Z for Zachariah

by Роберт C. О Брайен

  It was now nearly eleven o’clock; the sun was high and bright and the day had turned warm. Wearing that plastic suit and carrying all that stuff, I could tell he was getting too hot: he stopped twice to rest and put the carton down. And that was why, when he got back to the house, he made the mistake. He went swimming, and took a bath, in the dead stream, Burden Creek.

  First he put the carton down on top of the wagon and took things out of it. As I guessed, most of it was tinned food. But he also took out a couple of bars of soap—I recognized the blue wrappers. Next, to my astonishment, he took off the plastic suit. He simply unzipped it down the front, pulled it down over his legs and stepped out of it. Underneath he was wearing what looked like a very thin, light weight blue coverall. Down the back and arms it was soaked with sweat.

  After that, having been so cautious up till then, he was careless. I can see how he did it. He thought, not knowing the geography of the valley very well, that it was all the same stream. He did not know that there were two streams, and he had seen the fish. Being so hot—and, maybe, not having had a bath in a long time—he picked up the soap and ran across the road. There he took off the blue coverall and jumped in with a splash. If he had been a little less eager he might have noticed that there were no fish there, and that all the grass and weeds have died back for about two feet along both the banks. Quite a few of the trees along there are dying, too. But he didn’t. He stayed in quite a long time with his piece of soap.

  I said I don’t know how bad a mistake it was. That’s because I don’t know what is wrong with that water. The stream merges with the other one, the pond-stream, farther down the valley and they flow out of the gap as one. Down stream from where they merge they are both dead—I have looked many times, thinking that maybe, after all this time, the water in Burden Creek might be all right again. But no fish swims into it, or if it does, it dies and drifts away.

  It might be dial if he had taken his glass rod he would have found the water is radioactive. But I don’t know that; I’m not so sure that is what the poison is. On the radio at the end of the war they said the enemy was using nerve gas, bacteria, and “other anti-personnel weapons”. So it could be anything. All I can do is wait and watch. I hope it doesn’t kill him.

  Chapter Four

  Still May 25 th

  It is night again, and I am in the cave with one lamp lit.

  An inexplicable thing: the dog, Faro, has come back. How that is possible I don’t know. Where has he been? How has he lived? He looks terrible—as thin as a skeleton, and half the hair is gone from his left side.

  I think I have already written that Faro was David’s dog. He came with David when David moved in with us about five years ago after his father died and he became an orphan (his mother died when he was born). Joseph and David were within six months of the same age, so they became really close friends—all three of us were, in fact. But Faro was always really David’s dog; he would never go with any of us unless David went, too. He was—he is—a mongrel, but mostly setter, and he loved to hunt. When we went hunting, when he even saw a gun come out, he would get so excited you would never believe he would freeze on a point, but he always did; he was really good. So when David left with my father and mother, and then later the dog disappeared, I assumed he had gone looking for David, through the gap into the deadness. (He used to follow the truck sometimes if David was in it; you had to tie him up.) But apparently he did not go through the gap. He must have been living in the woods up there near it, waiting for David to come, eating what he could catch.

  I suppose he heard the two gunshots, and that’s what brought him back. I was watching at the time. It was about one-thirty and the man, wearing his blue coverall—he did not put the plastic suit back on—had cleaned the chicken with a knife from his wagon and was cooking it on a spit he had made. The dog came up very cautiously and stood at the edge of the front garden, watching and sniffing. When the man looked up and saw him he stopped turning the spit and stared, not moving. Then he took a step towards Faro, and Faro backed away. The man crouched down, slapped his knee, whistled, and said something; I could hear the whistle but not the words. I knew he was calling him, though; he wanted to make friends with him. He walked forward again, and Faro backed away, keeping the same distance between them.

  The man gave up and went back to the fire. That is, he seemed to have given up, but he had not really, I could tell. He had an idea, a very simple one, and he kept looking up to see if the dog was still there. When the chicken was cooked, just a few minutes later, he went into the house and came out with two plates (mine!). He cut off a big chunk of chicken. He opened a tin from the store-box, some kind of meat. He put the chicken and some of the meat on one plate and carried it, moving very gently, past the edge of the garden to about where the dog had first appeared. And he put it down there.

  Back to his spit he went, very unconcerned, and carved up his chicken and ate it, along with some kind of dried bread he took from his wagon. (I could have given him some fresh-baked cornbread.) He ate the whole chicken, very quickly too, and as he ate he watched the dog from the corner of his eye. Faro crept up, looking at the man, then the plate of food, then the man again, until finally he reached it. Standing as far back as he could he stretched out his neck, snatched the chicken and ran back fifty feet. He swallowed it in two gulps, came back for the other meat and did the same again.

  Having eaten, the dog came back to the plate, licked it, and then slowly began circling the garden, sniffing as he went, still keeping away from the man. He went all the way round the house twice. Then, to my horror, he started wagging his tail the way he used to when he was tracking, and he turned from the house and headed up the hill towards the cave. He had found my tracks.

