by Riley Flynn
“It’s fine,” Nelson called out from somewhere. “We can tell him about them. They’re going to find out anyway.”
Krol rubbed a palm across his face, the friction sounding like sandpaper dragged across stone.
A circle had formed around Alex and his enemy. It was just him and Krol, the world fell away behind them. The farm house, the kitchen, the other people in the room: none of it mattered. Just the two of them, standing facing each other.
“You heard him, Krol. Tell me. Tell me everything.”
“You’re not ready to hear it.”
“When will I be ready?”
“When you stop letting your blood think before your brain.”
They were short, clipped syllables. Perfunctory. Whip snap words, wielded like weapons of torture. Too much.
If Krol thought Alex was too overcome with emotion, then maybe it was time to agree with the man.
Alex threw a punch.
It caught Krol in the jaw, knocked him back a step. More a surprise than the force of the blow. Alex could read it on the man’s face: no pain. Just shock.
Before Alex could strike again, he felt himself being dragged back. An arm on each shoulder, four hands gripping his torso. Cam and Timmy, pulling him away. On the other side of the room, Nelson had thrown himself in front of Krol.
“Stop it, Alex. Stop it. Come on, man. What the hell?”
“Back off, Alex. Come on. Sit down over here.”
Timmy and Cam navigated their friend to a chair.
Krol was still standing, allowing Nelson to remain in front of him. Even from across the kitchen, even in the fading pale of the light, Alex could see why. The two tiny eyes stared and stared. Not with anger, fear, or fury.
Just disappointment. Alex could read it from the other side of the room.
They remained like this for some time. Alex sat in his chair, trying to decipher the little emotion he could spot in Krol’s weathered features.
The others buzzing about him, apologizing to one another, discussing nothing much.
And Krol himself, doing nothing. Just watching the world turn with Alex at the center.
There was nothing left to say.
The silent scene shattered only when Jenna walked into the room. In a hushed, quiet voice, she announced that the baby had been born.
As Timmy asked for more information, as he was told to give Joan time to rest and recover, as Nelson and Cam cheered and clapped and failed to find anything to drink, Alex sat still.
He stared at Krol.
Krol stared back.
The baby had been born in the most interesting of times.
12
A cold war for a cold season.
For weeks, the simmering rage Alex felt towards Krol had boiled over into nothingness. All that remained was a glacial silence. They didn’t talk. There was nothing to say.
Christmas came and went, marked only by a fleeting memory and slightly larger portions on a lunch time plate. There were no presents to exchange. It became a day like any other.
In the middle of it all, there was a new sound in the house. A cry. A howl. A bellow from the tiny lungs of Joan’s newborn baby. A girl.
She didn’t have a name. Or, if she did, Joan wasn’t telling anyone. Around the farm, she was referred to as the baby or the new arrival. Everyone knew what these phrases meant.
Together, they had one goal. To make the farm a better place. To prepare against the winter, to batten down the hatches against the cold and discover new ways in which they could make their home more hospitable.
Light. Heat. Food. Protection.
Four factors which they worked toward. This meant they had to get creative. One day, they might fashion lanterns out of old glass jars. The next, Cam would drag an old oil drum into the kitchen and bend and twist it into a fire pit for the middle of the floor. The smoke quickly clogged up the room and the idea was abandoned until they could make a chimney.
Alex found himself skipping meals. More for the baby, he told himself. The longer he could help to stretch out the rations, the easier it would be to prove Krol wrong. Dizzy headed and hungry, he comforted himself with this tiny victory.
They were building defenses around the home. Extra bolts on doors. Sandbags placed on the porch. But there was never an explanation as to why. Just another chore which needed to be done.
More and more often, Krol and Jamie disappeared for hours at a time. Not just into locked rooms or even into the forbidden areas, such as the barn, but they took a car and drove it away from the farm. Timmy had tried to inquire as to where they went. Alex already knew there wouldn’t be an answer. He didn’t want to give Krol the pleasure of ignoring him.
