by Sabina Green
What must it have been like for her, knowing that she wouldn’t survive?
Hours ticked by and I scrutinized every part of the letter. The one about what Ruby and I mean to her made me want to scream with despair and frustration. But my granddaughter was sleeping and I needed to be alone and undisturbed, think everything through.
I went into the living room and looked at the bookcase Constance was writing about, doubtful. It was built into the wall. Even if Darlene and Hugh bought this house unfurnished, these shelves would have been here waiting for them. If they didn’t know there was anything to see there, why would they ever try?
I felt like an idiot, removing books from the two bottom shelves and arranging them into little piles around me. I investigated the wall and immediately saw that Connie was right. From the second shelf upwards stood a basic brick with plaster, but underneath the shelf there was a panel painted with the same colour. Painted so well in fact, that the paint has glued it to the wall. Knocking on it produced a hollow sound.
I sat in front of the bookcase, lost in thought. This job looked a bit like someone painted a window frame and forgot that one day the window would need to be reopened. They glued the two sides of the frame together and left it at that.
I was sure I’d be able to scrape the paint off with a knife and open the panel, but I didn’t dare to do it right there and then. What if Darlene or Hugh came out on a midnight wander, or to the kitchen for a glass of water? They’d be asking why the hell I was making a mess of their books and trying to squeeze my body onto the thin shelf.
I put all the books back. I spent the rest of the night blindly wandering through the house, before once again ending up by Connie’s suitcase. I didn’t think there would be anything else there that’s important. If there was, wouldn’t she have taken it out herself, and placed it next to the letter?
But I was wrong; her suitcase was full of tiny treasures. She had only taken a few of her own things to New Zealand, essentially it was just two sets of clothes, lots of Paracetamol and some toiletries. Other than that, she’d packed lots of my and Ruby’s clothes, toys, Penelope’s old recipe book and photographs. I was going through these objects like they were sacred. Thank God that my daughter had the presence of mind to give me a physical representation of memories of my family, the family I had gradually lost, until it was just Ruby and I.
There were also several children’s books. New ones, unread. The titles revealed a definite theme. Goodbye Presents. A Sad Mouse. Why Is Mommy Not Here Anymore? Did Connie get these to help me explain it all to Ruby?
For a while I feared I wouldn’t be able to free myself from memories of the past, but in the end the current situation won. I still couldn’t believe it all. Apocalypse was something I’d only known from movies and books. Who would have thought that I’d live to see something like this, to witness the end of almost the entire human population?
How was I supposed to explain all this to Ruby?
As I was taking everything out of the suitcase and sorting it out on the bed, a second letter fell out of Connie’s jeans, and this one already had a recipient. I frowned. The name meant nothing to me, I was confused and unsettled.
Who the hell is Billy?
I put my finger into the envelope, ready to tear it open.
“Grampa?” came a voice from the next room, and I only just realised that it was getting brighter outside.
“Grampa, why are you crying?” Ruby’s innocent, huge eyes were looking at me across the table. “Did your corn flakes get all soggy too?”
I hadn’t even touched my breakfast. An unappealing blob of cereal was floating in a bowl of milk in front of me, no wonder Ruby thought that it was the source of my sombre mood. How could I explain why I was sad to her without wounding her, scarring her for life?
“How about we read some books?”
“Cinderella?”
“I’d like to read you some new stories, ones you haven’t heard before. What do you say?”
“Are there any unicorns?”
“I don’t think so…”
“What about elves?”
I didn’t answer.
“Or at least princesses?”
I was trying to remember some character that would fit this description, but I hadn’t even flipped through Connie’s books. The only character I could remember was… “A mouse! There is a little mouse.”
Ruby put on an expression which clearly stated: What kind of a story is it if it doesn’t have unicorns? But she went with me to fetch the small pile of books her Mum had wisely prepared.
Despite the books, it wasn’t an easy task. We read stories about death, loss, grief, and if I was upset, what must it have been like for Ruby?
I closed the last book and took a deep breath. “You know how the little mouse had a Mummy and a Daddy?” I couldn’t believe that I had to do this again. First with Connie and now with her daughter. “And then one day Mummy didn’t come home and the little mouse only had a Daddy?”
She was listening to my explanation very closely, pressing her elephant to her nose, and she looked completely confused. After the fateful words, “Your Mummy won’t come back either, Ruby,” she put her thumb in her mouth. It had been years since she last did that, it was devastating to watch her trying to soothe herself the way she used to when she was a toddler.
I dropped the books on the floor and kicked them under the bed, out of sight. Then I reached for Cinderella and Pinocchio and started reading the girl’s favourite stories. Her attitude was nothing like the usual; normally she’d jump in, adding words and extending the story using her imagination. This time, she sat completely silently, sucking her thumb, staring into the book, which she clearly wasn’t paying attention to, in deep thought.
“Where is Mummy?” she asked again.
It was like an echo. Two voices, my daughter and granddaughter. Even though over twenty years had passed between the individual questions, it felt like they were spoken at the same time. I couldn’t answer, I only had so much inner strength.
