I drag a moist towel across my forehead and squint into the big brick oven. Hickory pops and crackles in the back corner of the deep fireplace below and keeps the oven at a stable 400 degrees. I double-check the little stainless steel thermometer, something I dug out from the charred ruins of Luigi’s Pizzeria.

The House smells yeasty, pungent and a little sour. Very slowly the aroma of crusty bread begins to claw at that sourness until it chases all but the last wisps of beery dough smell away. A sponge – that is a bucket filled with wet flour, sugar, salt, and yeast – bubbles and rises very slowly on the floor beside the table. I made this sponge with the last of our dried yeast a year and a half ago, but I’ve managed to keep it alive and flourishing, irrespective of the persistent chill, near constant rain, and perpetual threat of starvation urging me to cook the whole thing at once.

A little tin goat bell clinks by the top of the doorway. A length of old fishing line stretches through a small hole drilled in the top of the window casement, it runs crosswise into the woods and along the driveway, hidden of course, to a wide spring operated pedal buried in the soft ground at the driveway entrance. The walk from the bell trigger to the gate takes three minutes, that’s plenty of time to check fortifications and draw a bead.

A pair of silhouettes walks straight down the center of the overgrown dirt driveway – already a good sign as zombies tend to swerve. I unsnap the hip holster stowing my .38 snub and draw up Dad’s old muzzle-loader that leans loaded and ready against the doorframe.

One figure stands barely half the size of the other. Both carry packs strapped around their shoulders and push adult-sized bicycles with packs strapped over the back wheels. I hurry down to the gate and peer through the sighting slot. I know them, Big Bill’s square-cut black beard is a dead giveaway. Little Bill walks alongside and looks just a half-sized copy of his father.

I pull the pressure treated 4-by-4 gate-bolt and flip the “come in” sign over the stockade top, then head back to the house and return to the big slab of butcher block and my waiting dough. I start practicing my smile until my face muscles limber enough that I look genuinely like a social animal and not a yeasty hermit – even if I feel and live like one.

“Hi Dierdre. We got some flour.”

“Come on in.”

Little Bill is short, as his name suggests, and spindly with spidery long arms and legs slicked in persistent end-of-the-world grime. He stands at the door with a scoped .22 rifle hanging at the end of his fingers then slowly turns around.

Big Bill withdraws an open five-pound bag from Little Bill’s pack.

“It was open when we found it, but it feels like it’s about a good four pounds. I figured it’d save you a trip to town maybe. Not much left out to scavenge within comfortable walking distance.” Big Bill takes the little .22 and leans it against the wall beside my muzzleloader.

Little Bill wriggles out of his pack and takes one of the three wooden chairs against the wall. His legs dangle over the edge just enough that his feet only skim the hardwood floor.

I touch my finger to the white powder and swirl it between my fingers. “Feels like flour.” I touch fingertip to tongue tip. “Tastes like flour too.” They don’t say anything, nor do they eye me suspiciously as both were present during the big dustup last year when Jolene Simmons tried to pass off five pounds of Bisquick and plaster of Paris. I’m more careful now — double-check everything — because one catastrophic mistake and we’ll never have bread again.

Big Bill strips off a ratty wool sweater and knitted hat then drops into the chair beside his son. “How’s things?”

“I’m not one for small talk, Bill. You know that.”

He sits quiet for a few minutes while I work the dough to about half the size of a volleyball. “How far did you go for scavenging this time?”

“About twenty five miles north east up towards Moosefield and the big dam. Still hard to believe it’s all gone.”

“Most places are just burned up squares in the dirt now.” Little Bill cranks his knee almost to his chin and works the laces on a pair of new-looking, oversized hiking boots. A splash of dried blood stains the outside edge of the left shoe.

“See any shamblers?”

Big Bill shakes a little. He pulls a flask of cloudy blackish liquid from his hip pocket and pulls the cork with his teeth. “Couple.” He swishes the bottle around before showing it to me. “Went down easy. Slow. Still real cold for them. Wearing camo. Probably died at the end of last summer, they were all torn up.” He swigs then offers me the flask.

I sniff the bottle mouth. “Blueberry?”

He smiles. “You have a good nose. It’s mostly just juice now, but I like to think there’s some booze left in it.” Big Bill walks over to the wash bucket on the little table beside the fireplace.

I sip. “Uck! Too sweet.”

We both laugh just a little. He dips both of his skeletal hands into the washing up bucket then rubs wet fingers around the back of his neck. “Hey boy, why don’t you go have a look around the outside of the house. I bet you’ll find a couple of good squirrel, or rabbit runs along the stockade fence.”

Little Bill’s eyes catch the flames from the fireplace and reflect them back for just a second. He shoulders his rifle and disappears through the door into the grayish morning.

Big Bill’s voice swoops down like a crow. “I got more than flour for you, Dierdre. If your amenable.”

“Oh?” I make something like a frown, but Big Bill’s been good to me, and I squash it into a thin lipped smile. He found me salt and a couple of bottles of bread machine yeast last year.

“Nancy’s sick, real bad sick. I can’t take care of her and the boy.” Big Bill waits for me to protest, but I don’t. “Diabetes. No medicine left to treat it. And with so little food around, it’s really hard to manage with diet.” Big Bill falls silent but his eyes plead better than his mouth can manage. “She had two fits last week. Almost couldn’t rouse her out of the second one. The ulcer on her too has gone to running yellow.”

I fold the dough, punch it, fold it, punch it – The muted swoosh-swoosh-thump, swoosh-swoosh-thump, swoosh-swoosh-thump of the kneading punctuates our silence. I push the shaped loaf to the side and start to pick fast-drying clots of sticky dough from between my fingers and dropping them into the bucket full of tomorrow’s dough. I catch Big Bill’s eye again and glimpse the abyss that swirls behind them. “Why me?”

A tiny wriggle in Big Bill’s mustache suggests a slight smile. “You need help here too, so it works out. If you get sick or — you know — we’ll need someone to carry on with the bread.” Bill pinches a wad of tobacco into his pipe and tamps it down with the end of his pinky. “Found this last trip out,” he says, “whole cellar full of cigars and stuff. Water got in so most of it was wrecked and bug eaten, but a little bit of it was okay. You want some?”

A flash of goosebumps rides up my arms and across my shoulders. “No Bill. I gave up tobacco when I couldn’t scavenge it anymore.”

“Suit yourself.” Bill pulls a twig out of the kindling box and reaches it into the fireplace. “Little pleasures are hard to come by, seems silly to let them pass. Little Bill is 13 now, has good hands. Smart. Good with a hoe and shovel too. You keep him working on your garden when he isn’t tending to bread –”

“Stop being so goddamn practical.”

Bill’s face droops and he returns to the chair against the wall. He sucks slowly on the pipe and the smell of cherry tobacco briefly fights off the bread dough smell.  “I don’t know what I’ll do without her. She needs all of me right now and that means there’s nothing left over for anyone else. Little Bill understands.” He pauses then whispers, “I hope he does.”

I used to envy the people who survived with their loved ones intact. How they always had that other person to stave off the loneliness and hold through the long cold winter darkness, or while the undead scratched and pounded at the door. The world got to them too, just slower, and they had to watch as their comfort wasted away, starved or got sick, then had to be dealt with. My grief came fast and early, when Greg couldn’t get out of Lowell as the undead rampaged through the larger cities and towns. We said goodbye on the phone. We wept together that night for the first and last time. He sent a final picture from his cell, in it he forced a smile but his eyes, glancing out of frame at some approaching horror, burned red with terrified tears.

“Why not bring him into town. I’m sure Linda can find someone better suited to –“

“They all have people. You need someone and Bill needs someone like you. Someone practical and smart. Someone with purpose.”

“You keep ladling on praise and I’m going to start to blush, Bill.”

Little Bill ambles back into the oven room and stands beside his father. “Couple good squirrel runs I guess.”

I scan over Little Bill, then Big Bill who hides his devastation behind a cloud of pipe smoke. “Normally I’d ask for a week to think about an offer like this but with so much dough to manage, and a permanent shortage of four to deal with – I don’t have accommodations so you’ll have to sleep in the root cellar or down here in the kitchen until I can get something more permanent set up.”

Little Bill shrugs then whispers, “That’s fine.”

“I knew I could count on your Dierdre.” Big Bill hugs his son, then wheels the boy’s bicycle from the dirt walkway to the porch. He unfastens a bedroll and some other basics from the frame and leans them against the door, Little Bill bolts the outer fence after his father passes through the gate.

These arrangements don’t warrant a long teary goodbyes or anything — not anymore.

“You ever make bread?”

“Nope.” Little Bill eases up to the floured butcher block. “Looks like when I used to make dinosaurs out of clay when I was a kid.”

“The dough isn’t all that different, really. Play dough doesn’t have yeast in it so you can make a stegasaurus but not a loaf of bread.”

A near silence descends on the oven room. Little Bill peers through the window slats at the decreasingly identifiable figure of Big Bill melting into the shadows of the long driveway.

Normally I like silence, but it seems unnatural with someone else in the room. “Do you like to read, Bill? I have a few books saved up.”

Little Bill shrugs. “I guess, maybe, I don’t know.”

“Games? I bet I still have some board games somewhere –” I have to think for a minute. I cannibalized most of that part of the house for plywood fortifications and fence repair.

Little Bill walks from one window to the other, to the other, to the other. He touches the iron brackets and wooden slats.

2

I rub my eyes, and for a second contemplate jamming my fingers in deep enough to touch my frontal lobes, as Tom Henderson and Reverend Lyons prattle on about the ancient sawmill at Old Man Orchard. Tom asked for me to participate in the discussion as it related to what I do. I don’t usually come to town for the more regular powwows where Linda and The Reverend hold court, not that I don’t think they are good for Pleasant Hollow or anything, but I never wanted to be involved in the day to day running of anything. I like my little niche and I don’t want it to get any bigger if possible. Tom keeps looking over at me like I should leap in and have answers, but I don’t.

Little Bill stands at the door like a bodyguard until one of Linda’s goats clip-clops up onto the kitchen porch and begins nibbling at the nylon strap to his red backpack. He drops to one knee and focuses all of his attention on scratching the goat’s chin. Linda says, “It’s a saw mill. I don’t know if the spindle can be adapted to grind wheat. I’m not an engineer –”

“Look, society has been growing and milling wheat since Babylonian times, for chrissakes, how can we not be able to do figure it out?” Tom almost pounds the kitchen table as he speaks. “We can’t have forgotten! We can’t be this fucking useless!”

“Calm down.” Reverend Lyons rubs the stump just below his right shoulder, where he took a rifle bullet about two months ago while on a scavenge, without antibiotics there was no saving the limb.

We don’t remind him that he’s lucky to be alive.

“I sketched what I think is the way the spindles work. Apologies for the crudeness.” Lyons pulls a crumpled sheet of paper from his side pocket and spreads it on the table.

Tom glances at me and sort of shrugs. “So?”

“I think we can simplify this whole thing and use the waterwheel to rotate a grinding wheel, or a hammer assembly, that’ll grind or pound grain into flour.”

Linda says, “No amount of water power or grinding ability is going to matter if we don’t have wheat to grow.” She waves at her familiar, Marjorie, a skinny girl of maybe 14 who brings a little jar of seeds from the top cabinet. “Start with this. See if you can triple the amount of seeds by the first harvest.”

Marjorie pours hot water over our used teabags and the final result is sort of like drinking hot water haunted by tea. Linda says, “Dierdre?”

“What?”

“Nothing to add?”

“I make bread, that’s all. I’m not a wheat farmer or an engineer.”

“We all have to stretch a little, Dierdre –”

“I’ll stretch when I don’t have to make twenty loaves of bread every day.” My temper flares a little. “Bill and I are going home. I have too much work to be part of this little brain-trust.”

The room goes silent. Little Bill stands up and shoulders his .22.

“Calm down,” Reverend Lyons says, “there’s no need to argue over any of this stuff. Dierdre, we’re just trying to plan for next season. We can’t just sit here and wait to starve.”

Tom says, “Everyone lay off her, okay?” He turns to me. “I’m sorry, Dierdre, I shouldn’t have dragged you. I just thought you should be part of any decision  that might effect what you do.”

I stare at him. I snap my fingers and Little Bill cranes his head away from the goat for a second. “Drop the dough on the table and lets go.”

Linda waves at Marjorie. “Honey and a little tub of goat cheese.” She glares at me. “We don’t take gifts, we trade, just so there’s no advantage.”

Little Bill places two jars of sourdough from his backpack on the table.

“Where did you get wheat seeds?” Tom turns the jar in the little bit of sunlight that sneaks in through the back window.

“Winter wheat grows wild. I sent the girls to find it with a picture of the stalk. We can find more, but we’ll save time and effort by cultivating a good field or two.” Marjorie helps Linda from her chair. Linda limps to the stove and dips her hands into a wash bucket beside the sink. “Time is everything and we don’t have much of it. Every day we get closer to another scout arriving. Every day we get closer to our stores running out. Henry and Abby found a pile of horse shit on the far south side of town when he was collecting his syrup taps. Other say they’ve heard a diesel engine on the highway late at night.”

“And that doesn’t even count the undead,” Little Bill says, “we’re into the thaw already. My dad thinks it’s going to be a long summer.”

Linda asks, “How is Big Bill?”

“I haven’t seen him since moving in with Dierdre.” Little Bill wriggles into his backpack and pats the little goat’s head before standing taking his place by the door. “Ready.”

Tom places the jar in my fingers and I stare through the glass at the little pile of seeds and into our future.

3

“Tom Henderson’s been around a lot. Is he your boyfriend or something.” Little Bill talks through chews of two-day-old bread skimmed with Linda’s traded goat cheese.

“No, though sometimes I think he forgets.” I pile six logs in the fireplace. I’d like to get fifteen loaves in the oven before lunchtime. “We used to have a thing but his work and mine weren’t on the same schedules and after a while he found a girl who was more amenable to his bowling and cards and movies, and I did the same, then I moved away.” The sky is almost dusk-dark and I wouldn’t be surprised if we drew some lightning and thunder by afternoon.

Little Bill struggles against the weight of a three gallon pail filled with dough.

“We have to bulk you up.” I sort of laugh through the end of the declaration.

“I’m not that small.”

“We’ll see if we can’t feed a growth spurt into you this summer.” I tear the first big hunk out of the dough and drop it onto the board as Little Bill slides a stool beside me and climbs up. He drags a five-pounder of all purpose flour close to the workspace. He counts out four cups and piles it into six nice piles.

We’ve got a semi-regular assembly line going before long. I punch the dough and he sprinkles in dry flour until I push the sixth cantaloupe sized loaf up into the line of dough balls that rest just off the work area.

He’s getting more confident with the dough and that confidence is key to making edible, well-risen, bread.

We both pound out three dozen roll-sized loaves and get those into the rising chamber last. It’s not even noon and we’re effectively done for the day. A load this size used to run seven hours, with Little Bill’s help we’re done in just a bit over four. Extra time is a luxury I’d forgotten.

I walk the perimeter of my little garden rectangle as the afternoon sun breaks through the dense clouds and creeps across the still muddy ground in irregular yellow-bright semicircles. One passes close enough for me to catch and the warm light washes over me.  I stand like I’ve just swung the oven door open, but the sun’s heat is different, more comfortably warm. Then, like a nervous kiss, it’s passed and I’m left slightly chilled.

I concentrate on the garden where we’ve worked in seed tomatoes, potatoes, corn, zucchini, and green peppers – almost time to weed a little. We’ve dug out another big rectangle too, where Tom Henderson scattered half of Linda’s collected wheat seeds.

“Hey!” Bill sits on the porch, smiles wide, and wipes his hands across a too small tee shirt. He’s dug out an old Monopoly game. “Want to play?”

4

“Three, four, five. ” Little Bill fumbles through his small sheaf of cards and compares the little green and little red plastic buildings. “Why are the red ones bigger again?”

“Those are hotels.”

I pour hot water for both of us and season it with a dab of honey and half teaspoon each of nonfat dry milk.  “Can I ask you something?”

Little Bill stops studying the railroad card and turns his attention to me. “I guess.”

“Aren’t you angry that your Dad dropped you here?”

He shrugs. “Mom’s real sick. He needs to help her. If I was real sick he’d drop Mom here and help me.” He drops the railroad card and pulls one of the yellow Community Chest cards and reads it silently.

“If you get angry. If you want to talk. Just say so, okay?”

Little Bill shrugs and puts his full attention back into Monopoly. “Can I buy Reading Railroad? I’ve landed on it.”

“For two hundred bucks you can.” I haven’t thought about money at all in three years and the colorful bills of the game threatens to pop a dam holding back three years of shit.

Little Bill counts out from his carefully sorted stacks and hands them to me. He catches my eye. “You okay, Dierdre?”

“I – I need to go for a walk. Just wait here.” Once I’m sure Little Bill hasn’t followed me out into the punishing afternoon rain I let the dam crumble and the despair sluice out.

The rain is good.

The rain carries away my tears.

Greg and I were just starting to make it. A couple of miscarriages resigned us to growing old together, alone. Greg’s gig as a human resources manager at Sylvania was rock solid, and I was settling into a full time position managing environmental impact surveys for a coalition of PACs and PIRGs. We had a house, a nice one, with antiques and computers and BMWs and yearly trips to France –  one where I attended a week long baking seminar to learn that boulle meant “round” and baguette meant “long” – we both hit our forty five with enough in the bank to plan an early retirement, or work just a little more and tour the world.

But the world ended without us.

I cry for a good ten minutes, recover, then curse the little indulgence of weakness before walking back to where Little Bill waits.

“I have two hundred.” He drops the colorful paper money onto the board.

I hand over the card. “I don’t feel like playing anymore right now. Okay?”

Little Bill fumbles with his cards. “Okay, I guess. Do I have to put it away?”

“No. We can play later. It’s just – I used to – Before we –”

Little Bill scoots over next to me and places his thin, bony arms around my shoulders. “I understand,” he says, “I was kicking your ass anyway.”

5

Monday’s take the longest because the families come for bread from the furthest ends of town. I lay out the tally sheet and a pencil nub and glance over the names. Adams, Baker, Chatergee, Clemens, Duncan.

The goat bell clanks.

Little Bill peers down the road. “Five or six coming.”

I get the gate cleared and sign up with a full ninety seconds to spare. Little Bill has washed his face, arms, and head stubble and stands behind the table like a miniature store clerk. I double check the snub .38. Little Bill shows the .22 before leaning it against the butcher block. I check each person walking through the gate briefly against the list.

Little Bill makes happy smalltalk with each of the family representatives before handing over their bread. Normally the people come in, get their stuff, and leave after a short round of hi how are you, yes I’m fine, I heard so and so blew their head off, but Little Bill is a big chatterbox.

“How long have you got him,” Tom Henderson asks outside of Little Bill’s earshot.

“I dunno. Depends on what happens with Nancy. Big Bill says she’s falling off real bad now.”

Little Bill points out the Monopoly board, frozen mid game, with him about to become a railroad magnate. His mouth never stops moving.

Tom catches his eye and smiles. “He’s good for you. You should ask if you can keep him.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“You’ve been alone too long.”

“Let’s not start that again –”

“I’m just saying it’s good that you’re being, I don’t know, friendly.”

I shrug. “Most of it’s him.”

Tom smiles again, this time at me. “You’re looking good, Dierdre. Sometimes I forget how pretty you are.”

I roll my eyes and walk back to my usual spot in front of the big fireplace and oven to watch the little congregation mingle until the families begin to drift out. I walk Tom to the gate. “See you next week.”

“I don’t have to go. I mean, I can stay and make some dinner or something.”

I pull the bolt open and Tom leans in and kisses me. I blush and pull back. “Go,” I whisper.

Little Bill slides in beside me. He unslings his .22 and hands a cloth bag filled with bread rolls to Tom. “Everything okay?”

“I was just leaving.” Tom backs out through the gate and bungie cords the cloth bag around the handlebars of his bike. We lock the gate. I climb into my loft and curl up fetal on the mattress. I miss Greg, and usually when I feel hollow and dusty his memory brings a little comfort. Today I can’t remember the color of his eyes, or which way he combed his hair. The harder I try the more I see Tom. He eclipses the past, swallows it like some black hole at the center of a collapsing universe.

Damn you Tom, damn you to hell.

Little Bill tends the garden and walks the perimeter fence alone. Later he bounces two dice over the Monopoly board over and over and over again.

6

We haven’t seen Big Bill in three weeks.

Little Bill works a loaf in silence, the dull throb of his hands kneading the dough drown under the crackle and pop of the fireplace. The tin goat-bell clanks. Little Bill steps back from the dough and begins a quick accounting of the room.

