The World Without Flags

by Ben Lyle Bedard

  Pest and I move quietly through the open gates to the village and slowly up the street. I notice Pest has a gun out and just as quickly notice that it’s Eric’s old gun, in other words, my gun, but I’m not going to say anything now, of course. But it still irritates me.

  “That’s my gun,” I hiss at Pest. Immediately I regret it. Didn’t I just tell myself I would wait until a more appropriate time? Didn’t I just finish saying that to myself? It’s Pest’s fault, I think. He makes me act this way.

  Pest looks at me, and I could swear he was going to roll his eyes at me. My blood boils just to think of it. But he doesn’t, he stops himself. “I’ll give it back later,” he whispers.

  I have three or four smartass responses, but this time I keep them to myself. I just nod. I have other things to worry about, and I breathe in deeply to try to focus on the job at hand. It’s so stupid to be thinking about Pest right now as we move through this village of the dead.

  We fall into a pattern. With my knife out and ready, I watch outside while Pest goes into a house to look for supplies. I listen to him while he’s gone. He seems so loud, clomping around in the house, opening drawers, looking under beds. When he comes out, he usually shakes his head. Nothing. Then we move to the next house on the street. Outside the next house, there’s a little girl, no older than I was when the Worm first brought civilization down. While Pest is gone, I study her blonde hair and the raspberry barrette in her hair. She stands soundlessly, the tip of her tongue poking from her mouth. The tongue has been hanging out for so long, it’s dry and swollen black. I can see long, thin, almost transparent worms snaking from her ear. I try to keep an eye out like I’m supposed to, but I keep going back to the little girl.

  It’s while Pest is searching the fourth house, when we’re almost in the center of the village, that I see him, a balding old man with a red hunting jacket on. He’s trudging forward, dragging one leg behind him. It looks as if dogs have attacked him. His clothes are all ripped and his jeans are shredded. But what really grabs my attention are his boots: they are perfect for Eric: good, solid, black leather and what looks like steel toes. I turn to call for Pest, but I hear him rummaging around and stop. I don’t want to make any more noise than is necessary. I can do this myself.

  I move forward cautiously, and as I get closer, I can see that his leg is nearly torn completely off. It’s only held together by a shard of born and some yellow tendons. Approaching him carefully, I put out my hand and place it on his chest. He comes to a sudden stop. His head picks up a little and he makes a long sound. “Errrrrrrrrrr.” Black blood dribbles from his mouth, pocked by white worms. I shudder and then move behind him.

  “Sorry,” I whisper. I push my knee into the back of his one good knee and try to ease him to the ground like I do with Eric, but he just collapses immediately.

  “Ahrg! Ahrg!” he cries loudly. Black blood spits from his mouth. He begins to struggle on the ground, scraping the damp earth with his hands. With the loss of his leg, he doesn’t seem to know how to get up. “AAAHRG!” he shouts and then, shuddering, hacks up a massive blob of wriggling worms and black bile. It lands in a pile on the ground in front of him, and the smell of it makes me take a step backwards, putting my hand to my mouth.

  Pest bursts from the shack he has been searching and begins to point his gun everywhere, frantically. Then he levels his gun at the infected man and looks at me with confusion. “What’s happening?” he asks.

  “AAAHRG!” the man cries, even louder than before.

  “His boots!” I say. “I was just getting his boots!”

  “You should’ve waited for me!” Pest exclaims, stepping toward the man. He points his gun at him.

  “No!” I say. “Don’t shoot him!”

  “He’s making too much noise!”

  “AAAAHRG!” the man calls out, as if to punctuate his point.

  “Oh yeah and a gunshot is real tranquil,” I say to him.

  Pest doesn’t respond. He just looks around the village nervously.

  I move to the man and crouch down. While the man moves and cries, I unlace his boots and tug them free. Then I tie the laces together and sling the boots over my shoulder. I stand up and watch as the old man struggles on the ground, scraping and howling and shuddering. I wonder if we should shoot him, put him out of his misery. But what’s the difference between killing him and killing Eric? Doesn’t this poor man deserve a chance to get better too? I stare down at him as he cries, fixed by my own thoughts.

