The World Without Flags

by Ben Lyle Bedard

  Then Franky turns away and walks down the hill. The relief almost makes me sob. I don’t have time now to think how I was going to kill one of my favorite people in the world. I can’t think about how I planned such a thing. I don’t have time for that.

  I drag Eric to his feet and we stumble and fall and drag ourselves to the woods. I have to tug and drag and half-carry him up the trail toward the lake. He’s breathing hoarsely and drily. He coughs and I feel something spatter on my neck and I cry out and brush it away with a shiver. It’s too dark to see if it was a worm or just a string of saliva, but the horror I feel is the same.

  Finally we reach the old Land Rover. I open the rusted old doors and Eric crawls into the back, almost like he knows what’s happening. Not many people know about this place. It’s a good place to hide him. When Eric stops moaning and falls back into his feverish sleep, I walk down to the lake and dip his wool hat into the water. I need to cool his fever. I look down at the dripping water. The water is dark red from the sunset and shivers when drops of water hit the surface. I see the shadow of my own features, but it’s too dark to see myself clearly. It’s just an outline, quivering with ripples of water.

  Crouched at the shore of the lake, I suddenly feel more tired than ever before in my life. I look up. I sit there and breathe until the stars begin to come out, reflected in the calm waters. The island is an inky shadow and the pine trees on it are darkly outlined. It’s quiet. I can hear the lake lap against the shore gently. Somewhere far across the lake a loon calls.

  It’s a long time before I go back to the Land Rover.

  29

  I sleep in the front seat of the Land Rover. From the back comes the groans and mutterings of Eric. His eyes are almost black with blood. I don’t know if he’ll make it through the night. I can’t think of that. The thought of him dying, of a world without him, the closest friend I’ve ever known, fills me with a dread that I never knew I could feel. It’s more than a feeling. It’s like a beast in me, straining to be free. I feel if Eric dies, the beast will be free, and I won’t withstand the violence of it. If Eric dies, I will die too. Maybe I will continue living, but Birdie will be dead. Fear keeps me awake, but days and days of sleep deprivation and grief eventually win over. I fall into a dreadful sleep.

  I dream again of being led into a dark pit. The dark pit where my mother sings. And there are beasts climbing out of it, beasts I can’t see, but I know they’re hunting me. They will find me and tear me apart. I can’t see them. I can’t even hear them. I only know that they are there, beyond my perception.

  I wake up shivering in fear and cold.

  I rub my eyes and look in the back seat. For a moment, I am sure that Eric is dead. He is laying as still as I’ve ever seen him. But then as I quake with fear, I realize with relief that his chest is rising and falling, just barely. I sob with relief and reach out and touch the crown of his head, just to feel his presence. The heat of his fever makes me pull away. I have to cool him down.

  When I return from the lake with Eric’s hat, soaked with cool water, I dab it on his forehead. Eric doesn’t move, but a tear of dark red, almost black blood runs down his cheek. He smells like the Worm, a smell like warm ammonia and eucalyptus. I feel a trembling nausea, and I have to leave the confines of the truck. I walk back toward the lake, trembling. I hold my face and try to gather myself.

  It didn’t hit me last night, but now I’m starting to realize that Eric is probably going to die. He’s going to die and leave me alone. No more long talks about subjects no one cares about any more like history and science and mathematics. No more asking me if I have my knife. No one to call me Birdie anymore.

  I have to sit down in the damp pine needles. I’ve never thought how hard it would be to lose him. I’m not ready for this. I have a hard time breathing like I’ve been running for a long time. I see a few stars as I gasp at the air. The trembling continues and I wonder if this is what it’s like to go crazy. The thought chills me even further and I get to my feet and hop up and down. I tell myself, “Think, Birdie, think.” That is what Eric would say.

  Then, in my mind, clear as glass, I hear Eric say, “People don’t always die.” I remember how he said at the Lodge that Good Prince Billy knew people who made it through the Worm. The Worm is different now, but not totally different. Maybe he can make it. I breathe a little easier. Some manner of hope comes to me, like a single star on a cloudy, dark night.

