by Amy Cross
"Here?"
"Here."
I look down at the dry ground. "Why?" I ask.
"Why do you think?" He smiles. "You don't think we're gonna leave that corpse just sitting in the back of that truck, do you? Jesus Christ, boy, what kind of idiot are you? There's disease and all sorts of reasons why we've gotta get rid of it. You dig a hole, and dig it deep. There's a reason churches put bodies six feet under. It's to make it so wild animals can't dig people up. So get at least six feet down, maybe seven. I don't want any mistakes being made here. If in doubt, go a little deeper. Doesn't have to be too wide, though. It's not like we've got anything fancy like a coffin."
"A grave?" I say, my heart racing as I realize what he wants me to do. "For my brother?"
"He's liable to start stinking," the guy continues, with that big smile still plastered across his face. "There'll be flies and everything if we don't get moving, so I figure there's no time like the present." He pauses for a moment. "What are you waiting for, boy? Dig!"
Elizabeth
Pennsylvania
Dinner at the farmhouse is a strange event. There's a guy named Bridger who seems to be in charge of cooking, and everyone else seems content to let him stir the pot. Patricia, meanwhile, seems pretty nervous, and I can't help but notice that she takes her last cigarette out a few times and twirls it between her fingers, but she always puts it back in the packet after a few minutes. With Shauna having decided to stay in bed upstairs, Erikson seems kind of relaxed, although I'm suspicious that he might have taken more than one extra beer. There's also a guy named Thor, from Sweden, who seems polite but quiet, and it's his job this evening to keep an eye on the horizon and watch out for any unwelcome visitors. As we sit at the large kitchen table, there's not much conversation, and everyone seems intently focused on their food, as if it's the most important thing in the world.
"So what do you guys think Toad'll bring back tonight?" Patricia asks eventually, as she finishes her bowl of meat soup. She turns to Bridger. "What was in this tonight, anyway? Please don't tell me it was rat meat."
"We're not on the rat meat yet," Bridger replies with a half-smile. "I thought we agreed that there'd be a don't ask, don't tell policy regarding the food. Believe me, if we have to sit around here much longer, you guys are definitely not gonna want to know what starts going into the pot."
"Come on, just tell us," Patricia says. "We might as well know."
Bridger pauses. "Beef," he says eventually.
"Beef?" Patricia replies, as if she can't quite believe it. "Seriously?"
"Beef," Bridger says again, with a shrug. "I'm using up some frozen beef that's been thawing in the basement. Don't get too used to it. It's gonna be all gone within a week. That's when we might have to start thinking about the rat meat. There's plenty of rats around here." He glances over at me. "So how were things in New York? After the shit hit the fan, I mean."
"It was pretty empty," I reply, realizing that everyone's turned to stare at me. "Not much going on."
"Sirens and stuff?" Bridger asks. "I've been wondering ever since this started, how it went down in the major population centers. Was there looting and stuff?"
I shake my head. "Everyone seemed to kind of vanish. I think people felt ill overnight and mostly went home. There were bodies in some of the cars, though."
"But no marauding gangs?" he continues.
"A few psychos," I reply, trying hard not to picture Bob's demented grin. "There were some planes that came down."
"Fuck," Bridger says, unable to hide a smile. "I bet that was a sight."
I smile awkwardly, not really wanting to get into the details. Even though it's only been just over a week since this whole disaster started, I feel as if I'm no longer even on the same planet as New York. Two days ago, I was still in the city with Henry and Bob, and now here I am, a thousand miles from nowhere and sitting in a room with a bunch of people I'd never even met when I set out from the city yesterday morning. Everything's moving so fast.
"Did they, like, just drop from the sky likes fucking stones?" Bridger asks. "Were there explosions?"
I nod.
"She probably doesn't want to talk about it," Patricia says, interrupting the conversation. "I imagine it was a pretty traumatic time."
"Yeah, but -"
"Bridger!" she says firmly. "Maybe leave it, yeah? Think about what it must have been like out there. I'm glad I happened to be out here in the sticks when it happened. The cities must have been hell."