More often, they found themselves crowded into the upstairs bedroom. Since the birth of the baby, Joan had taken it as her own. She darned socks and took medical questions, tried to stay as useful as possible. No one else wanted to share a room with a crying child, it seemed. This meant that, when possible, Alex, Timmy, and Cam could retreat up the stairs and talk among themselves without worrying about being overheard.
“It’s got to be in the barn, man. Got to be.”
Timmy sat on the edge of the bed, almost bouncing up and down as he spoke. Beside him, Joan cradled the baby.
On the floor, sleeping, was Finn. Ever since the birth, the dog had hardly moved from his position.
“Quieter. Quieter. She’s just stopped crying, Timmy, please.” The exhaustion in Joan’s voice was clear. The sarcasm Alex had grown used to was gone. Instead, a tired, raspy determination.
Alex hadn’t noticed the change in tone until he’d actually sat down and listened. It surprised him.
“Sorry. Sorry.” Timmy held up two hands in apology, dropping his voice. “This food thing is so weird, though.”
“Alex.” Cam watched out of one of the bay windows as he talked, the light falling across his face. He’d still not shaved, despite the facilities being available. The beard glowed in the winter sun. “You said Krol told you we were going to run out of food.”
Alex nodded. The idea had stayed with him, too. He hadn’t imagined it.
“So he either lied, or they’re getting it from somewhere else.” Cam kept his eyes on the road as he talked, waiting for Krol to return. “Food, mostly. But fuel, too. Depends how far they’re going.”
“We could take one and find out.” Timmy’s eyes lit up with subversive adventure.
“Nah.” Cam’s head shook from side to side. “They empty the fuel out every time they get back.”
“Maybe they’re going on raiding trips?” Timmy’s imagination was running wilder and wilder as he grew stronger. “Driving out to other houses and holding them up. Think Krol would do that?”
“No.” Joan was certain. “They never look flustered when they come back. And they’re too scared of the disease. Wherever they’re going, they know it well.”
“Well, hell.” Timmy turned to Alex. “This is your neck of the woods, man. Tell us what’s around here?”
“There’s only the town.” Alex pictured Athena in his mind. Sammy’s town. “He said that Levine guy runs it now. Don’t think Krol is a fan of him.”
Whether he was clearing fields, filling sand bags, or skipping meals, Alex couldn’t stop the wheels and cogs from turning inside his head. He was cooped up here, not able to go anywhere else. Everything rested on a flimsy alliance with a man he hated.
All that trouble to get to the farm and now all he wanted to do was leave. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t how he’d imagined it. Everything was just kind of… wrong. A throbbing pain had set up shop in his temples, every word from Krol or every glance from Jamie enough to make it worse.
Just a case of cabin fever, he told himself. It’s safer here than anywhere else.
But that didn’t stop Alex from craving a bit of action. The feeling that he had to do something. Anything. Action, used to demonstrate that he still had control. That he had mastered his emotions. That he wasn’t succum
bing to the burning rage inside his mind. Ever since he’d hit Krol in the face, his heartrate had hardly raised above resting. It had felt good. But he couldn’t tell his friends that.
“I think we need to get in the barn,” Alex announced to the group. “That’s the key to this. We need to know what they’re hiding in there.”
“I don’t think it’s anything, man.”
“Timmy’s right, Alex. You’re obsessed.” Joan rocked the baby.
“I’m not. I’m really not.”
No one was looking him in the eye. Had they been talking about it behind his back? He’d raised the issue of the barn before but no one else seemed to be bothered. If he wasn’t going to be able to attack Krol or challenge him face to face, he could at least challenge the man’s rules.
“You know we can see out of this window, right?” Timmy smiled as he said it. “We saw you stop there on the way up here. Where you got those lockpicks? Back pocket, I bet.”
“No.” Joan didn’t look up from her child. “Too obvious. Tucked into his pants.”