  I hear it then, a different cry, high-pitched, inhuman. I turn away to see the thing coming down the street. It’s a pig, or it used to be. Now it’s black eyes are covered with wriggling worms, and from its snout pours a black foam that drips maggots. One of its tusks is shattered and broken and the other is black. It’s once-pink hide is now gray and cracked. As it charges toward me, it lets out another inhuman squeal, so loud and terrifying that I stagger backward and trip over the infected old man. I feel myself fall, and, as if time slows, I see Pest leap forward, his gun raised. He begins shooting. I crash backwards, feeling the concussion of the gun shots in my chest.

  Everything rolls and spins and blurs. I hear more shots and the pig wailing. I roll backward, and try to come to my feet, but I can’t keep my balance and fall backward, sprawling to a stop. I hear yet another shot as I rise to my feet and spin around, my knife ready to confront the cracked animal.

  Instead, I see Pest standing over the corpse of the pig, his gun held to the side, still smoking. The smell of corpses and death mixes with gun powder. The pig’s head has three dark holes in it, one right below the eye socket. Black blood and long tendrils of thin worms pour from it like liquid from a bottle. Shakily, I step forward. Pest turns toward me.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  That’s when I notice his left arm, torn and bleeding where the pig managed to gore him.

  108

  By the time we get back to camp, I’m practically carrying Pest. He’s lost a lot of blood. My heart racing, I drag him next to the smoldering camp fire. I try not to think of the infection pumping through him, try not to think about what that means. Pest struggles into a sitting position, his back against a fallen tree. He looks up at me and smiles, but his smile is weak and it flitters across his face, fragile as a butterfly.

  “Don’t worry,” he says and then takes a deep breath. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Of course I’m going to worry, you idiot,” I hiss. I get down on my knees and open up his shirt. There’s a long, red gash down his left arm. I grimace when I see his wound is smeared with gray foam. I can almost see the tiny, microscopic little worms wriggling their way into his bloodstream, pumping through his body, reaching up into the temple of his brain. I shudder and turn away. I have to wash it. I have to clean it.

  Pest looks down at his arm and his face turns sickly pale. “Oh man,” he breathes. He turns away, but I see it’s too late. He blinks several times and then his eyes roll up in his head. His shoulders twitch as he passes out. I’m relieved that he won’t be awake while I wash his wound. I can’t afford to be gentle.

  It takes a long time for the water to boil. My mind is thinking about what to do now that Pest is infected. Will we go on? Will we wait here while he gets sick? Will I have to take care of him too like I take care of Eric? The thought of leading the two of them to the Good Prince fills me with fatigue. I struggle just to take care of Eric, I think. How can I take care of both? And I’m thinking too that it could go an entirely different way. Pest could crack. The disease could be too much for him to take and he’ll crack. Then I’ll have to shoot him. I’ll have to shoot him and the man who saved me. Not once, not twice, but three times!

  Did I just think of Pest as a man? He’s just a boy, I tell myself. Just a kid.

  But the way he looks. The way his eyes flash with intelligence. His patience. How he always thinks before he acts. How I trust and respect him. It makes me think of him as much older. It’s easy to make that m
istake.

  But it’s a mistake. He’s just a little boy, years younger than me.

  Years, I tell myself.

  I’m so upset that I sit back, overwhelmed. I grab my legs and hug them close to my body. Why is all this happening to me? Why does it all have to go wrong all the time? I feel myself shaking, trembling, and I hug myself harder to keep steady.

  “Keep it together,” I say out loud. “Keep it together, Birdie.”

  Think.

  I take a few deep breaths.

  “All right,” I say. “All right.” I sniff loudly and realize I’ve been crying again. Tears of pure frustration. I wipe my eyes clean with my shirt. “All right.”

  “Unh,” Eric says, his face still pressed into the tree where I left him.

  “Not now,” I mutter. “I got things to do.”

  109

  Halfway through cleaning Pest’s wound, Queen comes back. She whines and paces, worried. She tries to reach in with her snout and lick at his wound, but I push her away. Then she starts to circle the camp. Her circles grow and then, at some point, I don’t see her anymore.

