FIFTY-SIX

From the Journal of Sara Fisher (“The Book of Sara”)

Presented at the Third Global Conference on the North American Quarantine Period

Center for the Study of Human Cultures and Conflicts

University of New South Wales, Indo-Australian Republic

April 16–21, 1003 A.V.

[Excerpt begins.]

… and that was when we found the orchard—a welcome sight, since none of us has had anything like enough to eat since three days ago, when Hollis shot the deer. Now we are loaded up with apples. They’re small and wormy and if you eat too many of them all at once you get cramps, but it’s good to have a full belly again. We’re bedding down tonight in a rusted metal shed that’s full of old cars and stinks like pigeons. It seems we’ve lost the road for good now, but Peter says that if we continue walking straight east, we should hit Highway 15 in a day or so. The map we found at the gas station in Caliente is all we have to go by.

Amy is talking a little bit more every day. It all still seems new to her, just to have someone to talk to, and sometimes she seems to struggle for the words, like she’s reading a book in her mind and looking for the right ones. But I can tell that talking makes her happy. She likes to use our names a lot, even when it’s clear who she’s speaking to, which sounds funny but by now we are all used to it and even doing it ourselves. (Yesterday she saw me stepping behind a bush and asked me what I was doing, and when I said, I have to pee, she beamed like I’d just given her the best news in the world and said, too loudly, I have to pee also, Sara. Michael burst out laughing, but Amy didn’t seem to mind, and when we were done with our business she said, very politely—she is always polite—I’d forgotten that was what it’s called. Thank you for peeing with me, Sara.)

Which isn’t to say that we always understand her, because half the time we don’t. Michael says it reminds him of talking to Auntie only worse, because with Auntie you always knew she was fooling with you. Amy doesn’t appear to remember anything about where she comes from, except that it was a place with mountains and that it snowed there, which could be Colorado, though we don’t really know. She doesn’t seem afraid of the virals at all, not even the ones, like Babcock, who she calls the Twelve. When Peter asked her what she did in the ring to make him not kill Theo, Amy shrugged and said, as if this were nothing, I asked him to please not do it. I didn’t like that one, she said. He’s full of bad dreams. I thought it would be better to use my please and thank you.

A viral, and she actually said please!

But the thing that sticks in my mind most of all is what happened when Michael asked her how she’d known to blow the coupler. A man named Gus told me, Amy said. I never even knew that Gus was on the train, but Peter explained what had happened to Gus and Billie, that they’d been killed by the virals, and Amy said, nodding, That was when. Peter got very quiet for a moment, staring at her. What do you mean that was when? he said, and Amy answered, That was when he told me, after he’d fallen off the train. The virals didn’t kill him, I think he broke his neck. But he was around for a little bit after. He was the one who put the bomb between the cars. He saw what was going to happen to the train and thought someone should know.

Michael says there has to be some other explanation, that Gus must have said something to her earlier. But I can tell Peter believes her, and I know I do, too. Peter is more convinced than ever that the signal from Colorado is the key to all of this, and I agree. After what we saw in the Haven, I am beginning to think that Amy is the only hope we have—that any of us has.

Day 31

A real town, the first since Caliente. We are spending the night in some kind of school, like the Sanctuary, with the same little desks in rows in all the rooms. I was worried that it would have more slims in it, but we haven’t found any. We’ve been taking the watch in shifts of two. I’m on second shift with Hollis, which I thought would be hard, sleeping a few hours and then waking up again, then trying to sleep a couple more before dawn. But Hollis makes the time pass easily. For a while we talked of home, and Hollis asked me what I missed the most, and the first thing that came to mind was soap, which made Hollis laugh. I said, What’s so funny and he said, I thought you were going to say the lights. Because I sure as hell miss those lights, Sara. And I said, What do you miss and he was quiet for a moment, and I thought he was going to say Arlo, but he didn’t. He said, The Littles. Dora and the others. The sounds of their voices in the courtyard, and the smell in the Big Room at night. Maybe it’s this place, that it kind of reminds me of them. But that’s what I’m missing tonight, the Littles.

Still no virals. Everybody’s wondering how long our luck will hold out.

Day 32

It looks like we’re going to spend an extra night here—everybody needs to rest.

The big news is the store we found, Outdoor World, full of all kinds of supplies we can use, including bows. (The gun case was empty.) We got knives and a hand axe and canteens and packs with frames and a pair of binoculars and a camp stove and fuel that we can use to boil water. Also maps and a compass and sleeping sacks and warm jackets. Now we all have new gaps to wear, and warm socks for our boots, and thermal underwear, which we don’t really need yet but probably will soon. There was one slim in the store, we didn’t see him until we were almost done, lying under the counter with the binoculars. It made us all feel a little bad that we’d been pulling stuff off the shelves and not even noticing he was there. I know Caleb would have made a joke about it to cheer everyone up. I can’t believe he’s gone.

