by Ann Christy
Emily groans in her sleep, her hand reaching up to press the side of her head even while she’s unconscious. She’s getting worse and fast. It’s hard to believe how quickly it’s happening. As I’ve been tending her these last few weeks with more care, I found out that she thought her cancer had returned all the way back when she first found Jon and I. She says that it moves slowly and she’s grateful for all the time she’s had. She thought that the nanites she was infected with might fight her tumor, or at least the symptoms and problems that go along with it, and give her more time. Perhaps the nanites would keep it small so that it would never grow and kill her. I think she was in denial.
As for me, I just feel angry. We could have gone to that hospital somehow long before it came to this if she would have only shared the information.
Now, I’m wondering if it’s too late. Everyone knows what’s happening to her now and, while no one except Charlie agrees that going to the hospital might be worth the risk, they are doing their part to prepare for me to go. Hence, this extra run today. They’ve been going out more often, trying to build up a stash of things in preparation for a time when a few of us might leave for the hospital. With fewer people, going on scavenging runs would be impossible.
Jon and Maribelle are in the next office so that their play doesn’t disturb Emily. She’s able to fall asleep so rarely that even the kids understand they need to be quiet when it happens. Her hand drifts back down to her side and her breathing evens out again into the rhythms of sleep. I check to be sure, then tiptoe out of the office, pulling the door closed behind me as silently as I can.
I check the time and sigh. They’re late returning. They left yesterday morning and are supposed to be back by dusk tonight. I can’t panic yet, shouldn’t panic yet. Winter is finally shifting into spring—though reluctantly and only in fits and starts—and while the days are finally growing a little longer, dark still comes early. If they find something good or get delayed, they’ll just hunker down for another night rather than risk coming home while it’s dark. They won’t be able to see what might be coming at them at night, so they’ll stay put. That’s our rule. Still, there’s no quieting the flutters in my stomach.
The smile I plaster onto my face feels false to me, but the kids don’t seem to notice when I enter the office where they’re playing with some toys we’ve liberated. There seems to be an almost unlimited supply of games and toys left in houses and apartments. If people took anything with them when they fled—if they fled—it wasn’t toys. We’ll have educational toys for them of every type until they grow out of the need for play items. And given the fact that there’s no school, I feel better knowing they can at least learn something while they play. We’re lucky so many of them are made of plastic. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have survived the sweltering summers inside houses without windows until we found them.
I sit near them, the always-high pile of mending looming nearby. I know I should work on it, but I just want to watch them play. Both of them have blossomed. Jon, with his cheeks rosy from the cold and fingers still chubby with baby fat, laughs and talks like there’s no tomorrow. His ability to go still and silent, to look immediately for guidance on what he should do next, remains. It’s almost like someone flips a switch inside him when anything unusual happens. I’m grateful for it, though I wish it was a skill he didn’t need.
Maribelle has filled out from a pale and underfed girl into a round-cheeked cherub with bright blonde hair and eyes the color of an overcast sky. She has a mouth to match any stormy sky, too. She’s the boss of every situation and now is no exception. She directs their play like a drill sergeant and watches Jon like a hawk. As much as I love Jon—and I do love him like a son even though I’m seventeen and not his mother—I’m coming to love Maribelle just as much. There’s something undeniably charming about a child who is as tough as nails, yet as sweet looking as Shirley Temple at her cutest.
Jon drops his blocks, knocking over their little castle in the process, and comes over to hug me around my back. It’s his way. As he almost climbs my back, his little arms tight around my neck, I do as he expects and flip him around my shoulder and into my lap. I don’t know how he knows it, but he knows I need a hug. I hold him till he tires of it, then he returns to Maribelle and the lure of all those brightly colored blocks.
*****
It was a long night wondering and waiting. It’s hard to convince myself that it’s just them staying an extra night because they found a great haul when my brain wants to interject that they’re all dead or trapped by a horde of in-betweeners. But the morning gives me relief from my gloomy thoughts and I hear the clang of the gate two hours after dawn.
As the riders return, there’s no missing the fact that there is one less bike. Instead of five, there are four. It only takes a moment before the shapes tell me it’s Gloria that’s missing. Maribelle and Jon haven’t yet seen the returning people, so I gather them up and hustle them into the warehouse with a promise of crayons, a treat we ration carefully.
Charlie comes to find me, while Savannah, Matt and Gregory split off for the furniture warehouse. They don’t seem to be carrying any extra bags, just the panniers they left with. All I can think is that they got cornered or surprised by some in-betweeners and Gloria didn’t make it. What is running through my head is how I’m going to break it to Maribelle that her mother isn’t coming home.
His face is grim and he pulls me a little away from the kids, who are happily covering precious sheets of paper with colorful messes.
“Is she gone?” I ask, not waiting for the bad news.
“Yes, but not like that,” Charlie says, and pushes a hand through his matted hair. He looks at the kids and for a moment, I think he’s going to start crying.
Given how cold it is outside, the fact that he’s sweating causes terror to bloom in my guts, a liquid cold that makes me feel like I’m coming down with the intestinal flu and will soon have an urgent need for the bucket. Not good at all.
