After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia (21 page)

The sound fades, the sky lightens. “Game on,” the umpire says.

Distracted, I take a perfectly good pitch. “Strike two!”

“Damn!”

Jenna looks like she might cry.

I awoke from a nap, and Jenna was gone. I called for her, but she didn’t come. I scoured
the neighborhood but couldn’t find her. I searched under stars turning strange orbits.
I searched as purple sea monkeys pecked at the rotting treetops. I ran down a street
as two clumps, miles away, collided in a spectacular spray of dust, though I heard
no sound. I reached the schoolyard and stared across the baseball field.

The home-run fence was cut off in right field by the starry abyss, and a bunch of
see-through people huddled by the edge. A hundred feet out, a small clump turned slowly,
and I watched as one of the see-through people took a running leap toward it, missed
by some eighty feet, and tumbled away.

“Pathetic!” I heard someone shout. “Zero points!” It was Jenna’s voice. “Player one
only has twelve…no, eleven lives left. And she can’t win the game unless she reaches
the clump!”

I ran up to her. “Jenna! Why would you do such a stupid thing? I looked everywhere
for you! I thought you were dead! Why’d you run away?”

She wouldn’t look me in the eye. “Go away, Russell! You never want to play with me,
so I’ll play by myself!”

“Play? What the hell are you doing?”

“Long Jump One Thousand. If you can reach the clump before your lives run out, you
win. I’ll show you.” She pointed to a see-through girl in the front of the group,
a girl with cherry red glasses, whose mouth was open as if she were about to sing.
Maeve. “You, nerd girl! Get ready to jump!” I recoiled in horror. “Jenna…no! You can’t
do this. These are people.” She shook her head. “No they’re not! They’re dolls. Kens
and Barbies. I have twice as many as Chrissie now.”

I felt sick and didn’t know what to do. I stared across the baseball field. Though
it was littered with windblown papers, it was mostly still intact.

A see-through person, Mr. Verini, my world studies teacher, stood nearby. He held
a piece of chalk, put his finger to his lip, looked like he was about to speak. But
I knew he never would.

“Mr. Verini, come here!” I commanded, and he obeyed. I lifted a small pebble. “Catch
this stone.” I tossed it to him. He dropped the chalk and caught the pebble.

“Excellent!” I said. Across the field, a hairless cat with huge yellow eyes and long
teeth was sniffing about the dumpster. “Hey, creepy!” I called. “Know how to catch
a ball?”

The cat bounded over on all fours. “Excuse me?” she said, her voice like snakes hissing.

“Do you know how to catch a ball?”

“I’m a very fast learner. You have to be if you want to survive.”

“Good. Go find eight smart friends and bring them here.”

“What for?”

“Because we’re going to play a game of baseball.”

“Base-ball?”

“Yep.” I looked at Jenna. “Humans versus Creepies.”

The cat hissed, “Why?”

“Because it’s about time I played with my sister.”

And for the first time in weeks, Jenna smiled.

Two strikes. Two outs. This is it. Now or nothing. Time seems to slow as the pitcher
readies herself on the mound, as Jenna expectantly leans off first base. I glance
at the Kens and Barbies sitting in my dugout, waiting for someone to instruct them.
The Creepies, the Lost, they stare at me, awaiting the pitch.

It comes. It’s perfect. I have to swing. There is nothing left in all the universe
except this pitch.

Time stops. Synapses ignite in my brain, a billion new connections, lightning fast
time.
Crack.
My bat connects with the ball. The ball compresses, pauses, flies off my bat toward
first base.

I feel like I’m burning, like my head is exploding with thought. Jenna is sprinting
away from first. Dirt flies in slowed arcs from her heels. Her face is a twisted expression
of glee and terror. The pitcher turns. The ball flies high over the head of the first
baseman.

I’m dropping the bat, running for first, watching the ball fly up, up. I feel like
my eyes are laser beams, my body encased in high-tech armor. My head is a supercomputer
running this game.

The mound of hands in right field is scrambling for the ball, which keeps sailing
farther, higher. The pitcher is jumping on the mound, shouting, “Catch it! Catch it!”
Even the Kens and Barbies have turned their eyes to watch the ball.

