The Garden of Darkness (26 page)

“We’re okay.”

“Well, let’s go,” said Abel. “This is all I have.”

“You’re coming with us?” asked Clare. She was taken aback. Jem lifted his eyebrows, but he said nothing.

“Yes,” Abel answered. “No more skulking. You’re right.”

“You don’t even know where we’re going,” said Jem.

“Okay. Where are you going?”

“We’re going to the Master—the grownup with the cure to Pest,” said Clare.

“Okay.”

Clare and Jem exchanged a look.

“Maybe,” Jem finally said. “Ramah?”

“We’re building a new world,” said Ramah. “We can’t be too picky. But it’s really your say—yours and Clare’s.”

“I’m good at not getting in the way,” said Abel.

“We might regret this,” said Jem softly.

Abel looked at them.

“He’s not like Rick,” said Clare. “Rick had some kind of an agenda. And he’s certainly not like Darian.” She hesitated. Abel spoke.

“Ready?” Abel said, hoisting his satchel.

And with that, as if it were taken for granted, Abel, with his pink poncho and dirty satchel, joined them on the journey to the Master.

“But please,” he said to Clare as they started walking. “Tell your dog not to bite me. I’ve never seen a dog that big.”

“He’ll get used to you,” said Clare. “Probably.”

In the afternoon, the terrain got steeper. Even so, Ramah had taken the lead, and she didn’t flag. She strode ahead briskly. Clare and the others were soon out of breath with trying to keep up. But nothing seemed to stop Abel from talking.

“This climb is too steep,” he said.

“It’s just a slope,” said Clare. “Look at Ramah. She’s not even breathing hard.”

“My feet hurt.”

Ramah waited for them patiently at the crest of the hill and then turned and continued. Once the road levelled out, Abel started telling Clare and Jem stories about himself. He didn’t leave out any of the lurid details. In fact, he didn’t seem to leave out anything at all.

“I used to like ghost stories,” he said. “But now they’re not scary anymore. Pest was scary. It was pretty gruesome watching my parents die. They howled and screamed, and when they
really
screamed, you know, like they meant it, I gave them water. Then Geordie, my brother, died, but I gave him all the water he wanted. And there were flies everywhere. I mean everywhere. And the
smell
!”

Ramah, who had let them catch up, heard the last part of this.

“We all have a version of that particular story,” she said.

“You’ve never really told yours,” Clare pointed out.

“No,” said Ramah.

“Well, I haven’t had a chance to tell mine to anyone,” said Abel. “Anyway, the flies and the smell are what drove me out, right out of the town to those shacks. So now I’m alone. And there’s no ‘get me a beer,’ or ‘find your own dinner,’ or ‘go wash your brother.’”

“You’ve had a rough time,” said Ramah.

“Yes. And I’m skipping over the part with the cigarette burns. And then the way they used to go after Geordie with the belt. When they were drunk, they would really lay into us. And then my father would beat up my mother. And then they would both fall asleep.”

“That’s horrible,” said Clare.

“I suppose it was,” said Abel. “I don’t miss them. But I miss Geordie.” He paused. “Sometimes I think that maybe even my parents didn’t deserve Pest.”

“There’s nothing you could have done about it,” said Clare.

“I could have given them more water.”

“Maybe. But you didn’t.”

That evening Clare slipped away and dug her own hole near the latrine. She had her period, and she needed to bury the used tampons. Sometimes their lives seemed to revolve around little more than digging latrines, burying waste, finding water and food, keeping as clean as they could. Their bodies were needy little islands.

She was sorry she had been short with Abel. Having her period made her cranky.

She stood up only to find herself face-to-face with Bear, who must have followed her from camp. He turned as she turned, and they walked back together. He had her back. He would always have her back.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

PARTING WAYS

T
HE DREAM WAS
very real.

In the city, the buildings had been eaten away and loomed over them like the skeletons of giants. She and Jem were surrounded by a horde of children.

Clare woke and sat bolt-upright in the darkness. They were camped somewhere beside the great road to the city.

As her dream faded, she rolled over to look at Sheba. Clare wondered if they would have made it even this far without the cart filled with food and warm clothing.

Soon the others were up, and they were on the road again, eating breakfast as they walked. True to her farm upbringing, Sheba had made no complaint about the journey so far, not even on the hills. When they came to really steep slopes, she kept on going even as her sides became slathered in sweat. Most of the time they walked to lighten her load. Bear loped along beside Sheba, who pointedly ignored him.

The route to the city was flanked by battered houses alternating with businesses that looked as if they had fallen on hard times long before Pest. Cars in various stages of decay had been abandoned in the streets.

“We could never have driven this,” said Jem.

“Nobody’s got a license,” said Clare. And Ramah, who was usually reserved, laughed until she got the hiccups.

Later, as the rhythmic clip-clop of Sheba’s hooves began to lull Clare towards sleep, she asked, “How long until we get there?”

“Another day,” Jem said.

“Do you think everyone in the city’s dead?” asked Clare.

“All the adults except the Cured. I would think the children that survived would have left by now. It’ll be a ghost town.”

They passed a boarded up Tastee Freeze, a derelict drive-in movie theater, a Big Boy with its signature sign planted head down in a parking lot.

The sordid little motels they passed began to make them uneasy.

“They look as though they’re inviting us in,” said Sarai uneasily.

