Upon Us

by Blakely Chorpenning

  "Are you okay?" she asked him.

  Any type of obstruction or physical exertion could impair his breathing. Graham and I waited silently for him to answer.

  "I'm fine."

  "Yes?" I asked.

  He stressed, "I'm fine." Though it wasn't an irritable tone, I noted the restless shell. I knew he wasn't frustrated with me, he was being reminded of his limitations.

  Trying to be mindful of our surroundings, we searched the yard for any of the doctor's men. There were none to be found. Behind us, flames engulfed the entire room, lapping at the second floor.

  Dr. Lowel's bottom lip trembled. "The hospital," she whimpered.

  Feeling sick for their loss, I reminded her, "It's just rooms."

  "I can't let everything burn." She took a deep breath and re-energized. "I'm going back in through the front door."

  "I'll help you," Graham offered. "We need to do it now or there won't be anything left worth saving."

  We rounded the corner to the front of the building. A few people had gathered out front, noticing the ball of smoke rising into the sky.

  "Help them," Ren barked at the small crowd.

  The people ran to the front steps, following Graham and the doctor inside. The roses along the walls were already wilting from the heat of the flames growing closer, every other one catching fire from airborne embers. Imminent doom billowed from every crevice.

  "We need to help them, too," I said, starting to trail after them.

  "No." Ren motioned in the opposite direction. "A crowd is building in the common area. What's more important than a fire?"

  He was right. The entire village should have been fighting to save their only hospital and precious medical equipment. Instead, they were skipping and jogging towards the epicenter, voices aflutter. No one was paying attention to the ever-building chimney pumping smoke into the air.

  With helpers for the doctor, I didn't feel guilty joining Ren as we followed everyone, making out words here and there. They were excited. Something new had come into their community. Something of value.

  Standing in the back of the massive crowd, I tried to see what everyone else was looking at, but couldn't.

  "What is it? Can you see?" I feverishly questioned Ren.

  He slowly shook his head, his attention forward, listening.

  I tugged on the man's arm in front of me. He turned around. His hair had lost its color a long time ago, and the wrinkles around his mouth and eyes were deep.

  I asked, "Do you know why everyone's here?"

  "Something about a surplus from the government."

  From the government. Those words were not often spoken. Since the New Beginning, the government ran on what they called a "skeleton crew." Stark and, in most situations, non-existent.

  "Something's not right," Ren whispered. "They've offered incentives in the past, like I told you, but not in a show to the entire village. They've always only brought a little at a time, and that wouldn't impress everyone this much."

  I reached for his hand. When he cupped his around mine, we inched closer through the crowd. Although people were willing to shift, allowing us through, it was still a tight fit, as there was nowhere for them to shift to. Everywhere I looked, bodies huddled close, waiting.

  Abruptly, a female voice cut through the chatter, echoing from a megaphone. I knew this object from a book I once read and had always wanted to try one, even though it would be too loud to safely use anywhere.

  "The help your village has provided year after year has been immeasurable. Future generations may never match your spirit. They may never know your struggles. The least we can do is show our appreciation on this day." The sound of awakening truck engines dulled the megaphone's effect. "Thank you!" the feminine voice squawked.

  The engines grew farther away. We could see the tops of green cargo trucks driving in the direction of the front gates.

  "Something's not right," Ren repeated. The lines of his forehead exposed the wear from the last handful of days.

  After a few minutes, the excitement of the crowd swelled. Voices rang out from the front to inform everyone in the back. A few started saying, "Clothing!" "Shoes!" "Tools!"

  Clothing.

  Clothing…

  Little Tish's brightly striped coat flashed into the forefront of my memory. How it looked rather new and out of place. And the sick men in Bleeker Clanship with their unblemished hats.

  Panic smashed through my gut with the weight of every dead I had ever held, buried, or cried over.

  "Don't touch them!" I screamed. Dropping Ren's hand, I shoved him backward, yelling, "Get away!" I elbowed and kicked and stumbled my way forward through the crowd, all the while bellowing, "It's the sickness! Don't touch it!"