  I’ve decided that sometimes thinking isn’t the best way to handle a situation. Sometimes you just have to deal with what is right in front of you. You have to shut off your mind and focus. I can’t think about what I’m going to do later when Pest turns or when he cracks or if he just dies. There’s no use in thinking about it. Whatever happens, I’ll deal with it then. If I worry too much about the future, I’ll break down.

  After I clean his wounds, I drag Pest’s backpack over near the fire and begin to rummage through it. I find a shirt and put it in the boiling water. I bring the water to a boil again and then take out the shirt while it’s still steaming and hang it from a branch. After a few minutes, when it’s cooled enough, I take it down, wring it out as dry as I can, and then begin to reduce it to long strips. I wrap up Pest’s arm as best as I can, and then I sit back. I watch the flames. I listen to Queen out in the woods, pacing, whining. I look at the gun that used to be Eric’s, still is, I guess. Soon I will have to pick it up and load it and get ready because I might have to do it. I might have to shoot him. If he cracks.

  But I can’t get myself to do it. I look over at Pest, his round face surrounded by dark curls, his eyes closed almost serenely. He stepped in front of that pig to save me. He put himself in danger to keep me safe, and now he’s suffering from it. I study his face and I’m suddenly struck by it. I feel myself go rigid with the force of it. Why? Why would he do that? He said he owes a lot to Eric, but what does he owe me? I’ve never treated him very well. Actually, I think I’ve treated him very badly. But that didn’t seem to matter to him. Why would he risk his life for me?

  “No one asked you to,” I tell him out loud. And then I blush because it’s a mean thing to say to the person who just saved you, even if he is unconscious. I don’t know why I’m so mean to him. I don’t know why I’ve always distrusted him and thought he was a creep. Looking back on it, I can’t think of a single cruel thing he’s ever done to me, except maybe speaking in Spanish. And now it seems he’s sacrificed himself just to keep me safe. Just for a pair of boots for Eric.

  I see that I’m crying again. I feel so lonely. So confused. So tired.

  I wipe my face. “All right,” I tell myself. “Enough of that.” I sniff wetly. “Seriously, though. Enough.”

  I go back to Pest’s backpack and begin to look through it. We have to eat, and, besides, I need to know what my resources are. I need to do a little inventory, so I begin pulling out everything: socks, shirts, an extra pair of pants, a pair of swimming shorts, two different swiss army knives, a little plastic bag of hooks, a spool of fishing line, a hunting knife, a compass, another pair of socks, that’s good, a plastic He-Man, okay, that’s random, a dog-eared copy of Dune: Messiah, nice, sunglasses, binoculars, a pair of heavy duty scissors, a matchbox filled with razor blades, good one, a bundle of green, nylon string, a cigar box filled with oh, good idea, aspirin, cold medicine, a little packet of sewing needles, some other pills that I don’t recognize, and what’s this?

  I stop.

  It’s my drawing case.

  I sit back and open it. All my drawing materials there surrounding a pad of white paper.

  I begin to tremble and then look over to Pest. He brought this for me.

  I try not to cry. I really try.

  I shut the case gently and close the little, brass latch.

  I can’t afford these feelings right now. I blink away the tears and put the case down gently on the ground. Then I go back to inventory.

  There’s nothing left in the main compartment of the backpack. When I search the other pockets, I find a little notebook in a plastic bag and a leather wallet. I know these are personal, but I open them up anyway. Maybe I shouldn’t. I tell myself I shouldn’t, but even while I’m thinking it, I’m still doing it. I flip through the notebook and stop randomly. It says, “The winter days are the worse. The cold bites like an angry dog. I get tired of the people. I get tired of seeing them every day and having the same, inane conversations. If one more person says cold enough for ya, I’m going to kill them with my bare hands.” I flip again and stop to read: “. . .still can trust some people. I didn’t think it was true, but Eric has shown me it can still be like this. I have to add this to the list of things I owe him. I don’t have much faith in this world, but all I have left, all I’ve been able to keep, it’s thanks to him.” I want to read more, but finally the voice telling me to stop wins over and I close the diary. I put it back in its plastic envelope even though I am burning with desire to read the whole thing.

