WIPE (A Post-Apocalyptic Story) (9 page)

            I hear the last rustling in the next room die down, and I know that mother has gone to sleep at last. I lie down on the bed and wrestle with my thoughts, my hopelessness, and the future version of Maze, a Saint, devoid of any real power of conversation. All of her brilliant wit, and sharp criticisms of the Fatherhood, washed away. Each conspiracy theory dissolved forever from her mind. She’ll be a drone whose potential has been absorbed by the illusions of the Fatherhood. The end of the personality I’ve come to love. The end of the times we’ll share together commiserating as self-decided outcasts. And just when the paranoia settles down enough that I think I might be able to doze off, the truth erupts again as it has all night—that I have to do something and I have to do it right away. I start to accept that I won’t get any sleep tonight, and that’s when the knock comes. Softly and gently on the glass at the window.

            At first I’m so startled that I roll off the bed and freeze, but then I know it has to be Maze, and I hope that the noise didn’t wake my mother up. And feeling afraid all of the sudden in my own room, like it could be some kind of demon in the yard, I back up to the far corner of my room and peer out the window from an angle I think will keep me hidden. When there’s nothing there, I start to wonder if I dreamed the noise. But then I see a hand. Slowly, it rises up. And then, ever so softly, it starts to knock again.

    “Wills? Are you okay?” barks my mom from the other room.

    “Sorry, I’m fine. Just dropped something,” I say. And then I hear her bed creak and she doesn’t say anything more, like she’s rolled over and gone back to sleep. And summoning every bit of courage I have, enough that on any other night you would think Maze was right by my side, I go up to the window and lift it up to see who’s there. And knowing it must be her, begging myself to believe that it really
is
her, I stick my head right out into the night and look around.

            A cool gust of wind blows across my face, and the snappy scent of the pines crawls into my nose. And then, just when I’m convinced it was a bird tapping, and there was no hand, I hear the voice, even before I see a body.

            “Wills
...
” comes the tiny sound. Right away I know.

            “
June
—what are you doing?”

            “Here, take this,” she says. And then, her little hand raises a piece of folded paper. I grab it quickly and pull it inside.

            “What is it?” I say, seeing a look of fear cover her face. Her hair falls down over her eyes and she tells me just to read it. And then, just like that, she says she has to get home before she’s caught.

            “Alright,” I tell her. I watch her dart away, through the backyard bushes and the garden, disappearing without another sound. Then, after shutting the window again, I lean back on the bed. I have to strike a match to light the candle on my nightstand, but then I see the handwriting and I recognize it right away. It’s from Maze. On top it says
Deliver to Wills
, and after I unfold it a hundred times, through the creases, I make out her words.

Wills,

            I’m taking off. I have to. There’s something big going on, and I have no time to waste on becoming a Saint. I took a lot of heat off of you, so you shouldn’t get a harsh judgment. But here’s the thing—I’m not going to try to stop you from coming. I mean, if you believe in my bullshit now, after seeing it for yourself today. But I’ll leave it at that. I can’t force you to. You’ll have a safe life in Acadia.

            If you don’t come, I’ll understand. You’ve got to believe me on that. It’s pretty reckless what I’m about to get into. And people here still like you. You’ve always fit in well with everyone. All of that being said, you nearly beat me to the ocean last night. I could use that kind of speed on a burner like this. Either way, you know I always love you.

            - Maze

P.S.
If you decide to come, be careful getting out. Use the map I drew here. I’ll be at the X until noon. If you don’t come by then, I’ll be gone.

My eyes study the crude map scribbled underneath Maze’s sloppy handwriting. Her drawing skills are just as bad as her handwriting, but I recognize the lines instantly. She’s gone to one of our oldest haunts—a  concrete tunnel from the days before the Wipe—some kind of ancient irrigation or sewer system that we found under the forest that leads away a mile into the woods until the roof crumbles in and debris clogs it. A treasure find from one of our first expeditions off of Fatherhood-approved trails. Nothing too exciting besides the allure of its connection to the old world. Still, it had been enough of a thrill at thirteen years old. Now, Maze is squatting there alone, probably in the pitch black, waiting to see if I join her.