Alicia and Hollis went hunting and came back with another deer, a yearling. I wish we could stay long enough to cure the meat but Hollis thinks there’ll be more where we’re going. What he didn’t say because he didn’t need to was that if there’s game there’s probably smokes, too.

It’s cold tonight. I think it must be fall.

Day 33

Walking again. We’re on Highway 15 now, headed north. The highway is quaked out but at least we know we’re going the right way. Lots of abandoned vehicles. They seem to come in clusters, you see a bunch of them together and then nothing for a while and then you hit a line of twenty or even more. We’ve stopped to rest by a river. Hoping to make Parowan by late afternoon.

Day 35

Still walking. Peter thinks we are covering about 25 kilometers a day. Exhausted. I am worried about Maus. How can she keep this up? She’s clearly showing now. Theo never leaves her side.

It’s suddenly hot again, scorching. At night there’s lightning to the east, where the mountains are, but never any rain. Hollis got a jack on the bow so that’s what we’re eating, roast jack split eight ways, plus a few leftover apples. Tomorrow we’re going to try to look for a grocery and see if there are any cans there that are still okay to eat. Amy says that you can eat plenty of what’s there if you have to. More 100-year-old food

Why no virals?

Day 36

We smelled the fires last night and by morning we knew the forest was burning over the ridgeline to the east. We debated if we should turn around or wait or try to go around somehow, but that would mean leaving the highway, which no one wants to do. We’ve decided to press on and if the air gets worse we’ll have to make a decision.

Day 36 (again)

A mistake. The fires are close now, no way to outrun them. We have taken shelter in a garage off the highway. Peter isn’t sure what town this is, or if there even is a town. We used the tarps and some nails and a hammer we found to cover the broken windows in the front and now all we can do is wait and hope the wind shifts. The air is so thick I can barely see what I’m writing.

[Pages missing.]

Day 38

We’re past Richfield now, on Highway 70. In places it’s washed away but Hollis was right about the major roads, how they follow the passes. The fire came straight through here. There are dead animals everywhere, and the air smells like charred meat. Everyone thinks the sound we heard that night was the screams of virals, caught in the fire.

Day 39

The first dead virals. They were beneath a bridge, three of them huddled together. Peter thinks we haven’t seen any before because they’d driven all the game up into the higher elevations. When the wind changed, they got trapped by the fire.

Maybe it was just the way they looked, all burned up and their faces pressed to the ground, but I found myself feeling sorry for them. If I didn’t know they were virals I would have sworn they were human, and I know it could just as easily have been us lying dead there. I asked Amy do you think they were afraid and she said yes, she thought that they had been.

We’re going to stay an extra day in the next town we come to, to rest and scavenge supplies. (Amy was right about the cans. As long as the seams are tight and it feels heavy in your hand, they’re OK.)

[Pages missing.]

Day 48

Moving east again, the mountains behind us. Hollis thinks we’ve seen the last game for a while. We are crossing a dry, open tableland, stitched by deep gullies. There are bones everywhere you look—not just small game but deer and antelope and sheep, and something that resembles a cow only larger, with a huge knobby skull (Michael says they’re buffalo). At half-day we stopped to rest by an outcrop of boulders and saw, scraped into the rocks, “Darren loves Lexie 4Ever” and “Green River SHS ’16, PIRATES KICK ASS!!!” The first part everybody understood but nobody knew what to make of the rest. It made me feel a little sad, I can’t quite say why, maybe it was just that the words had been there so long with no one to read them. I wonder if Lexie loved Darren back?

We got off the highway and are sheltering near the town of Emery. Nothing really left here, just foundations and a few sheds with rusted farm equipment, full of mice. There’s no pump we can find, but Peter says there’s a river near here and tomorrow we’ll go look for it.

Stars everywhere. A beautiful night.

Day 49

I have decided to marry Hollis Wilson.

Day 52

Going south now from Crescent Junction, on Highway 191. At least we think it’s 191. We actually walked straight past the turnoff at least five clicks and had to double back. There’s not much of a road to follow, which was why we missed it in the first place. I asked Peter why we had to get off the 70 and he said we’re too far north for where we’re going. Sooner or later we’ll have to head south, so it might as well be now.

Hollis and I have decided not to tell anyone about what’s happened. It’s funny how when I made up my mind about him I realized I had been thinking it for a long time without knowing it. I wish all the time I could kiss him again but everyone’s around or else we’re on watch. I still feel kind of guilty about the other night. Also, he really needs a bath. (So do I.)

No towns at all. Peter doesn’t think we’ll hit one till Moab. We are spending the night in a shallow cave, really just a recess with an overhang, though it’s better than nothing. The rocks here are all a kind of orange-pink color, very lovely and strange.