  But Eric can’t survive without me. If anyone finds him like this, he’s dead. They’ll kill him just like I helped kill Rhonda and Sam. I have to get him somewhere safe.

  I have to leave the Homestead.

  When the sunlight starts streaming down through the pine trees, glittering and bright in the morning, I pick myself up off the earth and gather myself. I have to get back to our house before someone comes to look for us. I have to think of a reason why Eric isn’t here.

  I shut the doors to the Land Rover as best as I can and feel a burst of guilt for leaving Eric alone, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I start jogging back toward our house. As my feet touch down on the forest floor, I think.

  Thinking has always been a refuge for me. I like to disappear into the constant stream of thought that’s going on in my mind. When I’m working in the fields all day, I just vanish into this stream and let my mind do what it wants and go where it wants. But not now. Now I have to focus and try to keep it on track. It reminds me of the lessons that Eric was always giving me on everything from the history of the United States up to the Vaca B to the birth and death of stars. We would take turns reading from the books that he collected, and then Eric would ask me questions. Not just one or two, but like a dozen. Hard questions too. I had to sit and think them through, why this and why that. It was exhausting and sometimes I was sick of it and got mad at him. What was the use of thinking about all this dead science? What was the use of talking about Napoleon and Martin Luther King and World War Two in this world? What did it matter what Toni Morrison wrote and why? But as I run back to the house and feel my mind enter that space of focus, I understand that Eric was preparing me for this.

  As I heat up from the jog, I start planning. The plan is only half-finished when I get home to find Norman and Franky already there, waiting at the front door. They are looking at me with frowning faces. They are puzzled and there is something there that I haven’t seen before. As I come to a stop in front of them, I realize what it is.

  They don’t trust me.

  I smile at them.

  It starts now.

  30

  “Where’ve you been?” asks Franky, looking over my shoulder to the woods.

  I shrug. “I needed a run,” I say. Always wrap a lie inside the truth. I did need a run, just not for the reason they think.

  “Where’s Eric?” Norman asks. “We’ve been knocking on the door for a long time.” I notice they’re hands linger near their guns. They’re not stupid. They might guess that something has happened to Eric, something I want to hide. They might think Eric’s in there with the Worm, even cracked. I was right to move him.

  “He’s gone,” I say.

  The both of them look at me with surprise.

  I push past them and open the door. I leave it open behind me as I would have on any other day. It’s dark in the house. Norman and Franky don’t follow me in. They remain in the doorway. “He left last night,” I tell them. “Said he needed to think. He was pretty angry when I told them what we did with Rhonda and Sam.”

  The two look at each other uncomfortably. Franky even looks away in shame. Success.

  I twist the knife a little. “He told me he couldn’t be here right now if we were going to start murdering people.”

  “Shit,” Franky mutters.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” Norman says. “He picked a hell of a time to leave.”

  Franky hisses angrily. “I thought he would have this goddamn reaction. I came here last night to tell him myself, see if I could make him underst
and. We were risking lives keeping those two alive. It’s not as if we had a choice.”

  “That’s what I told him,” I lie. “He just said that if there’s a chance a person can survive, we can’t let them die. No matter how small the chance.”

  “Was he that angry?” Norman asks me.

  I nod.

  Franky grunts with annoyance and Norman looks down at his feet. I notice they’ve relaxed their grips on the guns, and I relax a little myself. Franky walks away and then back to the door again. Then, as if making a decision, he ducks through the door and walks into the house. “Well, what’re we going to do?” He’s asking Norman.

  “Lord,” Norman sighs, following Franky. Their heavy boots clomp in on the dirt floor. I can feel their attention slide away from me, and I know I’m out of hot water for now. Eric is a little safer. “I should’ve seen this coming.” He sits down at our table tiredly. “Who knows, maybe he’s right. Maybe we got ahead of ourselves.”