For the rest of the night, I wrestle with what to do. My head keeps flipping back and forth between whether or not to ditch the house and the town and my mom and everything tonight. Spring right out of bed, get dressed, and meet Maze in the dark—past the north forest trail and then right into the woods—all the way until the mound appears by the rock pond. Wolves or not. 

            But a big part of me is scared to death to leave with Maze, to even step foot outside of the house at all. As if there will be Fathers out there keeping an eye on things. I chide myself, remembering that even little June hadn’t been too scared to deliver the letter in the night. How could I be afraid? And everything falls back to Maze in the chapel—
how did she escape?

            I fall in and out of fits for the next hour, until I think there is the first changes of light spreading across the early morning sky. But everything stays the same for another hour, and I still haven’t made up my mind. To go might mean to die. And probably to die in the worst kind of way. And as much as I don’t want to admit it—that my mother was right about something—there is an old part of me that feels like it’s known something about Maze for a very long time, something I’ve been blinded from accepting because of my longing for her: that she really
is
a bad influence on me. More than just reckless. Stupid to a fault. Because I know her patterns, and how she foolishly follows her gut long after logic should kick in to redirect her. Every time I’ve ever been under the knife, it has been because of her. And I can’t help but feel that maybe this is the chance—to finally cut her loose. To move on. Let the obsession go, and sever off the feelings that have only ever caused me frustration. I think of all the other girls in town. How some of them, if I trick my mind over time, might seem as pretty as Maze. But then I realize it’s not just her beauty that has me so tied up—it
is
her very recklessness. Her defiance of authority. It’s the part of me I wish I had for myself. But I’ve always had to accept that she has it and I never will, even if we do feel the same way about the Fatherhood.

By the time I get out of bed, get myself dressed, and start pacing through my room, the sun is already lighting the garden behind the house, and the low wooden fence and the trees beyond sound alive with morning birds. Still I haven’t decided though, and it’s eating me alive.
You will never see your mother again.
But then the other half of my personality rejects the idea:
Sure you will. You’ll come back. And who else will you miss here? Who else will miss you?
I think of all my casual acquaintances—Roland, Zee, Paul…More pop up in my head. I see their faces, all of them friends, and good friends. I’ve known all of them longer than Maze. Each of them has always been just as loyal as the next, and each of them has been more and more disapproving of my bond with Maze. They’ve grown tired of her antics. Some of them even told me this year that they worry about what they see happening to me if I keep up my close association with her. It’s like I see them all twisting their heads at me, frowning their judgment about the fact that I’d even consider leaving. As if it’s an obvious decision, nothing I should be wrestling with. To go is wrong—it’s that simple. That’s when the knock at the door comes.

Chapter 6

Before I even have a minute to react, Father James is in my room. Somehow—either because he let himself in, or because my mother is already awake and I didn’t hear her get up—he’s standing in my doorway, smiling.

            “A true follower of God,” he says, looking me up and down.

            “Can you give me a minute?” I ask him.

            “Dressed so early and ready to go,” Father says on his way out. And then it becomes clear to me—he’s talking to her. She must have woken up early. And they’re both out there waiting for me.

            It’s your last chance, I tell myself. I move over to the window, almost ready to do it, to climb out and flee over the backyard fence and into the woods, but then I see him. Father Rico, doing his ground inspections. My paranoia triggers and tells me he’s come to our house first on purpose this morning—like he knows my plan, that I’m a runaway risk, and he wanted to be right there, in the backyard, at just the time that Father James arrived. Maybe he got to June—saw her in the night and made her talk. I run through the scenario of my escape, and by the time I’ve stalled too long, and he isn’t finishing up his inspection fast enough, lowering his head ten times for every flower by the edge of our yard, I hear mother’s whine.

