Aftertime

by Sophie Littlefield

  “You’re right, of course, Smoke. Land divisions from Before, they don’t make much sense anymore…but that’ll change. Do you have the faintest idea what’s going on at the borders?”

  “The borders? The borders are a myth,” Smoke snapped. “Blueleaf crossed the state line the first time a strong wind came up. And you get one Beater with a bad sense of direction, he’ll be up to Oregon or down to Mexico and never know the difference.”

  “You have no idea,” Evangeline said softly, drawing out the words, enjoying them.

  “We’re less than sixty miles from the Nevada border, as the crow flies. If they’d armed it, we’d know.”

  Evangeline laughed, a rich, throaty laugh full of pleasure.

  “What’s so funny,” Cass demanded.

  “It’s…it’s not funny. It’s sad, really,” Evangeline said, wiping a mirthful tear from the corner of her eye. “Sad in so many ways…sad that even intelligent people like the two of you can be so naive.”

  Smoke tightened his hands to fists and laid them on the table. His jaw worked with fury as he leaned forward, closing the distance between him and Evangeline.

  “Say what you mean,” he muttered.

  “Oh, all right, fine,” Evangeline said, almost pouting-as though he had knocked down a game of checkers. “The border isn’t California. It’s the Rockies, all the way down to the Colorado River. They’ve cut off half the fucking country.”

  19

  CASS HELD HER BREATH.

  It wasn’t possible. The Rockies…in her mind she called up the map from her high school Geography textbook, the West laid out in shades of sienna and gold and peach and russet. California stretching all the way down to the Baja Peninsula, up to Washington and Oregon. Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona…thousands and thousands of miles stretching out to the Pacific Ocean to the west, and the mountains to the east.

  No one could contain that, no matter how many fences they built, no matter how many volunteers they armed, how many mines they laid…could they? And not with the American government effectively gone.

  “I don’t believe you,” Smoke said, but there was the faintest trace of doubt in his voice.

  “Believe, or don’t believe.” Evangeline shrugged. “Now that, right there, that’s the true enemy of the future. Ignorance. Indifference. Failure to adapt.”

  “As opposed to wild theories and fearmongering? Trading on people’s loss and grief to justify…” Smoke gestured around him, including the others in the room-the guns, the library, the hidden citizens. “All of this?”

  Evangeline folded her arms across her chest and narrowed her eyes. “You’re starting to bore me. I thought we could engage in a little intelligent discourse, but you’re nothing more than an-an agitator. You didn’t fool Skiv, you know.”

  “Fool him? What are you talking about?”

  “With your whole ‘they fired first’ defense-”

  “That wasn’t a defense, that’s the truth,” Smoke cut her off. “There are people who survived that day who can tell you the real story-some living here. At least, they were, unless you’ve thrown them out. For agitating, as you call it.”

  “You’ll be taken down to Colima tomorrow,” Evangeline continued on, as though he hadn’t spoken. “To the detention camp until they can schedule your trial. Although it might be a while, seeing as there are a few other more pressing issues on folks’ minds. You ought to like it, though-from what I hear, it’s full of people like you.” She gave him a smile, flicking out her tongue to lick her lips. “Enemies of progress.”

  “Smoke, what is she talking about?” Cass demanded in a whisper. Everyone could hear, but she didn’t care; the panic that had lodged in her gut was escalating.

  Smoke shook his head slowly, not taking his eyes off Evangeline. “Sounds like they’ve built themselves a jail,” he said softly. “What does that say about your new society-you’ve built jails and an army first…”

  “We’ve built a community,” Evangeline snapped. “And a research center. In the university hospital. We’ve got the best of the best working down there. We’re the only hope for the future, and people know it. You think we’re forcing people to stay here?”

  She waited, but no one said anything.

  “Anyone can leave, anytime they want. We held a vote. The people here had the option to choose to go it alone. Of course, we offered protection, resources…better facilities, cleaner water. And when we do develop the vaccine, our people will get it first.” She focused her gaze on Cass with distaste. “It will be quite a while before we have enough for anyone living outside our control.”

