Brandon had the kitchen door propped open, and the breeze that blew in was thick with the scent of flowers and warm vegetation. Birds called to one another from the woods, and trees whispered and creaked in a companionable way. It was possible to be content in this strange limbo we’d made for ourselves for days at a time, before I remembered the world had ended.
When I’d first started talking to 6_Star, during the seemingly endless winter, the things I’d learned had been almost more than I could cope with.
Finding out that the disaster was worldwide. That no place in the world had been spared. Survivors were being advised to make their way to the handful of cities where the power was still on. New parliaments were being tentatively formed, violent wars were being fought. The bigger picture was no better than what we had here at the cabin, and with Jake to keep safe, there was no way we could have gone to one of the cities even if we’d wanted to.
The challenge of surviving the winter had helped. Keeping the cabin warm and food and water in our bellies had used up all the worrying we had in our systems.
It was now that we finally had the leisure to think again that things seemed so impossible.
Brandon would keep on and on about Jake, and what we were going to do about him until I’d get so mad that it was best to avoid talking to Brandon at all. There was nothing to “do” about Jake. As far as I was concerned, Jake was a regular little kid.
And when I’d try to talk about something sensible, like how to fix the cabin up for next winter, then it was Brandon’s turn to clam up. Pretending that next winter wasn’t coming wouldn’t stop it from happening. So, although we lived side by side every day, we hadn’t been talking very much.
I had nightmares a lot. I dreamed of running down dark corridors in slow motion, knowing something terrible was gaining on me with every syrupy step, and that I’d never escape it. Sometimes when I lay awake, Brandon’s yells would come up through the floorboards from the room below, and the next day, his eyes would be red and bleary. The nightmares were something else we didn’t talk about. Jake seemed the happiest out of all of us. He still stared up into the sky at night, but he didn’t make the patterns anymore. He spent his days exploring the woods, with Dog at his heels, and in the evenings, he told us all about the things he’d seen that day.
What he said didn’t make sense all of the time, he’d still get confused with his words, but this was Jake, who used to say nothing at all.
Was he really changing? Becoming more like us? I thought so. I wanted to believe that he was, because the more like us he was, the safer he’d be.
“Hello? You coming with us or not?”
“Sorry, I was thinking,” I said. “Where are you going again?”
“We’re going to the lake. Catch us some fish, since someone is sick of eggs. I thought I’d take Jake—he’s never been out that way before. Be good to show him how to use the fishing poles.”
“Make sure—”
“We’ll be careful,” Brandon said with a grin. “No one is going to fall into, off of, or out of anything. So, you’re not coming?”
“I want to finish the new coop. Jake says he saw the coyote out in the woods again.”
“Hey, don’t put them chickens in without me,” he added.
“Why not?”
“I want to see what they think when they see it for the first time.”
I laughed. Brandon was crazy about those hens. They’d all follow him about like he was their mom. God help us when we got round to eating one of the goofy things instead of just their eggs. Brandon would probably insist on having a funeral before dinner.
“They’re not even going to know the difference. It’s not like they’re going to throw a little house warming party or something,” I told him.
“They will too know the difference!” He shoved me and I shoved him back, threatening him with the slimy egg spoon, until we were wrestling for it like it was a gun.
Boom! Here’s yolk in your eye.
This got me giggling, and Brandon squinted at me, smiling.
He looked different than the skinny Brandon of winter. I sometimes forgot how different until I was close to him like this. Working outdoors all spring had made him tan, and he had muscles where there used to be nothing but scrawn and gangle. I’d grown a lot over winter, too, but Brandon was still taller than me.
He had one hand wrapped about my wrist and the other one slung around my waist. Our eyes met, and I felt my cheeks going red. That stupid blush! Sometimes if I even just thought about how awkward it would be to blush it would happen. It didn’t mean anything, not really. I pushed him away from me, turning to drop the spoon into the bucket of well water in the sink. He stood behind me, so close that the warm outdoorsy scent of him was all I could concentrate on. I needed something to say.
Something normal.
“So,” we both said at the same time.
I was saved by a loud bark at the door, then Jake and Dog came bustling through.
“I saw a deer! A big deer and a baby deer! Dog made them run away; she’s a bad Dog today, isn’t she?”
“She’s a bad Dog every day,” said Brandon. Dog tipped her head to one side and wagged her tail. That Dog was the only creature on earth dumber than the chickens, but at least the chickens managed to stay out of trouble for more than three minutes at a stretch, which was more than I could say for Dog.
“You about ready to go, buddy?” asked Brandon.
“Sure. Where we going again?”
“The lake.”
“Dog hasn’t seen the lake before,” said Jake. “She wants to know if the lake is scary.”
Brandon caught my eye and we grinned at each other. It was okay between us. Everything was perfectly normal.
“You can tell Dog that a lake is just a big bit of water, with fish living in it,” said Brandon.
“A river?”
“Bigger than a river,” I told him, “and it doesn’t move.”
Jake’s mouth hitched down and he frowned.
“You’ll see it for yourself soon enough. Go get your coat, we’re taking the bike.”