Alex kept quiet and leaned against the wall, hoping the line of his shirt didn’t fall over the folded piece of leather he had tucked beneath.
Timmy laughed.
“Yeah, that’s it. We saw you stop there, then Reni coming out. Saw you jump out of your skin when you heard her. You’re obsessed with that place, man.”
“She told me it’s not the first time she found you out there,” Cam added.
“Oh, she tells you a lot of things, does she?” Alex picked up his shoulders, felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise. “They all tell you about me, do they?”
“Alex, please.” Joan’s raspy tired voice invited sympathy and Alex felt his heckles fade. “We need to get along with these people. They’re not the monsters you make them out to be.”
“Yeah, man. That Jamie girl might be a bit of a bad one, but she’s been teaching me a thing or two about boxing, you know?”
Alex didn’t know. He had no idea Timmy had been taking fighting lessons. Why hadn’t they asked him?
“Really?” Alex clicked his tongue, tasting the venom on every syllable. “Quite the fighter, is she?”
“She’s all right, man. She was military.”
“She attacked me!”
“You did nearly bash her face in with a rock.” Timmy lowered his head. “But, I don’t know man, don’t get angry at me…”
“Alex. You don’t have to like these people. I get that.” Joan tried to reach a hand out for her friend’s arm. “But we have to make the most of what we’ve got here. It’s a great house. You’ve done amazingly to get us here. But now we need to think about things differently. Take Reni, for example. Clever girl…”
The words passed Alex by. He wasn’t listening. But he didn’t want to shout at his friends. He needed to change the subject.
“What do you think of her?”
“Who?”
“Reni. Her and her brother. What do you guys think?”
The smile still danced across Timmy’s face.
“He’s trying to change the subject, Joanie. Can you tell? Caught in the act.”
“Cam?” Alex asked, looking to the window. “What do you think of them?”
“They’re decent enough.” Cam finally turned away from the window. “Nelson and Reni. They’re friendly types. Got talking to them a few times. Kind of a package deal, though, right?”
“Definitely been getting to know Reni, I heard…” Timmy talked into his hand, feigning a chuckle as Joan shushed him.
“Yeah.” Alex ignored the others. He had found Reni and Nelson the most accommodating. The most willing to talk to him, at least.
“The girl, too.” Cam continued to talk, raising his voice over Timmy’s sniggering. “She’s good people.”
“Jenna?”
“Yeah. She’s smarter than she looks. Probably be in college if it wasn’t for all this.” He waved his hand at the farmhouse. “She ain’t bad.”
“That leaves two more.”
“Yeah, I know. Two more. Not got much nice to say about them, if I’m honest.”
“You don’t like them?” Alex appreciated having his thoughts echoed back to him. “Jamie and Krol?”
“I ain’t got nothing particularly pleasant to say about either.”
“She was in the army, though.” Timmy had laid back on the bed, making himself at home. “I thought you military types hung out together.”
Cam snorted. A laugh he’d cut short. He looked at the baby, then at Joan.
“Sorry. I’ll keep quiet. She ain’t proper military. Not as I understand it. Nearly was, then went private. Then lost her arm. Tragic, sure. But the girl’s got no manners, that’s what bothers me.”
“She hates Alex.” Timmy’s smile was back. “Really hates him.”
“I’ve noticed.” Alex sighed.
“Again, didn’t you almost hit her with a rock?”
“I only threatened to. Anyway, I don’t think she liked me before that.”
“What about Krol, man?”
“I definitely hit him. But he deserved it.”
The room was quiet.
“Wait.” Alex looked around. “You don’t think he deserved it?”
No one looked him in the eye.
“You can say it, you know?” Alex looked from one person to the next. “You really don’t think I should have-”
“I wasn’t there.” Joan spoke quickly into the top of the baby’s head. “But from what I’ve heard, you did… react badly…”
Alex could feel his eyes widen.
