We, The Lucky Few

by P. S. Lurie

  I delicately shift my weight to my legs and raise my chest up off the bed to sneak downstairs and tell my parents not to wait. In doing so the mattress squeaks.

  ‘Henry,’ Selene calls out hazily, somewhere between sleep and awake.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Stay with me.’

  ‘Of course,’ I say, and lower my body back to the mattress. I close my eyes and for a few moments manage to lull myself into a relaxed state with nothing but the sound of Selene’s breathing to fill the air.

  Then I hear the screams.

  Theia

  I wait at the window for Henry but he doesn’t show and I have no other way of contacting him except going next door but that’s out of the question when the guard is patrolling the street. I look into his empty room opposite mine and think I see a shimmer of movement but it must be my eyes playing a trick on me. I guess Henry is downstairs eating with his family, discussing the announcement more rationally than how I handled it. I know I should try to explain my argument but I can’t bring myself to talk about Rehousing, especially when I keep flipping between accepting what’s happening and not believing it.

  I span the length of my bedroom, which is too large for one person considering the number of homeless but I have had the argument of setting up temporary beds across the floor too many times with my parents and now it no longer matters. The space gives me an idea. I work out whether it would be productive to gather up resources and barricade ourselves in the house but eschew the idea as quickly as it came because the Upperlanders have guns and we’d only starve to death if they, or the water, didn’t reach us first.

  The room covers the whole length of the house, an odd design that snakes around Ronan’s windowless cell and alongside my parent’s room looking out onto the front. It means I have three windows and makes the room exceptionally hot during summer, cold during winter and, tonight, with the street lamps glowing from the extended Surge, it is bright enough for me not to rely on the electricity so that I don’t need to light any candles, nor do I have to worry about the fused bulb that has been blown for years and I never bothered replacing through trading something in for a new one at the market. I remember the items in my bag downstairs and it only hits me how redundant they are. I feel the absence of the necklace and regret my earlier decision.

  One of the windows looks out onto the street at the far end of the room and the other two, at right angles, face Henry’s room and the back garden, which is not huge but has a few trees and plants lining the outskirts and a solid patch of grass in the middle. Even miles from the coast the lawn already has a spongy feel from the seawater that permeates the surface. On the hottest days the sun can dry the soil but otherwise walking on the grass muddies feet enough to stain the skin up to the ankles and even the gravel on the road outside doesn’t feel solid anymore. If Leda had a chance I imagined she’d grow up in a world in which she would spring her way through life. According to the Upperlanders she’s the only one who has been given no odds at survival. My parents knew the choice to have children was a grave decision that would have repercussions. The honourable duty of removing them too. No one could have expected the threat would be so literal but I’m not surprised by the inhumanity.

  The garden is divided off by fences between my next-door neighbours and the parallel row of homes behind us. The Argents, Henry and his parents, are to the right of us and the Ethers live to our left. Stephan and Joyce Ethers are a similar age to my grandparents but are nowhere near as feeble, perhaps from never having children of their own, although they would sometimes babysit us until I was old enough to look after Ronan and Leda myself. The fences between all of our gardens are low enough that Henry and I could climb them as a quick way to each other’s houses yet I would never do anything as impolite as entering the Ethers’ garden that way.

  Stephan Ethers was a fishmonger in his youth and, whilst the resources warranted it, had a walk-in fridge built into the side of his kitchen to store stock and sell it directly from his house. It meant a stench that would hang permanently but also meant that whilst my mother was at the hospital and my father was fishing they would be around to look after us. Sometime through my earlier years the fridge door broke and we were forbidden from going near it as it was not child-proofed and had the tendency of locking from the inside. I remember the way the generator would hum and being fascinated at how the door slid along the floor, letting icy steam spill out. Now, in Stephen Ethers’ and the electricity’s retirement, the fridge is used for storage alone and they have no reason to turn it on following a Surge. We live day to day. There is nothing to preserve.

  I look out across the garden. The Middlelands aren’t expansive but large enough so that I don’t know everyone. I have no idea about any of the families in the three houses behind mine, Henry’s or the Ethers’. All I know is there are no teenagers or children our age and, since it is normally too dark to see across the way, I’m clueless as to who occupies them. But tonight is different because of the Surge so all the houses are lit up and I can see activity in all three.

  Directly opposite me is a family of four with two girls who look to be in their twenties sitting at a table. There doesn’t appear to be much in the way of interaction. To the left, behind the Ethers, are another old couple sitting on their sofa holding hands. The announcement finished nearly an hour ago and I cannot imagine how they or the Ethers will make the decision of who will be Rehoused. Only when I view the family of three to the other side do I consider how the setups of their houses reflect ours. An image flashes in my mind of this triptych of families replicating itself across the neighbourhood: an elderly couple and a small unit sandwiching a larger family.

