Allison Hewitt Is Trapped (19 page)

“Is something going on with you and Ned?”

“No.”

“Corie … Come
on
.”

“We … We were…” She glances around, her dark blue eyes darting over my shoulders.

With a shrug she bites down a little on her lower lip. She’s so beautiful, it’s difficult not to cave and comfort her. I can imagine her as a young girl running in the sunshine, her arrow-straight black hair flying in every direction. She must have been stunning, a heartbreaker. “Things between us … We were going to try a separation. I wanted to divorce him but he convinced me to go for a separation first.”

This is incomprehensible to me. I’m not some huge proponent of marriage necessarily—my mom got along well enough after my dad died and never felt like remarrying—but I can’t for the life of me see the point in divorcing someone like Ned. I want desperately to take Corie’s side, but it’s hard to sympathize when Ned is still energetic and engaged and Corie is looking more and more like an extra from a Tim Burton film. Her skin is ashy around her lips and eyes and I can’t help but wonder if she’s getting enough to eat.

“Ned seems like a great guy. I’m sure it was just a bumpy patch. All couples go through that.”

“He
is
a great guy, that’s why we’re still together. I don’t know.… I feel like such a coward, but I can’t stop thinking about the separation. It’s hard to believe I almost left him.… And then, well everything just went to hell and I couldn’t leave him, not then, not like that. I don’t know why I can’t stop thinking about it, Allison.”

It starts to make a disastrous sort of sense—the distancing herself, the religion, the malnutrition. I’m sure a divorce, especially now, would be more than enough to test anyone’s faith.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. We all go through tough shit and, ya know, people change their minds. They can do that, Corie, and there’s nothing wrong with it. No one has to know, no one. And look, there will be time later to think about all this, about marriages and futures and all that stuff. But right now I think we should all just focus on hunkering down, making this place livable and safe, okay?”

“Okay,” she says in a very small voice. I let go of her elbow after rubbing it a bit. It doesn’t seem right to let her go without a small gesture of solace. She brushes past me with her eyes red and puffy and her fingertips worrying along the edge of her chin. If she just trusts, if she just looks at Evan and Mikey, if she sees what she has, how lucky she is. And then I hear a snippet of
Mary Poppins
music and …

“Everything all right here?”

I turn around to find an enormous bandolier of ammunition staring me in the face. When I tip my chin up I find a pair of startling hazel eyes above the bullets. It’s Collin and he’s smiling apologetically.
Wonderful
. I do not like when large men make this face. It is entirely too charming.

“Collin!” It comes out in a squeal even louder than the shade of scarlet my cheeks are turning. “Everything is fine, just having a chat with Corie.”

“Is she all right?”

“I think so,” I mumble. “Yeah … Getting there.”

“I see.”

It’s getting awkward; I can tell he’s about to give up on this conversation, I can feel his shoulders hitching up as he prepares to leave. I can’t have him asking Ted permission to see me. I need to be a grown-up.

“Can we go somewhere?” I ask. “To … to talk?”

“Now?”

“Sure.”

“Not now, I’m afraid,” he says, looking crestfallen. He’s shaved his hair down short and he’s developed a habit of running his free hand over it as he thinks. It’s a bit like watching a hopeful dreamer rub the belly of a lamp, and I wonder if ribbons of blue smoke will coil out of his nose. But there’s no genie, just a snort of frustration. “Later? Could we do this later?”

“Yeah.”

“Come by after nine.”

*   *   *

I do, all the while carrying around a queasy knot of tension. I can’t stop worrying about Corie. I can almost feel the
Emma
compulsion, the forceful desire to make sure she and Ned stick together, to scheme and plot and make them dance a dainty dance of courtship. But that’s a fantasy. There’s no room for that kind of frolicking, no room for risk. They have to stand by each other, if not for Evan and Mikey then for our general survival.

As planned, I leave my laptop to charge at one of the generators and go to Collin’s tent at nine. I feel like a crook, tiptoeing through the deadened air, the cold just beginning to creep back in over the sleeping, sweaty bodies sprawled out in tents and sleeping bags. I can almost feel a hundred pairs of watchful, suspicious eyes on me as I navigate the labyrinth of tents.