"Toad's back," Thor says suddenly, looking out the window. It's almost dark outside, but there's still a little light, and seconds later I hear footsteps on the porch before a distant door opens and someone enters a different part of the house.
"Told you he's anti-social," Patricia says, turning to me. "Still, you should probably go and introduce yourself. It's only polite."
I stare at her, trying to work out whether or not she's joking. I guess I'm hoping that I won't actually have to go and meet Toad, at least not tonight. After everything that people have been saying about the guy, they've kind of built him up to be some kind of freak, and the last thing I want to do is meet another guy like Bob. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but it feels as if the events of the past week have brought out the worst in some people.
"Go on!" Patricia continues, grinning. "Get through to the pantry and just say hi, thank him for letting you stay, and tell him food's on the table. He won't say much, but he'll probably appreciate it, deep down. And then, just come back through. You'll still be in one piece, I promise."
"If he doesn't get you first," Bridger says with a smile.
"Shut up," Patricia says, turning to him.
"What?" he replies, acting shocked. "It's true!" He turns to me. "I don't mean to scare you too much, but Toad's a bit of a monster. I mean, why else do you think we call him Toad? If the world was normal, there's no way any of us would be out here with him, but right now he's pretty useful. He's the kind of guy who really should just be alone. Totally, completely alone forever. He knows it, too. He doesn't like having people around. That's why he spends so long out foraging each day. The guy barely even talks to any of us."
"It's true," Erikson says from the other end of the table. "He's always been a bit odd. I'm not sure, but I think maybe there's something a bit loose in his head, if you know what I mean. He's not quite wired properly. I used to think maybe he was, like, partially autistic or something like that, but now I think it's something else. I don't know, though." He smiles. "I'm sorry, I guess I'm probably scaring you. There's no reason to be nervous. He's actually a real teddy bear."
"Go on," Patricia says, leaning over and nudging my elbow. "Don't let these ungrateful assholes put you off. Just go and introduce yourself."
Smiling awkwardly, I get to my feet. The floorboards creak as I walk around the table, and I can tell that everyone's watching me. I don't know exactly what's wrong with this Toad guy, but it's as if the others are setting me up for some big fall. I reach the door and look out into the gloomy hallway, and I can hear someone moving about in the pantry. Glancing back into the room, I see that the others are all still watching me, and with a sigh I turn and start walking along the hallway, hyper-aware that my every step is causing the wooden floor to creak and groan. Eventually, I reach the door that leads into the pantry, and I spot a figure in the shadows at the far end of the room, working on the contents of some kind of large bag. In this light, it's hard to make out much detail, and I feel as if I'm in danger of interrupting some private moment. Still, I figure I have to at least introduce myself.
"Hi," I say eventually.
He pauses for a moment, but he doesn't turn to me, and he doesn't say anything. After a few seconds, he gets back to work.
"I'm Elizabeth," I continue, trying not to sound scared. "Elizabeth Marter. I arrived earlier with Erikson and Shauna. I..." I pause, watching as Toad pulls some kind of dead animal from the bag and sets it on a nearby table. "I just wanted to thank you," I add, "for letting m
e stay."
He pulls another dead animal from his bag.
"The food was really nice," I say after a moment. "The others said to tell you that there's some waiting for you."
He pulls out a third dead animal.
"Okay," I continue eventually. "I don't want to disturb you, so -"
Before I can finish, Toad turns and carries his bag over to a nearby table, and finally I get a proper look at him. To my surprise, I see that he's young, maybe late twenties at most, and although he's covered in dirt and grime, and despite the fact that his dark hair is matted and unruly, there's something about him that immediately makes me feel as if I've been punched in the gut. His dark eyes glance at me briefly before he starts pulling some mushrooms out of his cloth bag and setting them in a bowl. As I watch him work, I can't help but notice that he seems quietly confident, and I stare at his hands as they start sorting through the mushrooms. Whereas everyone else here at the farmhouse seems out of place, this guy appears to be in his element, as if he belongs here.
