Cass drank the tall bottle of water-gritty, bitter, no doubt boiled stream water-and did several sets of push-ups and sit-ups. A while later she did more. And then more. Maybe, if she did enough, if she pushed her body hard enough, she would grow tired enough to sleep.
Tomorrow she would be forced to go to Colima. Somehow, she had to find a way to escape. And far better to escape near the outset than later in the journey, since every mile would take her farther and farther away from San Pedro and the Convent.
Maybe forgetting would be better. Maybe if she could fill her days with other things, with chores and routines and conversations, until finally there was no room for all the memories of Ruthie-maybe then she could find some peace. But Cass knew there would never be such a thing for her, and though she pushed her body until she was drenched with sweat and collapsed on the thin mattress, the desperate need to find Ruthie was undimmed, and she lay in the dark listening to the pounding of her own heart, feeling the ache of what was missing.
When the tapping started, Cass thought it was in her imagination. It was a soft scratching sound, but then there was a snick of a dead bolt turning that was definitely real. Cass scrambled to her feet as the door opened. For a moment Cass blinked, adjusting to the light, and then an unfamiliar man came into the room and quickly closed the door behind them, plunging them back into darkness.
It was not a large room and Cass backed up into the corner opposite the mattress, feeling for the walls with her hands, panic blooming inside her. The man was bigger than her by far; her brief glimpse gave the impression of a solid build, thick arms, doughy hands. There was nowhere to go, and nothing she could use to defend herself.
But she coiled herself anyway, ready to throw everything she had into one fierce jab at the eyes or stomp on the instep, whatever it took to hurt him before he hurt her.
During the Siege there came a day when it became clear that the law was a concept that no longer had any meaning. Coalitions from Before were revealed to be more fragile than anyone guessed: prisons were opened and sheriff’s departments disbanded after the National Guard admitted it could no longer call up sufficient numbers to quell riots. Restraining orders went unenforced; predators prowled and bullies sought out the weak. Plaintiffs awaiting justice ran out of hope; defendants quit pleading innocence; old animosities based on skin color and native tongue reared their ugly heads once again. There were no more good guys in charge, no upholders of reason, no reason at all. The only rule in place was the rule of might, and crimes went unpunished as long as the perpetrators were bigger or stronger or more willing to take risks than their victims.
Most people behaved according to the same moral strictures they always had, but unexpected acts of violence and heroism stretched the ends of the spectrum. Some ordinary people discovered a taste for justice, and threw themselves into protecting the innocent, even when it cost them their lives. But at the same time, rapes and beatings and murders skyrocketed. Grudges were consummated in fits of spectacular rage, and those who had harbored violent fantasies against neighbors and rivals and even strangers acted on them with impunity.
So when instead of a body pressing her into the wall, Cass heard a low voice say, “Don’t be afraid,” she was seized by confusion rather than relief. The scream that was on her lips died in a whimper. Her hands, clenched into fists, trembled.
“Who are you?” Cass managed to whisper.
“A friend. My name’s not important, but I’m on your side. I’m here to help you get out of here.”
“Elaine said-”
“There’s been a change of plans. We need to get Smoke out, and the feeling is that you won’t be safe here once he goes missing. Look, he’s going to take you to the Convent. And for what it’s worth, we advised him against it. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“What would they do to Smoke?”
“Considering that he killed three of the top guys in the Rebuilder command, I’m guessing the maximum sentence in what passes for a justice system down there,” the man said stonily.
“Smoke killed them? Are you sure?”
“Look, no disrespect, but we don’t have time for this. Getting you out just compounds the risk for all of us, and frankly we probably would let you take your chances with Evangeline, except Smoke wouldn’t leave without you.” He didn’t bother to hide his irritation. “Now, can you pay attention? We don’t have time for me to tell you twice.”
“Okay,” Cass muttered, chastened.
“Nearly everyone’s at dinner right now and I have to get back. When I open this door I’ll go create a distraction in the courtyard. You’ll only have a moment. Run to the east entrance-you know the one? You remember?”
“Yes…”
“Smoke will meet you there. He’ll have your packs. He’ll know where to go. Do not talk, just follow him.”
Cass nodded, and only when the man opened the door and let a swath of light in did she notice that he was wearing the khaki shirt of the Rebuilders.
23
THE STRANGER SLIPPED OUT AS QUIETLY AS HE’D entered. Cass waited, listening hard. She heard his footsteps retreating down the hall, then nothing. She tested the door and found it unlocked.
But the thought that she would need to run away from the place that had meant safety to her just a short time ago seemed ludicrous. How was it possible to find enough to disagree about Aftertime that you could fight and kill over it?
The priorities were so stark. Live another day. Protect others, if you can. Eat and drink and sleep. Care for the children. Everything else-washing, learning, creating, loving-were luxuries rarely indulged…but they haunted people’s minds still. The dream of starting over ran deep.
