“Breathe,” he said coldly beside me.
I hadn’t heard him move to me, but I could hear that he had collected the child and was rocking him, attempting to calm us both. The sound of his voice, his proximity to me subdued the outburst enough for me to start breathing again.
“I get it,” he said. “Having Xavier is doing things to you, resurrecting too much of that life.”
“Doing things to me?” I laughed. “You call this things. It’s doing everything to me! I can’t look at…I can’t have him touch…I can’t. I just can’t.”
He had no idea what it was doing to me. He could not see why I was so lost, why the existence of this child turned what was left of my world and my mind against me. He was incapable of seeing through my eyes. How could he when he had forbid me from giving him any glimpse of myself since that first night? I was always alone right beside him.
“We are the lucky ones in this,” he said softly. “You have to remember that. We can save him.”
“Lucky ones? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Yes. Lucky. We’re still living, not like them.”
“There’s a difference between living and surviving.”
The lucky ones. He was out of his fucking mind.
The lucky ones were decomposing happily beneath the ground upon which we marched.
The lucky ones never saw the end, never buried their loved ones.
The lucky ones did not survive.
He pulled the child in closer to him and leaned back on his heels. He waited for me to look up.
“Then why don’t you do it then?” His tone sharpened.
“Do what?”
“End it. Kill yourself. We both know you want to. Why don’t you get it over with and return to them?”
I hesitated, choked on the question. I had no idea what to say, though I had asked myself the same question every miserable day. I felt my face tighten and contort, fighting tears. I felt my heart sink deeper into my chest. He simply leaned his head to the side and waited for me to cough it up.
“I can’t face them,” I finally croaked. “I don’t deserve them anymore.”
“Why?”
“Because of what I am. Because of what I’ve done. They would not recognize me, and I wouldn’t want them to see me.”
“You’re not like them. You’re not one of those savages.”
“Yes, I am.” I paused. “And so are you. Somewhere in there. Unless you are the second son of God, we are all these savages. It’s in all of us. It’s just our nature.”
“You can’t think like that. And even if you’re right, you don’t have to give into that nature. None of us do. It’s always been a choice, creature comforts or not. We choose.”
“Then why are you the only one choosing to be human?”
“I’m not. You’re choosing. He’ll choose.”
I put my head back down and just shook it against my knees. My words passed through him without impact. I could not sway his conviction, his purpose. And now he had this smaller piece of evidence to mold, to prove it wasn’t just him.
“Take him. I have to piss,” he said.
I turned my head up at him, dumbfounded.
“Did you not just hear a fucking word I said? I fucking can’t. It’s too much.”
He moved directly beside me, brought his face close to mine.
“Look at me,” he said. “When you save a life, it is your responsibility. Whether you like it or not, we saved him. Both of us. We will take care of him. Both of us. Like I did once with you. I can’t do it alone. You have to bury that shit and get past it because this, right here, is where we are.”
I pursed my lips and stared forward. I could feel the tears burning my eyes. I felt like an angry teenager being scolded by her father, those same infuriating, frustrated tears and shaking hands. Me biting my lip just the same decades later. He had given me the only reminder that I couldn’t dispute. He had saved me; I owed him my life.
I remembered thinking, is that a club? How cliché and caveman of it all. Then the impact split my sight. Pain poured over my skull as my vision sputtered and flickered. It hadn’t been days since I packed the earth over the pieces of Dante’s bloody body when I encountered them, the first I had faced alone.
I wanted to just let them have me, let it just be over. The weight of my abject apathy was like lead on my chest. Yet somewhere in me, a survival instinct persisted.
The three of them encircled me on the red dirt of the desert, panting rhythmically, one after the other. My head snapped between them, overwhelmed by the terrifying sound of their breathing. I could hear their tongues wriggling around at their teeth. I screamed wildly as I lunged at them with Dante’s billy club, some failed intimidation technique. I could smell my own fear.
Then the club.
Then the darkness.
Between flashes of sight, I saw the dirt pluming around my face. In the blinks of the world, I felt blows raining down on me from every angle. My ribs, back, shins, head, arms howled in the lightning storm of pain raging over my skin. I curled into the fetal position, closed my eyes, and pictured my boys on that last humane night, one man and two miniatures on a couch fighting over a huge bowl of popcorn.
Then it stopped. I heard the corpses pile up beside me. Then nothing. Silence. I cracked my eyelids and peered fearfully through my hands. Dead eyes and twisted limbs stared back at me. I lifted my head and faced the empty, glassy eyes. The three bodies were heaped together beside me, still leaking and settling. I tried to crawl to my knees; my nerves shrieked in objection. Every part of me cried out, but my body wilted in pain. He stood above me quietly, blade still drawn and dripping.
Without looking at him, I extended my arms. I tried not to look down as he gently placed the child in them. I could feel in his tiny body that he preferred me, the way infants gravitate towards females, that innate trust and plea for nurture. I could feel the nausea rolling up my body in waves. My arms begged to throw the baby away from me, to get that sickly comforting sensation of his small figure off my belly. I flirted with sanity as the surge of every tactile memory consumed me in one excruciating blur.