His tent, not surprisingly, is black and lit up with the gently muted glow of an old-fashioned lantern. When I climb inside I can smell the slowly melting beeswax rising in thin, black stripes from the flame. The floor of the tent is a mess of pillows and old blankets and an open sleeping bag. It’s not a very big tent so I sit close to him, cross-legged and growing extremely warm from the lantern.

“Thanks for coming,” he says, his voice just above a whisper.

“It’s no problem,” I reply.

It was a bit of a dilemma getting dressed for this. It’s not a date so there’s no use looking nice, but I didn’t want to show up in pajamas. I settled on a long-sleeve thermal T and my usual pair of jeans. Collin is out of his fatigues and it’s rather nice to see him in a soft button-down open over a T-shirt.

“It’s a bit cramped in here,” he says, laughing quietly. “I didn’t think it right to take one of the big tents just for myself.”

“Don’t worry,” I tell him. “It’s a big upgrade from snoring and dog, I promise.”

“I think I owe you an apology,” he says, grinning in a way that makes his dimples stream down his face toward his jawline.

“I was just about to say the same thing.”

“Really? What on earth are you sorry about?”

“I should’ve come to see you sooner. To talk.”

“About what exactly?” he asks and the dimples vanish into his frown.

“I just … I’ve been distracted lately, and sad, I guess. I keep expecting my mom to show up, but she hasn’t so then I get to thinking that maybe I should leave and go look for her.” Deep breath.

“Is that everything?”

“And I should have told you that you make me a little nervous,” I say, feeling my throat grow dry and lumpy. “It’s nothing you did, not anything bad. I just thought maybe I should, ya know, not try to move in on you.”

It sounds even worse than it looks. My words are so jumbled up and ridiculous that I cringe even as they fall out of my mouth. I’m a goddamn adult and I can’t even say what I mean to say, which is obvious, because Collin looks befuddled. I scrunch up my face, preparing for the big one, one end of the knot that’s been living in my gut for days now. “It’s your wife. It weirds me out. It weirds me out that you lost her. It just seems wrong and too soon … and weird.”

“You mentioned the weird bit.”

“Sorry.”

“A few times, actually.”

“Yeah.”

“Allison,” he says, and it’s not a voice coming through a radio but a voice right there next to me, close and warm and skimming across my forearms. He puts a big, heavy hand on my knee and I can feel his palms sweating even through my jeans. “Is that all?”

“
Is that all?
”

“I don’t want you to worry about her or about me, okay? I’m older than you are, Allison, I’ve seen a lot more than you have. I can safely say that there is nothing in my life that even begins to compare to this monumentally fucked-up situation. I can question it, I can hate it, I can rage against it all I like, but the fact remains: this is who we are now. I don’t need to tell you that every day here is fleeting, every moment a gift. I shouldn’t have to prove to you that I’m capable of making up my own mind. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes.”

“What am I saying?” he asks, fixing his hazel eyes on me in the semidarkness. His face doesn’t look so unreadable now, as if he’s stripped away part of the armor that held him at a distance.

“You’re saying I should stop being such an idiot, that I should stop overthinking every shit, piss and breath I take from now on.”

“Right.”

“So … It’s not weird?” I ask, noticing then that his knee is touching mine. I’ve almost forgotten that we’re surrounded, hemmed in on every side by people just like us—survivors, humans.

“It’s not weird,” he says.

“It’s not weird.”

I don’t return to the other tent for hours. It’s nice to think that I have two tents now, that I can have two homes. I think maybe I’m a bit of a nomad now. I think perhaps we all are.

COMMENTS

Dave in the Midwest says:

October 14, 2009 at 10:01 pm

Please … does ANYONE have any information on reversing this? My son was infected and I’ve … well … he’s safe. He can’t hurt anyone else but I know he’s suffering. He’s just so delusional and angry; he never says a word just deep growls when I come close to him. But I’m sure this isn’t permanent. It just can’t be. Can someone please offer any advice??? I’m posting this anywhere I can find help.

Logan says:

October 14, 2009 at 10:27 pm

You have to let go. Don’t think. Don’t fret. Just get rid of him.

