Aftertime

by Sophie Littlefield

  But it wasn’t until Cass moved the binoculars to take in the one crouched next to it that she understood what was happening. The other Beater had chewed through a vein, or an artery-something big, anyway. It was bleeding out, nearly dead, so far gone as to be indifferent to its fate. Both their faces and shirtfronts were covered in blood.

  The others had noticed what was going on in the flower bed and were lurching over and crouching down next to their dying companion, shoving each other out of the way.

  “What’s going on?” Lyle demanded, and held out a hand for the binoculars. He looked only for a few seconds before lowering them.

  “Oh,” he said heavily. “They’ll do that sometimes, nowadays, when they haven’t had any fresh…you know. When they haven’t caught anyone for a while.”

  “The blood,” Cass said weakly.

  “Yeah, well, they don’t prefer it, but in a pinch I guess they get desperate.”

  Cass remembered the times, during the Siege, when she’d seen one of the Beaters who’d been cut with a blade when someone managed to get close enough during an attack.

  Their own blood fascinated them. It stopped them in their tracks even if they were seconds away from snagging a victim, and they would let go of a person’s arm or t-shirt to stare at the blood as it ran from their bodies. They would pat at it like a child with finger paints, seemingly oblivious to pain, spreading it around on their clothing and skin. They would taste it and suck it off their fingers, but tentatively, not thirstily.

  It was that fascination that sometimes saved people. It was the reason the children had been taught to use the blades. Cut a Beater deeply enough and it would bleed out like a citizen. But even if the wound didn’t kill it, spilling its blood would distract it enough so you could get away.

  It worked for a while. It probably wouldn’t work anymore.

  But Cass closed her fingers on the handle of the blade in her pocket anyway.

  16

  IN THE EVENING LYLE LIT CANDLES. THERE WAS canned soup and snack packs of Oreo cookies, the kind kids used to have in their school lunches. The soup was cold, but it tasted delicious. Afterward, Cass helped Lyle with the dishes. They were chipped stoneware with an ugly design of brown owls winking against an orange sun. These dishes had no doubt been purchased by one of the wives who’d come and gone.

  Strange, to think about what people held on to. What brought them comfort.

  That thought was still in Cass’s mind when she and Smoke set out again after nightfall. Lyle shook Smoke’s hand and gave her a hug, a crushing, lengthy one, and told them they were always welcome, and stood in his doorway watching them make their way down the street.

  In Cass’s pocket was a crystal suncatcher that she’d stolen from Lyle’s house. It had been hanging in the window in what had once been the dining room. She was sure that if she’d asked, he would have given it to her with his blessing.

  But Cass couldn’t ask. She had to steal. She didn’t know why, and wondering wouldn’t help.

  It wasn’t all that hard to keep the image of the Beaters-swarming across the street, feasting on their dying comrade’s blood-out of her mind, Cass discovered.

  Because now all she could think about was Ruthie.

  Cass held her blade in her hand as Smoke held his. They walked side by side, down the center of the street. It was a cool night and a few leaves had fallen from the sycamores lining the asphalt. The sycamores had survived the bioattacks that had decimated so many of the trees of Before. Cass had never cared for them because despite their vigorous spring leafing, by late summer they grew dispirited and started to shed yellowed and drying leaves. They seemed, to Cass, to lack resolve.

  Now, though, she felt a kinship for them. They, too, were survivors, and that meant something.

  Cass traced their route in her mind. Three blocks down Arroyo and then a right and a straight shot down Second for a quarter mile or so before it dead-ended in the wide lawn in front of the library. A few years ago there had been a fund-raising campaign to remodel the place, for new carpet and shelves and furniture, new computers and an updated catalog and checkout system. To pay for it all, personalized bricks were sold and laid in a meandering walkway to the front door. Mim and Byrn had bought bricks. Two of them: one said “Gina and Byrn Orr,” the other “Ruthie Haverford.” It hurt Cass that her own name didn’t appear on the bricks, even though she wanted nothing from Byrn and she herself was responsible for the chasm between her and her mother. And it also hurt that they insisted on using Haverford for Ruthie’s last name, because Cass had changed her own last name to Dollar legally the day she turned eighteen, and so Ruthie’s real name was Ruthie Dollar.