“Breathe. One…two…three… He’ll come when he’s ready,” Goldilocks said, patting the leg I could not feel. “All you have to do is breathe. Come on. Four…five…six…”
I closed my eyes, and I breathed. In and out. Concentrate on the breath. Release your thoughts. In and out. One yoga mantra away from the brink. I breathed heavy and deliberate until my head stopped thumping and my heart stopped pounding. I had buried my three men; I could do this.
When I finally opened my eyes, the baby was looking at me. His eyes were distant and largely unfocused, like infant eyes, but I felt like he could see me. He was a pale child now that we had cleaned him off the best we could. His sensitive skin was still red and wrinkled. He was waiting for his baby fat to flesh out his curled limbs and slender digits. The only blessing was that he looked nothing like my own babes.
He returned to us, though I knew he had been observing me first. I stood quickly and thrust the child back into his arms. He secured the baby in the carrier on his chest as we prepared to walk again.
The morning started in our normal silence. I found my comfortable place just behind and beside him. He held his sword firmly in one hand, yet the other rested on the back of the child. The babe was briefly awake, grunting and shifting helplessly in the carrier. I tried not to hear his sounds, tried not to think. The sun peered over the horizon, and I chose to focus on the colors bleeding up from the edge of the Earth. The sharp ball of light broke into the world, reaching bands of orange, pink, purple into the fading night. A few faint stars fought twinkling against the light until vanishing into the veil of day. The ground rose out of the darkness in the dim light, painted lavender and muted. Things could still be beautiful in this ugly world.
A forest sprouted up ahead of us, materializing first as a single tree then gaining numbers into the distance. It started at
a point in the field then spread out over the horizon until all we could see were trees. A forest was always a cumbersome and contradictory environment. The trees provided cover and camouflage yet opened up the opportunity for something else to hide from our view. Foliage concealed and trapped us simultaneously. It was an awkward mingling of comfort and fear, being at ease and on edge.
He breached the tree line first, steps ahead of me, still with one hand armed and one hand on the child.
I listened carefully for any sound—any rustling leaves, any cracking sticks—as open space disappeared behind us. The trees surrounded us and draped us in their shade. I monitored the minimal noise he made and continually compared it against the world, ensuring it was the only sound beside the light wind. Though we rarely had chatted on the road, we never spoke in a forest or an environment that neutralized the asset of far sight.
We were a few miles into it when I first saw it—a shape, a shadow flitting in the distance. Could be a trick of the mind, could be a figment of a nervous eye. I took a long, slow breath and kept my eyes locked to the left. I tightened my hand on my cutlass and tapped it quietly against my thigh.
Then I saw it pass between the trunks. A human head trailed by an arm before it slipped behind another tree.
“There’s one of them up ahead. In the trees to the left,” I said.
He stopped walking and looked to the left. We stood motionless and frozen until it showed itself again, just a glimpse, weaving closer now. He turned his head from side to side, surveying the area, assessing the situation.
“Good eye. Appears to be alone. Do you want to dispatch this one? My hands are a bit full now.”
“They’re always alone this far away from a city, it seems.”
“Finally.”
“Yeah, I don’t miss the hordes. I’ll get rid of it.”
It had heard our low voices. It stopped moving for a moment; then I could hear it shuffling in our direction. Yes, come find me. Make it easy. They never ran; they always attacked. So much for a functioning fight-or-flight instinct. They always died.
I let the blade of my cutlass clang against the tree trunk beside me repeatedly. The child began to fuss behind me, where he was calmly watching me, but I also heard the savage shift again, getting closer. Then it leapt out from between the branches directly in front of me. It had been a man. Tattered remains of clothing clung to its waist. Dirt and presumably blood smeared all over lean flesh. Its eyes were untamed and feral, and its mouth dangled wide among scraggly hair.
I stood and breathed calmly as it began to charge wildly at me. It let out a wheezing scream and held its arms wide, wrists slapping and scraping against the trees. I allowed it to lunge at me as I stepped to the side and let my cutlass slice through its arm. The limb fell dead among the foliage as it howled, recoiled, and came at me again.
It did not learn. I simply repeated my attack on the other side. As its clumsy body dove toward me, I darted from its path and brought my blade through its remaining arm. This time, it collapsed to the ground beside its two severed limbs, rolling around and looking desperately between the two lifeless hands, forearms, elbows.
I stepped over it and put my foot on its chest. The scars of fingernail marks raked down its face. How many people had it killed? Its eyes were sunken in, cheekbones jutting out, yet they bulged from deep in the sockets, always moving around in a frenzy. I could not make out the lips from beneath the plumes of beard; I could only see the yellow, plaque-ridden teeth. They snapped repeatedly as its black tongue wriggled behind.
On its chest were the faded, flattened remnants of a tattoo. I thought I made out the sprawling wings of an eagle, but it was hard to see through the dirt.
