Z for Zachariah

by Роберт C. О Брайен

  I have no place to go except higher up the hill and into the woods. I choose a spot overlooking the way they must pass as they approach the cave. There, waiting, ready to run again, I have the worst part of my nightmare. Because I suddenly see what I must do. Wherever I run, as long as Mr Loomis has Faro, he will find me. Therefore I must shoot Faro.

  I load the gun, find a hummock for a gun-rest, and lie behind it. In fifteen minutes I see branches moving, still a quarter of a mile down the valley, still on my trail. My ankle aches worse than before, but the crying has stopped; I feel sick but my eyes are clear.

  Now they are directly below me. Mr Loomis has Faro on a short leash; he is going very slowly now and limps a little; Faro is tugging. In clear view Mr Loomis stops to listen and I have a stationary target. I draw the bead, the gun is steady and I cannot miss. But at that moment Faro gives a small, impatient tug and a small bark which comes clearly up the hill to my ears. It is his bark of greeting, a soft pleasure bark for me—he knows the cave is just ahead. And at the sound, so gentle and familiar, my finger goes limp on the trigger, and I cannot do it. In the end I lower the gun barrel and they move on out of sight.

  In a few more minutes they are at the cave. I cannot see them from where I hide, and I do not dare go where I can because he will be watching and if I can see him he might see me.

  I smell smoke. I retreat further up the hill and look back. From the directions of the cave I see it: a thick column, rising fast as from a bonfire. I am feeling sicker—quite dizzy in fact. It is painful to walk, so I sit down and loosen my shoe.

  For half an hour the smoke continues; towards the end it grows thinner and fades away. In the distance I hear the sound of the tractor engine starting. It grows fainter. Mr Loomis has walked enough for the day and is going home. When the sound has gone far away and has stopped I know it is safe, and I make my way, sparing my right foot, back to the cave.

  It is hard to keep from crying again. In front of the entrance in a black and smouldering pile are the remains of all my things. My sleeping bag, my clothes, even the box I used as a table and the board I had for a bench, all are cinders. My fire-wall kicked down and scattered. My water bottles smashed. I see in the heap a part of the charred cover of Famous Short Stories of England and America. Only the few tins of food I left he has taken away—at least I see no signs of them in the fire. And the other gun is gone. Inside the cave I find one thing he missed. My half-chicken is still in its cranny.

  That is my nightmare. I have been in it again as I have written it. The worst part of it is that I really did decide to kill Faro. I am glad I could not pull the trigger, but that does not alter the fact. It makes me feel as much a murderer as Mr Loomis. Now there are two of us in the valley.

  And in the end I did kill Faro, though not with the gun.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  August 6th

  It is raining and I am sitting in the hollow tree to keep dry. I slept here most of last night—after the rain started—and it is cramped and I worry about spiders. Even so, I woke up feeling more hopeful than I have for a long time. My ankle is almost well but the main reason I feel hopeful is that at last I have decided what to do. I have made a plan: I will steal the safe-suit and leave the valley. The idea came to me while I was sick.

  For several days after I was shot I was aware of very little. I think I had a fever, though I had no thermometer to find out, and my ankle swelled very large and looked bad—blue on one side and bright red on the other. I did not attempt to walk on it—it hurt too much when I put it down—but when I had to move I hopped on one foot. Most of the time I lay still, wrapped in my blanket. I slept a great deal.

  Sometimes I thought I heard noises in the distance—the sound of the tractor running, the sound of hammering—but I could not be sure. Mr Loomis, if he had known it, could have tracked me down easily with Faro’s help and caught me, because I could not run. But of course he did not know it, since the injury had seemed slight, and when he last saw me I had been sprinting at high speed. He must have assumed that he had missed. So he was busying himself with other things—I would have to come out eventually—and he missed his chance.

  It was during those days of sleeping that a dream began, a dream I have had many times since. At first the dream was not very clear to me—I was only aware of the sense that I had been walking in a strange place, and of a feeling of disappointment, when I awoke, at finding myself still in the valley.

  People’s dreams bore me generally; before this one, I have had only a few that I remembered longer than a few seconds after I awoke. Yet this dream was more important than any I had ever heard before, or dreamed. Coming night after night, it began to dominate my thoughts, so that first I hoped and then later believed in what it seemed to tell: there is another place where I can live. And I am needed there: there is a schoolroom lined with books, and children sitting at the desks. There is no one to teach them so they cannot read. They sit waiting, watching the door. When I am sleeping I can see their faces, and I wish I knew their names. They look as if they have been waiting for a long time.

  And so I decided to leave the valley. I was convinced, after the shooting incident, that Mr Loomis was insane. We would never be able to live in the same place in peace. I lived in constant fear of being seen and hunted down: the sound of pebbles sliding on the rocks, a twig snapping, even the wind in the leaves could make my blood run cold. The valley, which had been home and shelter for my whole life, seemed now to threaten me wherever I went, whatever I did.