At first, the rumors flew that the End Times had arrived. That the planet itself was dying. Defoliation would kill everyone on the planet in a matter of weeks-that was a popular theory for a while, until people figured out that not all of the plants were threatened. Then the kaysev seeds sprouted and the new panic was that it would choke out all other species and leach all the nutrients from the earth, but soon it became obvious that where kaysev grew, other plants that had survived the Siege returned and flourished.
Over and over the apocalypse theories were proved wrong. Earth did what She would; She chose life. If She was indifferent to the fate of humanity, She seemed unstoppable in her determination to restore health to Her forests and mountains and waters, as every new day seemed to bring a sprig or seedling of some species that was thought to be lost, or a flash of a silvery fish tail in the stream, or the sound of birdsong in the morning. And that’s when people started talking about a future, one in which the planet found a way to host the survivors.
Not everyone looked ahead, of course. There were those who gave up. Who believed it was only a matter of time before the Beaters prevailed or the blueleaf redoubled or the kaysev fell to winter frosts.
But the numbers of the hopeful were greater. Had been, anyway. People were hungry for leadership-that was why Bobby had risen so quickly and easily. No one opposed him; everyone was happy to defer to his natural ability to organize and encourage and parcel out tasks and resources and decide disputes.
But Bobby was dead.
They found his body on the rocks.
Cass’s heart contracted at the thought, and she leaned against the door frame, struggling under the weight of her guilt and the pain of yet another loss, when she heard the clatter.
It was muffled, but there was definitely the sound of crockery breaking on the floor, followed by cursing.
She didn’t wait. Her feet moved on their own; she flew down the hall past the conference room before her thoughts caught up, and by then it was too late to do anything but keep running. She took the corner fast. This was the worst of it, the place where she could be spotted by anyone looking in her direction. She heard the voices much more clearly now, as she flattened herself against the wall and slunk toward the door to the outside. When her fingers touched the metal bar of the d
oor’s push mechanism, she took a chance and looked backward. Silhouetted against the light pouring into the hall from the door to the courtyard was her rescuer, holding a large plastic tub while several people knelt at his feet picking up broken dishes.
Cass took a deep breath and pushed against the door.
Before, it would have been electronically armed, but without electricity the security system was useless. Now the door had a bulky padlock, but it swung free, the arm looped through only one half of the device, and the door opened and Cass found herself in a pool of late-day sun that made her blink.
“I’m here. Come on, now.” Smoke’s voice, and then Smoke’s hand seized hers and pulled hard and she was running next to him, straining to keep up. Her eyes adjusted to the light and she saw that they were headed for the alley running behind the library and city hall, across the staff parking spaces and the bike rack, skirting a row of dead shrubs and abandoned cars.
Halfway down the alley was a low brick building with a flat roof, a restaurant of some kind. There was still a smell of rotting garbage that lingered even after all these months, and Cass-who had seen and smelled things a thousand times worse-found herself gagging on the smell as Smoke pulled her beneath an overhang of wood slats.
“Take this,” he said, handing her the pack that Elaine had taken from her. It was heavier than it had been the night before in the library.
“What’s in it?”
“Supplies. Rations. Weapons. You can look later. For now, we need to put as much distance between us and them as we can before they find out we’re gone. And that’s going to be just a few minutes, I can pretty much guarantee it.”
Cass pulled the pack onto her shoulders and shrugged it into place.
“Can you handle the weight?”
“Yes-” Cass broke off when she saw that Smoke was holding a compact handgun. “Where the hell did you get that?”
“Our…benefactors,” Smoke muttered. “I wasn’t expecting it. Wish I could say I was confident I could use it.”
“You don’t know how to shoot?”
“I’ve shot some. When I was a kid. Rifles, mostly, duck hunting with my uncles. I know enough not to shoot myself or you by accident, let’s put it that way.”
Cass thought about what the stranger had told her, that Smoke had killed three men. Tried to imagine him staring down the barrel. Pulling the trigger. Found that it wasn’t that much of a stretch. There was something about him, some dormant powerful fury, that she could sense lurking under the surface. To her surprise, it didn’t frighten her. It almost seemed…familiar, a bitter mix of regret and deadly determination.
Cass herself could handle a gun. She had learned to shoot her dad’s.22 on a series of clear, cold January mornings when she was ten. She’d shot magazine pages nailed to trees, her father clapping her on the back and laughing whenever she hit one.
“I don’t suppose you have another, do you?”
“Sorry,” Smoke said. “But would you rather be the one to carry it?”
Cass raised her eyebrows, surprised that he was willing to put his safety in her hands. “Um, no, that’s okay.”
“Okay, well.” Smoke faltered. “Anyway, I’m hoping we won’t need it. We’re only going about three-quarters of a mile.”
“To another shelter?”
“No. Look, Cass, the resistance has gotten pretty organized. They’ve got resources hidden all over the place up here. And they must be pretty keen on getting us out, because they’re giving us a motorcycle.”
“What?”
“I know, I know, I’ll believe it when we see it, but Herkim-the guy who came for you-he told me where to find it and says it’s gassed up and ready.”
“And all we have to do is get there before the Beaters get us. In daylight, in the middle of town.”