Some deep and forgotten part of my mind wondered what it used to be when it was a man. I tried to picture it carefully and skillfully carving a Thanksgiving turkey at the head of a holiday spread—wife leaning in to assist as it separated the meat, candles lighting the smiling faces of children and grandparents. It would have worn a collared shirt and a hideous sweater vest. The sharp knife would have gleamed as it worked.
Yet all I saw was a gangly body lunge at Jordi. Jordi cracked it hard in the jaw with a long stick, screaming “Get away from us! Get away from my family!” in his small voice. I felt a pang of pride in my panic. The creature howled violently as it retreated momentarily; then it leaned in and snatched him up. I could hear my baby’s screams as they were swallowed by the racing horde.
Dante returned hours later, painted in blood, cradling the small broken body wrapped in his shirt.
I closed my eyes against the welling memories and raised my cutlass high.
“Wait,” he said from behind me. “Let me ask.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “They don’t speak.”
He ignored my comment and stepped up beside me, bouncing softly to lull the babe. He asked what he always asked, knowing that even if they knew the answer, they would not or could not tell us. He crouched down to its face as it snapped its flopping jaws and reeled around. He snatched the chin and held its face until it looked at him.
“What happened?” he asked calmly.
The creature only screamed in his face and dissolved into whimpers. It kicked its legs and rolled helplessly side to side. He reached down and seized the face again.
“What happened? Tell me what happened to the world.”
Again, he was greeted with animalistic grunts. Its eyes were beginning to roll around inside its head. He sighed hard and stood up. I moved forward and plunged my blade into its face; it finally stopped writhing and moaning. He dropped his head down and let it rest against the infant’s.
“What happened?” he said quietly into the soft hair. “When will we know what the fuck happened?”
“Does it matter?” I replied coldly, as I stepped on the head to pull my weapon free.
“Of course it matters. This was our world, their lives we lost. It matters what happened.”
“But why? Zombies, plague, war. It happened, and it’s over now. They are all dead just the same. It is all gone just the same. We are right here wandering around to nowhere just the same. Would you be comforted knowing?”
“Yes, I would.”
“Wouldn’t change a bit of circumstance.”
“It would change me.”
“How can you be this way? So unaffected. Still human in a world gone savage.”
“It’s human to ask why.”
“As human as your extinct moral code.”
“How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Just accept how things are, just abandon everything we were.”
“You’re the one who said we had no past, that it was all buried. You cling to these arbitrary rules from a civilization that is gone.”
“That code is why I saved you.”
“And maybe you shouldn’t have. Would you have been better off if you had left me and were on your own all this time?”
We sat in silence so long that the conversation dissipated out of the present and started blowing into a memory as we stood over the lifeless savage at our feet.
“No,” he finally said quietly. “I would not have been better off.”
Then he slowly walked away.
6
Days passed awkwardly with the child. They no longer blurred together in a congruous string. Instead, they raked me over Time’s coals, each second searing into my tender flesh before it finally rolled past. I lived straddling the infuriating present and the whirlwind of my past that it kept beckoning.
For those clumsy days, I smoldered and festered at him. I turned my shoulder to him, avoided his eye. I refused to engage him; I only watched him fumble and flounder and learn childcare alone. He slipped the child into the carrier yet didn’t notice the tiny leg hadn’t made it out the appropriate hole until the babe screamed until he was red. He set the infant on his thigh for him to roll off into the dirt and dissolve into shrieks of panic. He fed the child, rocked
him, tried to burp him—only for him to need a new diaper.
He did this to us; he could fucking figure it out.
Yet I found that half-hating him only made me want him more. What was wrong with my primal wiring?
My chest tightened when I looked at him, resentment coiling around my lungs. He had dragged me from death, resuscitated me, indoctrinated me for this. He told me then to bury my past to beat me down with the reminders, with the one thing that had it all screaming through my brain. He convinced me to live just to get me fucking killed.
What the hell was he doing? What the fuck did he think he would find? In this pointless quest. In me. In this savage child.
The anger spread heat across my skin, tensed my muscles when I thought about it. The sensations pulsed over me in waves, animating all my nerves. Then I felt the flare, the carnal stirring in my core reaching out through my body. I felt my face flush and my nerves flutter.
Damn him.
“Why aren’t there other children?” I asked. I had to break the silence; I had to distract my flesh.
“What?”
“Why is he the only child? Surely, these savages followed the prime biological directive. Surely, they fucked like animals. Why is he the only one we have ever seen?”
“I hadn’t thought about that.” He paused, shook his head. “I don’t want to think about what happened to all their young.”
He let the sound of our footsteps crunching over plants and twigs fill the space between us for a moment; then he spoke again.
“I remember the first time I saw a child in Iraq,” he said. “I had been on base for weeks, seeing nothing but grunts. Then my unit finally rolled out of the wire, back into the fight. And there she was, a tiny alien sitting in the center of the road. She wouldn’t move, no matter how we screamed at her and threatened her and pointed our guns at her. When we got out to physically move her, we discovered she was sitting right beside an IED. So we wouldn’t run over it.”
Savages Page 4
