by A. S. Hames
We make it to the bushes and settle down in the dip. I drink a little water and give some to Von but have to stop because he’s too noisy.
Now we wait. At least Zu’s ankle will get a rest, so it’s not all bad news.
Looking around, I see the three rebels from yesterday are here. They’re with some others, pointing to hills we came down. They position a few men closer to the slopes, which cuts off that route for us – not that we had any real chance of getting back to it.
The morning passes like a headache – painful with no way to speed it along. The sun gets up and we drink all our water. Now I’m starving and thirsty but I’m more scared than anything. There’s no way out. We are trapped.
I think too much about the past. I think too much about happy times. I think too much of the life I’ve had, and what little of it I seem to have left. The only thing that keeps me in one piece is the knowledge that if the Representative wasn’t lying, and if the rebels haven’t overrun the Lake Towns, and if we can get to the Leader, and if he really is a man who will listen to reason, then maybe we’re still doing the right thing.
I wish I knew what was in that damned report, but last time Jay took it out, she said the coded words may as well have been dancing around on the page for all the sense she could make of it. She cursed herself for not paying more attention when her Pa showed her how those things work, but she’s not being fair to herself. Anyway, it doesn’t matter much now. There’s nothing to be done but lay still all day and hope I don’t struggle with the hopelessness of the situation for the whole of the time until it’s dark once more.
JAY
I wake in pitch dark. I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep but I’m staying awake from here on in. I don’t try to find out if the others are awake or not. I just wait for the moonless night to retreat.
I feel a little cold. I don’t mind though. By midday, Freedom Country will feel like a baker’s oven. Maybe I’ll take a swim. I have to suppress a laugh. It’s the thought of it. Me, surrounded by hundreds of killer rebels, walking out of a bush into their camp and asking the way to the nearest water for a refreshing dip.
I take my flask and put it to my lips. I drink deeply from it, even though it is empty. I imagine a flow of cool water cascading down my sandpaper throat. Next, I picture a sizzling potato and meat pat folded into a piece of fresh bread. I take a small bite, nothing too greedy, and I chew, even though my tongue hurts from a sore that’s developed on it. I swallow fully, despite the pain in my gullet, and I wait for the acid hollowness of my empty stomach to ease. It’s important to have a good breakfast before a busy day. Ma taught me that.
I’d sing a little song she taught me too if I thought it would help. It wouldn’t, of course. I’m not crazy. So I try not to feel too sad over Ma while I wait patiently for the eastern sky to change. It’ll be my birthday in… what, two weeks? I’ve lost track of time. But yes, two weeks or so. I’ll be seventeen.
Maybe I’ll have a party.
10. Among the Dead
JAY
This is our one chance. We must not fail. Fear is our greatest enemy. We need to think straight and act fast. In the last of the dark, I check that we’re ready, and we are. So we move.
A little way.
We stop.
We move again.
We stop again. If my heart was to pound any harder, our enemies would surely hear it.
We move again. It’s fraught but we get a good twenty yards before we have to reverse away from trouble.
We go again. A yard at a time. The light is improving and I have no trouble seeing Ben’s backside three feet in front of me. We don’t stop. We increase our speed, no longer crawling, but crouching, bent low. And then no longer crouching, but upright. Visibility is increasing.
“Is it morning?” a man asks me from his bedding.
“Not yet,” I say.
I keep moving. That man was ten feet away and it’s getting lighter. I look across the camp now. I can see hundreds of men. Three of them are standing around the remains of a fire off to our right.
We veer left and we don’t stop.
We’re through the men’s camp and now we’re alongside a women’s camp, but it’s getting too light to stay on our feet. Ahead, the ground dips away. We drop to our bellies and we crawl and slither like snakes. Only bullets can stop us now.
We keep going. It’s a wide expanse but it’s leading us away. We raise ourselves to our feet again. We keep going. We need more distance before the dawn gets any older. We cover another fifty yards. And another.