  Despite these hurts she knew exactly where the bricks were. Ruthie was only a baby when the walkway was put down, but Cass had brought her there in a stroller and showed her where hers was, near an oleander hedge. Later, Cass held her little fingers and traced the shapes of the letters in her name. She had been glad Ruthie had a brick, so that someday she could bring her friends and show them that she was someone.

  Cass thought about telling Smoke about the brick. But she wasn’t sure what words would make him understand, and she just wanted to get to Ruthie. Her hands were hungry to touch her, her arms longed to hold her. Her entire body felt infused with the frantic energy of longing for her baby.

  She was alert to the sounds of the night, listening for the wailing and snuffling that would signal that they had not been lucky enough. She stayed close by Smoke’s side, her fingers in her pocket brushing against Lyle’s crystal teardrop, and her thoughts chased each other in circles as she tried to focus on her breathing, the way that flight attendant in her meetings had constantly been harping about. The woman carried with her an air of wounded resentment that made it hard to pay attention as she described how you were supposed to inhale hope and possibility and exhale expectations and disappointment and fear.

  But now Cass breathed with everything she had, and after they had walked in silence for what felt like a hundred miles, the library finally appeared ahead in the gloom.

  “We need to go around to the side,” Cass said, trying to cover up the dizzy combination of relief and anticipation that flooded through her. “At least that’s where-”

  “Okay,” Smoke said.

  He matched her pace as she sped up, barely able to keep herself from breaking into a run. But then she stopped short, several yards from the door, apprehensive.

  “You have to knock,” she whispered. “When they see me, they might think I’m…you know.”

  Smoke put a gentle hand to her back. “Cass, you’re cleaned up. You look fine. And in the dark, your skin…”

  Cass knew what he meant. The wounds along her arm were faded even in the daylight, but in the dark they would go unnoticed.

  Smoke ran his hand gently down the side of her face, tilting her chin up so that she would have to look at him. “Are you all right?”

  Cass nodded, but she didn’t trust her voice to speak. She led the way to the door, but as she was about to knock it opened.

  The woman standing inside held a flashlight.

  “Hurry,” she whispered. She stepped out of the way, holding the door open just wide enough for them to pass.

  Cass and Smoke slipped inside and the door shut with a heavy thud.

  Someone slid a heavy bolt into place. As her eyes adjusted to the flashlight’s glow, Cass saw that four people were gathered in the small vestibule.

  One of the men held a gun loosely at his side.

  But as she scanned the others she realized that she knew one of them, and her alarm lessened slightly.

  “Elaine-it’s me, Cass.”

  There was a moment of shocked silence and then a flash of recognition, Elaine’s eyes widening and her lips parting as though she was about to say Cass’s name.

  And then she didn’t. Instead, her expression shuttered, but not before Cass thought she saw her shake her head, very slightly, as she raised her arms to
cross them in front of her chest.

  “Do I know you?” she said.

  “Elaine? Don’t you…” Cass’s bewilderment grew into something more, confusion edged with cold fear. She took another look at the other people in the room, their tense posture, their hard expressions. “My name is Elaine,” she said. “Elaine White. Maybe you took one of my yoga classes?”

  Her gaze was hard and intent, and Cass hesitated. “Uh…maybe.”

  “I used to teach at the Third Street Gym. And I had one over in Terryville on Thursdays and Saturdays. Saturday was such a big class, I never knew everyone’s name. But you look kind of familiar.”

