toward me his food source and ignoring Russell in the water. He’ll eat every part of me raw is all I can think as he comes. But I hear water splashing, and movement at the bank—it’s Russell. I watch him trample up the mudslide on his hands and knees, weaponless, but seething. The face eater halts and turns to Russell as Russell barrels into his legs. I charge at him too. I see the knife handle sticking out of his stomach and grab it and push as hard as I can, wedging it deeper in. It slides in, like his skin has no measure of resistance anymore, like he’s one big sponge soaked in red water, and the whole handle disappears inside him. He falls, almost on Russell. He misses and rolls off to the side. I run to him even though I think he’s dead now, and my fear disappears, and I stomp on his face like it’s a big spider. I do it over and over again until I slip. Mud smacks my mouth and I bite my lip. I taste the blood, very different from the rain. I stand back up immediately, expecting to have to continue, but the man is dead. I walk over top of him and look down at him. His eyes are still wild, and they’re still wide open. He looks just like he did when he was coming after me. But all the other life has gone out of him. And maybe it’s traveled somewhere else, like Russell used to say happens, but I don’t think so. I pause at my instinct, which screams that I roll him down into the water. The pause comes because for a moment I think that he’s food. We don’t have any food, not much. Not enough for the trip to Leadville. It’s five hundred some miles to Leadville. It’s a wasteland out here. But I can’t look at Russell, can’t bear to ask him. I know he’ll refuse. I follow my gut and kick the man, then get down in the mud on my knees, rain smacking my back, and push. I grunt, and I cry, and I push him down into the water. He floats away some, then his body drifts back toward the bank, like the gravity of our living bodies is pulling him toward us, because our bodies need him for nourishment. But then he is sucked away, captured by the same current that took his friend. He disappears before I realize I haven’t heard Russell move.
I turn around and race back up the mud, careless, forgetting to watch my step so I don’t tumble down into the water myself. It’s getting really dark. But I see Russell. His eyes are closed. He’s lying on his back. And his chest isn’t rising up and down. No, I think I scream, but nothing comes out. I just go to him and fall on top of him. Rain falls on us.
Part 2
Chapter 3
The rain is freezing cold. I talk to Russell, quietly at first, pretending I don’t notice that he’s not breathing, then I start shouting at him. I start slapping his chest. Then I stop everything because it’s all useless. He isn’t responding. But I see up close that he still is breathing. Really softly, but he’s alive. I’m shivering, and I look around, as if someone will spring out of the gloom and help me. Help me carry him to the tent. But no one comes.
When I was eight or nine, there were two people who lived with us. We moved together from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, across the flooding farmlands, where by the end, we navigated by the sight of the grain silos that rose from the water. But when we reached Pittsburg, we found a high rise building. We were safe from the rain.
Delly and Jennifer were their names. They came with us and settled next door in the high rise. Russell really trusted them, and so I did too. It was the first time I learned you could still trust an outsider—that not everyone was out to get you or what you had. Their two kids, I can’t remember their names, tagged along with us everywhere we went. We’d go out into the rain together sometimes—supermarkets, abandoned warehouses, militia hospitals, radio towers to check for transmissions. There were never any
I turn around and race back up the mud, careless, forgetting to watch my step so I don’t tumble down into the water myself. It’s getting really dark. But I see Russell. His eyes are closed. He’s lying on his back. And his chest isn’t rising up and down. No, I think I scream, but nothing comes out. I just go to him and fall on top of him. Rain falls on us.
Part 2
Chapter 3
The rain is freezing cold. I talk to Russell, quietly at first, pretending I don’t notice that he’s not breathing, then I start shouting at him. I start slapping his chest. Then I stop everything because it’s all useless. He isn’t responding. But I see up close that he still is breathing. Really softly, but he’s alive. I’m shivering, and I look around, as if someone will spring out of the gloom and help me. Help me carry him to the tent. But no one comes.
When I was eight or nine, there were two people who lived with us. We moved together from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, across the flooding farmlands, where by the end, we navigated by the sight of the grain silos that rose from the water. But when we reached Pittsburg, we found a high rise building. We were safe from the rain.
Delly and Jennifer were their names. They came with us and settled next door in the high rise. Russell really trusted them, and so I did too. It was the first time I learned you could still trust an outsider—that not everyone was out to get you or what you had. Their two kids, I can’t remember their names, tagged along with us everywhere we went. We’d go out into the rain together sometimes—supermarkets, abandoned warehouses, militia hospitals, radio towers to check for transmissions. There were never any
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