by McBain, Tim
It crossed her mind, periodically, that these were objects stolen from other cemeteries. One step above actual grave-robbing. But she guessed it didn’t feel quite that way anymore. With most everyone outside the compound dead, it felt like there was no real stealing out there, just salvaging all of the things no longer being used. Funny how “salvage” and “salvation” sound kind of the same. She was surprised Father had never used that one. He liked that kind of wordplay.
As she moved through those final rows of graves, the grass got softer and softer underfoot. It grew squishier still as she moved past them all, stepping into that perimeter of grass between the cemetery and the woods. The ground was still soggy from the rain last night.
She slowed a moment, let her eyes scan the edge of the woods in slow motion. No sign of Shelly. Had Deirdre somehow beat her to the rendezvous? It wouldn’t make much sense.
Again, the duffel bag tugged at the end of her arm. The handle felt moist from the sweat of her palm, clammy, and it bobbed up and down with each step so that it was almost like a never-ending handshake with a dead fish.
She slowed further. The edge of the woods stood before her, and she found her body reluctant to cross that line where the grass gave way to shrubs, and the trees rose up from the ground.
She didn’t quite stop, though, so the brush closed on her, and she strode into it. The thicket cleared after just a few paces, and she was surprised to find it much drier under the trees. Papery layers of dried leaves made crispy sounds below as she walked. Tiny branches bent against her, flinging about as she passed.
It smelled cleaner out here than it did in the city. Fresh. Funny how pushing through that barrier seemed to change her environment so completely.
Shelly appeared in the clearing ahead of her, emerging from a cluster of pines. The girl ran forward and hugged Deirdre. Her little stick arms cinched around Deirdre’s ribcage and compressed it, pinning the arm holding the duffel bag against her body.
Deirdre hugged back a little with her free arm, a little freaked out by this open display of affection. It was nice and all, Shelly was a kind person, but it worried Deirdre more than anything else involved in taking this risk. Someone was depending on her. It made her skin crawl, that disgusting tingle as though her flesh were attempting to squirm off of her body. She wanted to blurt out that she couldn’t do it. That’s what she should do, right? Her tongue flicked, the tip pressing against the roof of her mouth, her teeth and lips twitching into place to vomit out the words, but she stopped herself. She couldn’t do that to Shelly, couldn’t give up.
Still, someone placing all of their hopes, their very mortality, in her hands? It made her shudder.
“You all right?” Shelly said, disentangling her arms from her friend and taking a step back.
“I’m fine. Just a little chill, I guess.”
Deirdre reached into the pocket of her hoodie and pulled out a handkerchief. She set the duffel bag down, so she could use both hands to unwrap it.
The fabric peeled away slowly, with care. The final pull revealed a pile of dried fruit clustered atop the handkerchief – cherries, mostly, with a few dried apple chunks and banana chips nestled among them.
Shelly gasped a little. Her fingers covered her lips.
“Thought we’d eat a little before we go over everything.”
She held the pile toward Shelly. The girl retracted her hand from her mouth and plucked a cherry from the pile with pinchy fingers.
“Go ahead and take a few. I figured we’d finish ‘em off here and now.”
Again her fingers went into tweezer mode and pulled more fruit from the handkerchief. She hesitated as she pulled a banana chip free.
“Where’d you get this?” Shelly said. “I haven’t had any since I was a kid.”
“There’s a guy in the market who dries the stuff. I’m not sure where he gets the bananas, actually. Probably a market in one of the bigger towns.”
Shelly nodded. The girl smiled the whole time they ate the fruit. Deirdre couldn’t help but notice that the banana chips were the last pieces left in Shelly’s palm.
The girl finally picked one up and ate it, her teeth crunching down on the dried disk of fruit.
“Reminds me of Runts,” she said after a beat.
“Runts?”
“Yeah. You remember them? I don’t know why. I don’t think they probably tasted much like this, but it reminds me of banana Runts.”
Deirdre tried to remember the flavor, but she couldn’t. She thought maybe there was a chalky quality, or that maybe the inside of the candy looked somewhat like chalk.
They crunched down the last of the banana bits and finished with the two shriveled apple slices among the lot. There was something flesh-like about the dried apple, Deirdre thought, like some gristle or cartilage that had dried out. An ear. It was like eating an ear. She didn’t tell Shelly this.
Deirdre wadded up the handkerchief and shoved it in her pocket. Then she picked up the duffel bag and unzipped it. An article of black clothing was the only item visible through the parted places between those zippered lips – the arms of a black sweater. She fished a hand along the edge of the garment, and pulled a folder free.
This was it. The forged documents.
“This is everything you’ll need to get past the checkpoints,” she said, handing over the papers. “According to the papers, you’re on a scavenging mission with a specialty in wine and spirits for Father’s household.”
Shelly’s eyes went wide, her face aglow as she leafed through the documents. She looked like a child on Christmas, and she even giggled a little as she flipped through the papers, stopping here and there to read snippets of text.
“That’s what you used to do, right? Got luxury items for Father. Personal errands and the like.”
