“Yeah,” he says. “I’m going out for a bit. Will you be okay?”
I have nothing profound to say, so I go with silly: “I’ll be fine. Run free like the wind!”
To call what he gives me a smile would be a stretch. I watch him leave, my heart breaking for him. I feel all the losses, but I haven’t fallen apart as I thought I would. What Peter needs is time, something we seem to have plenty of right now. Time may heal you, but it also gives you space to think about the things that hurt the most.
Peter comes through the door two hours later looking much better than when he left. He sets a bag on the counter and holds up a canning jar of white liquid. “I got potatoes and carrots. And cream. I’ll make soup tonight.”
“You could get food from the brewery. You don’t have to cook.”
He picks out the vegetables and slams them to the counter one by one. “I like to cook.”
“I’m not complaining,” I say softly. “I just don’t want you to go to all that trouble.” I pick up my book and try to reread the same line twenty times. I’ve been trying hard to tiptoe around his feelings and I’m not sure what I’ve done wrong.
He sinks to the couch and puts a hand on my knee. “It’s not trouble, that’s all I meant. I’m sorry.”
I take his hand. It’s rough and still cool from the outdoors. “What’s wrong?” he asks. I’m sure my eyes are pink, making it obvious I’m trying not to cry.
“Talk to me,” I whisper.
“About what?”
“Anything. Everything.”
His eyes dart around the room. “I’m okay. This is—it’s hard to go from survival mode back to normal. Or our new normal, I guess.”
“I know. I miss her, too.”
“She loved you,” he says. “Quite possibly more than she loved me.”
I laugh through my tears. Ana was my little sister, my friend and my partner in crime. There’s a gaping hole where she once cajoled me into running and watched over me in her brusque and bossy way.
“She brought out the crazy in me,” I say. “I liked being with her, even when she drove me bonkers. She let me be whatever I needed to be that day, no questions asked.”
“She was good at that.”
“This isn’t what we expected,” I say, and wave my hand at our cabin. “But maybe months or years from now we’ll realize that we’re exactly where we want to be.”
“I know. It’s the getting there that sucks.”
“It does. Big time.”
Peter squeezes my knee again before he heads for the kitchen, where he picks up a vegetable peeler and says, “Thanks.”
“Remember how you would talk about Adrian even when I didn’t want to? Because you knew I needed to. It’s a taste of your own medicine. But it’s good medicine. It makes it easier.”
Peter nods and runs the peeler down a potato. I’m tired of watching him be productive while I sit on my butt. Enforced laziness loses all its fun by day four. “I’m not an invalid. Will you let me help?”
“You want to cut the carrots?”
“Sure.”
Peter adds our chopped vegetables to the broth, and it’s not long before we’re eating the best creamy potato-carrot soup I’ve ever tasted. “Do you have some sort of magic that you sprinkle in your food? Is it in your fingers?” I ask. “It’s crazy how good this is.”
“And you wanted to eat someone else’s food.”
“I’d never want to eat there again, but they’re planning to steal you away the second I’m well. I’ve seen them pacing around outside, peering in the windows, so I cough a few times to get them to back off. I can’t keep it up forever.”
“Where do you get these ideas? Eat your soup.”
I don’t need to be told twice. The fire crackles and in the soft glow of the lantern Peter almost looks happy. He has me in tears when he mimics all the people he’s seen skulking past Zeke because they don’t want to visit the dentist. Maybe this isn’t what I was expecting, but right now I can’t think of a single place left in the world I’d rather be.
59
We’ve been in Talkeetna for almost three weeks when I pull my first guard shift. They’ve kept me in the kitchen thus far, and although I love it, I’ve been looking forward to guard. I said I’d had enough action, and it’s still true, but guard makes me feel as if I have some control over my surroundings, however mistaken that notion may be. This extended absence from the fence line has made me uneasy.
