The Rain (15 page)

Russell starts out by saying that the plan of these people, as far as everything he’s gathered, is to float a barge west to the Sierra Nevada mountains. He asks me if I remember the barge in Rochester. I don’t nod, because I don’t want to remember it. But he goes on anyway, like it’s something we need to remember right now.

            After the
Sea Queen Marie
sunk, and we had floated on a whale boat for a week, we were picked up by a small gas powered motor boat. They lifted us out of the water and asked where we came from. There were two of them, a man and a woman. They didn’t hesitate to save us.

            Both of them were about Russell’s age, and with smiles on their faces they told us about how lucky we were. They just happened to spot us, and had they not, we would have floated on to god knows what terrible hump of raised land in the West. The West, where the face eaters are everywhere, they had said. They took us on that boat and we drove for a long time, in a direct line over blank water, to an enormous steel barge that was raised high above the water. It looked like a big stinking pile of shit just floating there. But it was a tent city pile of shit, and all the tents were high off the water. They said it used to be an aircraft carrier, and Russell told me that meant planes used to land on it. Now it just floated aimlessly, but the people on it could head out on their small boats and gather up supplies and food from even as far north as Canada. But up there the rain has turned to snow, they said. So they’d stopped getting supplies from the north, and even the south. Snow and ice in the north, and strong currents in the south. Once we were hoisted onto the carrier, everything looked like a dream. There was a long line of white plastic that had turned a dirty shade of brown, tied high around poles to form a long triangular tunnel. Underneath were bags and bags of supplies, a lot of it food. What Russell and I couldn’t understand was why so much it smelled rotten, like it had gone bad. We couldn’t understand why all the food would go bad with as many people as there were living on the carrier. The ones who took us in had told us on the way that there were just over a thousand people.

            Once we got off the motor boat and started exploring, it became clear that there weren’t that many people. It was more like a ghost town. We went through the stinking piles, looking at wasted food, and that’s when Russell started to say that things didn’t seem right. But there were pockets of the tent packed with people, and fresh supplies, and they were happy to give us what we needed—shelter and food and warmth. They even told us we didn’t have to pay them back. Russell grew more and more wary because he said no one gives you something for nothing. Not in this world. We slept the first night under the triangle, and I couldn’t even tell we were on water, the barge was so quiet and still. The man who rescued us came over once in the middle of the night and asked if we were hungry. I felt like he was almost catering to us. It was all too good to be true after the
Sea Queen
. Russell told me he thought the man had been watching us sleep, and made up the food excuse once we startled awake. I fell under the spell of that place in the first two days, but Russell never eased up, and never let me know he disapproved of my feelings. He started walking the edges of the barge endlessly, watching where the motor boats came in at, how they hoisted themselves up to the carrier surface, studying where the drivers went. Where they put their keys.

            I kept telling him everything was alright, and that he’d grown too skeptical and cold toward people. The world wasn’t as bad as he’d grown to think it was. I was still in the afterglow of our
Sea Queen
family and thought it wasn’t strange for people to be good-natured. And after the loss, I felt like the carrier could be the replacement family we needed. But it was only the next night that we heard the scream.

            Russell reminds me about the sound of the scream. I say I remember it and he doesn’t have to remind me about it. It came in the middle of the dead night. Russell got up and walked over to the edge of the tent and peered out into the rain. The cry was coming from somewhere far away on the other side of the carrier. Where are you going? I asked. He didn’t respond, just told me to wait a second. I told him hell no and followed after him. We didn’t have our knives yet.

            We walked through wet darkness for about ten minutes until we reached the edge of a steel tower, some high building built right into the carrier floor with a couple doors at the base. Russell kept looking around, like someone was going to see us sneaking around, but no one was out there but us. I didn’t think that was strange because it was the middle of the night.

