In Another Life

by Liesel Browning

  Glenn didn’t find Amelia in an abandoned house, but rather in an abandoned public rest stop. Glenn wouldn’t have bothered to stop if he hadn’t seen the big rig parked there from the highway. The toilets would no longer be in working order, so he wondered if there was anything worth looting from there, or in the truck itself. He took his rifle with him, in case the owner of the semi, if he were around, proved hostile.

  The owner of the semi, however, was dead. Glenn found him on the cement floor in the men’s washroom, his head smashed in, a broken toilet tank lid lying beside him. In the corner, whimpering, was a shockingly thin, bald teenage girl. Amelia.

  Glenn would later insist that God brought him to the abandoned public rest stop that afternoon. Sadie, of course, didn’t believe this, but she thought it might have been fate. Glenn coaxed the frightened girl into coming with him in the truck. She wore only a filthy satin slip, so he put his coat around her shoulders and carried her to the front seat. He locked her in and looted the back of the semi. The most useful thing he found was a new rifle, better than his own, and plenty of ammo to go with. He loaded this, and some boxes of canned goods, in the bed of the truck before bringing Amelia back to the farm.

  Sadie was a little bit afraid of Amelia at first, with her big, haunting stare and her trembling hands. She hardly talked at all during her first few weeks on the farm. But she stuck by Sadie’s side, and Sadie thought that it was good to have a friend, even if she was quiet and looked scared all the time. Sadie didn’t ask Amelia any questions about her family, or what had happened to her, sensing that she wouldn’t get answers, anyway. She showed Amelia how to complete chores around the farm, like tending the garden, and she discovered that Amelia knew how to knit and sew. They worked together each day, and wandered the property together, Sadie talking a little, Amelia hardly at all.

  Sadie liked having a companion, and especially enjoyed sharing her bed. As winter approached, Amelia and Sadie snuggled close together in the small bed, sharing each other’s warmth. There was no heat in the farmhouse, of course; they’d been thrust back to the 19th century. She’d spent her first winter nights sleeping on a cot by the fireplace in the living room as much as she could, but Glenn didn’t have a fire going every night, wanting to conserve firewood. “Do you remember back in Iowa, people used to give this stuff away?” Glenn said once, chuckling humorlessly. But with Amelia in her bed, a fire was hardly necessary.

  It was on one of those winter nights that Amelia told Sadie what happened to her family. Sadie lay beside her in the dark and listened. They were facing each other, but could only see the outlines of each other’s faces, though they were right next to each other. Sadie felt Amelia’s warm breath on her face as she whispered her horrifying story. The murder of her parents and brother. Watching her little sister being tortured to death. Spending over two years as the captive of a sadistic trucker. Sadie held Amelia, her only friend in the world, as she told her story and trembled. Sadie rubbed her back through her nightshirt, felt Amelia’s extensive network of scarring, and said nothing.

  They had many talks on those cold winter nights. Sadie looked forward to going to bed, to holding Amelia and whispering with her, the only person she trusted. She felt a little superior about it, too, that she and Amelia had their secrets. Sadie still hadn’t forgiven Glenn for what happened to her mother.

  Then, Glenn ruined it. And Christian came along. And for a long time, Sadie hated them all. They were no family to her. Fuck them.

  *

  Sadie was up before the sun the next morning. Amelia liked to sleep in, and Sadie let her as she got dressed in their dark bedroom. She briefly ran the brush through her short hair and tied on her bandana before she went out to the kitchen.

  Sadie put the shopping list, left on the scuffed kitchen table, in her pocket. She went out to the chicken coop, where their three neurotic but dependable chickens were roosting. Sadie fought the chickens for their eggs, suffering only a couple of pecks on her right hand, and took the eggs inside to prepare for breakfast.

  There was still a bit of bread in the wooden breadbox, the same one Sadie’s grandmother used for years. Sadie sliced off a few pieces and fried them on the stove, then fried up the eggs, using a tiny bit of the cooking oil they still had on hand. She was just putting out the strawberry preserves when Amelia wandered in, her ratty old robe pulled over her pajamas. She smiled when she saw breakfast waiting. “Thanks,” she said, and kissed her lover good morning. “Do you want tomatoes with your eggs?”

