Half Lives

by Sara Grant

  ‘It’s here,’ Beckett says as Harper, Greta and Lucky catch up with him. ‘We’ve found it.’

  Harper now carries a burning torch in one hand and grips Greta’s wrist in the other. One of Harper’s arms is bare where she’s used her scraps of clothing to make the torch.

  Beckett dislodges a rock from the pile which seals the opening to the Heart. As he pulls it free, rocks cascade down and spill at his feet. He removes another and another until he is shovelling them away in armfuls. When the hole is big enough, he slips inside.

  He can see only a few feet before the light filtering around him fades to black. The smell of earth is overpowering.

  Suddenly the space is illuminated in a flickering light. Maybe the Great I AM is here.

  ‘Harper thought you might need this.’ It’s Greta’s voice. A torch is thrust through the opening.

  He squints as his eyes adjust to the burst of light. He takes the torch and waves it around. There’s a door. A door in a mountain. The earth has crumbled around it and it’s tipped forwards, leaving a gap between the doorframe and the earth. The Heart must lie beyond.

  Beckett inches closer and closer to the door. His foot touches something rough. He shines his torch on the ground. It’s not stones scraping the soles of his feet. These are bones. Human bones.

  Beckett can tell there are two skeletons side by side. Wires are attached to a silver rectangle which is embedded in the smaller skeleton. Beckett forces himself forwards around the skeletons towards the door.

  Beckett’s attention zooms in on the symbol etched into the door. The circular shape is similar to the image on Greta’s shirt. ‘Peace,’ Beckett murmurs.

  Beckett wonders if death is always the price of peace.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chaske and I made love every day. Out there I’d have laughed out loud at the phrase ‘making love’. It’s what soap opera characters did. Lola and I had made fun of our friend Tanz for saying she’d ‘made love’ with Dirk after the homecoming dance. Um, you can’t make much in four minutes and fifteen seconds, we’d said, and laughed. But now, in here, with Chaske, that was what it felt like.

  We weren’t doing it to pass the time. There wasn’t pressure or guilt or embarrassment. He wasn’t going to dump me for someone named Molly Andersen. It was something real and beautiful in this cold, dark place.

  Chaske and I would zip ourselves snug in his sleeping bag afterwards. He’d lie on his back, and I’d curl into the crook of his arm. Our body heat would multiply and provide us with the only warmth we’d felt all day. I’d roll on my elbow and watch him sleep until Tate called ten-something o’clock and switched off the lights. I’d memorize the slope of his nose and how his eyes were more squinty than open. His broad nose and high cheekbones. I’d trace the scar on his eyebrow. I never mentioned the scars on the rest of his body and neither did he. His muscles drew well-defined lines on his earthy-brown skin. I loved the feel of his sculpted body, holding me tightly until he finally relaxed with sleep.

  I knew we weren’t a perfect match. He was gorgeous and comfortable in his own skin. His thoughts and body flowed effortlessly. I was fake and plastic – a Barbie who’d thought she was original only to realize she was mass-produced. He was mysterious and dark like those modern comic-book superheroes – Batman and Spider-Man, full of tragedy and chivalry – which I guess made me the vapid damsel in distress. Not Catwoman or Spidey’s Mary Jane Watson, but one who makes a guest appearance in need of rescue and says something like ‘Golly, thanks, Batman.’

  In a very strange way, I was glad there was only one person around. I didn’t want to share our romance with anyone. Tate was oblivious. I didn’t want him teasing us or asking questions. I also thought it might make him uncomfortable. He saw us as a trio and that’s how I wanted it to stay. I was afraid that if he knew Chaske and I were a couple, he’d feel like the odd one out. Secrets were OK if they were to protect people’s feelings, right? For all of his many annoying habits, I was beginning to think of Tate as a little brother.

  ‘Chaske,’ I whispered one night after Tate turned out the lights.

  ‘Yeah,’ he muttered.

  ‘Why do you like me?’ It was a stupid schoolgirl question, but I wanted to know. ‘Is it just because I’m here?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why do you like me?’ I would have never asked this question in the light, never asked it out there. Those questions acted as repellent to high-school boys.

  ‘I don’t like you,’ he said.

