North

by Frank Owen

  ‘Resistance HQ. You already said. Iowa, right?’

  ‘Yeah, but more specific than that – Des Moines,’ Adams said slowly. He paused. ‘Capitol Building, to be even more exact.’

  Felix tilted his head in disbelief. ‘What? That’s Renard’s home base. Why the fuck would you want to head there?’

  ‘Correction: it used to be Renard’s home base – till you Callahans fucked it up. Place got sealed overnight. Official word was that Renard was saying he couldn’t work somewhere his wife had died, and who could blame the guy? But if what you told me is right, it was more like he didn’t want anyone snooping round and figuring out he killed her himself. His slogan wasn’t exactly “Women and children first”. It’s the last place anyone would expect the Resistance to set up HQ. So . . .’

  ‘So that’s where you set it up. Jesus please us!’

  ‘Man, it’s perfect. It’s still sealed. Not even Renard’s men are allowed in. I gotta pee,’ Adams suddenly said, real quick, and then he slid down from the bonnet. Felix watched him hurdle the stone wall and vanish into the dogwoods. He hadn’t expected him to be able to move that swiftly, but when nature called, a man had to answer. Felix sat up.

  ‘Back to Des Moines,’ he said, just to hear the words. He shook his head.

  He looked at the line of cars. A white sedan was driving in the wrong lane, determined, lapping the stationary traffic. At the picnic turnoff, it rumbled onto the gravel and came to a stop beside Felix, rattling as it idled. A tiny woman with a silver crew cut leant her head out of the window.

  Shit, thought Felix. Police!

  He felt a flush of heat rising in his throat – here he was, a fucking Southerner, sitting on the side of a Northern highway in a stolen patrol car! He tried to remember whether there was any indication that this car was a service vehicle rather than a regular car. He couldn’t recall a badge or siren rack or anything. Maybe it’d be okay. Maybe she’d look him over and move along. Her door swing wide open. She stepped out onto the dirt.

  ‘Everything all right here?’ She had a mole near her top lip, like Marilyn Monroe. Felix watched it bob up and down as she spoke.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, and tipped three fingers at his forehead in a scout’s salute. ‘Just waiting out the traffic in a less, ah, unpleasant spot. No use sitting up there breathing exhaust fumes with a bladder as old as mine.’

  The officer gave him a sideways glance. ‘And where are you headed, sir?’

  Shit. Shit. Shit. She’s going to ask me to get out of the car. Then I’m fucked.

  ‘Same as everyone.’ He waved at the traffic. ‘Home. Saratoga. Hope the old house is still standing, but rushing back ain’t going to change it one way or the other.’

  ‘Too true.’ She made a circuit of the car before she stood at Felix’s window and leant over. ‘Can I ask you to get out of the car, sir,’ she said, and Felix could smell her perfume mingling with the vanilla freshener.

  ‘Ma’am, I don’t mean to be funny or disrespectful or nothing of the sort – but before you pulled up just now, I was busting for a pee. Right now my finger’s in the dyke, so to speak. Sorry for the indiscretion, truly, but if I get up out of this car, that’s the first thing I’m going to have to do. And heaven help whoever’s standing in my way.’

  The woman stepped back quickly and Felix opened his door and stood, creakily.

  ‘You mind if I take a look in your vehicle?’

  Felix knew how it was with cops. Saying ‘No way, Jose’ when they asked your permission was an admission of guilt. Simple as that.

  ‘Absolutely. And if you find a stinky basketball-shaped air freshener in the back there, please do us all a favor and toss it out the window.’

  Felix turned and waddled toward the edge of the gravel, to the sagebrush where Adams had already made his break. How far would he get if he made a run for it now? How long did he have before Sergeant Crew Cut went through the contents of the glovebox and got suspicious? There was no way he was staying here, waiting for her to pull her gun and tell him to get on the ground. He kept going, expecting at each step to hear her ordering him to stop. One more step. Another. He was in the sagebrush, and then the trees of the copse closed their cool leaves behind him.

  He heard her shout now, and the crunch of her boots as she came running. Felix broke into a jog. She’d run him down in a minute, but so be it. Had to wake up early if you were going to catch wily old Felix Callahan! He pushed through some sumac, wading fast and steady, all the while listening for the heavy tread of the policewoman behind him, bracing for the impact of her tackle. Man, it hurt to run!

