The Longest Night

by K. M. Gibson

  Enough. She opened the closet doors and pulled out a neatly folded pile of scrubs. The clothes felt freshly washed; they smelled of flowers and wind. Once unfolded the creases hung in the clothing for only a few seconds before they softened. How gentle they were on her. A pair of white slip-on shoes were on the floor. She stepped into them and left her room. To keep moving was to keep it at bay.

  A few people milled through the corridor towards the mess hall, their heads still hung as if they would never lift again. She could almost feel the self-hatred and guilt rolling off their skin as they walked by her.

  Aroma led her down the corridor. The mess hall was quiet; though many were there eating, no one was talking. A soldier handed her a bag of food just outside the door. It was Goran.

  “How do you have enough for everyone?” she asked.

  “Food specialist.”

  “What do you do?”

  “She does it.”

  “Oh. I meant…”

  He gave her a hard look. Too awkward to press him for information, Catherine took her food and left. She took a seat at the nearest open spot and unfolded the bag carefully. Baked potato, steamed broccoli, knife and fork. When was the last time she saw a potato? Or broccoli? It was so green. She took a bite and burned her tongue. Then she took another. It burned again. Keep burning.

  She jumped. A man on the other side of the room had slammed his fist into the table. He was shaking. His face was going red. The man whom he was staring at sat still as stone, elbows propped up on the table, fists pressed to his forehead.

  “How can you just sit there? Eating your food like nothing’s fucking wrong?”

  “That’s enough,” Ackermann said, approaching from behind. Ackermann put his hand on the man’s shoulder and the man lunged for the other’s throat. Ackermann tried to apprehend him while Reid and Goran rushed in. “You ate my wife!” the man shrieked. “You ate my wife, you fucker!”

  It took all three of them to drag him away. He screamed “wife” and “fucker” all the way out. The man at the table began to shake.

  Catherine ate the last of her broccoli stalk then picked up her baked potato and took it to her room.

  She felt his hand gently touch her jaw, turning her face towards his. She opened her eyes and saw him above her, inches from her face.

  I thought you were dead.

  He brushed her jaw, throat, slowly across her chest, down her belly, and rested between her thighs.

  The air rushed out in a sigh, her eyes closing. His hand moved slowly, carefully, and she had never known anything could feel that way. And he was there. He was touching her now, and oh, God, she must have died too—

  She opened her eyes and looked around the room. The feel of his hands lingered only briefly. Though she was under the covers she felt cold.

  She had no idea what time it was but the building was still busy with sounds. Voices could be heard through the walls. The generator hummed, reminding her it stood between them and death as they survived together.

  Surviving.

  She pulled the covers back and swung her feet over the edge of the bed. Even if she could fall back asleep, she wouldn’t stay that way. He would be there. She needed to escape that, escape this room.

  Once outside, a conversation drifted down the corridor from the mess hall to her. Ackermann’s and Reid’s voices. In the opposite direction, four people speaking in hushed tones. One was Doctor Anderson’s. One as a woman. The other two were other men she did not know. Jeffries’s name caught her ears.

  “He was stabbed,” Doctor Anderson said. “Well, cut by a knife is more accurate. Supposedly by one of the residents living here now. We swore his privacy, though.”

  “How is he?”

  “Who? The resident?”

  “No, Jeffries.”

  There was silence. “It was too late.”

  More silence. She walked slowly towards the office, hung on each word.

  “But you say he retrieved some samples?”

  “Just water samples. From McClelland Lake,” the woman said.

  “How did Jeffries get them here?”

  “It’s incredible, really,” Doctor Anderson replied. “We didn’t get all the details of the story, but we pieced it together. There’s a woman here”—Catherine leaned against the wall by his door, keeping herself out of sight—“who was living at the lake. She attempted to save Jeffries’s life. He retrieved some samples while he was there.”

  “I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that people were still living south of here.”

  “Self preservation runs deep.”

  “Well, Jordan, did you get any results from the samples?”

  There was a pause. “That’s what I was just coming to tell you,” she said, her voice hushed, washed in excitement. “There’s no trace of it in McClelland Lake.”

  “It’s dissipating.”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank God.”

  Catherine knew little of the context, but the words gave her frisson; at a basic level, she could understand that this discovery was a pivotal moment in their research. Doctor Anderson then gave a small chuckle. “I suppose there’s no need to worry about a water supply for a while, then.”

  “We were able to analyze our samples on the way as well. We took them from the river. A higher concentration of the virus was in our control group.”

  Doctor Anderson asked, “Why didn’t you wait to test until you got back?”

  “Because we found hundreds of these scattered on the bank.”

  There were sounds of cloth rubbing against cloth – a knapsack slipping from someone’s shoulders – then shuffling and tinkering of delicate equipment. Everyone was silent.

  “What is that?”

  There was some shifting as all four drew closer together, hovering over the apparent object Catherine assumed they were passing amongst one another. “We didn’t dare open it.”

  After a moment, Doctor Anderson said: “No.” It was disbelieving.

  “There’s a note on the label,” the first man said.