“Stay on the bread. We’ve got time. I’ll do the check.” I peer through the view-slat with his yellow binoculars to a girl pedaling hard on a mountain bike. “It’s Marjorie Whatshername from Laura’s house. That crazy girl is all alone too, jeez!” I run from the house, yank the bolt back and kick the gate open as Marjorie coasts past me and into the yard. She skids to a stop by the steps and drops a heavy backpack before leaning the bike against the porch rail. “Laura sent me with some stuff; tea and some honey and maple syrup a couple of jars of preserved potatoes too.”

“I don’t have spare loaves to trade. And what the hell’s wrong with you riding all the way here alone? It’s ten miles, kid, and we’re in the warm season. We can’t afford to lose anyone now, especially not to stupidity.”

Marjorie brushes her mop of straight black hair under a sweaty red kerchief, “I’m fast enough. Besides, I wasn’t alone for the trip. Tom Henderson’s on the way over too but he wanted to check on Big Bill.”

“Don’t say that to Little Bill, understand?”

Marjorie nods. “Where is he? I didn’t just come to trade, I came to see him.”

I lock up the gate then lead Marjorie inside. Little Bill brightens up as soon as he sees our guest. “It’s not your day for bread,” he says then pulls a roll from the cooling shelf and places it on the butcher block before her. “It’s mine, but I want you to have it.”

Marjorie blushes. “Did you make it?”

Little Bill smiles. “I make lots of bread now.”

Marjorie eases closer. She’s taller than Little Bill by almost half-a-foot but short of that they might as well be classmates. Bill finishes up the last loaf for the last batch and slides it into the rising cabinet.

“You have good hands,” she says.

“Thanks.”

“Laura says I should ask if I can learn how to make bread too because you can’t ever have enough bakers.”

“I can teach you,” Little Bill answers.

“You’re smart too, not just handsome,” she says. For all her youth, Marjorie’s clumsy flirtations aren’t lost on Little Bill who smiles and broadcasts almost adult confidence as she gushes and giggles.

I guess the world ending forces everyone to grow up a little faster.

Marjorie notices the Monopoly board. “Oh god, you still have this! Can we play? I haven’t even seen a board game in forever!”

“Sure! Dierdre was teaching me, but I’m too good and she doesn’t like losing all the time.” Little Bill glances over at me and winks.

“I’ll give you two a little privacy.”

The goat-bell clanks. Tom Henderson cruises slowly down the driveway on his old Schwinn three-speed and meets me at the gate. His face is pale and sweaty.

“Where’s the kid,” he says and looks over my shoulder at the house.

“Inside. Why?”

Tom begins to push past me. “He should know –”

“– Should know what! Tom, stop!” I grab his arm and hold him back.

“Nancy’s dead, Big Bill too, and both of them are gone.”

“Wait a minute, what good is it to tell Little Bill? You think he’s going to grab his squirrel rifle and go off hunting for his zombie parents? Are you fucking nuts or something?”

“He should know.”

“If Big Bill and Nancy walk into town they’ll be dealt with. This isn’t the end of the world – that’s already happened, remember?” Suddenly, I crack up laughing, I don’t know if it’s the phrase or the sarcasm I’ve let slip into my comment but I can barely stand as the laughter consumes me.

Tom steadies me. He smells filthy – not that I’m a rose mind you – musky and earthy. His arms radiate strength. I grab his matted shoulder length dreadlocks and bury my tongue in his mouth.

Tom pulls back, “I thought you didn’t want –”

“Do you know what one of the last things Big Bill said to me was?”

Tom shakes his head.

“He said it was stupid to deny little pleasures when they’re offered.” I scratch softly at the nape of Tom’s neck. I whisper, “And now he’s probably dead.” I kiss him again and this time he doesn’t recoil. Silence nuzzles in between us. I lean against Tom and let his warmth comfort me. My arms fit just right around his starvation-trimmed belly, not like when we were kids and he was two pizzas away from joining the 300-plus club.

Tom whispers, “We have to tell the kid.”

“I’ll do it. Just give me time. This is probably his first time being a little bit happy in as long he can remember, I don’t want to destroy that.”

7

I lay across the musty futon in the loft. It’s late, and usually the nighttime sounds – rain, peepers, owls – lulls me to sleep. Tonight I’m restless. Greg is there hiding in the darkness but the memories don’t want to come out and be massaged tonight. His voice is a mix of voices now, his face is a mix of all faces.

I roll over and sigh. Greg’s become an abstract, papered over by the new memory of Tom’s sharp features, warm hug and wet kiss.

The goat bell clanks – clank-clankity. I roll over and listen. Animals sometimes trip the trigger plate.

Little Bill shuffles out of his sleeping bag downstairs. “Dierdre?”

“Lay down, Bill. It’s nothing. That was probably a deer. You won’t get much sleep this spring or summer if you worry every time you hear the bell.”

Clank-clank-clank.

“I’m getting my rifle ready just in case.” Little Bill shuffles to the door and slides the view slit open. “Can’t see anything.”

I sit up and yawn then slip down from the loft to the kitchen. “New moon, I think.” I peer trough the view slit into the relentless nighttime black. “No light at all.”

Clank-clank-clank-clank-clankity-clank.

“Well, if whatever it is stays up by the roadway ・”

“I wish we could see something.” Little Bill reaches for the door knob but I push him away.

“Just let me go to the gate.”

“No.”

Clank-clank-clank-clank.

“Dad says the zombies go someplace that had meaning for them before they died.”

“No one knows that for sure, Little Bill.” Tom’s words race back through my head. We gotta tell the kid, Big Bill’s dead and gone. Little Bill being here would certainly have meaning, and if Big Bill stumbled into more zombies they’d follow him.

Zombies tend to horde.

“He said we’d be safe back home because he didn’t have any friends and no one ever visited.”

Clank-clank.

“Shhhhh!” I try to unlock the door silently ・ zombies still hear, still smell, and still see, depending on decomposition ・ but manage to elicit a few tiny clicks as the bolt retracts into the housing. Soft misty rain swirls in the darkness. The droplets catch the tiny orange flicker from the dying embers in the fireplace and glow like dull sparks. The mist squashes down the usual smells, suffocating them in must and humus, but beneath that hides a vein of the sick sulfury air of flesh-rot. I draw up the muzzle loader. “Stay here. I’m just going to the gate. If I have to run back you might need to slam and lock the door behind me.”

Little bill takes my hand and squeezes for a second. “Wait. No.” His voice quavers. “Don’t go down.” He’s surprisingly strong and pushes me back from the door before slamming it and twisting the lock closed. I force him aside and even though I know he can’t see how I glare at him. All that noise is going to bring them for sure now. Then, as if on cue: Clankity-clank-clank. Bwoooooooaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnn. Scratch-thump.

“Upstairs into the loft. Now!” I push Little Bill towards the ladder then quickly check each of the bolts, locks, and slats downstairs before climbing up and fumbling the ladder in behind me. “The dough should be safe. They won’t get in even if they get over the fence.”

Little Bill sits pressed into the corner. He holds the .22 like it anchors him to the Earth’s surface. He whispers, “Sorry I made noise.”

I glance out the window into the mist but can’t see anything through the murk. “We’ll just wait it out. It’s not big deal.” My mind races over the slats and bolts and lock and doors and everything else, then when I’m sure I didn’t skip anything, the race starts again. I slide the window open just enough to hear them.

Grooooooannnnnnnn – Thump-Thump-Thump – Mooooooannnnnnnnnn.

Little Bill crawls over towards the futon mattress.

“The only way in is the ladder that I pulled up. Don’t worry, okay. Just try and get some sleep. I’ll sit up until morning when we can see what’s what.”

He slides into the futon and pulls the quilts in tight. “I can’t stop shivering.”

I listen at the trapdoor but all’s quiet in the kitchen below. Morning won’t come for hours and hours. I drag my holstered .38 over and slip into the bed beside Little Bill. He scoots beside me, He shivers through the heavy layer of blankets. I roll over and wrap him in my arms until his breath falls into a relaxed and sleepy rhythm.

Sometimes I forget he’s only 13.

Whatever scratched at the gate moved on deeper towards Pleasant Hollow by sunrise.

8

Little Bill slides the Monopoly box into his backpack. He hasn’t stopped chattering all morning. “Marjorie and me are going to play, like, three games at least,” he says, “maybe we can get you and Linda to play too. There’s plenty of money and pieces and dice and stuff.”

I pack two almost stale rolls and the last nice crusty loafs from this week’s baking. I don’t usually take days off to mean I can actually go into town, but after last night we need a change of scenery and to let Reverend Lyons and the others know we didn’t get eaten.

“Do you mind if we stop by my folk’s place on the way? Dad hasn’t been back to the house and I want to make sure everything’s alright.”

I stare down into Little Bill’s eyes. “Bill,” I drop the Little this time, “What happened to Betty Crimmins?”

“Died from the flu two weeks ago.”

“Right. When people are sick, now when there’s no medicine except maybe chicken soup, there isn’t much hope –”

Little Bill picks up, and immediately checks his rifle. “You can come with me or I’ll meet you at Linda’s.”

He bungi-cords the bags to the flat rack over his back tire and shoulder-slings the .22. A moment later we’re both pedaling up the long driveway.

We slalom through felled old-growth pine and spruce and oak that lay across the state road. Little Bill has more energy than me and before long I’m almost yelling for him to wait up.

He skids to a stop right at the crest of Owl’s Nest Lane, throws his bike onto its kickstand, and unslings his rifle. I struggle to pedal up the steep hill where he waits.

“Slowpoke,” he says and there isn’t a hint of humor in his voice.

I scowl at him because I don’t have the wind to swear.

Little Bill pries his yellow binoculars from the backpack and peers down the hill towards a small brown house set against a big red barn. “Everything looks like how we left it.”

I see the bricked windows, the high fences, barbed wire, the useless pickup truck. “No chimney smoke.”

Little Bill asks, “You really think he’s dead?”

“I don’t know. If the dead come to places that mean something when they were alive, there’s no other good reason we had them at the gate last night. If Big Bill is dead and walking then he might have come to my house because of you.”

“I need something if I’m going be the last one. ” Little Bill swings his bike over the crest and leaps on before I can follow.

“Come back! Wait! Come back Little Bill!”

He hunches down over the handlebars and rockets towards the farm.

I coast down and listen for screams and/or gunshots but there’s nothing. Little Bill’s bike leans against the stockade fence a few feet from the open gate. A bicycle chain swings lazily from two iron loops bolted into the wood. I hop off my 10-speed and stand it by the road. I push the front door open and count slowly to three. My eyes struggle against the murky darkness. Cold white light leaks in between the the wooden slats and badly mortared brick that covers all of the downstairs windows. Footsteps echo from the upstairs rooms.

Almost-mid-morning sunlight floods the entry and the remains of the room beyond. Heaps of filthy moldy clothes clot on the water-warped hardwood floor. A pile of swollen, water-soaked books crumbles beside the remains of an overstuffed chair dotted with blooms of mildew.

I draw the pistol. The steps to the upper floor are sealed behind a metal door.

The entrance door throws a rectangle of light. The shadow of a human figure resolves in the sharp stretched rectangle. Tall – but that could be the light – no rifle. The figure shuffles up the last step into the house.

I raise the pistol. I pry the hammer back as the shadow looms, pull in one long, quiet breath, settle my finger on the trigger. The little bead on the end of the snub barrel blurs. I blink and squeeze off two rounds.

“Jesus Christ!”

I know that voice! “Big Bill!”

“Dierdre?”

“Oh my god! I thought you were one of them and I – I panicked  – Oh my god are you hurt? Did I hit you!”

He steps past the door where two fresh bullet holes catch the sunlight and glow like cat’s eyes in the midnight dark. “No, but you’ll owe me for the years you’ve shocked off my life.” He looks different. His matted beard and thick ponytail, the hallmarks of post-apocalyptic hair, are gone. Big Bill wears a suit. The pants are crusted with dried brown mud.

I realize he’s cleaned up for a funeral. “You – You buried her?”

“I did the right thing first.” He pats the pistol slung at his hip. “Nancy asked to be buried near her mother and father. Near Littleton. I promised. I did a lot of thinking on the way there.” Big Bill pries a half-smoked cigarillo from his breast pocket and lights it from a kitchen match. “Where’s my son?”

“He ran in here before I could catch him. Upstairs I think. Tom said you were dead. I wouldn’t have come – I mean – Little Bill thinks you’re dead too.”

The two gunshots haven’t gone unnoticed as Little Bill slowly emerges from the upstairs stairway. He creeps and sees that I’m alive and unhurt, then sees his Dad also alive and unhurt. A blush races across his cheeks. “Hey,” he says as nonchalantly as a 13 year old can manage. “I heard shooting. Everyone okay?”

Big Bill says, “We’re fine.”

Little Bill throws himself against Big Bill’s chest.

“It’s okay, I’m here,” Big Bill says. He leads us all just up the road to where he’s set up a little caravan of carts with a shoulder harness. “I came back for you but I can’t stay here.” Big Bill glances past his son to the house and barn. “There’s too many memories.”

Little Bill opens his jacket and pulls out a picture frame with a portrait inside. The photo shows Big Bill dressed in a black suit, Nancy in her nicest Sunday dress, and Little Bill with a close cropped haircut and a wide smile. His eyes sparkle with innocence. He hands the photo to Big Bill and looks at me. “I don’t want to leave. I don’t want you to go either.”

“I can’t. You aren’t old enough to understand. But everything here reminds me of her.”

Little Bill sniffles then backs away and takes my hand. “Go then. Go and be dead.”

Big Bill shakes his head. He squats down and hands his son the family portrait. “Be a good baker.” His eyes well up a little. “Maybe I’ll come back someday.”

Little Bill’s face hardens but only for a second and he crumbles into his father’s arms. “Don’t forget me.”

“Impossible,” Big Bill straps himself into the wagons.

We watch him walk until he disappears around a long gentle curve.

Big Bill never looks back.

Little Bill glances over his shoulder only once at the little gray house and big red barn on Owl’s Nest Lane as we walk our bikes back up the hill.

“If you want to talk just say so.”

Little Bill smiles meekly up at me. “I’ve got you, bread, Marjorie, the future.” He slides up on his seat. “Come on,” he says, “I don’t want to miss my chance at beating all of you at Monopoly.” Little Bill pedals off.

I ride off in pursuit and remember that these arrangements don’t warrant a long teary goodbyes or anything — not anymore.

I barely smell the burlap smoke anymore, but I remember that it used to burn my throat and water my eyes. I blow into the tin fume-canister until a little flame leaps up then I slap the top closed and squelch the heat. I want the smoke, not the fire. A thousand or so honeybees swarm around the two hives I’ve placed at the edge of Old Man Orchard. I should camouflage them or put them a little deeper into the woods, but the big white boxes need sunlight if I want the bees to survive the long winters, so it’s a tradeoff I guess.

I pull the little red wagon train, three of the kid’s yard toys bolted together like train cars, behind me. Each car carries a pair of plastic buckets, plastic lids and stainless steel hose clamps to seal them tight. The first time I did this, without the clamps, the bees took all the honey back. Bees can get in anywhere.

Most of what I’ve learned about bees I learned by doing and taking my stings, but some things, like about the burlap and how it makes bees confused but not mad, you can learn in a book. Benson’s Big Book of Bees and Beekeeping, that I salvaged from the library has been a lifesaver, even if it’s a little more of a kid’s “about stuff” book than it is an instruction book.

I pump the little tin fumer until the acrid gray smokes drives the bees away a bit. The hive lid comes off easy and another few hundred bees surge out. They can’t bother me much though, my suit is a good one, leather and treated canvas, a stiff straw and vinyl helmet with a nylon net that hangs around my whole head like a curtain. Velcro fasteners hold the net’s bottom snug to my collar.

The first honeycomb screen comes out and I have to bang it twice against the hive’s base to free up the spoils from the swarm. I drain and scrape honey and beeswax into the first bucket then slide the frame back into place. I pump billows of smoke into the bucket to chase the more ardent bees away then cover and screw the hose clamp snug enough to seal the bucket.

I repeat this process until I’ve cleaned half of each hive and used up all my storage space. There is still more honey to take, but I can wait a few days before hitting this one again. The bees will go right back into their “get pollen/make honey” behavior almost as soon as I walk away. But, I linger for a few minutes and let them gorge themselves on whatever honey I managed to drop or spill during the extraction. Bees are notoriously good at recycling and within a few minutes there isn’t a drop of honey or a speck of beeswax left on me, or on any of my gear.

The swarm lessens with each foot I put between the hive and me. I reach the fifth row of stunted apple trees then strip the netting and gloves. I drag the honey train a few more yards though, just to make sure there aren’t too many really diligent sisters buzzing around my head.

No stings today. Any day without stings is a good day.

This should be a good batch with a little hint of apple swimming beneath the honey-sweetness. Apple blossoms fall like huge snowflakes from the rows of untended trees that make up what’s left of Old Man Orchard. I wipe a muddy sweat off my forehead with my sleeve and slip into the shade. I double check my hip holster, the .45 revolver hangs there unmolested – it fell off one time last year and I had to walk three miles between all of my hired-out hives to find the damn thing – The last thing you want to be missing when you need it is a revolver.

I glance back at the two white hives and risk a sting or two by prying off the bucket top to the first container. I draw out a little wedge of honeycomb and bite off the pointy end. “Thanks ladies,” I whisper before the profound sweetness overwhelms my taste buds. “Oh my god that’s awesome.”

“Dan, that you?”

I hear the voice before I see the lone figure straddling his bicycle on the roadside.

I wave because I’ve still got a good mouthful of beeswax.

“Scavenge tomorrow, you up for it? Three-day trip we think. West.”

I hope Pete Whilouby can’t see my furrowed brow from his vantage point near the old “U-Pic!” sign.

“Trying for medicine, seeds, and cleaning supplies. If we don’t have good luck there’s a couple of caches we left out last time to harvest.”

I wave and cough out, “Yeah, come by when you are all ready to go and I’ll come along. Jim will be with me too.”

“Okay, great!” Whilouby doesn’t wait for me to trudge up to the roadside. He pushes off and before I even get ten yards he’s pedaled down to meet me. “You alone?”

“Not anymore.” It’s definitely getting warmer. Pete only wears a flannel shirt over a tee shirt. His black beard hangs down almost to the middle of his chest, and his black mane is pulled back into a long ponytail, Winter Hair, that’s what we call that style.

I’ve already sheared most of mine off.

“Dan, really, you know better -”

“Jim’s still getting over strep and this has to be done. You have a bee suit?”

“No.”

“Then it’s moot. Unless you’re a sucker for stings. And they love long hair, so be careful.”

Whilouby doesn’t prolong the argument and instead pokes the sides of each bucket on the wagon train. “How much you get?”

“Mostly wax this early.”

“No need to be coy -”

“I’m not being coy.” This doesn’t seem to placate Pete’s reproving stare. “Look, it’s me and Jim’s business. I built the hives, I found the queens, I raised the bees. I made deals with the friendly locals to pollinate their gardens. I’m sure you’d like a piece of my tiny action, but honestly, there isn’t enough work even for me.”

Pete raises his hands. “No offense, Dan. Things are stabilizing, I know that. A little entrepreneurial spirit should be applauded but -”

“I’m as communal as the rest of you! But, if I’m going to spend a day or so a week tending the hives for people then those people need to help me make up the difference, got it? I’m not trying to be a captain of freaking industry here -”

“- Everyone can benefit from this resource.”

“I’m sure that us not immediately turning our jars over to Reverend Lyons at the church sticks in your craw.”

He snorts, hard. The sound is not totally unlike an angry bull trying to breathe out of a rage. “We’ve managed pretty well considering for three summers and four winters now because everyone worked together all the time. What happens when someone wants to just chop and trade wood for food instead of gardening or hunting? We don’t have enough people to sustain that kind of economy. Not yet. In another three years, sure, maybe, I don’t know. But now we can’t afford to be venture capitalists.”

“There’s nothing wrong with trade, Pete. Humans have been trading since cave-man times. You remember cave men, right? They were a lot like us except they didn’t have bicycles.”

We walk in silence towards the road. Old Man Orchard isn’t just overgrown with trees, the grass is three-years untended and hip high now. By mid spring, sometime in June, it’ll be head high. A shame no one in town needs hay because this stuff would be perfect.

The days are getting warm now, and the nights.

I stumble on a campsite hidden beneath the overhanging boughs of a Macintosh tree. I kneel beside a little heap of ash and charred rabbit bones surrounded by a ring of rocks. “Hey.”

Whilouby joins me but doesn’t say anything.

I dip my fingers into the cold ash then peer out into the surrounding fields. “I wonder if our visitors just walked on?”

“We’d have seen them in town or on the way if they hadn’t.” Pete kicks at the little campfire pit.