“There’s a box of LEGO in the living room,” I suggested in a strained voice, holding on by a thread. “How about we build Cinderella a nice castle?”
Without so much as a word of response, she jumped up and moved to the LEGO. It took a while, but in the end she started talking again, although her elephant stayed in her lap. She was giving out orders about where to put each piece, and spinning stories about Cinderella and the castle I was helping her build. We spent much longer on this activity than I would have thought. The girl didn’t even mind when I left to cook lunch. She was probably still processing the stories we’d been reading earlier.
After putting Ruby’s favourite baked rice pudding into the oven, I took advantage of her absorption in the LEGO to go check on Darlene and Hugh.
How long had it been since I last saw them? Two days, or more? I’d lost track of time.
It was possible we’d been missing each other, I spent a lot of time in the bedroom or out behind the house, partially hidden from view. But given that they were our hosts and should have been providing breakfasts and dinners, I would expect them to be around a little more. If they were still able to, that is…
I knocked on the door of their bedroom, but my only answer was silence, so I entered. Normally I would never be so forward, but my manners had suffered somewhat after Connie left us to die in a forest. I assumed Darlene and Hugh had an understandable reason for not looking after their guests.
The stench of bad meat, excrements, and rotten eggs hit my nose. My stomach turned, I struggled not to throw up. I stepped back and closed the door behind me without looking at their bodies, but I couldn’t get rid of the smell. It clung to my clothes, my hair, even the hairs in my nose.
I immediately went to the shed for a shovel and looked around outside to find a good spot, not visible from the house,
but not too far either, since I had to carry the bodies over. Leaving them in the bedroom was unthinkable, the stench would soon permeate the whole house.
I felt guilty for neglecting Ruby, especially when she was so vulnerable after the morning stories, but I had no choice. I was checking on her every ten minutes, and when she got bored of the LEGO, I put a cartoon on for her on TV. I dug a deep hole wide enough to fit two people, and was glad that I didn’t have to do this for Connie.
How far did she get? I didn’t want to go looking for her; I would never enter that forest again. Just like she asked in her letter, I wanted to remember her healthy and happy. I couldn’t bear to exchange that image with another mutilated, rotting body.
Getting Darlene out was an experience in and of itself. She was stone cold, rigid and glossy, covered with small blisters. I wrapped her in a sheet so that Ruby wouldn’t see the body if she glanced up from the TV. Carrying her out was like moving a statue or an extremely large, heavy ironing board.
But even that had nothing on Hugh. He was bloated to twice his size, there was dry blood by his nose and mouth, and his skin was slightly green. Unlike his wife, his body was soft and pliable like plasticine, though manipulating it was just as difficult, probably because of how unpleasant it was. The image of his rotting, reeking body had burned itself on my mind and covering it with a sheet to hide the monstrosity didn’t help hiding it from my mind.
Resting both of them into the grave behind a big tree was a huge relief. The most difficult part was behind me, all that was left was putting all the soil back in its place. Darlene’s dog watched me the whole time, whining. I added feeding him on my mental to do list.
Sweaty and exhausted, I still had things to do. I brushed the dirt off and went back to the living room.
“I have an important job for you,” I said and my granddaughter immediately stood to attention, straight as a ruler. “I need to go investigate something and I need someone to stand guard and watch my back. Do you think you can do it?”
She nodded eagerly.
I took all the books out of the shelves again and scraped off the paint sticking the panel to the wall. After that I just had to kick it a few times and it sprang out of its place and hit the floor. I switched on a torch from the kitchen and looked down the corridor behind the bookcase.
Just as I’d expected, it was low and narrow, and went steeply down. After about ten steps there was a platform and behind it a sturdy door. I shivered. If it had been another person trying to fit into that slit and investigate, I’d be screaming at them to stop. Surely someone was waiting on the other side with a knife! How could this place be a safe shelter for us, when it scared me to death?
But what choice did I have? I took off the shelf in the middle of the entrance and turned to Ruby.
“I’ll go in. I’ll just have a look around and come right back. Can you keep an eye out for things here and let me know if something happens?”
She put a hand to her forehead and saluted. Connie must have taught her that. I wanted to laugh at the gesture, but the current atmosphere wouldn’t let me.
One last bit of instructions… “When I call Marco, you’ll answer Polo, ok?”
“Why?”
“So that I know that you’re alright.”
“But I’m the one who’s guarding you,” she replied.
She made me smile after all.
“You’re right about that, Marco.”
“Polo!” she blurted out and her eyes were shining.
I took a deep breath and slowly squeezed into the dark corridor. I ignored the feeling of claustrophobia, ran down the stairs and stepped towards the door. It was locked, but that was no surprise. I took out the two brass keys Connie had left me in her letter, and one of them fit.
