by Amanda Leduc
This time Annie is the one who pulls her hand away, her fist balled tight, like she’s a child afraid the kiss will disappear.
Elyse is on the couch when they go upstairs to their room. They climb into the bed without speaking and wind their bodies together—Annie curled inside and Tasha behind her, her arms sliding around Annie’s slender torso. Her golden-haired princess, all dirt and sweat.
* * *
Another evening, Tasha’s alone on her rounds, driving the ambulance in widening circles, looking for places they might have missed. Just as she decides to turn for home, she once again sees the dark-haired woman, Heather, coming toward her from the mountain, carrying her babies. Their red hair shines even from this far away. Tasha stops beside her.
“Heather,” she calls. The woman keeps walking, her eyes on the ground. “Are you all right?”
Heather lifts her head, startled, then nods. “I’m just tired,” she says.
What happened in that other fire? Tasha wants to reach out and touch her. To crawl back to that moment in front of the hospital, when she touched Heather’s forehead and heard the high-pitched sound of screaming. The taste of starlight at once impossible and unmistakable in her mouth. Where had that come from? What did it mean?
“Okay,” she says instead. “Well—Annie and I are in a townhouse by the hospital. The one with the blue roof. If you need anything.”
Heather shrugs. “Okay,” she says. “Thank you.”
“Where were you walking?”
Heather’s face is still shuttered, but she says, “I was just in the forest for a little bit. The trees relax me.”
“I was just curious. I don’t care where you go.” Then, tentatively. “Maybe I could come with you sometime?”
Heather doesn’t say anything, but since she’s still standing there, Tasha asks, “Remember that first day, by the ambulance, when I touched your face? What did you see?”
Heather sighs. “That there was a fire,” she says. “Or—there had been a fire. And you were alone.” She looks back down at the ground. “Sometimes I see things like that. Other people’s—memories. I know it sounds ridiculous.”
“I saw you,” Tasha says, and Heather’s face softens in surprise. “Or—I heard you. When my hand touched your face, I saw the mountain and clouds, and I heard you scream. What happened? Did someone fall?”
Heather stares at her for a long moment. “My father,” she says, eventually. “My father had an accident on the mountain. He died.”
“I’m so sorry.” Tasha feels her eyes blur with tears.
“It’s all right,” Heather says. “It was a long time ago.” Then, still looking at Tasha, “Your fire wasn’t a long time ago, was it?”
Tasha looks away from Heather, out through the windshield of the ambulance and up the street, which is slowly being overtaken by green. “No.” She sniffs, then wipes at her nose with her hand. “My parents, two years ago. They died in a house fire.”
“I’m so sorry,” Heather says. When Tasha turns back to her, there’s an understanding deep in Heather’s eyes. Tasha wants to fall into it. She feels tiny, like a child.
“I try to forget,” Tasha says. “Or—not forget, I’ll never forget, I just—concentrate. On something else. You know?” Then she takes a breath, uncomfortably aware that she’s starting to babble. “How did you see what you saw? And why did I see your memory? That’s never happened to me before.”
Heather lifts her shoulders a little. “I’m not sure,” she says. Now her face is—not unfriendly, exactly, but warier. “I should get back,” she says. “I’ve been gone a long time.”
“Do you want a ride?”
“No, thank you.”
“Well. You know where we are if you…need anything.”
“Yes,” Heather says. “You said that already.”
Tasha flushes. “Right,” she says. “Well—I’ll see you around, then, I guess.” Heather only nods and starts walking. After a moment, Tasha puts the ambulance in gear.
To her right, the mountain. She’s heard the rumours about it. Strange animals in the trees. People who disappear. The stories the city people tell about the mountain comfort her, in a weird way. They remind her of the stories her mother told her as a child. The mountain and its secrets have endured—they will survive long after all of humanity is gone, whether by disaster or illness or old age.
This mountain, the one closest to them, rises pristine and untouched into the clouds. Did Heather’s father fall from there?
Then Tasha shakes her head. We can endure, she thinks. Maybe Elyse is right—maybe help will come. We just need to be smart and care for each other and focus on concrete things. The things we know to be true, and not the things we imagine.
There’s a spark of something in the city. She can sense it. It isn’t hope yet, but it’s close.
* * *
When she gets back to the middle of the city, there is yelling in the square. The area in front of the name boards is chaotic, frenzied, filled with rage. Half the people left in the city, it seems, are milling about in the streets, angry and frightened.
Tasha pulls the ambulance up as close as she can, then jumps out, shoving the keys into her pocket. “What’s going on?” she shouts, making her way through the crowd.
Kevin stands in front of the crowd, his arms spread wide, holding everyone back. Behind him, in front of the name boards, stand three people—a woman, a man, and Annie.
The woman has one arm locked around Annie’s neck. The other hand holds a knife against Annie’s throat.
“What’s going on?” Tasha says, again. She clenches her fists and fights to push a long-ago dream memory away. Fiery birds burning holes in the ground. A woman who screams and screams.
“What’s going on?” the woman shouts. She looks right at Tasha. “The food is disappearing—that’s what’s fucking going on! You think we’re stupid? You think we don’t know you’re going to take off with the gas?”