“Just tell me,” I say, my hand pressing at my suddenly queasy stomach.
He turns a little away from the kids and leans in so closely I can see how widely his eyes are dilated, the blue nothing more than a faint ring around the pools of black pupil. His voice is a little hoarse and his breath still coming fast as he says, “There’s a group near the college, a new group.” At my confused look he adds, “Humans. All men that we saw. Not nice ones.”
“Oh, no,” I breathe. He really doesn’t need to say more. I know what that means. From the moment I was on my own I became painfully aware of how dangerous any other person might be. Sam, and then Emily, protected me from having to put myself in the way of being found by anyone who might want to harm me. “Is she…was she…alive?” I ask.
He nods grimly and says, “We could hear them whooping after they got her.”
“How in the world did they even get to her? Weren’t you all together?”
“It just happened. We were together, but we found a family in one of the apartments, all dead—you know what that’s like—and she went out to get air. Just to get air. It happened just like that.”
He snaps his fingers to emphasize the point and Maribelle looks our way. The look on her face tells me she knows something is wrong. She’s like Jon in some ways. Like him, she shares that eerie instinct for mood. It’s a survival trait that has helped them both live when so many other small children couldn’t make it through early life. She wasn’t born into this, but she doesn’t remember anything before the world was as it is now.
“Do you know where they’re at?” I ask. No matter what, we can’t leave Gloria in whatever situation she is in. We simply can’t let whatever is happening to her go on without at least trying to get her back.
“Can Emily watch the kids? We need to talk about this, but not in front of the kids, not where they might hear,” he says, looking at Maribelle pointedly.
The truth is that I don’t think Emily can watch herself at the moment, let alone t
he kids. She’s still moaning on that pallet when she’s awake, and she sleeps only fitfully. She’s getting worse. But I don’t want everyone to know how bad she is today. Fear of someone dying nearby is a strong one, and a valid one.
“She’s asleep,” I say, settling for a semi-lie. “She needs to rest up.”
Charlie levels a look at me, and I turn away under the pressure of the questions in that look. He’s more aware of what’s happening to Emily than the others, but even he doesn’t understand the full extent of what we’re going to be facing with her soon. I’m not ready to put her in the cage. She has good days still, days when she gets up and acts almost like her normal self. But those days are getting fewer and there are more days when she can’t do much at all. Even the days when she does watch the kids, it’s really more the kids watching her, I think.
“Not now,” I warn, not wanting to get into that discussion again when there is the more pressing subject of Gloria to deal with. Then I turn to the kids, plastering my go-to smile on my face, and say, “It’s time for boring grown-up talk. Do you guys think you can come and play out in the courtyard so I can keep an eye on you?”
“You just made us come back inside!” Maribelle accuses.
“I know. It’s all very silly. You can bring the crayons.” They look unconvinced and slightly put out by my contrary demands. “And one coloring book,” I toss in as my ultimate tool of compliance. Coloring books are like gold. They don’t fare well in the houses with their broken windows and damp southern air, so we keep them in reserve and dole out their usage as special bribery tools.
They dance a turn—though I’m sure Jon has no clue why he’s dancing with joy—and I go grab the coloring book in question. In the courtyard, I make sure they’re a good twenty feet from the door of the furniture warehouse and then station myself near the open door so I can keep track of them while we talk.
The others are in full argumentative swing by the time I get there. Matt, as usual, is the more hot-headed of the two brothers and he’s fondling a shotgun he’s taken from our stash a little too eagerly for my comfort. I can tell even before I parse out the gist of their conversation that he’s raring to go and wants the others to drop everything and charge through town looking for Gloria right this second.
Gregory is the quieter brother, but no less determined when it comes right down to something needing to be done. He’s just more thoughtful and, if the truth were said, a better thinker. He’s a lot like Emily that way. I think if things would have been different for Emily, those two would have made a great pair. A few times I caught her looking at him a little wistfully, but she’s a practical person and nothing ever came of it. Now, it’s too late.
“They have Gloria! I don’t see what more there is to talk about! We grab guns. We grab ammo. We go kill them and get her back. That’s all!” Matt exclaims in a muted yell. Sounds are magnified inside these big spaces, and even during the heat of an argument, the noise drives any raised voices back down.
I peek out at Maribelle to see if she heard anything. She’s not watching us, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t hear and just doesn’t have the full picture yet.
“Keep it down. The kids don’t need to hear this. Maribelle doesn’t need to hear it,” I interrupt. I get the satisfaction of seeing Matt lower his head and mutter an apology, but his face is flushed and he’s angrier than I’ve ever seen him.
He shoots a quick look filled with venom at his brother, looks away, and says, “I’m not leaving her to whatever they’ve got in mind for her. I don’t roll that way. I thought we didn’t roll that way.”
Savannah lowers the rifle she’s been checking the scope on and says, “We don’t, but that doesn’t mean we run off half-cocked and get ourselves killed either. You’re more dangerous to anyone who goes with you right now than those guys are.”