  The man stared after him as he left, whistled loudly, and started to follow. But the dog was out of sight by then, and he gave up after a few steps. Fortunately the area between the house and the cave has a lot of trees and underbrush, so I am quite sure there was no glimpse of the dog after that. I crept back into the cave and in two minutes Faro came bounding in.

  Poor dog. He looked terrible, even worse close up, even in the dimness of the cave. He gave two short, creaky little barks and ran to me. But I was scared. Inevitably, if he stayed around, if the man made friends with him, he was going to betray me. So I did not know what to do; I did not dare act too friendly. I said in a whisper, “Good Faro,” but I did not hug him the way I felt like doing. The truth is, though I liked him and he liked me, it was not me he was looking for anyway. He had been in the cave a thousand times before when we played there, and now he ran around it sniffing everything, looking for David. When he did not find him he left again in just a few minutes, and ran back down the hill, towards the house.

  It is trouble, because that’s where the man is, and the plate, and the food. If the man makes friends with him, he will come to a whistle, as he did for David; the man can keep him close, and follow him when he comes up here.

  I suppose it seems wrong to be so afraid of that. It is just that I don’t know what the man will do. I liked most people. I had a lot of friends at school, and a boy friend, too. But that was a matter of choice; there were some people I didn’t like, and many that I didn’t even know. This man may be the only man left on the earth. I don’t know him. Suppose I don’t like him? Or worse, suppose he doesn’t like me?

  For nearly a year I have been here alone. I have hoped and prayed for someone to come, someone to talk to, to work with, and plan for the future in the valley. I dreamed that it would be a man, for then, some time in the future—it is a dream, I know—there might be children in the valley. Yet, now that a man has actually come, I realize that my hopes were too simple. All men are different, but the man on the radio station, fighting to survive, saw people that were desperate and selfish. This man is a stranger, and bigger and stronger than I am. If he is kind, then I am all right. But if he is not—what then? He can do whatever he likes, and I will be a slave for
the rest of my life. That is why I want to find out, at least as well as I can by watching him, what he is like.

  After the dog left the cave, after it had been gone a while, I went back to the entrance and looked down at the house. The man had scissors in his hand, a small mirror propped in front of him, and was cutting his hair and his beard. He kept at it for a long time, and trimmed them both quite short. I must admit it made a great improvement; he looks almost handsome, though he got the hair rather lopsided at the back, where he could not see it in the mirror.

  May 26th

  A sunny day, like yesterday only warmer. According to my calendar (I have it and the alarm clock here in the cave) it is Sunday. Ordinarily that would mean I would go to the church in the morning, and try to make the rest of the day a day of rest, as Sunday is supposed to be. Sometimes I went fishing, a practical way of resting. I would take the Bible with me to the church, and some flowers for the altar in spring and summer. I did not pretend to have a real service, of course, but I would sit and read something from the Bible. Sometimes I chose—I like the Psalms and Ecclesiastes—and sometimes I just opened it at random. In the middle of winter I usually did not go; there being no heat it was too cold to sit there.

  There never were any real services in the church, not in our time, anyway, nor any minister. It is very small, and was built a long time ago by one of our ancestors—“an early Burden”, my father used to say—when they first settled in the valley and I suppose thought it would grow into a village. It never did, since for years afterwards there was no road in, but just a horse-trail; the road ended past Ogdentown, at the junction. When we went to church we drove to Ogdentown; in the last year before the war I had finally graduated from Sunday School to the real service.

  But this morning I had to forget about all that. The man got up early and cooked his breakfast, still on the fire out in front of the house; he was quick and purposeful. He had plans and I learned what they were: he wanted to explore the length of this valley and take a look beyond. He still did not know how far the green part extended.

  Before he went he put some more of the tinned meat in Faro’s plate and set it out. Faro himself was nowhere to be seen—at least not at the moment, but as soon as the man started up the road he emerged from the woodshed where he had been sleeping, ate the food, and then followed him. You could tell Faro wanted to join the man—he was carrying the small gun—but could not quite get up his nerve. After a hundred yards or so he turned back, sniffed at the plate again, and went and lay down not far from the tent.

  I followed the man, staying on my high woods path. Sooner or later he will explore up here, too, and then I will have to cross to the other side of the valley—also, I will have to stay alert, because in the woods he will not be so visible.

  But today he stayed on the road. He did not wear the plastic suit, and walked much more briskly without it, so I had to work a bit to keep up with him—the path is not as straight as the road; also I had to be careful not to make a noise.

  When he got to the store he went in, and when he came out I was amazed—I hardly recognized him. The wrinkled coverall was gone; he was dressed in a whole new outfit—khaki drill slacks, very neat, a blue work shirt, even new work shoes and a straw cap. (My clothes.) But he really looked like a different person, and quite nice. For one thing, with his hair and beard trimmed and now neatly dressed, he looked a lot younger, though still much older than I. I would guess maybe thirty or thirty-two.

  He walked on down the road, heading south towards the far end of the valley, towards the gap. He looked around him as he went; he was curious about everything, but he did not slow down much until he reached the culvert. At that point the small stream, having flowed into the pond and out again, and meandered along through the meadow, runs into a rise (the beginning of the end of the valley, I suppose), bears right, and is joined by Burden Creek.