“What? Do you know half the things he’s been doing? I told you what he said. And all the secrets?”
“Yeah… you said. But - and I mean this in the best possible way, Alex – hitting him might not have solved any of these problems. These people are just trying to survive, just like us.”
“Felt good.” Alex muttered to himself, bending down to stroke the dog. “Krol deserves everything he gets.”
“Yeah, man. The guy is a monster. He clocked me, first time I met him. Knocked me out flat.”
“So you’re on my side, Timmy?”
“Er… yeah. Mostly. I just think you’ve been a bit angry lately–”
“He’s stolen my house!”
“–and you’re getting a bit obsessed.”
“What? How?”
“With the barn. With Krol. With all these little things. Not everything is a conspiracy, Alex.”
“But we need to figure out what’s going on. We have to.”
“Do we? I mean…” Timmy looked around. “Things aren’t too bad here. I know we were all a bit… worried. It wasn’t what we expected. It’s not perfect. But it’s not bad. Compared to before, at least.”
Alex’s mouth dropped open.
“You think we’re okay?” Alex was exasperated. “But the secrets? The lies? Krol? Everything!”
“We just–” Timmy stopped talking as Joan laid a hand on his shoulder.
“What Timmy is trying to say, Alex, is that we think a period of calm would be good. With the baby, with winter. We don’t need to be running around all the time. If our goal is to survive, right now we’re better making friends than enemies.”
“You as well, Cam?” Alex turned towards the window. “You can’t be happy?”
“Hey, friend. I’m good. I’ve been reading. Been working. Nice to have a bit of a routine.”
“You just want to read and work?”
“I’ve been reading about crops, farming. You got some good books here. I got plenty of time.”
Alex had to try a different line of attack. He was getting desperate. The whole world was slipping away, that firm ground he thought he was standing on had begun to open up below him.
“Well, we might have more books in the barn. I know my dad had more. And, Joan, we might have some of my old baby things? Toys and clothes and everything.”
“We’re okay, Alex.” Her stern tone told him th
at she saw right through his thinly veiled attempt. “Really.”
“But everything–”
“Everything is stable. Calm.” Joan ran a hand across the baby’s head. “You don’t need to save the day all the time. Sometimes, you can just sit back. Take it easy. I know it’s your house and we’re all guests here and that everything is weird for you. But, still. Please, I’m asking you to do it for me…”
They had been talking about this already. Moving ahead of him. Probably while Alex was busy trying to pick the lock of the barn. They’d all been sitting up in the bedroom, watching him, waiting to say something.
“And you all feel like this?” He stood up, looking at each friend in turn. “You all agree?”
Sheepish mutterings, Alex thought, all of them mumbling accord. But they didn’t dissent. They were standing firm. Standing in unison, backs straight. Their conviction sewed a seed of doubt in his mind, but he didn’t want to give it space to grow.
“Fine,” Alex conceded. There was no use arguing with them.
They just didn’t have his anger. This wasn’t their house. They’d lost nothing. Only gained. Trying to convince himself that his friends were in the right, Alex stood quietly beside the door. Maybe they didn’t understand him quite as well as he thought.
But then, who did? Not many people. There weren’t many people who he could convincingly state knew him inside and out. Sammy, perhaps, had been the only one, who’d been able to calm him down with nothing more than a single finger down the curve of his neck. A soft touch. And she was nowhere to be found.
“Fine.”
Alex repeated the phrase for lack of anything better to say. They were in agreement. A democracy. Three votes to one.
They would do nothing. For now.
The baby began to cry.
13
The baby never stopped crying.
Every time Alex went up the stairs, heralded by the howling of the wind outside and the new arrival in the bedroom, he saw Joan’s eyes grow increasingly tired. She wasn’t sleeping.
Neither was anybody else. Nerves were frayed. Conversations snapped, ending in arguments. Only the dog seemed to be able to cope with the constant sound of tears.