  “Nah,” Sadie said. “Want me to wake Christian?”

  “Let’s let him sleep,” Amelia said as she sat at the table. “He’s gonna help me in the garden later.”

  So the lovers had a quiet breakfast together. Sadie was starting to feel anxious again about her drive to La Ronge, and Amelia was clearly worried, too. Sadie remembered the first time Glenn went to La Ronge after bringing Amelia to the farm. Amelia hadn’t spent much time alone with Glenn at that point, not seeming to fully trust the man who’d rescued her, taken her in. So Sadie was surprised when Amelia threw her arms around Glenn’s neck and cried, begging him not to go.

  Amelia wasn’t so irrationally frightened now, of course, but she always made sure Sadie’s gun was loaded before letting her leave. She did so that morning, out by the truck, while Sadie double-checked that they had all of the supplies in the bed for trade. She kissed her lover goodbye and put the rifle in the front seat. “Just a few hours, tops,” Sadie promised. “I should be back just after lunch, okay?”

  “Be careful,” Amelia said.

  “I will. I’m always careful,” Sadie promised, and they kissed once more. Sadie got in the truck and coasted to the end of the gravel driveway.

  The gate was chained shut, secured with a thick padlock. Sadie got out of the truck with her key. She tossed the chain and padlock temporarily aside, got in the truck, and went through the open gates. She stopped again just long enough to get out and lock up again. She rattled the chain to make sure that the lock held fast. It was starting to get a bit rusty, from so many years out in the harsh elements of northern Saskatchewan, but it was extremely durable. Still, Sadie had asked the Charles brothers to be on the lookout for a new one for her.

  Sadie took out the half-smoked joint from the previous afternoon, smoking the rest as she started her hour-long drive. She could have gone faster, but she didn’t like to push the truck too much. Auto parts were harder and harder to come by, and once she went through the ones her father once salvaged and hoarded, what then? So she kept her speed under 40, and kept her eyes peeled, even as she got a bit stoned.

  She didn’t encounter any on the drive to town. She drove by the lake on her way to the small town. The waters looked clear and calm, but Sadie knew that looks could be deceiving. Her father warned her about contaminated creatures living in lakes and rivers and oceans, waiting to rip the flesh off of any unsuspecting person who went for a dip, or for some drinking water. Sadie enjoyed looking at the lake during her drive, but never stopped to take a stroll or anything. Too risky.

  The burned-down high school was Sadie’s signal that she’d made it to town. A lot of the buildings, the old storefronts and homes, were destroyed or vandalized beyond repair in the town. Glenn went on about how people would’ve been better off staying put, taking care of what they had, and defending their small town. “Didn’t they realize that this is one of the safest places in the world?” he griped once on a trip to La Ronge with Sadie. Sadie said nothing to this, merely looking out of the window, wondering what the little northern Canada town was like before the bombs, before the zombies.

  According to Remy Charles, there were probably a couple hundred people still living in La Ronge. The Charles family weren’t the only ones running a makeshift store in town. There were even a couple of guys on the same street who did auto repairs, and Sadie let them look at the truck a few months back. But she quickly learned that the guys didn’t know nearly as much as she did. She at least hop
ed that they’d be able to get their hands on some parts she might need.

  Sadie pulled up in front of the Charles family store. There was no sign on the door; in fact, the windows of the shop were boarded up. Anyone not in the know would assume that it was yet another abandoned building. In fact, the shelves inside were usually full of goods, and the Charles family traded with people from all around, people who fled the cities and headed north, where it was cold and quiet and they were much less likely to be mauled to death by radioactive monsters.

  Sadie knocked on the door and waited. The peephole slid up for a moment, a dark eye peering out at her. The peephole slit shut again, and the door opened just wide enough for Sadie to step inside.