  But there, just to his left, hunkered down like a rattler, was Adams, and Felix almost yelped at the sight of him. He was holding a rock, and before Felix could say anything, he had already leapt at the officer. Her scream was cut off. There was a meaty thud and she collapsed. Adams held onto the rock. Some of her hair was on it, stuck there to the dark blood. Felix couldn’t look at her, at what had happened to the little mole near her gaping mouth.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Adams told him. He wasn’t even breathing hard.

  The two men kept their heads down as they emerged from the vegetation. There were eyes watching them from the cars on the road, but no one got out. No one opened a window and asked where the woman had gone. It was the sweater that did it, thought Felix. No man wearing a reindeer across his chest could be much of a threat.

  They got into the car and Adams eased it along the circular track, past the black-ringed smears of ancient fires and back to the edge of the highway.

  ‘Jesus! Was that some kind of test? Or did you actually just hang me out to dry?’ Felix asked. Now that he was sitting down, his heart was hammering at his ribs.

  ‘Well, either way, you got the job done, so no harm.’

  ‘Not yet. But keep that shit up and it’s just a matter of time.’

  ‘Anyway, the traffic’s moving. It ought to be safe to carry on,’ said Adams. He edged the car over the lip of the asphalt and waved a cheery goodbye to a woman in the back seat of a Passat.

  14

  It was only after midday that Dyce and Vida both felt safe enough to fall asleep at the same time. Until then, the unspoken agreement was that one would stay awake so that the other didn’t also have to worry as they watched the line of cars inch by. Still, the worry was unavoidable: the mind searched for rough spots and losses, and so Vida fretted feverishly about her mother, who could be anywhere, and Dyce in his turn worried about Vida. For the first time he wished Ruth was with them. He’d seen shallower wounds than the one on Vida’s leg end in amputation. Buddy had done his best – cleaned it out with a stash of cotton swabs that had collected on the floor like bloody snowflakes, then squeezed two tubes of antibacterial cream into the filleted wound, trying to replace the lost flesh until it could grow back in its own time. He had tried to be gentle, but even so the sweat stood sharply in Vida’s hairline and she hadn’t been able to speak through the pain, her breath hissing in when the pressure got too intense. Then he had taken care to wrap the whole mess from ankle to thigh so tightly that she could hardly move. Maybe that was the idea. At least she could sleep – or maybe it was a kind of protective coma, Dyce thought when he woke up first.

  The whole healing process was horrible to watch – how did parents stand the suffering of their children? – but it was also pretty weird. It was clear that whatever the mushrooms were doing to immunize them against the random viruses, they were also working to keep Vida’s leg from turning green. It was still hard to believe, though it felt as if they’d lived this way forever. Against the evidence, he was always expecting her to collapse, but Vida was made of iron. No, that’s wrong, Dyce thought. It was pure determination. She had some deep drive in her that other people lacked, and it was always going to save her life. Not like Bethie, or the other hundreds of thousands – millions? – of people who had given up and died during the War, and then in all the years after it. Vida was different. How did she
ever end up with me? he wondered.

  He turned over to look at her closely now that she was oblivious and he had her to himself. He wanted to stroke her curling eyelashes, the damp dimple of her upper lip. It made his heart hurt, and even in the moment he knew what it was: they loved each other, and they loved each other’s bodies, whole or damaged, but after this, she wouldn’t need him. Dyce sighed. There was no script for this one – no roses or dates or first fucking base. It was a love that had been made for the end of the world.

  Vida opened one eye. ‘Okay, Casanova. You know it’s creepy to watch someone sleeping, right?’

  ‘Now you tell me.’

  She stuck out her tongue. ‘No one’s having sex today, buddy. Have mercy on the crippled lady. But you know what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll get better faster on my own.’ She tried to smile. ‘And then we’ll make up for lost time, I promise.’

  ‘I can get behind that.’

  ‘That, my furry friend, is exactly what I was thinking. Go and limber up outside somewhere. Gotta keep flexible.’ She was smiling that crooked smile again, and he saw that it was costing her.