  “You aren’t developing a vaccine,” Smoke muttered. “There’s no way-the equipment, the intellectual capital, the infrastructure, none of that survived. They took it out-all of it. Berkeley’s a fucking smoking hole in the ground. Stanford got leveled. They knew where the research was going on and bombed the shit out of it.”

  “I think you’ve said enough,” Evangeline said. “You speak from ignorance. And I want to talk to your girlfriend now, not you. Nyland, keep him in line.”

  The man with the thin beard stepped forward, gripping a handheld wand with prongs at the end. Cass realized with dismay that it was a Taser.

  “Don’t believe them,” Smoke said, not bothering to lower his voice. “No matter what happens. Promise me that, Cass.”

  Cass gave him a small nod, wondering how she was supposed to know who to trust. Evangeline watched her with cold interest. “Let me lay out the future for you, sister.”

  “I’m not your sister,” Cass snapped. There was something not right about Evangeline, some realignment of emotions that crackled under the surface, a tightly controlled mania.

  Evangeline smiled, and suddenly Cass realized that she was actually very beautiful. If she were capable of a genuine smile, she’d be stunning.

  “Of course. You are an only child. An orphan now. Your father left the family long ago and your mother… I extend my condolences, of course. The fact that so many have been lost doesn’t lessen anyone’s individual pain. We recognize that.”

  Fear shivered its way down Cass’s spine. How did Evangeline know so much about her? And what about Ruthie-the one detail she hadn’t mentioned? Elaine, of course; it had to be. She tried to remember what she and Elaine had talked about, during the long hours they’d spent together in those early days in the library. Of course they must have exchanged life stories. Elaine… Cass searched her memory, trying to dredge up what the woman had told her. She’d been a gym teacher at an elementary school…she’d been dating another teacher, but she’d broken off the engagement earlier in the year, and that’s when she opened her yoga studio. She had cats. Two cats, a white one and a striped one-there had been a photo. Yes…she remembered Elaine showing her the photo, her voice trembling when she described her cats, which had gone missing shortly after the attack on domesticated fowl, when suddenly everyone became a hunter. Oh, and she had a younger brother with problems, some sort of problems that had landed him in a group home in Oakland.

  So it was possible. Even Cass, who’d lost several weeks of her life, had been able to dredge up those details. It was well within the bounds of possibility that Elaine had been able to tell Evangeline the things she knew. The question was-why? How had they gotten the information out of her? Here, in this room, with the three strangers staring at her and Smoke, Cass had no trouble believing they would do whatever it took to get what they wanted.

  But Elaine hadn’t told them about Ruthie. Why?

  “You can’t stay here,” Evangeline continued. “If people know you returned, after the attack-there’s a lot of ignorance, a lot of fear. You wouldn’t be…tolerated well. We wouldn’t be able to guarantee your safety. Down in Colima, we have scientists, we have a way to explain things in terms people can understand. And we have the others. Like you.”

  “If there are others, how come I’ve never seen them before?” Cass demanded. “How come no one has?”

&
nbsp; Evangeline shrugged. “Simple, unfortunate circumstances. Our people think that as many as one or two in every hundred citizens is immune, an outlier. It’s nothing new, there’s a similar phenomenon with other infectious diseases-HIV, malaria, even Parkinson’s. Only, to recover, you actually have to survive an attack or live through blueleaf fever. And as you know, it’s become a lot harder to do that.”

  Cass knew. Once people realized where the fever led, they stopped caring for the infected. Those who didn’t take their own lives were turned out on the streets or even killed, if their loved ones could stomach the job.

  “We’re getting close to a blood test,” Evangeline continued. “Soon we’ll be able to tell who’s an outlier and who isn’t. But we need people like you for that, people for the studies. And that’s why we’re going to give you safe passage to Colima.”

