Beauty and Dread

by Nicki Huntsman Smith

  “Good. You have a camp up ahead? I’ve been walking for hours. I’d like to sit down and have something to drink. I brought some hot chocolate for you, Logan. It’s special just for you. I put lots of sugar in it.”

  “Why would they send you? You seem like an odd choice,” Dani demanded.

  Mother and daughter locked eyes. Julia felt something pass between them; a frisson of connectivity, or more specifically, a message had been sent and received. Dani knew she was up to something, but she wouldn’t press her now. Not yet.

  “Let’s just sit down and I’ll go over everything.”

  The young woman nodded, turned her back, and walked toward the overpass. Logan trudged along noiselessly beside her. Her own movements must have sounded like an elephant passing compared to theirs.

  Dani got a fire going in under a minute. It was small and contained, but it was putting out a surprising amount of heat. The hot chocolate in the stainless steel thermos would be warm in no time.

  “I thought you said no fire?” Pablo said, warming his hands.

  “For some reason, it’s important. It will probably get us killed though, even though we’re on the north side of the overpass. Hope it’s worth it to you, Julia,” Dani said. The words didn’t carry much sting though. She could see the girl was intrigued, wondering what she could be up to.

  “I’m sorry I only brought enough for Logan. It’s just that he loves it so and I left in such a hurry that it didn’t occur to me to bring more, and I didn’t have time to heat it. Here, Logan. I think it’s ready now.”

  She lifted the thermos from the fire with a gloved hand, unscrewed the lid and filled the metal mug.

  “Must be nice to have hot chocolate delivery service in the middle of nowhere. You have impressive connections, Creeper.”

  Julia looked at the young woman whom she believed to be her daughter. Eyes so similar to hers, dilated in the firelight, stared right back at her.

  Julia shifted her attention back to the young man who was already sipping at the mug and wearing a smug expression. She knew what that look meant. He was getting something nobody else was. Her stomach was so knotted she thought it might never feel normal again. She would never feel normal again, that was a given.

  “It tastes a little funny. Not like the stuff we usually have.”

  “It’s a different brand. It’s Godiva instead of Swiss Miss,” she said, blinking rapidly to keep the tears in check. “Now drink it all before it gets cold. It’ll warm you up nicely.”

  “Your colors are weird, Julia. I wonder why you’re gray and brown, and not purple and green.” He finished the dregs of the hot chocolate with a loud slurp.

  “I don’t know, dear. I can’t see them like you can.”

  She could no longer keep the dam from breaking. Tears coursed down her cheeks.

  “Why are you crying? Is it like that time at the lake in Yellowstone? When you felt sad and we thought it was because of the princess who lived in the rock castles?”

  “Yes. I think it’s something like that. I’m feeling very sad.”

  He scrambled over to sit next to her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders.

  “I’m sorry. I hope you don’t stay sad for long.”

  Dani and Pablo watched the scene from across the fire. They were both exceptionally intelligent people. They may have figured out what was happening.

  “Creeper, tell me about your life,” Dani said, her voice a ghost of the normal brazen, impatient version; kind, almost. “Before everyone died. I don’t think we’ve ever talked about it.”

  “Oh, okay. My mom was really nice. She always said I was a handful, but she sure did love me a lot. She had the same colors that Julia does. Well, the ones she usually does. Anyway, I was sad when she died. I wrapped her in her favorite blanket and buried her in the backyard.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “I never knew him. When I was little, my mom told me he was the captain of a big ship and was lost at sea. But one time, after she drank a lot of vodka medicine, she said he was a golden-eyed devil. And that he was living in Arizona now and probably-screwing-everything-in-sight. I’m not stupid. I know that means s-e-x. I like thinking that he was a ship captain better.”

  Pablo spoke then, kindness also evident in his voice. “Arizona is where I’m from. It’s a very nice place. There are mountains and a beautiful desert near Prescott, where I grew up.”

