by Mark Gordon
Chapter 36
Kate
The spaghetti was very, very good and the young visitors felt like they were part of a family, at least for one night anyway. Kate lavished them with extra helpings, and made a delicious dessert of apple pie and ice cream, which they scoffed down noisily. After dinner, they moved to the lounge room and sat on comfy couches and told each other their stories by the warm glow of the fire. Within minutes Gabby was asleep with her head resting on Kate’s lap, which allowed Matt and Montana to give Kate a more explicit depiction of the new world beyond her mountain retreat. The woman’s eyes became sad and teary as Matt described the changes that had befallen Millfield, and when he described their encounter with the malevolent Brock in Carswell, Kate went to Montana and hugged her, before asking her to tell her story.
“It will help,” she had said.
Montana reluctantly agreed, and began to describe waking up in a town where everyone had vanished, and how she was almost delirious with fear. She was roaming the streets in an aimless panic, and when Brock had lumbered out of a bakery she clutched at his companionship as a drowning person would at a floating paper cup. As Montana continued her story, Kate nodded, encouraging her to unburden herself of the emotional weight she had been carrying. Once Montana had finished, it was Matt’s turn and Kate listened just as attentively as he described the first morning when he’d found the Thompsons’ under their bed; his discovery of the feeders in Millfield, before reliving the nightmare of his father’s return to the farm and the killing that ensued. He told Kate how he had stumbled across Gabby on his way to explore Carswell and from that point the two stories merged closely enough for him to be able to stop. Kate looked at Matt and Montana and shook her head, “You poor children. I don’t know how you’ve done it. You’re so inspiring. I can't imagine what you've been through. And the way you’ve looked after Gabby! Speaking of which, Matt could you carry her into my bedroom please? She can sleep in my bed with Montana, I’ll sleep in the spare bedroom and you can have the couch.”
In Kate’s bedroom they gazed at the little girl, who was sleeping peacefully under a fluffy quilt.
“Gabby’s very special, don’t you think?” asked Kate.
“Absolutely,” Matt replied. “It’s a miracle I found her. She’s so lucky.”
Kate looked at him and responded quietly, “No Matt, that’s not what I mean. You think she’s just been lucky. That she’s somehow fluked survival amongst all this horror. I actually think she’s really special. Not like the rest of us. Unique somehow. Can’t you sense it?”
“I can,” said Montana. “I got a vibe from her the minute I got in the car with her. Don’t you feel it Matt?”
He looked at them, wondering if they were teasing him. “No. I don’t know what you mean. She seems like a normal kid to me.”
“Oh well, maybe it’s a female thing,” said Kate, smiling. “Let’s go back to the fire. She won’t wake up now. I’ll make you a nice cup of hot chocolate.”
When they were back around the fire, Kate raised the issue of Gabby’s 'specialness' once more over a large glass of red wine as Matt and Montana sipped steaming mugs of chocolate.
“Matt I know you aren’t aware of anything peculiar about Gabby, but how can you explain the fact that the feeders left her alone for days before you found her. If they are as violent and aggressive as you say, then surely she would have been easy prey?”
“She hid from them at night. In her bedroom closet.”
Kate levelled her gaze at Matt. “Honey, if you expect me to believe that this six year old girl somehow managed to hide from these crazed killers for almost a week, then you must think I’m older and sillier than I look. Think about it. If they wanted to, they would have found her and killed her just like they did with each other.”
Matt looked to Montana for support, but there was none forthcoming. “She’s right, isn’t she Matt?”
Matt considered his response before replying, “I don’t know. Maybe, but I can’t think of any reason the feeders would spare her. Maybe she was just lucky. Sometimes it’s just your day.”
Kate shook her head. “Matt you described both Carswell and Millfield as being heavily littered with dead bodies, yet there were none in Gabby’s street. God, my ex-husband was probably the first feeder she’d seen! Doesn’t that make you think these things have been avoiding her deliberately?”
Matt looked unconvinced, but could see the woman’s point nonetheless. “Okay, let’s assume that for some reason these feeders don’t like Gabby and won’t go near her. How do you explain it? What’s the point? That type of behaviour goes against everything we’ve seen so far.”
“I don’t know,” said Kate. “Maybe we don’t even need to know why. Let’s face it; we have no idea why the world has changed overnight. The rules have changed and we can’t understand it. That’s okay, though, because the universe is one huge mystery! How presumptuous and deluded would we be if they thought we could understand everything! Something has happened to the world, and maybe we have no more chance of comprehending that than a cockroach does of grasping the significance of the subway station it lives in. We just have to deal with what’s in front of us.”
“And Gabby is somehow part of that mystery?”
“Maybe.”
With that comment the conversation stalled as each of them pondered the implication of Kate’s theory. The fire crackled and outside they could hear the sound of rain as it started to patter on the tin roof. Montana, who had hardly been involved in the conversation since she finished her story, spoke up.
“What happens tomorrow?” she asked.
Kate smiled at her new, young friends and replied, “That’s going to be the question every night from now on, isn’t it?”
Later, after Kate had gone to bed, Matt and Montana sat together on the couch staring at the last dying embers of the fire.
“She’s lovely, isn’t she? “ said Montana.
“Absolutely. I think she saved all of our lives tonight.”
“Do you think she should come to the farm with us? I hate the thought of her being here on her own.”
Matt scratched his head. “ I don’t know. She seems pretty attached to this place.”
“Can we ask her tomorrow?”
“Sure,” he said, as Montana laid her head on his shoulder.
“Will you hold me,” she asked.
“Of course I will,” he said, as she drifted off to sleep beside him.