  She studied Cass, one eyebrow raised. “You’ll never make it on your own. There’s very little cover in the central valley, and the towns…well, I don’t need to tell you. But we’ve got a team headed down there day after tomorrow, and you can go with them. We’ll outfit you, get you a better blade. Food, water, first aid supplies-and you’ll go by truck. By truck, Cass, do you understand me? Just like in the old days. You understand that we cannot give you a gun, but your escort will be armed. Well armed.”

  At this, the man called Nyland smiled. Guns were about as easy to come by as fresh meat. They’d been the first thing people hoarded, along with water and batteries. But it had been amazing how quickly they changed hands when people were stupid enough to use them. The outcome of any armed situation was generally that one person ended up dead, and the other added a weapon to his stash. Which didn’t much matter, until people started hiding their weapons stores.

  The government had issued a call for an arms surrender when street violence exceeded the capacity of the forces left to contain it, but no one knew what they’d done with the few weapons people were willing to part with. There was no doubt that there was plenty of firepower to be had, only most of it was securely hidden away, its owners dead or infected, most houses raided early on.

  It had been Cass’s vague hope, as she walked all those recent days, to find a hidden stash. She wouldn’t be greedy. A small handgun, ample ammunition-that’s what she hoped to find. She knew how to shoot; she’d shot cans and paper targets nailed to trees in the fields at the edge of town with her father for a few years before he left. But she would use the gun only for self-defense or to get Ruthie.

  She’d do whatever it took to get Ruthie…and beyond that, she had no plan at all.

  But she was no closer to Ruthie now than she’d been before. Unless the Convent was also in Colima-which seemed unlikely-she needed to find a way to escape the plans Evangeline was making for her. And she needed Smoke’s help.

  “Mr. Schaffer’s fate is of no concern to you,” Evangeline said, as if reading her thoughts. “He has things to answer for.”

  “He’s a good man,” Cass protested, surprising herself, knowing that arguing with them was pointless. Besides, Smoke was nothing to her, her companion for less than forty-eight hours, a quick hand job and a little relief in the dark, a man she’d used and whom, if she remembered him at all in the future, would be only a footnote in her journey. “Whatever you think he did-”

  “Fucker knows what he’s done,” Nyland said, a flush creeping over his face, and Cass realized that it was personal for this one. He had lost something or someone by Smoke.

  “Nothing that didn’t need doing.” Smoke bit off the words hard.

  The guy stood so fast that Cass didn’t have a chance to react, knocking over the glass of water on the table in front of him, and his fist connecting with Smoke’s face made a sound that was louder than Cass would have thought it ought to be.

  But Smoke said nothing. Even when blood dripped from the cut under his eye and onto the table, he barely reacted at all.

  20

  THEY WERE LED TO SEPARATE OFFICES, AND Cass spent the night in the room with the bed on the floor. She slept fitfully until the door opened and a woman she hadn’t seen before filled the doorway. She was thin and muscular in a hooded jersey and shorts and hiking sandals, and she said very little, her face partially obscured by the hood which she had pulled over her curly brown hair.

  “I’m here to take you to the bathroom. Then I will take you to the courtyard, where you will be served a meal. Then you’ll come back here.”

  They walked through empty halls toward the back of the library, steps echoing on the tiled floors. Sheer drapes covered the tall windows looking out onto the parking lot. The fabric was not substantial enough to block light, but it prevented Cass from seeing much. Pinned to the fabric were hand-lettered posters with slogans like VIGILANCE: REPORT EVERY SIGHTING and EQUAL SHARES FOR EQUAL WORK and CURFEW MEANS YOU.

  The outdoor “bathroom,” located in the shed enclosure where the trash Dumpster had been kept Before, wasn’t very different from when Cass had lived in the library. The makeshift panels separating the men’s and women’s sides had been replaced by sheets of plywood joined by sturdy steel braces, the roof now corrugated metal. A curtain hung from a shower rod lent privacy. The pots they had used before had been replaced by a toilet with a removable insert that could be hauled away to be emptied and cleaned.

  Cass’s escort handed her a bowl of water, basic toiletries. “Take ten minutes, I’ll wait.”

