Grants Pass

by Cherie Priest

  “Do you speak English?” she asked.

  Now his eyes opened wider. “Yes.”

  “That’s good.” Beth stared into his face before looking away. “But then of course you do, everyone does.”

  The man blinked, staring at her. He asked, “Where...where is everyone?” His accent was flat, broad — American, perhaps.

  “What do you mean?”

  He swallowed and glanced around the room. His face filled with fear. Terror, even. “Nobody’s here, are they?”

  “I’m here.” Was the man a fool? Quite likely. Most people were fools, and if they hadn’t been before the world fell apart, they certainly were now. Or, rather, they were dead now, the vast majority of them. And the fools like Christos had sailed off to follow a dream, a computer hoax, a cruel fantasy someone had written, about a place called Grants Pass, where society would begin again. As if there was any chance of that.

  “You...” The man struggled to sit up, and Beth didn’t stop him. He leaned against the pillows and shivered in the heat. “Who are you?”

  “Elizabeth Barnett.” She watched his eyes as she said her name, but he gave no flicker of recognition. “Who are you?”

  “Tyler.” He blinked and swallowed, and she stared at his throat, but saw no swelling. “Tyler Anderson.”

  “I am pleased to meet you, Tyler Anderson,” Beth said, slipping into the tone she would use when greeting over-eager fans.

  Tyler closed his eyes, leaned against the headboard, then opened them again. He had already smeared the white coverlet with his filthy, stained hands. But without water, she’d have no way of washing them. Everything was just going to get dirtier and dirtier from here on out, until everything was the color of the sun-baked earth. Including herself.

  “Is it true that California...?” His eyes appealed to her as he broke off, then started again. “Is San Diego really ruined?”

  Now Beth stared at him. “That was two years ago.”

  ****

  She was not a nurse, she told herself that she didn’t care if he lived or died, but for some reason she fed him and cleaned him up a bit, and changed the bandage on his forehead. The bleeding slowed and stopped, and seemed like it would heal.

  Once he was cleaner, she saw that he was even younger than she’d realized. Probably in his twenties, though he’d lived a hard life during those few years. Well, who hadn’t, lately?

  He slept a lot, and ate the halloumi she brought, and the canned foods. Beth began to wonder if she’d need to make another raid on the neighboring houses, or even — god forbid — venture down into Larnaka again. Christos had packed the small cellar full before he’d left, even as he’d continued to beg her to change her mind. But an old woman didn’t eat nearly as much as a young man.

  Within a week, Tyler was able to walk around a little, and a day or two later, he washed himself, using most of a bucket of brackish water. Beth brought him pants and a cotton shirt that had belonged to James, handing it to him without comment.

  Tyler dressed himself, then came and found Beth in the living room.

  “Drink?” she asked, indicating the bottle of Bombay on the sideboard.

  “Oh my god,” he said, his blue eyes glittering with a touch of madness. Or at least that’s how she would have written it, as she thought about it later. In the moment, she only thought, Now, there’s a healthy young man who appreciates quality gin.

  He poured himself a full three fingers of the stuff, his arms shaking as he lifted the heavy bottle with both hands. Sitting in the second leather chair, he raised the glass and smiled at her.

  She lifted her half-empty glass, and they clinked.

  He took a generous swallow of the gin, closing his eyes as it went down, and turned to face Beth, grinning. “Oh, man. That’s incredible.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “I take it it’s been a while?”

  “Ha!” It wasn’t a laugh; more like an ironic bark, and a bit too loud. “Yes, it has. I’d say two years, at least.”

  Beth leaned forward, holding him with her eyes. “So, Tyler, tell me: what do you know of what has gone on in our world these last few years?”

  He took another drink, not quite as gulpish as his last, but she still noted it. If he drinks like that, eighteen bottles won’t be near enough, she thought. “Not a whole hell of a lot, to tell you the truth.”

  “What’s an American boy doing in Cyprus anyway, now, knowing nothing? If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve been in prison.”

