by Tom Abrahams
Now she was running for her life and those of her children. She was a knife-wielding woman born of the apocalypse and its unrelenting landscape. Norma was at once proud of her and deeply, profoundly sad for her.
“I love you,” said Norma. “So does Rudy.”
“I know,” said Lou. “I love you too. Now let’s stop with the crying and stuff. I’ve got to go get my knives.”
“I can help you.”
“No, thanks,” said Lou. “I’ll enjoy this. I know that’s sick. But you know…”
Norma blinked. “I do.”
“Could you get David ready?”
“Of course,” said Norma. “I’d do anything for you.”
CHAPTER 10
APRIL 17, 2054, 12:05 PM
SCOURGE +21 YEARS, 7 MONTHS
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
Sally Miller’s head was pounding and her tongue was thick in her mouth. She opened her eyes, squinting against the crust that had formed in the corners and the bright daylight shining through the windows in her efficiency apartment. The fuzzy image of a large bottle on the coffee table reminded her why she felt the way she did.
Untangling herself from her sheets and wiping the crud from her lids, she rolled into a sitting position on the edge of the Murphy bed that dominated the small room. Sally shut her eyes, trying to stop the spinning that made her want to puke, and sat there for a good long minute before she tried to stand.
The room tilted when she finally put her feet on the floor and stood up. She had to quit drinking. Had to. The occasional morning like this was turning into too many of them. And now they’d become afternoons like this.
She lustily eyed the bottle before turning around to lift the bed into the recessed portion of the wall. The springs and hinges creaked as she collapsed the legs and closed the door that hid the bed. This was not ideal, but it was what she could afford, what the railroad provided.
The underground railroad. How did she end up involved in this? Was it benevolence or masochism? Maybe a little bit of both. Sally couldn’t stand the idea of women being told what to do or not do with their bodies. More than that, though, Sally didn’t allow herself to be happy. Never had. There was too much unhappiness, sadness, and pain in this post-Scourge/mid-drought world that there was something deep within her that truly believed any sense of peace was unfair to everyone else suffering. Like a monk prone to self-flagellation and vowed to a life of silent, selfless poverty, Sally was dedicated to the proposition that she should wallow.
With the bitter aftertaste of last night’s liquor in her mouth, she slinked over to the sofa, the only piece of furniture in the place other than the coffee table, and sat on the edge of its misshapen foam cushions. Running one hand through her hair, combing it with her fingers, she used the other to pick up the bottle.
She cursed. It was empty. How much did she drink before passing out? The memory was as hazy as her vision, but her recollection of the near disaster and the men she’d killed was as clear as the empty glass liquor bottle. It was too close a call.
Sighing, and trying not to focus on the throbbing at her temples, Sally set the bottle back on the table and sat back on the sofa, sinking into the shapeless cushions that provided absolutely no comfort.
This was her life, and it was becoming increasingly unbearable. She understood why there was a saying about good deeds being punished, though the exact phrasing escaped her.
She laid her head back on the sofa and stared at the ceiling. A slow-spinning fan rotated above her, the pull chain swinging as the housing rattled against the popcorn ceiling.
To stop the unnatural spinning in her head, she tried focusing on a single fan blade, following it as it orbited the round off-white housing. That didn’t help. It actually made it worse.
Sally choked down a thin rise of bile and dropped her chin to her chest. She was almost out again, the sour sting of the bile sitting in her throat as she teetered in the thin vale between consciousness and sleep, when a pounding at the door woke her up.
The pulse at her temples matched the impatient thump at her door as she wobbled toward it. It was different from the night before. This wasn’t a headache from jonesing for a drink, from playing the game with half a deck. This was a headache from having called that jones and upping the ante. Using the back of the sofa to get her feet under herself, Sally reached the door and stood on her tiptoes to stick an eye to the peephole.
The fish-eye image of a man she didn’t recognize fidgeted outside her apartment. He was scratching one arm and nervously checked over one shoulder then the next. He was about to knock again when Sally leaned into the door and spoke. She had to clear her throat twice when the first attempt came out like a croak and not a voice.
“Who is it?”
The man at the door looked straight at her through the peephole. His long, thin nose warped into a beak in the fish-eye lens of the hole.
“You can fool some of the people all of the time,” he said in a hushed voice, “all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
Sally stepped back from the door and cursed under her breath. This dude was from the railroad. He was a porter, someone whose job it was to give the conductors assignments. She wasn’t even sober yet, and they were back wanting more. They always wanted more. Exhaling to control the frustration building inside her, she stepped back to the door.
The man was up against the peephole now, speaking into it. “You can fool some—”
“A house divided cannot stand,” Sally said, cutting him off.
“Four score and seven years ago,” he replied.
Sally unlatched the four heavy deadbolts on her apartment and punched the electronic keypad on the wall next to the door. A mechanical whir preceded a series of clicks.
Pulling open the door a crack, Sally eyed the man without the distortion of the peephole. “Who are you?”
The man was wringing his hands. He glanced over each shoulder, leaning back. “Aren’t you going to let me in?” he asked. “We shouldn’t speak out here.”
“Give me a name.”
