by Lissa Bryan
“I didn’t. Veronica did,” Justin said, nodding toward the little girl. “I knew someone was following us, so I hopped off the wagon when we went around a curve and doubled back. I found Veronica walking along, leading this thing with a dog leash.”
“It was all I could find,” Veronica said in a small voice. “I was going to bring it back for you, Carly.” Stacy ran over and yanked Veronica down from the wagon into a tight hug.
“Thanks.” Carly blinked. It was a big, heavy beast, a shiny red-brown in color, with stumpy horns curving from above its ears, the dog leash clipped around them. She bent down to peek beneath and saw it was male. It stared at her with that Zen bovine placidity, and Carly gave its head a tentative pat. It butted its nose against her arm and licked her with a gritty, slimy tongue. She withheld a grimace with effort.
“It likes you already,” Veronica said before she remembered that she was in trouble and ducked her head back down.
Stacy gave her a little shake. “You scared the life out of me! Why did you do that?”
Veronica’s answer was lost in the murmurs of the crowd of townspeople surrounding them, edging closer, eyes shining with eagerness. Almost everyone was here, save for Grady, who was probably still on his perimeter check.
“When will we butcher it?” Jason asked. “If we do it tomorrow, I can help.”
A few more people offered their assistance, and Carly realized that was the source of their excitement. They were already smelling the roast beef.
“No, no … we can’t butcher it.”
“What?” Pete stared at her, dumbfounded, incredulous. “For heaven’s sake, Mrs. Daniels, why not?”
“Because if there’s one cow, it stands to reason there’s more.”
“Bull,” said Justin.
“It’s not bull!” Carly shot back. “I think it’s perfectly logical that—”
Justin laughed. “No, honey, I meant he’s not a cow. He’s a bull.”
“Oh, technicalities.” Carly waved a hand. “My point still stands. I mean, if there’s one, then there’s another one out there, right? And if we find a female, we could breed them and have our own herd of cattle. Killing him now would be like killing the goose that laid the golden egg.”
Jason sighed. “Except he won’t lay golden eggs. He won’t do anything useful at all. He’ll just consume feed until we find a girl cow.”
“Just cow,” Justin said, a grin stretching across his face. He was enjoying this, drat the man. “The term ‘girl cow’ is redundant.”
Jason stared at him. “Uh, yeah. Whatever. The point is—”
“Cows—bulls—can eat just grass,” Carly said. She tiptoed to peer over the heads of the crowd, searching for confirmation. “Isn’t that right, Miz Marson?”
Miz Marson wove her way to the front of the group. “Yep, unless you’re trying to fatten ’em fast.”
“So he can just graze and be fine, and not consume anything of ours.”
“Where you aimin’ to graze him, Mrs. Daniels?” Pete asked. “We’ve turned most of the open land on the island to farming, ’cept for that little pasture for your horses.”
He was right. Carly felt like a deflated balloon.
Pete removed his hat and scratched his head. “I say we vote on it.”
Justin leaned down to whisper in Carly’s ear. “Still want democracy?”
She felt like smacking him.
“We don’t need to vote. Veronica can decide, since she’s the one who found it.”
Veronica’s eyes widened in alarm to find herself the subject of everyone’s attention. “I, uh … I gave the cow to Carly. It’s hers now.”
Carly lifted her chin. “If it’s mine, I think you know my decision on it.”
There were groans from the group. Pete shook his head. Jason looked over to Justin in appeal, but Justin was watching the tumult like a good television show, his grin never wavering.
Carly decided some compromise was in order. “We can keep him for a while, at least. If he becomes too much bother, or we can’t keep him fed, we’ll reconsider the issue, okay?”
Pete took off his battered Red Sox cap again and ran a hand through his hair. “Mrs. Daniels, I want you to consider something, okay? How many more horses have you seen? Have you seen any other dogs to mate with Sam if we wanted to raise pups?”
“Sam’s a wolf, and wolves were extinct in this area, even Before,” Carly said, with great dignity.