  The sickness was being introduced into the clanships -and now the villages- as contaminated supplies.

  The moment the crowd heard "sickness" they, too, shouted ahead.

  Busting through the head of the mob, I frantically took stock of the rows of large crates. Three men stood frozen. One had stopped short of cracking open the lid of his container. The other two held their mallets and crowbars loosely in hand, the lids cast aside.

  Clothing had already been lifted out and passed around. Searching the crowd, I ripped the material from their hands.

  "The fabric is contaminated!"

  Hushed tones exploded into gasps and shrieks through the morning air. Parents snatched their children up and began struggling to flee the masses. The exterior of the mob peeled away, leading to the next line of bodies ready to run. A stampede was beginning.

  "Go to your homes!" I directed. "Stay away from your neighbors!" To the individuals who had touched the grave wares, I said, "Leave your clothes and bathe immediately!"

  They obediently stripped off their clothing. Every bit of it. As they trembled, nude and frightened, I remembered that they were still people. They weren't sticks of flesh yet, and they needed help.

  Looking each of them in the eye, I nodded. "There's still hope. You can still be okay. Go bathe." And they were gone, the crowd steering clear of them.

  Did they believe my words? I wasn't sure.

  I didn't.

  As footsteps progressed into frantic racing, I stiffened. Allowing the full force of my terror recall the paralleled moments from my past, I wondered how many times I would watch them run and hide? The idea of a never-ending hole in the earth, eating body after body as I shoveled them in, bore through the very soul of my being.

  Bodies broke into chaos, and I stood still, focused on the plume of smoke in the distance. Another world on the cusp of extinction.

  Hands were on my shoulders, shaking me. I felt too removed from my body to understand. I was floating in a timeless void, wondering if the axis of the world had always relied on death's hinge to revolve.

  The voices blended together into one giant scream. Suddenly, one voice cut through the rest.

  "We have to go!" he yelled. Ren was shaking me, pleading for a reaction.

  Air flooded my lungs. I hadn't been breathing. I hadn't been alive.

  Searching his eyes, I grew angry. "I told you to leave." I thrust his arms off mine. "Don't touch me." I tossed the discarded material on top of one of the open crates.

  "What are you doing?"

  "I have to burn it. All of it."

  Without interrogation, Ren disappeared. Once I was done stacking the clothing, he reappeared behind me, holding a satchel and a torch. I took the torch without looking at him and tossed it on the heap. The flame was weak at first, soon gaining momentum.

  "Get away!" I screamed this time. "You can't be here." Removing the paperwork from my waistband, I stripped naked and tossed my clothing into the pyre, as well.

  "Then let's leave," he pleaded.

  He offered his hand. The possibilities called to me, but I fought the urge to take it. Sickening thoughts flooded my mind. Fears of Ren taking Bea's place in my memories. The idea of killing him threatened to send me screaming int
o oblivion.

  Dropping his hand back to his side, he said, "I saw Lenna and Shells. We need to get them out of here. They weren't here. They haven't been infected."

  Snapping out of my mind's snare, I nodded, running to the nearby laundry outpost and lathering my entire body with soap as fast as I had ever moved. The water was frigid as it poured out of the barrel. Though I washed the germs away, the deaths of these people would be something I could never get rid of.

  "Come!" Ren yelled.

  He tried to wrap his arm around me, but I dodged him. "You can't touch me."

  "Damn it." Ren pulled his shirt off and tossed it to me.

  Sliding it over my head, I embraced the fleeting smell of gingerroot gliding across my nose. Ren's scent.

  We ran to his house as quickly as I could hobble, where I finished dressing and shoved the paperwork into my backpack. Ren shoved a crutch in my hand. At the door, I turned, taking one last look on our way out. Ren's house had been more of a home in the short time I was there than many had been for as long as the moon cycles existed.

  The pathways were empty as we made our way to the greenhouse. When we got there, Shells was waiting patiently with her doll in hand as Lenna shuffled along a wall, stuffing her bag.