  I felt the crush of rejection. Of course he didn’t. How could I ever believe that someone like him could like someone like me? I made a move to turn over, but he pulled me into him, kissing my eyebrow, the first bit of skin his lips could find. I didn’t move, didn’t help him navigate my face. His lips moved awkwardly to my nose, actually my nostril, and then slipped from one corner of my lips to my mouth, which I held stiffly shut.

  He laughed this breathy laugh. ‘Isis, I don’t like you, I love you.’

  I burst into tears. He loved me. How could he love me? He held me close and let me cry. When I finally caught my breath, I asked, ‘Why?’ His answer would be undermined by the fact that as far as he knew I was the only woman left. Wouldn’t a vegetarian love a hot dog if he were hungry enough?

  He kissed me full on the mouth and I was lost for a second in his lips. Darkness magnified every sensation. I wasn’t distracted by a stray hair stuck to his forehead or the sound of the TV in the background. The world had collapsed to the size of our lips and exploded in the way they moved together, gathering energy and electricity.

  ‘That’s not an answer,’ I said when his hands began to caress my body. He rolled me on my side and kissed the back of my neck.

  ‘I know I can’t say anything to convince you,’ he said. ‘No matter what I say: you’re beautiful and strong, or I love your white dreads, or you have the most amazing way of surviving. Nothing I say will be enough and also nothing I say will be the whole truth. I ache for you and all I do is think about you. I don’t know why I like country music or this pair of blue jeans. It’s something about the way they feel and something about how they make me feel.’ He snuggled me closer. ‘Does that make any sense?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I was filled with this sense of profound happiness that I don’t think I’d felt on the outside ever.

  ‘Why do you love me?’ he asked.

  I should have anticipated this question, but I was completely unprepared. I wasn’t very good at expressing things like that. Important words always got muddled in my mind. ‘I guess part of it is you saved me. You saved me from the snake.’ My body gave an automatic shiver at the word. ‘You save me every day in here with your calm, wise ways.’

  He laughed at that description.

  ‘Shut up. You do,’ I said and leaned in for another kiss. ‘Doesn’t hurt that you’re gorgeous.’ I felt the muscles in his face shift, I hoped to a smile. ‘You are strong in a way that makes me feel safe even in this place. I wish . . .’ I paused. I didn’t want him to pull away. ‘I wish I knew more about you. Your history. Your story before I met you.’

  He sighed. ‘That doesn’t matter.’

  But his saying that meant that it oh so did. I remembered the scars that he was careful to hide from me.

  ‘You know who I am now,’ he said.

  ‘But don’t you want to know—’

  ‘No,’ he quickly interrupted. ‘I know everything I need to know and tomorrow I’ll learn something new. Talking about it won’t change it. Won’t bring it back, it will just . . .’

  I understood. ‘Hurt,’ I finished his thought.

  ‘Yeah.’

  We had long philosophical discussions where I listened more than talked. I felt like a fridiot that I didn’t know who Nietzsche (Mr ‘what doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger’) was, or anything about Pascal’s Wager – the idea that it was best to believe in God because you’d have less to lose if you’re wrong. Or something like that.
Chaske told me that his mom liked to talk about this stuff. I squirrelled these tiny slips away. He wondered how the world worked, how the mind thought and what happened when we died. I’d always been too tangled up in the day-to-day stuff. My world had to shrink to the size of a bunker to get me to think big.

  Every night we’d gather with Tate like we did in my room on our two-month anniversary for story time. When we’d finished To Kill a Mockingbird, we took turns telling stories to one another. Tate recounted classic action-adventure series. He’d change the names and fill in the blanks when he forgot the plot. We recognized James Bond, Jack Bauer, Jason Bourne and Neo. Tate always lingered too long on describing the damsels in distress. I’d have to throw something at him when he detailed sexy stuff.

  I started to tell one of my favourite movies, The Shining, but I couldn’t do it. We’d lived through enough horror stories for a lifetime. So instead I decided to make them laugh. My stories were rambling and ridiculous, but Tate would quote one of my punchlines and chuckle for days after.

  Chaske shared folktales that his grandfather told him. My favourite was about why the North Star stands still. I loved to hear him tell it.