Pete sighed. “That ain’t the point, ma’am. The point is we haven’t seen any other critters of the canine persuasion, so your theory there must be a cow out there somewhere to mate with this bull might not be as sound as you think.”
Carly took a deep breath. “The fact we keep finding these animals proves there’s more out there. We just haven’t searched for them. They could be hiding from humans when we pass by, but if we were looking for them … give me one year. If I haven’t found a cow in one year, then we’ll go ahead and butcher the bull.”
“A year?” There were groans and calls of, “Come on, Carly!”
“Look, you haven’t had any results with the chickens, and we’ve been waiting—”
“Mr. Daniels, can’t you talk some sense into her?”
Justin’s grin vanished. “Carly has made her decision.” He stared around at the crowd until they dropped their gaze.
“Fuckin’ bull is hamburgers,” Kross muttered.
Justin climbed back up into the wagon and took the reins. “Just so you know—though I don’t think any of you would be so low—if any unfortunate accidents should befall this bull, I’ll burn the carcass.”
There were shocked looks exchanged, but not for the reason Justin had mentioned. “Jesus, Justin, that seems a little extreme.”
“I mean it,” Justin said. “I won’t stand for that kind of underhanded shit. So if anyone hurts that bull, thinking we’ll put it down and then butcher it, you’re in for disappointment.”
He clucked to Shadowfax and she started forward. The group moved aside so the wagon could pass, staring after the bull as though watching a platter of hamburgers pass by.
And Hamburgers was the name that stuck. Carly gave the bull a more dignified name, but Hamburgers was what everyone called him.
Shadowfax and Storm accepted him into their pasture, Shadowfax ignoring him and Storm trying to get him to play, but all the newcomer did was eat grass. Storm gave up after a while and, like her mother, ignored the bull.
Carly would have to move him often, lest he eat up all the grass in the horse’s pasture. A few of the houses had fenced-in back yards that were lush with growth now that no one cut the grass. Miz Marson went in beforehand and pointed out to Carly any plants that were poisonous to cattle, and Carly dug them up. She took home a sample of each and put it in a photo album, so she could look through the pages and be able to look at them again until she had them memorized. She discovered she had a terrible memory for plants.
That evening, she was flipping through her new book, wondering how she’d ever memorize the subtle differences in some of these plants when Justin stopped in his tracks. He pointed to the page she was turning. “Where did you find that?”
“Yard of an empty house on Cooper Street. Why?”
“Because, honey, that’s an opium poppy.”
Carly snorted. “Oh, come on.”
“I was in Afghanistan. I know an opium poppy when I see one.”
Carly sat back in her chair. “Oh. I thought those were illegal.”
“Technically they are, but most people can’t identify them by sight as the ‘opium kind’.”
“Are you thinking of growing it for medicine?”
Justin rubbed his chin. “Yeah, it might be a good idea. The medicine stores won’t last forever, after all, and Laura’s herbs only go so far. What did you do with the plant?”
“Just tossed it in a pile outside of the yard.”
“Did you dig it up, roots and all?”
“Yes.”
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“I can replant it here in our yard, then.”
“I suppose, but do you think that’s wise? I mean, we could be reinventing drug addiction.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s why we’re not going to tell anyone.”
“Do you know how to … uh … prepare it?”
Justin cast her an amused look. “Yes, I saw the Afghani people process it for medicinal use.”
A question came to her lips, but she didn’t ask it. She could tell he noticed, because he dropped his gaze and turned his head away. Reaching up, she nudged his chin back until he was facing her. She rose up and kissed him, kissed him with all the love and acceptance in her heart. He could answer that question one day when he was ready, and if he never was, she wouldn’t press. She loved him as he was now, regardless of the journey he had to take to get here.
Carly dreamed of the grocery store in Juneau.
Her cupboards were bare and hunger had made her desperate enough to break quarantine and risk the dangers outside.
