Half Lives

by Sara Grant

  On and on I went, letting one topic morph into another. I tried to recall all the peaceful and beautiful places I could. I spoke until my throat was raw.

  We never said a word about how quickly he was deteriorating. That stuff was making him sick. Maybe it had been poisoning us all along, leaching into the water, secreting its poison as we slept. I couldn’t understand why it was happening to him and not to me.

  ‘Isis,’ he whispered and shook my shoulder. ‘Isis.’

  My eyelids flew open. Was this it? Oh, shit, don’t let this be it. I sat up, nearly knocking heads with Chaske. He was dressed in a clean pair of jeans and a fresh T-shirt.

  ‘I want to go outside,’ he said.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘You don’t have to come.’ He put a little pressure on my shoulder to keep me sitting. ‘I just want to know, you know, before I . . .’

  ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘I’d rather you stayed here,’ he said, kissing my forehead. ‘We don’t know what’s out there.’

  ‘We know what’s in here.’

  His face whitened and he slid back against the wall. He’d used all his energy getting ready.

  ‘Why don’t you sleep a bit? I’ll change and pack up a few things.’ I stroked his long black hair. He closed his eyes. He now swam in the clothes that used to cling to his muscled body. He was more bones than flesh.

  Maybe I could find him help. Maybe everything hadn’t ended.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  GRETA

  Greta’s anxiety grows with each passing minute. She managed to make her way past the Crown and into the cover of the pine trees, but her energy is fading. Adrenaline masked her injuries at first, then anger at Finch spurred her forwards. Blind determination kept her moving down the mountain. She can’t see her people approaching any more. Have they already reached Forreal? Greta’s body is throbbing with pain, but she has to find her family and fight alongside them. She knows Da will be leading the charge.

  She makes a steady descent, ducking and hiding and resting, until she realizes that the mountain is deserted. Greta quickly shifts strategies. She will not join the Vega army. She will make her way to Forreal and plan a counter-attack. If she’s given the chance, she will destroy their homes like they destroyed hers. An eye for an eye.

  She sees the shelters that must be Forreal and cautiously invades. Clothes are soaking in washing tubs. A bucket half full of water has been dropped. Chuckwallas scamper from the dried meat someone has left on an abandoned plate. A fire smoulders in the biggest structure. It’s no more than poles, a roof and a few benches. She picks up a branch from a pile of timber near the fire pit at the far side of the structure. One end of the branch has already been wrapped in cloth. She takes the ready-made torch and rams it into the fire. She will burn Forreal to the ground. It won’t take much. The branch is smoking. She waits to make sure the fire takes hold.

  She spots a thin slab of wood abandoned on one of the benches. She leaves the branch to burn in the fire for a minute. She examines what has been etched into the wood. Smiley faces. Hundreds of them. She touches the face with the googly eyes and squiggly mouth. She smears dirt, ash and blood across the faces. She imagines rubbing it smooth, erasing those smiling faces. That’s what she’s planning, isn’t it?

  All around she sees the remains of a simple life, of a people who work and worship together. There aren’t any weapons. These are a peaceful people, like Beckett. Finch could be the only thorn. She wouldn’t think twice about killing him but she can’t exact her revenge on the rest of them.

  She carefully places the slab of wood back where she found it. Her branch has ignited but she leaves it to burn in the fire. Greta sees footprints – big and small – leading down the mountain. She follows the trail. She hears raised voices and the rumble of a fight, of bodies colliding with bodies.

  ‘Greta.’

  The sound startles her.

  Beckett steps from the shadows. Even after everything, her heart reaches out to him. He lunges for her. They clumsily crash into each other and he presses his lips on hers, knocking heads and teeth. She cringes in pain but tries to find the rhythm that used to come so naturally. She has a fistful of his dreads and is holding him close. The sounds of fighting seem to mute.

  She shoves him away. He looks at her with those big, trusting eyes.

  ‘I forgive you, Greta,’ Beckett says.