“Is that the trail?” Ben says.
Judging by the location of the light from the sun below the horizon, the trail in front of us is north-south. The one we’ve been hoping for. We’re on it with renewed energy, scampering along at pace. We’re heading south. South!
We continue half-running, half-walking, almost half-laughing too, but we get slower as we go until it’s little more than a shuffle. Even Von looks like he’s had enough. We don’t stop though. We continue yard by yard and my heart is happier than it’s been in days.
I reckon we cover two miles before we fall down on the side of the trail. We’re done. The sun is up and I’m too weak to laugh about our escape or anything else.
“I’ve never felt better about being alive,” Ben says.
“Let’s just hope we don’t meet anyone,” Ax says.
“We have weapons,” Ben says.
Ax sighs. “If we don’t find food and water soon, it won’t matter much.”
We stop for an hour or so, but our digging around for insects produces a big fat zero. We don’t talk either. We’re too parched for that. And besides, with the sun getting hotter, I have a bad headache now.
Even so, it’s soon time to move.
“Come on, Von,” I say.
He looks at me with worry in his eyes. He knows we’re on the edge. He’s no Hero of the Nation. He’s way more important than that.
“Von,” Zu says, “come on, boy.”
Von makes a big effort and he’s up alongside us, looking down the trail to the south. I take the pack from Ben.
We walk on. One foot in front of the other. Step after step. With the sun climbing ever higher. I try to think of better times but that makes grief come over me.
I scold myself. How can it be that my emotions can go from happiness to despair in so short a time with no visible change in our circumstances? I need to keep a tighter grip on my resolve if I want to see this through.
Ben nudges me and points to the sky. There are buzzards in the air. They know we don’t belong here. Who does? There can’t be many who call this home.
I make up a poem.
I scuttle “cross a southern plain
My feet on fire, but I feel no pain
I am a lizard
We walk on with the buzzards circling us.
I rest upon the burning ground
My blood aflame while I look around
I am a lizard
I reckon we cover three more miles before Zu collapses.
None us leaps to her rescue. Ben just fans her with his hand.
“I’m okay,” she groans.
To me, she’s a damned miracle. With starvation and dehydration, she should be dead by now.
Ben nudges me, which I don’t mind.
“How far?”
I get the map out but looking at it hurts my eyes. Even so, despite the dazzle of sun bouncing off the paper, I try to work it out.
“Tine should be twenty miles.”
“We should run,” Ben says. “We’d get there quicker.”
I try to smile but my lips crack and hurt.
“No jokes,” I croak.
“What about water?” Zu asks.
“I would have said if the map showed water, Zu.”
I know I’ve said it in an unfriendly way, which I didn’t mean.
“Sorry, Zu.”
“It’s okay, Jay.”
“Just keep going,
” Ax says.
I pray the Representative’s and Charles G Kellerman’s maps have omitted a creek or an irrigation channel because my feet hurt, my ankle hurts, my head is pounding, and I feel like lying down and not getting up again.
BEN
I come over a little faint, so I drop to my knees and crawl under some low bushes just off the trail. I dig around the base of the plants into the shallower roots. I find a small bug, so I put it in my mouth and chew. But I can’t swallow – so I take it out again. I try to chew some the grassy stuff but it’s hopeless. Von joins me to see what’s what. I shake my head as if to tell him the bad news. He turns and tramps back to Zu.
If only we could look forward to some moonlight. Then we could walk at night. But the moon’s renewing itself and won’t be visible tonight and the night will be black, so we’d keep walking off the trail and put our feet in holes and break ankles. So while I wonder why the moon has let us down, I crawl back to the trail in blinding daylight and force myself back to my feet. And we walk on.
The sun isn’t our friend. It gets even higher and hotter until it’s beating down on us in this damned desert land. We could take shade under the sparse scrubby bushes but we’d never get anywhere. We’d just sleep until there was nothing left. No fight, no resolve, no energy. We’d just close our eyes on the world and never open them again.