            He looked into a few of the windows on the tower and didn’t see anything, and neither did I, so we went inside. I wanted to know what the hell we were doing, why we were nosing around when they were treating us so good. All he said was because something isn’t right. And we have to make sure it’s all wrong here so that we can steal a boat and take off tomorrow. I followed him through a dark hallway to where a thin line of light shone, and then we heard the screaming again but it was very loud, right near us. We’d found the source of the painful noise. It was a room with a large glass window. The strangest part was, it was all frosted over with ice. Like a giant freezer. And then Russell crept up to it and pushed his face against the glass and I can still remember his breath hitting the iced glass and melting a small spot of it. He looked in through the spot. I pushed against him to see too. There was a long tube coming out of someone’s body. The body was jacked into some kind of pump and it was making a small noise. And what the screams had been, he knew right away: the person had woken up when they should have been dead. That’s what Russell said afterward. But either way, it was red, the tube. It was a line of their blood, Russell says. And that was a freezer. I remember all the barrels in there, lined in a row, neatly stacked, iced over, one after the next. Frozen blood. All of it stored for whoever the hell is really running this ship, Russell said in the triangle tarp after we got back. We both stayed awake all night. He talked about what probably happened to the rest of the bodies after the blood was gone. They don’t waste one bit of a body. They’re in this for the long haul. Professional, clean living face eaters.

I don’t know how no one caught on that we knew what was happening on that barge. I know I must have worn it on my face over the next two days as Russell planned our escape. But we were never caught. We looked into the faces of the ones who rescued us and told them how lovely it was on their barge, and how nice things were. Each day we were on board, at least another two or three people were found and brought back to the barge, plucked from somewhere out on the eternal ocean surrounding us.

            We never found out how they kept the freezer room working, or where the rest of those bodies were stored after all the blood was extracted, or why that one person woke up during the pumping. Russell had it figured that we only had a matter of days before it was our turn on the pump. He stole a pair of motor boat keys, a rifle, and we left in the middle of the night. There was a gunshot, and then another in the empty gray night as we sped away over calm waters, but nothing hit us. They let us go, like we didn’t matter. No one chased.

            I asked Russell what he really thought was going on there. He said it’s a way to survive. And that they might have let us in on it, or made us part of the supply, but it was no way we were going to survive. That’s no veneer either, he kept saying, as if they’re appearance of having survival all figured out was just clouds and smoke. It didn’t matter, he said, that they seemed nice and everything was working well for them on the outside. It had to do with the way they were getting by. That’s no veneer. And the stinking food. Their preferences have changed—they would rather have human, Russell said. No veneer.

I can remember the long island shape of that carrier disappearing in the black as we sped west, not knowing where the hell we were going, totally unaware that the horror of Sioux Falls lay in wait for us. The rain hit us, but there was a tarp on the boat, and we’d taken enough food to last two weeks. And the motor boat was full of gas. And everything was quiet on that water, and the beautiful hope that had come into my spirit had been killed just as fast as born. I kept thinking I’d hear a motor boat coming after us, but none came. They had it too good on that ship to care.

            Russell finishes reminding me about Rochester and tells me we don’t know anything about the people here in Utah. He says he’s known me for fourteen years, and I’ve known him just as long, but these are strangers, and the sooner we can get out from under their generosity, the better. He asks if anyone’s done anything for me that they said I wouldn’t have to repay the favor for. I say I think Dusty did. Russell isn’t happy to hear it. He says there’s something that doesn’t feel right about the blind kindness these people have. Something that doesn’t feel right at all. And he’s downright ready to go find our canoe right now, way down on the muddy ridge, and flip out all the water, and break our tent down and grab our sack and jump in and head out into the canvas. Leave all this uncertainty behind us, and head for the one thing that’s certain. I tell him Leadville is just as certain as that barge was. Clouds and smoke. He doesn’t say anything because he knows I’m right. And he’s starting to feel sick again so he lies back down. I climb right on the bed with him, just barely fitting, and lie with my bad arm across his chest. He sighs again and I tell him that no matter what we do, we’ll do it together. I don’t know if this comforts him or not, but he falls asleep just when I say it. And the warm fuzzy feeling of the pain medicine rolls through me, up my body in happy waves, and then into my brain, settling it, and I’m out too.