“We aren’t supposed to—”
“Any name is fine,” she said, arching an eyebrow to provide a clue. “Should I call you Lincoln?”
The man’s eyes widened with understanding. He nodded vigorously. “Yes,” he said. “I’m Lincoln.”
“I’m Mary Todd,” Sally replied. She widened the door and let the man inside, closed the door behind him, reset the locks, and stood at the entry, watching him take inventory of her small home.
She sensed his judgment. “What?”
The empty bottle was still on the table. There was another on the stove in the kitchen. At least they were a matching pair.
Lincoln shook his head nervously. “Nothing. Nothing at all. Should I sit down?”
Sally motioned toward the sofa. “Knock yourself out,” she said and followed him there, sitting down after he sank onto one of the cushions.
The two sat there in silence for a moment. Lincoln scratched the back of his arm and adjusted himself on the sofa repeatedly, either unable to find a comfortable position or unable to find comfort within his own skin.
“Virgin?” Sally asked.
Lincoln tensed. He frowned and his brow furrowed. “I don’t think that’s any of your business,” he said and not-so-subtly glanced at the empty bottle on the coffee table, “Mary Todd.”
Sally raked her finger across her aching scalp and rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I meant, Mis-ter Pres-i-dent,” she said, affecting the accent from a famous actress who’d starred in films a hundred years ago. Although Sally couldn’t remember the blonde woman’s name, she’d seen pictures of her.
“I meant is this your first job for the railroad,” she elaborated. “You’re a new porter. You seem unsure of yourself.”
Lincoln’s tight expression relaxed. His cheeks flushed and he looked into his lap, shaking his head. His knee was bouncing up and down no
w. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought…I didn’t…”
Sally reached over and touched his knee. “It’s not a problem. Just chill. We’re safe here.”
Lincoln chuckled. “I don’t think it’s safe anywhere, is it?”
The new guy hadn’t admitted to her that this was his first job, but all of the signs were there. Paranoia, internal struggle, twitchiness. All of those things, plus he still had life in his eyes, the sweet softness of innocence.
Cynicism was the biggest thing recognizable on the faces and in the voices of the seasoned conductors and porters, Sally believed. She might pass them on the street, never having seen them before, and she’d know they were like her. It was in the hardened expressions, the way one walked with an awareness of the potential dangers big and small, the overwhelming sadness etched into the creases on their faces, the hunch of their shoulders.
“I guess nowhere’s safe,” she admitted. “But this is as safe as it’s going to get for you now that you’re in the game.”
He skipped a response and went straight to the business at hand. “There’s a new job for you,” he said, having buried the lead. “I have the details. The time, place, pass phrase. I memorized it.”
Sally stood up. There had to be another bottle somewhere. No way she’d finished the emergency stash. Moving around the sofa, she walked toward the front door and then sidestepped to the apartment’s only closet.
Opening the door, she pulled out a footstool. Its feet scraped across the floor.
“Don’t you want me to—” Lincoln, the eager beaver, started to say before she held up an angry index finger and shook it at him.
She climbed the stool and stood on her tiptoes, cursed her short stature, and reached onto the shelf above the hanging rack. Fishing around behind boxes and blankets, her expression brightened when she grabbed ahold of a long, thin glass bottle neck.
Sally dragged it free, wiggling it from the shelf, and held it up by the neck like a fisherman hoisting the day’s big catch. It was a bottle of Tito’s vodka. Her salivary glands flooded her mouth with the anticipation of a drink, almost tasting the sweet sting of it.
She’d heard rumors that after the Scourge, when the fabled Cartel ran Texas, getting a bottle of Tito’s north of the wall was damn near impossible. Texans had hoarded the sweet corn taste to themselves.
Sally put the stool back into the closet, closed the door, and slinked back toward the sofa with renewed vigor. Without saying anything, she sat down and, with a twist of her hand, uncapped the bottle. It was room temperature, but she didn’t have the patience to wait for it to chill in the freezer. Vodka was vodka. Warm, cold, tepid, its proof didn’t change with the temperature.
Holding up the bottle to Lincoln, she raised her eyebrows and shook it as an offering.
Lincoln shook his head. “I don’t drink.”
She shook the bottle again. “Yeah, you do.”
His expression soured. “No, I—”
Sally shoved the bottle at his chest. “You do. I don’t trust people who don’t drink.”
Lincoln frowned but lifted the bottle and took a tentative swig. He swallowed and coughed. His eyes watered.
“Take another,” said Sally. “The second swallow always goes down easier.”
The newbie did as instructed. This time, his pull on the bottle was longer. His cheeks swelled and then shrank as he gulped down what he’d temporarily held there.
Sally motioned with her hand. “Gimme. I don’t trust someone who drinks too much.”
Lincoln coughed again. It started as a laugh but morphed. “Who do you trust?”
“Exactly,” she said, and gulped down the vodka like it was ice water. Four, five, six healthy pulls later, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and set the bottle on the table.
Leaning back on the sofa, she glanced toward her guest and pulled one leg up under her. Sally studied him again. The anxiety had thawed.
“All right,” she said. “Tell me why you’re here.”