  The family of three behind Henry’s house are all in different rooms. The father is in the living room stacking up plates, his daughter who looks a little older than me sits at a desk in her room upstairs staring intently at her desk, while the mother is hunched over the kitchen sink deliberating over whether to bother washing up. My first instinct is that we are all leaving the Middlelands one way or another by sunrise so she wouldn’t waste her time but she turns on the tap all the same and seawater flows through. I guess she is house-proud. Or restless.

  The girl looks up from her desk and it is impossible to tell if she has noticed me but seems to stare in my direction. I raise my hand and wave. She must not have seen me because she looks on blankly then lowers her head. I squint, trying to get a better focus on her and notice how fair her skin is against her jet black hair. I might have seen her somewhere but can’t place it. I scan my brain to think where I recognise her but nothing comes to mind. Perhaps she had been a few years above me at school but something tells me this isn’t the explanation.

  I am still staring in her direction when she lifts a piece of paper with writing on it. The words are overtly large so that I have no problem reading it.

  Hey Theia.

  My heart skips a beat. I am embarrassed that I don’t know who she is but I find that her message calms me. In some way I am no longer confined to this house and now that I have someone else to empathise with I suddenly don’t feel so isolated.

  I have all the equipment needed to write a message from my exchanges with Henry but I don’t know what I should reply with. Hey, would be rude without her name to follow. I simply smile and hope she doesn’t find me impolite. I shouldn’t have worried because she returns the smile then curls over and furiously scribbles on the paper. Whilst I wait, I unscrew a pen lid to prepare my response.

  It takes her some time as she goes over each letter a few times to embolden them. The words aren’t as big as her previous message but I have no problem reading her sentences.

  I am going to the Upperlands. How about you?

  My eyes glance at the silhouettes of her parents downstairs who are now in the same room doing something but I can’t work out what. I train my eyes on their task and it becomes clear that that they have relinquished their chance of being Rehoused and are removing photo
graphs from frames and placing them in a pile.

  It’s not a conversation I could ever imagine having and it would be unthinkably rude to ignore her yet I don’t know what to write in response, and I’m not sure all the time in the world would be enough as nothing could possibly suffice. Do I congratulate or commiserate her? Tell her my quandary is on-going? Check she is alright with her parents’ sacrifice or be envious that she has no siblings?

  I write what comes to mind and hold up my paper to the expectant girl.

  I’m not sure yet. I’m glad you know what is happening.

  Glad? I am mortified and curse myself for lacking compassion towards her parents. There’s nothing gladdening about this. My message must be insulting or patronising in some way but everything else I could have written seemed equally bad or worse. I want to apologise profusely to her but no volume of paper will amount to enough space. She doesn’t seem offended, at least from what I can tell this far away and she writes another message. This time it is quicker.

  I don’t think I can do this.

  I am about to reply with something pathetic about how she needs to be brave but drop my pen when I hear a scream. The girl hears it too and her expression of terror must mirror mine.

  I scan the neighbours’ windows and see that the scream came from the house next door to the girl, from the house directly behind mine.

  From her position the girl at the desk can’t see the horror erupting within the larger family. It must be unnerving to remain clueless about what is happening but I envy that she can’t witness this. In the living room, which was tranquil minutes ago, mayhem has exploded onto the scene. One of the daughters holds a knife in the air and the tip glistens red. I watch as she steps over her mother’s lifeless body and approaches her father and other sister who cower together in the corner. I should turn away but I force myself to watch on. Not because I want to see what happens next but because I need to.

  The threat of death from the announcement has come true and makes me wholeheartedly accept that this night is really happening. It swiftly teaches me there is no escape from death, whether it will be my own or my loved ones and, in this moment, as I watch the murderous exchange from one sister to another, I focus on one thought alone.

  It is just beginning.

  8 P.M. – 9 P.M.

  Henry

  I leap up but Selene beats me to the window even from her dozing state and points me towards the house opposite Theia’s where a family is killing one another.

  The sun has set behind this house and causes something of a halo effect around the roof with the illusion that this is a spectacle on a stage for the world to observe. It’s easy to forget that this should be happening in the privacy of the four peoples’ shared space alone. Only, I can’t believe my mind considers that because this shouldn’t be happening at all.

  I stare on, wondering how this family who gathered together an hour ago under the illusion of possible salvation could so rapidly turn inwardly on themselves. The stabbing continues, with knife plunges so loud yet from this distance the sound must be a figment of my imagination. The father and his weaponless daughter hug as the other girl with the knife approaches and blocks their path to the door.

  Kill or be killed. Dog eat dog. Prey on the weak. So many violent sayings that teachers used when lecturing us about idioms and figures of speech. Never have they been so literal before this night. I could explain away what is happening simply as fear but it’s incredible that it could be enough of a driving force to kill those you love. There must be more to this. At least I hope so or we are all doomed because everyone in the Middlelands must be petrified.

  The man stands and even with his stature seems shrunken in comparison to his daughter. He holds out his hands to plead with her but she jabs the knife through the air, cutting towards him. Her aggression is not about defending herself. Neither of the others have weapons themselves. She wants to survive but I’m not sure it’s triumphant to be the last one standing. Her father lurches back to avoid her plunges but loses his footing and falls on top of the other girl. The daughter with the knife descends on them.

