by ed. Pela Via
‘Hm.’
She nudged him.
‘As long as that tree lives, the world will too.’
‘I like that.’
‘Hm.’
‘Jack.’
‘Hm.’
She sang his name softly into his ear and touched her fingers to the wrinkles beside his eyes.
‘You get one wrinkle for every crow that you outlive.’ His voice was soft, dripping from his dreams.
‘You’ve outlived a lot of crows.’
He smiled.
‘Sleepyhead.’
He opened his eye. ‘Hi.’
‘Hi.’
He closed it, smiling.
She watched him sleep and caressed his back, running her fingernails lightly over the branches and roots.
———
‘I don’t get why you won’t stay here.’ His blue eyes dimmed by the constant burning sky.
‘I like my place.’
‘But it’s dangerous. Those men out there could get you and I’d hate to think about it.’ Ricky pulled her close to him, laying her head on his chest.
‘It’s too much to handle right now. I can’t just move.’
‘I could move in with you.’
She stared into the lake of fire and felt the pull, the flames cycling towards her, calling her deeper and higher. ‘I don’t know.’ His dark eyes were out there, deep and muddy, calling her name and tugging at her chest.
‘Why? It doesn’t make sense to be apart anymore. The streets are wild and it’s not safe for anyone to leave. The looters and gangs are everywhere and no one cares to stop them. More and more people join every day. It’s madness. Every time I think of you being so far away when I hear those screams and see all those stacked bodies, I feel my chest collapse. What if one of those bodies was yours or what if one was mine?’
‘Don’t think like that.’ Her voice was thick and her mind flew out the window to him so far away, each thought an outstretched hand reaching, if only to touch fingertips. ‘They’ll burn out.’
‘Like the sky?’
‘Like a sunset.’
He kissed her head, taking in the scent of stale sweat. ‘I’m just scared. For you.’
‘Don’t be.’ She shifted so they were face to face. ‘I’m a big girl.’
‘Why won’t you stay with me?’
She touched his bare chin and rolled to the window and waved a hand where the glass once was. ‘Do you ever wonder if there’s someone else out there for you?’ She stared into the street where five teenagers beat a bald man in a suit and stripped him of his clothes. His screams echoed against the fire. She brought her eyes to Ricky.
He kissed her hand. ‘No. There’s no one else for me.’
‘What if there is and you just haven’t met her?’
‘You’re perfect for me.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Where is this coming from? I love you. Believe me.’
‘No, I do. I know you do.’
‘Then what? Do you think there’s someone else?’
She blew hair out of her eyes. ‘Of course not.’ Heat ran up her back and touched her face.
‘Then stop. I love you.’ He tried to kiss her, but she leaned away.
‘But you’ve loved other girls.’
‘Not like this.’
She pulled his face close and kissed him. ‘You know how to make a girl smile.’
‘You’re not smiling.’
‘I will be.’ She kissed him again, hard, and pulled him on top of her.
———
‘What?’
‘I’m sorry, Ricky, I just can’t.’
He sighed and bowed his head, the blond hair tickling her chest.
‘It’s just there’s so much death outside. I can’t think of anything else.’ She pulled his chin up so he could see her.
He studied her face seeing his own reflection in her wide pupils. ‘You get me all worked up like this, though.’
She frowned. ‘I know. I’m sorry, but I just can’t. Not right now.’
‘It’s been weeks.’ He rolled off, crossing his arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Will you stay here tonight?’ His eyelids weighed down his wilted eyes.
‘It’s never night.’
‘You know what I mean.’
She rolled over and watched the fire rage.
———
‘We’re almost out of food.’
‘Don’t go out there.’
Jack pulled on boots. ‘We need something to eat.’
‘You said almost.’
‘I meant, All gone.’
She stood and grabbed his hand. ‘Please, Jack, don’t. It’s scary out. It’s not like before.’
He kissed her fingers. ‘They won’t bother me. I’ve nothing they want.’
‘It’s not the same out there. They’re desperate and getting crazier. I saw them cut a guy apart. The screams were terrible and they lasted all night because they just left him to bleed to death out in the middle of the street. No one tried to help him.’
‘I’ll manage.’
‘But the radio’s out now, too, and, I don’t know, you can’t. If you die.’
His lips were on hers and the words were lost, never spoken, but carried between them. With tears, she wrapped her arms round him and kissed him longer. They separated, slow, their lips touching like fluttered butterfly wings. She whispered into his parted lips and he took it inside, deep, where he could taste it, live on it.
Her phone rang.
‘You still have Ricky.’
‘Not anymore. I live here, with you. I need you.’ She kissed him, ignoring the phone.
‘I know. I know.’
Her lip shipwrecked and her eyes drowned.
‘I’ll be right back. Trust me.’ He kissed her through her sobs and was out the door.
She collapsed.
———
She leaves the stoop and tosses the last cigarette into a puddle. Skeletal trees line the road back, replacing the streetlamps, most of which no longer work. The wind blows cold and she looks to the infinite cloud above. It hangs low, suffocating the earth with grey. The colors rot off the world and she is left only ashen shades.
