Allison Hewitt Is Trapped (20 page)

“I’m really good at road trips,” I say, sweetening the pot with an arm around his waist. “You’re not even a little interested?”

“You know it’s tempting and you know that I can’t.”

I see now that my hopes of escape, of happiness, were foolish.

Everything that we have done, all of the scrimping, struggling and railing has been nothing at all, just flailing, beating our heads against a solid iron wall. No matter what we do, what we try, something will undermine our efforts. So we redouble, we swear up and down that we will do whatever it takes, whatever we possibly can until we’re too exhausted to go on. Maybe we should just stop prolonging the inevitable loss. Maybe we should fling the doors open and let our fate come marching in.

We’ve tried to switch people over to rainwater but now the rain won’t come. Thick, silent clouds hang over us, teasingly holding over our heads what we need most of all. Sleep is out of the question, since the arena is now filled with coughing and groaning every hour of every day. The sick get sicker, the strong—which are few—get stronger, and we watch our once-peaceful, hopeful village turn into a refugee camp plagued with failing health and dying spirits. We are all too busy just keeping things from falling apart that no one has the time or energy to send out broadcasts; our one reliable entertainment is gone, replaced by constant toil. There are no spare tents anymore, so people sleep on the floor, on top of sleeping bags or piles of moth-eaten blankets. Our food supply is stretched to its absolute limit and many of us eat less than we should so that the very ill can regain some strength.

And on top of all that, the Black Earth Wives have begun to challenge Collin’s leadership. They insist he’s driving the camp into the ground, imposing too many rules, keeping people from food that is rightly theirs, letting in riffraff instead of guarding the villagers. All of the calm debate in the world won’t drown out their cries for new leadership, a new regime. He tries to keep order in the only way he knows how: keeping us safe, fortifying the perimeter, listening to problems and mediating and keeping the Black Earth Wives as quiet as possible. It’s not persecution, it’s just good management.

The ire of the Wives seems to extend to me simply by my being associated with Collin. They know, of course, that he and I have become very close and I’m sure they know that I sleep almost exclusively in his tent each night. I don’t know what to tell them, how to react. On the one hand I realize they have a right to be upset that the arena has overreached its capacity, but I also think they should offer a workable solution instead of complaining and spreading gossip.

I’ve suggested to Collin, more than once, that we pack up and leave. “If they want to take over so badly then let them,” I said. “Let them find out what an exhausting, thankless job it is.”

But he won’t give up on us, even now as everything seems to go wrong.

*   *   *

Today Ned and I had the unenviable task of resolving the sanitation problem. With all the vomiting and diarrhea, the toilets are in no way usable. With Finn standing watch, Ned and I dragged Port-o-Potties over from the tennis courts, lining them up just outside the arena. Keeping them outside is more dangerous but we decided it was better than having the smell and germs inside. Ned’s brutal workout sessions must be paying off; dragging the johns over wasn’t difficult in the least. Ned’s tan is fading. Too much time indoors, living under artificial lights, living in the gloom.

Since our chat, Corie has been doggedly avoiding me. She suspects, I think, that I’m so firmly on Ned’s side there’s no point in even trying to win me over. She’s wrong, though. I’d be more than willing to listen to her side of the story if she were prepared to give it. But she’s chosen her side, and even though she doesn’t rage against Collin as viciously as the other Wives, I can see in her slumped posture, her vacant eyes, that she’s allied herself with them completely. I don’t even know why she does it; I think maybe the presence of so many women acts like a shield. In their tight circle she can hide from all of us, especially from Ned.

And all the while Ned is fearfully silent. He refuses to talk about her involvement with the Wives, but I often catch him staring at his wife. I wonder if they’ve argued or if she’s given him some sign that their life together is over.

Dragging Port-o-Potties around was just the beginning of my day. Ned and I assisted Ted with some of the sickest patients. They seem to have some kind of terrible influenza or stomach infection. They can’t keep food down and when they do, it seems to cause them a lot of pain. After that, I worked with Evan and Mikey on their Halloween costumes.