  The store was dimly lit. A handful of candles, scattered throughout the shop, provided most of the light. There was an old oil lamp flickering dimly on the counter. Sadie turned to greet the Charles family member who let her in: Remy himself, the oldest of the clan since their brother Aaron took off a few years back and never returned. “Hey, Sade,” he greeted her.

  “How’s it going, Remy?” Sadie asked. They were old friends. Glenn had gotten along well with Remy’s parents. Sadie didn’t see Mr. and Mrs. Charles around much anymore, but she knew they were still there, too sick to leave bed most days. In another life, they’d still be robust and healthy; they weren’t so very old. But take away modern medicine and comforts, and the average life expectancy was sinking like a stone. And those were the fortunate ones.

  Remy shrugged. “Not bad. Just got back from the Peg last night. You interested in any shoes?”

  It’d been a while since Sadie got any new shoes for anyone in the family. Christian had been clomping around in the same oversized sneakers for over a year, and Sadie just hoped they’d last until he grew out of them. In anticipation of the coming winter, Amelia had just relined her tennis shoes, the soles all worn out, with some cardboard. “Uh, yeah, maybe,” Sadie said.

  Remy helped Sadie bring in the stuff from her truck before anyone thought to loot it. Even in such a small, out of the way town, where strangers barely passed through, it was hard to trust anyone.

  Sadie handed Remy the inventory list Amelia made. By now, Remy trusted Sadie enough that he didn’t bother to recount the supplies, at least not in front of her. Remy led her to the back, where he’d stored the shoes from his most recent trip.

  “That buddy of mine, Peter, he and his sisters found this semi in the woods outside of town. It was for this discount shoe store they used to have down there, and the back was full of boxes upon boxes of all kinds of shoes.”

  The Charles brothers had taken a good cut for themselves. There were boxes of boots, tennis shoes, even high heels, which had no practical use in the world they now lived in. “How much for three pairs?” Sadie asked. She found sturdy boots for herself, Amelia, and ones that Christian could grow into.

  “How much weed did you bring again?” Remy asked. He consulted with the list. “The weed can cover that, I guess.”

  Sadie found a pair of hot-pink heels with little peep toes in Amelia’s size. “How about these?” she asked.

  Remy laughed at her. “Nobody’s gonna want those. Take ‘em. Take all the stupid girly shoes you want.”

  “Thanks,” Sadie said. “Just these, I guess.” They’d be cute with Amelia’s pink poodle dress. Amelia would probably laugh at her, too, but she’d like them. It’d be something for her to wear in the house, pretend that their lives were normal. Sadie thought of how her lover’s long, tan legs would look in that dress with those shoes, and she smiled to herself.

  Sadie couldn’t get everything on Amelia’s “wish list,” but there were a few boxes of pasta. Sadie snapped these up, along with a bunch of jars of vegetable stew and more rice and beans. There was plenty of firewood, and Sadie got what she could. She was going back with a good haul, and Amelia would be very pleased.

  Remy packed up Sadie’s purchases into wrinkly old cardboard boxes and set them aside. “Is Manny around?” Sadie finally asked.

  Remy smiled knowingly in the dim light. “Upstairs,” he said. Sadie nodded, and she left her new things with Remy and went upstairs to visit with his younger sister.

  Manny was the only girl, the youngest of five children. One of her older brothers, Sam, was diabetic, and he died not long after the bombs were dropped. Her remaining two brothers were very protective of her, hardly letting her leave the store. The family lived above the store, in a few rooms, just as they had before the war made normal life impossible. Their lives weren’t quite what they were, but they’d managed to keep themselves together, mostly. Besides their lost older brother, the other surviving Charles children stuck around, looked out for each other and their sickly parents, just trying to get by. Just like Sadie and her family on their farm.

  Sadie found Manny in the upstairs kitchen, making soap on the stove. Her back was turned. “Hi,” Sadie said.

  Manny jumped a little before turning around. She smiled. “Hey,” she said. “I knew you’d be coming down soon.” Manny stepped up to Sadie and greeted her with a kiss. “How are you?”

  “All right,” Sadie said. “Same old shit.”