The sound of her footsteps echoes off the tilted buildings that bow in mourning for the world. The streets stretch forever before her and the lamps return, droning beneath the clicks of her aimless feet. The wind whispers in her hood, his voice soft against her ear, the caress of his beard on her neck. She turns and sees her shadow across the street, waving.
She waves with fingertips, not sure if a shadow can see. She almost speaks, but knows not if shadows hear. It jumps down the street and she follows. Through puddles and over breaks and beams and collapsed buildings and monuments, she chases, running till her lungs fill with glass. It stops outside Gate Park and she falls to her knees and weeps.
———
He did not return nor did her tears stop. Her phone rang incessantly, but she could not move to answer or smash it. She was curled in his bed, afraid to look out the window or see the sky burning. The scent of him, his sweat, was all she wanted and she bathed in it. Screams ripped through the air, but they stopped meaning anything weeks before, so much a part of the airwaves that she forgot how the world sounded without them.
Her fears played inside her eyelids. Blood pouring down the street, his body in pieces, his head staked by ruthless Kurtzes, vagabond savages. The streets—more temperamental than the sky and infinitely more frightening—were full of them and he, Jack—her Jack—was out there amongst them, him, all of her love into his mouth, so that he could walk through hell and pull her from the flames.
The neverending day confused time and place. He had been gone for a week or only an hour, but she knew he was gone. Dead.
All sensation slipped away, her body hollowed out. His black eyes and smokey hair carved into her mind, there was naught else to see.
The ph
one rang and it was in her hand.
‘Ricky,’ the sobs choked all words he or she had.
———
She crept through the city back to Ricky’s apartment. Her heart plummeted with every trickling sound, the blood rising in her chest till she wanted to vomit, but forced herself to keep pace, almost running.
She avoided blood stains and forgotten bodies. The city stunk of decay, fire, and blood. Broken glass and burning cars and headless bodies plastered to buildings. Gate Park had a head mounted on each post of the fence. She turned her eyes and carried on, sure she would never go outside again. Every face, contorted in agony, screaming their dying wish or curse, blaming god or devil or man. Bodies forged together, cut up and sewn in monstrous contortions, grotesque sculptures of pain.
Jumping over a pit full of blood, her eye caught the tattoo of a great ash tree and muddy eyes. She could not look away, the world muted and the light blew out. Her eyes clouded, her mind a fog, she staggered to the body. Black ink in the skin, the branches flowing to his shoulders, full leaves, the roots reaching down to his legs, and all the world stemmed from it. His face staring at her, looking always behind. She wretched, emptying all of her into the street, and put her hands to his back, tears filling the cracks in the pavement, her sobs breaking through the sky. She unstrapped him from the fence and his head fell from the shoulders, rolling on the ground. She kissed his rotting bloodless lips and vomited again. His arms were skinless, his scalp gone. Eviscerated, his body was an ocean of maggots. Closing his hollow eyes, she fell apart and could walk no more, could breathe no more, could see nothing else, could live no more.
———
‘Jesus. I’ve been terrified. Where have you been?’
The tears still streamed down her face and words could not form, her lips trembling.
‘Come here.’ He wrapped his arms round her, kissed her head, and closed the door. ‘Want some coffee?’
She shook her head and collapsed onto a chair.
‘I’ve been so worried. Where have you been these last couple days?’
Chest heaving, her head in her hands, she wept.
‘Shh.’ He put his arms around her. ‘It’ll be okay. You’re here now.’
She coughed and pushed him away, spittle falling from her mouth, snot running from her nose, her eyes, red and inconsolable. The silver worn away, blotted out by the blood of his mutilation.
‘What’s wrong?’ His voice was soft, trying to weave through her, bring comfort.
‘It’s over. Everything.’ She shook and wretched, but there was nothing left inside.
He brought a blanket and wrapped it over her shoulders. ‘It’s going to be okay.’
‘No, it’s fucking not. Everyone’s dead and I wish they’d take me.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘I do. I fucking do.’
‘Without you, I’d die.’
‘Then go fucking die.’ She threw the blanket at him, grabbed her knees and put her forehead to them, her body quaking.
He watched her and did not speak. He let her be, but stayed close, waiting for the casket to unlock so he could rock her back to life.
———
‘Jenny, look.’ He pointed out the window, his eyes cobalt and wide.
She followed his finger to where the sun shown. A moment unregistered, the image struck her breathless and her knees buckled. Her lips opened, tried to speak, but only ate sunlight.
He kissed her cheek. ‘Can you believe it?’
‘No.’ She whispered and she felt the warmth fill her.
The sun risen, the fire gone, she touched him to make it real, his face bathed in sunlight, in real daylight, his curled blond hair haloed from the dawning sky. She turned to their apartment and it was lit, not by a permanent fire, but by the sun, like angels dove in and touched every corner, every particle of dust floating in the air. Back to the sun, she could not look away and tears filled her eyes. ‘He would’ve loved this.’
‘Who?’ His eyebrows arched.
The world returned, lungs refilled, and legs straightened. ‘What do you think it means?’
‘It means things are going to be okay.’