“Screw you!” I scream to the hand who shredded this world, like I shredded so many
of mine. “Screw you very much!” My voice spreads into the cosmos ahead of the sailing
ball.

The ball sails up, over the blob of hands. The blob tries to catch it, leaps higher
than any human ever could. But he won’t reach it. No one will. The ball flies high
over the home-run fence, and out into the stars.

“Home run!” Jenna screams. “Home run! Home run! Home run!”

A dozen or a hundred or a thousand feet out, the ball explodes. The sky fills with
light as I round second, and the Creepies shield their eyes. The Kens and Barbies
rise to their feet. I reach third and the sky’s almost too bright to look at. Jenna
squints at the light as I scoop her up, hug her, and step on home plate.

“It’s so beautiful,” she says. “What did you do?”

“
We
played, Jenna. I think it’s because we played.”

The light begins to burn away the edges of the field, moving closer every second.

“So what happens now?” she says.

“I guess it’s up to him.” I point up.

She takes my hand and looks at me, terrified. “I’m glad you played with me, Russell.”

“We make a great team,” I say as the light reaches our feet. I only wish Mom were
here to see us now.

W
E WALKED INTO THE OFFICE WHERE
M
AMA WAS SITTING
. That was how Mama had dreamed of this reunion, her daughters walking hand in hand,
as we had when we were little.

The room where Mama awaited us was a dull shade of brown. The one window in the room
had also been painted brown. There was no way of knowing what it had once looked out
on. The walls were unadorned, the picture of The Leader having been removed and not
yet replaced with whatever the new government would deem appropriate.

Mama gazed eagerly at the girl as we walked in. “Your eyes are so brown,” she said.
“Like Isabella’s. Like mine.”

“Sit down,” I said, gesturing to one of the straight-back chairs that faced Mama.
The girl eased herself into the chair. Her posture was flawless, her right hand cupped
by her left, her ankles crossed demurely.

“My Maria,” Mama said. “I’ve longed for this day since the soldiers took you.”

The girl nodded sympathetically but said nothing.

“Were you treated well?” Mama asked. “Were they kind to you?”

“Yes,” the girl said. “My parents loved me and cared for me.”

“But they weren’t your parents,” I pointed out. “You were stolen from our family.
You must have known that. What did they tell you?”

“Papa explained it to me,” the girl replied. “Mama had been taken ill when I was a
baby, and I was given to one of our servants to look after. The servant ran away with
me, and sold me to some villagers. Papa and Mama searched four years before they found
me, and when they did, they brought me home.”

“And you believed them?” I asked.

“They were my parents,” the girl said. “Why should I doubt them? Besides, I knew what
servants were like. They would do anything, say anything, for an extra morsel of food.”

I looked up at the wall, where the portrait of The Leader had hung. “All lies,” I
said. “All of it, lies.”

“So I’ve been told,” the girl replied politely. “But of course I had no way of knowing.”

“For months, soldiers came to houses,” Mama said. “Every village for miles around.
There was nothing we could do to stop them. The soldiers knew who lived in each house,
how many children there were. To hide even one child meant death to everyone in the
family. If an entire family went into hiding, all the children in the village were
killed. And each day, the rules were different. One day, in one village, the soldiers
took all the firstborns and sent them to the slave camps. The next day, it could be
babies, sent to a death camp. The day they took you, they took four-year-olds. They
had our records. They knew your age. They took you.”

“Do you remember?” I asked. “The soldiers taking you away?”

The girl nodded. “They were kind to me,” she said. “They played games and told me
jokes.”

“You were a happy little girl,” I said. “I remember how we used to run to the fields
together. I was two years older, so I always outran you, but you never minded. Bobo
ran with us. How you loved that dog.”

The girl’s face lit up. “Doggie,” she said. For a moment, I could glimpse the child
she had been.

“Then Christian would find us and bring us home,” I continued. “You’d ride piggyback,
laughing all the way. Christian was twelve, and we adored him, the way little girls
worship their big brothers.”

“The people who took you,” Mama said. “The general and his wife. Did they have other
children?”