Smoke touched his hand to the small of her back. “It’s sunset,” he said gently. “That’s not nearly as bad.”
If it was a lie, it was a lie told to protect her. Cass thought about what the stranger had told her in the cell: Smoke wouldn’t leave without you. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as they hurried along the alley, dodging clumps of garbage and the desiccated remains of cats and rodents flattened by fleeing traffic and left to rot.
Why did he care about her?
Why would he risk his own safety to protect her?
They turned left, toward a water tower in the distance that rose up in the sky over a residential neighborhood. “We’re headed for a house near the edge of town. The bike’s in a shed in the back. I’ve got an address.”
“And you know how to get there?”
“I memorized it. This way a quarter mile, right on Jackson, left on Tendrick Springs. Number 249. White house, green shutters.”
“Wow,” Cass said. “I don’t think I could remember my own birthday with everything…you know. Just, everything.”
They moved in silence. Cass stayed close to Smoke, bumping against him from time to time. She wasn’t used to looking to anyone else for reassurance. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it, but she also wasn’t about to question it, not now.
“When is it?” Smoke asked as they turned onto Jackson Road.
“When is what?”
“Your birthday.”
Cass didn’t say anything for a moment. It was January first; she had been the first baby born in Contra Costa County that year. But she hadn’t celebrated her birthday in years. Her mother always sent a card, signed-in her mother’s hand- “Mim and Byrn.” No “love,” nothing but their names.
She’d spent more than a few of her birthdays hung over. Or drunk by noon.
On her best days she told herself she would start celebrating again when she got Ruthie back. She would make a cake. They would wear hats made from sheets of newspaper.
“Is it a big secret or something?” Smoke asked. “Come on, why won’t you tell me?”
“January.”
“January what?”
“Does it really matter? I mean, do you think people are still going to be keeping track by then? Tell you what, if-if we’re still alive I’ll tell you the date then.”
What she meant was, if they were still together…not together together, because it was crazy to imagine such a thing, to give their brief acquaintance significance that it didn’t have; but if after Cass got Ruthie they ended up sheltering in the same place. Something like that.
“Deal,” Smoke said and slipped his hand around Cass’s and squeezed, letting go before she could react.
And the last of her mistrust of him slipped away.
Smoke had proved himself over and over. He’d believed in her innocence when she arrived at the school with her blade pressed to a child’s neck. He’d come with her, voluntarily, to the library. Now, his best course was to run in a different direction, to go where the Rebuilders wouldn’t pursue him, but he’d come with her anyway.
And there was the other night. In the cool, clean sheets at Lyle’s place. In the breeze that reminded her of Before.
But that didn’t count. That couldn’t count, and Cass pushed it from her mind, pushed the memory hard into a small corner where it would be protected and preserved. Still, that left last night when he’d faced down the Rebuilders without hesitation, and today when he’d waited for her to join him at the back door.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“For what?”
“For coming with me. For being here.”
Smoke shrugged. “I can’t go back to the school now-I don’t want to lead the Rebuilders there. No matter where I go, they’ll come after me, but if they think I’m with you, at least they’ll leave the school alone.”
Cass thought she understood. The people at the school had been strangers not long ago. But now, Aftertime, they were all he had.
“I hope they’re fine,” she said softly, thinking of Sammi and her mother, of the women at the bath trough, of the children playing with the plastic animals. Of Nora, with her intense d
ark eyes and choppy haircut.
Wondered if Smoke was thinking about her. Missing her. Wishing he could be with her.
She almost asked him, but then she didn’t. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer. “So what do you know about the Convent?” she asked instead.
“I’d heard rumors about it, but Herkim filled me in,” Smoke said. “They started the Convent a few months ago. All women, no men allowed. Set it up in Foothill Stadium, of all places. Home of the Miners-you ever been there?”
Cass had. With her father, in fact, when she was eight years old. It was a ridiculously balmy Tuesday in May, when it seemed like it would never rain again, and every day would bring some new and splendid surprise, because her daddy was home from touring with his band and he wasn’t working at the construction sites like he usually did, and he wrote a note saying she was sick and she didn’t have to go to school. They didn’t tell her mother, who had gone off to work as usual, because it was sort of a surprise. And her daddy bought her a souvenir pennant and a second bag of peanuts just because she asked and the next week he was gone and she never saw him again.
“No.” Cass mumbled the lie. “Don’t think I have.”
“Well, it’s not the worst place in the world for a bunch of bat-shit crazy women to hole up, I guess. They’ve sealed off the entrances, got some system for figuring out who they let in and out, not that they’re coming out much, that’s for sure.”
“And they have Ruthie there?”
“That’s just what someone said. You got to be careful here, Cass. You can’t go believing everything you hear. Everyone who talks to you, you got to wonder what angle they’re working, what you could provide them with that they can’t get some other way.”
“But it was Elaine who said it. We were friends.”
“Okay,” Smoke said. “Sorry. I’m just trying-”
Something clattered behind them, metal on pavement, and Cass whirled around. Smoke turned, too, his hand tight around hers.
Aftertime Page 17
