I Am Eve

by Nicolina Martin

  “Maybe he’s not running?” Ray suggests as he digs up a knife from his pocket and starts cleaning his nails with the tip.

  “Or maybe that’s what he wants everybody to believe,” says Coran.

  “We’ve got the last location of our truck. That’s about an hour from here,” I say. “We go there, split up and start manually looking through the neighborhood, see what we can find. Then we look into this Joe character.”

  “Well, he’s got another think coming if he thinks he can fuck with us,” says Ray. “You joining us, boss?”

  “Of course I fucking am.” I pick up one of the semi-automatics off the table and check the clip. Slapping it back into place, I cock my head toward the exit. “We need one more man. Find Del. We split into three groups. Two men per car—”

  “Isn’t that a massive waste of fuel?” Ray says as he pockets the knife. “We can go together. Take a van—”

  “We don’t lack resources, and we don’t know what we’re dealing with here. This is a recon mission right now more than a rescue. Bring food and drinks. We might be gone awhile.”

  “What do you mean ‘awhile’, boss?”

  Ray again. I’m beginning to consider leaving him on the side of the road if he doesn’t shut up.

  “Hours. Days. Prepare your skinny white ass for anything. Got a problem?” I growl.

  He straightens, his eyes widening. “No, sir.”

  There it is again. Sir. I smirk. “Well then get fucking to it! Coran, you’re with me. Everyone, get radios. Phones can’t be trusted, as you know. Meet here in one hour, ready to leave.”

  It’s a quiet suburban neighborhood with red brick houses with white picket fences. The morning dew still covers the unkempt lawns where the sun has yet to reach. A few people rush between their homes and their cars, on their way to God knows where. Some have jobs, I assume. Food-processing industry. Power plants. Hospitals. When it all fell apart, many became immediately redundant, though. There are no schools anymore, not since the kids began dying, and with the spotty internet connection, they haven’t found a solution yet. It reminds me again that I need to find a mentor for Toad, to teach him to read, write, and do math. One day, he’ll step out into a new world, and I want him to be prepared.

  “This is where we last heard from him,” says Coran as we pass an intersection.

  The traffic lights hang askew and have long since stopped working. No one risks their life maintaining what isn’t absolutely necessary. Or they’re simply dead – everyone at town hall who could’ve sent out an electrician.

  I look up and down the street, seeing nothing but piles of garbage and weeds. “Man, I don’t know how the fuck to even begin looking.” I throw up my hands and then hang over the steering wheel, my gut sinking.

  “I’m not knocking on doors,” says Coran.

  I laugh, then pull out my gun from my side pocket and place it in Coran’s upheld palm.

  He scoffs. “Dude, they’ll be armed too. This is a ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ hood.”

  “This?” I glance at the houses we pass, curtains closed, and not a sign of anyone living in them. “These are nice middle-class people.”

  “Were. People went insane, started piling up guns and ammo.”

  I frown and look at my partner. “You know about this place?”

  He shakes his head. “No man, but my sis lived in a place just like this. Civility falls pretty fucking fast when the collective mind think they’re threatened.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  The shiny metal rear end of a truck glimmers in the foliage a little to the side, and I slam on the brakes. My heart rate doubles in an instant. Coran sees what I’m seeing, and the sudden tension in the car is so thick I could cut it with a knife.

  “Is it ours?” he whispers.

  “Could be. Can’t tell.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  I study the run-down house that seems to be a part of the same property. Yellow chipped paint on horizontal boards. It doesn’t look more suspicious than anything else around.

  Across the street is a white wooden house with three stories and a little tower. It sticks out like a sore thumb in a place where everything else looks more or less the same. It seems to be from another era, almost another dimension. That tower could be a potential lookout place. Revving the engine, I make a lap and come back from the other side.

  Coran and I both pull up our bandanas to cover our mouths and noses before we step out of the car, our guns ready. I’ve parked out of sight from anyone, and the plan is to have a quick peek at that truck.