  At first my plan was very vague, really not much more than a wish that would come to me when I was too tired or sad to think of anything else. I would think of the place in the dream, and wonder where it was. From what I could remember it was not so different from places I had visited as a child; not north, because my parents and Mr Loomis had seen the deadness in the north, but maybe south. There are many valleys to the south, all with farms, a store, a school. Was it so unrealistic to think of people there, alive, afraid to leave?

  I decided to go to them. I would prepare myself for a long journey and a long search. I would go as Mr Loomis had before me—wearing the safe-suit, pulling the cart. I would take the binoculars, and perhaps the gun. I would walk as far as I could each day, looking for the children in the dream.

  Once I had developed the plan, and begun to realize that it was not just a wish but something that I was actually going to do, there were many things to think about. I had no idea how much food remained in the wagon, and of course I would also need water. I didn’t know how the air tank worked, or whether I could adjust the safe-suit to fit me. Most important, I had to work out a way to get the suit and cart without being seen, and shot. One person, Edward, had already lost his life because of the suit, and I knew that Mr Loomis would not hesitate to kill me for it if he got the chance.

  Yet for almost a month he has left me alone. I do not know why, but I knew what he was doing, because every morning I would hear the tractor engine starting, and it would continue, sometimes loud, sometimes quiet until mid-afternoon. Several times I hid behind the brush further down the ridge and watched. He would be cultivating the garden or fertilizing the corn crop. Always he seemed intent on what he was doing, so that I almost felt that I could sneak down the hillside into the henhouse to gather eggs, or fish in the pond without his noticing. But of course the risk was too great.

  How did I live? When I explain, it will seem strange that I did not choose to leave long before now, for my life during that time was more miserable than I ever thought possible. Much of the time I was hungry. I picked mushrooms and blackberries on the ridge; for anything else, I had to sneak into the valley at night. I stole vegetables from the garden I had planted myself, and ate them raw, or cooked them over a fire at night. Sometimes when there was no moon or the sky was cloudy, I would fish at the pond. That was frightening, for I always felt that he would guess I might come, and wait there to trap me. Once I sneaked into the henhouse and took eggs,
but the chickens were scared, thinking from my approach at night that I was a weasel or a fox. They crowed and squawked until I was sure that he would hear them in the house. I never went back.

  Even worse than hunger was the monotony of my days. In daylight I could not go anywhere without the fear of being seen and shot at, so mostly I stayed hidden at this end of the valley. I slept quite a lot, for it was cool and shady here even during the hottest days. I worried, of course, that Mr Loomis might use Faro to lead him to my new hiding place and trap me here while I was sleeping. But the drone of the tractor was reassuring. Mr Loomis seemed finally to have realized that someone had to harvest the crops; since he would not let me do it, he would have to do it himself. Or maybe he was just waiting for me to get too confident, and relax my guard.

  Sometimes when I was sitting in the woods, waiting for dark to fall so that I could go out safely, I thought about my book. I remembered the stories that had been my favourites, and sometimes I could even remember the exact words an author had written in some special scene. But I also remembered how I had found the book that night when I had gone back to the cave after he had burned my things. That memory stirred my harshest feelings towards Mr Loomis. I am not sure I have ever hated anyone—as a child I was taught that hatred was wrong—yet I admit that I wanted to hurt him, and cause him grief. He deliberately ruined the thing I prized most. Stealing the safe-suit will be my revenge.

  I thought about the plan a lot. Still, as miserable as my life was, I could not bring myself to set the plan in motion, or even to make the first move. I suppose it was fear that held me back, and the fact that, for the moment, Mr Loomis was leaving me alone. Yet it was only a question of time: autumn was only a month away, and my food sources would be gone; and Mr Loomis would not wait forever.

  As it was, it was he who set the plan in motion, without knowing what he was doing, and without my knowing it either. On a warm afternoon I had grown bored and decided, against my better judgment, to go to the east ridge of the valley to gather berries. They were plentiful and delicious and I ate almost as many as I picked, stooping behind the bushes to keep out of sight. At one point I glanced downwards over the farm and seemed to notice something different, but my eyes came back to the blackberry bush, and it was not until I looked a second time that I realized what it was. The front door to the store was wide open.

  I could not believe my eyes. At first I thought that Mr Loomis must be inside the store, gathering supplies for himself. I shrank lower behind the brush and waited for him to emerge. I waited for a long time, but there was no sign of him. Then suddenly I thought: What if it is an accident? Suppose he simply meant to lock it, and forgot? The longer I waited, the more I became convinced that it was true. He had gone into the store before lunch to get some things he needed, and in his hurry he had forgotten to fasten the padlock. The heavy door had swung open. He had gone down the road to the house without looking back.

  I was beside myself with excitement. My mind flooded quickly with the tastes and smells of food I had not eaten for the past month: tinned meat, beans, soup, biscuits. I thought of supplies that I needed for the trip: more clothes, a better knife, torch batteries, a compass. I would not get another chance to go into the store; I had to take the risk now. Warily I began to creep forward, always staying behind the brush. In the valley nothing moved.