  Now he did laugh, though it was as bitter as before. “Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I was in prison.” He finished the glass of gin, setting it quite deliberately on the table beside his chair, next to the cut-glass coaster.

  ****

  It turned out to be the usual story — young tourist arrested for drugs in a country with little patience for such things, thrown into prison to teach him a lesson. It would have had the usual outcome — his parents sending money or coming to retrieve him, a whole lot of nuisance and no lasting ill effects — except for the unfortunate timing of the apocalypse.

  Tyler spoke no Greek, no Turkish, nothing but English. His parents had presumably died in the initial earthquake, but he didn’t know for sure, as communications went down almost immediately thereafter. The plagues had come then, sweeping across the world. He had known almost nothing of this as he languished in prison, waiting for rescue, for anything. His guards changed weekly, then daily, with no explanation. Then one died right in front of him, and he finally, belatedly, understood.

  “How did you get out of the locked cell?” Beth asked him, swirling her drink.

  He shrugged, looking down. “Reached out, took the keys from him. I thought for sure I’d get the plague then, but I guess not.” His words were casual, but his face was bleak. There was more to the story. If he wanted to tell her, he would.

  He was vague on the timing — how long he had been out of the prison, surviving on the rough countryside. But that was because he didn’t know, Beth felt, not because he was trying to deceive. It had obviously been a while. He must have wandered the entire island before finding her. Christos had come to her in the first few weeks after the initial devastation, when the few survivors were banding together. And Christos had stayed with her when the others had left the island. Until he, too, could no longer resist the empty promise of a dream.

  ****

  Tyler’s strength grew, and soon enough he was poking around the place, exploring neighboring houses, trying to figure out ways to improve their lot. Just like Christos had done. Beth was pleased enough to have the help, although she’d been doing perfectly well on her own, thank you very much. Tyler began talking more, yammering on to her in the evenings about everything and nothing — his boyhood in California, girls he’d liked, his world travels on a shoestring. She took to retiring early, going to her room with a book and a candle where she could read in peace until she felt like sleeping.

  “What’s this?” he asked one day. Beth was in the kitchen, trying to decide whether to light a fire to heat up the canned lakerda or just eat it cold. She turned around at the sound of his voice. He was holding a sheaf of papers.

  Beth recognized them at once. “Where did you get that?”

  Tyler shrugged. “I was cleaning up, I found them. Is it true?”

  “Give me those.” Beth reached out for the papers, but Tyler held them away from her. “I asked you where you got that.”

  He stared at her, his eyes wide and needful. “We could find other people. We could go; we don’t have to stay here!”

  “Put that down. You’re a goddamned fool, do you know that?”

  He started to say something else, but she interrupted. “I said, put that down, and don’t speak of it to me again.”

  He paled and set the papers on the counter, backing out of the kitchen.

  Beth took the Grants Pass email hoax, intending to put it back in her bedroom, where Tyler had had no business snooping in the first place. She
had made it perfectly clear that her room was off limits, yet where else had he gotten it? It was the only copy.

  She stopped at the doorway, thinking for a moment, and then went back into the kitchen to light the fire.

  ****

  But once he’d read it, he wouldn’t let it go. He was worse than Christos. “We can be saved!”

  “You go ahead if you like,” she said. “I’m fine here.”

  “I can’t leave you here. You’re, um, you’ll die.” He was shaking his head, stubborn, desperate. “Please!”

  She laughed in his face. “You were going to tell me I’m old. I know I’m old, and I know I’m going to die. And therefore, I’m not going anywhere.”

  “We can take a boat — there’re plenty of boats left in the harbor.”

  “And petrol?” She sneered at his naiveté. “Do you know how many people already left the island? You don’t think they left a lot of petrol lying around? That’s why Christos sailed, you idiot American. And now he sleeps with the sharks.”

  He bristled. “You don’t know that for sure. And yes, I am American — what of it? Why shouldn’t I want to go home?”

  She waved at the harbor. “I am not stopping you.”

