by Ted Hill
Ginger groaned and twisted in bed. She reached out and gripped Margaret’s hand. Margaret squeezed it reassuringly and prayed. The Lord granted her a steady dose of His power and light to ease Ginger’s pain.
Ginger’s eyes opened wide. “Molly?”
“How do you feel?” Margaret asked.
“Better, but how? Are you doing this?”
Vanessa and Luis stood on either side of Jimmy. The two living people glanced at one another and then, along with Jimmy, turned curious eyes on Margaret.
Catherine beamed one of her brightest smiles. “They always seem so shocked.”
Margaret shrugged at the group who believed she was still just Molly. “There’s been a small change. Let me help Ginger deliver her baby then I will tell you what I can.”
Incomprehensible expressions remained and, in Vanessa’s case, it might have worsened. Margaret avoided further delay and gave Ginger her undivided attention.
Ginger’s belly quivered with life. Her breath came in rapid pants as she fought through another wave of labor pains. Margaret supplied more light to help her cope with the contractions. Vanessa gasped. A soft pink light pulsed in Margaret’s hand as she held Ginger’s.
Catherine circled the bed. “Excuse me,” she said to Jimmy’s spirit, and stepped through him next to Vanessa. She patted Vanessa’s hand. “Why don’t you have a seat? It’s about to get a lot brighter and I’m going to be helping out. I don’t want you to fall and hit your head.”
Vanessa nodded and found the chair next to the wall. Margaret guessed it wasn’t everyday you found out your sister-in-law had a brand new bag of tricks.
Luis rustled in his blue gown. “Do I take a seat too?”
Catherine shook her head at him. “Don’t be a silly. We need you to catch the baby.”
“Catch?” Luis wavered in his stance.
Catherine rushed over and supported him. Jimmy’s ghost swirled in her passing.
“It might be best if you keep the jokes to a minimum,” Margaret said.
Catherine stuck her tongue out at her. “Party pooper.” She hugged Luis. “I was only teasing. It will be a normal delivery. We need you to do your normal part. Okay?”
Luis sighed. “Okay, no problem.”
“Thank you,” Catherine said and winked at Margaret. She moved to her original position past Jimmy, where Ginger’s sweaty head rested on the pillow. She settled her hands lovingly on her housemate’s pale forehead.
Margaret laid her hands on Ginger’s stomach and closed her eyes. She spoke calm soothing words inside her mind to the child struggling to be born. She felt his agitated thoughts return quickly. He was ready to enter the world but the umbilical cord, which had sustained him these many months, held him tight and he couldn’t proceed. Margaret knew from experience how deadly this predicament could become to the child. In earlier centuries, she had saved many children from this type of fate. Medical advances had solved the problem over the last century, but those advances were gone again with the coming of the plague. Margaret prayed for guidance and help. His answer rushed over her like a jolt of confidence and holy energy.
Margaret concentrated, speaking calmly to the child, guiding him through the tangles of umbilical. The cord had wrapped around his neck. Margaret used the child to lift the cord and unwrap himself, moving the baby closer to the placenta to give him the slack he needed to work free. The child grew excited as the tangles loosened and fell away.
Margaret kept her eyes closed and her hands in contact with Ginger’s belly as she maintained a mental connection with the child. “Luis?”
“Yeah?”
“Get ready to receive the delivery.”
Margaret told the baby that it was time and he kicked with pleasure and excitement, causing a smile to creep across Margaret’s face. She missed the simple joy of being inside a baby’s mind. They didn’t require much—just warmth, food, sleep, and a clean bottom.
Ginger squirmed under her hands as the contractions ramped up their frequency. “Oh my goodness!”
“You’re doing great, Ginger,” Catherine said. “It won’t be long now. How are you doing back there, Vanessa?”
“Her hands… her hands are glowing…” Vanessa said. “Her hands are glowing pink.”
Margaret fought off another smile at her sister-in-law’s confusion. She knew a long conversation with Mark and Vanessa was coming in the near future, and did not look forward to all the explanations she would circle around. Hopefully Catherine would be there for support.
