another, share everything. And nothing and no one is ever really clean.
Hunger gnaws at us, makes tempers run short. After my first exploration of the homestead, I retreated underground, like an animal scrabbling back into the safety of its lair. One day passes, then two. The supplies have yet to come. Each morning different people go out to check for messages; I gather that they have found some way to communicate with the sympathizers and resisters on the other side. That is all there is for me to do: listen, watch, stay quiet.
In the afternoons I sleep, and when I can’t sleep, I close my eyes and imagine being back in the abandoned house at 37 Brooks with Alex lying next to me. I try to feel my way through the curtain; I imagine if I can somehow pull apart the days that have passed since the escape, can mend the tear in time, I can have him back.
But whenever I open my eyes I am still here, on a mattress on the floor, and still hungry.
After another four days, everyone is moving slowly, as though we’re all underwater. The pots are impossible for me to lift. When I try to stand too quickly I get dizzy. I have to spend more time in bed, and when I’m not in bed I think that everyone is glaring at me, can feel the Invalids’ resentment, hard-edged, like a wall. Maybe I’m just imagining it, but this is, after all, my fault.
The catch, too, has been poor. Roach traps a few rabbits and there is general excitement; but the meat is tough and full of gristle, and when everything is dished up there is barely enough to go around.
Then one day I am in the storeroom, sweeping—Raven insists we go through the motions, insists on keeping everything clean—when I hear shouts from aboveground, laughter and running. Feet pound down the stairs. Hunter comes swinging into the kitchen, followed by an older woman, Miyako. I have not seen them—or anyone—so energetic in days.
“Where’s Raven?” Hunter demands breathlessly.
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
Miyako lets out an exasperated sound, and both she and Hunter spin around, prepared to dart up the stairs again.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“We got a message from the other side,” Hunter says. That’s what people here call the bordered communities: the other side, when they’re feeling generous; Zombieland, when they aren’t. “Supplies are coming in today. We need help taking delivery.”
“Can you help?” Miyako asks, sizing me up. She is broad through the shoulders, and very tall—if she had enough to eat, she would be an Amazon. As it is she is all muscle and sinew.
I shake my head. “I—I’m not strong enough.”
Hunter and Miyako exchange a look.
“The others will help,” Hunter says in a low voice. Then they pound up the stairs again, leaving me alone.
Later that afternoon they come back, ten of them, bearing heavy-duty garbage bags. The bags have been placed in half-full wooden crates in the Cocheco River at the border, and the crates have floated down to us. Even Raven can’t maintain order, or control her excitement. Everyone rips the bags to shreds, shouting and whooping as supplies tumble onto the floor: cans of beans, tuna, chicken, soup; bags of rice, flour, lentils, and more beans; dried jerky, sacks of nuts and cereal; hard-boiled eggs, nestled in a bin of towels; Band-Aids, Vaseline, tubes of ChapStick, medical supplies; even a new pack of underwear, a bundle of clothes, bottles of soap and shampoo. Sarah hugs the jerky to her chest, and Raven puts her nose in a package of soap, inhaling. It’s like a birthday party but better: ours to share, and just for that moment I feel a rush of happiness. Just for that moment, I feel as though I belong here.
Our luck has turned. A few hours later, Tack takes down a deer.
That night we have our first proper meal since I’ve arrived. We dish up enormous plates of brown rice, topped with meat braised and softened with crushed tomatoes and dried herbs. It’s so good I could cry, and
Hunger gnaws at us, makes tempers run short. After my first exploration of the homestead, I retreated underground, like an animal scrabbling back into the safety of its lair. One day passes, then two. The supplies have yet to come. Each morning different people go out to check for messages; I gather that they have found some way to communicate with the sympathizers and resisters on the other side. That is all there is for me to do: listen, watch, stay quiet.
In the afternoons I sleep, and when I can’t sleep, I close my eyes and imagine being back in the abandoned house at 37 Brooks with Alex lying next to me. I try to feel my way through the curtain; I imagine if I can somehow pull apart the days that have passed since the escape, can mend the tear in time, I can have him back.
But whenever I open my eyes I am still here, on a mattress on the floor, and still hungry.
After another four days, everyone is moving slowly, as though we’re all underwater. The pots are impossible for me to lift. When I try to stand too quickly I get dizzy. I have to spend more time in bed, and when I’m not in bed I think that everyone is glaring at me, can feel the Invalids’ resentment, hard-edged, like a wall. Maybe I’m just imagining it, but this is, after all, my fault.
The catch, too, has been poor. Roach traps a few rabbits and there is general excitement; but the meat is tough and full of gristle, and when everything is dished up there is barely enough to go around.
Then one day I am in the storeroom, sweeping—Raven insists we go through the motions, insists on keeping everything clean—when I hear shouts from aboveground, laughter and running. Feet pound down the stairs. Hunter comes swinging into the kitchen, followed by an older woman, Miyako. I have not seen them—or anyone—so energetic in days.
“Where’s Raven?” Hunter demands breathlessly.
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
Miyako lets out an exasperated sound, and both she and Hunter spin around, prepared to dart up the stairs again.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“We got a message from the other side,” Hunter says. That’s what people here call the bordered communities: the other side, when they’re feeling generous; Zombieland, when they aren’t. “Supplies are coming in today. We need help taking delivery.”
“Can you help?” Miyako asks, sizing me up. She is broad through the shoulders, and very tall—if she had enough to eat, she would be an Amazon. As it is she is all muscle and sinew.
I shake my head. “I—I’m not strong enough.”
Hunter and Miyako exchange a look.
“The others will help,” Hunter says in a low voice. Then they pound up the stairs again, leaving me alone.
Later that afternoon they come back, ten of them, bearing heavy-duty garbage bags. The bags have been placed in half-full wooden crates in the Cocheco River at the border, and the crates have floated down to us. Even Raven can’t maintain order, or control her excitement. Everyone rips the bags to shreds, shouting and whooping as supplies tumble onto the floor: cans of beans, tuna, chicken, soup; bags of rice, flour, lentils, and more beans; dried jerky, sacks of nuts and cereal; hard-boiled eggs, nestled in a bin of towels; Band-Aids, Vaseline, tubes of ChapStick, medical supplies; even a new pack of underwear, a bundle of clothes, bottles of soap and shampoo. Sarah hugs the jerky to her chest, and Raven puts her nose in a package of soap, inhaling. It’s like a birthday party but better: ours to share, and just for that moment I feel a rush of happiness. Just for that moment, I feel as though I belong here.
Our luck has turned. A few hours later, Tack takes down a deer.
That night we have our first proper meal since I’ve arrived. We dish up enormous plates of brown rice, topped with meat braised and softened with crushed tomatoes and dried herbs. It’s so good I could cry, and
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