“No, wait. If they’re still around we don’t want them to know we’ve been here. Leave it. I have to come back in a week to harvest. If we haven’t seen anyone, and it’s undisturbed, I’ll clean it up. Otherwise, if it is a scout then we’re better off with them not knowing we’re around.”

Pete eases back out. “Fair enough.”

The early afternoon sun beats down on Pleasant Hollow. We’ve been lucky this year, only a couple-dozen shamblers found their way into downtown, and we’ve only lost three residents, a suicide, a flu, and a blight, since the thaw. Three years after the comet strike, the undead plague, the world circling the drain, and we’re starting to make things work. Now we work to sustain what little we’ve carved out of the end of the world.

Cracked and cratered asphalt stretches east towards Pleasant Hollow and west towards Shepherd Creek at the entrance to Old Man Orchard. Me and ten or so of the men felled a bunch of big deadwood, maple mostly and a few oaks, over the road just before the snow started in earnest last year. The barricade keeps anything larger than a pull cart out of town. Pete and me snake around the trunks. “You think it was one of Brother Charisma’s scouts?”

“We don’t even know if they have scouts.”

“They’re the closest big settlement to us, I think.” I follow Bob through the last of the toppled trees and skirt beside him on the narrow road leading back into town. My wagon train bounces and squeaks on the road behind me. “Maybe we should send a trade mission.”

The canopy of oak and maple throws the road into perpetual near-night, always damp and cool; always clammy. We almost crawl and have to listen hard for rustling leaves, sniff the air for corrupted meat. I keep my pistol ready while Bob peers through the riflescope into the darkness along the tree line. We wait a full minute before proceeding.

The undead aren’t subtle, or very smart. If they aren’t thrashing around trying to get to you within one minute, then they aren’t there.

2

Wisps of smoke rise up from the heap of charcoaled timber. The fire-smell is mostly gone and the earthy, leafy, moist smell of the springtime slips back beneath the smoke. I kick over one of the smaller timbers, a boot, half of the upper is burned away. Black bones poke out through the hot ash. “I got one.”

“Henderson says there’s more. A couple doors down too. I don’t get it, how do they get inside the houses and manage to start them on fire?”

I stare at Jim for a second then shake my head and fiddle with the shoulder strap of my bolt-action Ruger hunting rifle. “C’mere and help me move the debris and I’ll tell you.”

Jim strides over. He’s big, like, linebacker big still, but dumb as a stone wall. It’s not Jim’s fault, his mom, my Mother-In-Law, had a bad drink habit and he was born with fetal alcohol syndrome, so he’ll never see the world any differently than a twelve year old even though otherwise he ages like the rest of us do. “Don’t burn yourself, okay? The wood is still hot.”

He slides a pair of gray leather gardening gloves over his massive calloused hands and stands over the far end of the rubble.

“Just push it up a little, okay? And don’t drop it on my head this time.”

“I won’t Dan.”

“Okay. Ready? One. Two. Three!”

Jim hoists the smoldering debris up to his waist then transitions it to chest high. I squirm into the space, reach in and feel around until I’m pretty sure I’ve got a handful of bone then slide the carcass into the daylight. “Let it down nice and slow.”

Jim grunts then gently puts the debris back in place.

I wrestle with the body for a minute. Some of the clothes are still intact, floral print cloth, probably a woman. “Look here, see?” I pry the arm back and show Jim the loops of wire around the wrists. “They didn’t stumble into the house and burn it down, someone tied them up, put them in, then burned the place down.”

Jim rubs the side of his big balding head for a minute then stomps out of the smoky mess. “Jeez. Why’d someone go through all that trouble then?”

“Maybe they weren’t zombies, Jim.” I ignore that he’s standing there staring at me again. “Help me count how many, okay? Then we’ll meet up with Henderson and Whilouby.”

“I don’t want to.”

“It’s okay. They won’t hurt you.”

“I’m not worry about being hurt. It’s too sad.”

“Don’t be stupid you big ox. Just help me and the sooner we’re done the sooner we can leave this sad place. Okay?” I try not to call him names, but sometimes when I’m tired or frustrated or scared I can’t help it. Today I’m all three. “Sorry Jim.”

Jim nods and begins to kick over piles of ash and shift twisted skeletons of metal furniture. “Two more here. I don’t care if you call me names.”

“See if they have wire around their hands.” I try to concentrate on my little slice of sooty Hell. There’s another tangle of bones mixed in with the bottom half of the skeleton in the floral dress. I can’t get this one out but I can see the wire around its wrists too. This skeleton is smaller. “Jim. Find anything?”

“I got two more.”

I step back and brush the ash across the front of my shirt. “I’ll get Whilouby.” I walk off and stop in the bushes long enough to vomit the little bit of friendship bread and goat cheese I’d gobbled down at first light. I curse and wipe the spittle off my whiskers. Damn it, I’m going to miss those calories in an hour or two.

Whilouby is standing as I was before the smoking ruins of a house. He cradles his lever-action Winchester and peers up the wide asphalt road, east, towards Littleton and the big Interstate highways.

“We. We – found some bodies.”

“Us too. Must’ve been a hell of a party. No supplies left. Everything that might have been useful to anyone is gone. Not even a can of beans.”

“Well, this is just the outskirts, right? I mean, Clara and me and Jim used to drive through here on the way to Littleton or Brattleboro. There’s a few brick places, police station, post office, that sort of thing, a little further down.”

“I used to know the pastor here. Nice fellow. Roderick, Ben Roderick. Baptist, had a really pretty wife.” Whilouby’ voice trails off leaving on the scant morning birdsongs to fill the emptiness.

“We’re only thirty miles from Pleasant Hollow.”

“Henderson? How many?”

“Three? Ten? Thirty? I have no idea. There’s bones all mixed up with everything in here. For all I know this place was full of people and chickens and goats and cows.” Bob Henderson’s head pokes up over the mess. “I’d rather not be in here if you don’t mind. It’s creepy.”

“Come on out.” Whilouby Lowers his eyes and offers a short nearly silent prayer. “It won’t be long,” he says finally, “before they come for us.”

“This couldn’t have happened more than two days ago.”

“Now the question is, which way did they go; west towards Littleton, or east towards us?” Bob wipes some of the soot from his jacket sleeves as he steps out of the rubble. ”

I think for a second about our two pathetic carts and how little they can carry. “Home. They have to bring back whatever they find. We’d have seen them if they came east. It’s not like we were in the deep-dark or anything.”

“You think there’s enough stuff out here, still, to warrant a return trip?”

“We don’t know what they found.”

Jim lumbers up behind me. “I know what they didn’t take. There’s a dozen bee hives piled up a couple of houses down. We’re going to take them back, right Dan?”

I glance at the others. We carried back two hives during the last scavenge and we had to sacrifice some other stuff to do it. “If the others don’t mind.”

Whilouby offers, “Just hide them for now, and we’ll grab them on the way back if we have space.”

“Only one of them looked like it had live bees,” Jim says, “I checked them over for rot, like you showed me, and they look pretty good.”

A strong hive can last through the worst winter if the box is set up right. You have to face the opening to the south and let the sun warm the outside of the thing all winter long. The bees make their own friction heat too, wriggling and squirming against each other like fuzzy little pillows. Benson’s Big Book of Bees shows a hive with an internal temperature of 65 degrees Fahrenheit in the middle of an Alaskan winter.

“I wish I had my suit. Can we mark the map for a return trip? A good queen isn’t always easy to come by.”

Whilouby nods and pulls a battered road atlas from his knapsack.

We regroup and double check weapons before Whilouby and Henderson head back towards where we hid the carts. Jim and me walk into downtown, and like Pleasant Hollow, most of the buildings are little more than shells of brick and wood. A pharmacy with punched out windows sits at the main corner between the wide state road and the rural crossway that turns the center of downtown into an X-marks-the-spot. The pharmacy is empty of everything useful save for birth control devices, plastic toys, and old Red Sox tee-shirts that have mildewed into splotchy rags.

Jim starts methodically sifting through the piles of detritus while I scour the mess behind the pharmacy counter. White pill bottles, some as big as half-gallon milk jugs, litter the cracked and wet tile floor. Most of the labels are worn off or damaged and unreadable but I have to check them all. There’s always a chance that someone overlooked a clutch of antibiotics, or real-good painkillers, something that can get a sick person over the hump, you know? I pull a battered pill reference book from my backpack and try to match the dozen or so pink ovals in one of the bottles to the book.

“Jackpot!” Jim’s voice echoes through the ruins.

“What?” I don’t take my eyes of the book.

“This place is loaded! I got a Frisbee and two pinky balls!”

“Great, glad you found useful stuff.” It’s easy to forget that Jim is sort of stuck with the brain of a lesser than average twelve-year-old until some event brings out that side of him. Toys can usually do it, sometimes cartoon or comic book pictures, or if we get to talking about TV like when it’s dark and cold and boring, and he suddenly remembers that things used to be a whole lot better. Today he’s ecstatic with a Frisbee, tomorrow he may be crying over a remembered rerun of Spongebob Squarepants.

“I found something for you too.”

“Uh huh?” I scan each page but none of the pills shown match the ones in my hand. The book has over 500 pages describing every possible pill, name brand and generic, produced in the US right up until the comet strike.

We don’t usually find this many of any one medicine anymore as whoever managed to hang on for the last couple of years would have had to ravage their local drug stores like we did then and are doing now. Scavenging is on the downside too, we have to go further, longer, to get the same amount of usable stuff we once found only a town or two away. That our paths would cross with some other band of hangers-on is – was – only a matter of time, and persistence.

“Come and see what I found for you, Dan.” Jim’s voice lilts softly and I know he’s teasing me at least a little.

“In a minute. Just wait -”

“You’ll thank me when you see it.”

I whisper, “Round and pink with a C stamp, red oval, beige with an X stamp, beige oval with a C stamp – ” to try and drown out Jim’s chortling. All of these pills are for gastrointestinal something or other. I don’t even know if they are useful. I scoop the handful into one of the dry pill bottles and push my way up the counter. “Ok Jim, what do you have?”

He smiles and holds up two packages of ladies disposable razors. “Now we can put the lice on the run!”

“Excellent work!” I slap the counter top then scratch intently at my beard and long wild hair and Jim does the same. “Now see if you can pull off a miracle and find us some kind of soap, okay?”

“You got it!”

I bury myself in the pharmacy mess again until Whilouby and Henderson push through the debris near the front door. “We’re going to get a planning map, if we can find one, from the town office and scout for a safe billet. Let’s say we meet up again in an hour? Looks like there’s a post office down the road with a big parking lot.”

“Sure, we’ll be there in an hour.” I rattle another bottle of unknown pills and get back to work.

3

Jim and me walk point with the lighter of the two carts. Whilouby and Henderson trail us by about a half-mile, that way if we blunder into anything they’ll be far enough away to be out of the mess, and close enough to rescue if the situation allows. The same goes for them if they get jumped from behind we can double back. It’s not the best system, but when we can only muster up four or five people for a scavenge, there isn’t much choice.

“I’m tired of walking, Dan.” Jim leans into the cart as we shove it over the lip of a giant pothole.

“So talk about something. Take our minds off the walk. I’m sick of walking too.”

Jim is quiet for a minute and I know he’s scouring his memory for some new or old and interesting thing to make conversation from. Hopefully he won’t start to babble like an idiot, something he does when the tiredness slows down his brain even more.

“What kind of bees are your favorite?”

“I don’t know Jim. I never really thought about it. Honeybees I guess because those are the kinds we keep and the honey is food and can be used as medicine even. Yeah, honeybees. Those are my favorite.”

“I like those too. I don’t like yellow jackets.”

“Those are wasps. Remember how they are different than bees?”

“They can sting and sting and sting and not die. Right?”

“You’ve got a good memory, Jim.”

“And they don’t make honey.”

“I don’t know about that –”

“They don’t. Benson’s Big Book says so.”

“How about you Jim, what’s your favorite bee?”

“I like the Japanese honeybee.”

We round a big corner where a heap of rusted cars is nearly reclaimed by leaves and grass. The woods stretch down towards Franconia to the south and for a few hundred yards you can see something like fifty miles of rolling green hills and within them an occasional church steeple or rectangular roof jutting out and it looks almost like the last glimpse of a ship sinking in a green sea. We stop for a minute and just stare out into forever. I pretend for a minute that the world hasn’t really ended.

“Do you want to know why?”

“Why what?” The sun filters down through breaks in puffy gray clouds and casts drifting ovals of yellow over the canopy.

“Why the Japanese honeybees are my favorite.”

“Sure.” I wrap one of the leather cinches around my chest and tighten the buckle. “We got hills coming, so get ready.”

“They’re my favorite because they know how to protect themselves.”

I let him prattle on while we strap ourselves to the cart. The last thing I want is to have to chase this thing down the hillside then lose all of our booty on the roadside.

“They have a sworn enemy too, the Japanese giant hornet. It’s like a yellow jacket as big as your thumb. If one stings you, then you die. They’re wicked scary. I’m glad we don’t have those here.”

“Uh huh.” We start the decent gradually. The cart is pretty well loaded up but I rigged a friction brake after the last scavenge when we had two runaways. Now the cart rolls but not so fast it’ll run us over, or get away. I glance back at the leather and wood I’d screwed together into a brake shoe and hope it holds.

“When the giant hornets find a hive of regular honeybees, you know like we have, they mark it, bring their friends back, fly in, and kill every single honeybee then take all the honey, eggs, and babies back home and eat them. The Japanese bees figured out a way to beat the hornets a million billion years ago. They let the scout in and wait, and talk to each other, and plan. They let the scout hornet get all the way inside then, when the bees are sure it can’t escape, they all leap down and rub against it until it dies from too much heat.”

“You learned all this from the big bee book?”

“Yeah. Neat huh?”

“Sure is! Why don’t the regular honeybees do the same thing when a Hornet scout comes to the hive?”

“They don’t now how. They haven’t lived in Japan long enough I guess and the Japanese honeybees don’t teach.”

We both laugh at that for a minute. The hill steepens some but we manage to get to the bottom without any incidents.

The road stretches around another S-curve into what used to be Dalton, I think, and beyond that Stewardstown, and beyond that still Rt 93 running north to Montreal and south all the way to Boston. But we won’t cross that until after nightfall.

Ten miles north of here is where we saw the trucks last time out. Only ten miles. Reverend Lyons took a bullet to the arm that day or he’d be here leading the scavenge for sure. Jim stayed behind that week because he was sick with the strep. Probably better that he doesn’t know anyway. “Almost time to pull off the road and wait for the others.”

“I’m glad.”

“We’ll heel off over by the stone bridge and wait there. Keep the water at our backs for safety. Remember?”

“Can’t get jumped if you have water at your back.”

“That’s good Jim. You’re getting smarter I think.”

“I try and remember stuff.”"

Three hours later I fall asleep as Jim describes Japanese honeybees to Whilouby and Henderson beneath the gray light of a waning moon.

4

We link up with Whilouby and Henderson before wheeling the carts into town. The only zombies we saw were shambling up and down Rt 93, and even then it was just a handful. Summer’s coming though and they’ll come in force then. Used to be we’d pop a few from up on the tree line, but ammunition is scarce now and it’s best not to waste on fun.

Standard protocol for return from a scavenge is to inventory and add to the stores at the church. Usually The Reverend is with us, but today we’ll have to make sure he’s around or we can’t get inside.

The only stop we made before now was to unload the new hive for Jim and me.

We halt both carts on the road outside the church and shout up for Reverend Lyons.

Reverend Lyons struggles down the short steps to the sidewalk and makes his way to the cart. “Welcome back,” he says. His freshly bandaged arm hangs in a sling. A stranger stands beside him within the churchyard; young guy, long black hair, suntanned skin, well-trimmed beard. He wears a blue hat and wool sweater. A big revolver, probably a Magnum, hangs off his blue-jeaned thigh.

We all stare at the visitor and Reverend Lyons notices that none of us speak. “Let me introduce a few of our friends here.” He points us out in sequence. “Jim and his brother-in-law Dan, Pete Whilouby, Bob Henderson.”

The stranger says, “nice to meet you all. Duane, Duane Walker.”

“Duane has found his way down here from Canada. He’s part of a settlement outside Montreal, and they’re doing well enough to send out for more folks. A few thousand, isn’t that right?”

Duane nods and I notice that he’s taking a good long look over the downtown buildings. “Were you camping out in the orchard just west of town?”

“I stayed a couple of nights there, yes.”

Pete glances at me.

“Now, before we get all worried about a new face in town,” Reverend Lyons says, “I’ve called for a town meeting to discuss sending back an emissary with Duane -”

Jim interrupts, “You said you were headed towards Boston -”

“I am, but I have been authorized to provide a map and coordinates and even a route if necessary, to any friendly settlements -”

I ask, “has he met Linda yet?”

“Not yet. We’ll make sure she gets to the meeting tonight though. Until then we should unload and inventory what you have. Any perishables?”

“Some.” Whilouby begins untying the ropes that lash the booty down to the cart. “Duane, has the Reverend given you the full tour of the town?”

“Not yet, but I’m very excited to find so many people. Most of the world is wastelands now. I’ve found a few other small settlements north of here, but none as well developed as – what did you say the name of the town was again?”

“I didn’t.”

We unload all of the stuff and stack it behind the stockade fence so we can rest a bit before putting all of the boxes away in the sanctuary. I grab Jim’s arm. “Hey, do me a favor okay?”

“Sure.”

“Take the scout over to meet Linda, and make sure he stays there for a while. Have a cup of tea or something.”

“Ok, but I can help put things away faster -”

“Don’t worry. There isn’t much stuff. Besides, you can ask Linda if she wants to make use of our new hive. She has a good garden, remember?”

Jim smiles. “Okay. Hey Duane, do you want to go visiting with me?”

Reverend Lyons encourages them both and before anyone can think of raising an objection, Jim and Duane are headed down the road towards the cast iron bridge. “How’d the scavenge go. I don’t see too much that’s really useful -”

“There’s not too much that’s really useful left I’m afraid.”

“Any survivors?”

I think back to the burned out houses and the wire-wrapped skeletons. “None. Hey, do you know anything about Japanese honeybees?”

5

The remains of the little one bedroom house smolder just up the road from Linda’s place across the cast iron bridge that spans the roaring Pemigewasset. There’s nothing left but a tangle of charcoal and fluttering orange ash that climbs into the morning sky like wayward fireflies. The Reverend gave last rights only an hour ago and how he sits off on the side watching the smoke rise. He didn’t want this, but didn’t interfere either. Lyons understands, now, even if he doesn’t agree, and helped spread the plan around town. He gave last rights while the scout was still unconscious. The Reverend said he’d pray for us all.

Jim prods the charred timbers with a pitchfork. Most everyone has gone home now that sunrise has lightened the sky up but for a while, everybody helped out, singing and chattering as the scout, screamed and hammered and shot holes in the doors that we’d bolted shut and the window’s we’d boarded. The little house was old, and dry and went up very, very quickly with the help of some straw bales stacked on the porch.

After an hour or so, when the flames smashed through the roof shingles and the center collapsed with horrible moaning roar, you could barely hear him curse us all, before the fire silenced him.

All that remained was us, the townsfolk of Pleasant Hollow, abuzz with post bonfire excitement.

1

La soupe au poulet bouillonnait doucement pendant que je chargeais mon revolver .45, assise à la table de la cuisine. Le soleil se couchait maintenant plus tard, et le vent laissait présager un printemps chaud cette année. Je vérifiai les fenêtres avant de fermer les volets à l’aide de barres en fonte.

Donald les avait faites dans son petit atelier quand nous avions encore de l’électricité. Il est mort cet automne. C’est son cœur qui a flanché, je crois.

Nous n’avons plus de médecins, à présent.

Donald n’avait que faire de questions d’esthétisme, mais la sécurité, c’était son fort. C’est ce qui avait été essentiel pour notre survie en ces temps difficiles. J’ai résisté à trois, à quatre, peut-être même à six sièges depuis que l’enfer a débarqué sur Terre.

Pas mal pour une nana de 71 ans. Pas mal du tout.

Je glissai le révolver dans l’étui en cuir que je portais à l’épaule et arrangeai mon tablier. Un parfum agréable, chaleureux et riche flottait dans la maison. Je remuai la soupe et en retirai quelques os. Je les broierais plus tard pour les poules dans la cour. Deux feuilles de laurier, une pincée de sel et de poivre, un peu de thym, de romarin et quelques-uns des poivrons en dés qui se trouvaient dans la jarre. C’était parfait.

