Return from the Apocalypse

by Blake Pitcher

  Maddox sets his glass on the table, tracing his finger along the rim. He acts as if he is about to speak, but cuts himself short. “I shouldn’t say anything.”

  “Tell me.”

  The creases on Maddox’s face form into lines of concern. “For one, I’m worried that he may never return; the world is a cruel and dangerous place now.”

  “This I know.”

  “For another, I am also worried should he return and you are disappointed— people change out here. A gentle soul as yourself, as I have found you to be, I worry…”

  “Yes?”

  “I worry that he may be more hardened by this world than you expect. That he may have done things that are not suitable in the society we once knew.”

  “We have all done things,” Esther says quietly.

  “I’ll say no more.” Maddox pours the last of the carafe into each of their glasses. “Let us enjoy our drinks and speak of nicer things.”

  The two talk on, but the mood is clouded. Esther finishes her final glass and insists on returning to her work. As she stands from the table, she feels the wine in her head, and sways slightly. A cacophony of emotions and thoughts wants to rise in her chest. I must not get emotional, she thinks.

  Maddox catches her arm, stabilizing her. He leads her to the dresser and slides open the top drawer, taking out an ornate hairpin. He places it in the palm of her hand, closing her fingers around the golden intricacies that weave along the shaft up into a turquoise-studded star.

  “My mother’s. I want you to have it.” His hand remains touching hers.

  “It’s beautiful,” Esther says faintly.

  Strong arms wrap her in an embrace, and Maddox pats her firmly on the back. “Whatever happens, I’ll look out for you,” he says, his mouth near her ear. He releases her, and gives her a paternal smile. “Don’t hesitate to come to me for anything.”

  Whatever happens. The words repeat in Esther’s mind as she navigates the hallways of the complex. She tells herself the hug was fatherly; she wasn’t a neophyte to the advances of the men in this world, or the one before. There was no grasping, no tracing of the fingers. No awkward little pressure from below the belt pushing against her thigh. Just a hug, and an innocuous one at that. At least someone was looking out for her. How long could she do it on her own? She needed safety, not for herself, but for her son.

  Back at the bunks, her cleaning companion has cleaned the entire space and is completing the mopping. Esther hopes the wine has not stained her mouth, that the smell of alcohol does not give her away. She feels guilty for her break, as this woman worked on alone. But why? What did she owe her silent work partner?

  The woman looks up from her mop, and says her first words directly to Esther’s surprised face. “I must talk to you.” She looks around the large room, as if every object might be equipped with some hidden set of ears. “But no one must hear.”

  {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

  “Keep working,” says the woman. “Eyes and ears are everywhere. And none of them friendly.” Esther follows her to the next room, where more disheveled bunks wait. She follows the motions of previous days, but this time her heart is in her mouth.

  “I knew your husband, Roger. He was a good man.”

  Esther’s breathing quickens.

  “I will tell you what I will tell you. Nothing more. Even now I should say nothing.” She locks eyes with Esther. “Understand?”

  “Yes,” Esther says, fighting to hold her tongue.

  “These people, are not good people. You should feel that. They have no mercy.” The woman touches the ugly tattoo across the side of her face. “Zulé did this to me.” Her face contorts at the speaking of the name. “She is la serpiente. And if she’s the snake, the man you were with is king cobra— the White Texan. They will bite you from both ends and fight to swallow you whole.”

  The woman is quiet a moment, and Esther suppresses the urge to ask questions. Finally, after another furtive look at their surroundings, the woman continues. “Months ago they came for Roger at our camp, but they could not find him. They killed and tortured many when they did not find him. He had already left, for his home. He said he must find his wife, that she was waiting for him. That is you. And you are now here.

  “He left me hidden in a cave, and I have not seen him since. I stayed in that cave for two weeks, until I had no more food and water. So I returned to the camp, thinking enough time had passed.” A terrible look creeps over the woman’s expression. “It had not.