“But Dog can’t ride on the bike!” Said Jake, stamping his feet. He reminded me so much of Mikey for a second that I felt a wave of grief run through me like cold water.
“Dog can stay here and help Gracie. You need to be quiet to catch fish.”
Jake stomped off to his room, muttering under his breath.
Brandon turned back to me. “Something wrong.”
“No more than usual,” I told him.
“Sure you won’t come?”
“Someone should stay here. Make sure you’re back before dark, okay?”
“Sure thing.”
I turned back to the dishes before he could say anything more and lost myself in scrubbing the plates, until I heard the door close and the roar of the trail bike starting up.
I was worried Jake would fall clean off the back of the bike one day, even taking into consideration the way Brandon drove like a little old man, but it was less conspicuous than the SUV and guzzled less fuel. It was also better for negotiating the roads, which weren’t in such great shape these days. The branches brought down by the winter storms blocked parts of the road, and the places where the frost had seeped in and cracked the surface crumbled away more every time it rained. It made foraging trickier, but I hoped anyone trying to find us would have the same problems.
A few minutes later, Dog reappeared and flopped miserably on the kitchen floor beside me, panting heavily from chasing the trail bike down the road.
“And you can just stay in here,” I told her. “No chicken dinner for you.”
The coop took up the rest of the morning. It had taken me a while to get the hang of working with the wood. Brandon seemed to have a knack for it, but even when I followed the instructions to the letter, the things I built always ended up crooked or wobbly. I guessed that there were some things where you either knew how to do it or you didn’t, and followi
ng the instructions didn’t help too much. I couldn’t feel too mad about it. It was nice that Brandon had found something he was good at. Although, if he caught anyone watching him, he tended to pound his thumb with the hammer, or screw up his measurements, just like the old Brandon would have.
The coop wasn’t bad. It looked pretty much like the one in the book. We should paint it, I thought. Red and white would be pretty.
No, no paint. New paint would be easier to spot from the road and the sky, and would be a sure giveaway that someone was living here. “We’ll just never have anything nice ever again,” I told the chickens.
With the coop finished, there wasn’t much to do. I walked around the cabin to the vegetable garden. We’d hoped to scrape enough food from the garden to supplement what we’d scavenged, but, like the chickens, the vegetable patch was thriving almost too well. Half of the produce growing there wasn’t even supposed to be ready for months, but the vines were thick with plump bean pods and heavy tomatoes, and the soil bulged with potatoes and onions.
We’d found sunflower seeds down in the basement, and I’d given them to Jake to plant, telling him not to get discouraged if they didn’t sprout. The sunflowers had already shot up so high that they towered above the house. I’d never seen any grow so fast or so huge before, and although they were conspicuous, Jake was so pleased with them that we couldn’t bring ourselves to cut them down. I stared at them nodding innocently above me. It was the good earth up here. That’s all it was. If I was going to start worrying when we did manage to grow food as well as when we didn’t I’d drive myself nuts. Besides, for all I knew, that’s how plants were supposed to grow when you didn’t have landscapers coming round every week to keep them tidy.
I filled a bucket with beans and tomatoes. There was no way we’d be able to eat all this stuff before it went bad. We needed more books. A cookbook to tell us how to put things in jars. Finding the jars would take time, but time was something we had plenty of these days. Too much time.
I should have gone with them. With nothing to do, it was easy for my mind to stray again and again to all the things that worried me.
Doc and Terry. Jake.
Brandon.
“It’s not a crush,” I told Dog, who had long since escaped the kitchen and was snapping at bees, with indignant yips and growls. “I guess it’s not a crush, right? I’ve never had one before, not on a real life person anyway. It’s just because we’re stuck here together. If things were normal, I wouldn’t even be friends with him. And you know what? Most of the time, he just makes me mad. So, I bet it can’t be a crush. Just cabin fever or something.”
He’d probably had a girlfriend before all this happened. A popular girl. Not a dork with a computer instead of friends. I imagined the girlfriend with blond hair and long legs, and a whole wardrobe of cool clothes. A car, too. The girlfriend would have had a red car, and she’d have let Brandon drive, and would have told him how awesome he was instead of sighing when he took the bends too slow.
“This is really dumb,” I told Dog, sternly. “Like, super dumb.”
Dog yapped at me. Even Dog thought it was dumb. There must be something to do around here. I pumped water, then swept the kitchen. I cleaned the gun. I filled the new coop with straw.
“Okay, I give up,” I told Dog finally. “What Brandon doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right?”
We were trying not to use electricity unless absolutely necessary, to conserve the generator fuel, but not going crazy was a necessity too. I hoped 6_star was online. I wasn’t going to tell her anything important—there was no need for Brandon to get so bent out of shape every time I went online.
I just needed someone to talk to was all.
Jake
ou got to sit still, or they won’t come close,” Brandon told him.
Jake sighed. He could feel the swimming things down there. The “fish,” and others, too. Creatures he didn’t know the name for, minute and squirming, engaged in their miniature quests to feed, to play, to escape predators or ensnare prey, to create others like them.
There were no fish near where they were sitting right now, so Jake couldn’t see the point of being quiet. Brandon was just being bossy telling Jake to be quiet when there weren’t even any old fish here.