  Inside was a makeshift shower with a water reservoir operated by a rope pull. Cass undressed, turning her back toward the plywood wall before she took off her shirt, even though she was alone. Then she released the water and shivered as it trickled down onto her body in a cold, uneven trickle. She took as long as she dared, scrubbing her hair and skin with the sliver of soap she’d been given before rinsing with the frigid water from the tank. She dried herself with the stiff, scratchy towel the woman had given her and pulled on her clothes.

  She brushed her teeth and spat on the drainage hole, and combed her hair with her fingers. She folded the toiletries up into the damp towel and left them in a plastic basket on a teak bench, and when she emerged from the shower the woman was leaning against the enclosure’s cinder block wall, arms folded across her chest.

  But when she stood straight and pushed back her hood, Cass stopped abruptly in her tracks.

  It was Elaine. She was wearing the same clothes as the other woman, but her face was unmistakable in the bright light of the new day.

  “What-”

  “Hush,” Elaine whispered and pulled the hood forward, covering her face. “Walk with me and keep your voice down.”

  Cass stared straight ahead and concentrated on keeping her expression neutral as they walked back through the still-quiet building. Elaine pushed open the door to the courtyard and they walked into the sunlight, the smell of kaysev and wild onion drifting on the morning breeze. A paper cup skittered and rolled across the concrete, but otherwise nothing moved.

  On an ordinary day, when Cass lived here, there were people in the courtyard all the time. Children chasing each other, adults drying clothes washed in the earliest light of dawn in the creek, or preparing kaysev, or scrubbing dishes in the tubs of water they carried back. Or simply sitting in chairs dragged into the sun, talking. But now the residents rose and slept and bathed and ate on a schedule set by the Rebuilders.

  The courtyard’s layout was different, too, arranged for greatest efficiency. Tables had been organized in neat rows with plastic chairs. Plates and bowls and cutlery were stacked on shelves; a tarp had been rigged to cover them, but today, in the good weather, the tarps were rolled up and tied. The fire pit had undergone the biggest transformation of all: it was now a sturdy brick-and-mortar structure that rose a man’s height off the ground, with a chimney twice that tall, and a series of racks and hooks to hold food and pots above the flames.

  “We have five minutes,” Elaine said in a low voice, biting off the words. “Exercise time. Walk with me, but don’t look at me. L
ook at the ground. Keep a steady pace and keep your voice down.”

  She led the way along the edge of the courtyard, striding ahead with her hands clenched into fists at her sides, nothing like the easygoing yoga teacher Cass had known before.

  “Tell me everything you can about Ruthie. Please, Elaine,” Cass pleaded as she caught up. “I have to know. I have to go get her.”

  Elaine glanced at her; Cass saw only the shadow of her features concealed under the hood. “They’re sending you to Colima tomorrow, Cass,” she sighed. “Don’t you understand? And you need to count yourself lucky. Where they’re sending Smoke is way worse.”

  “I’ll find a way,” Cass said. “I’ll get away from them-I’ll run-I’ll-”

  “That’s suicide,” Elaine interrupted. “Don’t even talk that way.”

  “I’ve been on my own for weeks out there. I can do it again. Besides, if I don’t have Ruthie, I don’t have anything.” Cass swallowed down the lump forming in her throat. “I might as well be dead.”

  “I said don’t talk that way,” Elaine said angrily. “I’m put ting my ass on the line for you here. Because we were friends. Because-because I thought you were strong. Strong enough. If you’re going to give up there’s no reason for me to be here.”

  “Okay, okay,” Cass said hastily. “I’m sorry. Look, just tell me where Ruthie is and I’ll-I’ll be careful. I won’t do anything to get you in trouble. Or any of the others. I promise.”

  Elaine walked silently for a few moments before speaking. When she did, her voice was softer, almost tentative. “All right. I’ll tell you what I know. But you have to understand, there’s no guarantee that-there’s just no guarantees.” Cass thought Ruthie-small hand in hers, dimpled knees and cheek so soft she could kiss it a hundred times, a thousand-and pushed the panic away. Pushed it with all her might. “Fine.”