“Yes, yes, Vanessa,” Catherine said. “Don’t worry. Molly’s got everything under control. Don’t you?”
“Like riding a bike,” Margaret said, focusing on the task at hand. She instructed the baby to turn so he could go out headfirst. The baby squirmed in the embryonic sack as he did a tuck and roll.
Ginger’s legs kicked out.
“Ouch!” Luis said.
“Sorry,” Ginger said between pants.
“You know how to ride a bike. Lucky.”
“Not now, Catherine,” Margaret said.
Now in the right position, the baby set himself up for the final push. His glee roared in Margaret’s mind like a merry-go-round loaded with four-year-olds. She relayed instructions for him to keep moving forward; he was doing great. The baby was thrilled by her praise.
“Good job, Ginger. Keep breathing,” Vanessa said.
Margaret peeked and saw her sister-in-law standing across from her, holding Ginger’s hand. Vanessa gave her a nervous smile before transferring her full attention to Ginger.
“Control your breathing like we practiced,” Vanessa said. “Work through each contraction as they come.” Ginger worked in rhythm, like she was moving coal along a railroad. “That’s it. Just like that. Very good.”
Before closing her eyes, Margaret noticed Jimmy pacing frantically behind the living crowd. There was nothing for him to do that wouldn’t freak out everybody else in the room, so Margaret just let it go and closed her eyes.
“Everything’s fine, silly,” Catherine said. “You’ll evaporate if you keep that up.”
“Who are you talking to?” Vanessa asked.
“Nobody,” she told Vanessa. Then she added, “I was just teasing about evaporating. You don’t have to worry about that. Unbelievable!”
“The head is crowning,” Luis said. “Get ready to push on the next contraction, Ginger.”
Margaret spoke to the baby silently. “Are you ready?”
The baby gave a cry of enthusiasm in her mind that created a mini-migraine. He kicked out as the final contraction began.
Ginger grunted with all her might. Her belly tensed along with every other nerve and muscle in her young body. Vanessa cried encouragement.
“Welcome to the world, little one,” Margaret said.
Luis pulled away with the small red bundle of life. The umbilical cord connecting mother and child, that caused so much trouble earlier, no longer posed a threat.
Luis quickly unplugged the child’s nose and mouth and gave the baby a pat to kick start his life on the outside. The baby wailed, but Margaret interpreted his cry of joy.
“It’s a boy!” Luis said.
“Told you,” Catherine announced proudly.
Jimmy’s spirit smiled brightly over Luis’s shoulder as he looked down upon the child he brought into this world before his death. Margaret wanted to weep for his life that had been cut short, but was overjoyed that he was able to experience this moment.
Luis walked over with the child and laid him in his mother’s arms.
Ginger beamed as her baby boy opened his eyes and gazed straight into her soul. “Hello, James. I’m your mother.”
Thirteen
Scout
Scout gunned the throttle on his motorbike, pushing the speed, hoping the wind would blow away his anguish. So far he swallowed three grasshoppers and was pelted in the face by another six, but the anguish hadn’t budged. Even with the noontime sun and the white puf
fy clouds hovering here and there, nothing cheered him out of his dismal mood because someone claimed that his actions had gotten his friend killed.
He bounded over bumps, soaring above the ground. He landed and rolled the throttle harder, looking for more jumps. Finally the ride consumed him the way he wanted. Concentration became critical, blocking out everything else. One mistake and he’d flip through the prairie like a flung action figure; only plastic didn’t snap and bruise like bone and flesh.
His yellow Suzuki tore through the dirt trail. Patches of wildflowers dotted the prairie where tall Nebraska corn once grew in abundance. Every few miles, a windbreak would mark an abandoned farmhouse gutted of valuables this close to Independents. Scout knew them all for twenty-miles around, having personally walked through every door.