I’m leaving breakfast shift when the lunch shift comes in. We’re conserving the food that’s harder to find and using what’s fresh. That means salmon or some other fish has been on the menu every lunch and dinner. I may love food, but I hate seafood, and I’ve been doing breakfast to avoid being anywhere near the smell.
Peter, who’s been co-opted by the kitchen just like I’d predicted, inspects the catch of the day. “Are you going to try my salmon later?”
“Not a chance,” I say.
“Just a taste. It has birch syrup and garlic and all kinds of good stuff.”
“That sounds lovely. I’ll be sure to check it out.”
“Stop humoring me,” Peter says. “That is what you’re doing, no?”
“I’m sticking to reindeer sausage. Or moose or bear or whatever it is. Sorry.”
He pulls an evil-looking knife from a rack and begins to gut a silvery, slimy specimen. “I thought I had magic in my fingers.”
“There’s not enough magic in the world, let alone your fingers, to make fish taste good.” I hold my nose as he scrapes out the innards. “You shower today, right?”
“Nope, and I’m going to wipe my hands all over your pillow when I get home.”
I laugh and follow Nelly out the kitchen door onto Main Street. We wave to James, who’s doing something to the greenhouses they’re building beside the train tracks close to the river. The plan is to harness some power for the greenhouse lights, amongst other things. What they’ll do when the light bulbs die, I don’t know. James will probably figure out how to make them.
“Speaking of pillows,” Nelly says as we turn for the gate, “where is your pillow these days?”
“What?”
“Your pillow. Is it still in the same bed as Peter’s?”
I take in his smirk and slow to a stop. “Really? You’re going there? I have my own side. Bits and Hank wanted the loft.”
I’m blushing. I know I am. They begged for the loft, in fact, and we gave in. And then neither Peter nor I suggested looking for two twin beds to replace the big one. It would be weird to sleep in separate beds in the same room. Like we’d be saying we’re afraid we might jump each other in our sleep. And we’re not.
He pulls me along by my arm. “It was just a question.”
“It’s never just a question. Barnaby sleeps in the middle. It’s not like we spoon all night or anything.”
“Oh, just at the beginning of the night? Or in the morning?”
I shove him. “Neither. You and I slept in the same bed for months. Stop trying to make it something it’s not. Why does everyone have to try to hook two people up all the time?”
“You, of all people, did not just ask me that.”
“We’re just friends. Please don’t say anything in front of Peter and make it weird.”
“Fine, fine,” he says, but I know I haven’t heard the end of this.
I don’t have nightmares every night, but the ones I do have are doozies. If Peter wasn’t there to pull me close in his sleep, I’d wander the cabin for hours trying to shake off my dream of John as a zombie or the back of a pickup in the middle of dark prairie; it’s what I’ve done the two nights he’s been on guard. And I can usually quiet him before he wakes so he doesn’t remember what a bad night he had. I can’t explain it to Nelly, who wouldn’t believe that it can be intimate and innocent at the same time.
The weapons are kept in the long row of buildings, once gift shops, that sits fifty feet from the main gate. Talkeetna is so spread out t
hat most people wear their weapons in case they happen to be in an area when an alarm sounds. I haven’t yet heard the alarm, but I know which section of the fence to go to depending on the number of bells. It was all in the manual that was, unsurprisingly, penned by Patricia.
A green clapboard cabin sits beside the gate, smoke billowing from the stovepipe. It takes a lot of wood to warm Talkeetna in the winter; they cut it somewhere north and bring it downriver. They’ve lucked out here—the rivers and the Alaska Range serve as natural barriers. Glory has told me that at first it was all bloodshed and zombies, but she, Bernie and Frank managed to clear it of Lexers with the help of those who survived. I haven’t asked how or when they took care of Frank. I want to hate him for wanting us dead, but I know it’s easy to lose your way, or your mind, from grief.
The guardhouse interior contains a desk with a logbook and radio, several desk chairs and a couch next to the woodstove. Terry stands when we enter. “Hi, Cass. I thought I’d walk you around the fences today so you can get your bearings.”
