by Meg Elison
For a minute, she just breathed it in. The car smelled stale, like it hadn’t been opened in all this time. In that stale smell was a lost world. Cologne and sneaked hamburgers and the plasticky aroma of car upholstery that has sat in the sun for a few years. The rubbery smell of the dashboard and the dirt and crumbs embedded in the carpet. Scent is the key to the door of memory. For a minute, she let herself live in it. The minute ended when the smell of the kerosene lamp made itself known. An intruder from the new world. She opened her eyes and looked around. Keys in the ignition, windows not broken.
Cautious hope began to spread in her chest. She reached for the keys and turned them slowly through the clicks. On the third, a set of needles jumped in the dash. Her heart jumped with them. She cranked it all the way and the engine slugged and woke slowly, groaning. She backed off and did it again, it complaining, nyeah, nyeah, nyeah, as it tried to shake the cold and inaction of the last year. The battery wasn’t dead. She knew that would sound like a dry click and nothing more. Nothing would light up or move. Cranked it again, and this time stomped on the gas while doing it. The engine coughed, choked, caught, and then died. She waited one second before doing it again. It sputtered and guttered and then roared to life, her foot pouring gas into the injector.
She pounded the wheel triumphantly with her palms. The gas gauge read half full. She backed it up slowly and drove out onto the road. Fresh snow was all over everything, and she knew she’d have to go carefully. She wondered about the tires but did not get out to check. Rolling at a creeping pace, she eased out on the road in the direction of Huntsville.
It wasn’t long before the noises set in. Knocking and whining, the car started to let her know that this couldn’t last. The engine coughed and kicked, but she pushed on. If it was going to die, she wanted to ride it until it quit. She had gone nearly five miles when it stopped and wouldn’t start again. She cursed at it a little, then got halfway out, put it in neutral, and rolled it to the side of the road. After it stopped moving, she looked at it and wondered why she had bothered. She looked up and down the snowy road, seeing black-and-white nothingness. No lines of cars honked behind her, no courteous country gentlemen hopped out of pickup trucks to offer assistance to the little lady. She could have left the car in the dead center of the road with all the doors open for all it mattered.
She thought for a minute about whether to grab the kerosene lantern from the floor of the car. She decided not to carry it, but that she would take this same road back, hopefully in another car or on a bike, and take it back home. She began to walk the last mile or so into Huntsville. As soon as she got near town, she knew something was different here. At the outskirts, she began to see cows fenced in on suburban lawns in twos and threes, drinking out of kiddie pools and old bathtubs full of water. Each of the lawns had a shelter or a windbreak full of clean hay for the animals to escape the cold. For the most part, they seemed woolly for the winter and unbothered by the snow. In one yard, she heard the unmistakable gabbling of a chicken coop. She immediately knew that people were keeping these animals, probably a large group of them. She looked around, peering into the windows of the houses. She looked up and down each street for more signs of habitation. She listened hard through the snowy silence. Nothing.
She followed the road toward the center of town and the main drag. She knew there would be people there. She stopped at a bay window in the front of a tiny pink house and checked herself.
She looked good, bundled up. She hadn’t bothered to dirty her jaw in a few days, but she wasn’t very clean, either. She touched the buttons of her coat and drew her scarf up, fluffing it to completely conceal her neck and part of her chin. She reached back and touched the butt of her gun. Calmed, she pulled the hem of her coat down over it. She turned back and kept walking into town.
When she reached Main Street, she saw the hub of activity. There was a tall church with a steeple that had a lightning rod or a spike on the top. Beside it, a greenhouse had been built on top of what used to be the church parking lot. Dozens of men moved in and out through the door, talking with one another, gesturing. She couldn’t hear them. The store she wanted was on the far end of the street. She could double back and come around the block behind it to avoid being seen. She stood motionless, deciding. It was too risky to meet them, she thought. She turned around to go back and wait until after dark to raid the store.
When she turned, she found herself almost face-to-face with a young man who had a blond beard and a generous smile.