  “So, now I am here, a Penitent and a personal slave to the one I hate the most. And so are you, although you do not see it yet.”

  The woman leans in closer. “I will tell you one last thing. Zulé hates Roger. She made me draw a picture of him, to send out with lies to the entire land. I drew it a hundred times, and then a hundred times more. You cannot trust what she says. You cannot trust the White Texan. Perhaps you cannot trust even me. La serpiente will strike at you in a way that will hurt the most. You have been warned— let us speak no more.”

  Esther dares one question. “Who are you?”

  “The Penitent have no name,” the woman says dully. “But once I was known as Vane.”

  Chapter 22: The Hunting Trip

  “I need to ask you something.”

  Communication. Words. Her and her son speaking. Esther is hopeful. Mackenzie has grown increasingly sullen and monosyllabic, hurrying out to do his chores, and returning to wolf down his supper and fall asleep reading. No time for questions from mother.

  Esther smiles hopefully. “Yes, Lil’ Mack?”

  The boy bristles. “Just Mack.”

  Esther sighs. “Okay, Mack. What do you need to ask me?”

  “I need to go on a camping trip.”

  “A camping trip? With whom? By yourself?”

  “With Zulé.”

  Esther’s mind floods with a barrage of negative imagery, most involving a terrible end for Mackenzie as some kind of retribution. Her body physically recoils at the idea. A dozen reasons and explanations form, but she simply says “no.”

  “But I need to,” Mackenzie says angrily.

  “I’m worried about your safety.”

  “But I’ll be with Zulé.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about, Mack. Don’t you see? What do we really know about her? You’ll be so far away from me.”

  “Zulé treats me like an adult.”

  “But you're not an adult.”

  “See?”

  “You’re very mature for your age, that I can agree with. It’s not you I’m worried about.”

  “What’s wrong with Zulé?”

  “I can’t say. It’s just a feeling. Moms know things.”

  “It would only be for one night. Zulé is the one who said I should ask you.”

  Esther hesitates for moment. “We can’t trust her. I was warned about her— our lives are in danger. I forbid you from going on this camping trip, whatever it is.”

  “You can’t.” Mackenzie turns to the door. “I’m not a kid anymore.”

  {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

  More alone time in her room. Might as well be working like a slave, Esther thinks. For what was life without her son at her side? Her thoughts inevitably stray to worst case scenarios, Mackenzie in the hands of Zulé. The part that bothered her most was not knowing her intentions. How could she protect Lil’ Mack from an unknown danger? Whatever she must do, she would do it. Her own welfare was meaningless to her.

  The door opens and Esther’s head lifts in hope. Mackenzie, back and apologetic for his dismissive attitude. Mackenzie, asking to her to hug him like he used to.

  No, it is Zulé. Esther’s hopes sink into a pit at the bottom of her stomach.

  “Mack told me you had concerns about the camping trip.” Zulé speaks in a soft voice but there is something cutthroat about it. “I told him he had to have your permission. I’m sorry if he gave you a hard time. If you don’t want him to go, I respect that. He’ll get over it.”
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  Esther already knows the outcome of the conversation, already knows she must concede. The formality of the conversation, the propriety and politeness, are abhorrent to her. Just take him. Take him and make yourself evident.

  “Of course,” Zulé continues, “he would be in safe hands…”

  {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

  A desert tortoise extends his leathery, sheath-like neck and bites from the cactus pad. He crushes the vegetation with his jaws, swallowing visibly. If he sees Mackenzie and Zulé, the prehistoric creature does not let on to it, taking another bite with his head fully extended from his tawny shell.

  “This?” Mackenzie asks, as they watch from the trail.

  “Not this time.” Zulé shifts her pack on her shoulders. “We still have a ways to go. Tortuga’s lucky day.”

  “I’ve had turtle soup,” Mackenzie says, eager to impress. “It’s good.”

  “And it comes with its own bowl.” Zulé allows a thin smile to permeate her stern expression. “Drink some water and let’s keep moving.”