“They want to chew us up,” said Abel cheerfully.

“I don’t like them,” said Bird Boy. But Bird Boy was easily distracted, and Ramah found him the red feather of a cardinal, which he happily wove into his hair.

They made a strange caravan. Ramah, still looking like Diana with her bow and arrows, walked with Bird Boy, whose collection of feathers had grown until they protruded from his hair and decorated all his clothes. As Clare watched, Ramah found Bird Boy an acorn cap, which he put on her head like a tiny hat, and then laughed when it fell off. Mirri and Sarai stayed together and sometimes tried to play Hangman or even Old Maid while walking. Abel, who could not be persuaded to take off his pink poncho, walked alone. Clare and Jem stuck together. At one point Clare, suddenly curious, turned and spoke to Ramah.

“Can you actually use that bow and arrow?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Are you any good with it?”

“Yes.”

Clare moved away from Jem and walked next to Ramah for a while.

“Did you know Bird Boy before Pest?” she asked.

“No.”

“How did you find him?”

“He showed up in time.”

“In time for what?”

“It doesn’t really matter, does it? Not anymore.”

It was like trying to make conversation with the Delphic oracle.

Then Bird Boy spoke abruptly. “Ramah is my parents. I don’t have no others.”

When they came to the junction with the main highway, they found a rest stop and decided that it was a perfectly decent place to make camp.

“We could go around the city,” Clare said, while the others were setting up the tent.

“We’re low on supplies, Clare,” said Jem. “The cart wasn’t full when we left, and there are seven to feed—and Sheba and the goat, too. Even Bear needs more food than he can hunt.”

“We could load up at a town somewhere nearby.”

“The city will have everything we could possibly want,” said Jem. “There’ll be warehouses of food, not to mention what we’ll find stored up in restaurants and shops. We need to go in.”

“All right.”

“But I’ve been thinking,” said Jem. “We don’t
all
need to go. I can go alone with Sheba. You and the others can meet me on the other side.”

A light breeze had picked up, and Clare felt cold. She could hear the sounds of the others as they finished putting up tents and as they got the fire started. She could hear Abel grumbling, and Sarai and Mirri chatting.

“You mean the two of us can go,” said Clare.

“Clare—”

“Obviously I’m going with you.”

“Clare—”

“If you leave without me, I’ll just follow you.”

Jem looked at her for a long time. “There’s no point in arguing with you, is there?”

“No.”

“All right. We go together and scavenge in the city as quickly and efficiently as possible. Then we meet the others on the other side. You’re really up for that?”

“Yes.”

“Plan?”

“Plan.”

They went back to the campsite together. Ramah looked up at them. “I thought it would go that way,” she said, as if she had heard the entire conversation. Then she went to the wagon and rummaged around until she had the map.

Ramah put her finger down on a green place marked ‘National Park.’

“We’ll meet you here,” she said. “We’ll wait until you come.”

“We won’t be long,” said Clare. But what she really thought was that there were many ways to die in the post-Pest world. Except old age. That particular option seemed to be gone. She looked closely at Ramah. “But don’t wait too long for us.” She hesitated and then smiled. “We can always catch up with you.”

“I understand what you’re telling me,” said Ramah.

“I knew you would,” said Clare.

“There’s something I won’t do for you, though,” said Ramah. “Sorry.”

“What?” asked Clare.

“Tell the others.”

That part didn’t go very well.

Sarai, Mirri and Bird Boy cried themselves to sleep. Abel looked gloomier than ever.

And that night Clare imagined a different world, one in which she could grow old. And Jem would be there. And Sarai and Mirri and Ramah and Bird Boy and Abel. And others she couldn’t yet see. Bear would be there too, and if Bear had to die first, he would do so curled up at her feet after having reached a ripe old age, toothless, maybe, but content.

She would give a lot for such a world.

And she did.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

THE CARCASS OF THE CITY

T
HE GOODBYES WERE
brief except for Mirri’s. She walked with them for the first mile before turning back tearfully.

There was a rise and a dip in the road, and then Clare and Jem were alone together. The only sound was the steady clopping of Sheba’s hooves.

“Do you think the others will run into any trouble?” asked Clare.

“No. Ramah will take care of them. In fact, this sort of has the feel of a vacation to it. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yeah. We left the kids with a sitter.”

They proceeded down the central highway into the heart of the city. Clare remembered to look out for the spot where her family had stopped and taken a different car. Finally she saw it; the scene looked much smaller than she remembered.

They went over to the car together. When Clare got inside, she thought she could detect the scent she associated with her father. In the glove compartment she found the car registration, a triple A card and a bag of mints. The belongings they had decided they could do without were still lumped together in the backseat, moldering. Clare could make out a few items of her old clothes, including a white leotard she had sometimes worn to cheerleading practice. Somewhere in there, too, were her pom poms.

Imagine.

She couldn’t bring herself to rifle through her old things.

“It all seems so long ago,” she said.

Nature had been busy in the city. Parks, hotel courtyards, parking lots, had all begun to be taken over by the wild. Root systems were breaking up the sidewalks; vegetation burst through park fences, and everywhere there were birds. The windows of most of the stores had been smashed in, although sometimes it looked as if nothing had been taken. On the other hand, one jewelry store had been completely looted. Jem, curious, went into it.