“Uh, thanks,” I mutter, needing a thick swallow to lend strength to my voice. “I think I’ll wait a little while for that.”
Certain I’ve gotten away undetected, I turn to start organizing the shelf Tanisha set me to, but her response makes me freeze in my tracks. “Don’t wait too long.”
“What would make you say that?” I more squeak than say.
Her smile is gentle when she sees what must be a deer-caught-in-the-headlights look on my face. “We lost a lot of people of all ages, and no death hurts less than another. But so many young children died, and often their parents as well as they tried to protect them. I would never declare that it’s every fertile woman’s duty to have children now because that’s totalitarian, fascist crap that nobody wants, but we will need a lot of children to be born to make up for those who died. A lot of young women were raised with the advice to make career first and secure education, jobs, and husbands, but none of that matters anymore now. Knowing how to treat injuries and how to hunt and grow your own food makes you a million times more useful now than ever before in the history of mankind. So why wait until you’re 35 and need a fertility clinic that doesn’t exist anymore? Find a guy, fall in love, raise your smelly bundles of joy, and watch their kids have kids before you die surrounded by an entire village full of your own family. There’s no reason to hold back.”
She adds nothing to that, but I get the sense that she’s convinced I don’t need to be on the lookout anymore. That idea disturbs me, until I realize she probably thinks that I have something going on with either Moore or Collins, considering how often she must have seen us converse in hushed tones over the past weeks. That makes me feel both stupid and less paranoid all of a sudden, but it’s also a warning. If I want to keep things under wraps, I need to stop lurking around and pretending like I’m involved in clandestine operations. Of all the things I expected to take from this conversation, that’s the one I least expected.
When it becomes apparent that I’m not going to spill my guts, Tanisha turns back to the schedule, still smiling to herself. She spares me further embarrassment—she thinks, but lies, really—by telling me who’s up for a checkup this morning, and soon we’re both too busy to chat. When we close up the station in the evening, I feel just a little better about my future. Of course it makes sense that the army set up places for expectant mothers, particularly considering the state of our species. It’s good to know I have a place to go to if I need it. When, I realize I need to correct myself—Tanisha herself doesn’t seem to think she’s qualified to help deliver children, or else she wouldn’t have sent the woman elsewhere. Maybe she’d make an exception for me? Probably, but I’m not quite sure that’s a good idea.
I stall for another day before I look up who is on perimeter schedule, and then catch a ride to Kevin and Dave’s hideout with Moore. I don’t trust our town radio operators, but I know those two weirdos can keep a secret. Moore comes with me when Kevin asks us inside, presumably to check with them for provisions needed.
“Guys, I need to tell you something,” I declare once the door is securely locked. “What exactly do you know about the towns that have midwives?” And thus starts one of the most uncomfortable conversations of my life, as can be expected between a pregnant teenager and three older bachelors. But, hey, at least I leave with the sure knowledge that we literally live right next to one of the settlements that have a midwife, Sylvie, and from the sounds of it, she has been involved in helping to organize everything from the get-go. I wouldn’t dare walk south across the Colorado border, but in case of emergency, a few heavily armed cars could be in Frenton in a matter of hours. The town is on one of the trading routes that head west to Utah, so I might even be able to send a message with some traders that head there. Kevin promised me he’d inquire about her work, but I myself won’t ask so that nobody connects me to pregnancy in any way. Knowing that there is someone close who will help me, come what may, lets me sleep through the night for the first time in what feels like forever, even though I still silently weep myself to exhaustion first.
Everything will be good. I know it.
14 SADIE - MAY
Nothing is going to be good, ever again.
The warning comes over the radio ten days after Dave sneakily hands me a piece of paper with instructions from Sylvie about how I can contact her, and what to look out for at the end of the first trimester of my pregnancy. We didn’t even know that Dispatch can override our radio controls, but what protest the operator has when he can’t switch channels or turn down the volume of the blaring unit disappears a few words into the transmission—Dispatch is declaring a state of civil war.
The only thing that’s worse is when, in the evening after dinner when everyone has been arguing, upset and confused, a second call comes in—and I know this is going to be bad when it takes me several seconds to recognize Pia’s voice. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her upset. I sure as hell have never heard her cry.
My mind refuses to make sense of what she tells us once she’s calm enough to stop switching languages accidentally. Two dead, seven injured. Well, more like, four dead, because I don’t need her assessment to know that once Bree has succumbed to the virus, Nate won’t be coming back from that again. Losing Bailey and Cho is bad enough, but Bree, too? It’s as if my mind decides that’s one level of pain too strong for it to handle right now. I’d welcome the numbness, but I’m aware it’s fleeting, and what comes next—
Is devastating.
Once the first tear leaves my eye, it’s as if someone blasts open the floodgates. I cry, I sob, I can’t breathe, and then I’m puking again, only to break down into even harder sobs. On top of the pain that feels like my soul is flayed alive, I feel guilty for how bad I’m hurting. Hearing of Chris’s death wasn’t quite this level of bad. But then I realize it’s because I’ve been raw and vulnerable for weeks that this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m not the only one affected, but most people around haven’t formed the level of attachment to these people that I have—or are emotionally dead inside, like my mother. Seeing her sad and slightly red-eyed but otherwise composed is like a slap in the face—and makes a different glass spill over.