The girl shook her head.

“With no brothers, no sisters, you must have been lonely,” Mama said. “Did you have
playmates at school?”

“It was too dangerous for me to go to school,” the girl said. “Mama taught me piano
and embroidery. My governess taught me everything else.”

“Did you have pets to play with?” I asked. “A dog like Bobo, maybe?”

“Papa kept guard dogs,” the girl replied. “But they were for our protection. There
were assassins everywhere, and kidnappers and murderers. Once, Mama and Papa and I
were walking home from church, and a man sprang out of the bushes. He was too fast,
even for our bodyguards, but the dogs lunged at him and tore him to pieces.”

“How terrible for you to have seen such a thing,” Mama said. “I would have covered
your eyes to protect you.”

“Children see worse every day,” I said sharply. “The man was a stranger to her, not
her father.”

“Pay no attention to Isabella,” Mama said to the girl. “She was always jealous of
you. You were far prettier, the prettiest girl in the village. And even though you
were two years younger, you were smarter as well. Now you have a fine education, lessons
from a governess. Isabella can’t even sign her own name.”

“That wasn’t my choice,” I said, trying to keep my anger under control. “All the village
children were forced to work in the fields, seven days a week, from sunrise past nightfall.
Sometimes I prayed to be taken to a slave camp. There, I’d heard, the children worked
just as hard, but were given food daily to maintain their strength.”

“No one makes you work in the fields now,” Mama said. “But I don’t see you picking
up a book.”

This was an argument Mama and I often had. Before The Leader had seized control, every
village had had its own school, and Mama and Papa both could read and write and do
sums. But I’d come home each night too exhausted to learn, and even if I’d wanted,
it was too dark in our house for study.

I turned my attention to the girl. “We’ve asked you questions,” I said. “But you’ve
asked us nothing. Surely there’s something you would like to know.”

The girl nodded. “After I was taken,” she said, “did you wonder what had become of
me? Did you try to find out?”

“Of course we did!” Mama cried. “All of us who’d had our babies stolen from us. Do
you think we were heartless? Do you think it meant nothing to us to lose our children?”

The girl lowered her head. “I was taught that the villagers and the slum dwellers
were like animals,” she said. “It was the responsibility of people of the educated
classes to see to it rules were followed and order maintained. Animals can’t think
for themselves. Animals have no feelings.”

“We had feelings,” Mama said, but her voice was gentle and loving, as it always was
with Maria. “There were rules for finding out what had become of our children, and
we followed them. All children were kept alive for thirty days after being taken.
The mothers from all the local villages went daily to the town hall, hoping we’d be
told where our child was. There was no way of knowing which mothers would be let in.
Some days, none were admitted.

Other days, one, two, ten mothers, would be shown in by the soldiers. The mothers
weren’t supposed to talk to us when they came out, but still you heard things. Sometimes,
not always, but sometimes, if your child had been sent to a death camp, you could
negotiate. If you offered another of your children, that child and the one taken by
the soldiers might be sent to a slave camp. We had no illusions about the slave camps.
Children there were often worked to death. But there was no hope for a child sent
to a death camp.”

“Were you ever admitted to the office?” the girl asked. “Were you told what had become
of me?”

“One day, the soldiers selected eight of us to go in,” Mama said. “Over three weeks
had passed. The mothers who were selected fell to the floor, weeping in gratitude.”

“I never cry,” the girl said. “People who cry are ungrateful and should be regarded
as enemies of The State.”

“I didn’t cry,” Mama said. “Other mothers did, but I didn’t. Did I, Isabella? Have
you ever seen me cry?”

“Never, Mama,” I replied. “Not since the day the soldiers took Maria.”

Mama and the girl both stared at me.

“Not that day either,” I corrected myself.

The girl smiled. “You knew The State wanted only what was best for its people,” she
said. “The Leader was most kind and loving to the lowest of the low.”

Mama looked at me. It was as dangerous now to agree with such a sentiment as it had
been to deny it just weeks before.

The girl must have taken Mama’s silence to mean accord. “What happened next?” she
asked. “When you were let into the town hall. Were you told right away what had become
of me?”