  ****

  That night, she heard him sobbing in his bedroom, long after she’d gone to her own. “Mom...oh, Mom...”

  So that was it: he missed his mommy. And he’d fixated on Beth, in some sort of perverse mother-complex way. She snorted to herself. “More like a grandmother.”

  But the next morning he was at her again. She had to shout at him again to get him to stop. He stormed out without eating breakfast, and spent the day somewhere else. Down at the water, if she was any judge.

  He returned at twilight, calm, not mentioning where he’d been. She offered him a glass of gin, and they sat on the veranda, drinking together.

  After two drinks, he said, “I found a boat. I think it could make it across the ocean. And it’s got a full tank of gas. So I know I could find more.”

  “I’m not leaving,” she said, without turning her head. The sun glimmered red on the water as it sank. “I hate America. And I forbade you to speak of this.” She set her glass down, got up, and went inside.

  She walked all the way to her bedroom, then through it into her small private bathroom. Of course she didn’t use it as a bathroom any more — the septic tank was overfull, and there was nobody to call to come clean it out — but it had other uses. She opened the medicine cabinet, first looking, then rummaging, then yanking everything out. But they weren’t there.

  He’d not only stolen the email from her bedroom. He’d also raided her stash of narcotics, carefully hoarded from James’ final illness.

  Beth stood before the ransacked medicine cabinet, shaking with anger. She had to make him leave. He was not like Christos — he was worse, far worse. Bad enough that he would harangue her, try to control her. But that he should steal from her — that he should steal drugs from her — a man who had already gone to prison for drugs — oh, this was not good. A man whose life she’d saved.

  “Not good,” she whispered.

  She felt a prickle on the back of her neck and wheeled around. He was standing in the doorway of the small bathroom. She hadn’t even heard him come in.

  He was pale, and shaking. Now that she knew, she recognized the signs easily. He must have taken several pills, and then two — at least two — glasses of gin on top of that. “Beth,” he started, taking a step towards her. The name was a bit slurred, the consonants softer than they should be.

  “Get out of here,” she said.

  He took another step, and now he was right in front of her. He reached up and took her shoulders in his hands, hard, and shook her. It hurt. She pushed back against his chest, trying to twist out of his grip, but he was decades younger than she, and very strong. “We...have...to...go,” he said, staring at her even as he rattled her thin bones. His eyes were too liquid, too glossy. “I’ll make you go.”

  She pushed harder, and he abruptly let go, staggering back and bumping into the wall behind him. He didn’t seem to notice. “You’re drunk,” she said. “Go and lie down. We’ll talk about this in the morning.”

  He looked at her, wary. “You mean it? We’ll talk about it?”

  She shrugged, resisting the urge to rub her throbbing shoulders. “You are in no condition to talk now.”

  He kept staring at her, then turned and went to his own bedroom. She stood in the bathroom a long time, shaking, listening as he fell onto his bed. He was snoring within a few minutes. Only then did she pull her shirt open and examine the bruises, peering into the mirror. He’d crushed her shoulders so hard she could almost see the imprint of his fingerprints.

  Beth re-buttoned her shirt and left the bathroom. She knew what she had to do.

  ****

  She stood over his bed as he snored. He looked so helpless and frail, lying there. Almost innocent. Though she’d never had children, sometimes she could understand the appeal. Having someone to love, someone to take care of.... Of course, she’d had James for that.

  Tyler was somebody’s son. His mother and father had loved him and raised him, and had let him go, had watched as he had flown the nest. He’d flown far — all the way across the world, where he’d gotten in trouble and caught up in the terrible things that humanity had done to itself. Maybe he’d deserved better. Maybe not. Who knew anymore?

  But it was too late now. There was no better to be had, and if he was going to refuse to understand that, there was nothing she could do about it.