“Yeah. Well, I mostly did general errand runs, but I did a few specialty jobs for Father’s household since I know a little about wine and art.”
“So you’ve been inside? In the house on the hill?”
“A few times.”
“What’s it like? Does he really have big screen TVs in every room? A Jacuzzi full of apple juice? A gold-plated toilet?”
“He has a TV. And electricity and all that. Air conditioning. I don’t know. It’s just like how the houses were before. I didn’t see any apple juice hot tubs or golden toilets.”
“What’s he like in person? Did you meet him?”
“I didn’t really meet him, but he was around sometimes. He was just a man, I guess. I don’t know what else to say. He didn’t say much when I was around.”
“That must have been a fun job. Going out and scavenging. Seeing the world.”
“In some ways. There’s a feeling of adventure to it, but there’s not much world left to see. More like visiting a museum, or taking a field trip to check out some ancient ruins. Anyhow, I guess I must not have liked the job so much, right? I jumped at the chance to be a guard instead.”
“Why was that?”
Deirdre narrowed her eyes as she thought about how to word it. Was it because it was easy? Was it because it was the best way to hide in plain sight?
“It felt safe, I guess. It felt stable. But that’s neither here nor there. There are three checkpoints between you and the free world. One at the guard post at the edge of the camp, one at the fenced gate, and one at the wall. You’ll need to clear all three before anyone knows you’re missing, all right? So do what you have to do. Tell your people you’re going out to pick berries or look for mushrooms. Whatever excuse you can think of to be MIA for a few hours before anyone thinks to report it. And then be quick about getting gone.”
Shelly nodded and flipped through a few more pages in the folder, and then her smile faded.
“All of these papers… You forged all of these yourself?”
“Yeah. I saved some blank forms. In case I ever needed them. Turns out I did, eh?”
“But this would be treason. They’d execute you for it.”
Shelly didn’t look up. She just stared down at the page. Deirdre wanted to say something – anything – to break up this silent moment. Her lips parted, but no words came out, no breath came out. They both froze for what seemed like a long time.
And then Shelly burst into tears.
Now Deirdre was the one instigating a too tight hug. Her arms cinched around Shelly’s bony torso and squeezed, and she thought about those studies with autistic people that showed how just that sensation of being squeezed, of being held, was a huge relief to people, even without any sense of human connection.
Shelly blubbered into Deirdre’s shoulder. She was so frail and small, more child than adult by a long shot, Deirdre thought. But something else, too. Something more fragile still. Like a child with hollowed out bird bones, she felt dainty, wispy, easily broken. Like some fleeting, miniature being you only got a glimpse of once in a lifetime if you were especially lucky, some rare flying squirrel who soared from tree to tree in the dead of night where no one could see.
Deirdre rubbed her hand up and down the girl’s back.
“It will be OK, Shelly. You’re going to be OK now. We’re taking care of it.”
Shelly’s cries went silent, but her abdominals still squirmed and jerked, her shoulders still bobbed. Water drained down from her eyes, the trail of tears widening out to wet a wide swath of each cheek.
It was weird, Deirdre thought, how weeping and laughing were the most honest things a human could experience. They were totally involuntary reactions, an elaborate grouping of bodily functions that fired one after another like that contraption in the board game Mouse Trap. You didn’t choose to laugh or cry, and in many cases stopping them was impossible. They were these weird things that happened in your body, weird processes that shook you and quivered you and effected you from head to toe. Things that happened inside of you.
Whenever Deirdre cried, her hands curled up into claws, fingers fluttering and twitching periodically. She thought it was the part of her trying to fight it, trying to stop it. Like she could grab hold of it, grip it in her palms and make it stop.
“You’re OK now. I promise you’ll be OK. This will all be over so soon. You’ll be some place away from here within 24 hours. Some place safe.”
Shelly seemed to calm down some after that. Her chest still fluttered strange breaths in and out of her every so often, eliciting gasps.
She stepped back finally, the long hug ending. Deirdre felt almost naked in the cool of the open air after so long pressed against the girl.
Pink splotches flushed Shelly’s cheeks, and her eyelashes glittered a little from the wet. The girl blinked in slow motion, avoiding eye contact. She looked embarrassed, Deirdre thought, wishing she could change that and knowing she couldn’t.
“We should probably head back,” the girl said after a moment. Her voice sounded far away.
They walked back toward the edge of the woods, those papery leaves crackling below.
“I guess I’ll never see it now,” Shelly said.
“What’s that?”
“The house up on the hill. I thought I’d see the inside someday for myself. Even if it’s nothing fancy, even if Father is just a man, I thought I’d see it all for myself.”
They were quiet for a moment.
“But that’s OK. This means more than that. These papers.”
“Do you know where you’ll go out there?”
The girl smiled again.
“I have family in Ohio. Near Cleveland. Got a letter from my Aunt a couple weeks back, even. I figure I can steal enough from Isaac to pay the fare for a car out of D.C. It shouldn’t be too bad. Only a few hundred miles, you know?”
“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.”
“Do you think you’ll ever leave here?”