She smiled.
‘This is good news. People will feel less hopeless and someone will stop the gangs.’
‘But who’s left?’
‘I don’t know.’ He watched her stare out the window, catching every movement of her lips, memorizing them, how the light made her eyes glow, and how it touched her porcelain face.
‘What if it happens again?’
‘I’m so glad you’re here.’
She smiled and lowered her head.
‘I love you so much.’ He ran his hand through her black hair, holding the back of her head. ‘I can’t imagine seeing this without you. A brand new sun, a day we never thought we’d see again. It’s the sun, Jenny. The world’s going to be okay.’
‘I hope so.’
He kissed her hair and took it in, the sun, her scent, the cadence of their hearts, and each new breath.
———
She hears footsteps and runs, the tears still stinging her eyes. Shouts and howls stab through the air, and she ducks into a crumbling building and hides. Her heart pounds, weakening and stinging her chest, pins sticking into every inch of her, climbing up her back, down her legs. Reality snaps back, and death reaches its talons into her heart.
The howls grow louder, accompanied by percussion of metal on metal and wood on concrete and two sounds she cannot distinguish, but their timbre is softer and higher in pitch. Afraid to look or breathe, she cowers behind a wall and closes her eyes, like a child becoming invisible.
Footsteps come close. ‘It might’ve been nothing.’ The voice, soft, a boy’s.
‘Nah, I heard some bitch cryin.’ Like sandpaper, his voice scrapes the inside of her skull.
‘Yo, what you guys waiting for?’ A third voice, boyish as the first, but rasped, as if the second tore off the youth of the third.
‘It couldn’ta got far. No more footsteps to hear.’
‘Could have been a dog or something.’
‘Nah, it was a bitch. I know a bitch when I hear it.’ A tapping of the unfamiliar noises trickles into the night.
She opens her eyes and peeks round the corner. They are fifteen feet away, circled in the middle of the street. Two look between fourteen and twenty, and the third is a heavyset man. Warpaint or blood or both cover their faces and the big man has a necklace of bones with a small skull, like the skull of a child, centered on his chest. She puts her back to the wall, her hands clutching her mouth, stifling screams and swallowing vomit.
‘Everyone else is going up Fifth or down Third. I’ma meet up with them. See ya’ll later.’
‘Later, Finger.’
‘What you wanna do?’
A snort and a cough. ‘Les stay on Main. Bitch is dumb enough to come to Gate, it’s dumb enough to stay on Main.’
‘Yeah.’
She waits till the beats and howls are faint and far away. She creeps down to 2nd Street and follows Fitzimmons to Ricky’s apartment. Barely able to breathe or cry or walk, she prays, muttering syllables.
Opening the door, she finds Ricky with his phone in hand. ‘Where have you been?’
She runs to his arms. ‘Just hold me, please.’
And he does.
They lie awake in each other’s arms, her eyelids never touching. The clouds wander like the waves of an ocean, but there is no reprieve. ‘It’s different than it used to be.’
‘What?’ His voice drifts through dreams.
‘The sky doesn’t change, but it’s worse than before.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘It was always terrifying, but now that it’s always dark, I don’t know.’
He spoons her and kisses the back of her head. ‘The sun will come back again. Remember how beautiful that was?’
‘Yeah, but it was only a day. A single day and instead of constant
daylight, we’re drowning in darkness. My shadow ran away tonight.’
‘What?’
‘I think I’m going crazy.’
He pulls the hair away from her face.
‘Things are much worse now. The people out there, they’re completely out of control. I saw them tonight.’
‘Jesus, are you okay?’
‘Yeah, but I wasn’t. I thought I was going to die, thought they were going to get me. They wear the bones of the dead. This one guy, he had an infant’s head hung around his neck on a string of bones, like it was his prize. I think they’re eating people now, and I could smell it, their jaws on me, their hands grimed over me. And I really thought I was going to die, and I was terrified, but I wanted them to. A part of me really wanted them to take me and kill me.’
‘I’d die without you.’
‘This isn’t about you. It’s not about me.’ She turns to him. ‘I’m ready, Ricky. Really ready.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘I mean it.’ Her eyes are deep pools and he sees her drowning in them. The silver tarnishes, black tar spreading over her irises.
‘Things will get better.’
‘What if they don’t?’
‘They have to.’
‘Why?’
‘If they don’t, then this is it. And I can’t believe there’ll be nothing after us.’
‘There’s already nothing. Those people are all that’s left. What if they start raiding buildings? We won’t be able to stop them. They’ll come in here and kill us, maybe eat us. What if they’re the future?’
‘Think we should leave?’
‘I don’t know.’ She kisses him, lightly, feathers on lips. ‘I wish the sky would catch fire again. I can’t take this, this endless night. Everything’s dying. Everyone.’ She cries, wetting the pillow.
‘I promise things will be okay, as long as I’m with you. You’re all I need. And if we die, we’ll die together.’
Her sobs increase and he kisses her forehead, her cheeks, and her nose. He takes her hands in his and kisses each finger. ‘I promise you, even if it kills me, we’ll make it through.’