Holding one of her father’s golf clubs like a baseball bat, Carly crept toward the grocery store. It was dark behind the plate glass windows, but she had expected that. The power had been out for over a week.
She approached the glass door and cupped her hand around her eyes to peer inside. Nothing moved in the gloom. She watched for a while, and as it often did when she had moments of inactivity, she fell into a light, dazed trance, memories swarming through her mind as though she had unlocked a gate, until a small breeze stirred an empty soft drink cup, which clattered across the blacktop. She swung around with the golf club in hand, but there was no one.
Carly took a deep breath and pulled handle of the grocery door. She fumbled in her purse for the small flashlight she’d brought and turned it on. Still no sounds. She swept the beam around the gloomy interior. The air was still and stale. Carly felt sweat bead on her lip as she worked a cart free of the jumble at the front of the store.
She passed the meat counter and produce department with a grimace. All the fruits and vegetables were decaying into brown-black pulp that stank almost worse than the rotting meat. She didn’t even bother with the dairy cases. Some of the cheeses might be okay, but the stench was off-putting.
There wasn’t a lot left. When the Crisis first swept across the country, people had swarmed into the stores to stock up. The media fed the frenzy by showing images of empty shelves. Even more people panicked and hurried out to grab what they could. The newscasters then noted that while grocery stores seemed bountiful, most cities had only about a week’s worth of food in them.
Carly filled her cart with cans, things she could eat without having to warm them up. As hungry as she was, none of it looked appetizing. She just grabbed whatever was at hand and headed back to the entrance.
She spotted a notebook tucked next to the register with a list of vegetable codes. She tuned to a blank page and began to make a list of everything she’d taken. As she worked, her mind slipped into one of those muzzy, dazed spells and she thought about grocery shopping with her mother when she was little. Gloria Daniels always planned meals a week in advance and shopped with coupons. Carl Daniels, however, just tossed whatever looked good into the cart when he shopped, which horrified Gloria’s thrifty little heart.
From her purse, Carly took her checkbook and wrote out the amount, signing her name with a loopy flourish. Slipping the check through the slot on the bottom of the register, she pushed the cart outside.
The squeak of her cart wheel seemed to echo from the empty faces of the nearby buildings. Carly hummed so she didn’t have to listen to it, her steps quicker than her normal pace.
Why am I doing this?
The thought came to her unbidden, and her steps slowed to a halt. She gazed around the empty city, silent and frozen, up at the blank windows of the buildings around her, at the car angled onto the curb, the contents of a suitcase in the backseat spilling from the open door.
Carly shivered, even in the warm spring sunshine. She turned her gaze to the contents of the shopping cart. She could just leave it here. Go home and lie down in her bed and sleep. Sleep until she didn’t wake up again.
She passed by a small alley between the buildings, and a rattle made her jump and fumble for the nine iron tucked into the basket.
Behind one of the buildings was a pile of trash, and one of the bags was moving. Carly stared at it and watched as it shook. She railed at herself for being an idiot, even as her feet carried her forward. She was likely to see something awful on the other side of that bag, a rat maybe. She kept close to the wall until she was close enough, then craned her neck.
A small, black-brown ball of fur was pulling at the black plastic. Carly must have made a small sound, because it looked up at her, its blue eyes shining.
“A puppy!” Carly gasped. It was the first dog she’d seen in a long while. The news had said dogs and cats were just as susceptible to the Infection as humans. At the sound of her voice, the puppy ran toward her, and tears stung her eyes. It was so desperate at the sight of another living creature that it ran to her without hesitation, without fear. She bent to pick it up. It wiggled in her hands, licking every bit of skin within reach of its tiny pink tongue. Carly laughed and rubbed behind the little flopping ears.
The thing was so small, it couldn’t have weighed more than a pound or so. Her fingers felt little but bone and fur. She lifted it to peer underneath. A boy. His little paws swam in the air, and she laughed again. She smiled when he licked the tip of her nose … an honest smile. It felt like so long since she had done that.