“Welcome, brother!” He strode toward her, holding out his hand. “Where did you come from? We haven’t had a refugee in months!”
Frozen for a moment, she was not sure what to do. She couldn’t shoot this guy in the middle of town. She knew she was outnumbered. He wasn’t threatening at all, and he had called her “brother” and “refugee.” Those were terms she could deal with.
Cautiously she put out her right hand. “Hi. I just came in from Eden.”
“Eden? Heck, I’m from Eden, and I sure don’t know you.”
“Well, I just got to Eden. I’m from San Francisco.”
“Wowie, that’s a long trip. How’d you get all this way? Oh, never mind all the long story. Where are my manners? Are you hungry or hurt? Do you need anything?”
She studied his face carefully. He seemed totally sincere, right down to his fake swears. The moment felt surreal to her, like Disneyland tour guides showing up to lead her out of hell. “I’m ok. I need to get back to Eden is all. My car broke down and—”
“Well, shoot, I’m sure someone could take you back to Eden, but why would you go back there? It’s pretty deserted.”
“I . . . I have all my gear there. I sort of set up camp.”
“Hey, I’ll let the elders talk to you about it, but I expect you’ll want to stay here. We haven’t had a new face in a long time. Why don’t you let me walk you to the stake center and introduce you. Oh, what’s your name, brother?”
“Dusty. I’m Dusty Jones.”
He had held her hand this whole time, and now he pumped it enthusiastically up and down.
“Welcome to Huntsville, Brother Dusty. I’m Frank Olsen. I hope you’ll at least stay for dinner. Come on, let me show you off to everybody.”
He let go of her hand, but he put his on her shoulder instead. His hands were wide and square, with blond hair sprouting out of the back. His eyes were baby blue and as round as could be. The walk over to the church building he had called the stake center was far too short for her liking.
Her heart was beating a little too fast, and she breathed deeply, trying to remember to talk low and slowly, like a man would. They reached the door where an older man stood like a cheerful guard.
“Hello there, Frank! Who’s this young man?” The old man had eyebrows that seemed to reach all over his face, up and down in long bristles. They worked as he squinted to see her clearly.
“This is Brother Dusty. He just came in from Eden.”
The man with the eyebrows reached out and shook her hand heartily. “Welcome! Better take him in to meet the elders.”
Frank beamed. “That’s my plan! Thanks, Brother Albert.”
Albert opened the door and closed it behind them, back at his post. Inside, the building was warm and bright. The hallways were spacious and clean, and all the wood looked polished. The large bucolic paintings of Jesus that hung on the walls were freshly dusted. They walked past the open doors of a cavernous chapel space. As she passed, she could see the wall behind the dais was made up of river rock, all the way to the ceiling. No cross, no crucifix, just a podium.
“Here we are!” Frank rapped on a door three times, and a teenage boy answered. “Hi, Brother Tyler. Are the elders in a meeting?”
“No, they’re just getting ready to go to dinner. Say—is that a refugee?” He held out a hand to Dusty. She took it and let him pump her hand up and down, feeling very silly.
Frank spoke for her. “This is Brother Dusty. He just got in
. Can I take him in to meet the elders?”
“Well, sure!” The kid got out of the doorway and gestured them in. Frank opened another door on the other side of the room. He stepped in ahead of her, and she followed.
It was a wide room, set with a very modern conference table surrounded by leather swiveling desk chairs in black. Seated around it were five men, all white with white hair, most with white beards. They all looked up as she and Frank came through the door.
“Elders, this is Dusty Jones. He’s a refugee from San Francisco who just came in through Eden.” The man at the head of the table spoke up first. His voice was rich and resonant, though he looked to be nearly seventy years old. “Welcome, Brother Dusty. This is Huntsville, a survivor’s colony and a stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.”
“Oh.” It popped out of her before she could think. “Mormons.”
The men around the table were unmoved. Another spoke this time. “Yes, Mormons. We prefer to be called Latter-Day Saints, or LDS. But I’m sure in California many people say Mormon instead.”