Avant de m’installer confortablement, j’inspectai le reste de la petite maison : les volets des fenêtres du salon, de la salle de bains et de la chambre étaient tous verrouillés, la porte de la cave était verrouillée et bloquée. La lampe à huile projetait un cercle de lumière tamisée sur le sol gelé, alors que j’inspectais l’enceinte entourant le jardin. Donald l’avait construite aussi, à l’époque où tout ce que nous avions à craindre était les ours et les chasseurs égarés. Il y a deux ans, il avait renforcé chaque section à l’aide de solives de 6 par 6 en bois traité sous pression, qui s’enfonçaient à une profondeur de deux pieds dans le sol.

Nous avions planté des rosiers le long de la clôture, à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur du jardin, et avions fait en sorte qu’ils grimpent le long de l’enceinte. Les roses sont tellement plus jolies que du barbelé, mais tout aussi efficaces.

Les 27 poules étaient là et enfermées, de même que les quatre chèvres.

Le lierre, desséché et cassant en raison du long hiver, courait sur toute la portion sud de la clôture, tels des doigts effilés. Je me dis que je devrais le couper avant le dégel.

Dans la noirceur, parmi les caquètements et les bêlements occasionnels de mes bêtes, on pouvait entendre râler doucement dans les bois.

2

Phyllis Carlsen était couchée sur le divan que le révérend Lyons et moi avions tiré jusque dans la cuisine. Sa fièvre n’était pas trop élevée aujourd’hui, mais sans aspirine ou antibiotiques, il n’y avait pas moyen de savoir si elle allait mieux. À 61 ans, elle était tout juste un peu plus jeune que moi.

« Je les ai entendus la nuit dernière », murmura-t-elle.

J’ai jeté un œil au révérend et constaté à son expression qu’il reconnaissait les signes.

« Il semble que la saison arrive tôt cette année. Il a fait chaud pendant quelques semaines en avril, alors je ne suis pas surpris que le sol se soit ramolli assez pour leur permettre de sortir. »

Le révérend Lyons s’affairait à démarrer le feu dans le poêle. Phyllis ne possédait qu’un petit poêle, à peine assez grand pour chauffer la cuisine, alors il était difficile d’y cuire quoi que ce soit. À l’aide d’une louche, je versai deux portions de soupe au poulet dans sa casserole et la posai sur le poêle. L’eau dans la bouilloire était à présent suffisamment chaude pour le thé et j’en préparai trois tasses.

Le révérend était nerveux et restait debout. Il triturait le pontet de son antique fusil Winchester et jetait souvent un œil au travers des lames de rideau. « Il faudrait la déplacer », dit-il enfin.

Je versai un peu de miel (provenant de mon propre rucher) dans la théière pendant que le thé infusait. « Pour l’héberger où? »

« Vous avez de la place – »

Je le fis taire d’un regard.

« Je ne veux pas m’en aller », la voix de Phyllis était enrouée, mais forte.

« Et tu ne devrais pas t’en aller non plus. » Je brassai la soupe. La chaleur dégagée par le feu de bois commençait à faire fondre la couche de gras sur le dessus. « Elle aurait été encore meilleure si je n’étais pas arrivée à court de riz le mois dernier. Il en reste en réserve? »

« Environ cinq cent livres – »

« Vingt devraient suffire. » Je regardai dehors par l’ouverture de la porte. Des flocons duveteux tombaient doucement dans la petite allée qui reliait la maison de Phyllis à la rue. Elle habitait plus près du centre-ville; c’était moins sécuritaire, mais cela permettait de se procurer des provisions plus facilement. « Il reste encore cinq heures avant que la nuit ne tombe, et la température est tout juste sous le point de congélation. »

« Je vais envoyer quelqu’un – »

« Dépêchez-vous. Je peux monter la garde jusqu’à ce que vous reveniez. »

Le révérend Lyons approuva de la tête, mais hésita avant d’ouvrir la porte. « Vous êtes bien armée? »

Je lui montrai mon revolver.

« D’accord. Je serai de retour dans une heure. Surveillez la cloche de l’église. Le printemps sera bientôt là et nous devons faire un décompte. »

Je verrouillai et barricadai la porte dès qu’il fut parti, mais c’était plus par habitude que pour me protéger. Le dégel du printemps avait beau ramener les zombies, nous serions en sécurité pendant quelques semaines encore.

Phyllis essaya de s’asseoir sur le divan. Elle dégageait une odeur de poisson pourri, mais je ne savais pas si c’était à cause d’une plaie qui s’était infectée ou à cause d’une mauvaise hygiène. Je lui versai une tasse de thé avant d’aller vérifier ma soupe. L’odeur de Phyllis se répandait aussi dans la petite maison. Elle n’était pas très bonne ménagère.

Les chambres arrières étaient verrouillées à l’aide de clous ou à clé, les fenêtres étaient enchâssées dans la brique et renforcées. D’autres fenêtres étaient fermées à l’aide de volets, comme chez moi. Donald avait travaillé très fort pour fortifier les maisons de ceux qui étaient restés.

Des piles de linge sale étaient éparpillées sur les meubles poussiéreux, et le tapis était dissimulé par une couche de saleté et de poussière. Je commençai à ranger, traînant les vêtements pour en faire une pile gérable, et mis de l’eau à bouillir pour pouvoir les laver.

« Arrête », dit-elle.

« J’essaie simplement de te donner un coup de main, ma chère. »

« Je m’en occuperai quand je serai rétablie. Je ne suis pas handicapée. »

« Bien sûr que non. » J’inspectai son garde-manger. Il ne restait que sept bocaux de confiture, trois de cornichons, quatre de tomates vertes, et un paquet de petites carottes caoutchouteuses. « Il sera bientôt temps de préparer les jardins. »

Elle prit une gorgée de thé et opina de la tête.

« Tu plantes quelque chose de spécial cette année? »

Elle fit une pause et fixa une minute les planches qui barricadaient la fenêtre au-dessus de l’évier de la cuisine. « Des lys ».

« C’est joli, des lys. Donald les aimait bien. Je vais essayer d’obtenir une meilleure récolte de maïs cette année. La pourriture a presque tout tué la saison dernière. » Je retirai la casserole du feu et versai un bol de soupe pour Phyllis, puis mis de l’eau de lavage à chauffer à sa place.

Elle commença à manger lentement, puis, après quelques cuillerées, elle éclata en sanglots.

« Oh, ma chérie, ne pleure pas. » Je m’assis à ses côtés sur le divan et lui frottai le dos. « Tu n’arriveras à rien en pleurant. »

« Pourquoi est-ce arrivé? Qu’avons-nous fait pour que ça se produise? » Elle me regardait entre ses sanglots.

« Poser des questions n’arrangera rien, mais persévérer, oui. Nous ne nous sommes pas mal débrouillés, au bout du compte, et c’est un peu plus facile chaque printemps. Dans cinq ou dix ans, qui sait, les choses reviendront à la normale. »

« Tu ne crois pas ce que tu dis. »

Je haussai les épaules. « Chacun doit croire en quelque chose. Maintenant, mange ta soupe avant qu’elle ne refroidisse. »

La cloche de l’église sonna trois fois pour indiquer que le décompte du printemps aurait lieu dans trois jours. Nous ne la faisons pas sonner souvent, parce que ce ne sont pas seulement les morts qui constituent une menace. Notre petite ville est assez éloignée de l’autoroute pour que peu de survivants se donnent la peine de nous chercher. Je crois que la plupart de ceux qui ont survécu à la chute de la comète, puis de la peste, sont un peu comme nous : insulaires, tranquilles et inopportuns.

Phyllis mangeait en silence.

Nous avons tous perdu des amis et de la famille quand la fin est arrivée. Ça a été pire que tout dans les villes. Quelques mois après que le ciel ait pris en permanence une teinte cendrée, les zones densément peuplées ont sombré dans l’anarchie. Le Président a déclaré la loi martiale, mais les réserves alimentaires étant limitées, il ne fallut pas longtemps pour que des groupes se fassent la guerre pour les réserves des supermarchés ou des camions réfrigérés. Puis, les zombies sont revenus à la vie par millions, des gens morts récemment sortant des tombes et cherchant incessamment de la chair vivante à dévorer. Pourquoi les morts ne peuvent-ils pas reposer en paix? Je ne le sais pas. Peut-être la poussière qui a obscurci le ciel pendant des mois après l’impact contenait-elle quelque chose qui les a réveillés? Peut-être la comète apportait-elle un microbe ou un virus que nous avions tous respiré et qui ne s’activait que quand nous mourions?

Nous ne le saurons sûrement jamais.

« Je me sens un peu mieux », murmura Phyllis.

« Bonne fille. » Je vérifiai la porte et vis le révérend Lyons traverser la rue, portant sur son épaule un sac de riz de 20 livres. « Je laisse le reste de la soupe pour plus tard et je viendrai te voir demain. D’accord? »

Elle acquiesça.

3

Je versai le riz dans un contenant en plastique qui se trouvait dans mon garde-manger, juste sous la tablette où étaient posés des bocaux de sirop d’érable et de miel, puis retournai en boitant dans la cuisine. Mes hanches n’étaient plus ce qu’elles avaient été, et elles me faisaient le plus souffrir aux changements de saisons. Je prenais auparavant de l’aspirine pour me soulager, mais il y a plus d’un an que nous n’en avions plus.

Le soleil d’après-midi jouait entre les branches nues des arbres et projetait de longues ombres, tels des doigts crochus, sur l’herbe jaunie et desséchée par l’hiver. J’activai le hachoir à manivelle dans lequel j’avais versé deux poignées de riz et les os de poulet, puis donnai le tout à mes poules qui se jetèrent dessus avec reconnaissance.

La fraîcheur de l’air me raviva pendant que je trayais mes chèvres et récoltais six œufs frais. Le sol était encore trop dur pour retourner la terre de mes trois potagers rectangulaires. Donald devait se procurer un rotoculteur, mais, bon.

Je chassai son souvenir et ramenai les poules dans leur enclos, puis retournai à l’intérieur pour attiser le feu.

Le décompte aurait lieu dans trois jours.

Nous n’avions pas fait de décompte depuis l’automne. Encore combien de survivants étaient morts de faim ou étaient devenus fous durant le rude hiver que nous avions connu? Nous perdions en moyenne dix personnes par an, et aucune des jeunes femmes ne semblait encline à faire des enfants pour les remplacer. Du moins, pas encore. J’avais eu cinq enfants avant l’âge de 30 ans et, bien que nous n’ayons pas à repousser les attaques des morts à cette époque, nourrir tout ce beau monde et chauffer la maison était tout aussi difficile.

Ne pense pas au passé. Il ne reviendra pas.

Je m’assis près du poêle. La soupe bouillonnait agréablement. Je déposai ma bible sur mes genoux et l’ouvris. J’avais l’habitude de lire l’Apocalypse. J’attendais que la fin du monde arrive et que Jésus, les bras ouverts, nous emmène au paradis. L’Apocalypse avait tort. Aucun serpent à plusieurs têtes ne nous dévorerait, et les morts ne nous emmenaient pas au paradis. J’ouvris à la page du Psaume 46 marquée en permanence par une note. Je le lisais à voix haute quand j’avais besoin de courage, et aujourd’hui, j’avais besoin de tout le courage qu’il pouvait me donner.

Je fermai les yeux et sentis la présence de Donald, tel un fantôme, dans la chaleur du poêle, l’odeur des copeaux de bois de pommier et la soupe au poulet.

4

Je frappai à coups de machette sur le buisson jusqu’à ce que seules des tiges minces de lierre dépassent du sol le long de la clôture. Quoi que je fasse, le lierre revenait en force chaque année, songeai-je, à cause des abus que nous lui faisions subir : qu’on verse dessus des produits chimiques, qu’on le brûle ou qu’on l’arrache par les racines, rien ne pouvait freiner sa croissance d’une saison à l’autre.

Le soleil tapait si fort entre les branches dénudées que j’enlevai ma veste de laine pour continuer à travailler vêtue de deux pulls.

Le révérend Lyons freina sur son vélo en dérapant au bout de la clôture. Il avait clairement pédalé énergiquement, puisque le nuage de vapeur causé par son haleine était suffisamment épais pour lui cacher le visage. La plupart des gens ne quittent pas leur propriété une fois que le printemps arrive; même les réunir pour un décompte s’avère difficile. Une fois le décompte terminé, nous faisons du porte-à-porte pour nous enquérir des familles qui n’y ont pas assisté. Le révérend Lyons n’est pas devenu automatiquement le chef, ou quelque chose du genre, mais il s’est donné comme mission d’assurer la communication entre les quelque deux cent personnes de Pleasant Hollow et des environs.

« Linda! », cria-t-il, « L’état de Phyllis a empiré. Venez vite! »

Je glissai ma machette dans l’étui de toile qui pendait dans mon dos. La courroie tirait désagréablement contre ma poitrine, et mes hanches se plaignaient alors que je clopinais le long de la palissade en me frayant un chemin parmi les gaulis d’érables et de chênes qui séparaient le jardin du boisé plus touffu et obscur.

« Vraiment, révérend, je ne peux pas mettre mes problèmes de côté chaque fois que quelqu’un fait de la fièvre. » J’attendis quelques secondes, le temps qu’il se sente coupable, puis je me dirigeai vers ma barrière. « Il me reste de la soupe, mais je ne suis pas certaine que cela vaille la peine que je l’apporte. Vous avez vu l’état de sa maison. Elle a laissé tomber – »

« Mais nous ne pouvons pas la laisser tomber. »

« Elle a fini ses provisions, et ne lave plus ses vêtements pas plus que sa personne. D’autres gens pourraient faire un meilleur usage de ce que nous avons. »

« Quand nous compterons les gens, je ne veux pas avoir à compter un autre mort en raison d’un manque de soins. »

« Un manque de soins! » Je déverrouillai la chaîne qui fermait la clôture et ouvris la barrière d’un grand coup. « Il me reste 14 poules. J’en ai tué une juste pour la soupe. Devrais-je en tuer une autre aujourd’hui? Peut-être devrais-je aussi sacrifier une chèvre, au cas où. Dieu sait que nous ne voulons pas avoir l’air de ne pas nous occuper d’elle. »

« Ce n’est pas juste. »

J’inspirai profondément et comptai jusqu’à dix. La colère n’arrangeait rien. « J’ai entendu des coups de feu ce matin. »

Le révérend ferma la barrière et bloqua l’accès au jardin en glissant des poutres de quatre par quatre dans les supports en fonte. « Les Henderson en ont tué trois. Des lents. Je n’ai pas été voir de qui il avait pu s’agir. J’ai été voir les Simmons à North Farm. » Il fut parcouru d’un frisson. « Ils ont dû mourir vers Noël. Quand j’ai réussi à enfoncer la porte, Jolene était accroupie dans sa cuisine, les entrailles de son chat lui pendant entre les dents. Cela ne devait pas faire longtemps qu’elle était mobile. Le reste de la famille était toujours gelé, mais ils étaient tous… »

« C’était une jeune famille. » Nous envoyions un gallon de lait de chèvre frais ou une douzaine d’œufs aux Simmons quand nous pouvions nous le permettre. Ils avaient quatre enfants à nourrir; le plus vieux n’avait même pas encore 7 ans.

« Comment ont-ils simplement pu mourir comme ça? Nous leur avions donné plein de provisions dès la première neige – »

« Ils ont laissé tomber. Peut-être un des enfants est-il mort et qu’ils ne supportaient pas l’idée de l’abattre, peut-être la température a-t-elle eu raison d’eux. Nous ne le saurons jamais. »

Il appuya son vélo contre la maison et me suivit à l’intérieur.

J’enlevai la machette et enfilai mon manteau de laine. Je vérifiai deux fois le revolver; il était chargé et prêt à faire feu. Je trempai mes mains dans le seau d’eau à côté de l’évier et m’aspergeai le visage. Le feu crépitait agréablement dans le poêle et continuerait ainsi au moins quatre heures.

Le révérend Lyons s’assit à la table de la cuisine. « Comment faites-vous, Linda? »

« Pardon? », dis-je en épongeant l’eau froide à l’aide d’une serviette.

Je marquai une pause le temps de peser mes mots. Il y avait tant de petits groupes de survivants qui s’épuisaient et finissaient par se retourner les uns contre les autres. Nous avions constaté ce qui était arrivé dans certaines des petites villes à distance de marche ou accessibles à vélo. Des dizaines de survivants s’étaient installés dans des supermarchés ou des centres commerciaux – c’était pire en banlieue de Concord ou de Manchester – mais la nourriture venait à manquer, ils se tombaient les uns les autres sur les nerfs, ou encore quelqu’un perdait l’esprit et tuait tous les autres.

Certains groupes avaient prospéré : les militaires ou les fanatiques religieux, ceux qui disposaient de bunkers, de fusils d’assaut, et de provisions d’eau fraîche, de nourriture et d’essence pour tenir deux ans. L’hiver, ils patrouillaient les autoroutes et les routes secondaire à la recherche d’endroits comme Pleasant Hollow pour les piller.

« La façon dont vous vous en tirez si bien. Je veux dire que votre maison est propre, chaude et accueillante. Vous avez de la nourriture à profusion, un potager qui vaut son pesant d’or, de bonnes fortifications, des vêtements propres. Je croyais que la plupart d’entre nous s’en tiraient bien, mais comparés à vous, nous vivons comme des hommes de Neandertal. Comment diable faites-vous? » La voix du révérend Lyons laissait paraître une pointe de frustration.

« J’étais pauvre, Révérend. J’ai dû apprendre à faire tout cela avant que l’apocalypse nous tombe dessus. Acheter de la confiture de fraises coûte de l’argent, la faire ne coûte que l’effort qu’on y met. Acheter une poule morte coûte de l’argent, élever des poules ne coûte qu’une fraction d’un cent par livre. Il faut trouver des moyens bon marché pour réussir quand on est pauvre. Et puis, quand on n’est plus pauvre, on continue à faire les choses comme avant, parce que c’est une habitude satisfaisante. Je peux enseigner aux autres à faire la même chose. C’est ce dont je voulais parler. Je peux prendre deux ou trois apprentis à la fois sous mon aile et leur montrer comment cultiver un potager, trouver des baies comestibles et en faire des conserves, traire des chèvres, s’occuper de poules et se nourrir avec ce que l’on produit. Nous en sommes presque au point où nous devons récupérer ce que nous pouvons avant qu’il ne reste plus rien ou que ce soit trop dangereux de partir à la recherche de ravitaillement. Nous en parlerons à la réunion. J’ai d’autres idées à proposer. Allons d’abord voir comment se porte Phyllis, puis nous reviendrons ici pour discuter. Laissez votre vélo ici, je ne peux pas monter à bicyclette et il est plus prudent de nous déplacer à deux. »

Je versai le reste de la soupe dans un bidon de plastique, puis inspectai l’allée avant d’ouvrir la porte. « La voie est libre. »

Le révérend Lyons me guida jusqu’à la rue. Les fissures dans l’asphalte zigzaguaient sur la route jusque dans le fossé qui servait à recueillir l’eau de pluie. Les feuilles accumulées depuis trois ans le remplissaient à présent et, chaque pluie de printemps créait une petite inondation qui atteignait presque la grille devant chez moi. Nous prîmes la route vers le nord, en direction du centre de la ville. Le clocher noir et blanc de l’église baptiste pointait à travers les cimes des arbres.

Ma hanche me faisait souffrir, et marcher sur la surface dure et inégale de la route rongeait ce qui me restait de cartilage. Je dus presque m’arrêter tellement la douleur était insupportable. Nous n’étions qu’à un quart de mile du cimetière Oak Grove, le plus petit des trois cimetières de la ville. C’est là que Donald était enterré, dans le caveau de béton et de marbre que sa famille avait érigé il y a près de 100 ans. Je n’avais pas pu me résoudre à lui tirer une balle dans la tête après sa mort, mais j’y aurais été obligée si nous n’avions pas eu le caveau. Des chaînes de vélo maintenaient fermées les grilles en fonte, et des blocs de béton sur le cercueil l’empêchaient d’aller où que ce soit.

Je plantais des lys chaque année dans mon jardin pour honorer sa mémoire. Peut-être que cette année, j’en déposerais une gerbe au cimetière.

« Nous y sommes presque, Linda. »

« Que nous y soyons presque n’a pas d’importance, Révérend. Je ne souhaite à personne des hanches telles que les miennes. » Je serrai les dents. La pensée de pouvoir m’asseoir chez Phyllis jusqu’à ce que la douleur s’estompe était la seule chose qui me permettait de continuer. Le révérend m’offrit son bras pour parcourir les deux cent yards qui restaient. Je m’appuyai lourdement sur lui.

5

Le révérend cogna deux fois. « Phyllis? »

Aucune réponse.

