and he looked stronger, yet there was still that tense quality in his face that I had first regarded as poetic, and later as a sign of madness. I had not been so close to him for a long time, and thinking about that made me tremble with fear.

  But the plan worked. The next time Mr Loomis emerged from the house, he had the gun under one arm. Again he looked all round, but this time his gaze was higher and more direct; he knew that I was hiding, watching him, from somewhere in the distance. He laid the gun on the porch hesitantly, as if he thought he were making a mistake. Again he looked around. For a moment I thought he was going to call out, but he did not call. He walked to the road and turned left, heading for the south end of the valley.

  I was stunned. I knew that I should run and get the cart, but I still could not believe that he was really gone. For almost five minutes I lay still in the grass, trembling. I looked to the south: he was walking fast, and was almost out of sight. I did not think he would turn back. I stood up and began to run.

  I ran through the field and across the road to the wagon. It looked smaller than I had remembered, and the rain had caused the paint to warp and peel. I lifted the green plastic covering and looked inside. Everything I needed was there: the safe-suit, the packages of food, the air tank, even the Geiger counters. In a short time my life would depend on them; the wagon, and everything it held, would sustain me in a strange world. I went to the front of the cart and stood between the shafts, and picked them up. They were not as heavy as I had imagined. I pulled forward, and the wheels rolled easily over the thick grass of the lawn and on to the road.

  I passed the house. Visions moved behind my eyes, and I saw the house as I had seen it as a child: climbing the front steps on the way to supper, or sitting on the porch at night, watching the fireflies. My grandfather rocked me on the swing, and I remembered someone singing. Later I had sat on the swing at night weaving long, romantic dreams about my life to come; then, the war. I felt the weight of the cart behind me and walked on.

  I walked on up the road. The wheels of the wagon made a dry hissing sound on the tarmac. A breeze moved the grass and leaves; sand blew against my face. With each step I seemed to move further away from my own life, as it had been; yet everything I saw tied me closer to the valley. I passed remnants of an old treehouse. What had I hoped for as a child? I strained to remember; but it seemed to me that nothing in my childhood had prepared me for this.

  I turned and looked behind me. The road was still. I wondered where Mr Loomis was, if he were still waiting by the rock for me to come. I imagined his fury when he discovered that the cart was missing, that he had been tricked. I was nervous, so that it was hard for me to turn around and walk on. I tried to think of the dream: the schoolhouse, the faces of the children; but it was hard to fix the vision in my mind.

  I was walking towards the deadness. The creek flowed past the roadside, coming from outside, crossing, perhaps, paths that I would follow. The water was as clear as it had always been, and the sound of the stream moving on the rocks was beautiful to me. Yet everything it touched was dead. I thought of Faro, and tears came to my eyes.

  I thought again of Mr Loomis. Soon I would see him for the last time. There was now a chance that I could leave without seeing him at all. I wanted to do that; yet there was something inside me that resisted the idea. It pulled against me like a weight, like the burden of the cart as I climbed the hill. I remembered his face when he was sick, and my sadness when I thought that he would die. The cow lowed in the pasture below me, as if she knew that I was leaving, or already gone.

  And if I saw him, what would I say then? He would be mad with rage, and ready to kill. He would do anything to keep me from leaving. He would say anything. He would tell me of the horrors of the deadness, of the loneliness of silent roads and fields. He would speak of bodies in the houses and in cars; he would say he knew there was no other place: surely he had searched long enough. He would say, come back to the house, come back, come back: this time I will leave you to yourself.

  For the last minutes, labouring hard under the cart’s weight on the uphill slope, I did not think at all. Trees began to appear beside me, right and left, and then the shadow of woods. I kept my eyes down. The road curved slightly and then levelled out, and there was a patch of dense underbr
ush to my right. I dropped the shafts and found the place where my supplies were hidden, and uncovered the sack. I put it and the bottle of water inside the wagon, pulled the wagon right to the border of the deadness. I took out the safe-suit and put it on, and strapped the airtank on my back. Then I rolled the cart quickly downhill towards Ogdentown. I came back with this notebook, and the gun.

  The sun is high over the east ridge now and the valley is beautiful in the morning light. I do not know what has happened to Mr Loomis, or where he is; but I will wait for him. He is bound to come and I must speak to him. His may be the last human voice that I will ever hear.