            “Wills,” she calls. And then, when I turn around again, Father James is back in the room.

            “Are you ready?” he asks.

            With just a nod, and a makeshift smile for mother as I pass, I follow him out into the morning sun.

            We walk slowly along the road, my feet moving steadily over each stone, my gaze following the grooves on the ground and ignoring everything else in the world. I feel as heavy as every stone in the road combined. Absolutely defeated. When I look up, I notice that it’s so early that hardly anyone else is awake. All I see are a couple roaming Fathers, all out doing ground inspections or prayer work or any of the other mindless things they do to earn their special place in society. That’s when Father James speaks up, deciding it would be best to get me prepared for my first special service with Father Gold.

            “Tell me Wills about the first principle of the Fatherhood,” he says.

            “God’s will not ours be done,” I say, summoning the rote-learned mantra to deflect any real conversation.

            “There’s more to it than that, but yes, that is basically correct,” he says after he realizes I won’t say any more.

            “And God’s will is understood through how many tenets?” he continues.

            “Three,” I say, anger starting to build in me again.

            “Of course. Tell me about the first tenet.”

            “That God wills us to refrain from all electric technology, as it replaces him in our hearts and minds.”

            “Yes, technology is a false idol. This is what caused the Wipe, the near destruction of our time on this planet. But as we have learned, time has taught us that the Wipe was really what?”

            “God’s greatest gift. The Gift of Desolation,” I mechanically drone on.

            And then, as the anger swells, and we pass the courtyard, where all the roads of town converge, some pointing away toward the edge of the woods, I notice something. None of the Fathers are here. In fact, there is no one around. It’s just Father James and me.
I could make a run for it.

            “Based on your answers here, I think you will do fine today with Father Gold,” he says. “Tell me Wills, as I know he will ask you this—what does the second tenet mean to you?”

            “That metal is the chiefest of implements used in the fabrication of electric technology. Only Fathers are allowed to handle metal,” I say, exactly as it reads in the textbook.

            “Good enough, but you misunderstood the deeper import of the question. I will ask you again because it is what Father Gold will do—What does it mean to
you
?”

            I want to scream the truth at him—that it means nothing to me. And then, when I say nothing, he just moves on, and starts to ask about the third tenet—the one that causes the most rage in me. I can’t help but hear it rehearse through my head:
The accordance of Faith
that God’s will comes to the common man or woman through the medium of the Fatherhood, and in the Fathers and God alone must absolute faith be placed.

           
Before the scripture he wants even begins to roll from my lips, I do it. Without a thought ahead or another look around, everything stopping me from running finally diminishes—in one crazy blast, I take off. My feet clap loudly on the stones. I glance back to see Father James’s stunned expression. It’s as if he’s paralyzed, that my running away was so unexpected that he doesn’t know how to react yet. I know he’s much too old to give chase. And then, he just shouts.
Wills
, he calls, over and over. I keep sprinting, as fast as if the wolves are chasing me again, and I look all around. I see the yards with their gardens, the house windows and their bare walls inside, the blur of the side streets. I expect someone—a Father, or just anyone—to see me, to be watching my insane escape. But no one’s there, and I realize that no one is going to see me. I’m going to get away. When I take one last glance at Father James, just before I turn behind a house and into its garden, I see him running as fast as he can. Only he’s not running toward me. He’s heading in the direction of the Head Chapel. In the direction of Father Gold. And now, like never before, I pound the grass. When I get past the garden and reach the fence at the forest’s edge, I leap over in a single bound. And then, in another minute, branches of wide thorny bushes stick to my arms and legs as I weave in and out of the drooping boughs of trees. The thorns rip out of my skin with each thrust forward, but the pain doesn’t bother me one bit. The only thing at all that surges through me, that I feel, is the thought of Maze. And making a mental map of where I must be in relation to the tunnel, I disappear into the woods.