“You did this!” I screech, spittle flying from my lips. Part of me is still numb and detached, and I feel like I’m watching myself fly into the worst rage of my life. I have no control, and right then I don’t want it anyway. “This is all on you! You kicked them out! You and your fucking prejudice! You killed them all!”
I make a go at her, not knowing whether I want to punch her in the face or leave it at a slap, but Collins is right there, catching me before I can cross half the distance separating us. I flail at him—which does exactly nothing since he has easily eighty pounds and half a head on me—before I give up, going back to screaming at my mother. “Wasn’t it enough that you got Chris killed? Now the others, too? They fucking saved us! Without them we would have starved to death during the winter, or gotten eaten by wolves! And how did you pay them back? By fucking sending them out to get slaughtered?!”
I expect her to deny it—or do what she usually does when I’m having a tantrum: ignore me—but she remains standing there, next to my father, taking my anger for what it’s worth. I wish she would shout right back at me, and it takes her—very low—utterance for me to understand why she doesn’t: she feels guilty. “I know.”
“Now you do?!” I want to scream, but sobs, followed by hiccups, make it impossible to get anything intelligible out. The pain becomes too much to bear and I sag in on myself, the strong arms wrapped around me the only thing still keeping me up.
This can’t be happening. This can’t be real. It makes no sense, and it’s not fair—
But I know that’s not the point, and nobody cares, and I’ve never felt so alone in my life.
There’s a single sliver of hope on the horizon—at least now our people are coming home. Those that are still alive, that is.
Inside I’m a raging
volcano of grief, but after a night of tossing and turning, I wake to apathy weighing my entire body down with lead. Maybe it all was too much; maybe this is my body shutting everything down so that what little energy I have left is reserved for my baby. Just thinking of the life slowly growing into a person makes the tears stream down my cheeks again. What kind of world is this that I’m thrusting my child into? How can anyone even want to have a child in this world?
My thoughts turn dark. I don’t want to, but the pain in my chest makes me wonder—can I, in good conscience, do this to my child? Or would it be more merciful to spare him all that agony that is just waiting out there to eat him alive? I’m sure that someone who knows how to deliver babies also knows how not to carry them to term…
I don’t really consider getting an abortion. As soon as the thoughts form in my mind, the pain becomes overwhelming, swept up in the maelstrom to be carried away and never contemplated again. Right now I don’t give a shit about the fate of the world or humans in general, but the very concept of the last thing that remains of the man I love ceasing to exist is unbearable. I will do anything for this child, including giving him the chances his father never had—to hold his own children, and their children, and so on. And it’s that very conviction that finally gets me to manage to clean myself up, get dressed, and face the world again. But that doesn’t mean I’m exactly present enough to fully partake in everything that goes on around us.
Our guys return home—or some of them, at least. Pia, Andrej, Burns, and Taylor are missing—apparently, Pia decided to send Burns and Andrej back to see if they can keep Nate from going after whoever is responsible for the ambush all on his own, and she and Taylor went on to the Silo to discuss things with the people there, and hopefully have a secure connection to coordinate with the other scavengers. That means all of four men—exhausted, dirty, and still bleeding from the odd, badly patched-up wounds—crawl out of their cars. They must have been driving day and night to get here in just three days’ time.
And they are not the only ones seeking shelter.
As soon as the warning went out, the radio lit up, and it hasn’t stopped ever since. No less than twelve groups have asked for shelter, and after hesitating with the fifth and sixth, the village council decides against upholding the rules of how many groups are allowed in at a time, and for how long. Word travels fast among the desperate, and within days we have over two hundred people asking for shelter. Once we explain to Dispatch that we’d love to help but our resources are limited, we are first being cursed at, and then connected with other towns who, like us, would love to not bite the hands that helped us, but also won’t close the door in the face of those that need shelter, at least until we can find out what’s actually going on. Rumors are flying high, and for every fact confirmed, a million more tales come in over the radio and told by the people we open our doors to. Some say a third of the registered scavenger groups have been attacked and killed, but we can only get verification for five—among them our people and the second group they were working with, and three trader caravans. But caravans go missing all the time, and one of those confirmed shows up in a different state the next day, confused and alarmed because their radio receiver broke and they had no clue that people thought they went missing in the first place, let alone became the victims of an unknown menacing force.