"You're Toad, right?" I ask after a moment, worried that maybe I've made a mistake.
He glances at me for a moment, before getting on with his work, and it's clear that this is definitely the right guy.
"Do you mind if I ask..." I pause. "What's your real name?"
With the mushrooms sorted into two bowls, he takes the bag over to a nearby sink and finally he empties out a tumble of what appear to be blueberries. I already feel as if maybe I've made a mistake and insulted him, so I'm not sure what to do next. I guess I should just turn around and go back through to the others.
"You can come with me tomorrow," he says suddenly, his voice sounding dark and smoky.
I stare at him, worried that maybe I just imagined that sentence.
"You need to help out," he adds, sorting through some jars from a nearby cupboard instead of looking at me. "If you come with me, you can help carry, and maybe you'll learn something. No offense, but you don't strike me as someone who's already brimming with transferable skills. We need to get you up to speed as fast as possible."
I open my mouth to reply, but I'm not sure what to say.
"Or you can stay here and learn to shoot," he adds.
"I'll come with you," I tell him.
"Be out front at sunrise," he continues. "Should be about 7am." With that, he starts cleaning out some jars, and after a couple of minutes I realize that the conversation is over. Quietly, feeling a little stunned, I turn and head out of the room. I can hear the others talking and laughing in the kitchen at the other end of the house, and I guess I should go back and join them. Still, I can't help thinking about tomorrow, and about the idea of going out into the wilderness with this Toad guy. I pause for a moment, loitering in the hallway as I try to get my thoughts together, and then finally I take a deep breath and decide that tomorrow's another day and I'll deal with things as they come. Bracing myself for the inevitable jokes, I eventually, reluctantly, go back into the kitchen to join the others.
Thomas
Missouri
"You're weak, boy," the guy says, watching as I continue to haul Joe's body across the forest floor. "A man shouldn't kill another man if he hasn't got the strength to haul the corpse to a proper grave. Then again, I don't suppose you're a man at all, are you? Not really. The modern world breeds infants and children, not proper men."
I want to turn and bash the bastard's head against a tree, but I manage to hold off. With that gun pointed at me, he'd have no trouble picking me off before I got near him, and I'm not going to give him the satisfaction of thinking God wanted me dead. For now, I just need to focus on the task at hand, which means getting Joe into the grave I spent five hours digging. So far, having tucked the tarpaulin around Joe's ankles, I've managed to get him this far without having to see his actual body. I guess it's probably a good idea to bury him, anyway; the last thing I want is for wild animals to start picking him apart.
"You ready?" the guy asks, sounding amused by the whole situation.
"There's not much to be ready for," I reply, as I reach the graveside and prepare to push Joe's body down into the pit. I guess there's not much point standing on ceremony, but I still feel as if I should do or say something to mark the moment. In the old days, there would've been a proper funeral, but over the past week it's seemed as if people are just dying and being left where they fell. No more funerals. No more priests or proper burials.
"Wait!" the guy calls out.
Sighing, I turn to him.
"It's not that simple, boy," he continues. "You have to look upon the truth of what you did. You have to be a man and face up to your responsibility." He pauses. "When I was a kid, I saw plenty of stuff that'd make your stomach churn. Turned me into the man I am today. So you're gonna pull that tarpaulin aside and take a proper look. That's what you're gonna do, whether you like it or not." He raises the gun, as if to remind me that he's got me in his sights. "Then, and only then, are you gonna bury your brother."
"No," I say, feeling a cold shiver pass through my body. "I'm not looking at him."
"You wanna join him in the grave?"
Turning back to face Joe's body, I realize that I've got no choice. I take a deep breath, before reaching down and pulling the tarpaulin aside. When I finally see his face, shattered by the bullet I fired straight between his eyes, I immediately feel blank, before a strange kind of white anger starts to rise through my body. I want to rip the world apart for putting me in a position where I had to shoot my own brother. I stare at his broken skin and at the fragments of bone that are sticking out from beneath the flesh. His eyes, dead and unblinking, are looking straight back at me, and I can't help wondering if, at the last moment, he understood that I was sparing him from any further pain. I hope so. I hope he knew, right at the end, that I was a good brother.