  “Prescott? I think that’s where my mom said my dad had moved to when she was drinking her vodka medicine. I remember the name of the town started with a P and ended with a T. I bet that was it! Did you ever meet a golden-eyed devil?”

  Pablo laughed. “Not that I recall. I think someone like that would have made an impression on me.”

  “She told me I got his eyes. Hey, yours are like mine! Your eyes are gold but your color is blue. Lots of blues. I think boys should be blue. It just makes sense. Sam’s are the prettiest colors I’ve ever seen. They look like girl colors, because they’re so pretty. Like a rainbow.”

  “Is that why I always see you staring at Sam?” Dani asked with a smile. “I thought you had a crush on him.”

  “No! I don’t like boys. I had a girlfriend once. It was a long time ago, back in the eighth grade. But then my mom made us move to a different house and I had to go to a different school. Are you feeling better now, Julia? Not so sad?” Logan took his arm from her shoulders and hugged his stomach. “My tummy hurts.”

  “Go lie down. Where is your sleeping bag?”

  “It’s over there. Ouch! My tummy hurts bad!”

  “I’m sorry your tummy hurts. Just lie down and maybe it will stop hurting.”

  “You’re still crying! You must be really, really sad.”

  Logan squirmed into the sleeping bag. His face was that of an unhappy six-year old. Julia stroked his hair.

  “Would you like me to sing that song you like?” She refused to look at Dani. This was Logan’s time. All her attention belonged to him.

  “Yes. But I don’t think it will help. I may need to go do-my-business. Oh! It hurts so bad! I must be coming-down-with-a-bug.”

  “You might be. Just try to rest. It will pass soon.”

  Hours slunk by with torturous slowness. The campfire burned down to embers, yet no one seemed inclined to sleep. Julia was vaguely aware they were being watched by the other two; a macabre, unscripted tragedy where both actors could barely speak their lines, being crippled by either guilt or agony.

  “I’ve never felt so bad ever in my entire life. I don’t think this is a bug. I think it’s something worse.”

  “Hush, now. What else could it possibly be? I’m sure you’ll be fine by morning.”

  Another spasm of pain wracked the body of the young man. He could no longer be contained by the sleeping bag. After casting it aside, he alternated between rolling on the ground, clutching his stomach then pacing between their camp and the culvert where he would squat every so often to relieve his bowels.

  This was not the reaction to the poison that Cate described it would be. It would have been kinder to put a bullet in his brain.

  Logan’s pacing stopped. The golden eyes stared at her. All traces of the unsettling grin were long gone.

  “This all started after I drank that hot chocolate. Maybe there was something in it.”

  “There was nothing in it but cocoa powder, sugar, and water. I made it myself.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’re black and gray, just like all those bad people I saw in Fisherman’s Wharf before I met you. Are you like them now?”

  “That’s nonsense.”

  The young man convulsed again, doubling over and holding his stomach. When the spasm passed, he stared at her accusingly.

  “Did you see my pictures? Did you find them under-the-underwear? Was that hot chocolate an evil potion you made with your magic?”

  She gazed back at the boy-in-a-man’s-body who had wormed his way into her heart. What was the point of lying? Did this w
retched creature deserve to be comforted and coddled, or should he hear the truth?

  “Yes, I saw the drawings. Oh, Logan. Why did you do all those horrible things to people? Why did you kill Thoozy? He was always so kind to you. Why do you want to kill Dani?”

  Another wave of pain washed over the boyish face. He fell to the ground, rolling from side to side, moaning in agony.

  “Because she has your colors, Julia,” he whispered. “Because you think she’s your daughter and I think she is too because of the colors. I didn’t want to share you. I shouldn’t have to share YOU!” Another cramp made him cry out the word. It would be the last one he would ever speak and it would resonate in Julia’s nightmares for the rest of her life, a final condemnation.

  You. You. You.

  ###

  It took four more hours for Logan to die.

  Julia stayed by his side the entire time, even when his bowels turned to bloody water. The seizures at the end were excruciating to witness, but she wouldn’t turn away.