« Phyllis? Ouvrez la porte. Linda est avec moi et elle a apporté de la soupe. »

Un grattement se fait entendre derrière la lourde porte en chêne, puis un coup sourd. Enfin la porte s’ouvrit. Phyllis frissonnait sous son jeté en tricot multicolore. Elle se traîna péniblement jusqu’au divan et gémit en s’y laissant choir. La sueur perlait à son front et humectait ses boucles grises.

Je sortis un thermomètre de mon sac et le glissai sous sa langue : 120. « Ce n’est pas pire qu’hier, Phyllis. As-tu mal? »

Elle plissa les yeux une seconde puis secoua la tête. « J’ai juste froid et je suis fatiguée. »

« Cela ne vous dérange pas si Linda, heu, vous ausculte… au complet, je veux dire? »

« Oh, je ne pense pas que c’est – »

« Tu as une infection quelque part. Je peux la sentir. Si nous ne la trouvons pas, je ne sais pas si tu te rétabliras. Je vais faire sortir le révérend pendant un temps, comme ça nous serons seules toutes les deux, et tu ne seras pas mal à l’aise. Nous verrons ce à quoi nous avons affaire. »

« Oh non, Linda, s’il te plaît. Ce n’est qu’un rhume. »

« Phyllis. Écoute-moi attentivement. Si tu ne me laisse pas t’examiner, je ne reviendrai pas, même si le révérend Lyons me dit que tu te portes de plus en plus mal. »

Elle fixe le révérend quelques secondes. « Je ne veux pas. »

« Il n’y a pas d’autre façon. Allons, le révérend Lyons va aller réchauffer ta soupe. Cela ne prendra qu’une minute. Allons. » Je dois pratiquement la tirer brutalement pour l’obliger à se lever du divan. « Tu n’as pas à avoir peur. Si tu est blessée, je pourrai t’aider – »

« Ce n’est pas ça. » La voix de Phyllis se brisa, mais elle résistait toujours. « Révérend. Je vous en prie! Ne la laissez pas faire – » Elle chancela en s’appuyant au cadre de la porte et fut secouée par une toux brutale.

Je tentai de la soutenir, mais elle me repoussa.

En toussant, Phyllis éclaboussa le mur de mucosités sanguinolentes. Elles lui maculaient aussi le menton. « Oh, mon Dieu! » Elle tomba à genoux et continua à tousser.

« Nous ne pouvons rien faire pour elle. » Je reculai lentement.

« Ce n’est pas possible, il doit bien y avoir quelque chose? »

« Elle va mourir. »

Phyllis fut parcourue d’un frisson et s’agita jusqu’à ce que sa tête racle le mur. « Je suis déjà morte », dit-elle en lâchant un petit rire. « Je t’ai toujours détestée, Linda. Toujours. Toi et ta parfaite vie comme dans La Petite maison dans la prairie. Tu n’as jamais eu à travailler. Tu as toujours eu Donald pour tout simplifier. » Elle s’efforça de se remettre debout. « Tu veux voir ma plaie, Linda? » Elle rit encore avant d’être interrompue par une quinte de toux qui la fit presque tomber par terre. Elle se redressa lentement, fit tomber le jeté, puis son pantalon de survêtement.

Une puanteur insoutenable de saleté et de viande avariée émanait d’elle.

« Quand il a réparé mes fenêtres, Linda, c’était la première fois que je me le suis tapé. Tu te rappelles? Les gamins Barclay du bout de la rue avaient lancé des œufs sur ma maison à l’Halloween. Il était si gentil avec moi. Attirer Donald dans mon lit a été facile. Je suppose que tu n’avais pas son appétit pour la chose. » Elle cracha encore du sang. « Tous ces soirs où il prétendait aller à des réunions, il venait ici et il me faisait l’amour. J’étais facile, Linda, parce que j’étais stérile. »

« Sortez, Linda », me cria le révérend Lyons de la cuisine.

« Non. Je dois savoir. »

« L’endométriose a ruiné mes chances de fonder ma famille. Elle a gâché mon mariage. Elle l’a gâché! Mais j’étais encore une femme, et j’avais des besoins. Chaque fois que je te voyais au supermarché ou au bureau de poste, je te haïssais encore plus. Chaque fois que Donald me quittait pour rentrer à la maison, je m’endormais en pleurant. C’est toi qui m’as fait ça, Linda! C’est toi qui as fait ça! » Elle écarta les jambes et dévoila son vagin, noir et déchiré. Des asticots dévoraient la peau grise et du pus s’en écoulait, formant une flaque à ses pieds. Son pelvis était visible à travers la pourriture noire. « Et quand il est mort, j’ai cru que j’avais tout perdu. Mais ce n’était pas le cas, Linda! Je n’ai rien perdu! Si les morts peuvent marcher, ils peuvent aussi baiser! J’ai attendu tout l’hiver jusqu’à ce que je puisse entrer dans le cimetière sans danger. J’ai forcé le cadenas de son caveau. Il était sorti de son cercueil, à terre et gelé. On aurait dit qu’il dormait. Je l’ai traîné jusqu’ici sans que personne ne s’en rende compte. »

Le révérend Lyons se tourna brusquement et vomit.

Je sortis le revolver de son étui et enclenchai le chien. « Où est-il? »

« C’est fou ce qu’un peu de ruban adhésif peut faire, Linda. Il en fallait juste assez pour l’empêcher de mordre et de se sauver – » Elle éclata d’un rire à glacer le sang. « Un peu de ruban adhésif. » Phyllis se laissa choir au sol et gémit. « Je pense qu’il aimait ça. » Son corps fut parcouru de secousses, puis cessa de bouger. Sa poitrine se souleva un instant, puis s’immobilisa.

D’une voix mal assurée, le révérend Lyons prononça le Notre Père.

Elle deviendrait mobile deux jours après que les effets de la rigidité cadavérique se soient dissipés. « Vous pouvez partir », dis-je.

« Je ne peux pas vous laisser – »

« Partez! Partez, bordel de merde! » Je posai bruyamment le revolver et attendit qu’il quitte la maison. La chambre de Phyllis était verrouillée de l’extérieur. J’envisageai de faire sauter la serrure d’un coup de feu et comptai mentalement jusqu’à dix avant de me lancer à la recherche de la clé. La maison est bien sécurisée. Une famille en ville pourrait faire bon usage des lieux et du jardin.

La clé se trouvait dans une petite boîte à côté d’un vase rempli de lys fanés.

J’ouvris lentement la porte et un essaim de mouches se précipita dans le salon, suivi immédiatement d’une odeur nauséabonde.

Donald se tortillait mollement sur le lit de Phyllis, contre le panneau de chevet en fonte. Le fil dont elle s’était servi pour le ligoter ses poignets et ses chevilles aux barreaux du lit avait frotté sur la peau et les muscles jusqu’à laisser paraître les os ivoire. Il était nu. Sa chair avait fondu dans le couvre-lit. Des lambeaux de peau pourrie s’étaient détachés de ses jambes et du côté de son torse. Son ventre noir et grisâtre était gonflé. Les mains de Phyllis étaient imprimées en deux ecchymoses sur son torse.

Phyllis avait aspergé la chambre et Donald d’Aqua Velva; la pièce empestait comme un frigo à viande abandonné et un bordel. L’envie de vomir monta sans prévenir, mais je réussis à la réprimer. « Oh Donald », murmurai-je.

Son regard s’adoucit au son de ma voix. Ses gémissements étaient assourdis par le X en ruban adhésif.

« Je le savais, sale fils de pute. Je l’ai toujours su, mais je n’ai jamais rien dit. Je me taisais et je faisais ce que j’avais à faire, mais ce n’était pas assez, jamais assez pour toi ». J’étais surprise devant ma colère et, pendant un instant, c’est comme si quelqu’un d’autre parlait, quelqu’un qui avait un revolver appuyé sous le menton.

Donald ferma les yeux, et je lui fis sauter la cervelle.

En sortant, je fis subir le même sort à Phyllis.

6

Le révérend Lyons reprenait des couleurs pendant que nous revenions chez moi. Le trajet se déroula en silence. Quelques curieux, attirés par les coups de feu, nous regardaient à travers les lattes de bois de leur maison, mais personne ne vint voir ce qui s’était passé. C’était probablement mieux ainsi, parce que je crois que les mots m’auraient manqué pour décrire la folie de Phyllis.

Des gémissements plus forts retentirent du cimetière et des bois environnants. Les zombies seraient bientôt de retour, mais au moins, Donald ne serait pas avec eux. Je décrochai les chaînes de vélo qui servaient à verrouiller ma porte avant. Le révérend Lyons me suivit à l’intérieur et m’aida à remettre en place les lourds madriers de bois. Je mis de l’eau à chauffer et ouvris la porte de la cuisine qui menait dans le jardin. Les poules grattaient joyeusement le sol gelé et les chèvres bêlèrent en m’apercevant.

« Ça va aller? »

Je sortis dans les derniers rayons du soleil et m’assis sur une chaise en plastique. « Je pense que oui. »

« Je peux rester un peu, si vous avez envie de parler. »

« Le soleil se couche, Révérend. Ce serait plus prudent de partir. Et franchement, je n’ai pas très envie de parler. » Je fis une pause et vit qu’il était soulagé. « Ni de prier. Nous nous verrons au décompte. »

Il récupéra son vélo au pied des marches. Je l’accompagnai à la grille et la verrouillai alors qu’il s’éloignait en pédalant.

Je donnai des coups de pied à la terre. Elle était encore trop dure pour être retournée, mais elle cédait déjà un peu en surface. Je mis une autre bûche dans le poêle pendant que mon thé infusait sur la table. Je réfléchis à la journée que je venais de vivre. Tout allait de travers dans le monde. J’étais toujours là, un peu plus mal en point qu’avant, mais j’étais toujours là.

Pas mal pour une nana de 71 ans. Pas mal du tout.

The morning air bites with sharp, frozen teeth even though it’s almost April. My breath hangs like a light white cloud before slowly vanishing. I’ve got to move quickly before the morning sun chases away the dawn chill. My snowshoes are almost a hindrance now as much of the snow is gone, replaced by sopping mud and heaps of decaying leaves. I still wear them. I still need them to get to The Family Trees.

I tug my sled through the forest as fast and as quietly as possible. My goats Fluff and Gruff trot along behind. The little tin bells around their necks clank softly and mingle with the faint chirps of the few birds left after the harsh winter.

Gruff bleats as we pass a tempting clump of fresh shoots that rise from the mud like tiny green fingers.

I pause in the dark shadow of Camelback Hill so the goats can nibble. A clearing looms ahead, beyond that the thaw-swollen Pemigewasset River roars, like a wounded bear, against the morning. I unsnap the hip holster and double-check Grandad’s .38 revolver; it’s loaded. I slide a machete from the sled and hack down an oak sapling then strip the feeble branches to make a walking stick. “Come on kids, let’s go.” I tug the strap attaching the sled to my shoulder harness and get it and the goats moving again.

Gruff and Fluff bleat in protest but they follow along anyway. I don’t know if the animals know how weird the world is now, if they can in any way understand what it means when life as we knew it vanished in the echo of one thunderous comet strike.

Maybe they’re luckier than us.

I pause again just before the first of The Family Trees and tie both Gruff and Fluff to a pair of long ropes lashed around the base of a big hickory. There’s plenty of little saplings to eat here and I won’t be too far away if anything messes with them.

Grandad planted this sugar bush when he was just a little younger than I am now. Their trunks bear the scars of innumerable tappings over the last 50 or so years and each little circular wound is like a signature or ledger entry. I unhitch from the sled and gather the two-gallon buckets, hand drill, hammer, piers, and folding crosscut saw.

The sun is just filtering through the woods now and casts a warm yellow glow through the trunks.

I hammer a deck spike about two inches into the first tree, then the second, third, and fourth. Sap trickles down the rutted gray bark like clear blood.

I drill, tap, and hang a bucket on each tree then place an empty bucket beside each trunk.

The woods begin to awaken. Squirrels leap down into the snow to dig for buried acorns, chipmunks dart back and forth among the deadwood. I clip the sled back onto the harness, collect Fuff and Gruff, then head towards the river and town.

2

Linda greets me with a warm hug in the little entry to her house. “Let’s bring your friends out back.” She leads Fluff and Gruff to her stockade-fenced yard. The two goats immediately jog the perimeter fence before eating the crocuses growing in the shade of the chicken coop. “I haven’t seen you since headcount.”

“Too cold for the walk to town.”

“You’ve been okay?”

“I guess. It’s a little lonely though.” I smile and notice the silhouettes of two girls in the back part of her living room. “You have company, I should go.”

“Oh don’t be silly, sit. I’ll make tea.”

Linda leans heavily on a cane when she walks. “Girls?”

The two girls walk into the kitchen and I recognize them, Marjorie Simmons and Abigail Shannon. “Hi Abby. Hi Marjorie.”

Marjorie is frighteningly skinny, dark eyed, and gloomy. She says, “Hi Henry,” but her voice is little more than a gravely whisper.

Abigail is the opposite, curvy and bouncy, with a mop of red curls and a face covered in freckles. “Hi Goat Boy,” she says.

“That’s no way to speak to our guest!” Linda’s voice is stern, angry.

“It’s okay, she’s called me that since we were little kids. I don’t care.” I smile because Abby remembers me and because I remember that her nickname was Flabby. “Got eggs to trade?”

Linda pours the tea and struggles to walk a cup over to me. “What for?”

“Syrup. Live Dough. Goat milk.”

“I have plenty of milk.” She eases down into her chair. “The girls are a little skittish,” she says, “don’t mind them. They’ve only been here for a few days. Figures one of them would come down with strep.” Linda dunks her teabag twice before stirring in a spoonful of honey. “What’ll you take for the syrup?”

“I was looking for some eggs, or better, a good chicken. A raccoon got into my coop sometime in February and I’ve been without ever since.”

“Fetch a half dozen eggs, Marjorie. I’m short of chickens, but I’ll put a chick aside from the next hatching.”

“I’ve got the syrup in the sled. It’s the last of what I made last year, three jars. Very sweet and no mold.”

“One jar. I figure that’s a good price for six eggs.”

“I’ve still got friendship bread dough, but I didn’t bring it with me. Any idea if Reverend Lyons is home? I could use another bag of flour.”

“Probably. Tell you what, sell me a second jar of syrup for six more eggs and you can bring it over to him with my compliments. He’s had a hell of a time recently and could use something sweet. Leave your friends here with me until you’re done in town if you don’t mind. We could use some new little babies if Gruff is up to it.”

I glance out the window and Gruff is already nosing around Linda’s little flock of female goats. “Box of bullets then?”

Linda smiles almost enough to light up the kitchen. She says, “Ever your Grandad’s boy. Deal.”

We shake hands over the table. I finish my tea in silence as Linda goes back to ordering the girls around like soldiers.

“I was concerned about you, Henry, being all alone outside of town,” she says. “But you’ve become a fine young man. I don’t think I’ll worry too much anymore.” Linda pushes a box of .38 caliber shells into my hand. “Come back in a couple of hours and I’ll have Gruff and Fluff all ready for you.”

“Thanks.”

3

I’m halfway to the church when I hear the tick-tick-tick of bicycle gears approaching behind me. The morning has evaporated all but the worst chill buried in the breeze.

“Hey Goat Boy, wait up.” Abby pedals up the road. She’s fitted a sawed off shotgun across her handlebars. I wait until she circles me then start to walk again.

“Linda said I should make sure you get there and back safe and sound.”

“How come you’re living there? Are your folks okay?” I think for a minute to when I lost Mom and Dad. They were vacationing in Texas when the comet struck. We, that is Grandad and me, got word that they were trying to get a flight or train back just after when the phone lines and stuff finally unclogged. But, by then the undead were rising faster than any one could handle. It was worse in the cities. Grandad wouldn’t let me watch the TV news, while we still had electricity, because I was only 11, but I used to hide on the stairwell anyway and listen to the panicked reporters describing hordes of zombies shambling after anything with a pulse.

“Nah, they’re fine. I check in on them every week or so. Linda is teaching Marjorie and me how to survive and stuff. There isn’t much to it yet, fixing fence stakes mostly, and tending to the chickens and goats.” She hops off the bike and pushes it along beside me.

“That’s cool.”

“Sounds like you already know plenty. I don’t think I’d last a week on my own.”

“Grandad was a good teacher.” We walk to the bridge and stop. The river screams below, rattling the cast iron stanchions and angled buttresses beneath the frame. The water races through high enough to occasionally spray over the handrails.

Abby goes over first but freezes half way, then breaks into a clumsy run to the other side.

I peer over before crossing. The white water churns and bellows below, and every few seconds hands, arms, the top of a head, or twisted legs, captured and consumed by the river’s flow, bash against the supports then disappear beneath the bridge.

I close my eyes and sprint across.

Abby shivers and can barely hold her bike upright.

“It’s okay. Once the river gets them —” She shakes her head and I shut up.

“I try and pretend they aren’t out there, that the worst is over. But —” she starts to sniffle and drags her flannel sleeve over her nose. “Jesus,” she says finally.

4

Reverend Lyons is haggard and stooped. His clothes are stained pink in spots and his arm is bandaged. He leans out of the gate and glances up both ends of the main street. “What?” His voice is cold and angry.

“Linda bought you some maple syrup.” I push the jar into his good hand.

He chains the door behind us and starts back up the steps to the upper part of the church where he’s made his apartment. “Don’t mind me,” he says, “I haven’t really had a chance to rest since the scavenge.” He pauses and shakes for a minute.

Abby and I follow him up. “You okay? Has Linda looked at your arm?”

“Just a scratch, that damn fool Whilouby grazed me. I told him to hold his fire, but, well, we were all pretty panicked.” His voice dies off. “What do you want for the syrup?”

“It’s a gift. But I was hoping you might have a five-pounder of flour.”

Lyons scratches his beard. His eyes twinkle still, even in the dank of the little makeshift rooms overlooking the stores in the sanctuary below. “I got flour.” He glances at Abby. “Right beside the pallets of dry milk and dry beans behind the altar.”

Abby descends leaving the Reverend and I alone. He reaches for my pistol then withdraws. “Probably won’t be another scavenge for a while, but if you’re even half good with that thing we’ll want you to come.”

I nod. “How bad was it?”

“Most of the places were vacant. Trees overgrown, houses falling in mostly. It was so cold. They should have all been frozen.” He shivers. “There must’ve been survivors there, razing buildings to keep things warm.” Reverend Lyons twitches. “Most of the surrounding towns are picked clean anyway except for a few stragglers holed up, not as many as us. We couldn’t get them to come out and talk. They’ll all starve or freeze, it’s just a matter of time.”

“When did the shooting happen?”

“Somewhere on the way back. I don’t remember exactly. We stumbled into them, six or so, shambling around a burned out house. That must’ve thawed them out good. We didn’t expect them and they weren’t there when we passed on the way out of Pleasant Hollow. We escaped okay.” He lifts his arm and winces, “minus a few bruises.”

Abby returns with a bag of flour and hands it to me. “You sure you don’t want to have Linda look at that? She’s got herbs and stuff.”

“It’ll be fine in a couple of days. The bullet passed right through. I wash it out good with hydrogen peroxide every couple of hours. Tell Linda I’ll be down later in the week, okay?”

“Sure Reverend, sure.” Abby tugs my arm and leads me to the stairs.

He says, “Make sure you lock the gate,” as we close the church door.

“He looks awful,” Abby whispers.

“I didn’t even know a scavenging party had gone out. I’d have gone if someone bothered to ask me. I guess no one remembers me unless I come into town —”

“Oh my god, you don’t know then?”

“Know what?”

“The Reverend and the others, they bumped into another group, organized, like Army guys or something. Linda wouldn’t say much about it, but I overheard her and Brad Henderson talking. Brother Charisma, I think that was the name. They even had trucks! Real trucks! Now Linda is worried that half the town is going to try and make contact or worse – that Brother Charisma knows about Pleasant Hollow.”

We cross the bridge. Neither Abby nor me look over the side this time. The zombies are scary, sure, but the real danger is other survivors. People are real territorial now, even us I guess, because if one group thinks another group has more food or better defenses or whatever, they’d rather fight over them than trade.

Grandad used to talk about that kind of stuff from when he was in Vietnam. If one village was friendly with the Americans, and another village wasn’t, that other village would sneak in at night and kill everyone and take whatever wasn’t nailed down. He told me to always be on the lookout for people eyeing the house, or the woods, or whatever, because even if they were having tea and talking about how much they miss the Red Sox, they were probably taking an accounting of what wasn’t nailed down.

“You okay?”

Abby’s voice draws me back to the reality of the broken street pavement just as we pass the cemetery. “Yeah, just remembering is all.”