As soon as I opened the door, I understood what Constance meant when she assured me not to worry about dark spaces. There were several round windows in the ceiling, letting in so much light that the room didn’t feel like a basement at all. How was that possible? I looked up frowning and wondered where the windows were placed. Through walls or supporting beams? I couldn’t think of any other explanation. How else would they have hidden the presence of the shelter? I hadn’t paid much attention to the roof of the farmhouse, there hadn’t been any reason to, but I remembered that it was more flat than slanted. When you stood on the ground, you couldn’t quite see it, and nobody standing on a far away hill would think to look for small roof windows. Hypothetically.
“Marco!”
“Polo!”
The room was quite spacious, about five by ten meters, fitted with everything a house would include. A kitchenette with a stove and a hood, a dining area with a square table and two chairs. A bunk bed, sofa, wardrobes and shelves. A toilet and a bathtub.
On one side there were two more doors. One was locked, and neither of the brass keys opened it. I let it be for now and opened the other one, which wasn’t locked. It led to a huge pantry. On the ground and on shelves were water containers, cans of fruit and vegetables, flour, packets of pasta and rice. All the provisions you’ll need.
If I ignored the fact that all of this was underground, I would almost feel like I was in some weekend cottage. But there were no windows on the sides, and that made me think of a tomb or a prison. This was where Ruby and I were supposed to live for half a year?
“Polo, Polo, Polo!” Ruby was calling out, her voice slightly hysterical.
“I’m coming!” I called back. I’d seen enough.
On my way out I noticed the calendar Connie was writing about. It was conveniently turned on the current month, but none of the days were marked. When are we supposed to move down here? Connie and her bloody Collective were so stubborn and specific about everything, but they left this to us?
Ruby looked relieved when I crawled out. Once again I felt like screaming at myself. Didn’t I just explain to her this morning that she doesn’t have a Mum anymore? And then I let her watch me disappear somewhere underground?
Have I ever messed something up as colossally as this?
“You did great, honey.”
I left the shelter door unlocked, but put the panel and the books back into their place.
“It was an important job, wasn’t it?”
“The most important,” I assured the girl and ruffled her hair. I realised that although I’d been busy, she had a bland, boring, and slightly scary day. “What would you like to do now?”
“Go on a trip!” she exclaimed immediately.
“We can’t do that,” I replied and felt terrible for not being able to do this for her. “How about a walk around the farm and a visit to the playground? I’ll swing you as long as you like.”
That made her feel better. We spent half the afternoon feeding the dog, chasing chickens, walking around the field, building a sandcastle. When it started to drizzle, I chased her back inside.
Someone was pulling on my sleeve and breathing into my ear. I was all ready to growl to chase the pest away so I could keep sleeping, when my drowsy mind registered the girl’s voice.
“Someone’s here,” she whispered.
I shot out of the armchair. “What?”
“There’s a man in the kitchen and he’s taking our food,” Ruby frowned.
How could I have fallen asleep? I remembered sitting in the armchair and watching Ruby play with her dolls. I had no recollection of my head growing heavy or my eyelids closing. And now the sun was setting!
“Stay here!” I sat her in the armchair I just got up from and handed her the elephant. “Do you understand? Don’t go anywhere, I’m serious!”
She nodded, fear shaking her entire body. Was she frightened by the stranger, or by my reaction?
I ran out into the corridor and caught a sight of a back, a heel and a bulging backpack disappearing through the main entrance. I could have followed the
man and demanded our stolen things back, but what if it led to a fight and I got injured? How would I look after Ruby then?
I watched him from the patio. He staggered away as quickly as he could, occasionally glancing back. When he saw that nobody was chasing him, he slowed down. He coughed wildly a few times before disappearing through the main gate. Why was he robbing our pantry? Was the situation in the world really so bad that people had bought out all the food in the shops already and had nothing to eat?
This was exactly what the shelter was supposed to protect us from. I didn’t want to use it just yet, but it seemed like it wouldn’t be sensible to stay up in the house for much longer.
I went back to Ruby. “He’s gone, don’t worry.”
“Was it a criminal?”
More like a desperate man, I wanted to say. But to prevent her underestimating the situation, I nodded. “Yeah. It’s possible that more will come, so we’ll play hide and seek, so they won’t find us.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“You’re with me, you’ll be perfectly safe.” I took her in my arms and hugged her tight. I was determined not to let her out of my sight again, not even for a minute. “It’ll be an adventure!”
She was holding onto me tight as I was walking around the house. I opened all the doors and windows and propped them up with furniture, so they’d stay that way; we needed to get rid of the smell of rotting bodies. Plus, when people are desperate enough, they can break into any place, and no amount of protective window shutters or barricaded doors will stop them. Then I moved all our suitcases including Connie’s one, the toys from the living room, and the rest of the food from the kitchen in front of the shelter. The man hadn’t taken everything, he’d left us fresh fruit and food that needed to be cooked. I added Hugh’s fishing rod I’d stumbled upon while looking for a shovel in the shed. There wouldn’t be any use for it in the shelter, but I didn’t want to risk somebody stealing or damaging it during our quarantine. How would I fish afterwards?