  “Yeah,” Cass said, trying to gauge where Elaine was trying to lead her…and why. Elaine had been a yoga teacher, a fact that Cass learned during one of a dozen after-dinner conversations when the two of them had worked together washing and drying dishes and ordering the stores, tasks reserved for those without children. Parents told bedtime stories and tucked their little ones in, even Aftertime, leaving the others to fill the hours before sleep with stories of their past, never talk of the future. She knew that Elaine had recently broken up with her boyfriend, a man who’d left his wife for her, that she’d had to take out a restraining order against him, though he’d disappeared early on in the troubles. That she had to leave a room-sized loom behind when she came to the library, that she missed weaving her blankets and shawls and table runners more than anything from Before. “Saturdays. I took the…uh…”

  “Sacred Thread. At ten-thirty.”

  “Yes. That one.”

  For a moment they regarded each other, Elaine’s mouth compressed in a thin line, Smoke standing close behind Cass-and then the man with the gun stepped forward, gesturing with his free hand at the two of them.

  “All of this is very heartwarming,” he said, in the flat voice of a transplanted Midwesterner. “But your little reunion can wait. Arms out, legs apart.”

  Cass realized they were going to be searched, and drew in a sharp breath. She’d made it this far, and she couldn’t risk being turned back now, not before she got Ruthie.

  “Elaine, I just need-”

  “Do what he says,” Elaine snapped, any trace of warmth drained from her voice. “Maybe you were in my class, maybe not. We weren’t friends. So don’t expect me to treat you like we were.”

  “But I only wanted-”

  “Shut up,” Elaine growled, and in the flickering glow of the bulb in the fixture tacked to the ceiling with builder’s staples, Cass saw her reach for her belt and knew what was coming even before the woman who had once been her friend produced a gun of her own and pointed it at her heart.

  17

  FOR A SECOND CASS FELT LIKE THE BREATH HAD been knocked loose from her, like she was plummeting into a black hole.

  Smoke took her arm and she tried to jerk it away. She couldn’t let this happen, couldn’t let Elaine force her to reveal herself. From the corner of her eye she saw a man, one of the strangers, draw a blade from his pocket and hold it at the ready. The man with the gun raised it with a steady hand.

  “You don’t understand,” she pleaded, even as the others spread out warily in front of her and Smoke. Elaine, with whom she had made blackout curtains from heavy sheets of vinyl and a staple gun, with whom she had shared the last of her imported tea, exchanged a look with the armed man. And Cass realized that any advantage she had from knowing Elaine before was gone. Trust was precious, and easily lost Aftertime.

  Then Smoke did something that surprised her. Without letting go of her arm he stepped in front of her, twisting so she had to double over to prevent him from breaking her wrist.

  “I’ll vouch for her,” he said, voice steady and strong. “I’m known here. My name is Smoke. I’ll wait if you like-go ask the others.”

  “I know you,” the man with the gun said, surprised. “We ›raided together a couple of times. I’m Miles.”

  “I remember,” Smoke said. “You cut your hair.”

  “Yeah,” Miles said, and he lowered the gun, but not all the way. “Look…things are different now. It’s not the same. It’s…”

  Cass sensed the change in Smoke. Already tense, his body stiffened, and he shifted so she was practically hidden behind him, at the same time relaxing the grip he had on her wrist. But he held on, and she let him.

  “Rebuilders,” he said heavily. It was not a question. “They’re here.”

  Elaine looked at the floor, and Miles’s expression changed. It contained a warning. “There was a vote,” he said meaningfully, and Cass saw how he locked on Smoke, how he emphasized each word.

  The other man, the one who held a blade loosely in his fingers, stepped forward and Cass understood that he was the leader. She’d missed it because of the way he’d blended into the shadows, but now she realized he’d been ready all along, had been waiting and watching.

  “You’re the one from the rock slide.”

  Smoke drew himself up tall, and Cass slipped her arm from his grip. He was protecting her, but she saw now that the threat encompassed him, too. Something was happening that she didn’t understand, but she pressed close to Smoke’s side. If there was aligning to be done, she was committed.

