The Beachhead

by Christopher Mari

  When he first spotted Kendra in the woods, the moon was high and out over the tops of the trees in a cloudless sky. He remembered following it with his eyes for a long time, looking at its ever-present hazy dust cloud and wondering once again how and when that V-shaped crack had marred its face. After searching the surrounding hills for several hours, he found himself in a clearing. At its southern edge, just as it sloped off to a rugged lower valley near a stream, was a young girl, bluish pale in that moonlight, wrapped in a colonel’s olive-brown field jacket. He remembered her hair was dark and ratty. It looked unwashed. Only later did he learn that it was caked with blood. But her eyes he had never forgotten. Not because of their color, a somewhat eerie sky blue, but because of their lack of fear. Not the eyes of a scared young girl, lost for more than three days. Tired eyes, worried eyes, yes, but there was something steady there too—maybe something new. He couldn’t make sense of those eyes or of her. As he stepped nearer, he heard a sound just over his left shoulder and turned to find Colonel Weiss leveling a carbine at him, a discarded pile of dry wood in the grass at his feet.

  “Thank God.” Weiss shouldered his weapon. “I was just going to build a fire and wait for help to come in the morning. But now that you’re here—” A glance at the girl told her not to worry. “Are you tired, son?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Good. Drop your pack.”

  John did as he was told. The girl watched them from inside the colonel’s jacket a few feet away. Weiss approached her and gestured for his lieutenant to follow.

  “Kendra.” He crouched by her. “I’m going to ask Lieutenant Giordano to take you home. Remember what we talked about. You don’t have to tell anyone what happened without me there, not even your folks. No one. Understand?”

  She nodded once, twice. Her oval face was calm, her wide mouth almost serene. Her eyes left the older man’s face only for a second to glance at John. “Colonel, where are you—”

  “I’m going to stay and take care of things, just like I promised. And John here is going to help me once he brings you home.” Weiss looked over the rims of his glasses at John, who nodded. “That okay, Kendra?”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

  He didn’t smile, just rubbed his thick-fingered hand on her shoulder. Then he stood and thumbed to John to follow. As they stood at the end of the clearing away from Kendra, Weiss gave his orders without taking his weary eyes off the girl.

  “The girl has blood all over her. Most of it is not hers. Her only serious wound is on the heel of her foot. Might be infected. So you’ll have to carry her. But she’s probably all of ninety pounds. Think you can handle that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Once you get her home, get her a doctor your grandfather would’ve trusted, not one of the resident quacks. Don’t talk to her parents. Don’t ask her anything at all. She may want to talk to you on the way down. Try to keep her quiet, but don’t force her to shut up. And whatever she does say to you, even if it’s to tell you she’s got to pee, it’s a military secret, understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Once she’s home and you’ve got a doctor, haul ass back here. Tell no one—and I mean no one—where you’re going. You and I have a job to do.”

  Weiss was right. Kendra probably hadn’t been more than ninety pounds then. The colonel’s jacket, wide enough to fit across his burly back, hung off her in a shapeless heap and was too big for her everywhere except in the sleeves, where her bare wrists stuck out from them by at least three inches. Mostly reed-thin arms and legs she was then, gangly and awkward. A child growing a woman’s body in hiccuping fits and starts. She said nothing as Weiss lifted her onto John’s back and gave her shoulder a final squeeze. She spoke only after they had left the clearing. “Don’t worry if you’ve gotta put me down or something.”

  “I won’t for a while,” he said. “But you’ll be the first to know.”

  John wondered as he walked what he might say to his soldiers if they found him in the field carrying the girl they were all searching for—and avoiding all contact with any of them. Sofie used to always say he was never a very good liar. Whenever she said something he completely disagreed with, he’d give her a noncommittal grunt and she’d laugh and call him on it. To try to become a good liar when he didn’t even know what the hell was going on . . .

  “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  He hadn’t been sure if Kendra was talking to him or herself, so he said nothing.

  “I mean, that’s what you’re thinking, right?” she asked. “That it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Wasn’t thinking anything.”

  “Liar.” She rolled the word out long. It was a kid’s taunt, with a bit of flirtation to it. “It doesn’t make sense to me, and I know more than you do. So I’m thinking you’re thinking that it makes no sense.”

  “I’m just glad we found you. I’m glad to be the one who takes you home to your parents.”

  “You’re just saying that because he told you not to talk to me. Not to ask questions.”

  “Okay,” he said with a grin in his voice. “You got me.”

  “Doesn’t mean I can’t talk to you, though.”

  “Suppose not.”

  She didn’t say anything for a few minutes. He couldn’t read her. Was she putting up a brave front, or just plain loopy? There was a hole in the conversation they were dancing around that held a lot more than where she’d been for the last few days or why Weiss was being so damn secretive.

  “Your name’s John, right? John Giordano?”

  “Yup. Like my grandfather.”

  “You ever think nothing makes any sense, John?”

  “Everybody thinks that at fourteen. I did.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  She went quiet again. The absence of conversation made him more conscious of his footing as he hiked downhill, of the girl’s weight, of the sweat pooling under his arms and in the small of his back.