Patricia sits on the couch next to Clark, the man who opened the gate our first day here. He’s good at spotting Lexers, which is why they call him Eagle. He even looks like one.
“She’s already walked the boundary twice,” Patricia says. She folds her arms over her chest and nods in satisfaction at herself for noticing or me for doing so.
“I missed the tour when I was sick. But I’d like a real tour, too.” I walked the fence line to get a feel for what we were up against. It’s impossible to sit in the center of town and be told I’m safe without seeing it for myself.
“Let’s do it,” Terry says, and throws on a thin coat. These people are crazy—it’s barely above freezing and the nights dip well below. I’m still wearing my parka and positive I’m going to be living in it until next summer.
Nelly stays behind. The fence is much like Kingdom Come, made of whatever they had available—chain link, wood, corrugated metal—and parallels the dirt road to the river. Houses, some tiny and others a bit larger, sit just inside the fence. Terry explains that in order to live in one you have to be a guard.
“They have their benefits, though,” he says. “Like running water.”
“Before the pipes freeze, anyway,” Patricia says.
Terry looks to Patricia with a smile. “Patty and I are neighbors.”
“Patty?” I ask.
Patricia scowls but glances at Terry with something like adoration, which I find interesting. We hit the end of the road and follow the fence around the edge of a field. Leafy stalks stick out of mounded dirt in a few long rows, along with the lacy leaves of carrots. The rest of the field is dug up, but the overall size is impressive.
“That’s a lot of potatoes and carrots,” I say. “Glory said they grow well here.”
“You know your plants,” Terry says. “We’ll dig up the rest of them this week. They can overwinter, but now that we have that root cellar we’ll use that.”
We pass a guard post cabin that flanks the fence by a wide river. Something that could be an arm or a small log floats past.
“Nothing really stops at this part of the river,” Patricia says. “Unless they’re washed ashore, they’re usually stuck in the current and end up by Anchorage.”
There’s another guard post before the fence turns at the confluence of the three rivers that border Talkeetna. Chuck and Rich sit out front and stand as we approach.
“First guard today?” Chuck asks.
I pull Rich’s sleeve. “Now that this one’s finally cleared me for duty, I’m getting the tour.” Rich smiles but doesn’t speak. I’ve gotten used to his quiet, although it makes me fill in the silence with random thoughts. I point to the gate in the fence. “So that’s Exit Three?”
“Yep, wanna come through? It’s time to check if anything’s washed ashore anyway.”
Here, the river is broken up by narrow islands. It seems slow and shallow, although Terry says that changes during breakup in the spring, when it thaws. The riverbank is sandier than I expected, almost like the ocean.
“Glacial silt,” Terry says.
The tall grasses on the silt islands resemble a marsh at the edge of the ocean. But unlike the ocean, beyond the water there’s a sea of green that ends at the Alaska Range. I stop in awe at the spectacle. The days have been overcast and the weather here fluctuates wildly, so I haven’t yet seen Denali, the tallest peak in North America.
“Beautiful, right?” Patricia asks. She tucks a strand of platinum hair behind her ear and shrugs like she’s said too much. This girl needs to learn how to share her feelings.
I’ve seen mountains, and ones closer than Denali is to where we stand, but the way the white-capped range rises like a solid, jagged wall is something I’ve never seen. John would have taken it as further evidence of God and Adrian would have dropped to the ground in wonder.
“This is why people come to Alaska and never leave,” I murmur.
“That’s what I did,” Terry says. “Came up when I was twenty, went home, packed and never looked back. I flew tourists to the glacier. We still have planes and some fuel in the airport across the tracks.”
I keep my eyes glued to the mountains while we continue on. I’ve seen the advertisements for those glacier tours in the Alaska guidebooks in our cabin. Landing on a glacier smack dab in the middle of the range must be gorgeous and grand and safe and quiet. And freaking cold.