  A kid cries from inside the house. A woman yells. A shot goes off. We’re on the ground in the next instant, flat on our bellies. My partner curses quietly. The kid is silent. Everything is silent.

  “You okay?” I whisper while keeping my eyes trained on the house before us.

  “Yeah,” he growls. “Suburbia. I told you.”

  We’re just about to get up when the front door slams open, and a man runs out. I’ve never been so thankful for a neglected garden before. The tall grass hides us well. I’m also getting soaked, and the chill seeps into my skin. We follow the man with our gazes as he disappears around a corner. In the next instant the truck roars to life. Our truck.

  “Hell no. Go! Tail him.” I cock my head in the direction of our car.

  “Dude, we shouldn’t split up.”

  He’s probably right. We also don’t have the luxury of time to think this over. I tap the radio that sits in my gun harness. “I’ll be right here. Go.”

  He hesitates a moment longer than necessary, then curses softly and jumps to his feet with surprising agility for a man of his size. Hunched over, he dashes through the foliage and reaches our car at the same time as the truck comes rolling through the intersection. Coran will come through. He always does. I turn my interest back to the house. Who are these people? Who the fuck thinks they can steal from us?

  Eve

  My palms itch. I need clay. I need to feel the cool, hard substance in my hands, kneading it, warming it, making it slick and soft. Malleable. It’s the only aspect of my reality that I can shape.

  Funny enough, I can still get clay. No one cares about art anymore. Kiki keeps bringing me batches. I stay warm by the kiln during the chilly nights as I fire my sculptures. My hands are bumpy and scarred from my more than two-decades-long love affair with urns, plates and bowls. It is the only thing I have. I was the odd kid with my disability in my fanatically religious family, home schooled, with no friends. My grandma took me under her wing and taught me to see with my hands, to detect the shape within the cold, stiff clay.

  Halfway down the stairs, after making a round through all the rooms on the upper floor, I almost miss the next step from the sudden commotion by my front door.

  “Anyone home?”

  There’s silence, then a series of hard knocks.

  I hold my breath as I tiptoe down the rest of the stairs, summoning the memory of trying the lock and the chain. It should be locked. It is locked.

  “Miss! Open! Please! It’s an emergency!”

  More knocks. They come from somewhere level with the handle, and the voice is young. There’s a muffled giggle and a shuffle of feet. More than one pair. Kids. Not an emergency, then. Thank God. I don’t know how I could ever have helped anyway.

  “Go away!” I shout.

  Giggles.

  “Show yourself. Papa says you’re a freak!”

  I recoil from the harsh words, pull back even further into my shell. My mother was right. The outside world is not for me. Never was. Never will be.

  “Go away.” My voice is suddenly subdued, tired. I’m so, so tired. “You shouldn’t be outside.”

  “Papa is away with Mommy. We can do whatever we want.” Another voice, definitely a boy, early teens.

  “Where did they go?”

  “He said he was taking out the trash.” A girl this time. At least three kids on my doorstep.


  “Please, let us come inside. We’re afraid.” The first child again. I can’t make out if it’s a girl or a boy. They sound like they have a cold. A sniffle confirms my suspicion. The little hairs on my nape stand up in sudden fear. There is no such thing as a common cold anymore. The viruses that sweep across the globe have mutated. A cough in your direction can kill you within a few days. I used to listen to the news broadcasts, before they became irregular and finally ceased. I don’t know what happened to the networks, but I guess no one makes money that way anymore. People need to eat.

  “Are you ill?” I shout.

  “No.” The answer comes too quick.

  I back one step, my insides frozen.

  “I can’t open. I’m sorry.”

  “We’ll die, you bitch! Daddy killed Mommy! He said we were next!” The older boy.

  Nausea rises. I don’t know what’s true and what is a lie. If I let them in, they might bring the disease, and I’ll die. On the other hand… What do I have to live for?

  “Are you ill? Please…I need to know.”

  “He doesn’t have the virus, you idiot! He’s been crying all morning.”