“I don’t think anyone’s stupid,” Tasha says calmly. She holds out her hands and takes a step forward—and then, when the woman moves the knife and Annie winces, stops. “We’ve been collecting and saving what we can. So that everyone will survive. That’s all.”
“So it’s looting when everyone else does it but it’s fine when it’s done by a fucking stranger?” The man steps forward and jabs a finger into Tasha’s collarbone. Tasha can’t remember his name.
Tasha spreads her hands farther, steps back from him. I have nothing. I have nothing. “I haven’t accused anyone of looting,” she says.
“She did!” the woman screams, jerking her head to Annie.
“They were.” Annie speaks through gritted teeth. “They climbed over the enclosure. They were trying to get at the gas.”
“So what if we were?” the man shouts. Wendell. That’s his name. “Who the fuck do you think you are, anyway? You don’t even live here.”
“I’m nobody,” Tasha says, and she means it. “But I do live here now. And so does Annie. We’re just trying to help.”
“Well, guess what,” the woman says. “You’re not helping. Do you think hoarding all of the food in that godforsaken mall is going to help us in the winter? Is hoarding the gas going to help other people come to the city and help? Is it?”
“Help is coming,” Tasha says. “We just have to be patient. We just have to look out for each other. I know this is hard.”
“Do you?” the woman screams. She flings Annie away from her and moves toward Tasha, brandishing the knife in her face. “My home was destroyed. I haven’t slept in three days. I don’t feel safe. And no one is coming. No one is coming to help.”
Tasha doesn’t flinch. “Many of us don’t have homes anymore.” She ignores the ripple of unease that goes through the crowd behind her, like a great beast slowly waking from sleep. She ignores Annie, stumbli
ng forward to stand in the crowd. She reaches tentatively for the woman’s shoulder, but the woman shies away. “But we’re building a new home, together. One that can last for as long as we need it.”
The woman laughs, then sobs. She turns around and throws the knife at the boards—it goes deep, splintering an unknown name in two. “We’re fucking stuck here,” the woman says. “We can’t leave because you won’t let us have gas to go. How far do you think any of us is going to get on foot? I’ve seen the vines growing over the roads. And we’re going to run out of food. Whatever you think you’re building—it isn’t going to last. We’re all going to starve.”
“We’re not going to starve,” Tasha says. Then she says it again, louder. “We are not going to starve.”
“Maybe not now,” the woman says. “But if help doesn’t come, we’ll all be dead by the end of the winter.” Her eyes burn. “And if that doesn’t happen, the mountain will drive us all mad anyway.”
Tasha’s breath stills, for a moment. “What?” she says.
“You’re not from here,” the woman snaps. “You don’t know—but we do. Just wait. We’ll stay here and starve, and people will start disappearing. They’ll get lost, or they’ll walk too close to the mountain and bears will eat them. Bears—or other things. Monsters that hide in the trees.”
“Monsters aren’t real,” Tasha says. She keeps her voice soft. “That’s only a story. And I won’t let anyone go up the mount—”
“You don’t have anything to do with it!” the woman cries. “We all know—but you don’t. You haven’t lived in the shadow of this mountain. You do not understand.”
Tasha feels the crowd behind her shiver, as if they were on the edge of unleashing a wail. “Heather goes near the mountain. She’s fine. No monsters at all.”
“Heather?” the woman sneers. “The one with the crazy father who died on the mountain? It’s because of her that we all stay away! She’s the last person you should be talking to. She’s already nuts.”
“She’s not nuts,” Tasha says, severely.
“Bullshit. She says she went up the mountain, but she walks like this?” The woman acts out a limp, staggering around. “How’s she supposed to get up the mountain? She’s a liar. Don’t believe a word she says.”
Tasha glances around. The people from her city look confused, but everyone else looks uneasy, like these are things they’ve been whispering about for years. She locks eyes with a man who stands beside Kevin. He shrugs.
“We’ve all heard things about the mountain,” he says. “But they’re only stories. You know, the kind parents tell to keep their children in the house. Johnny went up the mountain and was never seen again. That kind of thing.”
“They aren’t just stories!” the woman cries again. “You know they aren’t.”
“And Heather?” Tasha presses.
The man shrugs again. “Every village has its idi—” he sees Tasha’s expression, catches himself—“someone eccentric, right? That’s all it is.”
Tasha grits her teeth. Maybe she goes there to get away from all of you. Then she stops and stills herself. They are all terrified, she thinks. They are all dancing on the edge of so much. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out the keys to the ambulance, then drops them on the ground in front of the woman. “Take the ambulance and go. The last thing I want is for people to stay here and sink into despair.”
The woman stares at her. “You’re not serious.”
“Do I look like I’m making a joke?” Tasha turns to face the crowd. “Anyone can leave here,” she says. “You can take the ambulance right now and go. Try to find another place that maybe hasn’t been hit as hard. Send help our way if you can.” She turns back to the woman. “If you don’t want to stay, then I want you to go.”
The woman looks, briefly, hurt by this, but again her anger flares. She bends and grabs the keys. She shouts. “Anyone who wants to come—get in.”