"Okay," the guy calls out. "Let's get this show on the road."
"Give me a minute," I reply, unable to stop staring at Joe's broken face.
"It's too late for regrets," the guy continues. "I'm just making you look at the consequences of what you've done. If that's really your brother, the only reason he's dead is because you put a gun in his face and pulled the trigger. To my way of thinking, that's a sin. Only God gets to decide when and how someone dies. Maybe God directed you and made you his agent, but somehow I think this was caused by your own foolishness. Still, at least I know that God witnessed what you did, so he'll undoubtedly deal with you when the time comes. It's going to get dark soon, though, so we need to get back to the house. Finish this mess up!"
I take a deep breath, refusing to answer.
"I said finish this mess up!" he shouts. "Or do I have to put a bullet in the back of your head and send you down there with your brother? Is that how you want to go?"
Reaching down, I grab Joe's shoulder and roll him into the pit. I watch as his body tumbles down to the soil deep below, and then I stand and stare for a moment. This is the last time I'm ever going to see him. All my life, Joe's been around, often bugging me but always a part of the world. Sure, he could be a total jerk, and there were times lately when I really came to hate him, but it's hard to believe that this is the end. I wish I could go back in time just a week and fix things, and make it so that he didn't have to die. If we'd never gone to Scottsville, and if we'd never met Clyde, things would have been different. Together, we might have stood a chance. As it stands, I have no idea where I'm going to go, even if I manage to get away from this gun-toting madman.
"That's enough standing around," the guy says after a moment. "Fill the grave back in. It'll be dark soon."
Without saying a word, I get to work. Every shovel's worth of dirt feels like it's weighed down, and at first I'm not even sure that I can finish the job. Eventually, however, I've managed to get most of the dirt back into the hole, and I'm left standing next to Joe's final resting place.
"I need to put a marker here," I say. "Something so that people know where he's buried."
"Fo
rget it," the guy replies, "no-one cares. Get back to the house."
"There has to be a marker," I say, turning to him. "It's only right. I'll get some wood and make a cross."
"Waste of energy," the guy says. "Get walking."
"But -"
"Jesus Christ, kid," the guy continues, "are you gonna argue about every little decision? I'm the one holding the gun, so I'm the one who gets to say what happens, okay? It's called democracy, and you need to get used to it. One gun, one vote. It'd be a shame to kill you when a perfectly good grave's just been filled in, but I won't hold back. You're only useful to me if you keep your mouth shut and stop arguing. In case you didn't notice, I was getting on just fine before you showed up, so I can easily go back to how things used to be." He pauses. "Come on. Let's get going."
The journey back to the house is slow, especially since the chains around my ankles are only nine or ten inches long, preventing me from taking anything long than baby steps. I can't help looking over my shoulder every now and then, to check whether the guy still has his gun pointed at me, but of course he's far too wily to let his guard down, even for a second. It's pretty clear that I'm going to have to wait a while before I get a chance to make a break, but I'm determined to get the hell out of here. There's no way I'm going to let this bastard think that he's won. Even if it's the last thing I ever do, I'm going to make him regret the day he started treating me like this.
"Here," the guy says as we get into the kitchen. He grabs some stale bread and tosses it at me. "That's your dinner. There's a cup by the sink. Fill it with water and take it downstairs with you, and make sure you get some sleep. You'll be working again in the morning."
Sighing, I do as I'm told before heading down to the dark, fusty-smelling basement. I turn and watch as the door is slammed shut, and I hear him turning the key in the lock. Standing alone down here, I realize that I can't take this much longer. Bread isn't going to keep me going, so I figure the old man is planning to work me until I drop dead. As I listen to the sound of his footsteps in the room directly above the basement, I decide that there's no way I can wait a week to get out of here. I don't know how I'm going to do it yet, but I have to find a way out of here as soon as possible. Taking a deep breath, I figure I'm going to have to escape tomorrow. Either that, or I'll die trying.