  Did it help to know she was doing the world a favor, putting down a rabid animal before it could harm anyone else? No. If she hadn’t discovered his plan to murder Dani, she would never have been able to do it, even knowing he had killed others and would continue doing so. A good mother will sacrifice her own life or sell her soul to save her child. And that’s what Julia had done. A piece of her died with Logan; she would never be whole again.

  She was standing next to the shallow grave Pablo and Dani had dug, when she felt a hand on her shoulder. The eastern sky had begun to change from indigo to gray. Dani’s touch jolted her from her reverie, the one she would replay in her mind for the rest of her life: placing Logan in the ground and covering him up with dirt. You. You. You.

  “When you’re ready, let’s talk,” Dani said. “I have a lot of questions about Logan, but even more about your life. And I want to tell you about mine.”

  Chapter 36

  “I’m sure he’s fine. You don’t need to worry about Pablo, my dear. That young man can take care of himself, even though he may not realize how strong he is. You just focus on getting well and keeping that baby bump healthy. Did you drink your milk yesterday? And Cate’s tonic?”

  Amelia had hoped Maddie would be better today. She had waited until the sun was up before checking on her. She was careful to keep her concern about the preeclampsia to herself, but every day that Maddie didn’t improve, the apprehension grew. This did not feel like a normal pregnancy. Something was wrong; Amelia could feel it in her bones.

  “Yes to both,” Maddie replied. She was still in bed even though the winter sun shone through the bedroom window. That in itself was alarming. Maddie was an early riser; one of those people who felt energized early in the day and gets droopy-eyed by eight o’clock in the evening.

  “And the headache is better or worse?”

  “Worse, I think.”

  “Let’s take your blood pressure.”

  “We just took it last night. Let me sleep a bit longer, okay?

  I’m just so tired.”

  Amelia made a clucking sound of disapproval but didn’t argue. She closed the door behind her, resolving to get to the library later and research preeclampsia. She was no midwife as she told Pablo and Maddie when she first met them. She only claimed that title because her scythen revealed that Pablo was eager to have a family and she had wanted to travel with them. The lie was necessary and she didn’t regret it. Besides, with her intellect and unparalleled experience of humans, she knew far more than most about their biology and its physiological processes. She knew more than the average non-medical person about pregnancy and childbirth as well.

  But she didn’t know enough to get a handle on Maddie’s decline. She hoped to today, though. Something must be done or Maddie would not survive the next few months. Perhaps she would pay a visit to Cate at the hospital too. She had put off having a one-on-one conversation with Liberty’s ‘doctor’ for fear that her own deception might be uncovered. But Maddie’s health and that of her unborn child superseded everything else.

  “What’s wrong? Is Maddie okay?” Jessie asked from the kitchen table where she sat eating hominy with sugar for breakfast.

  “Not really. I’m worried about her.” She made herself another cup of instant coffee and slid into a chair across from the child.

  “Do you want me to touch her? Like I did before when she got shot in the head?”

  Amelia studied her protégé, pondering the question and the consequences of taking such action. It was one thing to utilize the girl when she was still in the process of being evaluated, but quite another when she did so to affect the natural course of events. Breaking that rule would get her a lifetime ban on ever returning home. She and Tung and the others were here to observe and report; nothing more. There had only been one case of expulsion that she knew of and she desperately did not want to be the second.

  “Not yet, child. Let’s hope she gets better on her own.”

  “When will it be time to go below? Can’t we just take Maddie and Pablo with us so they’ll be safe?”

  Amelia smiled at the anxious face. “Remember what I told you? Only very, very special get to go below. Pablo and Maddie aren’t special enough.”

  “But Maddie can do math without a calculator and Pablo writes all that poetry and stuff. Plus, Maddie has the dreams like me.”