  Manny took her boiling soap materials off the stove and set them aside for later. “You have much time?” she asked.

  “A bit,” Sadie said.

  Manny led Sadie to her bedroom. It was the same almost every time Sadie went there. Sadie would get her goods, then would go upstairs and spend some time with Manny. She and Manny had been fucking regularly for a few years, even when Sadie came to town with her father. She’d sneak off and hook up with Manny while Glenn negotiated with Remy in the store. Sadie didn’t know if her father suspected what she was up to, if he even cared.

  Manny was the one who introduced Sadie to vibrators. But she didn’t use it often, as batteries were pretty hard to come by, and sex toys simply weren’t a necessity. Sadie didn’t mind this as she ran her hands over Manny’s smooth, brown skin, kissing her neck, then her soft tits. Manny was a big woman, and Sadie loved holding her close, touching her warm body, feeling Manny on top of her.

  They fucked each other with Manny’s strap-on. Her brothers got it on a run to Winnipeg once, keeping it as a joke, and she’d pilfered it when they weren’t looking. Sadie liked it when Manny held down her wrists and climbed on top of her, fucking her hard. When it was Manny’s turn to get plowed, Sadie took her from behind, rubbing her round ass as she thrust into her slowly.

  They shared a bowl of weed in Manny’s bed when they were through. “How’s your wifey?” Manny teased. Amelia didn’t know about Manny, of course, but Sadie told her part-time lover a few things about the one she had at home.

  “She’s okay.”

  “She ever gonna come down here with you?” Manny asked.

  Sadie chuckled. “Not likely. Her boy brought it up last night, and she went white as a sheet. I don’t think she’s ever gonna leave the farm.”

  Manny looked thoughtful as she took a hit off her homemade wooden pipe. “I’d like to get out of here,” she said thoughtfully. It wasn’t the first time Sadie heard her say this.

  Sadie chuckled. “And where would you go? The city?”

  “I was visiting a friend the other day…” Manny paused when she saw Sadie smirking at her. She smacked her arm playfully. “Shut up. I get out of the house once in a while, you know.”

  “Uh, huh.”

  “Anyway,” Manny went on, “She and her man are planning to pack up and head out to BC.”

  “What’s out there?”

  In a hushed voice, Manny said, “They heard about this whole town on the coast that’s surrounded by these huge concrete walls. People are calling it Sanctuary Coast or something. Anyway, it’s this fully operational town, with an electric grid and stores and supplies, and nice houses that people just built.”

  “Sounds like a myth,” Sadie observed.

  “Well, they’re going out there to find out,” Manny said.

  “And w
hen you never hear from them again…?”

  Manny frowned and shook her head. “There’s gotta be more, Sade. There’s just got to be. And maybe they’re gonna go out there and find out. I’d almost rather make the trip, and find out that it’s not real for myself, than stick around here for nothing.”

  “Come on,” Sadie said. “You’ve got your family. You’ve got your parents…”

  “Dad’s on his way out,” Manny said. “And when he goes, Mom’ll follow right after. Then what?”

  “Your brothers…”

  “All they care about is the stupid store,” Manny complained. “And yeah, I know, we’re alive. We’re comfortable, even. I know. It’s just…it’s not enough.”

  “I hope you don’t go anywhere,” Sadie said. “I’d miss you.”

  Manny crossed her arms over her big chest. “What do you care?” she asked. “You’ve got your wifey up at that farm of yours.”

  “Hey,” Sadie said, putting a hand on Manny’s arm. “Come on. You know I care.” And she did. For a while there, the only thing Sadie had to look forward to were trips to La Ronge, seeing Manny. Sadie sometimes thought that she should stop her monthly trysts with her, since she and Amelia practically were married. Would be, in fact, if there were any preachers or ministers or whatever anywhere near La Ronge to make it official. Not that a legal marriage, or government documents of any kind, meant anything anymore. Yet Sadie had it hammered into her head by her father that marriage was an important sacrament. And if Sadie could have done it properly, she would have married Amelia.