  ‘How can you?’ She wants to be angry with him. If it weren’t for him, there would be no fires or fighting. But she has forgiven him too.

  ‘The Great I AM believes in second chances and forgiveness,’ Beckett says, and takes her hand as if nothing’s changed.

  ‘It must be wonderful,’ Greta says, ‘to believe in something outside yourself. To know you are not alone. To think that you have a higher purpose. The only person I ever trusted was myself. The only thing I’m sure about is that one day I will die, just like everyone else I have ever known.’

  ‘Let me show you a miracle,’ he says.

  She kisses his cheek. ‘It’s too late for miracles. Don’t you hear that? Vega has already attacked Forreal. What can we do now?’

  ‘It’s never too late for a miracle.’

  She strokes his shock of white hair. ‘I wish we weren’t enemies.’

  ‘We don’t have to be enemies. Trust me one last time. Let me show you the power of the Great I AM.’ He doesn’t wait for her answer. He laces his fingers among hers. ‘Don’t let a few bad people ruin it for everyone.’

  ‘That’s really all it has ever taken,’ Greta says. She knows the story of how it all ended. A small terrorist cell created a virus. They unleashed it on an unsuspecting world. There were attacks and counter-attacks until only handfuls of humans survived.

  Beckett looks at her as if her comment has triggered something deeper. ‘Evil wins when good men do nothing.’

  She can tell he’s quoting someone. ‘What’s that from?’

  ‘It’s a Just Saying from the Great I AM.’

  Maybe she should give Beckett’s god a chance. What does she have to lose?

  Beckett climbs onto the highest boulder he can find and pulls her up after him. The first rays of the rising sun flicker on the horizon. Below a battle rages. The sky shifts to a hazy pink. ‘It’s time,’ he whispers in Greta’s ear.

  He stands tall and pulls his shoulders back. ‘Stop!’ he shouts at the top of his lungs. Everyone freezes, startled by his booming voice. ‘The time for fighting is over. It’s time for reconciliation.’

  Vega outnumbers Forreal nearly three to one. Her people are stained black from battling the fires. They quickly try to resume the fight, but Beckett’s people refuse to engage. The way they look at him, it’s as if they are seeing a ghost.

  ‘Please,’ Greta says, searching the crowd for her family. ‘Listen to him. Give him a chance.’ She spots her father and brothers. ‘Da. Bungle. Joe. Tinker. Buzz. This has to stop before we destroy what we’ve worked so hard to build.’

  Beckett raises his and Greta’s hands into the air. ‘I’ve asked the Great I AM for a sign.’

  Greta turns her face towards Beckett and whispers, ‘I hope you know what you are doing.’

  He looks towards the top of the Mountain. And Greta prays for Beckett’s miracle.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Even though I was dressed in exactly the same clothes I’d been wearing when I arrived on the mountain, I had changed in every way imaginable. My T-shirt still proclaimed Have a Mediocre Day. That would be an improvement.

  I unlocked the bunker door and helped Chaske out. The door seemed to have grown heavier and took all my strength to pull it open. I held my breath, wondering what awaited us. I braced myself for the worst. We had to sidestep the rotting remains of the zombie. The stench of decay lingered in the air. I was relieved to find only one set of bones. Maybe Marissa and Midnight had survived. Maybe they were still alive and out there somewhere.

  We
stepped into the world. The light was so bright it hurt my eyes. The feel of fresh air on my skin took my breath away. Neither one of us could speak. The sky was a bright shade of blue I’m sure I’d never seen before. We squinted and shielded our eyes. We blinked back tears that glimmered in the sunlight. We drank in the pine scent. The breeze rustled through leaves. Animals scurried about. Birds called to one another. Joy welled up in me at this orchestra. But this felt unnatural. Too much to take in all at once. It felt as if the volume on the world had been ratcheted up. The colours were too vivid. The sounds too loud. The smells too strong. Being in such a vast space made me feel vulnerable.