The head man did not rise from his seat or offer a hand, but his smile was genial. “I’m Elder Comstock. This is Elder Sterling, Elder Graves, Elder Johannsen, and Elder Evans.” They nodded in order as they were introduced. Dusty looked at each of them and tried to figure out how to tell them apart. Graves did not have a beard. Comstock was clearly in charge. The rest all looked alike, even wearing the same boring dark suits and bland ties. She looked at Frank out of the corner of her eye. She saw that he was dressed for work, but incredibly clean. His hair looked freshly trimmed, and he wasn’t growing a beard for lack of equipment. He was neat. The old men around the table were the same: neat, clean, fastidious. For a moment, she thought she might be dreaming.
“Brother Dusty,” Comstock was saying as she came out of her reverie. “We would like very much to hear about your journey, and any news you can tell us. Would you join us for dinner? We’d be honored to have a guest.”
She nodded. “Sure, I . . . I can tell you what I know, but it isn’t much.”
Comstock smiled, and it was such a grandfatherly smile that it made her glad to see it. “We’ve all heard each other’s stories a thousand times. Even if it’s a dull story, it will be delightful to hear something new.”
She was just a little charmed. She was trying to get a read on these people, but everything confused her. They were too polite, too clean.
Don’t they know the world ended?
She followed the line of them out the door, beginning to smell food. It smelled incredible.
Comstock led the line into an auditorium. The floor was wood laminate, and it shone like a mirror. The room was set with round tables all over. Each table was spread with a cloth and silverware at each place. In the center were short round vases with glass beads in the bottom and silk flowers in the top. On the wall was a never-ending spread of art made by children. Clumsy crayon drawings and felt apples crowded against coloring pages and sticky construction paper collages. Malformed mommies and daddies beamed with huge smiles and waved with stick fingers from picture after picture of sunny houses and blue skies.
The white beards reached a table and sat, gesturing to an empty seat for her. She sat, still staring around the room.
“Are there children—”
Dozens of men came streaming in through every door, talking and laughing and sitting at tables.
She saw more than a few staring her way, and some sidebars as the word spread that there was an outsider present. She watched the gossip of her existence spread across the room, saw Frank Olsen enjoy a moment of minor celebrity as everyone confirmed the news with him. They quieted as they sat, and every face seemed turned toward her. She tried not to look back, but looked down at the gleaming steel flatware in front of her, laid out perfectly on the white plastic tablecloth.
The quiet let up as the doors to the kitchen opened. The smell of food came through, strong and sure; it had to be spaghetti. Teenage boys came out loaded with serving bowls and made for the tables. Dusty’s table was served last. The bowls were heaping with green salad and spaghetti tossed with meatballs covered in marinara, and another was full of rolls that smelled fresh and yeasty and warm. She watched them go by, her mouth wet with anticipation.
Behind the team of teenagers delivering food, there came three women. One was young, maybe twenty. The next was in her thirties, motherly, with beautiful shining black hair. The last was perhaps a little older, gray at the temples, and dumpy in a dress that covered her to the neck and ankles. Dusty stared at them as they approached her table, each bearing a bowl. They set them down with smiles. The youngest one was strawberry blond and pretty in a hometown-girl-with-no-makeup sort of way. When she got close, Dusty saw she was sprinkled with freckles. After setting down the food, they walked decorously to their own table that they shared with two men and a couple of empty chairs.
Elder Comstock stood and folded his arms. People around the room stayed seated but folded theirs. Dusty did the same, thinking it was better not to stand out.
“Dear most gracious Heavenly Father,” he intoned gently. “We thank thee for this day and for this food and the hands that prepared it. We ask that you bless it that it may strengthen and nourish our bodies . . .”
As the prayer went on, Dusty looked around the room. Every head was bent and every eye was closed. Even the teenage boys seemed reverent. She stared around at their perfect quiet, their unruffled stillness. She looked over to the table where the women sat. They seemed at ease and as involved in the prayer as any of the men. Before it ended, she bowed her head so as not to be caught.
