Cold Falling White

by G. S. Prendergast

  XANDER

  One of my trailer mates, Steve, finds me in the communal tent we use as a makeshift camp library. Early refugees stole so many books from the public library in Prince George that by the time I arrived, we were denied library cards. We’re allowed to sit in there and read but only on certain days, and only if the librarians on duty aren’t in a mood.

  The rest of the time, this tent full of dog-eared books donated by locals has to serve as our main form of entertainment. No one has enough electricity to waste on showing movies or playing recorded music; even outside the camps the power is on only sporadically. Sometimes a few of us get together and have a live concert, though—me on harmonica, two guys with guitars, and an ancient man with a violin who usually reduces us all to tears. We’re trying to maintain a stable and safe community here, but it gets harder every day.

  In deprivation so pervasive I’ve gotten used to it, books keep me marginally sane. I’m checking a tattered copy of Frankenstein for bedbugs when I hear Steve clear his phlegmy throat forcefully in the tent doorway.

  “Hey,” I say, glancing up.

  “Hey,” he replies. “There are troopers looking for you at the gate.”

  “Troopers? For me? Why?”

  I’ve been living like a monk since I finished my snow-clearing shifts, so I can’t imagine what they want, unless it’s to bust me for keeping the gloves.

  Steve shrugs impatiently. “I don’t know. They told me to find you. Are you coming or what?”

  I tuck Frankenstein under my arm, despite its suspicious smell, and follow Steve back out of the tent.

  It’s stopped snowing, but the clear skies mean the air is extra cold. I duck my nose down into my coat and shove my hands in my pockets as Steve leads me back to the administration tent at the entrance to the camp. We pass groups of men smoking cigarettes, huddled in the doorways of the social tents. Never-ending card games go on in most of these tents, where men gamble for rations, cigarettes, and bus passes into town. Once I joined a game and won a new pair of socks. But then I lost them in another game and vowed to never play again.

  The heaters pumping warm air into the admin tent create a cloud of haze outside across the gates that mark the entrance to the camp. The guard posted there has a steaming coffee cup in one hand and an assault rifle slung over the other arm. Beyond him, outside the gates, I can just make out the troopers standing with a tall, bulky man. They turn as I push the chain-link gate open.

  I recognize the troopers. Captain Chaudhry is one, her motherly roundness hidden by her heavy winter coat. The other is her sergeant; Grischuk is his name, and he’s just as badass as he sounds. Apparently he managed to bail out of the occupied zone with a bus full of moms and babies sometime after the first siege, so he’s something of a hero around here. He’s not fond of misbehaving camp kids, though, and has busted me for fighting several times.

  I don’t know the big guy they’re with, but he gives me the creeps. The guard sipping coffee is eyeing him cautiously, as though worried he might just start killing people. He reminds me of Liam in his last days, not much older than me in human years, but in hate years, he’s ancient. With his shaved head, ruddy skin, and ice-colored eyes, he’s everything a professional thug would aspire to.

  Just as I approach, both Captain Chaudhry and Sergeant Grischuk nod their heads in my direction before stepping away. They linger quietly by the chain-link fence, almost like they don’t want me to notice them.

  “Xander Liu?” the big guy says, stepping toward me. I resist the urge to edge away from him.

  “Yes.” I take his hand as he reaches for mine.

  “I’m Garvin Joel.” He smiles at me as we shake and persists in holding my hand for a little longer than is comfortable.

  “Garvin Joel?” Steve says. “Like—”

  “Yeah,” Garvin interrupts brusquely. He shakes Steve’s hand without looking at him. Focusing on me, he holds out some papers.

  “I’ve signed you out, Xander. And here’s a travel permit.”

  “Travel to where?” I’m often confused, especially these days, but I literally have no idea what’s going on.

  “It’s fine,” Captain Chaudhry says. “It’s another camp. Better… suited for you.” Grischuk smirks at her as he lights a cigarette, but this Garvin dude ignores them, fixing me with his watery eyes. He hasn’t blinked since I arrived at the gate.

