The Vestige

by Caroline George

  “Charlie, come back. Please.” I brace my weight against the tree and sink to where a rock protrudes from the roots. He won’t leave me stranded. To survive, he needs numbers, people to help keep him and whoever else is still breathing off-grid. “You’ll come back.”

  Levi chases his tail, curling into a ball. He rests his head in my lap, and I hold him like Jack once held me. Once. Not anymore. Because his arms are ash. And our love is frozen in our tenuous third-space.

  Why haven’t I cried for him since day one?

  “Niner-Zulu, this is Headquarters … or what’s left of it. Hello?” Nash’s confused accent floods the frequency like music. “Dang it. These headphones are falling apart. Tally, fetch me another pair.”

  “This is Niner-Zulu. I’m here. Don’t sign off.” I jump up and grasp the radio with shaky fingers. Even my tongue moves with an unsteadiness symptomatic of fear. “Tally’s with you, too?”

  “Yes, sadly. She won’t shut up.” There’s a clatter on his side of the connection—maybe he plugged in another headset or dropped a bowl of soup. Food. Hot and savory. Not a nutrition bar.

  “Where are you? Who survived?” I shouldn’t have asked that last question because the person I want to be alive is without a pulse and body. He’s dead like Jon and Sybil, and all I endure now from the loss is a void where my heart should be. The final bit of my humanity must have died with him.

  “We’ve set up camp in a barn eleven miles south of the Underground. During the attack, people got scattered. Tally and Charlie fled with me. We haven’t found anyone else.”

  Because they’re all dead.

  He clears his throat. “There’s a river that cuts through the pasture where we’re located. I think it’s the same one that starts in the valley. Follow it here and you won’t get lost.”

  “Roger that. See you tonight.” I disconnect the radio and stuff it into my backpack. Then, I’m in motion, trekking down the mountain in a maelstrom of mangled feet and drowsy conscience.

  Jack’s imagined silhouette—the bit of him I’ve refused to let go—shimmers like the dome at sunrise and vanishes from my peripheral. I’ve mourned his death my own quiet, shortened, agonizing way. Maybe nowadays I don’t grasp hold of someone unless I am sure I’m strong enough to let them go.

  Ash wisps across the ground in white puffs, and for the first time since I awoke in this hellhole, the sight doesn’t send shivers up my spine. It is evidence of the Feds’ catastrophic mistake. Killing turned the Vestige into martyrs, and history is proof…

  The dead scream louder than the living.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Here’s some advice. Stay alive.”

  Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

  The river’s gurgle dulls as I climb the bank. Plush grass swallows my feet like bandages and sends waves of comfort through my aching limbs. I drag myself beneath a fence, into an overgrown pasture. Flecks of stars revolve from horizon-to-horizon in a cosmic, welcoming parade. If they can survive the darkness, I can, too—my light will be magnified by what desires to destroy me the most.

  Levi treads at my side, trembling from exhaustion. He casts a pouty glance when I amble across the field, as if begging me to slow down or rest until daybreak.

  “Almost there,” I say and pat his head. “We’re almost there.”

  A barn emerges from the shadows—large and wooden with a metal roof. Firelight shines through cracks in the doors and windows, illuminating the building like a suburban house during Christmas. Mom used to put candles in the windows of our home that’d shine all December. She’d hang a wreath on the front door—it filled the street with an evergreen scent.

  “We’re here, Levi.” I smile and drop Sutton’s backpack. A weeping sound glides past my lips and creates a warm, human halo around me. Good. I’m not numb. My emotions are intact.

  “Julie!”

  Charlie and Nash rush from the barn’s glowing threshold and embrace me so tight, my joints crack. I sink into their arms, against their living bodies. The weeping sound strengthens into full-fledged sobs, but my tear ducts are dry as a desert, maybe because I’m beyond fatigued and underfed, maybe because I’ve spent the past four days grappling at the concept of being alone.

  “I thought I’d lost you all. When the bomb went off…” I force away the memories with the soapy smell of their skin, the softness of their clothes. “You’re okay.”

  “You are, too,” Charlie whispers. He wraps his skinny, chiseled arm around my waist and musters a misty-eyed grin. “But you look awful, like, terrifyingly awful.”