  “We couldn’t read it,” the second said. “We were hoping one of you might be able to.”

  Then there was the longest stretch of quiet yet. A chair scraped across the floor, as if someone landed in it heavily.

  “What is it?” Jordan asked.

  “This says…” Doctor Anderson trailed off. “It was manipulated and redistributed. Not for personal use. This…a ship must have capsized in the Pacific for you to have found that many in the river. Or…”

  “It couldn’t have been intentional?” Jordan muttered.

  Catherine closed her eyes and slumped heavily against the wall. No good guys, no bad guys.

  “No. We…”

  Quiet.

  “Thank you, Jordan,” Doctor Anderson finally said, seemingly exhausted, “Maverick, Hartell. Let’s get some sleep. You’ve done well. I appreciate all your work.”

  “Thank you, sir,” one of them replied, disheartened.

  Catherine turned and walked back to her room silently before the others exited. The three dismissed scientists turned in the opposite direction and didn’t catch even a glimpse of the wisp of a girl in the darkened hallway. She reached her apartment, opened and closed the door quietly, then sat on her bed, looking at her feet. Suddenly, a dark scoff ran past her lips, and she shook her head.

  Humans are designed to destroy themselves.

  Doctor Anderson had apparently rehearsed a speech for all the new inhabitants by the next day. He recited it to Catherine. “I know this is a hard time for you, but I would like to start assigning you to some public duties. Unfortunately, with our facility being as complicated as it is, we are in need of everyone to contribute to the upkeep and management of its system.”

  “I have a degree in Child Psychology,” she said flatly to his desk. “I could work with the kids.”

  “That would be of great help.” He started to write something down straight on the des
k. He stopped mid-thought. “By the way, where is your cane? It’s not a good idea to be walking around without it.”

  “I’m fine.”

  He stared at her staring at his desk. “All right.”

  He told her a short list of names and she went to gather them. The children were not hard to find. The parents seemed ambivalent to her offer to teach their children, as if the will for watching them grow and learn had never lived. The children came quietly, all but Michael, who chit-chatted the entire way. They sat themselves down at an empty table in the mess hall.

  “I just wanted to learn your names and faces, and figure out where we should start as far as learning,” she said as she sat. “What grade was everyone in school?”

  The gravity of their frail state came to mind when none of them replied but watched her warily. But small, fair-haired Michael was keen. “I was halfway through the first grade when Dad and I had to go.”

  “Thank you, Michael. And Penny, what grade were you in?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “That’s okay, we can figure out where you’re at pretty easily. Tomorrow I’ll have everyone meet back here, and I’ll have some books for you to read.”

  “Why?”

  Catherine looked to Michael beside her, who peered up at her questioningly. There was no sarcasm behind his voice; he was genuinely curious about reading books.

  “So that you can learn to read well.”

  “But why do we need to do that? How would that help us eat and stuff?”

  She opened her mouth to respond before she had an answer. “I suppose you’re right.” Now is not the time. “All right, then. We’ll meet here tomorrow and then we’ll all go on a field trip outside. We can start by learning how to search for food.”

  Penny’s dark and sunken eyes bore into hers questioningly. “I thought we didn’t have to eat people anymore.”

  She went to the small library reserve that Doctor Anderson had pointed out to her and looked through the selection. There were two bookshelves full, and each shelf was of a different subject. Cooking…gardening…exercise…there, the outdoors. She panned the bindings for relevant titles. As she reached the end of the row a slate grey spine caught her eye on the row below. Though she was looking right at it she did not see it immediately. There was her name in thick black print.

  She slowly took the book from the shelf, looking at the cover. The art was done by a colleague of Archie’s. Two people stood on either end of a platform, facing each other, and the title stood between them. She opened to the first page. To the man I never knew. She had never really decided who she was referring to. When she went to turn to the next page she stopped.

  She closed the book and placed it back on the shelf.

  That night she sat at the desk in her room, flipping through the outdoor books she had retrieved from the library. There was a swift and quiet knock on her door. It was late, most were asleep. After ignoring it for too long she stood and opened the door.

  On the other side was a man she didn’t recognize. “May I help you?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry. I know it’s late.”

  Suddenly it came to her. They had the same nose and ears. She attempted to smile. “You must be Michael’s father.”

  “Yes. Colin.” He cleared his throat, looking to his feet before he continued. “I heard you were found with Jeffries.”

  It struck a low cord that had been ringing since he died. “Yes.”

  “I…” Colin began, his voice breaking. “I wanted to apologize to you. I was led to believe he was important to you. It’s…my…” A hand went to his eyes, tears slipping through his fingers. “You have to understand. I was afraid he was after my boy. I had to protect my son, I thought that he was trying to eat—”

  He rubbed his face desperately, trying to regain control of himself. Her eyes brimmed with tears. She bit her bottom lip. He whispered “I’m sorry” over and over. She opened her mouth to speak and started to cry instead.