  "I'm almost done," she practically sing-sang. "Jolee, can you carry that bag over there?" She motioned with her chin. "Those are the seeds."

  It felt odd to hear that name spoken by someone other than Ren. I almost forgot to respond.

  "What are you packing?" I asked.

  "Things seeds need to grow strong."

  Her bag was well and truly full, sitting low, when the four of us quietly navigated backyards and less popular pathways. Soon enough, we came to an overgrown gate. Ren thought it best not to leave the same way as the doctor and his people, in case they were waiting to stop anyone from escaping. From spreading the sickness. They wouldn't know about the alternate exit.

  Ren and I tugged at the vines, wrestling through dead leaves. The gate had been long forgotten by his village.

  "Stand back." He unlatched the gate and rammed it twice with his good shoulder. The gate creaked under the force. He rammed it twice more before it gave with a low kah sound. Vines snapped, enabling it to swing open three hands wide. "Go," he ordered.

  Lenna shooed little Shells through first, in front of her. She turned back and said, "Thank you."

  I gripped a piece of Ren's long sleeve in my hand as I crossed the barrier, abruptly stopping when he didn't follow. I tugged harder. "Come on."

  He looked stricken.

  "What?" I asked, puzzled. As anxiety crept up my body like one of the itchy vines we had discarded, I refused to let go of his shirt. Of him.

  Ren whispered, "I can't go."

  "You have to." Tugging harder on his arm, I fought the panic rising like bile.

  "These are my people. I have to stay and help."

  My words felt like the swift judgment of an axe through flesh. "If you stay, you die."

  "Maybe." There was a look in his eye. It told me a part of him didn't care. But it also exposed a sliver that did care. About me.

  I nodded. "Then I'll stay."

  He tossed his bag into my hands and shoved me out, leveraging my own body weight against my damaged knee. I stumbled haphazardly as he slammed the gate between us.

  "No!" I protested, dropping his bag as well as my own. "No!" I slammed the metal gate with my open palms, making it near impossible for him to lock it.

  "Go."

  Grasping at anything, I reminded him, "When we were in the woods, you wouldn't let me go. You jumped into a river because you would rather die than lose me."

  Ren wrapped his hands around the bars, leaning his forehead against the gate, nodding, forlorn. He never took his eyes off me.

  "You said I'd be swallowed up by the world if you let me go. Gone forever." Banging against the gate again, watching Ren's head bounce against it, I spat, "How can you let me go now? Answer me? How?"

  "If you stay, if you have to watch the sickness steal again…it will feed on your hope until there's none left."

  "I'm stronger than that," I lied.

  "I'm not. I can't watch that happen."

  The feelings rushing through my head made me dizzy. "I won't leave," I snapped. My jaw was tight as I spoke through gritted teeth. "I will stand here until you open this gate." Allowing my rage to seethe, I leaned in as close to him as the bars would permit. Speaking in a low tone, I said, "I'm stronger than you. I can walk farther. I can climb higher. And I can stand here forever."

  "I know." The hint of a one-sided smile played on his lips. Tilting his head, he motioned to Lenna and Shells. "But they can't." His fingers wrapped around mine through the bars. "This time, you have someone to save."

  He knew all along. Before I even burned the supplies he had made the decision. To stay. To trick me into saving them. To leave me by forcing me to leave him.

  "Damn you," I muttered. My voice cracked.

  Pulling his hands free, he said, "You won't be lost to the world, you're healing it. Go save your people. Our future."

  Ren turned and began to walk away.

  "Damn you!" I screamed, beating my fists into the metal. I screamed and punched until the skin on my knuckles split, far after he had disappeared into the village. "Damn you! Damn you!" When I was finished, blood smeared a nauseating design across the metal and I was speechless.