  “Wow, thanks.” I play-punch him and mess up his already disheveled hair.

  “Come on, darlin’.” Nash lifts my pack onto his shoulder and leads me into the building. “We need to find you some shoes. Those feet of yours have seen better days.”

  A fire crackles in the center of the barn, radiating heat. I slide between empty troughs and old farming equipment, past stalls and into an open space arranged to resemble a living room. There are couches and tables, real pillows that won’t give me a neck cramp. Have I died and gone to heaven?

  Tally charges out of a stall with a towel draped around her neck. “Coker, you idiot! You used my freaking toothbrush. What the heck is wrong with you?” She throws a red toothbrush at his head and snarls. Her flesh is riddled with lacerations, probably caused by shrapnel from the attack.

  “Oops.” Charlie raises his arms in surrender. “Sorry.”

  “No big deal. Just rinse it off.” Nash scoops stew from an iron cauldron onto a plate. He hands it to me, a steaming mixture of canned meat and vegetables. Real food.

  “Using someone else’s toothbrush is basically Frenching them,” she yells, “Frenching them so hard, all the tartar from their nasty teeth is now in your mouth.” Her pupil daggers shift to me and immediately, they’re replaced with something nicer and less characteristic. She folds her arms and pops a hip. “Good. You’re here. We needed some fresh blood.”

  “Swish salt water. It’ll get rid of the Charlie gunk.” I smile and shovel food into my mouth—savory stew that tastes like Thanksgiving dinner. It’s so good, I could cry.

  “Go get clean.” Nash offers a basin of water, a towel, soap, and a pair of worn sneakers. “We salvaged what we could from the houses down the street. There’s enough to last us for weeks.”

  “You’re the best.” I sit on a hay bale and tie the sneakers onto my bloody, callused feet. They’re a size too big but incredibly comfortable. I soak the towel in warm water and wipe my skin, scrub the dried blood from my legs, brush my hair with an old horse comb.

  Ash flakes from my shorts, and I clutch Jack’s ID tags to stop myself from slipping into a dark, hopeless state of mind. I might not smell like roses and gardenias, but I’m somewhat clean. I’m no longer alone. There are reasons to be grateful.

  Levi plops next to me and laps my leftover stew. He closes his eyes, sighs as if saying ‘good job.’ I kiss the top of his snout and squirm when pressure expands my abdomen, a sharp and insisting ache. Geez, I haven’t stopped to relieve my bladder since I left the caves.

  “Where are you going?” Nash asks when I open the main door.

  “To find someplace to pee.”

  Gravel crunches beneath my feet as I move around the barn to a patch of shrubbery. There’s a deserted pickup truck parked among the slithering foliage, half-swallowed by greenery, ancient and decrepit like a museum relic. A person sits in the driver’s seat, staring at me with eagle eyes. Zombie. Ghost. Waiting to eat my brains. Why did I leave my gun in the backpack?

  I scream and pee my pants a little, and then laugh when I glance at the reflection a second time. Zombie? Ghost? No, that’s me after four days in the wilderness—bruised, weak, a savage face on top of a hard body. I’m always me and that doesn’t change, yet I’m always changing and there’s nothing I can do about it. Fitting—I’m scared of the person I’ve become.

  Goosebumps race up my back with the frigid night air.
I crouch behind a bush and unzip my pants, trembling from the soreness in my thighs. Jon made fun of me for weeks after our failed camping trip to Mt. Pleasant. I almost froze to death because of flash freezing and threw a fit when I had to dig my own toilet. He said I wasn’t cut out for the woods, but he’d change his mind if he saw me now, that is, after he wet his pants and ran away out of fear.

  A twig snaps. I spin around and fall backward when a ginormous shadow emerges from the darkness. His bald head glistens. He’s caked with mud, weighed down by packs of supplies and artillery.

  “Gosh, Abram, you scared me.” I gasp and zip my jeans. Heart returns to a healthy rhythm. Breathing steadies. “I’m glad to see you. It’s just … if you’re not careful, you might get shot.”

  He slings the sweat from his brow and grabs me by the shoulder. His plump lips stretch into a weird, genuinely kind smile. “I’m glad to see you, too.”