“I’m not sure. I guess I try not to look very far ahead, you know? Just let one day go at a time until…”
“Until what?”
Deirdre didn’t know what she was thinking. She wasn’t supposed to say these things out loud. Of course, it was too late now. May as well finish the thought, she figured.
“Until they’re all done, I guess.”
Shelly’s head jerked. Her mouth moved, a single syllable stuttering out before she caught herself. She hesitated, tried it again.
“Well, that’s no way to look at things. Is it?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking when I said it.”
“That kind of thing doesn’t just come out of nowhere, though.”
“Maybe not.”
“It’s an open road, the world. Anything is possible. Just look at what I’m doing.”
Their footsteps seemed to grow louder in the ensuing quiet.
It was during this lull in the conversation that it occurred to Deirdre how much this felt like saying goodbye to a good friend. Even if she and Shelly hadn’t been close, had barely even spoken in a long while, this moment, this exchange was something deeper.
The edge of the woods made itself plain before them, the cemetery now visible through the thick green wall of plant life. The world looked brighter beyond the trees, but she could see that the night was beginning to fall, those first wisps of gray visible along the edge of things.
“I feel like I should say something,” Shelly said. “But I don’t know what it is. Thank you, of course, but that doesn’t seem big enough just now.”
“It’s big enough. And you’re welcome.”
“We might never see each other again, I guess, but I kind of hope we do. Maybe someday you’ll want to get out of this place, too. If so, I hear good things about Ohio.”
Deirdre laughed.
“Ohio. Yeah, maybe. One of these days.”
They hugged again, and she couldn’t help but feel a little giddy. This wasn’t over yet, of course, but it felt right. She’d helped this girl, this little frail thing pressed against her now. She’d saved her. Maybe she could do more things like this. Maybe there were things to fight for, things beyond staying safe and alone and invisible.
Shelly peeled away from her, and she kicked through the tangle of undergrowth. She turned back one last time just before she left the shade of the woods. Saying nothing, she gave a little wave of the hand. Deirdre returned it, and then the girl turned and walked on.
Deirdre stayed still a long while, watching the girl shrink as she crossed the graveyard and moved into the distance. Soon Shelly was gone completely. Deirdre counted to thirty after her friend disappeared, then made her way into the clearing as well.
It was almost all the way dark by the time she passed through the leaning iron gates.
Decker
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
166 days after
With the pitcher of water drained into his belly and half a sleeve of crackers wolfed down as well, he fell into a deep sleep on the couch. His coat and hat still adorned his body, the wet sleeve rolled up to the elbow to keep his arm dry, and a green and yellow afghan draped over all of that. Something about the texture and the bulk of the afghan made him feel like he was lounging around in a bathrobe, something he’d never actually done.
He’d wanted to gather himself and go upstairs, to sleep in his bed, the familiar smooth of his sheets and weight of his blankets enveloping him again, but then he remembered all of the jars of piss up there and opted against it. He’d take his chances with the afghan, thanks.
The light shone in the windows, and he liked the way it felt on his eyelids. The way he could sense the light with his eyes closed, that little red tint to the dark inside. He didn’t know why it pleased him. Maybe it was just a reminder that the day was still there, that life itself was still there. For now, at least.
He grasped around in the feelings part of his brain, looking for something firm to hold onto among the exhausted mush of his thoughts. He di
dn’t quite know how to feel about what had transpired today. He was relieved in an immediate way, of course. He knew that much, but the pieces didn’t quite fit together beyond that. He’d done it. He was happy. A little proud. But there was more to it. A confusion in it somehow. Maybe a disappointment in realizing that these struggles would only continue on. He pushed himself as hard as he could, found real strength in himself, and through these things he had earned his survival for today, but it never really ended, did it? Maybe that was the trick to understanding life. You were never done. You would never earn a victory that you could rest on forever. The work just stretched out a while, and no matter how many victories you piled up, your head would one day fall off like everyone else’s.
So yeah. Mixed feelings.
Eating seemed to warm him. He remembered reading that somewhere, that breaking down food warms your body, and it’s smart to eat before bed in survival situations if possible, because the heat from the digestion process will help you sleep in less-than-ideal conditions.
He drifted to sleep to the sound of the water and food gurgling in his stomach, liquid squishing around inside of him.
These sounds and feelings weakened in time, at least in his perception. The world grew still little by little, the quiet and the dark fading everything out into nothing.
He dreamed of the soldiers, the ones in the FEMA camp. The bodies lay strewn about his feet, women and children and elderly people with their chests torn apart, their middles opened up, their limbs gone rigid, but these images didn’t alarm him. Not here. Not anymore. They’d become part of the scenery by now. Old hat. Objects to step over and around in this dream location his imagination kept bringing him back to.
The dream always played out the same way. He picked his way between the tents, closed on the soldiers, stalked them with their backs turned, the assault rifle poised in his hands. And the closer he got, the slower time moved, the further into slow motion everything slipped. His heart beat faster as he raised the weapon, as it blazed and popped and the heads disintegrated before his eyes, blood spraying every which way.