I’m standing right next to Dad when he starts calling old army buddies at bases all over the country, and while at first he gets stonewalled, it soon becomes obvious that they are just as clueless as the scavengers, their denials honest and believable. But it’s also impossible not to believe Martinez when he’s standing right there in front of us, giving us a detailed recount of who ambushed them—including a name: Bucky Hamilton. I know that name, although I barely remember the face connected to it. I know he used to be a friend of Nate’s, but something must have happened to keep him from dropping by once I was old enough to care. I also know the name because it’s scrawled across two boxes in the very back of the storage space in our bunker, where the personal effects of the people who initially built and stocked it are left. They are the only two unclaimed boxes, still waiting there for their owners. I know Nate cut open the tape and went through them in search of anything useful last winter after weeks of deliberation—but what can you do? The apocalypse destroyed a lot of emotional limits. I have no clue who the second box belongs to—his wife, maybe? It must be a woman as some of Bree’s gear has been salvaged from there. I doubt Nate told her, but I know that there were no spares of anything smaller-sized when we got to the bunker, and nothing that fits Pia would have worked for Bree. It doesn’t really matter, and now it’s even less important than before—except for the fact that one thing is obvious: not only did our people get betrayed, but the one who did it was one of their own. Nate’s former best friend—who, indirectly, got his wife killed.
I’m no longer surprised that Pia sent Andrej and Burns back to babysit Nate. In fact, what is surprising is that she isn’t there right now, keeping him from running off and doing something incredibly stupid.
Time crawls, but also flies. I’ve lost track of how many days ago that terrible warning came over the radio, and I can barely remember to eat, let alone regularly. Suddenly—and quite unexpectedly—Taylor and Burns show up, sneaking into town in the middle of the night. Not actually sneaking, but they leave their car outside the gate, and without explaining much to anyone—least of all me—they gather up the rest, and they leave just after midnight. I’m too stunned—and, frankly, hurt—to ask for details. In the morning, everyone pretends like nothing happened, which is easy with so many new people, and our guys to most are just vaguely familiar faces from before, if even that. Those who know better—Mom, Dad, Collins, Moore, Dave, and Kevin—pretend like nothing much happened.
Dispatch is putting pressure on us to choose sides, and Mom isn’t having it. Neither is the leader of the large colony in Utah that we’ve been in contact with since spring, and it only takes a few hours of chatting on the radio for the two of them to forge a more permanent union. Unlike our collective that pretty much grows organically, the Utah settlement has been conceptualized as a home for as large a community as they can handle. Although they’ve already taken in twice the traders and scavengers than we did, they volunteer for anyone who is seeking shelter to come to them. That’s the official side of it. Between the two of them, Minerva—their leader—explains to Mom that she’s been in contact with Commander Wilkes of the Silo, and they are planning to work things out between them. Because of the attention Wilkes gets, he needs to remain a silent partner and play ball with all possible parties involved, but his heart beats to a different drum.
You wouldn’t believe how easily motivated two hundred people are when you promise them a permanent sanctuary if they just help with building it. Three days after our guys disappear, we already have enough houses up to accommodate everyone, and they are starting to dig trenches for an extended wall—even building materials were being brought in from everywhere.
And it’s then that I suddenly realize something: this isn’t the result of plans made in the frantic scramble of the past days, no. This is a contingency plan—and one made along very distinct lines that have been drilled into me since early childhood.
At first, my mind refuses to wrap itself around the concept. That doesn’t change as I watch my parents welcome yet another scavenger group fresh off the dirty road. It’s hard to concentrate on the news they bring; it’s much easier to blankly stare at the “wanted” posters they’ve snatched up at another settlement, carrying headshots of Nate and Bree. My mind starts churning slowly, but then faster and faster, and I stare at my mother, trying to make sense of the fragmented suspicions that slowly piece themselves together in my mind.
Has she been in on this from the start? It would explain her terrible overreaction. Then again, she seemed so genuine in her downright righteous anger, and while I know she can lie to my face, she would have had to keep this up fo
r weeks; months, even. I think back to last winter, and a different explanation presents itself, one that’s more likely: Nate must have lied to her. I have no clue why or how, but he must have told her something that led to her knee-jerk reaction to demand that they leave, and whatever it is, it’s still going strong.
I look to my father next, and I must have quite the glare going on because he averts his eyes, then gives me our special wink—the secret, non-verbal check-in we’ve had going on since I was a kid. When I couldn’t sleep, he would sometimes sneak into my room, armed with a cookie and a super-special good-night story, but I’d only get both if I promised to never, ever tell Mom. Since she was the one who’d baked the cookies, and reading to me with a flashlight under the covers couldn’t have been as sneaky as it seemed to me back then, I’m sure she was aware of it happening. And now he gives me that very same look again—but I doubt Mom is aware of it now.
That Mom is enacting one of Nate’s contingency plans makes so much sense, and the more I think about it, the more I see the clues everywhere. I can only imagine how that must have started—and maybe that’s simply the posters talking, I can’t tell. But I imagine a clandestine midnight meeting where he voices his conviction that he might still have a target on his back, and to keep us safe when he goes out there to check, he needs to make sure that no possible fallout hits us. The fact that Hamilton was the one to spring a trap on him pretty much confirms that Nate was right—but he couldn’t have seen the full consequences coming, or he would never have endangered Bree’s life. It also explains why the rest of them dropped by but just as quickly disappeared again—they are still on high alert and in emergency mode, and staying here for a longer time might undo all the work they’ve done and render their sacrifices meaningless.
Beyond Green Fields #4 - The Ballad of Sadie & Bates: A post-apocalyptic anthology Page 12