  “Just a bit north of here. You’ll be much more comfortable.” He looks doubtfully down the main row of sagging RVs and tents. “You’re just a kid. There shouldn’t be any kids here. We’ve got heat, proper beds. Hot water. Get whatever you want to bring with you. I’ll wait.”

  Steve follows me back to the shitty section of the camp, the one I live in because I arrived months after it started filling up.

  Only one of my “roommates” is in the trailer when we get there. A guy called Colin who rarely leaves his bed. He’s sick with something not contagious and waiting for space to open up at the medical shelter in town. I think he’ll probably die waiting. Unless someone at the shelter dies. He’s in a kind of race to death, I guess, but aren’t we all?

  He turns over with a low mumble as I roll up my makeshift bed.

  “Lou’s leaving,” Steve announces. Colin doesn’t look very interested.

  A sleeping mat knitted by kindly old ladies out of plastic shopping bags, two woolen blankets, and a pillowcase stuffed with every item of clothing I own that I’m not currently wearing. One sweater. One T-shirt. One flannel shirt. Two pairs of boxers. Harmonica. And my maple-leaf scarf. I drape it around my neck, slinging the bag over my shoulder like Santa Claus.

  I toss Frankenstein down on Colin’s bed. He doesn’t even open his eyes as he wriggles one hand out, grabs the book, and pulls it under the covers.

  Steve is still standing there, red-faced. “You could convince that dude to take me too.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  We look at each other. The truth is, I don’t really like Steve. He has that kind of coldness that is repellent, almost scary, like someone who might kill you in your bed for an extra serving of toast. I don’t know his full story. He’s got no family. I know that. And he doesn’t care about me either. Like the rest of us here, he’s just looking for a better place to stay.

  “Forget it.” He turns and strides into the glare.

  “Bye, Colin,” I say, hurrying after him. Colin doesn’t answer.

  “Lou wants me to come too,” Steve says as we arrive back at the admin tent.

  “No, I…”

  As Garvin frowns at me, I notice how red his eyes are. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a week. Or he hasn’t wanted to sleep in a week, which is different.

  “Are you two together?” Garvin asks.

  Steve says “Yes” and I say “No” at the same time, like in one of those ridiculous comedy scenes. It’s profoundly unfunny.

  “I only have room for one, kid,” Garvin finally says. “Sorry.” He takes my sleeping bag and bedroll. “You won’t need the bedding.” He shoves the bundle a bit roughly into Steve’s chest, like extra bedding might be an adequate consolation prize. Steve clutches it, staring at me.

  I tug the maple-leaf scarf from my neck, holding it out. “Here, have this.”

  Steve grabs it quickly, as though he’s afraid I’ll change my mind. I am actually reluctant to part with it, tatty as it is. It reminds me of August. But I suppose it’s time I moved on from that. If I have to obsess about dead friends, maybe I should just stick to the human ones.

  Garvin starts to walk away without another word. I follow, burning with shame. Steve is younger than me and smaller and not much of a fighter. If anyone needs a better situation, it’s him. But I’m not about to say anything. When I glance back, he’s still standing there, made blurry by the haze of steam from the admin center. I turn away, focusing on keeping up with Garvin’s hurried footsteps along the gravel road that leads out of the designated camp area. No unauthorized vehicles are allowed
inside the camp, so the infrequent visitors need to park by the side of the highway, past the first set of guards.

  It’s not a prison. I know that. But life in a refugee camp sure feels like one. Check in. Check out. Contraband frequently gets confiscated, which usually means any scavenged food and warm clothes are redistributed to those currently in favor with the higher-ups. Permits are needed to get on the bus into town and doled out at the rate of two a week if we’re lucky. No visitors past dark. No female visitors at all. No running, no fighting, no sleeping outside your designated bed. What is it about crumbling civilization that always makes freedom the first casualty?

  The perimeter guards turn to us as we approach.

  “Leaving?” one says, eyeing the sack over my shoulder. “You check out?”