  I came to a place where the brush stopped, so that there was nothing for me to hide behind. The field, with the pond, stretched to my right; ahead of me, the road and the store. I walked slowly along the fence row, turning to look on every side. All was quiet. I felt braver and braver. I was only fifty yards from the road. Suddenly a rabbit exploded from underneath my feet, and I leapt backwards in surprise and fear. Something moved in the window of the store and a shot rang out. I turned and ran. He fired again, but the shot missed widely, and I thought I heard him curse. Faro barked. I made it up the hill into the trees and hid.

  I had walked into the trap. I was too shaken to consider my own foolishness; it was only the rabbit, and Mr Loomis’s impatience, that had saved me. But it was not over yet, for no sooner had I got into the trees than he was out of the store, the gun under one arm and Faro on the leash. He crossed the road into the field, and Faro found my trail almost immediately. He began to whine and bark. I turned and ran through the woods towards the west ridge. I knew what I had to do.

  I ran to the hollow tree and got my gun. I doubled back along my own trail and moved north, crawling through thick brush and saplings. I could hear Faro’s barking on the hill below me, but I knew that it would be a time before he would catch up with me; there were many scents to sort through, and my trail was winding. After a short while the brush thinned, and I ran through the woods until I reached the banks of Burden Creek. I had spent many hours here, fishing for brook trout with David and Joseph, and although there were no fish left since the war, I remembered the course of the stream bed. I walked partway across the water on a series of flat stones, then jumped across a narrow pool on to a smooth, shallow ridge of rock that connected with the opposite bank. I hurried across the ridge and through more trees, and hid behind a stone. I could see the crossing place clearly, though I was some distance away. I balanced the gun across my knee, and sighted it.

  I did not wait long. I was too far away to hear the sound of his crashing through the brush, so that his sudden appearance, with Faro, near the stream’s edge almost caught me off guard. The dog was straining on the leash and was in the water almost before Mr Loomis knew what was happening. Then suddenly he remembered, and jerked back on the leash. At that moment I aimed the gun above his head and fired.

  He had not known I had the gun, and I think he really could not believe it when he heard the shot. He stood still for about ten seconds, then he yelled and leapt to one side. He released the dog and ran into a grove of trees. I fired again, but he had disappeared from sight, and I guessed from the motion of the brush that he had headed downhill, back towards the house.

  Faro was swimming in Burden Creek. He had found my scent but, instead of following my trail on the rocks, he had plunged into the water. It was well over his head, and he had to fight the current. All in all he was probably in the stream for more than five minutes. Then he found the ridge where I had walked and jumped on to it, and on to the other bank. In a few more minutes he was by my side.

  I hid behind the stone until dark. By then I was sure that Mr Loomis would have left the hillside and gone into the house. I led Faro to my camp and fed him some dried mushrooms and offered him my own dinner of vegetables, but he was not much interested in that. He slept beside me all night and was sick in the morning. I expected he would be sick for several days—I remembered the course of illness in Mr Loomis—but I suppose dogs react differently from human beings, for by nightfall he was dead.

  Now I am ready. I start my plan before daybreak tomorrow morning. It may be I will not write in this journal again. I know that if Mr Loomis catches me with the safe-suit he will shoot to kill.

  It is sad when I think how happy I felt when I was ploughing the field.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  August 7th

  I am writing this at the top of Burden Hill. I am wearing the safe-suit. I have already taken the cart and my supplies out of the valley down the road towards Ogdentown. I have come back for one last confrontation with Mr Loomis. I must talk to him. I cannot just walk away from him, from this valley, from all that I hoped for, without a word. I know there is danger in this. He will come searching for me and he will have a gun; but I have a gun too, and from where I sit, hidden at the edge of the deadness, I can see the whole valley spread out before me. I will see him before he sees me. I will make him stop and drop his gun.

  And if he refuses—I try not to think. I know I could not kill him. I will try to run into the brush before he can shoot, to hide in the deadness where he cannot come to search.

  While I wait for him I will finish my account of what happened to me in this va
lley.

  I could not bury Faro; I had no shovel. I carried his body to the east ridge of the valley and laid it on the ground, and covered it with stones. I knew then that I could not stay in the valley any longer. I was too sad and angry, and did not want to think of Mr Loomis, or see him again.

  Last night I slept in the valley for the last time. I lay awake for a long time, thinking of the plan and the hard, dangerous work of putting it into action. I knew that the risks were grave, but there was no reason to wait any longer. In setting the trap for Faro I had exposed an important secret: I had a gun, and bullets. Mr Loomis could not ignore that. He would be afraid to work outdoors, and would do nothing until he had thought of a scheme to catch me, or at least to get the gun. He would be very careful, and more dangerous than ever before.

  Yet there was one thing that was on my side. I remember when I was a little girl, on Sunday afternoons my father and I would sit at the kitchen table playing chess. Usually my father won; he had been playing the game for many years, and had the benefit of experience. But there were a few times when I mounted an attack in such a way that every move my father made was in his own defence, so that he did not have time to effect any organized plan against me. My father called this “taking the offensive”, and he said it was the way to win. It seemed to me that in my relationship with Mr Loomis I had finally reached the point where I could “take the offensive”. I had caught him off guard, and frightened him. I had to take advantage of that.