  I turned to face Lenna and Shells, who had stood guard, waiting patiently for me to exhaust myself without interruption. Silently, I picked Ren's pack up and opened it. Asthma inhalers for Shells. Without reaction, I tossed it on my shoulder with my other bags. Retrieving my fallen crutch, I began walking.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lenna and Shells followed closely, choosing to remain quiet. Every time I glanced back, Lenna would smile kindly. Sometimes Shells would make her doll wave at me. I would wave back, emotionless.

  It took four days to reach the sacred tree, having to stop often for Shells. Darsha and Tish had done just as I asked. They had hidden the seeds and were dutifully watching over them.

  "It's Her!" they beamed as I closed the distance between us.

  I set the bags down and braced myself for a huge hug. They were still so tiny in my arms. And looking from them to Shells, I could tell the girls needed to eat more. Their skin was sallow, while Shells' retained a rosy glow.

  "This is Tish." I pointed to the smallest girl, who happened to have the largest personality. Her smile practically showed every tooth except for her molars.

  "And Darsha, her sister."

  Darsha smiled timidly. She was cautious by nature. I didn't blame her.

  After introducing her to Shells, I pointed to Lenna. "You girls are going to listen to everything she tells you. If you do, you'll be able to grow seeds as easy as the sky grows clouds."

  "Really?" Darsha questioned. There was a hint of optimism shining through.

  "Really."

  Lenna blushed. "I'm not sure I would say that, but I'll teach you everything I know."

  "Where's that man who was with you?" Tish asked.

  Shells said, "Some kind of sickness came to the village and he didn't want to leave. I don't know what it was, though."

  The girls managed to look paler, if that were possible.

  Noticing their reaction, Lenna bundled Shells into her side. "I think they do."

  Darsha nodded, eyes downcast.

  Tish said, "Our mamma sent us away so we wouldn't get the sickness, too. Are you her mamma?" She pointed from Lenna to Shells.

  "My mother died," Shells recounted. "There was something wrong with her immune system. It didn't like itself."

  The girls scrunched their faces, sorry for the little girl.

  "Do you want to play with my doll?" Shells asked.

  Before long, they were playing off to the side while Lenna and I talked low to one another.

  It seemed impossible to move forward without Ren. I was still in shoc
k. Everything had happened so fast. The vaccine, the inking, the sickness being distributed like a product in an ailing world. Graham had warned me that the village held a secret: their own basket of archaic illnesses. I never thought it possible that I would uncover my own secrets within those walls. Walls without a purpose now.

  If the sickness spread as aggressively in the village as it had in the clanships, they would all be dead or nearing the end as I sat talking with Lenna, discussing the seed shortage and my mission. They could be eating the bark off of a tree as I uttered words that had absolutely nothing to do with them. He could be taking his last breath as I wrote a list of supplies needed to build the greenhouses, my hand aching from the newness of the pencil between my fingers, my heart aching because I didn't want there to be a world without Ren in it. Any world, anywhere.

  I was powerless. The village was lost. He was lost. As I had always done, I shoved my grief into the farthest corner of my mind and tried to bury it, because there would be no one to bury Ren or his people.

  Over the next few days, Lenna and I roughed out a plan for the clanships.

  "Do any of these people have materials available to build greenhouses of their own?" she asked.

  "They do." I shook free of my dismal thoughts, focusing on what I could change. "If not, they can scavenge them."

  "They need to be built now. Right away. We need to give everyone enough time to raise the buildings before winter and prepare the soil before they even think about growing seedlings. Most seedlings need up to two months inside before they can be transplanted to the garden."

  "Okay. How long would that be?"

  She looked at me, uncertain. "How long is a period of two months?"

  I nodded.

  "Um, how do you usually tell?"

  "The moon's cycles. I also know there are seven days in one week. I read it in a book once."

  She was processing my lack of knowledge with exceptional compassion.

  "It will take up to two moon cycles for them to grow indoors. There are roughly four weeks in each month, which equals one of your moon cycles."

  "Thank you."

  While I was excited to discuss the future harvests of the clanships, I couldn't resist the temptation of Ren's image floating into my thoughts at the most inopportune times. Was he sick? Dead? Did a third possibility even exist?