  “I checked him out,” Garvin says, waving some papers around. “I’m taking him… farther north.”

  One guard glances at the papers while the other one catches my eye. “Is that okay with you, buddy?”

  “Yeah. It’s… the troopers know him,” I say. Garvin smiles coolly.

  “All right then.”

  They wave us through, down onto the highway, where the wind blows through my open collar. I wish I’d kept my scarf now. As Garvin leads me along the highway toward a few parked cars, I turn back to the guards, musing at their pathetic attempts to ensure my safety. As though if I were being abducted I would just tell them, right in front of Garvin. Is that how they think it works?

  Garvin turns off the highway, down through a shallow ditch, and up onto a service road. There’s a large black motorbike parked there. If this is how we’re traveling now, I really regret giving up my scarf.

  Garvin pulls a few things from a pack tied to the back of the bike. He hands me something wrapped in brown paper.

  “Soda bread. Eat.”

  I’m shoving it into my mouth before I take another breath. Garvin gives me a sad smile as he watches.

  “Have you ridden before? As a pillion?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hop on; hold on to me or the rack behind you.” He hands me a helmet. “It’s a long ride, and it’s going to be cold. You got gloves?”

  I pull them out of my pockets and zip the coat up to my neck before donning the helmet. Then I slip my gloves on and clamber onto the bike behind Garvin.

  The engine rumbles to life as Garvin eases the bike off the kickstand. We cruise along the service road for a few hundred feet, until he turns back onto the highway and heads north, barely slowing down as we ride through Prince George. A motorcycle, especially at this time of year, is enough of a novelty that people turn to look at us as we pass. I see some normal life mixed in with the end of the world. Mothers and babies cross paths with heavily armed soldiers. A man shovels the thin snow from a sidewalk across from a long line of people waiting for food handouts. Tattered-looking people burn something in what’s left of a playground.

  The snow and the bright gray sky make everything washed-out, as though we’ve all been living in a slowly fading watercolor painting. Maybe one day I’ll come back here to find nothing but a blank sheet of white. When it gets too much for me I close my eyes, but then all I can see is Steve, standing in the mist, watching me walk away. And my mind turns him into Topher because that’s how I work.

  By the time we arrive at our destination, four hours later, some of it over snow-rutted roads that would normally be an insane choice for a motorcycle, I’m a walking Popsicle. I guess fuel efficiency outweighs potential frostbite.

  A couple of guys emerge from a building.

  “Get him inside and warmed up,” he says as the other two help me off the bike. I can barely move. “Is the fire going?”

  “Just coals,” someone says.

  “Build it up,” Garvin says. “And feed him. He looks like a Ringwraith.”

  I follow the other guys into a low gray building as Garvin strides purposefully through the deep snow in the opposite direction.

  “What…” I try to say. What is this place? Where am I? What have I signed up for? But my face is so numb, my lips won’t work.

  They lead me across a kind of dining hall to a pile of cushions and blankets next to a potbellied woodstove that radiates with heat from the glowing coals inside it. I lower myself stiffly onto the cushions, trying to rub feeling back into my legs. A moment later one of the guys appears with a steaming cup.

  “Tea,” he says. “We don’t have any milk, sorry. Or sugar.”

  I prefer straight tea anyway, but it’s too hot to drink. I ease off my mittens and take the cup, curling my fingers around the warmth and breathing in the steam to thaw my frozen nose and brain.

  Another guy lays a plate of what looks like scrambled eggs on the floor beside me before wandering off without a word. The first guy kneels in front of the stove, opening its creaky door and tucking another log inside. He pokes at it for a few minutes, and soon a nice blaze rises up. The guy clangs the stove door shut and slumps back onto the cushions with a sigh.

  “So, Xander, huh? I’m Dylan.”

  I have tea in one hand and a forkful of scrambled eggs in the other, so we don’t shake hands. I nod as politely as I can, mouth full of egg and all.

  “You don’t talk much,” Dylan says.