Day 53

Today was the day we found the farmstead.

At first we thought it was just a ruin, like all the others we’ve seen. But as we got closer, we saw it was in much better shape—a cluster of woodframe houses, with barns and outbuildings and paddocks for animals. Two of the houses are empty, but one of them, the largest, looks like someone was actually living here not so long ago. The table in the kitchen was actually set with places and cups; there are curtains in the windows, clothing folded in the drawers. Furniture and pots and pans and books on the shelves. In the barn we found an old car, covered in dust, the shelves lined with jugs of lantern fuel, empty jars for canning, tools. There’s what looks like a graveyard, too, four plots marked with circles of stones. Michael said we should dig one up to see who’s down there. But nobody took this suggestion seriously.

We found the wellhead but the pump was rusted tight; it took three of us to free it, but once we did the water that came out was cold and clear, the best we’ve had in a long while. There’s a pump in the kitchen that Hollis is still trying to free up and a woodstove for cooking. In the basement we found more shelves stacked with cans of beans and squash and corn, the seals still good. We still have the tins we scavenged in Green River, plus some of the smoked venison and a bit of lard we saved. Our first real meal in weeks. Peter says there’s a river not far and tomorrow we’re going to go look for it. We’re all bedding down in the biggest house, using mattresses we dragged from upstairs and set around the fireplace.

Peter believes the place has been abandoned at least ten years, but probably not more than twenty. Who lived here? How did they survive? The place has a haunted feeling to it, more than any of the towns we’ve seen. It’s as if whoever lived here went out one day, expecting to be back for supper, and simply never returned.

Day 54

We are staying an extra day. Theo is insistent, says Maus can’t keep up this kind of pace, but Peter says we have to leave soon if we want to make it to Colorado before the snow. Snow. I hadn’t thought about that.

Day 56

Still at the farmstead. We decided to stay a few more days, though Peter is antsy and wants to get moving. He and Theo actually argued about this. I think [indecipherable]

[Pages missing.]

Day 59

We are leaving in the morning, but Theo and Maus are staying behind. I think everyone knew this was coming. They made the announcement right after supper. Peter objected, but in the end there was nothing he could say to change Theo’s mind. They have shelter, there’s plenty of small game around plus the cans in the basement, they can ride out the winter here and have the baby. We’ll see you in the spring, brother, Theo said. Just don’t forget to stop in on your way back from whatever it is you find.

I’m supposed to be on watch in a few hours, and I really should be sleeping. I think Maus and Theo are doing the right thing, even Peter has to know it. But it’s sad to be leaving them behind. I think it’s making us all think about Caleb, Alicia especially, who clammed up completely after Maus and Theo gave their news and has yet to say a word to anyone. I think everyone’s remembering those graves in the yard, wondering if we’ll ever see Maus and Theo again.

I wish Hollis were awake. I told myself I wouldn’t cry. Oh damn, damn.

Day 60

Traveling again. Theo was right about one thing—without Maus, we are making better time. The six of us got to Moab well before dusk. There’s nothing here; the river has washed everything away. A huge wall of debris is blocking the way, trees and houses and cars and old tires and every kind of thing, filling the narrow canyon where the town once was. We’ve sheltered for the night in one of the few remaining structures, up in the hills. A complete derelict, just the framing and a patchy roof over our heads. We might just as well be out in the open, and I doubt anyone’s going to get much sleep tonight. Tomorrow we’re going to walk up the ridge, try to find a way through to the other side.

[Pages missing.]

Day 64

We found another animal carcass today, some kind of large cat. It was hanging in the limbs of a tree, like the others. The body was too rotted to tell, but everyone is thinking it was a viral that killed it.

Day 65

Still in the La Sal Mountains, heading east. The sky has turned from white to blue, the color of autumn. There’s a damp, delicious smell to everything. The leaves are coming down, and there’s frost at night, and in the morning, a heavy, silver mist hugs the hills. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so lovely.

Day 66

Last night Amy had another nightmare. We were sleeping out in the open again, under the tarps. I had just come off watch with Hollis and was prying my boots off when I heard her mumbling in her sleep. I was thinking maybe I should wake her up when suddenly she sat bolt upright. She was all wrapped up in her bag, only her face showing. She looked at me for a long moment, her eyes unfocused, like she didn’t know who I was. He’s dying, she said. He keeps on dying and can’t stop. Who’s dying, I said, Amy, who? The man, she said. The man is dying. What man? I asked her. But then she lay back down and was fast asleep again.

Sometimes I wonder if we are heading toward something terrible, more terrible than any of us can imagine.

Day 67

Today we came to a rusted sign by the road that said, “Paradox pop. 2387.” I think we’re here, Peter said, and showed us all on the map

We are in Colorado.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 522