  Mr Loomis is coming. I can see him on the tractor. I am glad to have told my story.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  August 8th

  From the start the interview did not go as I had planned. Mr Loomis came on the tractor at top speed, with the gun across his lap. I shouted to him to Stop, to Halt; but he did not even slow the tractor. Instead, he came on. I thought perhaps he could not hear me over the sound of the engine and in desperation I fired my rifle into the air, but if he heard the shot he ignored it. He drove the tractor to the very top of Burden Hill, just opposite my hiding place. He jumped down and began to scan the road towards Ogdentown.

  My heart was pounding and I did not know what to do. His back was towards me, but I could not shoot. I was not even sure I could speak, but I tried and my voice came out reasonably firm.

  “Drop your gun,” I said.

  Instantly he whirled and fired in the direction of my voice. He had not yet seen me but I was no more than 25 feet away. I knew it was the end. I was sixteen and I had worked so hard to keep things going and now I was going to die. A wave of disappointment swept over me, disappointment so bitter it wiped out even my fear. I stood up and faced him. I do not know why he did not shoot me. Instead he saw the safe-suit and began to shout:

  “It’s mine. You know it’s mine. Take it off!”

  “No,” I said, “I won’t.”

  He aimed the gun at me. I stood still. I could not think what to do, so that when words came from my mouth even I was surprised and not conscious of having thought. I realize now they probably saved my life.

  “Yes,” I said, “you can kill me… the way you killed Edward.”

  He stared at me. Then he shook his head, as if he had heard it wrong, or not heard the words at all. Yet he lowered the gun and stepped back.

  “No,” he said, “you don’t know that…” His voice was weak.

  “You told me when you were sick.” I said. “You told me how you shot him in the chest. You had to patch the bullet holes in the suit.”

  Now Mr Loomis turned away from me. For a moment he just stood there; I was not sure but I thought that his shoulders were trembling. After a time he spoke quietly.

  ’’He tried to steal the suit… the way you are stealing it now.”

  “I have no choice,” I said. “I didn’t want to die, and you wouldn’t give me anything. During the winter I would have starved on the hillside. I don’t want to live with you hunting me as if I were an animal, and I will never agree to be your prisoner.” I felt reassured by my own voice and talked on:

  “I’ll search for a place where there are other people, people who will welcome me. To stop me you will have to kill me, too.”

  “It’s wrong,” he said, but he knew that I meant it, and his tone was frightened and bewildered. I thought he was going to cry.

  “Don’t go,” he said. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me here alone.”

  I spoke carefully:

  “If you shoot me you will really be alone. You searched for months and found no one else. There may not be anyone else. But if I should find people I will tell them about you, and they may come. In the meantime you have food. You have the tractor and the store. You have the valley.”

  There was bitterness in my voice. And suddenly, feeling near tears myself,

  “You didn’t even thank me for taking care of you when you were sick.”

  So my last words were childish.

  That was all. I adjusted the mask so that it fitted tightly over my face, and cool air from the tank flowed into my mouth. I turned my back on him. I waited for the jar and the sharp pain of a bullet, but it did not come. I went into the deadness. I heard Mr Loomis calling after me, but the mask covered my ears, so that his voice seemed garbled and far away, and I could not understand. I walked on. Yet suddenly his voice came clearly to me, and I realized he was calling my name. There was something in his tone that made me stop and look back up the hill. He was standing at the very edge of the deadness. He was pointing to the west and he seemed to shout the same thing over and over. Then I heard him.

  “Birds,” he said, “I saw birds… west of here… circling. They went away and I couldn’t find the place. I saw them.”

  I raised my hand to him to let him know that I had understood. Then I forced myself to turn and walk away.

  Now it is morning. I do not know where I am. I walked all afternoon and almost all night until I was so tired I could not go on. Then I did not bother to put up the tent, just spread my blanket by the roadside and lay down. While I was sleeping the dream came, and in the dream I walked until I found the schoolroom and the children. When I awoke the sun was high in the sky. A stream was flowing through the brown grass, winding west. The dream was gone, yet I knew which way to go. As I walk I search the horizon for a trace of green. I am hopeful.

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