“. . . in Jesus’s name, Amen.” As he finished speaking, before he could even fully sit down, the room broke into noise that mostly began with “please pass.” Dusty held herself back and waited for the food to come to her. She made a pile of salad on her plate and laid an equally large helping of spaghetti beside it. She took a roll from the bowl and reached for a bottle of salad dressing that had arrived on the table when she wasn’t watching. Elder Comstock was holding a small plate of fresh butter that he served himself from sparingly before passing it on.
“Butter is still in short supply, I’m afraid. We’re working on milk production, and we hope to start making cheese soon. But Sister Everly was able to make about a pound of sweet cream butter this month, and we’re trying to make it last.” The small plate reached her, and she took a tiny sliver of it by knife to her still-warm roll. She put it straight into her mouth and the long-lost taste transported her. She set the rest aside to eat last.
The room buzzed with conversation, and Dusty was glad to be ignored for a few minutes while she crammed hot food into her mouth. It had been so long since she’d eaten a real meal, food prepared by someone else with courses and a theme, that she couldn’t focus on anything else. The sauce was obviously straight out of a can. The pasta was overcooked and spongy. The salad dressing was shelf-stable, uninspired, processed junk. She didn’t care. It was not served in a can or eaten alone and in haste. It tasted as good as anything ever had in her life, especially the bread. When she had cleaned her plate, she picked up the buttery remains and swiped the last of the red sauce up with it, reveling in every bite. When she finished, the strawberry-blond girl had reappeared to pour her a glass of lemonade. It was terribly sweet, the kind made from powder, but it had been poured over a full glass of snow. Dusty thanked her and took long swallows from it. Another soon appeared.
“Well, sir.” It was Elder Johannsen this time. “Why don’t you tell us about yourself?”
As if on cue, the room quieted down. She thought for a moment before beginning.
“I was working as a PA in San Francisco when the plague started. We handled a lot of casualties, mostly women and children. When the government broke down, things got pretty terrible. I left the city as soon as I could and started moving east. I met a few people here and there, but mostly out on the road, the ones you meet are monst
ers. It isn’t safe out there.”
Dusty saw the freckled girl didn’t like that. All over the room, people looked uncomfortable. “So I’ve been traveling and offering medical assistance to people I meet who aren’t killers. I found Eden, and it was so deserted I couldn’t figure out what had happened. I was hoping for some good winter gear, so I came to Huntsville, and here you all are.”
Johannsen nodded. “Indeed, indeed. Here we are. Many of us are from Eden. I myself have a home there. Brother Jesperson, Brother Chalmers, and Brother Anderson as well.”
She cleared her throat. “I . . . uh . . . I’ve been staying in a house over there.” She pulled the keys out of her pocket and looked at the tag on the key ring. “Seven hundred north, nine hundred west, it’s at the end of the street.”
The man who had been pointed out as Brother Chalmers stood up. “That’s Brother Westin’s place. He died of the sickness. He’d be glad to know a traveler found some refuge at his house. You go ahead and take whatever you need from there.”
“Um . . . thank you.” She felt insanely awkward. Were they still expecting to enforce rules of ownership? Their whole society looked like pretense to her, like a stubborn conceit. Let’s pretend we have a community. Let’s pretend nothing has changed. “Well, I want to get back to Eden tonight. If anyone knows an easier way than walking the six miles, I’d like to hear it.”
Elder Johannsen was looking at her. “Tell us more about the people you met out there.”
She shrugged. “Bands of men, mostly. There are almost no women anywhere. I’ve met a few guys who seemed all right, but all the others have been rapists and murderers.”
The whole room seemed to tense. She tried to backpedal. “I hardly saw anyone, really. It’s very deserted out there. I could go days without seeing anyone. Just when I did—”
Johannsen shushed her a little. “That’s all right, brother. Don’t dwell on it. No need to worry the children talking of such things. Sisters.”