Isaac says:

October 14, 2009 at 11:53 pm

He’s not your son anymore. It’s time to let him go.

October 16, 2009—Invisible Monsters

“Have you boiled that? Did you double-check the expiration date?”

It’s become a script, the magic words I mutter over every cup of water we distribute and every package of soup we give away. Mostly my questions are met with grunts or sighs.

“I know you’re hungry, but if it’s expired you can’t eat it.”

“My kid is starving!” they say, clutching the Ramen or beets, hanging on desperately.

“I know that but it’s not safe. Young kids are especially susceptible. They can get sick and die. You have to take precautions, you have to boil
everything
.”

More and more survivors are becoming ill. I don’t know if Ted was right, if it’s coming from the water or from something else. Maybe some of the food has gone rancid or there’s a flu going around, and we’re all in a panic trying to track down the source, the cause.

I feel now as our ancestors must have felt at the beginning, that water is the greatest of treasures, the mother nurturing the cradle of life. Water, the most valuable possession on our planet, the thing that sustains us, fuels us, and helps us grow—it is now under suspicion. I feel fine, most of us do, but those who are ill wail and wail all day long, singing their suffering to the rest of us, making us feel guilty for having our health.

How could I leave this place? And yet, how can we stay? I look at Evan and Mikey, boys who have barely begun to understand the world—are we endangering them just by spending another day in this crowded, surging, bulging refugee camp? The survivors arrive in a constant stream, not always a strong current, sometimes only a trickle, but constant nonetheless. They are straining our resources—no, the resources are for them too—but soon the supplies will be spread so thin that no one will have much of anything.

Maybe this is the excuse I needed all along. I’ve waited too long to go after my mother. I shouldn’t have waited at all.

I boil my water twice, sometimes three times before drinking it, and after every sip I begin to feel sick, not from illness but from fear.

Poisoned. Poisoned from the inside out … I will not let that be my fate, not after so many days of hard-won survival. I will devise a plan, a solution, no matter how many hours of sleep I must lose, or meals I must skip. This is our fortress, our safe haven and a threat is a threat whether it comes from outside or within.

It’s time to go. Maybe I should pry Collin away from this place, or knock him over the head and just drag him out. Then we could look after ourselves. We could go it alone and I could find my mom. It’s useless to speculate but I can’t help … I can’t help but wonder.

COMMENTS

Dave in the Midwest says:

October 16, 2009 at 7:08 pm

With provisions gone, there isn’t a lot left for me. My son … my poor son … I never thought he would survive this long after becoming infected. I realize now that I won’t live to see him saved. I can only hope that someone else will save my boy.

Once I realized what I needed to do, it became very easy to finalize my plans. As I mentioned, there isn’t anything left anymore. No more food. No more water. Just the persistent angry moaning of my son and the gnawing knowledge of my failures grinding at my brain. There aren’t many people that will truly understand what I have to do, but I have to give my son every chance to live long enough for someone to find a cure. Maybe if he’s the strongest of the infected. Maybe if he can live the longest he will have a chance to be cured. Since I am lost, I can only hope my gift to him will give him that chance.

Please. Find a cure. Find a way to save my son. Don’t let my sacrifice be an empty one. I do not hesitate anymore. I will release my son and let him draw strength from my body. Thank you all for fighting on.

Allison says:

October 16, 2009 at 8:22 pm

Dave, I sometimes think you’re braver than all of us. I beg you to reconsider: Don’t prolong your son’s pain. Either let him go or finish him off. You have to remember that he’s not living right now, he’s dying over and over again every day. The choice is yours but please, think about it.

Isaac says:

October 16, 2009 at 9:10 pm

Allison is right. You have to stop thinking about yourself. Think about him. Do the right thing and end it.

October 19, 2009—The Awakening

“Let’s just go, today, right now!”

“I can’t go, you know that. I have a responsibility to these people, Allison.”

I feel like we have this conversation every morning. Collin won’t budge but sometimes it’s as if I can see him imagining an escape, the two of us together on the road, and his face softens. Then we’ll hear someone calling for him and the look will disappear.