  “Why didn’t we take the horses?”

  “Sometimes you have to walk.”

  The pair hike along the trail, putting additional miles between them and the fenced portion of the complex. The ranchland sprawls inestimably in all directions, with no seeming beginning or end.

  “How much farther?” Mackenzie sweats under his pack which rises well above his head.

  “That’s a question a child would ask,” Zulé says simply.

  Ashamed, Mackenzie clenches his jaw and resolves to be more mature. She was the toughest woman he knew. And he wanted to be just like her.

  About when Mackenzie thinks he can walk no more, Zulé leads him down into a small clearing with a small spring. Animal tracks pepper the moist earth surrounding it. “We’re here,” Zulé says. “Our campsite. Set your pack up on that level spot up there. After we set up camp we’ll worry about our dinner.”

  Mackenzie unrolls his pack and erects the tent, securing it tightly to the earth with metal pegs. Zulé inspects his work and nods favorably. “Good. Now collect deadfall for our fire tonight.” She points to a small ring of stones with old ashes. “Put whatever you find over there.”

  When Mackenzie finishes his task, Zulé hands him the cherry-stocked shotgun. “Check and clean your gun. Rest until the sun is low in the sky. Then we hunt.”

  {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

  The dusky sky glows purple and green as Mackenzie follows Zulé along the dried-up path of the spring. The brush is even thicker here, growing in tangles. “When we flush them, you will have little time to react,” she says. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes,” Mackenzie says.

  “Good. Because I don’t have my gun. So if you miss, we don’t eat. Now follow me, quietly. Remember how you shot the clays.”

  Zulé leads them through the bramble and tall grass in a zigzag pattern. Mackenzie is tense, ready to shoot and wondering if he will succeed and make Zulé proud.

  Nothing, nothing, and…

  A flash of copper and gold and the frenzied beating of wings. Mackenzie is lifting his gun, safety off and finger finding the trigger. The blast of the shotgun echoes once and all is very still.

  Zulé is smiling, the widest Mackenzie has seen. “You hit one, Mack,” she says pointing. The pair trudge through the brush, keeping a keen eye on the where the bird fell. “Took its head clean off,” Zulé says when they find it. “I think this guy is big enough to feed the both of us. “Let’s get him cleaned up and cooking.”

  Zulé allows Mackenzie to do the first task; he pulls the feathers and guts the bird with instruction from Zulé, who has him remove the breasts. She sautés them in a pan from the pack with a pinch of salt, while the rest of the bird roasts on spit over the coals. Greedy fingers pull apart the pink meat in the light of the flickering flames and starry sky. “Chew it slow,” Zulé admonishes, but Mackenzie already knows this. He is a child of the apocalypse, after all. The meat is the best he has ever tasted, and after the breasts are consumed, the two clean the rest of the meat down to the bones, which they burn in the fire.

  “You did well today.” Zulé dampens her whetstone to sharpen her knife.

  “Thanks to your help,” Mackenzie says. He stares into the coals before speaking again. “I wish my mom were more like you.”

  “I barely remember my mother.” The shadows from the firelight intensify Zulé’s features. “You should be glad to have one.”

  “You’re tough. And you let me do things. You don’t treat me like a kid.”

  “You’re not a kid, Mack. But she’s just trying to protect you.

  “I’m sorry about what she said about you.”

  Zulé slides the blade of her knife against the whetstone. “Ironically, it is you who might have to protect her.”

  “From what?”

  “Your father is a dangerous man. I didn’t want to have to tell you.”

  “But he’s far away, isn’t he?”

  “He has eyes and ears on this ranch. Those that might put your mother in danger.”

  “Not with me around,” Mackenzie says defiantly.

  “I hope so, Mack. I hope you are ready.”

  “I am.”

  “It won’t be easy, when it happens.” Zulé slides the blade along the stone one last time before returning it to the sheath. “But I think you may prove yourself yet again.”