  I back one step again, then I shoot forward, my palms clammy, my heart in my throat.

  “Wait!”

  This is so stupid!

  I fiddle with the chain. It seems to take forever to unhook it with my trembling hands. My head spins as I unlock. I hesitate a moment, then pull open the door. The gust of air is fresh and deceptively non-threatening. One of the children squeals.

  “It’s true! Look at her!”

  I raise my hand to my face, as if to shield myself from their scrutiny. Then I touch my ear and my naked cheek, realizing I forgot to put on my mask, and my skin tightens in horror.

  Laughter.

  My cheeks burn from embarrassment. They’re just pranking me?

  “Go away,” I sneer, fighting to keep the tears from spilling.

  “Rory!” A man’s voice sounds from afar. Shoes scrape before me on the porch, fabric rustles as clothes move. I listen to them running away in three different directions and bury my teeth in my lip as I inhale through my nose. I should close the door immediately, but the breeze is wonderful. I’ve never been an outdoorsy girl, but being forced to stay inside for more than a year has taken its toll. I miss grass, and pebbles, and dew, and dirt, and leaves, and twigs.

  I miss all the normal things.

  Chapter Three

  Adam

  I take stock of the street. Right across it is the house with the tower. The paint is chipped, and it must have been poorly maintained even long before this plague befell us. There are a few broken windows and the structure must be in a state of rot. Still, it doesn’t look abandoned. There’s no fog on the windows, meaning it’s being heated.

  I narrow my eyes. It would be a great place to lie low and keep a lookout for whoever comes and goes to the thieving fuck.

  Shivering, longing desperately to get inside, I get to my feet and make a wide circle through a couple of other yards to stay out of sight. I’m aiming for a back entrance that seems to lead to a basement when kids’ voices from the front of the house makes me freeze in place.

  They go out? That’s fucking insane.

  Curiosity pulls me forward. I need to see what the fuck’s going on. Is everyone here on drugs?

  That’s one way of handling the shitty cards life has dealt us all, I guess. I sure as hell put some through my system before I realized no one was gonna take care of me and that I couldn’t just sit down and wait for better days. Because they weren’t coming. Then there was the surprise that is Toad. I still drink, though. I really need to just black out some nights when the thoughts get too dark.

  Making sure to stay out of sight and keeping a tool shed between me and the front porch, I watch the scene unfold as a woman opens the front door. It takes a few moments, then the three kids squeal out their laughter and scatter in three different directions.

  I frown as I take her in. There is something about her that doesn’t make sense.

  She’s so pale she almost seems translucent. She has wild afro curls that stand like a white halo around her head. Her eyes are light and oddly unmoving. She doesn’t go back inside immediately but stands like a statue, the light breeze ruffling her long, white robe. Her lips move. I flinch when a bird flies right past her, just a few inches before her face, but she doesn’t react.

  I act on instinct more than on any thoughtfully carved-out plan and leap across the yard, keeping away from the gravel. I’m silent. In plain sight.

  No reaction.

  Holding her mesmerizing face with my gaze, I tiptoe up the stone steps, my heart beating wildly in my chest.

  I want to get inside this house, and the opportunity has just been served to me on a silver platter. This chick is blind, her door is open, and she has no clue that I’m passing her threshold.

  Eve

  “Hello?”

  The sudden sense of a presence makes me stiffen, and my heart speeds up. I raise my arms and feel before me, but there is nothing.

  “Anyone there?”

  I spin a full circle with my arms in front of me, feeling as if something is about to take a swipe at me.

  Nothing.

  Whatever it was, it’s gone.

  I turn and walk back inside, slamming the door closed, making sure to lock it. I mustn’t touch my face. My skin crawls as if I have germs all over, and I hurry to the bathroom. A sense of urgency makes my moves imprecise, and I stub a toe against a chair, slam my shoulder against the doorpost. My hands shake as I turn on the faucet, and I step into the streaming water even without shedding my clothes. It’s cold at first, and my teeth chatter so hard it feels as if they will chip. Then it’s hot. Unbearably hot. I gasp for air as the bathroom steams up.