The woman throws open the driver’s door and climbs inside. She turns the key, and the engine rumbles to life. The man who was standing beside her runs around to the passenger side, then gets in. And suddenly other people are scrambling into the back, tossing a few of Tasha’s carefully gathered boxes out onto the ground to make room. The woman in the driver’s seat yells, “Stop! We might need that!” Then she looks straight at Tasha. “Fuck you!” she shouts, and she rams the pedal to the floor.
People scream and jump out of the way just in time as the ambulance speeds down the street and around the corner, out of sight.
Tasha turns to Annie. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Annie brushes at the grime on her pants.
“What happened?”
Annie shrugs. “You heard her. I confronted them trying to break in—they ran, and I chased them to the square. Then she pulled the knife.”
Tasha nods. Her hands tremble, even as she continues to hold them tight in fists. The crowd is slowly dispersing around them.
How many, she wonders, already regret that they didn’t jump in the ambulance too? “Where’s Elyse?”
Annie runs a hand through her hair. “Back at the house. I was just out doing a final walk around the mall.”
“Don’t walk around alone anymore,” Tasha says, thinking of the crowd. A beast gone back to slumber.
“Me?” Annie says, incredulous. “Tasha, she was yelling at you.”
She’s already turning away, heading back to the house. “I’ll be fine,” she says, and Annie doesn’t answer.
* * *
The next morning they’re awoken by Elyse, who starts coughing so hard when she gets out of bed that she falls over.
Tasha is on her feet right away. Annie reaches for the towels they’ve stacked by the nightstand just for this. She lays them over the mattress, mounts the pillows, and covers them with a towel too.
“I’m sorry,” Elyse rasps, as she climbs onto the bed and lies face down over the pillows.
“Don’t be silly,” Tasha says.
Annie starts counting, and with each beat Tasha slaps Elyse’s back, working up and down her ribs, dislodging the buildup in her lungs bit by bit.
As Elyse coughs mucus out onto the towel, Annie swaps one towel for another. She doesn’t stop counting.
Eventually, Tasha’s efforts start Elyse coughing in earnest, and she eases off and steps back from the bed, raising an arm to wipe the sweat from her forehead.
After she’s coughed herself out, Elyse lies silent on the mattress for a few minutes. Then she turns over, sits up, and reaches for her shirt. “Thank you,” she says. Annie gathers up the filthy towels.
Tasha thinks about Elyse every time the wind rises, kicking up dust and debris. Once upon a time Elyse had wanted to be a doctor too. The new drug she was taking, the surgery—these were going to help her climb a mountain.
If help doesn’t come, Elyse will be lucky if she lives out the year.
“Let’s have another session tonight,” Tasha says as they all start to get ready for the day.
Elyse shrugs. Already she’s trying to put it behind them. “I should be good now,” she says. “I’ll help Annie in the pharmacy. I won’t be a bother, I promise.”
“You’re not a bother, Elyse.” It’s what Tasha says every time. It’s what she says to everybody.
Elyse shrugs at this, too, and goes out the bedroom door.
* * *
The people who took the ambulance don’t come back. Tasha tries to forget them, tries to focus on the city. They keep stockpiling all the food they can find. They build greenhouses, make garden plots, plant as many little seed packets as they can. The days are long and unrelenting.
There is no news. Sometime after the knife incident, others break into the strip mall in the night, steal gas and food, and drive away from the city.
Even though there is very little rain, the
grass grows high, vines climb over the houses, and weeds fill the road. But the bean, pepper, potato, and tomato plants they grow yield vegetables that are stunted and unappetizing—if they yield anything at all. Tasha goes from one greenhouse to the next, adding fertilizer collected from the garden centres. Nothing works. The vegetables do not get bigger, and they all taste the same—bland, with a faint tang of metal, of burning.
We’re all going to starve, the woman had said. Celeste, Tasha had found out later. She had lived in the mountain city all her life. Her words run on repeat through Tasha’s head while she tries to sleep.
We’re all going to starve.
We’re all going to starve.
* * *
“How much do we have in the supply rooms?” It’s late summer and Tasha has begun to ask this question once a day at least. She and Annie are sprawled on a mattress on the floor of their makeshift clinic—a little store in the strip mall that used to be a butcher shop. They’ve dedicated one of the generators to keeping its fridges running, to safeguard the medications they’ve scrounged.
Tasha spends most of her nights here now, in case someone needs her. Sometimes Annie joins her, though mostly she stays at the townhouse with Elyse. When Tasha sleeps alone, she dreams of birds who burn holes in the ground. A bat made of human flesh and ribs. She wakes screaming, slick with sweat.
“We have enough,” Annie says. “If we’re careful.”
“How much is enough?”
Annie sighs. “If we’re smart, enough to last us until spring. Maybe a little longer. We’ll be eating crackers and canned tuna and nothing else by the end of it.” She circles Tasha’s right breast with her hand, thumbs her nipple. Moonlight glints on her wedding ring—silver, identical to Tasha’s. The only thing that either of them have left from their old lives, except for each other.
“Tasha,” Annie says, slowly, “help isn’t coming, is it.”