  I open the wallet and search through it. When I read the card, I look at Pest in astonishment. I can hardly sleep that night, thinking about it, disbelieving my own eyes.

  110

  Miraculously, Pest wakes up the next morning without a fever. I expected the Worm to have dug into him by then, but he looks fine. Maybe a little pale from all the blood he lost, but otherwise, he’s healthy. He gets up and actually helps me make breakfast, using some of the last of the oatmeal he brought with him from the Homestead. He doesn’t say much, only thanks me for bandaging his arm. He says he wants to get going. He doesn’t want to stay there any longer. I think we both know what’s going to happen and we don’t want to talk about it.

  While I try to feed Eric some oatmeal soup, I steal glances over at Pest. He’s patting a wildly happy Queen who can hardly keep from covering his face with dog slurp. I study him while he packs up all our stuff in his backpack. He looks like he’s always looked. A round, white face, topped by a mop of curly black hair. His blue eyes shine and sparkle. There’s darkness under his eyes, but he’s the same Pest as usual. Except he’s not. I search over his features and I think I see something under them that I hadn’t noticed before. Something in the way he moves, so deliberate, so. . .experienced. It’s the way an adult moves. It’s always been spooky to me.

  “Unh,” says Eric. I’ve been so occupied with Pest that I hadn’t been paying attention. Eric’s black tongue is wriggling, trying to get to the oatmeal soup I’m just barely dribbling out of the aluminum mug.

  “Oh,” I say to him. “Sorry, Eric.” I try not to think of Pest for a minute and concentrate on Eric. He’s looking a little better, not so gaunt as before, or, I don’t know, waterlogged. I steady him with a hand on his chest and then carefully pour the oatmeal into his mouth. I’m getting better at it, but most of it still falls all over him. His black tongue writhes toward the mug, and I cringe as I watch. “Gross, Eric,” I groan as he pushes his head up toward the mug.

  “Unh,” he says, straining upward. “Unh.”

  I’m glad when he finishes, so I can stand up and move away from him. Eric continues to search for more, his black tongue wriggling.

  “Okay,” I tell him. “There’s no more.”

  While he’s occupied with searching for more water, I take advantage of it by pulling a pair of socks over his red feet
and then the new boots. As I lace them up, I look over to Pest who’s sitting down on a log not far away, looking away into the forest. As I finish putting on the boots, I look down at them. They fit him well. But I think of what a terrible price we paid for them. It makes me want to cry. It makes me want to tell Pest something, to thank him, to hold him. But when I look over to him, I’m just so confused, I don’t know what to say. I want to ask him about what I saw in his wallet, but I can’t. Not while he’s like this. Not while he’s only got a few more hours before the Worm gets him. It’s precious time. It’s his time, and I don’t want to disturb it. It’s probably the last time he’ll ever have.

  I pull Eric to his feet. Eric stands straight at first and then leans forward. His arms swing senselessly down, like they’re filled with water. Eric looks like someone who’s about ready to pick up something. He clomps forward like this for two steps before I stop him.

  “Stand up straight,” I tell him, trying to maneuver him. He stands up straight again, but then sags forward, but not all the way, like he’s searching for something on the ground.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Pest asks, approaching us.

  “Nothing,” I answer. I shrug. “He just does what he does.”

  Pest looks at him and frowns. I try to read what he’s thinking, what he’s feeling, but I can’t. I wonder if he’s thinking about the Worm inside him now, how in just a few days, he could be just as Eric is now. Or he could be dead. That’s what I’d be thinking. But as much as I stare at Pest’s face as he looks up at Eric, I don’t have the first clue of what’s going on in there.

  “Let’s get going,” he says finally.

  We continue south, making a wide circle around the town. Neither of us mention what happened there. We just keep walking through the forest. I try to hide the glances I keep giving to Pest, waiting for signs of blood in his eyes, the flush redness in his face that would mark a fever, the sudden clumsiness in the limbs that would suggest the Worm has him. For hours we walk and I see nothing. But my heart is breaking slowly, at this walking pace through the forest, as Pest marks out the last hours of his life.