Matt looks like he’s going to blow a gasket at those words, his face going almost purple with anger. He doesn’t though. Instead, he puts the shotgun down on a desk that will never be sold and leans on the surface, fingers splayed as if he might gain patience via contact with the desktop. He puffs out a couple of loud breaths. Though he doesn’t turn around, I can hear that his words are coming through gritted teeth when he says, “Fine. Then let’s come up with a plan so we can go and get her back.”
Gregory finally speaks up. “Charlie, what about that fire you saw while you were on watch last night. How sure are you that you know where that was coming from?”
“Oh, it was coming from the tower at the college. No question,” he answers immediately.
“They set the college on fire?” I ask, not quite clear on the turn the conversation is taking. Since they were gone an extra night, this must have been something they saw from wherever they holed up.
“Not that kind of fire. It was controlled, like a cooking fire or one for warmth,” Charlie says, waving my questions away. Apparently, I need to follow the five-minute rule.
“Cooking…” Savannah murmurs, her face blanching.
That seems to set Matt off again. He slams his palms on the desk then turns back to us, his face redder than ever. “This is bullshit. Let’s go really burn it down. That’ll make them come out!”
“Uh, yeah, and burn Gloria up in the process. Smart move there,” Gregory says dismissively.
At that point, I’m pretty sure Matt is going to beat Gregory down. He’s practically vibrating with rage and his fists are working at his sides. Whatever bad blood there is between these two brothers, this situation has set some old embers from that fire alight.
Charlie clears his throat, his eyes moving from one brother to the other. As soon as Matt looks his way, he says, “There’s no food in that tower. I know. Savanna and I checked it before Emily found us because it’s a good place to stay for a short while. And before us, the man Veronica was with before,” here he stops and includes me in that statement, “checked it, according to her. But, there’s no way to search the entire college so there could be food left in some of the buildings. Most of them were too packed with deaders for me to get into, and we sure haven’t gone into all of them. Either way, they won’t know what’s been searched at the college. I bet they’ll go looking for supplies in some of the buildings at least.”
Savannah, her eyes calmly assessing the rifle she’s checking over, says, “And the tower gives good sightlines, but only as long as you’re inside it. Two of the buildings flanking the tower are taller, but both are filled with deaders and no one can completely clear those buildings without huge teams and a whole lot of weapons. There is one route to the roof that’s been cleared in each of those buildings, but they won’t know that either. They’ll either try to search them, or they’ll avoid those two buildings once they see the deaders inside. So, that’s two sightlines to the tower that they aren’t likely to have control over.”
As she finishes speaking, she slides the bolt on the rifle, apparently satisfied with its condition, and reaches for the next weapon. I don’t know what Savannah was like before the nanites, but she’s a wicked shot now. Honestly, if we had weapons that would work at longer ranges, I’m sure she’d be unlimited in the amount of damage she could do. But rifles make noise, so there’s that.
Matt’s hand strays back toward the shotgun he put down. “You thinking of setting up some kind of trap? How? They won’t leave Gloria alone, so if we use guns they’ll hear us and then who knows what’ll happen?”
Savannah shakes her head, eyes steady on the rifle she’s checking, and says, “If they need food—and let’s face it, who doesn’t?—then they’ll go look for it. Let’s give them something to pique their interest and get them out of the tower. Between Gregory and me, the problem will be solved.” She ends her statement, said with an almost eerie calm, by handing a rifle to Gregory, our other good shot.
As for me, I just want Gloria back before I have to explain to Maribelle that the last person in her life is gone for good. Out of everything that she’s lost, it doesn’t seem fa
ir to lose her mother on top of it.
Then again, not one of us here has a mother anymore except her. That thought gives me a shiver. I hadn’t realized it before, but it’s true. There are no mothers in this new and terrible world of ours.
Today - For the Good of Mankind
The door is locked. From the outside. And somehow, when they moved us to a better room after our tour, we failed to notice that the windows in this room don’t open. And smashing at it doesn’t do anything at all.
Charlie and I are trapped in our room, and no one is paying the slightest attention to our banging. I hear footsteps going up and down the hallway several times throughout the morning, but not once do they even hesitate. We’re totally screwed.
“Veronica, please stop banging for a minute. No one is coming,” Charlie says tiredly.
He’s sitting in the corner, his knees drawn up just as they were when he slid down the wall after his latest attack on the window. It’s not even glass and everything we’ve tossed at it, including ourselves, just bounces right off.
“They could at least feed us,” I complain, and smack the door with the flat of my palm hard enough that I have to shake the sting out of it.
“Doofus,” Charlie mutters.
“What do we do? It was stupid to give up our weapons. I’d really like to stab somebody right about now,” I say and sit on the edge of one of the beds.
“We didn’t give up all the weapons,” Charlie says with a grin, and hikes up his pant leg. A knife hilt peeks out at the calf. Then he hikes up the other and another hilt shows itself. “They checked our ankles, but that’s what I would do, so I put them up higher. Just in case.”
It’s the first thing that doesn’t suck about this day, and I can’t help but grin at him. He winks at me, and for a moment, I’m entirely okay with being in a locked room.