I stop for a second and listen. Something rustles in the brush just beside the cast iron cemetery gate. I draw my pistol as Abby pulls up her shotgun and lets the bike down. We wait a couple of minutes until a small herd of deer bound out of the bushes and cross the road just ahead of us. A coyote pack follows but neither of them gives us a second glance.

Marjorie opens the gate to Linda’s place and we slip inside. She asks, “How was Reverend Lyons?”

“He looks pretty banged up,” I kneel down and click my tongue until Gruff and Fluff gallop over and nuzzle me. I scratch their stiff fur and hug them.

“Your buck is a dud,” Linda says from the porch, “mind leaving him for a couple of days to see if he takes a liking to any of my does?”

I don’t really want to, but I’ll be near town every day for the next month or so collecting sap, one more trip into town isn’t so bad. Besides, I’ll get to see Abby again. I nod. “Fluff is going to cry all night long without him.”

“Two days then, okay?”

“Sure Linda.” I kiss Gruff right between where his new horns are budding. “You be a good boy and make lots of little goats.”

Gruff bleats softly.

I fasten Fluff to the sled by her leash and walk to the gate. “Goodbye Abby. See you in a couple of days I guess.”

“Ok Goat Boy.” She smiles wide and swings the gate open. “Thanks for the syrup.”

5

Grandad and me transplanted three rings of Chokecherry trees around the garage when we converted it into a live-in sugarhouse. They make a nice wall because they grow fast and the trunks grow close together. Chokecherries are slender, tough as nails and offer a nice set of little needlelike shoots hidden among the wide green leaves.

“See how fast they grow Henry?” he’d ask. “Like the bamboo that the Vietnamese used to hide machine guns, tunnel entrances, all sorts of stuff. Chop it down one day, and two weeks later it’s back just like it hadn’t ever been touched.”

He designed the rings to keep everything out. If a zombie or scavenger managed to crash through one ring of the trees intact, they’d meet a whole mess of pungi stakes before hitting the next ring of trees. The first year of the end of the world we shot more than a hundred zombies who’d got themselves tangled up and the rings were only waist high.

Now I can’t reach the tops.

There’s a pattern to walk if you want to get through unhurt, I know it, he knew it, no one else does though; go in through the south, second tree on the outside, walk ten paces to the right and slip through to the third ring, fourteen paces to the left and through the gate. We put up waist high chain link all around the inside of the closest ring.

He wanted to dig a tunnel, I still have the old culvert out back, between the garage floor and outside the rings but he got bit.

I shake off thinking about him and push the sled into place beside the chain link cage surrounding the garage. Fluff glances around the yard then starts to bleat for Gruff. I let her follow me inside.

The sugarhouse is warm even though I’ve only been burning scrap for the last week or so, and even then only at night. A good run of maple sap needs two things, freezing cold nights and mild days. The mild days keep the little shack warm too, skylights let the in the sunshine. Grandad scavenged every piece of insulation we could pull out of the house and stapled it up over everything, then covered that with sheetrock and Grandma’s collection of quilts.

Fluff clip-clops over to the little space beneath my hammock and lies down. Her ears perk up every time I move, as if expecting Gruff to magically jump out from my shadow or something. I put the eggs in the cooler outside the door and finish off the last of the warm milk I collected yesterday. Fluff’s udders are already swollen so I’ll have plenty later.

The flour goes into a canister on the shelf above the little stash of emergency canned goods in a cupboard on the floor.

I sit on the rocking chair and listen to the quiet for a little while. I don’t mind being alone so much, really, but after seeing Linda and Abby and Reverend Lyons it’s a little anticlimactic knowing I’ll be here with just Fluff for a couple of days. I don’t get depressed, at least I don’t think I do, it’s just a little lonely. I pull my journal to my lap and write –

Day 1034: Started tapping trees. Traded two jars of syrup for a dozen eggs. Left Gruff with Linda for a box of bullets.

I don’t write much because I don’t know if can get another notebook or pen when these run out. There’s plenty of work to do anyway. I keep a woodpile outside the ring and it only takes a couple of minutes to get the sled ready to drag a couple of dozen logs through the Chokecherry maze. I’ve got a couple of cords of wood just waiting to be quartered out back.

The pine splits easy, way easier than oak or hickory, but it burns fast so I have to chop a whole lot of it before next winter. Tackling the harder trees will be easier as I get older and stronger. Right now though all that matters is that I don’t stop chopping. I’ve split and stacked twenty-five logs by mid-afternoon and my arms buzz and burn from the work. I drag the haul inside and stack it along where the garage doors used to be. I draw two five-gallon pails of water from the well; one for washing up, the other for drinking and cooking, then gather a handful of withered carrots from the root cellar. I don’t even want to think about the garden yet. The ground is still too frozen to turn over and won’t be ready until a week or so after I make the last batch of maple syrup.

I put a small pot of water to boil then stoke the fire.

Fluff bleats and stands up. She walks the inside the sugarhouse then returns to her spot beneath the hammock. Her ears stay perked up and swiveling.

I put my hand on the pistol grip and whisper, “What is it girl?”

Fluff stares at the door but her ears are craned back.

I pull down the escape ladder and climb to the upper part of the garage where I’ve spread planks across the joists. I crawl to the skylight, climb onto the roof. The full afternoon sun bares down on the black shingles so that it’s almost too hot to touch. That’s when I see something moving in and out of the shadows beside the road. “Probably just some more deer,” I mutter. There’s been an explosion of them lately so venison isn’t even worth trading.

Soft guttural moans fill the afternoon air.

Crap.

I slide back into the sugarhouse as quietly as I can and pull the skylight closed behind me, shimmy down to the floor then fit oak slats into my three windows. I crack the door open just enough to hear.

The moans come louder, and with them the shamble of footsteps through dead leaves.

Fluff tucks her head beneath the blanket and shivers. I close the door and slide three two-by-fours into the frame. “Don’t worry girl, they can’t get in here.” I grab the milking stool and sit. Fluff clip-clops over and I start to squeeze little streams of milk into a stainless steel pail. She’s spent in less than five minutes, which is good because my hands are raw and swollen from chopping wood.

We only took a few things from the house before Grandad set it ablaze. “Scorched Earth,” he said, “don’t leave places where the enemy can hide.” As we stood there and watched the farm burn, as the heat nearly cooked us like roast rabbits, he cried a little. The only time I remember him ever crying.

We saved a few chairs, a couple of small tables, a toilet that we connected to the septic tank and screened off with a shower curtain, a hand-crank powered disaster radio, a pair of low bookshelves and all the useful books we could carry.

I pull my elementary school yearbook off the shelf and thumb through it until I find Abby’s picture. Her smile in the picture is the same as now, and her freckles. A few pages later and I’m there with my 4H ribbons. The text beneath the picture reads: Henry Saunders, nickname, Goat Boy.

The others poked fun at me, but my folks were proud that I was interested in 4H stuff. Besides, it was sure more fun than sitting in front of the TV. I kind of miss TV now that I think about it.

Goat Boy.

I glance over at Fluff still cowering on the floor and start to laugh then slide into my hammock.

The frantic ringing of the church bell and the crackle of gunshots wakes me up two hours later. Fluff startles and I have to curl up on the floor to calm her down. We listen until the nighttime silence settles on Pleasant Hollow like a thick blanket and I drift back to sleep.

6

A heavy spring rain makes the walk to The Family Trees miserable. I wanted to leave Fluff behind but she wouldn’t stop scratching and bumping the door as I hitched up to the sled.

I empty the sap pails into a five-gallon drum strapped to the back of the sled. Not a bad haul, about two gallons total, just enough to make a half pint of syrup. These holes should last a week before the sap runs dry. Can’t bleed them too much or you’ll kill the tree.

Fluff starts to bleat and the shrill, panicked noise snaps my attention away from the syrup. I draw the pistol while running out to where I’ve tied her.

Fluff strains at the leash but I don’t see what’s spooking her. We’d stumbled onto a tangle of ruined snares and wet tufts of rabbit hair about a quarter mile back that looked like the work of coyotes or wild dogs.

I squat down and she nearly knocks me over. I try and calm her down but she’s good and spooked now.

A coyote crosses just over the little hill about a hundred feet away. It doesn’t seem to be circling back.

I watch for another minute but the thing has disappeared into the woods. “I guess we know who robbed the traps eh’ Fluff?” I squat back down and scratch her behind the ears.

She’s still shivering and bleating and doesn’t calm down even as we leave the sled behind and head towards town. The rain falls so hard now it’s hard to see more than twenty or thirty feet in any direction. I stay close to the river just to keep my bearings.

Downtown is empty. Smoke and steam rises from the burn pit in the town square. We walk to Linda’s house. The signs of last night’s battle are visible even in the rain; an overturned cart spattered with black sticky blood and gray reeking flesh that the rain hasn’t managed to wash away, fresh bullet holes in the post office wall, and the front of the drug store.

I rap on Linda’s gate and wait a few minutes. Abby finally lets me inside. “Hi Goat Boy,” she says, “Good thing Linda looked out the window or we’d never have known you were here. We didn’t expect you until tomorrow.”

The rain pounds down on us as we lock the gate. I say, “Fluff was lonely.”

Abby laughs and leads us into the house. Linda sits in the kitchen. Her bad leg is stretched out over two chairs. She silently reads the Bible and only closes the book when I am almost on top of her. “Hello Henry,” she says softly.

“Mind if I throw Fluff outside? She’s been awful antsy since yesterday.”

“Sure, that’s fine.”

I unhook Fluff’s harness and guide her to the back porch. She bolts down into the grass and nearly topples Gruff over. Fluff bleats happily before chasing Gruff around the fence braces.

“Get those wet clothes off Henry, you’ll get a chill. Abby, throw a couple of logs into the stove and hang his coat and gloves where they can dry.”

“Yes Linda.” I sit in the only seat left in the kitchen; a straight-backed chair pushed against the wall beneath her cast iron pans.

“Don’t get too close to anyone, Marjorie’s strep is running wild in the house. If I was able to lay down comfortably I’d be in bed myself but this weather plays havoc with my joints.”

Abby hands me a cup of hot goat’s milk with cinnamon sprinkled on top. I smile. “Thanks!”

“You’ve come to trade again?” Linda stretches back and slides her Bible onto the bookshelf behind her. “I’m afraid one day isn’t enough for a hatching —”

“No. Just visiting. Heard shots last night and the church bell —”

“Everything’s fine Henry. You know how it gets when spring comes. It’ll get worse too, but probably not as bad as last year. We’re coming out of the worst I think. Just need to make more babies. Mothers are going to save the world. Mothers and babies.”

I sip the milk in silence. It’s hot and sweet and delicious and for a minute the taste drags my mind away from everything that’s wrong in the world. I glance at Abby but she turns away before our eyes meet.

“You’re tapping already?”

“Yes Ma’am. Just starting. I only have a dozen or so taps so I start slow until the sap really starts running good. Another week maybe.” I finish the hot milk and rise to put the cup buy the sink but Abby grabs it before I reach the counter.

“I’ll take it Henry,” she whispers.

“You got strep too?”

She shakes her head and dunks the cup into a pail of warm wash water.

“You know it’s best to check the trees twice a day.” Linda eases her leg down and starts to flex her knee. She winces each time her leg bends.

“I plan to on the way home. I can get the first batch boiling tonight if I’m not held up in town too long.”

“Abby, do you know how to make maple syrup?”

Abby shakes her head again.

“Why don’t you go with Henry? He can show you the ropes.” She turns to me. “Leave Fluff here with me overnight. She’s probably more relaxed now that Gruff is nearby and Abby can help you with the collection tomorrow.”

“A trade?” I glance at Abby.

Linda laughs. “You are your Grandad’s boy all right. No Henry, just an extra hand for you, and maybe Gruff will be comfortable enough with Fluff here to sire some new babies for us. I got a couple in heat, he just needs to stop being timid.”

“You can sleep in my hammock if you don’t mind Abby. It’s pretty comfortable.”

“That’ll be fine I’m sure. Abby, go pack a spare blanket and set up a container of chicken soup to take with you.”

“Yes Linda,” Abby whispers.

7

Abby keeps her shotgun ready as we walk through the rain towards The Family Trees. “Why do you get sap way the hell out here?”

“My Grandad planted these trees when he was a kid and it’s where I learned how to make maple syrup. I always start here because he always did.”

“That’s nice.”

“He was a good guy.”

“I — I wanted to apologize for calling you Goat Boy all this time.”

I slow down as we cross the hillside stretching down to the riverbank. “It’s okay.”

“No. It was cruel. You know, I had a mean nickname too, so I know —”

“I remember.”

“So joining in with the others who made fun of you made me feel better about myself I guess.”

We reach The Family Trees and I hand each of the pails to Abby and show her how to dump them through the sieve into the five-gallon buckets. “You want to know why I never made fun of you, even when I knew what the other kids called you?”

Abby shrugs.

“Because you didn’t have any control over who you were and what you looked like. I got into the farm thing when other kids were surfing the Internet or collecting DVDs I was tending chickens and raising rabbits and goats. I knew it made me different, but I choose it. Calling me Goat Boy or whatever just made me feel like I stood out in a good way because of my choices.”

She says, “I guess you were right all along.”

This time I shrug. We walk back through the woods carefully. The sled drags heavy and we sometimes have to both tug hard on the harness to free the runners from deep sticky mud. We reach the sugarhouse about an hour later and my legs ache so bad all I want to do is lay down. The rain hasn’t let up any either so I’m soaked to the long-johns and cold even though the air is a healthy fifty-degrees or so. Abby has a rain poncho. Lucky.

I lead her through the Chokecherry maze and she helps get the five gallons of maple sap off the sled. We get inside and I stoke the stove up good and high. It’s a big cast iron cook stove so it throws loads of heat. I put the stainless steel trough atop the stove and pour in the sap. The sugarhouse heats up very fast and soon wisps of steam rise from my jacket and pants.

“This is nice,” Abby says. She’s drawn immediately to the crank radio. “Does this work?”

“Yeah, but you won’t get anything on it.”

She frowns but works the crank loose anyway and whirls it around until the little green LED light on the top begins to blink. She runs through the FM band, static all across the dial. Halfway across the AM band the sugarhouse fills with a crackly French voice. Abby nearly drops the radio to the floor. “People?” she says, “other people?”

I take the radio gently from her hands. “It’s a recorded message. It cycles every two hours and repeats.”

She drops into the rocking chair and stares at the red and blue Amish quilt on the east wall.

“Grandad translated it with me two years ago.” I hand her a battered French/English dictionary. “All it says is ‘Quebec is under emergency quarantine’ then repeat calls to remain calm and stay indoors. The government is doing everything in its power to restore order. Blah blah blah. The same message they’ve run since the dead came back I think. I wish I knew how the radio station still had electricity.”

The sugarhouse falls silent save for the rolling boil of the maple sap atop the stove. I slide the curtain around the toilet closed and get undressed. The heat inside dries me off almost instantly and I realize I haven’t carried any dry clothes behind the curtain with me. “Abby,” my voice comes out hoarse and squeaky, “can you bring me some clothes from the footlocker.”

She doesn’t answer.

“Abby?” I wait a minute then pull the curtain around my nakedness and peer out. “Abby, you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” she says. She’s wrapped in a quilt from my hammock. Her red curls tousle down over her freckled shoulders. The soft curved tops of her breasts heave just above the quilt’s hem. She’s placed her neatly folded clothes on the rocking chair.

“Why — Why don’t you have your clothes on?” Blood rushes to my cheeks, among other places.

She blushes and looks away. “Come out Goat Boy.”

“I don’t think I should.”

“Come out.” She turns slowly revealing her naked back and shoulders. “Come out I won’t look.”

“It’s not that Abby. I mean — Why are you doing this? I like you and all, but —”

“Linda explained why she needed Gruff to make little goats. And how every little goat that gets born helps keep parts of all the goats that came before and will come after alive forever.”

“I’m not a goat. I mean, well —”

“There are 223 people left in Pleasant Hollow, only ten of them are women that can bear children. If we don’t, then Pleasant Hollow won’t be anything but a memory in five years. I don’t want to be a memory Henry. I want to live forever.”

“There’s barely enough to eat for those of us left. You can’t bring a baby into this crazy world now. It’s not fair. No one should have to live in this world the way it is if they don’t have to.” I point at the footlocker. “My clothes are in there. Bring me jeans and a shirt please and let’s forget all about this. For crying out loud we’re just kids ourselves. I’m not ready to be a father. Heck, I don’t even think I could be a big brother!” I loosen the curtain to hide the fact that my body isn’t listening at all to the words coming out of my mouth.

“Come out and get them. If you really don’t want to do this, I’ll be able to tell.”

“That’s not fair!” I almost laugh but realize she’s completely serious.

“There are other men in town. Linda said I could choose any of them. I didn’t have to choose you.”

“This is insane. Not that I’m not flattered and all, but still —”

“But I chose you. I knew the minute I saw you in Linda’s kitchen. You. Henry Goat Boy. This way, if something happens to me you can tell the baby who I was and what I was like, same as I’d do if something happens to you. They’d carry us on, and grow up smart and new to this horrible world. But it won’t be bad for them because they won’t have known any different and they’ll make it better. They’ll make it right again.”

“That’s too much responsibility.”

“You know what the one thing that Linda’s taught me that really sticks?”

“What?” I start to shiver even though it’s probably ninety degrees inside the sugarhouse.

“It’s that we don’t have the luxury of being kids anymore. We have to be like pioneers, like people colonizing a new planet. We have to be adults even if our brains haven’t fully caught up with our bodies. But our brains will catch up.”

My Grandad and Gradma married when they were sixteen, only a year and a half older than I am now. They had my mom before they turned eighteen and Grandad went off to the Army. I remember the family album and all the black and white pictures of them. I stare at Abby. She’s shivering as much as I am. “I don’t love you.”

“I don’t love you either. But we can learn how to be in love together.”

She wraps the quilt with one hand and sways to the cupboard and pulls out a half-empty jar of maple syrup. Abby dips her finger in and smears it gently across her lips.

I really don’t want to move the curtain now. A nervous tingle grips my stomach so badly I have to sit on the toilet and concentrate just on breathing to keep from falling over.

Abby slides the curtain aside slowly and leans over me. She bends down and pushes her lips against mine. They are sweet, heavenly sweet and warm and soft and sweet.

We brush cheeks and she whispers, “Come on out Henry. Linda didn’t send me here just to learn about boiling sap. She taught me how to watch the moon and mark the right time. It’s the right time now. She told me what to do and how to be so you’d want me.”

She kisses me again. Her free hand reaches down and squeezes my fingers. She pulls me from behind the curtain and again presses her sweetly sticky lips into mine. She presses her soft warm body against my chest.

I can feel her curves, her thundering heartbeat, her heat, even through the quilt. “I don’t —”

“Make me a mother,” she whispers. “And together we’ll save the world.”

The all-night roar of the thaw-swollen Pemegewesset River slapping against the underside of the cast iron bridge gnaws like the persistent scrape of fingernails on a chalkboard.

Marta lies beside me. Her breathing is measured and regular, like she’s asleep, but I know she awake. I touch her shoulder ands she recoils into an even tighter fetal ball atop the dingy quilt. I roll over and worry about the fortifications, the chickens, the gardens that can’t take much more rain. Maintenance is critical, let something go, like a bad roof shingle, and in no time it cascades into a rotted ceiling or wall, and the time needed to fix those new problems takes time away from keeping everything else in good order.

Marta sighs, wriggles down, and draws her legs in even tighter.

We haven’t talked much since the big thaw because I was so — wait — we, we were so busy getting the gardens ready, repairing the fences, and stringing barbed wire and coffee cans loaded with ball bearings through the back two forested acres of the property.

I never made it to the library. She asked and asked and asked, but the thaw came so quickly, then headcount, then door-to-door searches, then scavenging, and taking account of what’s left in Pleasant Hollow, and I just couldn’t get there. Sometimes at night I lay beside her and I can feel the resentment radiating off of her skin like feverish body heat. Sometimes too, I get the urge to apologize, but Marta should understand, and I shouldn’t have to.

I ease up on the bed and listen to the staccato of heavy rain on the shingles and the howls of spring wind tearing at the budding branches of the woods around Camelback Hill. I whisper, “It’s morning.”

“Don’t’,” she answers.

“Don’t what?”

“Go. Don’t go.”

“I’m just getting some water.”

Marta sighs.

We’d only been married for six months before the comet strike three years ago, and it feels like we’ve lived ten lives each since. Today I realize I barely know her. I spin the cap of a repurposed 2-liter soda bottle and pour four ounces into a plastic cup on the nightstand then fill a washbasin with the rest.

A hint of sulphur wafts out of the metal bowl on the dresser. We’d always meant to get a water softener, but well —

“You’re going out,” she says. Her voice nearly drowns beneath the rain’s rhythm.