  “There are a lot of special people now. That’s why the sickness happened, so that all the people left would be special. But out of all those, there is a scintilla...a tiny number...of infinitely more exceptional people. Maddie and Pablo are like red emeralds or black opals, somewhat rare and certainly beautiful. But you, my dear, are jadeite; the rarest gemstone in the world. It’s an interesting coincidence that your eyes are the exact color of that elusive mineral.”

  Jessie frowned. “I wish they could come with us. And Bruno and Curly Sue and Gandalf the Grey too. Maybe we should just stay here?”

  It was Amelia’s turn to frown. “That’s what we’re doing. For the time being, at least. I can’t leave until we accomplish two very important tasks.”

  “Annihilate the Smiling Man and show the Ancients that humanity deserves a chance to evolve?” Jessie parroted the words as if reciting the multiplication table, and she understood their meaning.

  Amelia laughed at the serious expression on the child’s face and her somber tone. “Yes. Those are our tasks. Once we’ve taken care of business and you’ve grown more, we shall go below and have a lovely nap.”

  “I don’t like to take naps. I’m a little old for them, don’t you think?”

  “Not for these kinds of naps, child. Now hurry and finish your breakfast. We’re going to the library!”

  Chapter 37

  “So the sperm donor was just a cute guy? Not a world-renowned physicist or Nobel prize-winning chemist? He was just so hot that you forgot to use a condom? Good grief. I can’t believe someone as smart as you could have been so stupid.”

  Dani had allowed Julia two hours to grieve Logan’s death before beginning the question and answer session. If she were going to allow this woman into her life, she would make her earn the privilege. She had twenty years’ worth of questions bottled up inside, and the person who could answer them walked right beside her. She no longer tried to deny the fact that the woman was her biological mother; the evidence was too compelling.

  “Well it’s a damn good thing I didn’t use a condom. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if I had.”

  Dani snorted. “Touché.”

  “When you two are finished with this tender moment, I have some questions of my own,” Pablo said. “Also, I don’t think we should be walking so brazenly in the open. Katniss Everdeen would have us trudging through the fields where there’s cover.”

  Dani shot him a poisonous glance, but didn’t respond. He was right...annoyingly so. She had been hugely distracted by her conversation with Julia; she was finally getting answers to a lifetime of questions. They
were walking three abreast, south on I35, alert for the sounds of an approaching army, or anything else that wasn’t just a harmless byproduct of Mother Nature and the skeletal remains of a near-extinct civilization. The day had dawned gray and sunless, but the wind had died down. The temperature was in the forties, not miserably cold when they kept moving.

  “Like what kind of questions, Pablo?” Dani asked. She hadn’t yet decided how she felt about the guy. He was clearly intelligent, and more articulate than anyone she had ever met. But he was also one of those sensitive, angst-ridden types...the type that would slice off an ear and send it to some chick he was pining over. Still, there was something else going on behind those unusual eyes, and she had yet to get a handle on it.

  “Like why are there so many odd and extraordinary people these days?” Pablo replied. “I want to hear about your research, Julia. I’d like to know what you were studying before and after Chicxulub. You mentioned something last night. You said, ‘considering the pathology of so many survivors, I should have anticipated this.’ You were talking to yourself, I realize, but I couldn’t help hearing it. Would you explain that statement, please?”

  They had paused in their progress. Pablo’s focus was on their surroundings, and wisely so. They needed to get off the highway pronto. Dani was about to say as much when she caught an expression on Julia’s face before it was stifled and replaced with careful indifference. Dani knew that look: it was guilt.

  “The ramblings of a distressed person,” Julia said. “I don’t even remember saying that. I had just poisoned someone I cared about, for god’s sake.”

  “Oh, what do we have here?” Dani said. “You’re hiding something. You look like Woody Allen at a Sweet Sixteen party. Spill it, Julia. We have a right to know. What nasty little cooties did you see squirming in your microscope when the end of the world came?”

  Julia shook her head. “I told Steven that I wouldn’t discuss that subject. Not yet. Not until things are more stable in our town.”