  He got down on his knees and touched his forehead to the floor in front of her. She was expecting to feel some sort of hate for Jeffries’s killer. The thought had occurred to her briefly before, what she would do to the person who maimed him. Now, here he was. This was the reason he was gone and this was the reason it was hard for her to take every breath, to put one foot in front of the other. She looked but couldn’t find it. His cries were so heavy, a weight he would never be able to lift. Of course she couldn’t hate. This, what Colin was doing? It wasn’t about Jeffries, nor was it about her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again into the floor.

  Catherine let her breath out slowly, and she knelt down, putting her hands on his shoulders, squeezing gently.

  “Me too.”

  She sat next to him, wrapping her arms around him and rubbing his shoulders. Before this had happened, they lived normal lives. Now she knew they would deserve the fate that awaited them. All of them did. She knew it would happen to him soon, but she hadn’t accepted it. She never would.

  “We’ll just wait here until they’re gone. Then we’ll get you some medicine.”

  He leaned against her heavily, his breathing slow.

  Last place that seemed safe. Little plastic dolls sat unmoving; they had been off for days now. No one left alive to turn them on. “It’s a Small World After All,” they should have sang. She stroked his hair, singing the song to herself, trying to block out the howls from afar. It was enough to turn blood to ice, to scare sanity from the living, to chase hope away from His land.

  Had they lived just lives? She wanted to say they did. To say that they were righteous people. Everyone wanted to say they were inherently good-natured, but nobody was. To the core they were all selfish. They were built that way. Guilt was buried so that each day could be tread on a string of lies like perfectly rounded pearls. Small atrocities gathered into one sulking mass called Human. They had all forgotten God, but He had not forgotten them, and he sent his angels in the form of decay to tell the rest of humanity their sins: Pride, Gluttony, Sloth, Lust, Wrath, Greed, Envy…they conducted the choir of crimes every day, each and every person, good or ill, and now they all received their just desserts.

  Her chin quivered. The dolls blurred in her eyes. Not even innocence could be protected.

  Her husband said something. His hand was stuffed in his pocket.

  “What is it?” she asked him.

  He removed his hand from his pocket. The gun.

  She stared at it like a grotesque and ugly thing. Her heart banged its fists against her chest and she couldn’t breathe and oh my God. “Honey?”

  He leaned on her heavily to lift it. “I want you…shoot…”

  “What?”

  “I want you to shoot.”

  She shook her head slowly against his, crying hard and softly at the same time. “Don’t ask me to do this.”

  “Please…” he moaned. “For me. For us. We don’t deserve…whatever this is. Please.”

  “I can’t!” she howled, pushing his hand away. The gun fell from his grip and clattered on the floor of the boat. His arm fell across his lap. He didn’t sit up. Couldn’t. But she could hear him try. To pick up the gun. His breathing became heavier, and he started again.

  “We…can’t live…” he said. “Even if I was never sick, we can’t live through this. This is the end. We’re not…meant here. I don’t want to be.”

  “How could you say that? How could you say you want to die? Don’t you love me?”

  “Yes,” he said, his breath wheezing. “I love you very much, and…I want you…with me.”

  She cried even harder then, shaking the boat. He reached over to hold her hand, and she tried to hold it back, but her grip was loose. She didn’t want this to be happening now. They had run for so long—she had carried him too far for it all just to end like this. In a dingy boat in the middle of a fucking theme park ride—

  “I love you…much. I. Am going. To die. And then…I’ll be on you
. No…don’t. We both know. I don’t know how much longer. Make sure I don’t…come back. Or you. I don’t want them—I don’t want them to get us. I don’t want to be them.”

  “No,” she cried. More time. Please, more time. Too abrupt. Elsewhere was a field, and in the field was a barn with a future for them. It was supposed to be theirs. This happened to other people, not them.

  You knew that would never happen. He would have died long before that. No treatments at a barn. A ridiculous idea to hold. Their lives were never for themselves, not since he got sick and they had made the mistake of believing it was. Now they were to die for it. In a boat on a river that led nowhere. This was it. She was seeing her end and she wanted to go back to the beginning. The picnic in Coney Island three years ago. The Christmas party where they spent their last days with her mother. The way his hands felt tangled in her hair when they made love. The smell of apples blossoming on the tree in their backyard. The warmth of the sun and the caress of birdsong in her ears.

  Not like this, never like this. Why couldn’t our lives be like theirs? Why do we suffer for their mistakes?

  Theirs is ours. And she knew it. Toes hung over the cliff, and he was telling her it was time to fall. But it was too frightening to step forward.

  “I love you. Please. For us.”

  She closed her eyes and clenched her jaw as she bent over to pick up the gun from the bottom of the boat. She clutched it hard. He had been holding it in his pocket for some time. Steel that should have been cold was warm, slightly sweaty. A blood-curdling wail echoed from far off.

  The smell of pine when they sat in the park where they were married, holding hands and watching the clouds drift by. Such a beautiful world.

  “I love you,” he ground through his teeth. She clutched him with her free arm tightly, never wanting to let go. And she wouldn’t. She would die holding him, and they would escape. They didn’t deserve it. God, we don’t.

  “I love you too.” She cocked the gun, pressed it to his head hard to make sure she wouldn’t pull away and squeezed squeezed squeezed.