  “Bullshit,” Franky says, putting his gun down on the table before he sits. “Rhonda and Sam were dead, even if they were still standing. All they could do infect other people before they died.” This makes me nervous to hear. I think of Eric back in the truck. Maybe he’s right. Maybe Eric is nothing now but a risk to other people. To me.

  Then I notice that the house smells like the Worm. Likely the other two don’t notice it because they’re still in the same clothes I saw they had on when we burned Rhonda and Sam. Probably slept in them. They’re accustomed to the smell, at least for now, wrapped in it. But any minute they could get a nose full. If they do, the next thing they’ll do is check the loft, and I can only imagine what the state of Eric’s bed is like. They’ll know Eric has the Worm and they’ll find him.

  I open up the stove loudly and begin poking at the ashes. A few glowing embers emerges from last night’s fire. I reach into the wood box and pull out twigs and leaves from the bottom and throw them on the embers.

  “Well, it might be so,” says Norman, “but who’s to say that one of them might’ve come through in the end? Eric said that it happened.”

  “Maybe, maybe,” Franky acknowledges with a slow nod, “but maybe we can’t risk the lives of the people left. God knows there aren’t many of us.”

  Norman huffs at that, his way of agreeing to a disagreeable truth. This is the solid argument that I couldn’t win. This is why I have to leave with Eric. Maybe it’s true, maybe the right thing to do is kill him, but that’s not going to happen. No one touches Eric while I still breathe.

  I blow at the embers until there’s a lot of smoke. Then, as the flames start to lick at the back of the stove, I throw in some more leaves and pine needles and twigs. The smoke starts to billow out into the room. It should mask the smell.

  “Well, what’re we going to do then?” asks Norman. “People will be looking to Eric for some kind of leadership.”

  Franky makes a disgusted sound. “Eric’s never been the kind of leader we need.” I feel my back stiffen a little. I’ve never heard Franky speak like that against Eric. It sounds like he’s been repressing that sentence for a long time. I have to re-evaluate Franky. He’s been too good at hiding his true thoughts about Eric. It makes me angry and sad and uneasy. I take it out on the fire and blow at the embers with my eyes closed as the smoke pours from the open door. “What we need,” Franky continues, “is to organize and take care of this as a group. We should get everyone to gather at the Lodge. Let everyone know that the worst has passed. Have Crystal make us something to eat.”

  I want to ask how he knows the worst is passed, but I’m good at keeping my mouth shut. Instead I throw more pine needles on the fire. I’m rewarded by acrid puffs of lead gray smoke.

  “What’ll we tell them about Eric?” Norman asks.

  Franky shrugs. “The truth. We say he left last night to go think.” Franky makes thinking sound way worse than dragging two sick people out and shooting their brains out, which is what we did to Sam and Rhonda. I keep my back to them to hide my anger. I feel like I’m getting to know Franky for the first time and it’s not pleasant.

  “Christ sakes!” Norman coughs. “What’re you doing over there, Kestrel?”

  I turn my head around innocent as apple pie. “It’s cold,” I say.

  Franky coughs too. “I can’t hardly breathe,” he says and coughs again.

  “Don’t exaggerate,” I respond. “It’s just a little smoke.” I throw on a piece of wood and then shut the stove door with a hearty clang.

  The two get up from the table and walk to the door, holding their guns. I follow them outside in the air. The men’s eyes are watering from the smoke.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” Norman says, blinking.

  “Where’d Eric go, anyway?” Franky asks me. I feel his gaze before I see it. Cold and hard and calculating. Here’s a man I got totally wrong. He’s studying me and my response. This is the part of the plan that I haven’t gotten to yet. Think, Birdie.

  I shrug. “He didn’t really say.” Franky’s eyes flash a little, and I realize he wants more. “He said something about an old friend.”

  “You seem to be taking this well,” he says to me, with the same uncomfortable focus.

  “Well, he’s not dead,” I say and hold his eyes.

