The Twelve tpt-2

by Justin Cronin

  For a breadth of time no longer than half a second, the woman’s stern countenance appeared to crack. A look of almost maternal tenderness flickered in her eyes. But it just as quickly vanished, leaving Peter to wonder if he’d imagined it.

  “Mind the clock, Lieutenant. I’ll be watching.”

  The dam was, in many ways, the heart of the city and its mechanisms. Along with the oil that powered the generators, Kerrville’s mastery of the Guadalupe River, which provided both water for irrigation and a barrier to the north and west—nobody had ever seen a viral even attempt to swim; it was widely believed that they either had a phobia of water or simply could not stay afloat—accounted for its longevity. The river itself had been a feature of scant dimension in the early days, thin and inconsequential, falling to barely a trickle in summer. But a devastating flood in the spring of 22, a harbinger of a meteorological shift that would raise the river permanently by as much as ten feet, had necessitated its taming. It had been, by all accounts, a massive project, requiring the temporary diversion of the river’s currents and the movement of huge quantities of earth and limestone to dig the bowl-like depression that would form the impoundment, followed by the erection of the dam itself, a feat of engineering on a scale Peter had always associated with the Time Before, not the world he knew. The day of the water’s first release was regarded as a foundational occurrence in the history of the Republic; more than anything else in Kerrville, the dam’s corralling of natural forces had impressed upon him how flimsy the Colony had been in comparison. They were lucky to have made it as long as they had.

  Grated steel stairs ascended to the top. Caleb took them at a dash over Peter’s shouted protests to slow down. By the time Peter made the final turn, Caleb was already gazing over the water, toward the undulating ridge of hills at the horizon. Thirty feet below, the face of the impoundment possessed a stunning transparency. Peter could even see fish down there, white shapes piloting lazily in the glassy waters.

  “What’s out there?” the boy asked.

  “Well, more Texas mostly. That ridge you’re looking at is only a few miles away.”

  “Where’s New Mexico?”

  Peter pointed due west. “But it’s really, really far. Three days on a transport, and that’s without stopping.”

  The boy chewed on his lower lip. “I want to see it.”

  “Maybe someday you will.”

  They walked along the dam’s curving top to the spillway. A series of vents released water at regular intervals into a wide pool, from which gravity pumps piped it down to the agricultural complex. Looming in the distance, regularly spaced towers marked the Orange Zone. They paused again, absorbing the view. Peter was once again struck by the elaborateness of it all. It was as if in this one place, human history still flowed in an uninterrupted continuum, undisturbed by the stark separation of eras that the virals had brought down upon the world.

  “You look like him.”

  Peter turned to see Caleb squinting at him. “Who do you mean?”

  “Theo. My father.”

  The statement caught him short; how could the boy possibly know what Theo had looked like? Of course he couldn’t, but that wasn’t the point. Caleb’s assertion was a kind of wish, a way to keep his father alive.

  “That’s what everyone said. I can see a lot of him in you, you know.”

  “Do you miss him?”

  “Every day.” A somber silence passed; then Peter said, “I’ll tell you something, though. As long as we remember a person, they’re not really gone. Their thoughts, their feelings, their memories, they become a part of us. And even if you think you don’t remember your parents, you do. They’re inside you, the same way they’re inside me.”

  “But I was just a baby.”

  “Babies most of all.” A thought occurred to him. “Do you know about the Farmstead?”

  “Where I was born?”

  Peter nodded. “That’s right. There was something special about it. It was like we would always be safe there, like something was looking after us.” He regarded the boy for a moment. “Your father thought it was a ghost, you know.”

  The boy’s eyes widened. “Do you?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve thought a lot about it over the years. Maybe it was. Or at least a kind of ghost. Maybe places have memories, too.” He rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “All I know is that the world wanted you to be born, Caleb.”

  The boy fell silent. Then, his face blooming with the mischievous grin of a plan unveiled: “You know what I want to do next?”

  “Name it.”

  “I want to go swimming.”