Chuck catches my arm when I stumble and says, “I think everyone who comes here on a clear day doesn’t look where they’re going.”
I laugh and pay attention to the trail. “It’s distracting.”
“It sure is. How’s Pete doing? He seems better.”
I pat his arm. “He is. I’m glad you’re here. He’s always happy when he comes back from your place.”
“Ah, we just shoot the shit, nothing special. Get in a few rounds of cards, maybe. He’s improved. I whipped his ass last summer, but he’s giving me a run for my money now.”
“That’d be Nelly’s tutoring,” I say. “Well, whatever you guys do, it helps.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s just me.”
“Time. It takes time.”
“He thinks highly of you, you know. Says you’re strong.”
I know I’m strong, but when I contemplate all the times I haven’t been, it seems like a whole lot. “I wish I were stronger.”
“Don’t we all?” Chuck asks. “Looks like they found something up ahead. Things tend to wash up right around there.”
The others have stopped at what looks like driftwood but, upon closer inspection, are two bodies. They’re naked and white, limbs made formless by water. They’re the same as the one in the boathouse—swollen to where the subtle bump of a nose is the only indication you’re looking at a face. But even with being so far gone, one’s mouth opens like a hungry baby bird.
I kneel beside the body, pull my knife out of its sheath and gently press it where an eye should be. The mouth closes once more and then gapes open forever. The anger or terror or hate I usually feel is absent. I don’t have to run in fear that there are others, so I silently say a few words for these now harmless creatures. I’m sorry for the way their lives have played out.
Rich bows his head for a moment. I think he understands why I did it this way—they were people, like his own daughter, like Adrian and Ana and countless others. Patricia turns away, blinking quickly, and I suspect that she yearns for someone to crack her tough exterior—don’t we all?
I take in the mountains, the grasses waving above the silvery river, and the bodies on the ground. I’m surrounded by beauty and horror and suffering and love. I was before the virus, but they were never quite so present and closely intertwined.
There are so many things I wish hadn’t happened. I can’t change the past, but I can strive to not live in fear they’ll happen again. I can believe that if they do, I’ll make it all right. A lightness expands in my chest until I’m filled with something I haven’t
felt in a while—joy. Joy that I’m here to carry on when so much has been lost.
I wipe my knife in the long grass and take Patricia’s arm in mine before we move on.
60
By November, the ground is white, the roofs are white and, if you stand still long enough, you’re white. Our cabin is delightfully warm as long as the fire’s going, which has become my top priority. I stomp off my boots and step into the thoroughly domestic scene of two kids doing work at the table while Dad turns a screwdriver on a metal box of some sort. The fire crackles and something smells good. Once the snow flies, many people take their rations of food and cook in their homes during the dark dinner hours. Breakfast and lunch are still noisy affairs, and we often eat those meals at the brewery to confirm that the rest of the world hasn’t frozen to death.
“Did you know that so far this is the snowiest winter they’ve had in twenty years?” I ask, and take off my coat, scarf, hat and mittens. The snow hasn’t let up since it started. The zombies are officially popsicles, and even if they weren’t, they wouldn’t be able to get through the drifts.
“Of course it is, because you’re here,” Peter says.
He goes back to his screw and the kids go back to their papers. Evidently, no one is as appalled as I am by this news. I listen to their chatting as I pull on pajama pants and a clean shirt. I’ve managed to avoid laundry shifts, being classified as First Guard, but when the zombies are frozen we all get our turn with the poop wash.
“I see you’ve dressed for dinner,” Peter says when I reenter the living room.
“I’m sorry, were we dressing for dinner? Is the president on his way, or was that the queen tonight?”
“The potluck, goofball.”
It means I have to go out into the cold again, but it’s only across the clearing to one of the big cabins, and there’s no one there I feel the need to impress. “Right. I’m dressed, then.”
Until the End of the World Box Set Page 109