  ‘Freak.’

  ‘Look at her.’

  ‘Ugly.’

  Shuddering despite the heat, I can’t for the life of me shake the eerie feeling of being watched. I grab the shower head, pull open the curtain and then throw the thing straight out into the bathroom. If it hits something, or someone, either the impact or the hot water should make them reveal themselves.

  I sense it more than I hear it. It’s like an angry thought directed my way. A choked-down cry. A silent curse. The shower head hits the tiled floor with a loud clunk and then water sprays all over. I take hold of the hose and reel it in, gasping as the spray hits my face, then I direct it outwards, soaking the room.

  “Who’s there?” I scream.

  Nothing.

  “I know you’re there! Stop hiding. Who are you?”

  It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so vulnerable, and I curse my one missing sense. It doesn’t matter that my other senses are honed tools that almost replace vision. My life is still black. I still can’t see if a stranger stands in my bathroom.

  They’re there. I’m sure of it. And they’re good, because I almost, almost manage to convince myself that I’m insane.

  “Please!” I’m still drowning the bathroom, but realizing it doesn’t get me anywhere, I turn the knob and the water stops pouring. What now? I don’t have any weapons. I can’t defend myself. I have no phone and no means to communicate with the outside world. Kiki will come by in two days. She does so every week. Suddenly, I long desperately for clay. I need to put my hands into the cold material and bend it to my will. It’s the only thing that obeys me. I have absolutely no power. I’m alive because my friend is a goddess of goodness. The only thing that has ever yielded to my will is dead matter.

  Patting along the wall, I set a foot on the floor, terrified of slipping. My socks are thick and heavy, soaked, squeaking slightly when I put weight on them.

  I talk to the presence. Maybe it’s a sign that I’ve finally lost it? Maybe this is how it feels to get infected? Maybe I’m dying?

  “I’m just going to the basement. I’ll go work the clay on the wheel. I need to feel the earth between my fingers. I’m harmless
. I don’t have any weapons. It’s two floors down. I’m moving into my bedroom now, to get changed. Please…” I lick my lips and fight to draw the next breath as my throat tightens. “Please, don’t look.”

  The realization that the person could be a man strikes me like a punch to my gut. A man who wishes to do harm. I exhale on a shudder and hold an arm out in front of me. “Earth, air, fire, water,” I mumble to myself as I put one careful step before the other, moving into the hallway. “Earth, air, fire, water. They are the elements, you see. We’ve disrupted the earth, and now we pay. It won’t let us breathe the air. At first it feels like fire. Then you drown in the water when it reaches deep in your lungs.”

  I pass the closed door to the room where my grandmother met her death, choking on her own fluids. I paced this corridor, back and forth, for days. I wanted to help, but every time I turned the doorknob, she screamed at me to stay out. When it got silent, I knew it was over.

  They finally came, then. When it was too late. In their frizzling-frazzling paper suits. They sounded gray. I always heard they were yellow, but they sounded gray. Their labored breaths betrayed their fear.

  Grandma died in the house where she was born.

  I think of the stranger, feel his eyes on me. I don’t know for sure it’s a man, but every instinct screams at me that the unknown danger that has entered my little living space is of male origin.

  Sneaking into my room, I immediately close and lock the door, then fall to the floor, crumpling into a heap of bony limbs and wet, heavy fabric.

  “Who are you?” I whisper.

  I don’t expect an answer, and there is none.

  When nothing happens, I get up on all fours and crawl through the room, making sure it’s empty. And it definitely is. I’m so cold my jaw is locked in a cramp. Tearing off the wet dress and panties, I quickly pull the next on the rack over my head and hop on one leg in a dangerous attempt to be quick about putting on a new pair of panties. I find a pair of socks, and a cardigan to put on as well, then, at a loss, I sink down on the edge of the bed.