  It was a little after four by the time they reached the base of the spillway. Standing by the edge of the pool, they stripped to their shorts. As Peter stepped out onto the rocks, he turned to find Caleb frozen at the edge.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know how.”

  Somehow Peter had failed to foresee this. He offered the boy his hand. “Come on, I’ll teach you.”

  The water was startlingly cold, with a distinct mineral taste. Caleb was fearful at first, but after thirty minutes of splashing around, his confidence grew. Another ten and he was moving freely on his own, dog-paddling across the surface.

  “Look at me! Look at me!”

  Peter had never seen the boy so happy. “Hold on to my back,” he said.

  The boy climbed aboard, gripping Peter by the shoulders. “What are we going to do?”

  “Just take a deep breath and hold it.”

  Together they descended. Peter blew the air from his lungs, stretched out his arms, and with a whip kick sent them gliding along the stony bottom, the boy clutching him tightly, his body pulled like a cape. The water was as clear as glass. Memories of splashing in the grotto as a boy filled Peter’s mind. He had done the same thing with his father.

  Three more kicks and they ascended, bursting into the light. “How was that?” Peter asked.

  “I saw fish!”

  “I told you.”

  Again and again they dove this way, the boy’s pleasure inexhaustible. It was past five-thirty, the shadows lengthening, when Peter declared an end. They stepped gingerly onto the rocks and dressed.

  “I can’t wait to tell Sister Peg we went outside,” Caleb said, beaming.

  “It’s probably best if you don’t. Let’s keep that between us, okay?”

  “A secret?” The boy spoke the word with illicit pleasure; they were part of a conspiracy now.

  “Exactly.”

  The boy slid his small, moist hand into Peter’s as they made their way to the hydro gate. In another few minutes, the horn would sound. The feeling came upon him in a rush of love: This is why I’m here.

  He found her in the kitchen, standing before a massive stove covered with boiling pots. The room roared with heat and noise—the clatter of dishes, sisters racing to and fro, the accumulating racket of excited voices as the children gathered in the dining hall. Amy’s back was to him. Her hair, iridescent and dark, descended in a thick braid to her waist. He hesitated in the doorway, observing her. She appeared totally absorbed in her work, stirring the contents of the nearest pot with a long wooden spoon, tasting and correcting with salt, then nimbly stepping to one of the room’s several red-brick ovens to withdraw, on a long paddle, half a dozen loaves of freshly risen bread.

  “Amy.”

  She turned, breaking into a smile. They met in the middle of the busy room. A moment of uncertainty, then they embraced.

  “Sister Peg told me you were here.”

  He stepped back. He had sensed it in her touch: there was something new about her. Long departed was the voiceless, traumatized waif with the matted hair and scavenged clothes. The progress of her aging seemed to occur in fits and starts, not so much a matter of physical growth as a deepening self-possession, as if she were coming into ownership of her life. And always the paradox: the person standing before him, though to all appearances a young teena
ger, was in reality the oldest human being on earth. Peter’s long absence, an era to Caleb, was for Amy the blink of an eye.

  “How long can you stay?” Her eyes did not move from his face.

  “Just tonight. I ship out tomorrow.”

  “Amy,” one of the sisters called from the stove, “is this soup ready? They’re getting loud out there.”

  Amy spoke briskly over her shoulder: “Just a second.” Then, to Peter, her smile widening: “It turns out I’m not such a bad cook. Save me a place.” She quickly squeezed his hand. “It really is so good to see you.”

  Peter made his way to the dining hall, where all the children had gathered at long tables, sorting themselves by age. The noise in the room was intense, a free-flowing energy of bodies and voices like the din of some immense engine. He took a place on the end of a bench beside Caleb just as Sister Peg appeared at the front of the room and clapped her hands.

  The effect was like a lightning bolt: silence tensed the room. The children joined hands and bowed their heads. Peter found himself joined in the circle, Caleb on one side, on the other a little girl with brown hair who was seated across from him.