Another hour of torture passes and we are the dead. Sure, we’re still walking but we’re all out of options. No food, no water, no nothing. The cracks on my lips are bleeding and I don’t think I can speak. Not that I’ve tried in a while. There’s nothing to say. We’re just fading quietly to nothing. Judging by how skinny we all are, we’re halfway disappeared already.
JAY
Others are joining us now. They’re coming to help us complete our march to death’s domain. There’s the Pinedale bomb victims, the little girl from that bedroom, and the girl on the grass with her heart shot through… a cartload of fake redcoats… the child-sergeant alone and scared, and the film woman and the Representative, and the colonel, the sergeant, the couple in the house by the river, dearest Taff…
“Do you think God exists?” Zu croaks in a broken voice.
I’m not sure who she’s talking to so I keep quiet. I don’t have the energy to discuss whether God exits, even though we’re close to finding out.
“Jay, look.”
Ben’s pointing ahead, east of the trail. It’s hard to see through the heat haze, but…
“Farm buildings?”
My heart flutters. Could this be our salvation?
Ax uses the spyglass for a closer look but his hands are shaking. He hands it to me. I steady myself. Through the boiling air, I see it’s a farm with three buildings. The few sparse crops are withered but maybe they have stores. We have to hope. We have to pray.
It takes an age to reach the house, but it doesn’t look good. The front door and all the windows are wide open. Ben calls out, even though his voice is breaking up.
“Anyone home? Can you help us, please?”
There’s no response and I’m put in mind of that house by a river many miles away.
“I’ll take a look,” I say.
I go inside and check the main room.
Empty.
I check the kitchen and pantry.
Empty.
At least, empty of people. I don’t touch the cupboards yet.
I go upstairs. And there they are, in the main bedroom. There’s nothing horrible about it, they’re just dead. Looks like the farmer shot his wife and daughter through the heart then shot himself in the same way. No more than a day ago, I’d say.
They were poor. Their clothes are threadbare. Their old, tanned shoes have been repaired many times. I take the farmer’s gun and straw hat. Then I take a couple of threadbare sheets from a drawer to cover them as best I can.
“Rest in peace,” I say.
I go downstairs where Ax, Ben, and Zu are in the kitchen. Von is in the pantry sniffing at the cupboards. He finds a few seeds on the floor to eat. I give the straw hat to Ben.
“Anything?” Ax says, like he knows it’s not good. I’m sure he’s not sensing me. Maybe I need to stop my face showing how it is.
“All dead,” I say. “Any food at all?”
“Nothing,” Ben says.
“They might have stores,” Zu says.
It’s unlikely. Otherwise, why would they kill themselves? Even so, we go outside, under the unforgiving sun, and try the other buildings. But there’s nothing. This place has been stripped bare.
“Looks like a creek over there,” Ax says. “Water and fish would be good.”
“I’ll go,” Ben says.
We watch him make his way fifty yards. It seems to take an eternity. Then he’s coming back.
“It’s just a trickle,” he says.
“Well, at least we have water,” Ax says.
“Maybe they have a butt?” I suggest.
We soon find a big barrel round the back of the farmhouse. There’s a bucket nearby. I can imagine it’s been carried to and from the creek to the butt thousands of times.
Ax removes the barrel lid to reveal some water in the bottom. Grateful we don’t have to trek to the creek, we get some cups from the house and come back to drink. It’s a blessing but it makes me feel sick.
“We need to eat,” Zu says.
I don’t say anything but I’m considering eating human flesh. I don’t want to do such a terrible thing, but it’s coming down to a choice between eating to live or sticking to my principles and dying.
“Zu’s right,” Ax says, like he’s reading my thoughts.
I can see he doesn’t plan to do anything about it. Much easier to leave it to someone else. Anyway, we hunt and dig for grubs and bugs… anything… without success – which brings us back to where we started.