  The two lay out in their bedrolls, eschewing the cover of the tent in favor of a canopy of stars. The night is filled with distant sounds of predators and their prey, lazy frogs in the nearby spring and insects humming and chirping in unseen places. Mackenzie closes his eyes to an uneasy sleep filled with dreams of snakes slipping inside his bedroll, pheasants plummeting from the sky, and the dark foreboding of his father’s shapeless face.

  {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

  In the early morning, Mackenzie pulls his bedroll to his neck against the chill air. The sun has yet to cover the clearing in warming rays. Zulé’s bedroll is neatly tied up with the rest of her pack, and she herself is nowhere to be seen. Mackenzie chooses to wait in the pocket of warmth he has created, carefully moving his arms and legs to assure himself a rattler hadn’t cozied up with him during the night.

  Zulé appears with the first rays of sunshine, carrying a small sack of prickly pear cactus pads. She burns the needles and hair of the pads to remove them in the remaining coals, cutting them with her knife and mashing them with its butt in the little frying pan. They eat the cooked pulp before breaking down the unused tent and making up Mackenzie’s pack. Zulé hands him the cherry-stocked shotgun. “This is yours to keep, at all times.” She seems distracted, as if she is thinking about something else, and says little as they begin their hike back toward the complex, until they reach a fork in the path. “To the left,” she says. “It will loop us back a different way.”

  The new path is rockier than the original, and more difficult to follow. It cuts up the side of a rising plateau, and Mackenzie stops to catch his breath from the exertion of walking up with his heavy pack and gun.

  “You can see a long ways at the top,” Zulé says. “See things more clearly,” she adds mysteriously.

  “I’m good,” Mackenzie says, huffing. “Let’s keep going.”

  Atop the smallish plateau, the view stretches out for miles. “I see the complex.” Mackenzie points to it. He squints his eyes at something closer. “What’s that?”

  The top of the plateau is scattered with large rocks, with the path weaving through. At the far end, a lonely oak tree pushes itself out from between two boulders, braced and twisted against the winds that must often blow across. At the base of the tree, a hooded figure sits with its back to the trunk, head hanging down. Zulé is silent as they approach.

  “Who is it?” Mackenzie tries to keep his voice firm. Bare feet protrude from coarse homemade pants and a shirt, which moves with steady breathing, despite being bound tightly to the tree.

  “A subverter of the Freedom Republic
, an enemy of both you and I, and a danger to your mother.” Zulé pulls off the hood, roughly, revealing a young woman with a bruised face. Her dark eyes stare back angrily over a gagged mouth. Her dark hair hangs down in patches around her face. The hair is recently cut in jagged slashes, in some places close to the scalp. A tattoo of a cross is emblazoned aside her face.

  “The woman who cleans with my mom?”

  “Don’t let her menial position fool you.” Zulé folds her arms. “She is a whore and a heretic who knows your father well. And she has without doubt put your mother in harm’s way.”

  Mackenzie swallows. “What do we do?”

  “That is your decision to make.” Zulé squats before Vane, inspecting her bruises. “She has been punished. I suppose we could let her go, hope that she has learned her lesson. Hope that she does not put your mother in any more danger, or worse.”

  “What else can we do?”

  Zulé rises to her feet and looks at the shotgun hanging from his shoulder. “Often the difficult choice to make is the right one. You can choose to be weak or to be strong, but you alone must decide.”

  Chapter 23: Clarity

  Bide our time. Bide our time until the opportunity presents itself. Then disappear. Disappear into the desert, just you and Mackenzie.

  Today, Esther works alone, but the warnings of the woman still ring clearly in her head. Her absence amplifies them.

  You can not succumb to paranoia. There is nothing to do now. Except clean the excrement from this toilet and mop boot prints from the floor.

  Mackenzie was still out with Zulé. It had been the longest night in a while.

  But he is fine. Must be fine.

  Esther grinds through the workload that had belonged to the two women into the late afternoon. No Texas gentleman to save you from your labors now.