She plunked the puppy into the child seat and pushed the cart back to her building. It took three trips to carry up all the bags up to her apartment one-handed, but she found she didn’t want to put the puppy down. She even held on to him as she put the food away into the cupboards.
She also talked to him while she worked, though she knew he could not understand. It didn’t matter if he didn’t understand. It felt good to let the words pour out of her, to tell someone else about what had happened. When her voice broke, he looked up at her with a curious tilt of his head.
“I’ll be okay,” she told him. She had to be okay now. She had another life depending on her.
Her mind already on the things she’d need to get from the grocery store for him, Carly took her backpack from the closet and folded a towel in the bottom and zipped it up so he could poke his head out.
Back at the store, she felt no hesitation at entering, her mind on the supplies she needed: puppy food, flea and tick repellant, dewormer. She took almost as many supplies for the dog as she had for herself, she reflected with a grin as she carried her bags back to the apartment.
She spooned some of the mushy meat into the little plastic dog bowl she’d bought, and he attacked it. He was so small, he should probably still be drinking his mother’s milk, but this was the best she could do. He ate until his tummy bulged and then crawled over to curl up on Carly’s lap. He slept so soundly, he didn’t wake when she moved him over to the sofa where she could be more comfortable. She was surprised at how soothing she found petting the puppy.
The sun was setting when he opened his eyes and looked up at her with a little wag of his tiny tail. His expression was so sweet, so warm, hopeful, and trusting. It reminded her of Sam’s earnest expression in The Lord of the Rings, the last movie she and her father had watched together.
“Sam,” Carly said. She picked up the puppy to rub her cheek against his fur, and quoted Frodo’s words to him. “I’m glad you could be here with me, Sam. Here at the end of all things.”
Carly held up her hand to indicate Kaden should wait. He nodded. She motioned for him to crouch and pause a few seconds before he followed her. He held up an okay sign to show he understood. To her right, Pearl crept forward, her steps as silent as a cat’s.
Carly took deep breaths to slow and steady her breathing. She forced her muscles to relax and tried to find that cool, calm center. Justin had he
lped her to learn meditation over the winter, and she used its techniques now. She was ready.
She pushed the door open and scanned the large room, her eyes darting around to take in the gloomy interior of the warehouse. She listened carefully, hearing silence save the sound of her own slow, deep breaths.
Inching forward, Carly picked her way from object to object, staying behind cover, clearing the room bit by bit. She heard Kaden’s soft steps behind her, Pearl on their right flank, silent but visible from the corner of her eye, and then the rest of her team, one by one. At the tail end of the group was Veronica. Carly had objected to it at first, but Justin grumbled that the kid was going to get herself killed if they didn’t include her.
The doorway at the end of the room led to a catwalk that rimmed the sides of a three-story machine room. Cautious, Carly stepped onto the metal frame and scanned the room below before motioning her team forward. Far too late, her eye caught movement on the catwalk above her, and the gun went off before she could even call out a warning.
“Youch!” Carly yelped as the paintball exploded against her arm. Kaden and the others fell back, taking cover behind the crates as Justin’s team swarmed them from the stairs.
“Damn it,” Carly muttered.
“You didn’t look up,” Justin said as he vaulted over the railing and swung down to land beside her.
“Yeah, I sort of realize that.” Carly rubbed her arm. “Am I out?”
“Yeah.” He looked at the orange splatter on her black shirt. “That shot would have taken off half your arm, and you’d be too busy trying not to bleed out to join the fight. But we can play it with you as a hostage if you want.”
“No, I think we’re done.” She heard Kaden yowl as a paintball hit him and the clatter of the guns as they fell from her surrendering team’s hands.
Justin’s team always won, but every player was improving. And he alternated teams so everyone got to be on the winning side once in a while as they learned defense and attack strategies. Last week, they had tried to take the Wall. It had ended in a “paint-bath” as Justin called it. Carly still hadn’t gotten all the orange dye out of her hair.