  “Heavenly Father,” the woman intoned, her eyes closed, “we thank you for this meal and our togetherness and the blessing of your love and care, which you bestow upon us in your mercy. We thank you for the richness of the earth and the heavens above and your protection until we meet in the life to come. And lastly we thank you for the company of our special guest, one of your brave soldiers, who has traveled a perilous distance to be with us tonight. We pray that you will keep him, and his fellows, safe on their journeys. Amen.”

  A chorus of voices: “Amen.”

  Peter felt genuinely touched. So, perhaps Sister Peg didn’t mind his presence so much after all. The food appeared: vats of soup, bread cut into thick, steaming slices, pitchers of water and milk. At the head of each table, one of the sisters ladled the soup into bowls and passed them down the line as the pitchers made their way around. Amy slid onto the bench beside Peter.

  “Let me know what you think of the soup,” she said.

  It was delicious—the best thing he’d eaten in months. The bread, pillowy and warm in his mouth, nearly made him moan. He silenced the urge to ask for seconds, thinking it would be rude, but the moment his bowl was empty one of the sisters appeared with another, placing it before him.

  “It’s not often we have company,” she explained, her face rosy with embarrassment, and scurried away.

  They talked of the orphanage and Amy’s duties—the kitchen, but also teaching the youngest children to read and, in her words, “whatever else needs to be done”—and Peter’s news of the others, though they phrased this information in a general way; it wouldn’t be until after the children had gone to bed that the two of them would be able to talk in earnest. Beside him, Caleb was engaged with another boy in a vigorous conversation that Peter was only passingly able to follow, something about knights and queens and pawns. When his companion left the table, Peter asked Caleb what it was all about.

  “It’s chess.”

  “Chest?”

  Caleb rolled his eyes. “No, chess. It’s a game. I can teach you if you want.”

  Peter glanced at Amy, who laughed. “You’ll lose,” she said.

  After dinner and dishes, the three of them went to the common room, where Caleb set up the board and explained the names of the various pieces and the moves they could make. By the time he got to the knights, Peter’s head was spinning.

  “You really can keep all this straight in your mind? How long did it take you to learn to play?”

  He shrugged innocently. “Not long. It’s pretty simple.”

  “It doesn’t sound simple.” He turned to Amy, who was wearing a cagey smile.

  “Don’t look at me,” she protested. “You’re on your own.”

  Caleb waved over the board. “You can go first.”

  The battle commenced. Peter had considered taking it easy on the boy—it was, after all, a children’s game, and no doubt he would quickly get the hang of it—but he instantly discovered how badly he had underestimated his young opponent. Caleb seemed to anticipate his every tactic, responding without hesitation, his moves crisp and assured. In growing desperation Peter decided to attack, using his knight to take one of Caleb’s bishops.

  “Are you sure you want to do that?” the boy asked.

  “Um, no?”

  Caleb was studying the board with his chin resting on his hands. Peter could sense the complex movements of his thoughts: he was assembling a strategy, imagining a series of moves and countermoves projected forward in time. Five years old, Peter thought. Amazing.

  Caleb advanced a rook three spaces, taking Peter’s other knight, which he had inadvertently left open. “Watch,” he said.

  A quick exchange of pieces and Peter’s king was boxed in. “Checkmate,” the boy declared.

  Peter stared hopelessly at the board. “How did you do that so fast?”

  Beside him, Amy laughed—a warm, infectious sound. “I told you.”

  Caleb’s grin stretched a mile wide. Peter understood what had happened; first the swimming, now this. His nephew had effortlessly turned the tables on him, showing Peter what he was capable of.

  “You just have to think ahead,” Caleb said. “Try to see it like a story.”

  “Tell me the truth. How good are you at this?”

  Caleb gave a modest shrug. “A few of the older kids used to beat me. But not anymore.”

  “Is that so? Well, set it up again, youngster. I want my revenge.”