  “I was at the rock slide that day,” Smoke said, his voice steel. “If you mean the day two innocent citizens died. Two innocents, and a few assholes with too much power and not enough guts.”

  “These are deadly times.”

  “They didn’t have to be, not that day. There were no Beaters nearby.”

  “Beaters aren’t the only threat around.”

  Cass glanced at Elaine, but she wouldn’t meet her eyes. She stood with her hands clasped in front of her and stared at the floor.

  “I’m not sure how you can say that, friend,” Smoke said. “Seems to me that people are just trying to get by, live to see tomorrow.”

  “So you say. But the way things are going, those days are numbered. Rebuilders have a plan. Somebody’s got to step up. Somebody’s got to be in charge. Otherwise what you got, you got anarchy. And then your couple of dead’s gonna look like a bargain.” He turned his chin and spat on the floor, looked back up with eyes blazing. “People die every day, Smoke-or whatever your name really is. Some of us aren’t so scared we’re just gonna let it happen. You ought to be thanking me and everyone else who’s turning this sorry little camp into a place where you might just live another day.”

  “Yeah, but at what cost?” Smoke stared him down, hard. “I’ll be dead before I’ll be your errand boy-yours or anyone else’s. And next time you can be sure I won’t stand by and let you take what’s not yours.”

  “Only you might just not have a choice. You’re here on our hospitality. You might want to remember that.”

  Elaine looked up, clearly uncomfortable with the direction things were going. “Ease up, Calder. You’re not-”

  “You’re a guest of the Rebuilders,” the man said, his face coloring. So he wasn’t in charge of the whole place-there was someone else he reported to. Cass tried unsuccessfully to catch Elaine’s eye. The man pointed at Smoke with his blade, already turning to leave the room. “Miles-check him. Elaine, you check the girl. Then put them in the guest rooms.”

  “Put up your hands,” Miles said uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, I don’t bear you no grudge, Smoke, but I’ll do what I have to.”

  “I’ll go you one better,” Smoke said, and set his pack on the floor. Then he slid his shirt off and tossed it to Miles, who nearly dropped it. Smoke could have taken his gun-they all knew it. Instead, he turned the pockets of his pants inside out, setting his blade carefully on the floor, and turned slowly, arms in the air.

  “There’s another blade in the pack. Provisions. That’s it.”

  “Can’t take your word for it.”

  Smoke shrugged and took a stance, legs shoulder-width apart, arms out. “Then do what you need to do, boy.”

  “I’ll take her in the bathroom and check her there,” Elaine said. “She can
leave her pack here.”

  Nobody contradicted her. Miles approached Smoke cautiously and began to pat him down.

  Elaine tilted her head toward a door still marked with the symbol of the women’s restroom. “Come on.”

  Cass felt a sudden frantic reluctance to be separated from Smoke. Which was stupid, seeing as just days ago she’d been completely alone and preferred it that way.

  Smoke seemed to read her thoughts. “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you inside, once our friends figure out we’re no kind of threat.” He made it sound like a promise.

  Cass swallowed down her panic. She nodded and followed Elaine, forcing herself not to look back.

  Inside the bathroom, the only light came from Elaine’s lantern, so when she stopped abruptly Cass ran into her, stumbling. And then Elaine clapped a hand over her mouth and shook her head, hard. Mouthed words: don’t say anything. Only when Cass nodded did Elaine let her go. “Sorry about this,” she said, her tone giving away only a trace of anxiety. “Things got a little tense in there, but it’s for everyone’s safety. Let’s just get the search over with and we can start over. Can you take off those clothes, please?”

  When Cass started to answer, Elaine put a finger to her lips and pulled a stub of pencil and a scrap of paper from her pocket. She set the lantern down and smoothed the paper on the counter. Cass reluctantly started undressing while she watched Elaine write:

  PLAY ALONG. THEY LISTEN.

  Cass mouthed the word who, but Elaine only shook her head and stabbed her finger on the paper until Cass nodded again.