  I’d expected an ashen landscape, void of colour and sound. Everything looked miraculously the same as when we’d gone underground. Maybe we’d got it all wrong. Maybe the world hadn’t ended. Had we been locked away for nothing? But I remembered the madness that day we locked ourselves in – and the zombie. We’d escaped something, but a new hope was beginning to glisten inside me. Maybe we weren’t the only ones to survive. I just needed to take it one step at a time. The most important thing was to get Chaske healthy again. I propped Chaske by the stone with the infinity symbol carved in it. I traced the sun-warmed lines with my finger. There was no infinity for anything except that awful poison. I told him to rest for a while. I placed the loaded gun on his lap, just in case. I had to go back in.

  I stood at the entrance for a long time. My body refused to move. I was scared to leave Chaske. I also couldn’t bear the dark again. I shuffled, one foot in front of the other. Don’t think, just do, I told myself. The stale, rank smell of the tunnel hit me. I didn’t realize how much my senses had dulled underground. After so long, we didn’t smell the foul odour or realize how dim the light or how claustrophobic the space was.

  I forced myself forwards, even though every cell in my body screamed to leave this place. I wanted to salvage as many supplies as possible. I didn’t want to come back inside here ever. I also wanted to mark this space. I wished I could make a ginormous ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign so no one else would enter these tunnels as people and leave as ghosts. I wanted to write a message, but how do you communicate when you can’t possibly imagine the language or symbols of the future? I thought about writing ‘Do Not Enter’. I only knew English. Was that good enough? Not everyone spoke English. This poison could be deadly for ten thousand years, which was longer than humans had existed. I thought of the evolution from cave drawings to cursive writing. Would language continue to morph and change? Would the language we spoke today be as difficult for future generations to understand as Homer’s epic poems in the original Greek were for me?

  If I marked the mountain in some way, would others be curious? Think this place was special? Wonder if it held treasures? I thought of all the Egyptian ‘Do Not Disturb’ signs – the threats of curses – that hadn’t stopped anyone from entering sacred tombs and looting the treasures. Modern-day museums were filled with Egyptian relics that were never supposed to have been uncovered. Locked doors and ‘keep out’ signs sometimes tempt rather than repel. How could I ever convince future civilizations that what was buried in this mountain was deadly, not special?

  I felt powerless. There was nothing I could do or say. This poison would continue to kill forever. My body tensed and a scream started at the tips of my toes and jolted through my body, gathering momentum and volume. A primal scream erupted from me and filled the space. I hoped somehow it would embed in the rock.

  Then I did something I hadn’t done since we entered the tunnels: I prayed. I prayed to any god that was listening. I prayed to the ghosts that might be lingering and any angels watching over me. I prayed to anyone who was still breathing in any far corner of whatever was left of my world and to those who had passed on. I asked for Chaske to be spared. I asked that they guard this place of death and keep the living away.

  I wished I had explosives to collapse the tunnels. But even that didn’t seem enough.

  I filled Chaske’s backpack with our remaining food and hauled jugs of water outside. I kept Chaske’s copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, but left Godot behind. Samuel Beckett might be right about the absurdity and futility of it all, but I didn’t need the reminder. I dragged Tate’s body, wrapped in the sleeping bag, and laid it parallel to the zombie’s decaying corpse. It wasn’t easy, but I couldn’t bear the thought of him back so close to the poison that killed him.

  I took one final look at this place that had somehow grown to be my home. I felt no nostalgia. I didn’t know if this place had saved or killed me. I locked the door. I used Tate’s pocket-knife to scratch the symbol for radioactivity in the door. I scribbled those lines over and over. Would it even mean anything to anybody in a few hundred years? But it was something; something was better than nothing.

  By the time I resurfaced the sun was setting. I built a fire and snuggled up to Chaske for the night. We were finally warm. I’d thought I’d never be warm again. Chaske and I split an MRE, but this time we warmed it over the fire. I fed him as best I could. We both needed to keep our strength up.

  ‘Do you think it’s smart to have the fire?’ Chaske asked. He didn’t have the energy to open his eyes. ‘What if someone sees it?’