  There’s a moment when I’m not sure it’s working. His eyes are like points of fire on me, and my hearts speeds up when I think that I’m not sure if I have my knife or if I left it in the Land Rover.

  Then Franky smiles and puts a hand on my shoulder. “No, he’s not dead,” he says. He sounds more like the man I called my friend. He squeezes my shoulder a little, like comforting me. I know I’ve won, at least for now, but I feel horrible. “Come down to the Lodge when you’re ready,” he tells me. “We have things to do.”

  I nod and watch as they turn their backs. When their gaze is off me, I put my hand on my knife. It’s there, cool and certain, and I feel a little relief.

  But as I watch the men’s backs as they walk down the hill toward the Lodge, I know that everything and everyone I thought I knew has changed.

  It’s not a pleasant thing to know.

  31

  I don’t stay long at our house. I need to think, but I also need to be at the Lodge with everyone else. I need Franky and Norman to see me there, see me struggling with Eric’s absence. I don’t need their suspicion. As I trudge down to the Lodge, I pass the quarantine houses. In the midst of them is a smoking pyre. I can see two or three bodies still smoldering in the fire. I avert my eyes and continue downhill toward the Lodge. I can’t think of that right now.

  When I get there, a silent crowd has gathered. I have a sinking feeling in my chest. Is this all of us? The benches have been moved around several tables. Crystal has been cooking cornmeal cakes all morning. Someone brought up a new gallon of maple syrup, and Crystal is at the stove in the corner of the room, frying a dozen onions or so. She fries the onions down until they are dark and sweet and then puts them on the cakes with some maple syrup. Everyone is eating, but it’s hard to have an appetite. I look around, trying to be thankful for who’s left, but everyone I see just reminds me of someone who is gone. When I look at Pest, all I can see is the shadows of all the people who are dead now and burned to ashes. Crypt. Gunner. Matt. Rebok. All gone. When Crystal gives me my cornmeal cake, I see Rhonda in the kitchen in the farmhouse, giving me oatmeal cookies. I see her slumping down after Crystal shot her in the back of the head.

  I look around, but don’t have the heart to count people. It’s easy to see we’ve lost more than half. We eat without talking. There’s just the sound of forks and knives scraping against plates. Maybe a statement here and there about the weather. Maybe some talk about what needs to be done, but quietly, half-heartedly. We are in the company of ghosts. We can’t say anything. We can’t think too much about it. Our lives have to go on. It’s a new world, more haunted than the old one. None of us want to remember.

  I finish my first cornmeal cake without noticin
g that I’m eating, and Crystal slides me another. Norman passes me the maple syrup from across the table, and I pour it over the yellow cake and onions. I eat quietly.

  While I eat, I think. It keeps the ghosts at bay. I think about Eric burning away with fever up in the woods. I think about how I’m going to take care of him. What I should do when he dies. Will I tell people? Will I say I just found him like that? Will they believe that? What will they think when they find out that I lied to them? I think too of more practical problems. How will I get Eric to eat? How will I keep his temperature down? What will I do if he cracks? How will I find the strength to shoot him? It has to be me. I won’t let anyone else do it if it has to be done. This reminds me I have to get Eric’s gun.

  I hardly notice when Franky rises. He gets up and walks around the tables, clapping backs. I watch him move around and I can tell he’s already thinking of himself as the leader in Eric’s absence. People will follow him. They’re already used to asking for his help when something breaks. I would have thought he would be useless with grief after losing Diane and Amber, but instead he seems steady. I also detect in the way he moves around the room that he’s enjoying this, enjoying his new role in the community. I begin to think he’s always wanted something like this. He’s always been waiting for his chance. Eric had a powerful influence over people, without really trying, so Franky never made a move, but now. . . I don’t watch Franky directly. Just out of the corner of my eye. Something about the way he comforts people. The way he smiles sadly. Squeezes their shoulder. I don’t trust it. I am more sure than ever before that if I bring Eric back now, he’s a dead man. No doubt it would be Franky himself who would put him out of his misery. For the good of us all.