“Just for a bit. I won’t be outside the fence —”

“Don’t.”

I ignore her and splash a few palms-full over my face. The water drizzles out of my pioneer-length beard and spreads over the threadbare tee shirt I use for pajamas.

We ran out of soap nine-months ago.

I drain the cup and spit the last sips into the basin after a swish around my teeth then toss the empty bottle into the pile of empties beside the overflowing burlap sack. I make a mental note to drag the sack and bottles down to the basement for refilling. Before the second winter I rigged all of the gutter downspouts to drain into the basement where I placed ten fifty-five gallon plastic drums to use as a makeshift cistern. So, even if it stops raining for a year we won’t go thirsty.

“Come back to bed.”

I run my fingers through my beard before answering. “I think I’ll walk the fence first.”

“Fine.”

“What?”

Marta rolls over. Her ice-blue eyes shine out from the shadows of murky dawn, “the fence can wait, can’t it?”

I sit on the edge of the bed and listen to the old springs cry out in protest. We were going to buy a new mattress once, but things went so bad so fast that everything not tied directly to survival were thrown off the priorities list. We really needed a new mattress then though, really. Marta nicknamed it The Crippler but still, in relation to everything else, a decent night’s sleep is just one tiny nothing.

I ease back up. “Why don’t you come with me?”

She eases up on one arm. “We’re going to the library today.”

“Remember when I showed you pictures of the old shark fences they used to put up in Australia and said that crews used to ride out every week to make sure there weren’t any holes —”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m one of your fucking school kids!”

I sigh.

“You’re not a teacher anymore. None of that Australia shit matters —”

“The point is we have to make sure the fence is intact. If a bear or something broke through then the yard isn’t safe, the gardens aren’t safe, the house isn’t safe.” I roll over and stare at the matted black hair at the back of her head.

“The house is safe for now. You promised. One more day without something to escape into and I’ll go crazy. Keith? Keith answer me.”

The mattress groans as I struggle into a pair of to-small-work boots, Having a supply of decent shoes isn’t something most people think about at the end of the world. We stumbled on a cache in a tractor-trailer truck a year ago, but almost all of them were kids sizes. “I won’t be long. It seems pretty quiet and I think the rain is letting up some.”

Marta squeezes into a ball so tight I wouldn’t be surprised if she ceased to exist.

I slide a little .22 caliber pistol into my jacket pocket before clomping out towards the bedroom door. “Be back soon.”

Marta sighs but doesn’t speaks.

“Hun? Hun come on. Get up. I’ll make sure the stove is going good and strong. I’ll put on a kettle. Have some tea, you’ll feel better.”

She rolls over to face me. Her face is ashen gray and hollow, her voice is almost a moan. “Grab a large pizza on the way home.”

I flash a smile. “Garlic bread?”

“Double order.”

“How do you want your pizza Ma’am?”

“Double cheese and anchovies.”

“I’ll be back with it in 30 minutes of less or the next one is one us.” I back out of the bedroom and smile. The pizza thing is a running gag, that little bit of gallows humor we’ve needed to keep us focused and vigilant.

I pause at the steps and listen as Marta’s weeping poisons the morning stillness.

Downstairs is just how we left it at sundown. The windows are still boarded, the doors too, and double bolted, and braced. I stuff three short sticks of dry pine into the Franklin stove and stoke the embers until the wood catches then fill a pan of water ready for tea. I shove open the French doors to the double living room and frown. A 60-inch plasma TV, useless now, hangs over a couple grand of audiovisual gear. The white leather couches are thick with dust. The glass coffee table is heaped with scrap wood. The built-in bookshelves sag from water damage when part of the roof collapsed last spring. A heap of crumbling paperbacks scatters away from the shelf towards the dining room.

We simplified when it was clear that heating would come only from one stove in the kitchen. I sealed the downstairs toilet, the dining room, the upstairs spare bedrooms too then cut four two-foot by six-inch vents in the bedroom floor to the ambient heat from the kitchen could at least reach the room where Marta and I would spend almost all of our time.

Morning spills through the heavy oak window slats like wet smoke. I pull my shoulder-length black mane back and fasten a ponytail with an old bread bag twist tie then remove the double bolts from the kitchen door. A wave of cool mist sprays in as the rain pounds down in the little walkway between the house and garage.

I wait a few seconds just to be sure I’m alone. A shotgun leans on the wall beside the door, but it’s hard to handle in the torrent that doesn’t offer more than a few dozen yards of visibility anyway. Besides, the .22 is better close in. I peel back a plastic tarp and check the apple press for rat-damage. The wooden barrel is intact, the handle too. I make a mental note to smear more petroleum jelly on the screw to stave off even more rust. Who cares, I think, not going to be any apples this year anyway. Stop it Keith! Buck up man! There will be apples, plenty of them, enough to fill the cellar with jam and sauce and preserves and still have plenty left for trading.

Think positive. That’s how we keep from going crazy.

I walk the north perimeter first. There’s no real good way to predict where the undead will congregate, but we didn’t know that when fortifications were a critical necessity. I put the best fencing, stockade, seven feel tall, on the three-hundred and ten feet closest to the road. I should have lined the backyard along the woods, that way I could just watch the window in case any unwelcome visitors were tangled in the barbed wire. But, hindsight is 20/20.

The fence makes the yard look out of place among the other homes in the Pleasant Hollow Acres subdivision. I bought in here because the neighborhood design was meant to emulate pastoral living so none of the yards are truly square, hummocks of birch and maple trees separated one property from another, and the roads curved and criss-crossed like they’d been drawn by an overenthusiastic child with a black crayon. I couldn’t have afforded the place in my wildest dreams, but an unexpected inheritance from my father’s death meant not only that I could move in, but that I’d never have to work again. You’d never have known my dad was almost a millionaire when he succumbed to cancer. He still lived in the rambling, falling-down farmhouse beside the ruins of a dairy barn where I grew up.

The comet struck three months after Marta and me closed on the house.

The back yard stretches into almost two full acres of old-growth forest. We clear a little out each spring for firewood but not enough to make a noticeable dent. I draw the pistol and creep in as far as the first coils of barbed wire and start to work my way east.

The fence is mostly intact. I’ve set up the defenses like the trench system of the Somme with a line of coils at the far end of the woods, then a short clearing, another line of wire, another clearing, then the alarms, and finally a double coil of concertina wire closest to the yard.

The defenses have worked well enough. Every now and then a bear or some other big animal works its way through and I have to refasten the coils to the trees and braces. A towering old oak has come down. The roots spike up out of the soft ground like pungi stakes and thick mud has rushed into the crater.

The tree will make good firewood if I can just get it out of here.

I whirl around as branches crackle and snap. The .22 comes up easily but there’s no target.

Calm down Keith, I think, get jumpy and get killed. I ease back behind the split trunk of a drowning birch and wait. “Marta?” My voice comes out hoarse and scared.

“Keith? Keith where are you?”

I step back into the semi-open. “Here baby. You scared the shit out of me. Jesus.”

Marta pushes through the saplings. She’s carrying the shotgun. “I heard something at the house.”

“You should have stayed put.”

“I know but —”

“Just stay close then. I’ll check the house over good when we get back.”

The wire is rusted to bright orange and mottled brown. The coils blend seamlessly with the underbrush now. I make a mental note to mark this line with strips of bright cloth.

“I smell one.”

The stink of sulfur and rotten meat suffuses from the mist and behind that smell the rising buzz of disturbed bluebottle flies.

“Oh God,” Marta turns away and shoves a wet rag over her nose and mouth.

We find two, a man and a woman, both snarled in the wire. The woman’s torso is torn almost to the spine. She claws slowly at the dirt but her legs are enwrapped and the barbs have cut all of her thigh and calf muscles away. She snarls and writhes as I approach.

They smell us, that’s how they hunt. “Stay back.” I keep a few yards between us, line up the .22, and fire two bullets into her head.

The man is in worse shape as the wire is wrapped around his neck. His head dangles as all of the ligaments and muscles are shredded away. His eyes swirl in sunken sockets but the rest of his body is ruined and still. I shoot him too.

“Come on.” I back away from the resting corpses and begin to push Marta towards the edge of the woods.

“We can’t just leave them there?”

“Just go. I’ll clean it out later —” Something else moves in the woods. I turn back and see a form shambling slowly through the brush. “Get back to the house. Hurry!”

We get inside and bolt the doors. Marta strips out of her clothes and shivers beside the stove as I feed wood through the door. “Did you see it?”

Marta shakes her head.

“The fence must be broken somewhere —” I struggle to catch my breath.

“I didn’t see anything.” She pulls a blanket off the pantry shelf and wraps up. “The fence will hold for a couple of hours. Let’s dry up then go, the library is an hour walk each way.”

“A shape in the woods —”

She pads out of the kitchen and shoves open the French doors to the living room.

“Marta?” I wait for ten seconds but she doesn’t answer. “Marta, honey? Come on baby, stay in here it’s too cold in —”

A crash followed by the tinkle of glass shards scattering across the hard wood floor. “It’s all bullshit! It’s all bullshit! I hate this place! I fucking hate it all!”

I scramble out of the kitchen but freeze when I see that Marta’s slammed a wooden chair through the entertainment center. A flash of rage wells up, but I manage to suppress it, she’s just smashing things now, old things, things that don’t have any meaning or value. “Marta,” I whisper.

She whirls back and flings an oak chair leg that clatters down beside me. “Six months of comfort! Six months is all I had! Six months! It’s not fair!”

I back into the kitchen.

“I just want to escape for a little while and every time I think of the TV or the radio I want to burn the goddamn house down!”

“Relax baby. Come on. Destroying our stuff won’t change anything.”

“We sleep and eat and sleep and eat and cut wood and the TV hangs there, teasing me, making promises. There are other people out there Keith, I know it. People with electricity, with lives. People who aren’t living like it’s the fucking stone age and you keep me here, locked up like some — some — some goddamn toy!” Marta collapses against the wall and sobs. Her slender fingers slap up against her eyes as if their very pressure can stem the tears.

I snake through the destruction and put my blanketed arm around her shoulder. I whisper softly that it’s okay and lead her back to the kitchen. She doesn’t resist as I lower her onto a chair. “You wait here baby. I’m going to break out the stores, you wait, we’ll eat and drink and laugh like normal people. You just wait.” I back to the cellar steps and fumble the combination lock before climbing down the mildewed steps into the basement. A little stream runs north to south, rainwater seeping through the foundation. No big surprise after so much rain, and with no electricity to run the sump pump in the corner.

The mundane thoughts threaten to distract me but I shake them off. There’s enough light through the cellar windows to get to the walk in storage closet that I converted to a bunker in case we were ever truly overrun.

I pull a battery-powered flashlight from a hook on the wall and creep inside. I squirreled away two cases of tuna, a flat of fruit cocktail, cases of canned potatoes, corned beef hash, and mixed vegetables. I grab two cans of each then push to the back and push the cot away from the wall revealing four bottles of Canadian Whiskey. “You there baby? I’m coming back up. I’m going to treat you right tonight, you wait —”

I see the shadow on the door at my periphery.

“I just wanted some books.”

“Oh now Marta, honey. Let’s eat and get some rest we can talk about the library tomorrow.” I push the tuna and fruit cocktail into her hands and turn around for the whiskey when Marta slams and locks the door to the bunker. “Marta? Marta, baby? Open the door. Marta! Marta what the fuck!”

I slam my shoulder against the door but it doesn’t budge. I fall back against the cot and just sit there. I’d built the room to be strong and safe and quiet but never though that would be a liability.

I switch the flashlight off and fumble one of the whiskey bottles to my lap and spin open the cap. She’ll be back. She’ll get lonely in a couple of hours, or scared then she’ll come back.

I measure the time in hunger pains and squats in the corner. Eight hours, give or take. I start to think. Maybe this is a good thing? Maybe this is karma or something — I’ve never been a believer in all that supernatural shit — but maybe this is, like, a sign or something. I wouldn’t be in the mess if I’d just let the fence go for one day and walked Marta to the library. Stupid. Selfish. The whiskey burn gets less and less with each swig until I’m sure the room whirls around and around and around though I can’t see a thing. The cot catches me before I pass out.

I wake up to silence. How long I’ve slept is a mystery but I didn’t pee the bed so it couldn’t have been too long. I pry the top off a can of hash and shovel it into my mouth two fingers at a time until I burp so hard it almost brings the food back up. “Marta! Marta let me out! I’ll take you to the library right now if you just let me out!”

Nothing.

“Marta! Maaaarta!” I cry out until my voice devolves into a gravely coughing croak.

Squat in the corner and relieve myself over a bucket of damp sawdust. She’ll be back. She can’t stay up there without me for much longer.

I finish the whiskey in silence and strain to hear even a single footstep or rattle of the outdoor chain.

Nothing.

I lay back on the cot. She’ll see, I won’t be mad when she opens the door. She’ll know I got the message. I have to take care of her too, just like the house, can’t let the little things grow and fester. I’ll be a better man. I promise.

My eyes flash open, at least I think they do but I can’t tell in the dark if the sound of muffled voices and scraping metal is some phantom, some delusion. I slide off the cot and grip the whiskey bottle by its neck.

My god she left the doors open. I want to scream out but my throat seizes and I can only mouth her name.

Chains scrape then rattle to the floor. I shove back as far into the bunker as I can manage. How the hell did they figure out a combination lock? Adrenaline washes through every cell in my body. I click the pen-knife open. They’ll get me sure, but I’ll take one or two with me!

The door swings open and I spring out swinging the empty bottle like a club at the two shadowy figures.

“Keith! Calm down man! We’re friends!”

“Get the fuck away from me!” I surge at the closest one and take a slap to the cheek so hard it knocks me to the ground where my senses slowly return. I fight the urge to attack again and stay down, panting.

“Jesus man, how long were you in there?” Reverend Lyons squats down beside me and offers a canteen of fresh water.

“Where’s Marta?” I don’t bother to hide the anger in my voice.

“We didn’t see her. You know your gate is wide open?”

I shake off the words and scramble to my feet. “Where is she? Is she upstairs?”

“Calm down!” Bob Halloway racks his shotgun. “He’s lost it Rev —”

“Put that thing down! He’s just disoriented —”

I shove past them both and clamor up the steps into the kitchen. “Marta! Marta baby! Answer me honey!” The dim sunlight burns my eyes like an oxygen torch.

“I don’t know how long you were locked down there Keith, but it’s got to be at least a couple of days. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“The door closing.” I blink until my eyes adjust to the light. “She wanted me to take her to the library.”

“Why?” Reverend Lyons rubs his graying hair and glances at Bob.

“She wanted books, what do you think?” I shake my head at the stupidity of the question.

“There aren’t any books there anymore.” Bob lowers his shotgun and begins checking the downstairs to make sure we’re safe. “Well, a few maybe, whatever we didn’t need to keep the fire pit going until the rain stopped and the wood dried up.”

I stare at Bob and the Reverend. “When?”

“I dunno? Two weeks ago after we had that big warm spell. Fifty or sixty bodies to burn —”

I grab the lapels of Bob’s plaid jacket and shove him against the cold Franklin stove. “Are you fucking kidding me? All the empty houses in town and you burned the books?”

He shoves me back. “Take your fucking hands off me! Like you have any idea what it was like? You and Marta hiding up here unless there’s a headcount. And a bunker full of food too! There’s kids in town, old people, that could make better use of it than you!”

“Stop it! Both of you!” Reverend Lyons steps between us. “We’ll deal with the hording later. Right now I think it’s more important that we find Marta. Put the gun down Bob or I swear —”

Bob lets the shotgun hang at his side.

“Take it. Take it all I don’t care.” I take the .22 from my jacket pocket and stuff it into my pants. “I’m going to the library. If she’s not there then — Just — just, I don’t know.” I get the bolts and locks off the door and shamble out into the yard. The rain has finally let up from a constant downpour to a thick rising mist. Bob’s and The Reverend’s mountain bikes lean against the fence. I throw my leg over one of them and pedal out onto the cracked pavement.

Frost heaves have done a number on the road and I can barely manage speed a little better than walking. I glance back as someone shuts the gate behind me.

I gear up and pedal through the ruts and potholes until I hit the main road towards town. The air is even more silent than it was in the bunker. Not even birds can manage a song in this mire. I keep my eyes on the horizon and pedal. Stay alert. Watch for movement along the wood’s edges. Pedal. Pedal. Pedal.

The main road snakes up at ten degrees towards Camelback Hill then down into what’s left of downtown. I coast and keep the pistol ready in my right hand. Our library is small, three stories, but it’s designed to look like it came out of a Christopher Wren painting. A heap of shattered marble catches the bike as I leap off and charge up the granite steps and slap against the surprisingly unlocked doors.

My breath won’t be caught. I catch a whiff of sulfur and whirl around but the street is clear. The door swings in easily and the high windows let enough light through that I don’t regret not bringing my flashlight.

The shelves are empty. A spill of three-year-old magazines stretches off the periodicals rack to three stories of empty shelves.

Pleasant Hollow never had much, but it always had the Mason Memorial Library. The shelves and a two yard-wide wrought iron balcony encircle the expanse and spirals upward towards the dome.

The library is stripped almost bare. The furniture is gone except for the big mahogany librarian’s counter. “Unreal,” I whisper and listen to the word echos and die in the empty marble tomb.

I shove the door closed and lash the bars with a length of torn velvet curtain. “Marta?”

Nothing.

“Marta, are you here?”

Silence.

I nearly trip over the first body beside the magazine spill. A male. Headless. Another body lies a few feet away, also male. This one has only half of his head missing. “Marta!”

Flies surge as I ease past the corpses.

Another body lays sprawled at the foot of the spiral walkway, yet another a few yards up.

“Marta!” I kneel down and retrieve a red shotgun shell. She was here. She was here!

Then I see the two feet and slender legs walking on air high above the librarian’s desk. The image doesn’t make sense. I blink and rub my eyes but when I open them the legs are still there, still walking.

I stagger up the balcony until I can reach the ornamental windows at the base of the dome and tear the curtains free.

The body. The woman — Marta — Oh God Marta! She dangles from the small chandelier that hangs beneath the dome’s apex. Her eyes are closed, mouth agape, tongue stretched and lolling out over the left side of her bottom lip, the skin of her cheek and neck is clawed away. Her right arm hangs lifeless. A knot of torn velvet pushes up behind her right ear. A cloud of happy swollen flies swarms her face and body.

“Marta oh Marta honey —”

My eyes trace the length of knotted velvet up to where she’d tied it around the center stock of the shotgun and threw it into the fingers of the chandelier. The sharp sound of metal clattering to the floor below brings me back.

I’ve dropped the .22 pistol.

Run. Before I even realize the thought I’m sprinting down the walkway towards the library lobby. I see Marta on the periphery hovering there, rotating slowly as her legs against only gravity,

She must’ve choked to death and not broken her neck. The full weight of her agonized last moments thunders down on me. I did this. I did this to her. I did this.

Did she think of me? Curse me?

I shrink against the empty shelves and weep.

I did this. I did this. Oh god I did this.

Something smashes against the door. I skitter back as far as I can. They can’t get in, not easily, not yet. I stagger to my feet and walk down to the lobby. The pistol is there, if it even still works.

I hear my own voice, never forget the little things Keith, the little things are the things that will get you. “That’s what I used to say Marta. Remember? Remember how I used to say that?” I paw through the heap of magazines but the pistol is lost in the wreckage somewhere. “I used to say that all the time honey. Remember?”

Marta’s legs keep walking.

“Remember how I used to say if you let one roof shingle rot the whole place will fall down?” I stare up at her as I struggle to the door. “Remember honey? Remember how it was going to be so good for us? How we had a whole life ahead of us? Remember that? I do! I remember!”

My fingers strain at the knot holding the door closed as fleshy fists pound against the wood.

“Remember baby? Remember? I’ll make it up to you honey, I promise. I won’t forget the little things anymore.”

I get tatters of velvet loose enough that they won’t hold more than a minute or two then back away towards the librarian’s desk.

I think, Spring came in with a vengeance this year, and close my eyes as the doors burst inwards.

My signature chicken soup bubbles happily on the wood stove as I load the .45 revolver at the kitchen table. It’s getting dark later now and the wind’s softening bite heralds a warm spring just over the horizon. I check the windows before sliding the hardened oak shutters into their cast iron slats.

Donald made the window treatments by hand in his little work shed when the electricity still worked. I lost him this autumn. His heart I think.

We don’t have a doctor in town anymore.

Donald wasn’t much for aesthetics but his sense of security has proven a lifesaver in these strange times. I’ve managed to sit out three, four, maybe half-a-dozen sieges since the world went to Hell in a hand basket.

Not bad for a gal of 71. Not bad at all.