“I already—”
She waved him off. “No. Not what your job is. Why are you part of this now? What sucked you onto the tracks?”
“I didn’t think we were supposed to share personal information,” he said. “They told me to keep it very—”
Sally glanced at the bottle and cleared her throat before shifting her attention back to Lincoln. “I don’t know your real name; you don’t know mine. Since they sent you here, they’ll be moving me to another apartment after this next job. The least you can do, sweetie, is give me a little something.”
The lights in her apartment flickered overhead. There was a hum as they fought the surge of power coursing through her building. Lincoln searched the room as if he’d find his answer in the strobing lights.
“It does that,” she said. “Never mind it. Tell me your story.”
“What’s yours?”
Sally cocked her head to one side. “Nunya,” she said. “I don’t know you, Lincoln. You don’t get to ask.”
“I don’t know you,” he said. “You’re asking.”
“It’s my house. And it’s my vodka that gave you the gumption to pry. You don’t get to pry.”
They sat there, studying each other, measuring, gauging, judging.
Sally sighed. “I’m a masochist. That’s as much as you get.”
“My sister,” he said. “Pop Guard showed up one day and found the basement, the false floor. Took the baby. Then they—” Lincoln’s eyes welled, and his jaw tightened. He reached for the bottle and took a long healthy draw.
“They did what they do,” said Sally. “I can fill in the rest.”
Lincoln tipped the bottle toward Sally and she took it. Her drink was as long as his. She almost couldn’t taste the liquor anymore. The inside of her cheeks, her tongue, her throat were going numb. Numb was good.
When he told her the job, the place and time, and gave her the pass code, she nodded silently and took in the information. It absorbed into her system like the vodka.
“Aren’t you gonna write it down? Take notes?”
Sally chuckled and shook her head. A few minutes later, she ushered him out of the apartment, closed the door behind him, turned to appraise the apartment that soon wouldn’t be her home anymore, and sank to the floor. In three years of working for the railroad, she’d lived in sixteen apartments in various parts of the city.
This one was her favorite. She liked its simplicity. Its walls were bare, its floors solid wood, and the bed was firm.
As the alcohol consumed her, Sally sobbed. Her body shuddered, her chin trembled, and she didn’t understand the sudden burst of emotion. Then she did. It was her own story, her own past that had her chest heaving, her breaths coming almost too quickly for her to control them.
She didn’t fight it. Sally allowed the pain to steep. That was best. It was always best to let the pain tear her down and build her anew, strengthen her resolve.
Sally got to her feet and struggled toward the sofa. She collapsed onto it facedown, praying for sleep to take hold.
In a few hours she’d be sober and out on the streets again. In the darkness of night, it was her job to be the light for someone else.
CHAPTER 11
APRIL 17, 2054, 4:45 PM
SCOURGE +21 YEARS, 7 MONTHS
NEW BOSTON, TEXAS
The cuffs at Andrea Cruz’s ankles felt like they were slicing into her skin. They weren’t, but they’d rubbed her legs so raw each step was an exercise in pain.
She clenched her jaw and drew slow, measured breaths in through her nose. Her son’s hand in hers, she walked as deliberately as possible. There was no way Andrea was going to let Javier see her as anything other than a pillar of strength and determination.
The pungent odor of sweat and grime wafted past her, and she felt a presence at her side. It took everything in her not to look. She didn’t have to. Andrea knew who was there.
“How we doing?” asked Warner. “I worry about you.
Carrying all that weight so low. You know they say if you carry low, it’s a boy.”
Andrea tried holding her breath. Keeping her eyes forward, she tightened her grip on Javi’s tiny hand.
“It’s an old wives’ tale, sure enough,” said Warner. “But you’re glowing too. That’s another sign of a boy. I heard tell that if a woman is having a girl, the baby steals her beauty. Gives her bad skin and such. That ain’t the case with you. Maybe some of these other women. Not you, Andrea.”
They were walking south. The sun was to their right as it sank in the pale blue north Texas sky. After they’d passed a prison unit on Texas Highway 98, they’d stopped and rested. It wasn’t long enough. All the break served to do was tighten the muscles in her legs and lower back that she’d already taxed.
“Then again,” said Warner, “you’ve been ornery. Moody. Grumpy even. That, they say, is a girl’s doing.”
Warner hadn’t stopped talking the entirety of the trip. He’d moved from woman to woman, offering his wisdom about anything and everything. This was his second attempt to engage Andrea.
“Then again,” he said as if playing his own devil’s advocate, “you’ve been through it. I mean to say, Andrea, you got every right to be testy.”
He stressed the consonants, lingered on the vowels. It accentuated his twang and made listening to him all the more unbearable. Andrea tried to focus on the metal rubbing against the popped blisters at her ankles. It was more palatable than Warner’s incendiary diatribe.
He sidled up closer to her, his stench drawing a line of bile up her throat. She swallowed it and winced. His voice was a whisper, a secret between the two of them.
“See, here’s the thing,” he said. “Things ain’t gonna get better. You’re just gonna get testier when you find out what I got planned.”
She didn’t bite. He wanted her to bite. He was baiting her. Dangling a hook.
