After (39 page)

“Well,” Eva says, nudging Rick aside to stand next to Karen. “He's fat and happy, again.” She looks at Karen's pallid face, her still-wild eyes, and gently strokes her back.

“Want to hold him?”

Karen nods, and Eva puts the baby in her arms.

“I think I'll go around back, get a few logs,” John says. “Later, we can have a fire.”

“Let me. Rick, give me a hand?” Smith leads the lumberjack off on their quest.

Holding the baby, half asleep in her arms, flanked now by Hope and Eva, little by little Karen seems to come back to herself. Eva gives her a minute, then says, “I think Mr. Stinky there needs a diaper change.”

“Here,” John says, “I'll get him cleaned up.”

But Eva says, “I'll go. And Hope and I can show Karen the house.”

Still holding the baby, Karen goes with Eva and Hope. “Sorry about that,” she says when they're in Eva's room.

“Nothing to be sorry about.” Eva shucks the baby out his dirty diaper. “No one could blame you, being on edge, after everything that happened today, being in a new place with strangers.”

She gets little Gareth cleaned up and into a fresh diaper and a yellow onesie, and mother and child join the others on the bed. All of Karen's attention is on the baby, lying on his back, grabbing at his feet.

“Can I ask you?” Eva's voice is careful, quiet. Karen meets her eyes. “Joey and Rick. You're afraid of them?”

Karen glances at Hope, then gives Eva a probing look.

“Hope's okay to hear. She knows what goes on.”

Karen shrugs. “Those two aren't so bad. The two of them on their own probably wouldn't hurt a fly. But Rick's...thoughtless, I guess. Doesn't see the line between carousing and...worse. And Joey, he's an odd one. He can be so thoughtful. Sensitive.

But he's weak. He just sort of drifts with the flow, like a dried leaf on a river's current.

The boy's got no will of his own.”

“So, when Bill was around...” Eva prompts, her voice gentle.

Another shrug. “Sometimes I think I don't have it so bad, with them. Didn't,” she corrects herself. “Didn't have it so bad. Compared to what's happened to others.”

“Rumors? Or have you seen things?”

“Both,” Karen says, her voice like a faint echo from somewhere far away. “I've never seen where it is, what happens, where they take them.”

“But you've seen something?”

Karen nods her head. Whispers, “My sister.” Then, in a dry monotone, like a bus driver naming stops on a route, “We both survived. Strange, because no one else in Pembroke did. Maybe it was our genes. But a few months after, it happened. She'd gone out for food, to the grocery store. Always empty now, all the food you'd want, all for free. And I was just pottering in Jennie Amstrom's garden. She'd always grown things, tomatoes, carrots, things like that. And we'd taken over tending the vegetables, so we'd have some things fresh to go with the canned stuff from the store. And I heard this strange sound. It was a minute or two before I remembered. It was a motor. A truck. I hadn't heard that sound since the plague, you know, there in Pembroke, after maybe half the people had died, a few of the sick ones had burned and blown up every car, truck, and motorcycle they found. Just like in Guthrie. And Trenton. When I realized what it was, I ran to the gate to see. At first there was nothing, just the sound moving around. They must have been one block over.

“And then I saw. I saw. Annie. Running. She came running faster than I could believe around the corner, running toward me. And behind her, the truck. Playing with her. Swerving side to side across the road behind her, slowing down to hang back, then revving up, almost running her down. And then, suddenly, she stopped. Like she realized she was leading them to me. I don't know why she didn't turn a different way, run into a yard or something. Not until it was too late. They were out of the truck, coming toward her. Then she tried to cut across a yard, but she wasn't quick enough. One of them got her, dragged her back out to the road.

“And right there, in the road, they did it. All seven of them. And I just watched. I mean, back at our house we had a gun. I could have gone and gotten it. But they all had guns. I didn't think I could do it without getting us both killed.”

“Probably not,” Eva's voice wavers.

“When they finished with her, I watched them tie her wrists behind her back, and put her in the back of the truck. And then, starting with the house where she'd tried to run into the yard, they went down the street, house by house, searching. I didn't know what to do. They took a long time in each house, it seemed like they were being so thorough, I was afraid they'd find me wherever I hid. So I ran. Toward Trenton. Made sure all the way I always had cover, somewhere to duck and hide the second I heard that engine.