  She raised the knife, leaning over him to reach the far side of his neck. In book 8 of The Caged Sword series, A Clutch of Posies, Marleena finds she must murder the Lord of Terror, using only a dull kitchen knife. In her fear and hesitation, she botches the job at first, and he awakens and threatens her, but in a stroke of luck, as he is leaping onto her, the knife nicks his jugular and he dies. Then all the Sisters are freed, and the land rejoices.

  Tyler’s white, exposed neck was surprisingly tough at first, despite Beth’s knife being as sharp as it could be. She remembered slaughtering the goats, and pushed harder. When she thought of it as butchering meat, it came easily. She even knew to step back so as not to get soaked with his blood.

  The covers, of course — that was another story. Tyler’s blood spurted at first, another rush with every beat of his heart. Impossible to believe there could be so much; but the goats had been even worse. Soon it ebbed out more slowly, flowing down his body as he twitched, gurgled, and stilled. It spread across the white cotton coverlet, pooling and sinking in, threading fanlike out along the folds of the fabric. Beth watched it for a long time, unmoving, and finally turned to go.

  She shut the door of the guest bedroom behind her, turning the latch that would keep it fast. The corpse would smell at first, but she knew that in this hot, dry climate, it would soon desiccate, even mummify. In any event, she could put a towel under the door if she had to. She wouldn’t need that room any time soon.

  She walked down the hall to the kitchen, washed the knife, and laid it on the counter to dry. Then, she went to her bookshelf and pulled down the final book in her series: Alone at Heart.

  Night fell as Elizabeth Barnett sat on the veranda with a tumbler of warm gin, the book unopened beside her, and waited for her world to finish ending.

  Biography

  Shannon Page

  Shannon Page was born on Halloween night and spent her early years on a commune in northern California’s backwoods. A childhood without television gave her a great love of books and the worlds she found in them. She wrote her first book, an adventure story starring her cat, at the age of seven. Sadly, that work is currently out of print. Her stories have appeared in Interzone and Black Static and she has several forthcoming short-story publications from Morrigan Books, Gilgamesh Press, and Three Crows Press. Shannon is a longtime practitioner of Ashtanga yoga, has no tattoos, and lives in San Francisco with nineteen orchids.<
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  Afterword

  About ten years ago, I went to Cyprus. The stark beauty of the place has stayed with me ever since, along with a sense of how incredibly isolated it would be without modern transportation and communication. When I was sent the call for submissions for Grants Pass, I loved the idea, and the character of Beth came to me at once.

  Remembrance

  James M. Sullivan

  Dr. Bhanu Daswani,

  I have sent along the following transcript, which was recovered from a dig site in Oregon. Dr. Crystal Jefferson was the archaeologist who made the discovery.

  This evidence is fascinating and if further tests prove conclusive, it could be the first personal account of the Collapse on record. Of course, we know Kayley Allard’s fate, but this early information is incredible.

  Please send me your opinions; your historical expertise will be invaluable with this project.

  Dr. Mary Tillinghaust

  ****

  The fresh scent of wet grass fills the air. I feel cleansed by the recent downpour. The crispness and the rain-speckled flora provide a sense of newness; a feeling that all is right with the world and that what has come to pass did not. I know that there will be many others who will record what has taken place with much more skill than I, not to mention with more information of what actually happened and where. Please forgive me, I’m no author, poet, or historian, but I do think what I know should be written down.

  I do not have specifics, at least not about anything that happened outside of San Francisco. I suppose I should start at the beginning. That is always where they say to start — though I never figured out who ‘they’ were.

  I was in San Francisco on business, leading a training class for an in-house product database. I had been there three days and I was already beginning to miss the greenness of Seattle, where I had lived for the past seven years. I guess none of this matters; it is strange how that even after the world rebooted (at least that’s how I’ve come to think about the devastation that has happened to us), I still lapse into thinking in terms of my old life. I’ll never train another class on how to use computer programs. I’ll never again go to my office. I’ll never see Seattle again, most likely, and even if I do, it will not be the Seattle I remember. I hope that my family shares the same immunities that I seem to possess. I’m rambling; I suppose I should get to the point.