I go inside and take a large culinary knife from a drawer. I climb the stairs and enter the bedroom.
I pull the sheet off the little girl.
Time comes to a halt.
It’s like I’m two people, because while I’m busy thinking it’s wrong, my stomach is gurgling, there’s a hint of saliva in my mouth, and I keep swallowing as if I’ve already started the meal. Even my brain is splitting into two, because part of it is yelling at me. Eat, you fool. Just damn well eat.
I stop. I go downstairs and sit in the kitchen. Saying nothing. Thinking everything. The others come in and sit with me. Von flops down on the stone floor.
The battle in my head won’t stop. Logic tells me to cut a damned leg off one the bodies and eat the damned thing. It’s meat like any other. But what if we live through this? What if we make it home? Cutting a little girl’s leg off and eating it would be a living nightmare. I would never escape from any of the tiny details involved in the process. From choosing which leg, to taking hold of it, to wielding the knife, and pressing it into the flesh…
No, never. Not in a million lifetimes. I’d rather plunge the knife into my own heart. These are the people we’re fighting for. Okay, these are lost to us, but we might be in a position to…
And there’s the other argument. It says we should rest here for a few days, eat all the flesh, and drink all the water. Then, once we’re replenished and full of energy, we’d be fit enough to get to the Lake Towns and try to stop all this from happening to others. It’s called making a sacrifice. My sanity for the sanity of the Nation.
I have to think about something else so I find some paper and a pencil. I’ll have a crack at breaking the encryption. The others look at me as if I’m crazy, so I ignore them.
Eat the little girl’s leg.
There are fair few 9’s in there. What if I try replacing it with A?
Eat the little girl’s leg.
I study the first line.
3 098/9&+ ~9809/
Now I’m out of the sun, and I’m armed with a pencil, I make a copy, but with 9 replaced by “a”.
3 0a8/a&+ ~a80a/.
I stop
and study what follows.
a+ a& 3 #53b~9 820 18a275~ 05+ +6 +9~~ 65 +#8+ +#9 $8/ a2 +#9 26/+#-$9&+ 069& 26+ g6 $9~~. 65/ g929/8~ #8& ~a90 +6 65. $9 8/9 b/a2ga2g 4#a~0/92 a2+6 65/ 7ag#+a2g /82k& 26$.
It’s hopeless. I think of Pa turning this kind of thing into a game so I could learn it. There can’t be many who would know how to unravel a cypher. But I can’t do it. I’m lacking the energy needed for this level of concentration. Staring at the page makes my head swim and my stomach feel sick, so I pack it all away. I will crack it though. But right now…
The knife is on the table. I don’t even remember putting it there. Through the doorway lie the stairs that lead to the bodies. It’s the worst feeling I’ve ever experienced.
“What are you going to do?” Zu asks.
“What would you do?” I ask back.
She doesn’t say.
I look to Ben and Ax. This is their chance to stop me. But there are no words, no gestures. I don’t even try to get a sense of their feelings.
I go upstairs.
I pull the sheet back and look into the daughter’s face. I reckon she’s about ten. The sun is shining on her dark hair through the window. If her eyes could open, she’d see the symbol of life up there in the sky. How could it come to this? How could it ever get so bad?
I shudder but I don’t look away.
Her dress is old but pretty. Cream with blue edging carefully sewn on. Recently repaired too judging by little runs of brighter thread. Her Ma and Pa loved her and cared for her. Her legs are as skinny as mine. Not much meat there, but enough to ensure our survival.
Survival.
It used to sound heroic, but now it just sounds desperate. It’s about switching off our humanity. Without thoughts and feelings getting in the way, survival becomes a whole lot easier. It just leaves the question of what we’re surviving for. Will we even make it as far as the Lake Towns? Seems to me it’s going be another couple of hundred miles filled with enemy troops and all kinds of woes.