  “How’d you find this place?” I cross my legs to stifle the bodily urge. “Where’d you go after the attack? I monitored the frequency for days and didn’t hear from you.”

  Abram scratches his stubble-covered chin and glances behind him at the cluster of brush. “Some blockhead broke my radio.” He grunts. “Dropped it in the rain while trying to respond to your broadcast. Now it receives transmissions but can’t make them.”

  “Who are you talking…?” Another person leaves the darkness and freezes when our pupils connect. “Julie.” A single sob escapes his mouth as he buries his face in the crease of my shoulder.

  Whatever kept my tear ducts dry disintegrates the moment he begins to weep. I crumble into him and cry into the muddy fabric of his t-shirt. He holds me against his chest, squeezing my ribcage until I’m sure it’ll break. His face is masked by a newly-grown beard, and he’s covered from head-to-toe with bloody dirt. But he has a pulse. And his body is not ash in the wind.

  “Jack.” I kiss his ear and then his cheek. “How are you alive?” His tears mix with mine as our lips collide, merging into a single stream on a single face. I lost him. Now I have him, and I can’t seem to embrace him tight enough. Sutton didn’t feel a pulse. He was dead, waiting in an afterlife coffeehouse.

  “Abram hauled me into the woods before the bomb hit. We went to an abandoned hospital nearby and used the equipment to keep me alive.” Jack wipes the tears from his bloodshot eyes. He touches my face as if ensuring I’m real and not a hallucination. “I was so afraid…”

  “Me, too.” Beyond afraid. Horrified to the brink of total numbness, the ravenous edge of some essence abyss that nipped at my heels, begging me to tumble into its clutches. I mourned him. I felt the loss of him swell and dissipate from my body. He was in me, then he wasn’t, and I fought hypothermia and hunger to keep his mission in motion.

  “The thought of you alive put me to sleep each night, but wondering if you died always woke me up.” He kisses my mouth over and over. I hold his lips to mine and embrace his neck because if there’s even the slightest rift, he might fall away into what could possibly be the cruelest dream.

  “Yeah, I’m going inside before I puke.” Abram clasps his hands together and steps toward the barn’s entrance. “Thought I stopped hanging with teenagers a decade ago.”

  Jack hugs me tight. Our surroundings fade and we exist in unison, two people who once shared cups of coffee, unprecedentedly ourselves in a changing world. He smiles against my left temple. I squirm—his bristles tickle, caress me like a coarse feather duster.

  “Well, you found a beard. Just look at that thing.” I grab his facial hair and tilt his head back and forth. “Four days in the wilderness turned you into a bear.”

  “You’re not quite a beauty queen either.” He scoffs. “Look at your legs. They have, like, moss growing on them or something. If I’m a bear, you’re a centaur.”

  “I’ve missed you.” I laugh until my belly aches and then slump against him, an action that seems too familiar and perfect to be reality. “Oh, before I forget, your ID tags are around my neck.”

  “Keep them.” He stops me from unclasping the chain. “They’re yours now.”

  “We should probably go inside,” I say. “There’s a lot we need to talk about.”

  “Yeah, we should.” He drapes an arm over my shoulders and puts weight on me as we trek to the barn’s entrance. Light cascades onto him as we near the illuminated doorway. Most of his body is wrapped in bandages. He has braces on his lower back, his right ankle. Stitches crawl along his hairline. Have I been causing him pain? Why didn’t he tell me to be gentle?

  Levi races from the building and plops in front of us. He wags his tail.

  “Hey, how’d you get here?” Jack grins. He winces when we move closer to the shelter. His face appears more sallow in the light. “Did you keep Julie safe?”

  “He found me after the attack,” I say. “If it weren’t for him, I would’ve frozen.”

  “Good dog.”

  “Jack!” Everyone rushes from their places by the fire to greet him. Nash pats his shoulder. Tally and Charlie give him careful hugs. They take him from me, lower his battered form onto a couch.

  “How’d you find us?” Nash asks.

  “I heard you tell Julie your location on the frequency.” Jack sinks into the mound of pillows and sighs. Tension fades from the creased corners of his eyes. “We won’t be able to stay here for long. The Scavs might’ve been able to pick up your transmissions.” He pats the space next to him and motions for me to inhabit the dusty sofa. Billie Holiday sings in the depths of my mind as I glide into his arms. He’s in love with me. Jack Buchanan. The master of charm and crooked smiles. Loves me.