  Dyce dropped a smooch on her lips and then got up. He’d just hang outside, close to the fuselage of the plane so no one saw him. It was enough just to be able to breathe freely. He still wasn’t used to the air. It stank of carbon monoxide from the stalled engines on the road, but it was real, and it was clean enough to inhale without fear. Northern air. Those fuckers didn’t know how lucky they were. He wondered if they knew what price had been paid by the South for that good air. He surveyed the land from horizon to horizon. There was something strange about everything, even the plants beneath his feet: they were more orderly here than back South. The same blue grama and buffalo grass fought for space, but here they seemed to draw their battle lines and grow in neat patches. Back South, even the grass would tussle, overcoming saplings, sending its seeds out to infiltrate and colonize not just bare patches but established shrubs.

  Dyce decided that he preferred the South. There was something unnatural about the restraint that pulsed through the North – from Buddy’s smile right down to the dirt.

  When he came back inside, Vida was properly under and the afternoon was quiet, the voices of the people in the cars drifting back to them over the distance. He lay down back to back with her, the bad leg resting on the good, her spine touching his, like twins.

  Buddy woke them an hour before sundown.

  ‘Look,’ he said, and pointed outside. ‘It’s two-way again. We’re clear to get moving. Got about a ten-hour trip ahead of us, so if you need a pee – or worse – go get that done now.’

  ‘Where we headed?’ In his sleep, Dyce had turned to lie behind Vida, his arm resting across the curve of her stomach.

  ‘It’s a surprise,’ Buddy replied.

  ‘Look,’ said Dyce, sitting up and leaving a cold spot where he had lain. ‘You’re not a leprechaun, Buddy. We’re not searching for a pot of gold. Help me out here. There’s a reason I’m asking. We weren’t the only ones to make it across the Wall. We’ve got friends and relations somewhere up North. We got to know where we’re headed so we can make a call, see who survived.’

  ‘Ten hours’ drive,’ murmured Vida, ‘and we’re starting to turn east. What’s ten hours east of here? That’s clear through Nebraska, right?’

  Buddy snorted. ‘Not the way you remember it.’

  ‘Iowa, then? Or whatever it is now? Blink if I’m getting warm.’ Dyce faced him square-on. ‘We need to know where we’re going. Believe me, we’re grateful for all your help, and we’ve seen no reason not to trust you, Buddy. You’ve been mighty kind. But.’

  ‘I’m North and you’re South, and never the twain shall meet?’

  ‘That’s about the stretch of it.’

  ‘So? This ain’t Romeo and Juliet, pal. You’re not pretty enough.’ Buddy took his cap off and blew air upward, nettled. ‘The more people who know about the Resistance HQ, the more likely someone will tell, that’s all. First thing they teach you.’

  Dyce and Vida said nothing. Finally Buddy conceded.

  ‘Okay, okay. Iowa. Des Moines, if you must know. The old Capitol Building. Happy now?’

  ‘Ecstatic.’

  Buddy shook his head. ‘Hope I get a medal for this.’ He turned to go and then came back. ‘Those others, the Southerners: you want to know the best-case scenario? Maybe one of the other scouts found them, way they did with your man Felix Callahan, and if that’s the case, they’ll be heading where we’re heading.’

  ‘And worst-case?’

  ‘Didn’t your mama teach you not to ask questions when you already know the answers?’

  They packed up, Vida moving stiffly and Dyce doing most of the work, but there wasn’t much apart from the supplies that Buddy had left in the plane.

  Back at the truck, they found it had sunk down in the waterlogged prairie grass, and Dyce wasted minutes fetching stones and old bits of carpet from the cockpit to jam under the tires for grip. Buddy spun the wheels while Dyce leant on the tailgate, and the truck finally jumped forward.

  They were all back in the vehicle, bumping over the soggy grassland to the road, and Vida was nestling against Dyce so he couldn’t see the pain yanking at her mouth.

  ‘I feel like such a fucking burden.’

  ‘Well, that’s because you are,’ he said, and kissed the top of her head. ‘But you’re my burden. And I intend to get full value.’