  Caleb had racked up his third straight victory, each more mercilessly decisive than the last, when the bell sounded, summoning him to the dormitory. The time had passed too quickly. Amy departed for the girls’ quarters, leaving Peter to escort the boy to bed. In the large room of cots, Caleb exchanged his clothing for a nightshirt, then knelt on the stone floor at the side of his bed, hands pressed together, to say his prayers, a long series of “God bless”es that began with “my parents in heaven” and concluded with Peter himself.

  “I always save you for last,” the boy said, “to keep you safe.”

  “Who’s Mouser?”

  Mouser was their cat. Peter had seen the poor creature lounging on a windowsill in the common room—a pitiful rag of a thing, flesh drooping over his brittle old bones like laundry on a line. Peter drew the blanket up to Caleb’s chin and bent to kiss him on the forehead. Sisters were moving up and down the lines of cots, shushing the other children. The room’s lights had already been extinguished.

  “When are you coming back, Uncle Peter?”

  “I’m not sure. Soon, I hope.”

  “Can we go swimming again?”

  A warm feeling spread through his entire body. “Only if you promise we can play more chess. I don’t think I have the hang of it yet. I could use a few pointers.”

  The boy beamed. “I promise.”

  Amy was waiting for him in the empty common room, the cat nosing around her feet. He had to report to the barracks at 2100; he and Amy would have only a few minutes together.

  “That poor thing,” Peter said. “Why doesn’t anybody put him down? It seems cruel.”

  Amy ran a hand along the animal’s spine. A faint purr trembled from him as he arched his back to receive her touch. “It’s past time, I suppose. But the children adore him, and the sisters don’t believe in it. Only God can take a life.”

  “They’ve obviously never been to New Mexico.”

  A joke, but not entirely. Amy regarded him with concern. “You look troubled, Peter.”

  “Things aren’t going very well. Do you want to know about it?”

  She considered the question. She seemed a little pale; Peter wondered if she was feeling all right.

  “Maybe some other time.” Her eyes searched his face. “He loves you, you know. He talks about you all the time.”

  “You’re making me feel guilty. Probably I d
eserve it.”

  She lifted Mouser to settle him on her lap. “He understands. I’m only telling you so you know how important you are to him.”

  “What about you? Are you doing okay here?”

  She nodded. “On the whole, it suits me. I like the company, the children, the sisters. And of course there’s Caleb. Maybe for the first time in my life I actually feel… I don’t know. Useful. It’s nice to be just an ordinary person.”

  Peter was struck by the frank, easy flow of the conversation. Some barrier between them had dropped. “Do the other sisters know? Besides Sister Peg, I mean.”

  “A few do, or maybe just suspect. I’ve been here for five years, and they’d have to notice I’m not aging. I think I’m a bit of a wrinkle to Sister Peg, something that doesn’t really fit her view of things. But she doesn’t say anything about it to me.” Amy smiled. “After all, I make a mean barley soup.”

  Too quickly, the moment of his departure was at hand. Amy walked him to the entrance, where Peter pulled the wad of bills from his pocket and held it out to her.

  “Give this to Sister Peg, all right?”

  Amy nodded without comment and slid the scrip into the pocket of her skirt. Once again she pulled him into a hug, more forcefully this time. “I really have missed you.” Her voice was soft against his chest. “Be safe, all right? Promise you’ll do that.”

  There was something fraught in her insistence, a feeling, almost, of finality, a graver parting. What wasn’t she saying? And something else: her body was giving off a feverish heat. He could actually feel it pulsing through the heavy fabric of his uniform.

  “You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

  “I mean it, Peter. If anything happened, I couldn’t …” Her voice trailed away, as if pulled to the currents of a hidden wind. “I just couldn’t is all.”

  Now he was certain: there was something Amy wasn’t telling him. Peter searched her face for what it was. A faint glaze of perspiration shone on her brow.

  “Are you okay?”

  Taking his hand in her own, she lifted them in concert, pressing her palm against his so that the pads of their fingers were just touching. It seemed a gesture with equal measures of togetherness and parting, connection and separation.