“A colonel sat at the desk,” Mama said. “All the town officials had been executed,
and the colonel was now in charge. He gave us permission to tell him our names. Then
he pulled out eight files, one for each of our taken children. We begged him to tell
us what was in the files. We swore we would do anything to keep our children alive.”

“These were the animals who had no feelings,” I said to the girl, but she paid me
no heed.

“The colonel made each of us swear our gratitude to The State for taking our children,
our fealty to The Leader, all wise in his decisions,” Mama continued. “We swore to
that. We would have sworn to that and more to keep our children alive.”

“So you swore falsely,” the girl said. “Or did you believe The Leader was all wise,
that his decisions were always the right ones?”

“I believed my Maria had been seized from me,” Mama said. “And that I had one chance
and one chance only to find out what had become of her, perhaps to save her life.
I’m sure the woman who raised you would have sworn what I swore, what the women by
my side swore. And the colonel was satisfied. He believed us, he said. We were loyal
citizens, worthy of being told where our children had been taken. But there were papers
to be signed, protocol to be followed. He could only reveal the contents of the files
if we came in the next morning with our entire families, our husbands, our children.
Our husbands would be needed to sign the papers, and our children, in case there was
any negotiating to be done. We fought among ourselves to be the first to kiss his
hand, and then he dismissed us.”

“And the next morning, you all came,” the girl said. “And the colonel told you what
was in each file.”

“We all came,” Mama said. “With our husbands and children. We presented ourselves
at the town hall, and were escorted to the colonel’s office. There he sat, as he had
the day before, flanked by a dozen soldiers who served as his guards.”

“He had no need for dogs,” I said. “His soldiers were fast enough.”

“Shush,” Mama said to me. “Maria has no interest in your version of this story.”

“It is a story,” the girl said. “But do go on.”

“The colonel told us he was a very busy man,” Mama said. “He would get to us when
he could, but we were to stand there, not moving, not making a sound, until our time
came. The colonel had slave laborers to fan him, to give him food and drink; and the
soldiers, of course, were used to standing at attention for hours. Yet we did as we
were told, and didn’t move. Finally, a little boy, our neighbors’ youngest son, began
crying. He was only two, and he was tired and hungry and hot. We all were, but he
was the youngest, so he cried. The colonel gestured with the quickest of nods, and
one of the soldiers left his side and bayoneted the boy.”

I looked at the girl to see her reaction. But I didn’t know her well enough to read
the emotions on her face.

“The boy’s parents, his brothers and sisters, were taken outside,” Mama said. “The
colonel ordered a soldier to open the window so we could hear their death cries. Then
he returned to his work. We continued to stand, terrified the sound of our breathing
could lead to our slaughter.”

“The room filled with flies,” I told the girl. “Attracted by the little boy’s blood.
Mosquitoes stung us mercilessly.”

“One of the mosquitoes stung the colonel,” Mama said. “A child laughed. Isabella,
I think.”

I didn’t deny it.

“The colonel was enraged,” Mama continued. “First we had interfered with his work.
Then he’d fallen victim to our vermin-laden bodies. Our disrespect for him proved
our disloyalty to The State, to The Leader. The parents threw themselves at his feet
and begged for the lives of their children. The soldiers stood there watching us,
laughing.”

I heard that sound every night before falling asleep. The buzz of the flies and mosquitoes.
The howling of the parents. The laughter of the soldiers. That had been my lullaby
for the past ten years.

“The colonel ordered the parents to get up and stand with their children,” Mama said.
“The Leader was merciful, he said. The State benign to all who lived there. The soldiers
stopped laughing, and we felt the faintest glimmer of hope.”

“The Leader
was
merciful,” the girl said. “The State benign. Only those who deserved it were ever
punished.”

“The colonel instructed the fathers to pick one child from their family to die,” Mama
said. “They weren’t to speak, just to select a single child. The colonel was benevolent
and we were given permission to say farewell. Each child was kissed by their mama
and their papa, while their brothers and sisters watched in silence.”

I sat there remembering the feel of those kisses, the last time either of my parents
had kissed me.