Brandon doesn’t know the things you know. You’re not like Brandon. Not a little boy.
He silenced that sneaky inside voice with effort. He wasn’t going to let it creep in today. Not with the lake and the new woods to explore. The lake was wonderful, the way it looked as though there was a second sky living in it. “A reflection,” Brandon said it was called. There was another Brandon in the reflection. Another Jake, too. A Jake who lived in the sky.
For once, you’re not the only one of you.
“Be quiet!” he said out loud.
“That’s the idea,” said Brandon. “If you’re not going to fish, then go play so I can get on with it, but stay close, and don’t go near the water, okay?”
“Okay.”
There were some houses by the lake, but Jake was bored of houses. They were all pretty much alike as far as he could tell. Later, Brandon would want to go into the houses to look for food or things to use around the cabin. Better not to use up the limited interest he had in those houses just yet.
The woods then.
He loved the woods. It was better with Dog there, because Dog could see and smell things that Jake couldn’t on his own. It felt safer with Dog, too. Being alone was still a scary feeling.
You’ll always be alone.
“No,” he told the sneaky voice, “that’s not how it is.”
Trees were creeping in from the woods and growing up around the houses. In some places, the ghost of a lawn or the straggling edge of a flower bed still showed through the scrubby growth of weeds and year-old pines, but soon, the woods would have all this land, right to the edge of the lake. It would be better. More places to hide.
The tufty top of a little pine sapling brushed Jake’s knees and he stopped to look at it. The bristle of its vivid green needles and the scaly patterns in its bark were fascinating to him. The tiny spark of life within it, which would one day grow to be something huge and ancient. Jake sent his mind out, bending it through the soil and the sunlight, shifting the things the plant needed to grow into its hungry cells. It was fun to watch the frail shoot thicken and send out branches. He stopped when the sapling was just a little taller than him.
Jake glanced over to where Brandon sat, but he still glared at his fishing pole as if it had let him down somehow.
If you’re so sure you’re just like them, why do you hide these new tricks from them?
Jake hated that the voice was right. He was growing. The body he had stolen was growing, and that was no problem. The body was supposed to grow. But the life within the body, Jake’s true self was growing too, and keeping it in check was becoming more than he could handle.
The energy inside him boiled and there was nowhere to put it, but into the world around him. When he made things grow—the vegetable garden back at the cabin, for instance—he took care to do it in secret. But how long would he be able to fool Gracie and Brandon? The sunflowers had been his biggest mistake, but they’d looked so pretty, shooting up into the sky. Gracie didn’t seem to suspect anything. She thought that if you put things in the ground just like the books said, they’d grow, but Brandon was different. When he’d seen those sunflowers, he’d looked at Jake hard.
Sooner or later, they’d find out that the Bad Men had been right. That there was something wrong with Jake.
As soon as he was out of Brandon’s sight, Jake’s shoulders relaxed and his feet felt light enough to skip as they carried him deeper into the safety of the woods.
The warm, damp smell of the leaf litter soothed him. It was green and dark in here. A good place for secrets. He wouldn’t go in too far, there wouldn’t be time, but even if he walked all day as he did in the woods that surrounded the cottage, he knew he wouldn’t g
et lost. Now that Jake had grown stronger, it was easy for him to sense his back trail and follow it home. Even without Dog’s senses to tap into, there was always a creature close to hand capable of identifying the man-scent where he had walked, or a bird wheeling far overhead whose eyes he could use to see the way home.
Jake climbed a tree, relishing the way the bark felt under his hands, smooth and rough at the same time. In his pocket he had a tomato for his lunch, tied up in a handkerchief, with a little twist of salt and pepper in foil. Things tasted better to him now. As he ate, he could taste the sunlight, the rainwater, the dense black dirt which gave the tomato plant its life. There was an echo of Gracie picking the fruit, of the fibers of the handkerchief, the machine that wove the fibers into cloth, the cool ancient places deep beneath the earth where the metals that became the machine once lay. Letting his mind roam so freely made Jake giddy and he had to clutch at the branch to stop from falling.
It was good to exhaust himself like this. If he burnt through his reserves of power now, he stood a better chance of controlling it when he was back at the cabin tonight.
The woods were thick with life and Jake allowed his mind to roam where it would, touching the quick, darting sparks of the birds, the simple, inexorable energy of a centipede, the huge, ancient pulse in the trees. His limbs relaxed and his head lolled to the side, his breath slow and shallow.
Then he felt something new. So distant it was barely there, but so distinct from anything else it felt like a needle of ice in the meat of his brain. His limbs twitched and he jerked upright, his eyes open wide. His heart thumped as he slithered down from the tree. A branch tore a thin red line down his back, but Jake barely noticed. He stood completely still at the foot of the tree and threw all his power out into the woods. His senses were so flooded with input that it made his head swim, but the new thing was gone. He tried again and again until he was panting with the effort of it, his mind split between a thousand different life forms. A thin trickle of blood leaked from his nose, and his legs wobbled, then went loose, spilling him to the forest floor, but still he pushed.
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