  He stopped there. I think it dawned on him then for the first time that there were two streams, and that the pond was not formed by Burden Creek. And here, if you look at them closely where they join, the difference between them becomes plain. I have done it many times. Even in the last few feet, the small stream has life in it—minnows, tadpoles, water bugs (skippers), and green moss on the rocks. Burden Creek has none at all, and after they merge, downstream all the way to the gap and out, the water is clear and dead.

  I cannot be sure that he noticed all that, but he stared at it for a long time, getting down on his hands. If he did see it he must have begun worrying, and maybe it was then that he started feeling sick. In a short time he was going to get very sick.

  However, worried or not, he got up in a few minutes and walked on, striding out briskly as before. In another fifteen minutes he was approaching the end of the valley, and the beginning of the deadness beyond, where the road leads on to the Amish farms.

  He could not see that, of course. In fact, unless you know about it, it is hard to believe that there is any way out of the valley at the south end. That is because the gap is in the shape of a very large “S”, and until you are right on top of it you think you are coming to a solid wall of rock and trees. Then the road (and the stream beside it) turns sharply right, left, and right again, cutting through the ridge like a tunnel without even going uphill.

  With Burden Hill on the other end, the result is that the valley is completely closed in. People used to say it even has its own weather; the winds from outside do not blow through it.

  When he reached the gap I lost sight of him—there is no way you can see into it from the hillside where I was. But the stretch of road going through it is only a couple of hundred yards long, so I knew he would reappear shortly. When he saw the dead land outside he would turn and come back; he could not go farther without his plastic suit.

  I sat down in the sun to wait, and looked at the scenery below me: the narrow black road running straight and the river winding beside it, the other side of the valley here quite close, rising gently in woods, big oak and beech trees, old ones with black shadows beneath their branches. Higher up there was a big outcropping of grey rock, a cliff. We used to climb it; it is not as steep as it looks from the distance. It was eleven o’clock and had turned quite warm again. Behind me some blackberry bushes gave off quite a sweet smell, and there were bees humming in the blossoms. At times like that I miss the songbirds.

  He must have stood a while near the end of the gap, resting or looking, because it was twenty minutes before he came out, walking somewhat more slowly, and started back towards the house.

  About half way back it happened: he stopped, sat down quickly in the middle of the road, and was very sick. He stayed there, retching, leaning to his side on one arm, for several minutes. Then he got up and walked on.

  He did that again three times on the way, and after the third time he was barely stumbling along, dragging the rifle. When he reached the tent he crawled in; he has not come out again. Faro came, braver now, and sniffed at the opening of the tent. He even wagged his tail a little, and then went and sat by the empty plate.

  But the man did not feed Faro. He did not make a fire tonight, nor eat any supper. But it may be that in the morning he will be better.

  Chapter Five

  May 27th

  I am writing in the morning, having eaten my breakfast; I am sitting at the entrance to the cave with my binoculars, watching the house and the tent for a sign of life. So far there has been none, except that the dog went to the tent again, wagged his tail again, and sat down expectantly for a minute or two. He had an afterthought. He ran round the house, up the hill, and came to see me. Poor Faro. He was hungry, and now that he is home he expects to be fed. There is plenty of dog food in the store, but of course I had not brought any up here, so I gave him a piece of corn bread and some tinned hash. I could be gladder to see him this time, since for the moment at least I was not worried about the man. I patted him quite a bit, and talked to him. After he had eaten he lay down beside me at the entrance and res
ted his head on my foot. That seemed quite touching because it is what he used to do with David, never with anyone else. Still, after only a few minutes he got up and ran back down the hill. He emerged at the house, where he sat down near the entrance to the tent. Although he likes me he seems to be adopting the man.

  But the man himself has not moved.

  I know he is sick, but I do not know how sick, and therefore I do not know what to do. It may be that he just doesn’t feel very well, and decided to stay in bed.

  Or he may be so sick he can’t get up. He may even be dying.

  Last night I would not have thought that would worry me so much, but this morning it does. It began with a dream I had just before I got up. It was one of those dreams that are more like daydreams; I have them when I am half awake and half asleep. I am somewhat aware that I am dreaming, and in a sense am making the dream up; but being half asleep it still seems true. I dreamed (or daydreamed) that it was my father in the tent, sick, and then that my whole family were there again, in the house. I felt so joyful it took my breath away, and I woke up.

  I lay there realizing that it was not true, but also realizing something else. I thought I had become used to being alone, and to the idea that I would always be alone, but I was wrong. Now that there was somebody else here, the thought of going back, the thought of the house and the valley being empty again—this time forever, I was sure of that—seemed so terrible I could not bear it.

  So, even though the man was a stranger and I was afraid of him, I began worrying about his being sick, and the idea that he might die made me feel quite desperate.

  I am writing this partly to get it clear in my head and to help me make up my mind. I think what I will do is wait and watch until late afternoon. Then if he still has not come out of the tent I will go down there while it is still light, very quietly, and see if I can see, without getting too close, how he is. I will take my gun with me.