Chapter 9

I wake up to the feeling of a hand on my arm. It’s tapping me. I open my eyes. Dusty is staring at me. I see the top of Voley’s tail wagging behind him. Come with me, he says. I slowly dislodge from Russell, who is still sleeping. The sky is dark through the tarp around us, and the fire has made it warm everywhere. I stand up, still groggy, and Dusty drags me off through one of the hallways. Pretty soon we’re back in his home, and we sit down at the table. I look to the tarp flap that leads out to the mountain ridge, where the face eaters attacked from. I wonder if there are more out there. It’s like Dusty senses my thoughts though, and he tells me they’ve set an extra watch tonight, but there shouldn’t be any more attacks. I fix on his face, studying it, the curve of his chin, and his lips, and his eyes that look  like they’re feeding on me. I think of Rochester, and Russell’s warning, and I realize how right he is. We don’t know anyone here, and we can’t trust anyone here. But even when I’m looking for it, I don’t feel any malice in Dusty or in Marvolo. I’m torn. How does your arm feel, Dusty asks. I almost forgot about it. I look it over, following the white gauze, noticing with relief that the red blood spot is still the same size as it was earlier. I feel okay, I say. And then he loses his smile, like something urgent has come into his mind, and everything up until now has been a pretense for something he wants to tell me. He doesn’t say anything though, so I look away before it becomes awkward.  I look at the hard plastic flooring, miraculously dry. I ask what’s wrong. I ask because I feel like he’s sitting on some big problem, but he’s not coughing it up unless I prod him.

            “You were really good,” he says. I look back up to him, and his smile’s back. Russell taught me to shoot, I say, even though I know I missed as many times as I hit with the pistol. I think of the gun, and where it might be now. I didn’t expect them to just give me a gun, but when I’d had it, I felt a lot safer. I almost ask Dusty if I can have it back to keep, but I know better. And I grow cautious about asking for anything we might have to pay back later, and I’m on alert for any offers that seem too good to be true—gestures of help that don’t need to be repaid, like on the carrier in Rochester. But there’s already been a lot of those. The shower, the medical care, the shelter, the clothes. I’m becoming more and more paranoid. And Russell’s in the other room. Where’s your dad? I ask to break the silence. He’s with Linda, says Dusty. He tells me that Linda is his dad’s girlfriend, and that his real mom died a long time ago, but that Linda’s been like his real mom ever since. She’s the one who took care of your arm, he tells me. I almost regret the help that probably saved my life, like the bandage on my arm is a debt. But Marvolo comes up and licks my hand and sits right next to me, and I look down at him, and he’s calm and happy. Innocence in his eyes. I look at Dusty and I think I see the same thing. But I’m all mixed up now from what Russell said. Then Dusty finally admits why he woke me up.

            “We’re going to be leaving here,” he says. I’m not sure what to say, or why he’s telling me. The tarp city here is huge, and has so many supplies, that I can’t understand why anyone would even consider leaving. The next thing I think is that if they are leaving, and everyone’s abandoning this place, Russell and I can stay behind and make it our own fortress. All alone, just the two of us, our own Leadville. I don’t ask if that would be okay.

            “Reports say the face eaters are going to keep coming. More of them than before,” he says. They’re getting desperate he explains, and the drugs they’re getting near Salt Lake are different now—they’re able to go long distances without food. And the manner of their killings has changed. It’s rape and cannibalism now, Dusty says. The two urges mixed into one terrible act. They’ve bent up their brains, he says. The types of killings that have been happening are too horrible to describe. And the attack we just fought off has become the norm here. He says that his dad told him the barge is going to be stocked and everyone able will move out on it in a couple days. West to the Sierra Nevada mountains. He asks if we’ll come. I wonder what
able
means.