  ‘One brave boy loved to climb,’ Chaske would start. He’d sit cross-legged, a hand resting on each knee. ‘He found the highest peak. He wanted to make his father proud so he decided he would find a way to hike to the very top. It wasn’t easy because there was no path, no way to scale the sheer cliffs. He found a tunnel in the mountainside that sloped down and then up. He climbed in the dark with rocks slipping free and falling into the hole below. He was not afraid of climbing in the open air, but he was fearful of the dark space.’

  About this far into a story, Tate would fidget, but Chaske sat straight and filled the empty space with the sound of his voice. ‘He wanted to stop but when he turned back he discovered that rocks now blocked his path. The only way to go was up. He followed a faint light and eventually emerged on the tip-top of the mountain. When his dad spotted him, he was very sad because he knew there was no way back down. His dad turned his son into a star. He became the North Star. A star that stays in one place to guide travellers.’

  ‘Onwards and upwards,’ I said, repeating the phrase Chaske often used. I was sitting right next to him, but not touching.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘You must survive the dark to become a guiding light.’ I rested my hand on the ground next to his thigh. He slipped his hand on top of mine, casually so Tate wouldn’t notice. Chaske was my North Star.

  ‘It’s my turn next!’ Tate bounced. ‘Chaske, your stories need way more action.’

  ‘I think his story was perfect,’ I said and squeezed his hand.

  One night Chaske and I stayed up playing a new card game we’d created which was a mix of truth or dare, strip poker and the card game, war. Each card and suit represented a, well, sensual act and a body part. We divided the queen-of-heartless deck and each flipped one card over. The person who had the higher card was the recipient of the action on the winning card. We leaned over the cards and kissed at every tie. One-eyed Jacks and twos were wild, if you know what I mean. Then whoever won the whole deck got to decide, um, the ultimate reward.

  I had just finished kissing each of Chaske’s toes, his five of spades trumping my three of hearts, when I swear I heard a click and then a clack. Chaske didn’t seem to notice, mostly because I had trumped his ten of diamonds with a one-eyed Jack.

  ‘Did you hear something?’ I asked.

  We both stayed very still.

  ‘Never mind,’ I said, and puckered my lips as I considered if I wanted him to remove his shirt for the rest of the game or kiss my eyelids, which for some reason freaked him out a bit.

  Click. Clack. Click. Clack. It was the faintest series of taps.

  We’d both heard that.

  We dropped our cards and raced up the tunnel. I pressed my ear to the door. Nothing.

  ‘You heard it too?’ I asked.

  He nodded. ‘Could it be someone knocking?’

  I backed away from the door. A memory of the last time I’d opened the door flashed through my mind. Please no, I thought. Not again.

  We waited and waited for the sound, but it never came.

  ‘We must have imagined it,’ I said, and forced a laugh.

  ‘Yeah,’ he agreed, even though a joint auditory hallucination was pretty much impossible.

  A few nights later, it happened again. We were cuddled up together in the sleeping bag, waiting for Tate to turn out the light. Click. Clack. Click. Clack. On and on it went.

  I covered my ears, exposing my shoulders to the chilly bunker air.

  ‘Tate!’ Chaske screamed.

  I decided that warm was more important than eardrums, so I pulled the sleeping bag back around my neck.

  ‘Tate! What are you doing?’ Chaske sat up and shouted even louder. Cold air rushed in and robbed us of our cocoon of heat.

  ‘Nothing!’ he called back. ‘Nothing. It was nothing.’ I could hear his feet pounding up the tunnels.

  Oh, my God. I had to get dressed before he got here. He couldn’t see me like this.

  ‘I was just doing something but it’s nothing. I’ll stop,’ Tate was calling to us as he ran.

  I shoved Chaske the rest of the way out of the sleeping bag and clumsily stumbled out of the cot. The rock was cold on my bare butt. I searched for my lavender I know you are but what am I? shirt. Chaske pulled on his jeans in this smooth, ninja-like move. I snatched my shirt, which I remembered he’d tossed with great zeal earlier to the far side of the room.

  Tate was babbling and running and getting closer and closer.