I slip the pistol into the battered leather shoulder holster and fix my apron. The house smells lovely now, thick and rich. I stir the broth and pick out a handful of bones. I’ll grind them later for the chickens out back. Two bay leaves, a palm of salt, same with black pepper, and some thyme, rosemary, and just a few diced red peppers from the jar and it’s perfect.

I check the rest of the little house before settling in; living room, shuttered, bathroom, shuttered, cellar, locked and bolted, bedroom, shuttered. The oil lamp throws a dim circle on the still-frozen ground as I walk the stockade fence around the back yard. Donald built this too, back when all we had to worry about were wayward bears or lost hunters. Two years ago he buttressed each section with a 6-by-6 pressure-treated joist, two feet of which are sunk into the lawn.

We planted roses together along the fence, inside and out, and trained them up the buttresses and all along the inside surface of the stockade fence. Roses are so much prettier than barbed wire, but do just as well.

Chickens are counted and penned, 27, goats too, four.

Ivy, brittle and dead now from the long winter, creeps up over the south fence like slender fingers. I make a mental note to chop it down before the thaw.

In the darkness, over the occasional clucks and bleats of my animals, a soft moaning floats through the woods.

2

Phyllis Carlsen lays on the couch that Reverend Lyons and I dragged into the kitchen. Her fever isn’t as bad today, but without aspirin or antibiotics there’s no telling if she’ll get well. She’s just a little younger than me, 61.

“I heard them last night,” she says softly.

I glance at the Reverend and see recognition on his face.

“Seems like the season is coming early this year. We had a couple of warm weeks in April, so I’m not surprised the ground softened enough to let them out.”

Lyons gets the fire going. Phyllis only has a little stove, barely big enough to heat the kitchen, and it’s hard to cook on. I ladle two servings of chicken soup into her pan and place it atop the stove. By now the kettle is hot enough for tea and I make enough for the three of us.

The Reverend is nervous and doesn’t sit. Rather he fingers the trigger guard on his antique Winchester rifle and repeatedly peers through the door slat. “We should move her,” he says finally.

I drizzle honey (from my own apiary) into the teapot as the brew steeps. “Where?”

“You have room -”

I silence him with a sharp glance.

“I don’t want to go,” Phyllis’ voice is hoarse but strong.

“And you shouldn’t go.” I stir the soup. The wood fire is starting to soften the quarter inch layer of fat on top. “This would have been better if I didn’t run out of rice last month. Is there any left in the storehouse?”

“About five hundred pounds -”

“Twenty should do nicely.” I press against the door and look out. Thick snowflakes flutter down on the short walkway between Phyllis’ home and the street. She lives closer to downtown, it’s less safe but at least makes getting provisions easier. “We still have five hours of daylight, and it’s only just below freezing.”

“I’ll send someone -”

“Just hurry back. I can hold the fort here until you return.”

Reverend Lyons nods, but hesitates before opening the door. “You’re loaded, right?”

I show him the revolver.

“Okay. I’ll be back in an hour. Listen for the church bell. This close to spring means we need a headcount.”

I bolt and barricade the door immediately after he leaves but it’s more habit now than protection. The spring thaw will bring the zombies out, but we still have a few weeks of relative safety before that happens.

Phyllis eases up to sit on the couch. She smells like rotten fish but I can’t tell if it’s a festering wound or just poor hygiene. I hand her a teacup before checking the soup. The smell starts to fill her little house too. She isn’t much of a housekeeper.

The back bedrooms are nailed or locked shut, windows encased in brick that’s fitted then braced into the window frames. A few other windows are shuttered, like mine. Donald worked so hard helping to fortify the houses of we who stayed.

Dirty clothes lay heaped around dusty furniture and you can’t see the carpet for a layer of grit and dirt. I start to tidy things, drag the clothes into a manageable pile and get a pot of water ready to boil so I can wash them.

“Don’t,” she says.

“I’m just trying to save your some trouble sweety.”

“I’ll take care of it once I’m feeling better. I’m not an invalid.”

“Of course not.” I check her pantry. It’s down to seven jars of jam, three of pickles, four green tomatoes, and a bunch of rubbery undersized carrots. “Almost time to start getting the gardens ready.”

She sips tea and nods.

“Planting anything special this year?”

She pauses and stares at the boarded window over the kitchen sink for a minute. “Lilies.”

“Lilies are nice. Donald used to love them. I’m going to try and get a better yield from my corn this year. The Blight killed almost everything last season.” I take the soup off the stove and pour a bowl for Phyllis then place the wash water in its place.

She begins to eat slowly then, after only a couple of spoonfuls, breaks down into sobs.

“Oh sweety no.” I sit beside her on the couch and rub her back. “Those tears aren’t going to accomplish anything now.”

“Why did this happen? What did we do to make this happen?” She stares at me between sobs.

“The why’s aren’t important but perseverance is. We’ve done okay here, considering, and each spring it gets a little easier. In another five or ten years, who knows, maybe things will be just like they were.”

“You don’t believe that.”

I shrug. “Everyone has to believe in something. Now eat your soup before it gets cold.”

The church bell rings three times signaling the spring headcount in three days. We don’t ring it often because it’s not only the dead that pose a threat. Our little town is far enough off the highway that very few living people bother looking for us. I think most survivors of the comet strike, then the plague, are probably like us, insular, quiet, and unobtrusive.

Phyllis eats in silence.

We all lost friends, relatives when the end came. The cities took it worst of all. Within a month of the sky going permanent ashy gray the densely populated areas fell into anarchy. The President declared martial law, but with a finite food supply it wasn’t long before groups were at war over the contents of a supermarket, or tractor-trailer truck. Then the zombies came, millions of recent dead scrambling back from the grave in a never-ending quest for live food. Why can’t the dead rest in peace? I don’t know. Maybe there was something in the dust that choked the skies for months after the impact? Maybe the comet carried some germ or virus that we all breathed in and that lays dormant until we die?

We’ll probably never know for sure.

“I’m feeling a little better,” Phyllis says softly.

“That’s a girl.” I check the door and see Reverend Lyons with a 20-pound bag of rice on his shoulder crossing the street. “I’ll leave the rest of the soup for later, and come back to check on your tomorrow. Okay?”

She nods.

3

I pour the rice into a plastic bin in my pantry just below the shelf of maple syrup and honey jars then limp into the kitchen. My hips aren’t so good anymore and they ache worst at the change of seasons. I used to take aspirin but that ran out over a year ago.

The afternoon sun sneaks through the bare tree branches and casts long claw-like shadows on the tan, winter-dried grass. I crank two handfuls of rice and the chicken bones together through the grinder then scatter it out for the grateful chickens.

The crisp air revives me as I milk the goats and gather half-a-dozen fresh eggs. The ground is still too hard to turn over in my three rectangular gardens. Donald was going get a rototiller but, well -

I shake off missing him and herd the chickens back into their pen then go inside to stoke the fire.

Headcount in three days.

We haven’t done a headcount since autumn. How many more of the survivors starved or went crazy over the fierce winter? We lose an average of ten a year, and none of the young girls seem interested in making replacements. Not yet. I had five kids before I turned 30, and while we weren’t dodging the undead back then, it was just as hard to keep food on the table and a house warm.

Don’t think about the past. The past is gone.

I sit beside the stove. The soup bubbles nicely. I pull my bible onto my lap and open it. I used to read Revelations. I used to wait for the end of the world to come, and Jesus with his arms open, to sweep us away to paradise. But Revelations wasn’t right, there wasn’t a many-headed serpent to devour us, and the dead weren’t taken to Heaven. I flip to a little note that acts as a permanent bookmark at Psalm 46. I read it aloud when I need strength, and today I need all the strength I can get.

I close my eyes and the warmth of the stove, the smell of apple wood and chicken soup, and buried in there a hint of Donald. He hides in those smells like a ghost.

4

I hack at the brush with my machete until only slender stems of ivy poke out of the ground along the outside of the fence. No matter what you do, the ivy comes back every year. Stronger I think, for all the abuse we heaped upon it, chemicals, fire, and tearing it out by the roots, but nothing stemmed the growth for more than one season.

The sun beats down through the leafless trees with such intensity that I strip my wool jacket and work only in two layers of sweatshirts.

Reverend Lyons skids his bicycle to a halt at the end of the fence. I can tell he’s been riding hard because his breath cloud is thick enough to hide his face. Most people don’t leave their property once the spring comes, even getting them together for headcount is hard. And right after that the door-to-door checks for the families not present. Reverend Lyons hasn’t become the de facto leader or anything, but he’s made it part of his mission to keep communication open between the two hundred or so of us spread out in and around Pleasant Hollow.

“Linda,” he yells, “Phyllis is worse. Come quickly.”

I slide the machete into a canvas sheath and hang it over my back. The strap pulls uncomfortably against my breasts and my hip groans as I hobble along the stockade fence through the maple and oak saplings separating the yard from the deeper, darker woods.

“Honestly Reverend, I can’t stop taking care of my problems every time someone has a fever.” I wait for his face to display even a hint of guilt, about four seconds, then start towards my gate. “I have some soup left. But I am not sure it’s worth bringing. You’ve seen her place. She’s given up -”

“But we can’t give up.”

“She’s eaten through her stores, stopped washing her clothes, herself. There are other people who can make better use of what we have.”

“When we count heads I don’t want to add another name to the dead for lack of caring.”

“Caring!” I unlock the bicycle chain on the front gate and shove it open. “I have 14 chickens left. I killed one just to make the soup. Shall I kill another one today? Maybe I should slaughter a goat too, just in case. God knows we don’t want to look like we don’t care.”

“That isn’t fair.”

I breathe deep and count to ten. Anger doesn’t solve anything. “I heard gunfire this morning.”

The Reverend closes the gate and slides the four-by-fours into the cast iron braces to seal the backyard. “The Hendersons shot three. Slow moving. I haven’t been over to see who it might have been. I checked on the Simmons’ over on North Farm.” He shivers for a second. “They must’ve died around Christmas. When I forced the door open Jolene was on the kitchen floor with her cat’s entrains dangling from her teeth. She couldn’t have been mobile for long. The rest of the family was still mostly frozen, but they were all -.”

“They were a young family.” We’d send a gallon of fresh goat milk, or a dozen eggs over to the Simmons whenever we had a little extra. They had four children to feed; the oldest boy was only seven.

“How could all of them just die like that? We loaded them up with food before the first snow -”

“They gave up. Maybe one of the kids died and they couldn’t bear to shoot it, maybe the weather did them in, we’ll never know.”

He leans the bicycle against the side of the house and follows me inside.

I slip the machete off and wriggle back into my wool coat. I double-check the revolver; it’s loaded and ready. I dip my hands into the bucket of water beside the sink and rub it over my face. The fire crackles away comfortably in the stove and will stay that way for at least four hours.

Reverend Lyons sits at the kitchen table. “How do you do it Linda?”

“What?” I’m blotting the cool water off my face with a hand towel as I answer.

I pause for a moment, just long enough to carefully word my answer. So many little groups of survivors wore out and turned against one another. We saw the results in some of the other little towns within walking and bicycling distance. Towns where dozens of survivors set up in supermarkets or shopping malls – it was worse in the suburbs of Concord or Manchester – but the food would run out, or they’d get on each others nerves, or someone would go insane and kill all the others.

Some groups have flourished, the militia people, or the religious fanatics, the ones with bunkers and assault rifles and two years worth of fresh water and food and gasoline. They prowl the highways and back roads throughout the winter looking for places like Pleasant Hollow and sack them.

“How do you keep on this well. I mean, look. Your house is clean and bright and happy. You have food, plenty of it, a more than useful garden, good fortifications, clean clothes. I thought most of us were doing okay, but compared to you we’re like Neanderthals. How the hell do you do it?” Lyons’ voice carries a touch of frustration.

“I was poor Reverend. I had to learn how to do all this before things went apocalyptic. Buying strawberry jam costs money, making it costs effort. Buying a dead chicken costs money, raising chickens costs a fraction of a cent per pound. You have to find cheap ways to make things work when you’re poor. And then, when you aren’t poor any longer, you keep doing those things because it has become a satisfying habit. I can teach the others to do it, which is what I wanted to talk about, I can take two or three apprentices at a time and teach them how to garden, and find edible berries, and can, and milk goats, and tend to chickens and cook from what you grow. We’re getting close to the point where whatever we can scavenge from the world before is all used up or it’s too dangerous to travel and forage. We’ll discuss it at headcount. I have some other ideas too. Let’s check on Phyllis first then we’ll come back here and talk. Leave your bicycle, I can’t ride and we’re safer traveling as a pair.”

I gather the last of the soup and pour it into a plastic canister then check walkway before opening the door. “Clear.”

Reverend Lyons leads me out to the street. Cracks in the asphalt stretch across the road to the gully that used to carry rainwater off the road. Three-years worth of leaves choke the gully now and every spring rain will bring a mini-flood almost to my front gate. We head north towards the center of town. The white and black steeple of the Baptist Church pokes up over the trees.

My hip aches, and walking over the hard, uneven pavement grinds away at the last bits of cartilage. I nearly stop as the pain overwhelms. We’re only a quarter mile from Oak Grove cemetery, the smallest of the three we have in town. Donald is buried there, in a concrete and marble crypt his family erected almost 100 years ago. I couldn’t bear to shoot him after he died, but I would have if we didn’t have the crypt. A few bicycle chains to hold the cast iron doors closed, and a dozen cinder blocks atop the casket means he can’t go anywhere.

I plant a little square of lilies in my garden every year to honor his memory. Maybe this year I’ll be able to leave a bundle of them at the cemetery.

“Almost there Linda.”

“Almost doesn’t matter Reverend. I wouldn’t wish this hip on anyone.” I grit my teeth and continue on knowing I can sit at Phyllis’ house until the pain ebbs. He offers an arm and for the last two hundred yards. I have to lean heavily on him.

5

He knocks twice. “Phyllis?”

No answer.

“Phyllis? Open the door. I have Linda with me, and some soup.”

A scratching sound escapes through the heavy oak, then a thud, and the door eases open. Phyllis is shivering beneath an afghan knitted from rainbow colored yarn. She shuffles to the couch and groans as she sits. Sweat beads on her forehead and mats down her gray curls.

I draw a thermometer from my satchel and slip it beneath her tongue; count to 120, then read the result. “It’s not any worse than yesterday Phyllis. Are you in any pain?”

Her eyes plead for a second then she shakes her head. “I’m just cold and tired.”

“Do you mind if Linda, um, checks you over – thoroughly I mean?”

“Oh I don’t think that’s -”

“You’ve got an infection, somewhere. I can smell it. If we don’t find it, I don’t know if you’re going to get better. Now I’ll send the Reverend off for a bit so it’s just you and me, that way you don’t have to be embarrassed, and we’ll see what we’re dealing with.”

“Oh no Linda, please. It’s just a cold.”

“Phyllis. Listen carefully. If you don’t let me examine you I won’t come back no matter how bad Reverend Lyons says you are feeling.”

She stares at the Reverend for a few seconds. “I don’t want to.”

“There really is no other way. Come on, we’ll leave Reverend Lyons here to warm up your soup. It will only take a minute. Come on.” I have to almost yank her off the couch. “There’s no need to be frightened. If you’re hurt I might be able to help you -”

“It’s not that.” Phyllis’ voice cracks and she resists my persistent tugging. “Reverend. Please! Don’t let her -” She staggers against the doorframe and releases a flurry of wracking coughs.

I try to steady her but she pushes me away.

Phyllis coughs thick globs of bloody phlegm that splatter against the wall and drizzle down her chin. “Oh God!” She drops to her knees and continues to wretch.

“We can’t do anything for her,” I back away slowly.

“There must be, something?”

“She’s dying.”

Phyllis shudders and sways until her head drags along the wall. “I’m already dead,” she says and begins to chuckle. “I always hated you Linda. Always. You and your perfect Little House on the Prairie life. Never had to work. Always had Donald there to make things easy for you.” She struggles to her feet. “You want to see my wound Linda?” She laughs again until another coughing fit nearly pitches her to the floor. She recovers slowly then drops the afghan, and her sweat pants.

The overpowering stink of filth and rotten meat explodes from her.

“While he was fixing my windows Linda. That’s when I had him first. You remember that? The Barlclay kids from down the road egged my house that Halloween. He was so nice to me. Getting Donald into bed was easy. I guess you just didn’t have the appetites he did.” She chokes up more blood. “All those weekday nights when he said he was going to lodge meetings, he came here and made love to me. I was easy Linda, because I was barren.”

“Get out Linda,” Reverend Lyons barks from the kitchen.

“No. I need to hear this.”

“Endometriosis stole my chance for a family. Ruined my marriage. Ruined it! But I was still a woman. I still had needs. And every time I saw you at the supermarket, or the post office I hated you more and more. Every time Donald left me to go home I cried myself to sleep. You did this to me Linda! You did this!” She leans back and shows her vagina, black and torn. Maggots and thick yellow puss drips out of the gray dead skin of her thighs and pool at her bare feet. Part of her pelvis is visible through the slick black rot. “And when he died I thought I’d lost everything. But I didn’t Linda! I didn’t! If the dead can walk, then they can fuck too! I waited all winter until the graveyard was safe. I forced the lock on his family crypt. He was out of the casket, slumped over and frozen, just like he was sleeping. I dragged him all the way back without anyone knowing.”

Reverend Lyons whirls around and vomits.

I slide the revolver out of its holster and thumb the hammer back. “Where is he?”

“All you need is a little duct tape Linda. Just enough to keep them from biting and getting away -” She dissolves into sickly maniacal laughter. “A little duct tape.” Phyllis slides down to the floor and groans. “I think he liked it.” She shudders twice then falls silent. Her chest heaves for a moment then ceases.

Reverend Lyons stumbles through The Lords Prayer.

She’ll start to move again in two days after rigor mortis begins to relax. “You can go,” I say.

“I can’t let you -”

“Go! Go goddamn it!” I slam the revolver down and wait for him to leave. Phyllis’ bedroom door is bolted from the outside. I contemplate shooting the lock off then stop and count to ten before searching her house for the key. This place is well secured and there is probably a family in town that could use this house and the garden out back.

The key is in a little box beside a vase full of withered lilies.

I open the room slowly and a swarm of flies surges out into the living room, the stink immediately follows.

Donald struggles limply against Phyllis’ cast iron bed frame. She’s tied his wrists and ankles to the head and footboards with wire that has rubbed away the skin and muscle until it bites into scarred, ivory colored bone. He’s naked, his flesh has rotted into the mattress top. Corrupted skin sloughs off his legs and the right side of his chest. His belly is black and gray and swollen. Two hand-shaped bruises sit on his chest.

Phyllis drenched the room, and Donald, with Aqua Velva so the place smells like an abandoned meat locker and whorehouse. The urge to vomit wells up almost without warning but I manage to stifle it. “Oh Donald,” I whisper.

His eyes soften at the sound of my voice. His quiet moans muffle behind a thick X of duct tape.

“I knew, you son of a bitch, I knew all along, but I never said a word. I kept quiet and prayed and did all the right things, but that wasn’t enough, not for you.” I’m surprised at my anger, and for a second it’s as if I am watching someone else speak, someone else place the revolver’s muzzle under his chin.

Donald closes his eyes and I blow his head off.

I do the same for Phyllis on the way out.

6

Reverend Lyons’ color is beginning to come back as we walk back towards my house. We don’t speak. A few curious faces, drawn by the gunfire, peer out through thick wooden slats, but no one comes out to see what’s transpired. That’s probably better anyway because I don’t know if I have the vocabulary to describe Phyllis’ madness.

Louder moaning echoes out of the graveyard and surrounding woods. The zombies will be back in earnest soon but at least Donald won’t be among them. I open the bicycle chains keeping my front door sealed. Reverend Lyons follows me in and helps put the heavy wooden bolts into place. I put the teakettle on and open the kitchen door leading to the garden. The chickens are happily scratching the cold ground, the goats bleat when they see me.

“Are you going to be alright?”

I step out into the waning sunlight and ease down onto a plastic chair. “I think so.”

“I can stay a while. I can listen.”

“The sun’s going down Reverend. It’s safer if you leave, besides, I don’t feel much like talking.” I pause for a second and read the relief on his face. “Or praying. I’ll see you at headcount tomorrow.”

He stands at the foot of the steps and collects his bicycle. I follow him to the fence and seal the gate after he pedals away.

I kick at the ground and it’s still too hard to turn over, but the top half-inch gives just a little beneath my feet. I put another log in the stove as my tea steeps on the table. I reflect on the day. Sure, things have gone haywire all over the world, but I’m still here, a little worse for the wear sure, but I’m still here.

Not bad for a gal of 71. Not bad at all.