  “So what do you mean, Kendra?”

  “You ever think the stories they’ve told us since we were kids are as much to help them make sense of things as they are for us?”

  That quieted him. “Depends on what you mean by stories.”

  She scooted herself farther up on his back. “Like what the Orangemen are. What they really are.”

  “Whatever they are, God must’ve put them here for a reason.”

  “Of that I have no doubt.” Arms tighter around his neck, she leaned her cheek against his back. “I just wonder about the stories. Toughest thing in the world to believe is that things have a purpose even when so much of life makes no sense. Like all those people who died on Earth just for us to survive, you know?”

  He said nothing as he dodged a few stray eye-level tree branches reaching out into his path.

  “Nothing?”

  After another minute, he said, “I think you mean more than that.”

  He could feel her smiling against his back. “Yeah, I do. But I promised Colonel Weiss.”

  John laughed. “Okay. Care to tell me how you managed to get out of the city?”

  A trilling laugh rolled out of her and buried itself between his shoulder blades as she shifted her grip around his neck. Three hours later she would be home in bed, both she and her parents crying relieved tears, and he would be out in the hills still feeling that sly sound, half woman and half child, in his bones. And he could still feel it now six years later as he followed Kendra deeper into the same hills.

  They hiked for two miles, more or less straight uphill from the point where they left the wall to a level plateau that overlooked the city and the beach and the sea beyond. Kendra appeared to know exactly where she was going and how quickly they could get there, despite the darkness. She had always been good in rugged terrain as long as she had been in the Defense Forces, but now her steps looked to fall in familiar places; her hands found grips she knew would be there. On the plateau she turned and grinned at John, her chest heaving,
her face probably flushed from exertion in the darkness. She took a swig from her canteen with a slightly trembling arm and passed it to him.

  “Ready? Come on.”

  He paused for only a moment to take in the view. He didn’t hike into the hills often and rarely at night, except of course on perimeter duty or when the Orangemen came for their visits. This particular area he had never been in. The plateau had been purposely cleared long ago, although vegetation was ratting the edges like flames consuming a piece of paper. Plant life on this planet was slow growing but tenacious. Once it got hold of something, it was hard to uproot it. His grandfather had called it unkillable.

  It took him several seconds to guess where Kendra was headed. For a moment it looked as if the plateau was just a stopping point before marching on to the next part of the hill to continue their climb. Then a glint of moonlight cracking through the trees around them revealed her destination: a cabin, long abandoned and being consumed by the brush around it. One of the homes the Remnants had thrown together in the early years before they agreed to build New Philadelphia.

  Following her inside, John wondered if the people who had built the tunnel through the city wall had built this cabin too. Maybe some Remnant wanted a quick escape to higher and more familiar ground if city living didn’t quite work out as planned. A long-forgotten escape hatch. He turned to ask her about it, then thought better of it. Some things were worth the questions; some just weren’t.

  “The fireplace still works,” she said once they were past the ivy-covered doorframe. “And there are some candles here somewhere. Let’s see if there’s some decent wood around.”

  After a few moments’ work, the candles were found and lit and the fire was warming the snug single room. He went back outside to get another armful of wood, enough to last the night if necessary, and then settled on the floor near the fireplace opposite Kendra. They could see the stars whirling across the nearly cloudless night sky through patches in the thatched roof. Like other Remnant hill homes, it was made from native wood and pieces of the odd metal taken from the cargo containers they had arrived in. This one had used the metal pieces as doors and shutters, all now fallen off. Whatever furniture had filled this room had long been wrecked or burned, so they reclined against a pair of logs someone had dragged inside and set perpendicular to the hearth. For all he knew, it might’ve been Kendra herself, along with Alex. He could almost imagine them here, teenagers then, hungry for each other. It was easy to imagine. He had been in similar moments with Sofie.

  The cabin was warm enough for them to pull off their jackets despite the lack of a door and missing patches of roof. As John unbuttoned his and pulled out the wine bottles, he motioned to Kendra to give him the corkscrew.

  “Um, I thought you had one.”

  He laughed and thought for a second. “Wait, I’ve got it.” He pulled out his father’s thin-bladed clasp knife and used it to force the corks down into both bottles. He held them up, grinning at her as the corks bobbed at the bottom of the bottlenecks. Kendra took the white one. He sipped the red and was glad that they could be here together on this quiet night sheltered from the city below.

  “So.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand after a long drink. “What’s on your mind, John?”

  “A lot.” He laughed, then took out some rolling paper and some leaves and made a pair of cigarettes and handed her one. “Where do you want me to start?”

  She gathered her knees in her arms, clasped one hand over the other wrist, the bottle dangling from her free hand. “Maybe start with the craziest thing bothering you. Should get easier from there.”

  She was serious, despite the lightheartedness. Fine by him. “Are the dead really better off than we are?”

  “Are you asking this because I mentioned Alex before?”

  “Yeah. But also because of my father and brother. My grandfather, of course.”