  I pulled on my shirt and jeans and stuffed my bra and underwear deep in Chaske’s sleeping bag. Chaske calmly combed his fingers through his hair and I used the cot to pull myself up, nearly ending up back on the floor with the cot on top of me. Chaske was helping me up when Tate appeared at the door.

  ‘What were you doing?’ Chaske asked, and stepped in front of me to distract Tate as I zipped up my jeans.

  ‘Nothing. You know. I’ll stop.’ He looked at me, sort of hiding behind Chaske. ‘What were you two doing?’ Tate asked, winking at Chaske.

  I thought of the best lie I could. ‘I was doing some laundry, you know, washing my delicates, and I thought Chaske might give me a bit of his daily water.’ It sounded plausible. I stopped to see if the lie would soak in.

  He squinted at me and then smiled the devilish smile that I had come to know and love. ‘I’ll give you some of my water, Icie, if you’ll let me help you.’

  ‘Not on your life, Roadkill,’ I said.

  ‘I drank all my water today, Icie,’ Chaske said, showing me his empty water jug. ‘I’ll save you some tomorrow.’

  ‘Yeah, fine. I’d better get back to my laundry,’ I said, and walked to the door. I gave Tate a friendly whack on the back of the head. ‘That’s for being rude.’

  ‘Ouch.’ Tate rubbed his head. ‘I thought I was being helpful.’

  ‘Too much testosterone for me,’ I said as I left. I did this weird combination of mime and sign language and mouthed, My room later, to Chaske.

  Chaske gave a subtle nod. It wasn’t until I was back in my room that I realized it was Tate who had skilfully changed the subject from the clacking noises. He was probably just making the noise somehow with his mouth or armpit. I forgot about it. It was Tate, being Tate. I never thought it would matter.

  It mattered.

  Maybe a week later Chaske and I were woken by the most horrible scream and crash. Chaske and I sprang to our feet, dressed without a word and ran down the tunnel shouting for Tate, but everything was quiet.

  We reached where the light stopped. Tate’s tent was there but he wasn’t inside. Tate had added a few more drums to his drum set. I didn’t know a lot about music but I was sure most rock drummers didn’t play upwards of fifteen drums. We switched on our flashlights and continued down the tunnel.

  ‘Tate!’ Chaske cal
led.

  ‘Tate!’ I shouted almost in response.

  We listened intently.

  Nothing.

  I wanted to turn back. I didn’t want to know what I would find. ‘Tate!’ I screamed again. We reached the place where it looked like the tunnel had collapsed in a pile of rock. I remember how that sight unnerved me on that first day. I tried not to think about the tons of earth overhead. The rock pile wasn’t solid any more. Tate had deconstructed it, rock by rock. There was now a jagged opening, beyond which was pitch black. The clacking noises suddenly made sense. Chaske climbed through.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ I told Chaske, and followed him.

  He stumbled into a secret room. The temperature increased. The wall ahead of us had a metal door, more of a garage door really. It was open. We stepped inside. The space was vast, but the air was warm.

  Chaske sent a thin beam sweeping like a lighthouse over the sea ahead of us. Shiny silver canisters were stacked from floor to ceiling. A few of the columns had toppled over and the tops of the canisters had popped off, gaping at us like mouths open in a scream. Chaske flicked his light here and there, not lingering or giving me time to really understand what I was seeing.

  And there was Tate. He was lying lifeless on the ground. Dull rods and what looked like shattered black glass surrounded Tate. I rushed to him but Chaske pulled me back. One of the stacks must have fallen on him.

  As the scene soaked in, I realized what this was. But how could it be? I had started to believe that we could live in here together forever. I’m not sure I cared what was outside any more. I stood there rejecting what I knew to be true.

  I’d never been safe.

  We’d never had a chance.

  ‘Icie, look.’ Chaske shone his flashlight on the silver container closest to us. It was about a metre high and maybe sixteen inches across. The circle of light from Chaske’s flashlight highlighted a round, red icon. I went to move closer but Chaske held me back. I strained to see. The shapes shifted from random to symbol. I knew that sign. I knew what it meant. It was the universal symbol for radioactivity. A circle broken into three parts. I used to think it looked like an old movie reel until my dad told me what it stood for.