  Vida grimaced. For some reason her insides were sore: even against the steady complaint of her leg it felt like some tendon in her ovaries – did you even have tendons there? – was stretching. Quit whining, she told herself. That’s what Ruth would have said. Burn that old bridge when you get to it.

  The red sun went down somewhere behind the clouds, throwing shafts of light over the landscape, and the hundreds of cars were brushed with gold, the heads of their passengers fuzzed with light. After the initial thunk back onto the asphalt, and Buddy’s grin and thumbs-up to the driver behind who had let him jump the queue, there was only the hum of the engine and the static of the wheels to lull Dyce and Vida to sleep.

  They woke after a couple of hours in the dark somewhere on the flat face of Nebraska.

  Buddy looked at them in the mirror when he noticed them stirring and turning their faces to the cold glass. ‘You ain’t missed much. Welcome to the good life.’

  ‘Fuck,’ said Dyce slowly, looking out at the desolation.

  ‘Yup.’ Buddy sighed and it turned into a yawn. ‘Just wait till it gets light and you can see what you’re up against.’

  Dyce hadn’t explained that he could see in the dark – that kind of secret was worth holding onto.

  ‘Nebraska wasn’t exactly easy on the eyes before the War,’ Buddy went on. ‘Wall-to-wall factory farms, but at least they were producing, you know? But now . . .’ He shook his head, and the bill of the red baseball cap made him look like a watchful bird. ‘Buildings are all caved in, the cages are empty. Just scrub and rusty barbed wire. You ever get a hankering for tetanus, you go for a stroll in old Nebraska. Out here’s like the Wild West all over again.’

  Vida’s heart sank. She could see nothing, just the darkness spread flat on the landscape, and somewhere out there was her mother under the same sulky clouds and weak moon. Her leg was aching worse than it had before, rebelling against the attention, and her abdomen throbbed in time with it. Maybe her mama could fix all those things, but she was long ago and far away. Let her be there, Vida said to herself. At the Capitol Building, in Nebraska, anywhere in the North. I’ll find her as soon this leg’s fixed; just let her be there. But she had no idea where to direct her prayer.

  15

  When Kurt woke up, the highway beside the diner was bumper to bumper with Northerners heading home after the storm. He uncurled and slid out from under the booth table, looking around for Linus, but the creature was already up and about on cat business.

  He
felt for the pendant. Still there. He could lose everything else, but the ivory swan was the only thing he cared about, taken from Bethie after she’d died and couldn’t stop him, nestled there between her breasts. She wanted him to have it. She had told him with her eyes.

  His clothes were strung up on butcher’s string behind the grill, where he’d left one plate on all night to warm the place and to draw the moisture from his jeans. He felt them. They were still wet along the waist, but he slid them on. Things to do.

  He hadn’t noticed before, but now when he looked, his shirt was cut up pretty bad along the back, from his struggle with the North Platte. That wouldn’t do. No, sir. Callahans got standards. He went to search the cleaning cupboard, hoping for a change of clothes, overalls maybe, but found nothing he could use. He looked at Norma where she lay spread-eagled on the floor, her keys twinkling beside her like treasure. She still had on her floral blouse underneath that housecoat – and why wouldn’t she? He wasn’t some kind of pervert, but that might have to do. It was about three sizes too big for him and stank of her perfume, but he worked it off her sodden limbs anyway. He would have to rinse the blackened blood from the collar under the kitchen tap, but that was easy enough.

  ‘Cold water for hot blood. That right, lady?’

  He rubbed at the mapped stain, and it faded but wouldn’t disappear entirely. He gave up and set himself to cutting the wet material to size with the diner’s kitchen scissors. It wasn’t the first time he’d adapted the oversized clothes of the grownup dead: he’d taken one of his uncle’s shirts too after the damn fool man got himself caught in the wind. Kurt had cut and crudely shaped it with a knife, then sewed it all back together in a smaller size with the unraveled thread from the hem of a ragged blanket. Now he would have to leave it hanging behind the grill like a corpse. He was sad to leave it: that shirt was the closest to an inheritance he was going to get.

  When he was dressed, he went looking for the cat. It had to be somewhere, since he’d closed all the windows before bedtime to keep the warmth in from the stove. He finally found the tabby wedged between two chest freezers, their white sides rumbling, hot with electricity.