Halloween is Mikey’s favorite holiday and the boys insisted that we begin constructing their costumes early. Apparently, Ned began a legacy of constructing elaborate outfits for his boys; last year Mikey was a Transformer and the eyes of the mask actually lit up. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that there wouldn’t be much candy, that no one else would bother getting dressed up. I’m hoping I can come up with a costume to at least keep the fantasy of normalcy going for a minute or two.

Mikey wants to be Zorro, so we’re making him a cape and mask out of an old tarp and some basketball jerseys we found in the basement. Dapper will be playing his trusty steed. Evan couldn’t decide between a pirate and Wall-E, and was heartbroken at the idea that he would have to choose. Despite his older brother’s mocking, we decided to combine the two and make him Pirate Wall-E. His costume will mainly be made of cardboard boxes, soda cans, rubber plumbing tubes and a bit of jersey—for the eye patch, of course.

It’s no light-up Transformer, but it will have to do.

After helping the boys with phase one of costume construction, I put in a bit of time at the door checking in new arrivals. The people that come now are the worst we’ve ever seen, so starved and terrified that they can only mumble incoherently as we ask them to step behind a curtain and remove their clothing. Spending so much time with Evan and Mikey has shed light on a rather alarming trend: there are almost no very young or very old people. Everyone here seems to be between the ages of eighteen and sixty. Evan and Mikey are two of only a handful of young children, and I can only picture six or seven elderly folks that are still around. It makes me afraid that there will be no generation to follow us, no one educated enough to face our problems with fresh, new ideas.

What will become of us?

*   *   *

I hadn’t eaten since the morning so Collin and I took a break from line duty and ate together in his tent. Even there, comforted by his presence and the privacy of the tent, the outside world persists, invades. The sounds of coughing, hacking, wheezing follows you everywhere, reminding you that there are people all around you in agony. After sharing a can of soup and some granola bars, we went outside to shoot targets.

In the brisk, October chill he told me about how much he missed teaching, how he missed his classes and grading assignments. He even missed dealing with the most insufferable members of the faculty.

“I would trade everything for just one last day as a teacher,” he says, reloading a clip for me. “A day where I knew I had to savor it, had to pay attention to every detail.”

I’m expecting that faraway look to come into his eyes but it never does. He seems relaxed around me now, his lined face resembling something peaceful. And then he’s quiet before adding, “But then again, I might never have met you. Life would have gone on as it always did—placid, complicated in the human way we like to complicate things. We might never even have met. Strange, isn’t it? I can’t imagine life without you.”

“That’s not strange,” I tell him. “That’s totally awesome.”

There’s no point in using targets anymore for practice. Instead, Collin takes me to the edge of the fence and I shoot at the Floaters wandering in the mist. I’m getting better at hitting moving targets, but Ned’s and Collin’s proficiency puts me to shame. I take the ear off of one Groaner who’s gotten the brilliant idea of charging the fence.

“Ah, darling,” Collin says with that positively slaying accent of his, “I could watch you shoot zombies all day.”

Collin puts his arm around me, hugging me to his side. Through the flak jacket I can feel his warmth. “You’re getting better,” he adds. “Much. You’re getting—dare I say it? Artistic even? Soon I’ll have to train you on the assault rifles.”

“You’re sweet,” I say, blushing. “Sweet, but wrong.”

“It’ll come with time,” he says. “Once you learn to stop seeing them as people and see them for what they really are.”

“Sorry. An ax feels more humane somehow. At least that way I can put them at peace and look them in the eye when I do it.”

“Don’t apologize for that,” he says, kissing the top of my head.

I can’t remember how long we stood in silence, just watching the shadows skulking around outside the perimeter of our defenses. “Do you think,” I begin quietly, “someone is to blame for all of this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think maybe there’s a scientist somewhere who knows he did this, engineered this? What else could it be? I mean, if it’s not an experiment or a weapon, what could make this happen?” I gesture to the world outside, the world beyond our little team of two. It’s too cold out for a long philosophical discussion, but my extremities can bear another minute or two.

“If this was 1982 I’d blame the Russians,” he says. He’s fixing to say more, and considers his next comment with his hazel eyes trained on my face. They burn through me. “Whoever’s responsible,” he says at last, “they’re probably already dead.”

I nod. “I don’t think I want to know.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. I’m not sure I could keep fighting so hard if I knew any one person was responsible. It’s too much evil to fathom.”