“Turns out they'd already been through Trenton. Those men in the truck were headed the other way. In Trenton, I had one quiet day and night. Only I didn't sleep, because of Annie. The next day I went to look for food. The town was so still, so quiet, I felt sure it was empty, that everyone there had died, just like everyone in Pembroke had, except for me and Annie. But almost as soon as I went into the store, I heard something. And there were three men in there with me. Not the men from the truck. Just these three guys. They sort of pretended to talk to me, you know, asking where I'd come from and had I seen any other survivors, but they were sort of circling and closing in at the same time, like they were testing me. Or themselves. When I ran, that decided them, I guess. They ran after me, all three of them. Somehow, winding between buildings, I got ahead of them, and I ducked into a house. And when I didn't see or hear them come after me, I let go, just started crying and crying. And then I heard this sound, and I turned around, and there was a man, standing there all still and quiet, with a great big shotgun pointed right at me. And that was Bill.

“For a minute he didn't move or say anything. And then he asked me, 'Someone chasing after you?' and I guess I nodded, and he said, quiet and gentle, 'Well, don't be scared now. We won't let anybody hurt you.'”

“It turned out that Bill and Joey and the others had been in a sort of feud with the three men from the store, over this goddamned mansion. Have you ever heard of anything so dumb? Eight men left alive in the entire town. Every one of them could have had ten houses all to himself. But I guess people will find something to go to war over, no matter what. Anyway, Bill and the boys had seen the chase, and came to intervene.

All armed, they stuck it out with me, all quiet until the three from the store showed up and tried to get in. Two of them stuck by me, then, while Bill and two others went out and told the men from the store that they'd have to deal with them before they could get to me. That seemed to discourage them, all right, and after some angry words they left off and went away.

“I was scared to death of all of them, after what I'd seen the day before. But they were all polite. Friendly. No one grabbed at me or said anything lewd, like the men at the store had. So, when they felt it was safe and they wanted to go back to the mansion, and they promised to keep me safe, I went with them. They gave me a bedroom, said I could stay as long as I wanted, and later they served me a nice meal.

“And then,” she says, her dry monotone turning damp and wavery, “that night, after I'd left them to go to bed, Bill came to my room. He knocked, but then he just let himself in. Of course, I knew what he was there for. But how he did it. I'd never imagined anything like it. He just came up to me, real close, like we were married or something, and puts his hands around my neck, not like a threat or anything, just how a lover would, and kissed me on the mouth. I think I started crying. He took his mouth off mine and said something like, 'No, don't worry. I'm not gonna hurt you. None of us will hurt you. All of us will be nice and gentle with you.' And then he started touching me, and said, 'See?' And after another minute or two he said, 'It's not so much to ask, if we're keeping you safe. Is it?' And then he got me undressed and,” Karen looks at Hope, then turns back to Eva and just says, “you know. And after, he left, and not ten minutes later, Rick came in, probably with five or ten beers in him. And then Joey. As soon as Joey touched me I started really crying.

“Not that the others had hurt me, physically. I was just horrified. Humiliated. At first he just tried to calm me down, telling me it was all right, he was last for the night.

Bill had told the other two they had to wait until the next day. Real gentlemanly, eh? But Joey couldn't stand me crying like that, and the next minute he promised he wouldn't do anything, and that he'd stay there with me and make sure everyone else left me alone for the night. And he didn't touch me that night, just like he promised. But in the end, he took his place in line, along with the others. After the first two nights, one per night.

Every night now for the last, —what's it been—almost two years?”

When Karen starts crying, Hope puts an arm around her, strokes her hair.

“I'm ashamed of myself, crying like this, when I know, I saw, whatever's happened to Annie, probably to dozens or hundreds of others, is a thousand times worse. I don't even know what I'm so upset about, all of a sudden. After a while, it all felt kind of...normal.”

“No,” Eva says, stroking Karen's arm. “Don't feel ashamed for being angry, being sad, for how you've been treated. It's not just those who've endured the worst outrages that have that right.”