  ‘What can anyone do to us now?’

  He rested his head on my shoulder and fell sound asleep. I lost myself in the crackling of the fire and the dancing orange flames. It was beautiful. Even with Chaske dying in my arms, the tiniest spark of life was rekindling in me, but what was waiting for us out there?

  It took Chaske and me hours to walk to the vantage point we had climbed to the night we closed ourselves in. There was a poetic symmetry to standing there, staring out over the silent, barren landscape. There wasn’t a crater where Las Vegas used to be, but the skyline wasn’t the same. The buildings appeared broken. The landscape dull and dead. There were cars lined along the road, but it was obvious even from this distance that they were abandoned, some even burned out. We strained to see any signs of life. Nothing moved or sparkled. There was no whoosh of planes or helicopters overhead.

  ‘This doesn’t mean anything,’ Chaske said. I knew what he meant: there could still be life out there.

  As the final rays of the sun faded, Chaske raised a weary finger. ‘There.’ He pointed.

  I followed the line from his finger. A thread of smoke twisted skywards, blending with the low-hanging clouds that looked heavy with rain. I kissed him on the cheek. ‘Maybe,’ was all I said.

  I woke with a jolt. Chaske was rifling around in my backpack.

  ‘What do you need?’ I scrambled to his side, my body dull with sleep and my eyes barely able to focus.

  I instinctively inched away when I saw Tate’s knife. ‘What are you doing with that?’ I swiped at it but he moved it out of my reach.

  ‘I had an—’ His thought was interrupted by a hacking cough. ‘An idea.’ He panted, but he was intent on continuing. ‘When I was sitting by that . . .’ He mimed the infinity symbol.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, my eyes focused on the blade.

  ‘I want us . . .’ Gasp. ‘To be . . .’ Cough. Deep breath. He finished with a blurt, ‘Together forever.’

  My stomach lurched. Was he proposing joint suicide?

  ‘Is that what you want?’ I asked.

  ‘Trust me,’ he whispered. His brown eyes held the same fire I’d seen when he’d shot the rattlesnake and saved my life.

  He took my wrist, palm up, in his hand. He gathered his strength. He traced the symbol on my wrist across the bulging artery and the crisscrossing blue veins. I bit my lip to mask the sting of the cut. A slip of the knife and we could end it here together. Red lines emerged where the tip of the blade had broken the skin. I didn’t dab it away; I let the blood collect and drip onto the ground.

  He handed me the blade and I carved an identical symbol into him.

  ‘Now, no matter what . . .’

  ‘We’re together forever.’

  We lay on our backs and dozed in the warm desert s
un. Every muscle and bone was drained of energy. I memorized every inch of Chaske. His long black hair, fanned out under his head. His broad nose. The scar that ran diagonally through his left eyebrow. High cheekbones that flushed pink when he smiled that half smile of his. His full, rosy lips that gave his smile substance and softness.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ I asked.

  ‘Something my mom said: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil”,’ Chaske took a deep breath, ‘“is that good men do nothing”.’

  ‘Who said that?’ I asked as the words plunged deep into my soul.

  ‘I don’t know. Some Irish guy, I think.’ He bit his lower lip. ‘Edmund Burke. That’s it.’

  I stared at the sky, now dotted with a million stars. The night sky looked the same as it had that night we buried ourselves alive. Still beautiful and mysterious. All those dots made me feel less alone, as if maybe those lights were living beings out in the universe.

  ‘What made you think of that?’ I asked after a while.

  I felt Chaske shrug. My eyes were closing and my thoughts blurring with sleep when Chaske whispered, ‘I was thinking of you. Do something, Icie. Don’t let evil triumph.’

  I fought sleep. I didn’t want to waste a minute with Chaske. But my body felt heavy, as if I were wearing one of those sumo-wrestler suits. My eyelids slid shut. I tried to open them, but my eyelashes felt magnetized. The rhythm of his breath eventually lulled me to sleep.