  That stopped her for a moment. Her eyes grew wide and glassy. Then she tilted her head to one side and pointed with the bottle out the front door. “The dead won’t see the morning light come dappling through the leaves of that tree. They won’t feel that warmth on their faces.”

  “But do you think they’re at peace?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe they know peace. But life isn’t about peace. We have to be grateful if we’ll be fortunate enough to experience both.”

  “So you think we’ll experience both?”

  “All of us?”

  “Let’s keep it simple. You and me.”

  She smiled now, teeth showing. “Now that’s the craziest thing bothering you. You went out of order, Johnny.”

  “Suppose so. Sorry. I don’t understand much anymore.”

  “Join the club.” A knowing laugh. “Any food?”

  John reached for his knapsack and tossed it to Kendra, who found a loaf of french bread and some dried fruit and nuts inside, all wrapped in rough brown paper. She tore off a hunk of bread and handed it to him, then munched on some of it and a piece of fruit.

  “Since the Newcomers showed up, they threw off all these warm ideas and neat little plans people had. Everything fit and now it doesn’t. And then there are people like my mother. They’ve found a way to make the Newcomers fit every last tenet of our faith.”

  “And here you are, having to be the contrarian to all comers.”

  “And here I am.” He slapped his thighs. “But you think like me, which is why I’m here talking to you and not to somebody who’s just going to give me some line.”

  She took another mouthful of wine. “Or Grace.”

  “Grace talked to you? When?”

  “Not long after the Council meeting.” She dragged on her cigarette from near the dead center of her mouth, about where her upper lip curved up to its highest point. “She meant well. She’s always meant well by me. I think she wants me to believe that all this is happening for a reason—even what happened just before you and I met.”

  John flicked his cigarette butt into the fireplace. “That’s part of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  No response. Just a sidelong look through her eyelashes.

  “Weiss has asked me to guard the Newcomers. The man Tyler’s been kind of talkative. They’re interesting people. They’re not like us. They’re not believers. At least that’s my impression. They—at least he—seems to doubt that the Apocalypse happened the way we’ve been told it happened.”

  She glared at him. “So what, all those Remnants just made up what they saw on Earth, what they saw here that first day on the beach?”

  “I don’t think that’s what he thinks.”

  Another drag, then her cigarette butt followed his into the fireplace. She looked down at the bottle in her hand. “And what do you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think, Kendra. We know what the Remnants have told us about them, and we know what we know of them.”

  She clucked her tongue. “‘And never the twain shall meet.’”

  “Shakespeare?”

  “Kipling.” She took a long pull from her bottle. “Have you been up to that clearing since the night we met?”

  “Not even on patrol. And even if we went looking, I’m not sure we could find the spot. Weiss and I were pretty thorough.”

  “Who’re we to say what instrument God chooses for mankind’s destruction and rebirth?” she asked suddenly. “Angels, demons, other men—it doesn’t matter. That’s what the frigging Remnants never get straight. It doesn’t matter if everything that happened in the last days matches up perfectly to what was written in Revelation. It all still happened. And we’re here now and we’re alive and we need to prepare ourselves for what’s to come.”

  “But do we know what’s to come?” John felt courage from the wine flowing from his belly. “Christ almighty, do we even know if there’s a plan?”

  “Don’t ever say that.” She set the bottle down and leaned in close to his face. “You were just talking about the dead? All those people we loved who di
ed, all those people who died so the human race could get a new birth here. If those deaths were just a function of biology, why do we still grieve? Why do we feel loss here so awfully”—she gripped her shirt atop her heart—“that we’d prefer death than to keep on living in such grief? Don’t talk to me about wondering if there’s a plan, just because a bunch of idiots down there are a little mixed up about what the Newcomers mean. We have to have faith, or we can’t do a damn thing.”

  “‘No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty.’”

  Kendra cocked her head to the side and wagged her finger. “Now that’s Shakespeare.”

  “George Eliot.”

  “Well, at least you learned something in all that time you spent in the Archives with your grandfather.”

  “Something, sure. Enough to know I know almost nothing. So what do we do?”

  She laughed in a relieved way. He wasn’t holding her lecturing him against her. “What do we do? Live as best we can and try to make sure no one gets hurt in the process.”

  “Oh sure. And how do we start?”

  She shook her head, wide-eyed and grinning. “You can start by kissing me.”

  Later, as they huddled under their pack blankets and leather jackets near the dwindling fire, he ran his hand against the hollow of her bare hip bone—the first time he had ever felt it—and thought about how far she was from the rangy girl he had met six years ago. Yet her eyes were the same as the ones that had challenged him then. They still held within them all those voids where neither he nor anyone else living would ever be allowed to go.

  Kendra sat up, shoulders rolled, with the blanket tucked under her arms, and tipped the dregs of the white wine to her mouth, then passed him the empty bottle before settling back down again. She leaned her head back, inches from his face. “We ought to try that again before the wine wears off.”

  He laughed, swallowing the last of the red wine. “Okay by me.”

  She caught his gaze. “Who knows what we might cook up, eh?”