Karen nods, wipes at her tears. “What about you?”

Eva tells her story, about the lottery, being given to John, the feigned rape, about the cameras. The one thing she hides from Hope is the name of the man in the orchard who first tried to rape her.

“God,” Karen breathes, shaking her head. “You poor thing. You poor baby.”

“No. I'm really okay. It could have gone a different way, but things turned around.

No one's hurt you, have they, Hope?”

Hope shakes her head.

“Or me either. Not for a long time, now. I feel safe here. Truly. And hopefully, it'll keep getting safer, and for more and more women. And the men, too. In time.”

“Is that why you were there today? In Guthrie? Looking for women to rescue?”

Eva just smiles. “That's good. God, that's good,” Karen says, tearing up again.

“Imagine this whole place, the whole base filled up with women! And those slaver bastards stuck out there on the other side of that wall.”

“That's the idea. I mean, we didn't know about the slaving. But we figured, any women left were probably in a situation like yours, or worse.”

“You shouldn't go, though, Eva. Let the men go, bring the women back here.”

Eva smiles. “Would you have come out if I hadn't been there? Would you have gotten into the truck with four strange men?”

By the time they go down to rejoin the group, Diego—properly stitched and bandaged—and Evan have arrived, and Smith has gone to get Riggs and the food.

When she sees her friend, Hope runs to intercept Riggs and give him a big hug, then dashes back to help John finish setting up the extra chairs.

Eva introduces Karen and Riggs, then furtively whispers to Riggs, “She's nervous, all these strangers. Holding Gareth takes her mind off it.” She gives him a grateful smile and a reassuring caress across his shoulders. Riggs nods and almost manages to hide his eager need to hold his son. Soon they're all seated and ready to eat.

Smith makes a toast. “To the newest members of our little community: to Karen, Rick, and Joey.”

People clink glasses and start dishing up food from the big stainless steel serving pots Smith and Riggs have brought from the mess, but Karen taps her fork against her glass for a second toast. “I'd like to make a toast to Diego, for putting himself in harm's way to help a stranger. And to Major Smith and Evan, and especially Eva, for risking their own safety on the chance they could help people in trouble. And all of you, for letting us join your community, here.”

When she sees that Hope has finished eating, Karen relinquishes the baby so she can get to her own food. Hope holds him for a moment, then with a big smile passes him to Riggs, who is gazing down at the child with obvious, pained want.

“Thanks. I haven't seen him all day,” he says, really smiling for the first time all evening.

“That kid's going to be some egomaniac,” Smith laughs, “All of us fighting for his attention day and night.”

“No,” Karen sighs, “I think he's going to grow up to be quiet and sweet.

Thoughtful. Like his daddy.”

Riggs smiles shyly, keeping his eyes fixed on the baby. If it weren't so dark, anyone looking would see him blush.

“You know he's your spitting image?” Karen says across the table to John.

John gives her a startled little half-smile, then looks at Riggs, his shy smile gone, still staring hard at the baby in his lap, but hiding some other emotion, now, then at Smith who meets his gaze with a knowing, ironic grin.

Later, Karen seeks out John, doing the washing up in the kitchen while the rest of the party gathers by the fire in the living room.

“I guess I said something wrong, earlier.”

John leaves the water running, raising a thickening sheet of suds in the steaming sink, and turns to Karen with an easy smile.

“Well, things aren't as simple, here, as they might seem at first. I'm Gareth's father. And so is Major Smith. And so is Riggs. James.”

“You mean, you don't know which of you is the dad?”

“No. I mean all three of us are his dad.”

“Oh. Well, I'm sorry if I...I didn't mean to...”

“No, it's all right. How could you know?”

John gives her another smile, a bigger, warmer smile. It seems to melt some of Karen's uncertainty. John shuts off the tap. Turns to fully face Karen. She starts to shrink away from his eyes, but then she seems to firm up. To rise to his gaze.

“What?”

“You lost a child,” he says in a soft voice.

As if he's struck her, she turns aside. Then, again, she seems to solidify.

“Two.”

“I lost a little girl,” he tells her. “Juliette. She was almost three.”