Solitary farmhouses were easy pickings. Small towns and cities had been avoided for two reasons: diseases and gangs. Rotting bodies had left behind the diseases. Gangs had formed for protection and would attack anybody stupid enough to stray close. Almost seven years since the plague, neither disease nor gangs posed a threat anymore. Both met up with the same fate: time. Bodies decomposed, leaving nothing infectious behind. Gangs learned how to survive for themselves or disbanded.
Scout carved a path to a farmhouse through the high native grass. He killed the engine by the porch before slipping his water bottle out of his bag and taking a big guzzle. This house used to have baby furniture and a sewing machine that had been acquired last year for his nephew and Ginger. Scout leaned his bike against the railing and went inside to browse.
Light followed him through the door, casting his shadow into the interior. The last time he visited this place was in the cold of winter, but now the August heat stifled his lungs. Sweat beaded along his skin. He pushed the curtains apart to allow sunshine through the dusty glass panes. Then he opened the windows, giving the heat passage outside. A couple of panes refused to slide without a fight. Scout won most of the battles and soon a breeze found its way inside.
Dusty furniture was pushed aside at funny angles from a barren spot. Scout remembered the rug that occupied the empty space. The rug he had rolled up, took home, and placed in his room. The rug, which had burned after its first night when Molly torched his house after Hunter broke her heart.
If Scout was hoping to find something to cheer him up, following that line of memories was not the way. He left the living room and climbed upstairs to the baby’s room. A wallpaper border surrounded him on all sides with a yellow bear in a red sweater, a little pink pig, and a tiger bouncing on his tail. Forgotten toys lay scattered across the floor. Scout poked through the pile and retrieved a Jack in the Box, a stuffed Elmo doll, and one of those toys that made various barnyard animal noises. He loaded the toys in his backpack for Ginger, knowing she’d appreciate the gifts when the baby came. He cursed himself for thinking it would somehow make up for Jimmy’s death.
“I didn’t get Jimmy killed,” he said to the empty room then finished stuffing his bag. He zipped it closed. “I didn’t,” he said, softer.
In his dark mood, Scout stalked over to the closet and opened the accordion-style door. Clothes hung on the bar, and stuffed animals were propped into one corner opposite a box. Scout drug out the box and slit through the tape with his pocketknife. His heart quickened and his smile grew wide when he saw the contents.
He reached in and pulled out the Boy Scout uniform. An American flag was sewn on the shoulder and the green troop number, 17, was sewn under the Nebraskan Council patch. Scout gently touched the eagle patch sewn on the front pocket, like it might shock him, and then he started jumping around the room.
“I found one! I found one! Yes, yes, yes! That’s right! It’s all mine!”
Scout slipped his arms into the khaki sleeves and straightened the collar around his neck. The oversized shirt engulfed him but that was just fine. Plenty of room to grow.
He reached deeper into the box and found the blue scarf and neck slide. He dug farther and felt patches attached to something else. Then he pulled out the olive sash covered with thirty-three merit badges stitched in orderly rows. Some he recognized immediately, especially the eagle-required ones circled with silver thread: First Aid, Citizenship in the Community Nation and World, http://scouting.org/boyscouts/advancementandawards/meritbadges/mb-COMM.aspxPersonal Fitness, Emergency Preparedness, Environmental Science, Personal Management, Swimming, Camping, and Family Life.
He touched each one with loving reverence and thought about the lucky kid who earned all these at summer camps, ceremonies and celebrations that Scout had dreamed about since finding his Boy Scout handbook.
A library lay at the bottom of the box, containing a well-used Boy Scout handbook like the one Scout kept in his backpack at all times, and twenty or so merit badge books, ranging from American Business to Woodwork. Scout had struck gold.
He rolled the blue scarf and draped it around the back of his neck, holding it in place with the eagle emblem metal slide. He looped the olive-green merit badge sash across his chest. He tucked the shirttail into his cargo pants, looked around the room—no mirror.
He dashed into the hallway and opened the next door he crossed. The bathroom. He pushed open the window to bring more light inside. He stood at attention and stared at his reflection as sweat ran down his face. Nothing could banish his bright smile.