  What a bizarre and wonderful thing it is to be loved by a man.

  “You must be starving.” Tally hands both arrivers a plate of stew. Her focus remains glued to Jack, scans him with an intent affection that makes me uncomfortable. “Do you need anything?” That gleam in her pupils—I know it too well. She has a crush on my boyfriend.

  “Water and soap,” Abram says. “Bring a new shirt for Sarge.”

  Tally glares at him and goes to retrieve the items. She glances at Jack before leaving the main space. Yep. She likes him. No doubt about it.

  Charlie plops down on a barrel and leans against his thighs. “What now?” He rolls up the sleeves of his shirt, cracks his knuckles. “What do we do?”

  “Wait for someone to kill us.” Tally returns from the darkness. She tosses a t-shirt at Jack, sets a basin of water in Abram’s lap, and collapses onto a pile of hay. “We don’t have a choice between life and death,” she says. “We can only choose how we die.”

  “Ugh, I can’t deal with your negativity any longer. I’m sorry you’re angry at the world for screwing you, but quit being so bloody pessimistic, Tallulah.”

  “What did you just call me, Coker?” She rises like a viper preparing to strike.

  “Tal-lu-lah.”

  “Oh…” Her lips purse and her chest expands with air. She pulls a revolver from her pocket, clicks a bullet into place, and looks at us for permission. “May I shoot him?”

  “Grow up. I’m tired of your bickering. If I didn’t know better, Charlie, I’d think you have a crush on Tally here. Stop antagonizing her, boy.” Nash pokes the fire with a metal rod, sending a swarm of sparks upward in an amber cloud.

  “It’s my fault this happened. I should have recognized the signs, made everyone leave the Underground while we still had a chance.” Jack digs his heels into the dirt. He draws his fingers across my forearm, writing in an invisible language. “I can’t wait any longer. We need answers, and I know someone who has them.”

  “Jack, you don’t want to go there,” Nash says.

  “We don’t have another option. If we did, I wouldn’t ask this of you … or myself.”

  “How are we going to get to him?”

  “We’ll find a way.”

  “You have a contact? Who?” I grasp my boyfriend’s large, callused hand and swivel to look at him. He doesn’t break
eye contact with Nash. Did I turn invisible?

  “Stop! We can’t just … move forward,” Tally shouts. “Our friends are dead. The world has ended. Nothing we do will change what’s happened.”

  “You’re right. We can’t fix the past, but we can insure the future is a place worth reaching,” Jack says. “Moving forward is our only choice.”

  She dries her face. Her sadness is mine too, because you never get over the pain of losing people. You just get used to them being gone.

  “We need to leave in a few hours.” Abram spoons another helping of stew onto his plate. “We’ll avoid main roads and places that have security cameras. If the Feds are searching for us, they will have a hard time finding evidence of our existence.”

  “Who is it we’re going to find?” I sit up on my knees, making myself a head taller than Jack.

  “My dad,” he says. “We’re going to find my dad.” His expression begs me not to ask questions, so I lower to a sitting position and keep my mouth shut. He has daddy issues—don’t we all in some form or fashion? Isn’t ‘family’ a word for ‘a collection of vastly screwed-up people who cohabitate and share genes’?

  “This is insane,” Tally shouts. “I’m not ready to freaking die, and if we keep pursuing the truth, the Feds will kill us. Let’s stop while we have a chance.”

  “If we quit now, everyone dies.”

  “So what, we have to be martyrs?”

  “Yes,” Jack says. “We’re the martyrs. Deal with it.”

  A loud, industrial scream vibrates the barn, strengthens into a roaring climax. I hug my knees and roll into Jack’s lap, quivering. Bellamy disappeared beneath a mound of rock. Dirt rained from the ceiling. I screamed and crawled toward a flickering light while fear liquefied my insides.

  “The dome…” Nash stares past the barn’s rafters, into a figment sky. “It’s contracting.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “But there was nothing left to do but continue.”

  Lois Lowry, The Giver