Collin kisses my head again and smiles a little sadly. It’s impossible to tell, but judging from the strange glint in his eyes, in that moment I think I rose in his estimation. “Come on, your ears are going to freeze right off. Let’s go in.”

It sounds clichéd, but this is, in all honesty, the happiest moment I’ve had in many, many wretched days. Everything seems to be moving toward peace. And this is the day that I feel closest to him, when it really does stop feeling weird, when it starts to seem normal, natural even and so damn
nice
. And this is the day when I feel certain that even if the Wives have their way and our village tears apart at the seams, I’ll have something worth saving, something tangible to grasp. And this is the day when Ted makes a bit of headway and thinks maybe there’s a way to cure the ill, a way to keep us going for a bit longer.

And this is the day when—without warning, like a twenty-ton semitruck blazing through a red light—yet another group of survivors arrive, and with them, limping, hungry but undeniably alive, is Collin’s wife, Lydia.

COMMENTS

Elizabeth says:

October 19, 2009 at 4:46 pm

Things are almost sleepy on the ocean. Occasionally we raid a port; Avalon has proved itself to be an asset due to its general low population numbers, and therefore low number of the undead. At one point we sailed north to the Vandenberg Airforce Base, and it looked completely deserted. Camp Pendelton in San Diego had some activity, but in all honesty it looks safer on the boat.

We’ve made contact with a few survivors who were out on the more remote islands camping, as well as some scientists who were doing studies.

I’d suggest moving on, Allison. Take those who want to live, who want to fight to do so, and leave. Good luck, stay alive, and let’s hope that things are happening elsewhere in our favor (like the good folks at NOAA suggest).

Amy says:

October 19, 2009 at 5:02 pm

Allison! She’s back? How did she make it there?

Allison says:

October 19, 2009 at 5:46 pm

VooDoo? The Great and Terrible Power of Irony? Whatever it is, I wish it a thousand fiery deaths.

j. witt says:

October 19, 2009 at 8:08 pm

omg Allison I’m so sorry. what happened?

October 20, 2009—Hours of Idleness

“Ted?” Nobody answers. “Ted? Is anyone there? Dapper?”

The earth is scorched and blood-swollen, just like my bare feet; the ground is littered with discarded weapons, shields and shattered remnants of armor, footsteps sunken deep into the damp, pebbly sand, footsteps that falter, leading nowhere. A veil of smoke shifts a few feet to the north, urged along by a tepid wind. Behind the smoke is a distant wall, pitted and pocked with the ferocity of a thousand hurled boulders, scarred as if gods had descended to personally practice their discus throws here, on this beach, against this nation.

“Hello?”

[Author’s note: What follows is the absolutely true account of what can happen when, in the midst of crappy boy trouble, one very misguided individual chooses to mix hard liquor and ill-gotten prescription muscle relaxants. This behavior is not to be advised—unless of course communion with long-dead Grecian kings is something the reader considers a desired outcome.]

It’s staggeringly hot and my eyes are crunchy and tired, dry like they’ve been cured by the smoke of a campfire. Ted and Dapper are nowhere to be found. There’s a strange sound rising, thundering drums and the cymbal-crash explosion of waves slamming against rocks. It’s a shore and there’s sand beneath me, sticking to my hands and face and digging into my knees. A great sea tosses at my back and an ancient wall crumbles ahead. Frankly, I’ve had nicer dreams.

And if this is a dream my will should count for something. But as hard as I try, I can’t wish the black sand away. No amount of mental power swaps the ash and flame for a couple of swaying palm trees and a lime margarita on the rocks.

A steep hill rises to my left, jagged and covered with low bushes that cling to the sharp outcroppings of rock, holding on with their roots for dear life. The rocks climb toward a high plateau and the sheer drop facing the sea is dusted with a flaky crust of salt. There’s a smell beneath the ashen smoke, a whiff of sea salt like a hint of perfume clinging to a dead woman’s wrist. A few clumsy steps later and I trip over the uneven terrain, flailing and cursing before landing in the sand. I stand up and the ugly pain in my head peaks. My brain whistles, rattling like a teakettle about to explode.