When the reality of his discovery struck, Scout took to a knee right there on the linoleum and prayed.
“Thank you, God, so much for this Boy Scout uniform. I know I probably don’t deserve it, but thank you for giving this to me, and I promise to show my faith in all my actions and words. Thank you, God. Thank you so much. Thank you for the many, many blessings. Thank you, God. Amen.”
Scout stayed on his knees, repeating his prayer until the tears came and he sobbed without knowing why. Scout wept until he shed every emotion he possessed, and then he left the bathroom without looking at himself again.
He went back into the baby’s room to inventory his find. There was one thing missing that he wanted. He pulled the olive green pants and belt out of the box and the worn olive socks. He set a stack of Boys’ Life magazines next to his growing pile on the floor.
The last thing in the bottom was a wooden box. Opening the lid, he found all the patches of rank that came before eagle. Everything but the one thing Scout really wanted: the medal that a Boy Scout earned when he achieved the rank of eagle. He rifled through the contents of the wooden box until satisfied that it wasn’t there. It wasn’t in the larger box either.
Scout stood and scratched his head. The baby hadn’t earned this stuff. His father had saved his scouting experience to share with his son one day.
He walked down the hall and opened a different door leading to another familiar room. This once held the sewing supplies that Scout had given to Ginger. A quick but thorough search brought no medal.
He turned to the last door upstairs and remembered the haunted look on Mark’s face. He told Scout not to go in. Scout had listened then, but now was different. Now he needed to find something. Scout needed it more than whatever horror waited for him behind that door.
Scout opened the door. The trapped heat sucked the air out of his lungs again. Sunlight outlined the perimeter of curtained windows. Scout spread the curtains and opened the windows. He breathed in the cool air outside and turned.
Three dried husks lie on the bed. Father and mother rested in peace with their little boy between them.
Scout pounded the wall in blind rage as a fresh supply of tears filled his eyes. “Damn you, Chase!”
He circled the room, looking in the dresser and the armoire—furniture that appeared to be antiques from a different era. He wasn’t finding it. So he opened the closet and ripped through the contents, overtaken by madness to find the medal. Scout faced the nightstand next to the man, thinking if he had worked hard to earn something so special he’d keep it right beside him till death.
He forced himself to igno
re the nightmare lying a few feet away, then he filtered through the dust buildup on the nightstand. On the surface, there was an empty glass, the man’s watch, wallet, and keys, an alarm clock, a mystery novel, a bible, but no medal. The single drawer contained papers, greeting cards from forgotten Christmases and birthdays, an old comic book, a box of condoms, pictures, a pocketknife, ear plugs, a plastic deer call, a stopwatch, loose change, but no eagle medal.
Scout breathed deeply and turned his head. He looked at the man, decayed beyond recognition. Faded clothing contained whatever was left after rot destroyed the man’s body. No medal.
The plague did not kill children. The plague only killed those who were eighteen or older. Scout was afraid to think about what killed this child. Afraid to think about what this child experienced before it succumbed to death. He looked at the boy and his heart shattered into a million pieces.
Inside the boy’s tiny grip lay the eagle medal that Scout coveted, with its red, white and blue ribbon.
Scout rubbed his dry mouth slowly.
He reached out.
He stopped.
The husk of the dead kid lay curled between his dead parents.
Scout hadn’t earned this man’s badge. He wasn’t worthy to take the one thing this little boy had held onto in death.
Scout grabbed a gym bag from the closet and hurried to the child’s room. He removed the uniform and packed all of the Boy Scout stuff inside the bag. Wearing his own backpack once again, he carried the gym bag downstairs to his bike and secured it to the end of his seat and rode away, leaving the eagle medal behind where it belonged. Maybe someday he would earn his own.
Fourteen
Scout
Scout rode underneath the afternoon sun that covered him like an extra blanket. Halfway home, he shook off the tension and sadness, his excitement growing from the recent discovery. Scout reached back, assuring himself that the gym bag was still fastened down and still very real—the contents of his dreams packed safely inside.