  “Sorry,” I manage. “My face is frozen.”

  The tea has cooled enough to drink. I take a cautious sip and set my empty plate on the floor, taking a proper look at him. He’s one of those white kids with hair and eyes so dark that he might be mixed, or pass for it if he wanted, and his thick beard makes him look older too. I barely need to shave, and haven’t in so long that I have long wispy hairs on my chin. Dylan would probably have to shave twice a day if he wasn’t okay with looking like a lumberjack.

  We both turn as the door behind us swishes open. Garvin takes care to close it behind himself before joining us by the fire. He pulls up a chair rather than sitting on the floor.

  “Go see to the generator, Dyl,” Garvin says. “We’ll need the lights on the barge tonight.”

  Dylan stands and heads back out the door.

  “So you really don’t know who I am,” Garvin says to me.

  I look at him. The light from the windows is dimming and the fire’s glow makes his face and bald head orange, as though he might burst into flames himself. But he doesn’t look familiar. I shrug.

  “I think I’ve forgotten a lot of stuff from, you know, before. Before the invasion.”

  Garvin looks mildly interested at this confession. “What about since? I hear you were on the other side for a while.”

  “About ten months, yeah.”

  He stares at me for a moment as the scrambled eggs gurgle in my stomach.

  “You went under the web in a pipeline?”

  My teacup rattles as I set it down on the plate.

  “How did you know that?”

  “Two days after you were found, the Nahx blew up three more pipes under the web, including one so small a weasel couldn’t get through it. It was the first time they had bombed anything in ages, so there was a lot of chatter about it.” He shrugs, making his coat stretch over his meaty shoulders. “I put two and two together.”

  I stare down at my empty cup.

  “One day you’ll have to tell me how you got into the pipe. And out,” Garvin says. “I bet it’s quite the story.”

  I just nod. He leans back in his chair, stretching.

  “Listen. Here’s the thing. We find the less we know about each other, the better. Some of the guys here have done… questionable things. Not entirely legal things, even before the invasion.” He chuckles, his breath low and raspy. “About a quarter of the boys busted out of a juvie jail west of here.”

  “Jeez.”

  “What I’m saying is, you might want to keep your story to yourself. I already know some stuff about you that the others might not be so accommodating about.”

  I’m starting to feel a bit defensive, and the small amount of doubt I arrived with has grown to m
e thinking I might have inadvertently taken a bit part in Lord of the Flies.

  “What stuff about me?”

  “We can talk about it later. Don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye on you.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  Garvin grins in a way that makes me feel a bit queasy. “I heard that about you,” he says. “You fought for money down at the camp?”

  “Not money. Food. A couple of times in self-defense.”

  “You broke someone’s nose.”

  I almost smile at the memory. Homophobic douchebag got kicks out of roughing up boys half his size. I coldcocked him in line for breakfast one morning. He landed facedown. “Deserved it,” I say.

  Garvin is still grinning. “We don’t have anyone here who can fix broken bones, so I don’t want to see any fighting. If someone gives you grief, come to me. The only punishment for breaking rules is expulsion. One strike, you’re out.”

  “What are the other rules?”

  “No stealing. Keep a tight lip with outsiders. Do what I tell you in everything else.”

  He studies me, while I try to keep my face as neutral as possible. In normal times his deal would sound like a tyrannical regime best avoided, but these days it seems all regimes are tyrannical.

  “What do I get out of it?”

  “A proper warm bed in heated quarters. Better food. And a purpose.”

  “What purpose?”

  He sniffs. I get the feeling he’s done sizing me up. “We’ll get to that.”

  He stands and beckons for me to follow. Outside, the sun has dipped below the horizon and the air grown even colder. I tuck my hands into my pockets as I follow Garvin across a kind of forecourt. Tall industrial buildings rise up on either side of us as we turn and head down a dim lane between two lower buildings. There’s an air of finality to the desertion here. Snow piles up on shapes that might once have been useful equipment or supplies. It smells woody, though, like shop class in school, sawdust and pine.