  The screams are audible through the pane and continue on incongruously long after the girl has stabbed the knife countless times into the pile of her father and sister’s limbs and that’s when it occurs to me that it is the killer who continues to scream. In the game of survival she is the winner. She is the one to be Rehoused yet after this evening has passed and she has time to process the price of her success she will also be the person who has to tolerate this outcome. This will be the cost of living.

  Selene notices my green complexion and the murmurs of retching long before I feel the sickness bubble its way from my stomach, and the bile spills from my throat as she drags me to the bathroom across the hallway. I don’t make it on time and a trail of my vomit falls across the tiles and up the toilet bowl. Selene leaves me hanging over the murky water as she reaches for towels and begins to clean up first my mess and then my face.

  I vomit for a second time at one more thought. As I was hurried out of the room I glanced towards my other window and saw Theia, who was also witnessing the horror.

  Selene

  I mop Henry’s forehead and allow myself to feel pity for the family but only for the briefest moment as there are still plenty of hours until daybreak and massacre should not have been the solution. Not yet, not ever.

  But the image of the bloodshed is burnt into my retinas and I am not able to physically rid myself of the disgust like Henry has done so I am left with it. That it doesn’t sit well inside me is reassuring, that I am inclined to be disgusted rather than hungry for violence, which may surprise quite a few people in our neighbourhood who are sure that I’m always looking for fights when the truth is I have never hurt anyone. I understand their reasoning: my height, my mother, genes, but it’s just not true. Not once have I retaliated and resorted to punching back, not even in self-defence. I was always more impressed with my mother’s ability to source alcohol, a rare commodity, so that by the time I realised she was inebriated it was all I could do to avoid conflict and remain passive, not even resisting her the time she threw a chair and then herself at me. But the misguided belief about the girl from 3 Fitzroy Avenue works in my favour as people are wary of me and leave me alone.

  The truth of the matter is that I never hit back because I didn’t know if I had the strength in me and I still don’t. I can’t imagine what it would be like for my fist or leg to connect with someone and inflict pain. I’m scared that if it turned out that I was pathetically incapable of doing any damage I would lose my threatening aura. But there’s a darker reason still.

  I’m not sure I’d be able to stop.

  I’ve watched my mother goad herself on and justify each punch more easily to herself. I’m afraid that if I started I would wish for a next time and a time after that until violence became intrinsic to my core and there would be no end in sight. I’m worried that one day I could snap and kill her. So I take away something good from the self-destructive family across the garden: that I have no desire to see out this night by killing those around me. Especially not those I love.

  Henry sobs into the toilet bowl and the hunger rears up again as I picture slamming his head against the porcelain. I shake myself out of it and take the impulse with me but it’s too late to keep a memory from emerging from a murky place in my head, although I manage to rebuff it before it is fully formed. I tell myself that the urge to kill him was nothing and that it has passed.

  I am not violent.

  But self-defence is rocky territory, a fine line that the Upperlanders have pushed us over tonight and is now barely a dot on the horizon. I wonder what I would do if I find myself in a situation to the family opposite as the target of someone who has panicked and no longer views me as a girl they watched grow up but instead sees me as a threat, as competition. The memory rears itself again.

  I am not violent, I tell myself once more in protest of my recoll
ection.

  To consolidate this fact I mutter it on my lips. ‘I am not violent. I am not violent.’

  ‘What did you say?’ Henry removes his head from the toilet, too disoriented to have heard my mantra. The colour has not returned to his face.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say, but he doesn’t hear as he begins to throw up again.

  Theia

  What’s happening?

  The girl holds up the message but I shake my head at her then scribble a reply. It’s better you don’t know. It’s not fair to suggest that and naive too to think that she doesn’t have to worry about what is happening in our neighbourhood because she will be Rehoused and there should be no repeat in her own home but I wrote it all the same because I don’t want to have to write down a recap of what I endured. Instead I point away into my house, ending our communication at least for now. I need to check my family didn’t see what I did.

  First, I look across and take a final mental snapshot of the living room-turned-crime scene. The surviving girl sits in one of the chairs above her motionless family. Apart from the knife and the bodies around her a passer-by might think she is merely lost in a moment squandering the time away. In a way I suppose she is.

  Downstairs, my family all look to me for an explanation of the screams. ‘A girl killed her family. She’ll be Rehoused in the morning.’ It’s blunt, brutal even, which I hope goes someway to unnerve them enough for them to snap out of their denial.

  ‘Dessert,’ my father says in reply.

  I shake my head, astounded by his reaction. I should march each one up to my room and force them to stare out at what could be us before sunrise. My parents could argue that we’re nothing like that family but I don’t imagine the girl woke up this morning plotting to kill. Anyway, the announcement made it clear: more than one family member being Rehoused is not an option.