Sophie Littlefield - Aftertime

Her voice broke at the end in a little choked sob, and Cass put a hand on her arm, forcing her to stop. Elaine shrugged it off, yanking her wrist back and rubbing furiously at her eyes.

“What?” Cass demanded. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Elaine mumbled. “Nothing, okay? Only don’t you think-don’t you know-can you really-”

Elaine looked wildly around and then Cass realized that her old friend longed to bolt, to leave Cass standing there, that only a sense of duty and fears about being watched kept her rooted to the spot. She was acting as though…a thought occurred to Cass.

She had been gone two months. Two months was a long time, especially Aftertime. Time enough to grow attached to someone. “You took care of her, didn’t you,” she said softly. “You took care of Ruthie.”

Elaine wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Someone had to. You weren’t here.”

“Oh…Elaine.” Cass said. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry. I’m-thank you. How can I ever thank you-all that time, and I-if you hadn’t been here for her-I got here as fast as I could. You have to know that.”

“But you weren’t here after it happened.”

“After I was attacked? I know, Elaine, and I-”

“No!” Elaine spat. “No! Not you. You weren’t here for her after she was.”

Dread bloomed in Cass’s gut. Oh, God…no. Not that-

“When she was attacked! God damn it, Cass, don’t pretend you don’t remember!” Elaine spoke in a furious whisper. “I saw you watching! I saw you screaming when it happened. The whole time, when they were dragging you off-you were screaming her name and-”

“I don’t remember!” Cass said, half pleading, half begging. “I don’t!”

Elaine made a sound in her throat, a gasp of choked fury. “How many people are going to suffer for you? How many, Cass?”

“What do you mean?”

Elaine looked at her for a long moment, the anger slowly draining from her face, leaving her pale and tired looking.

“What do you mean?” Cass repeated, whispering. Trembling, she let go of Elaine’s arm.

“I’m sorry,” Elaine said after a moment. She had resumed the same stoic look that had apparently gotten her through the turbulent weeks past. “I shouldn’t have-I know you’ve suffered, too. I was out of line.”

She started walking again, trudging more slowly than before. Cass kept pace, as they made a second pass around the courtyard.

“Please, just tell me,” she begged. “I swear to you I don’t remember anything after-after I saw them coming, after the first one got to me. I remember throwing myself on top of Ruthie-”

Because the Beaters had been loping and lurching, colliding with each other, tripping over each other in their mad rush to reach her. And she had covered Ruthie as well as she could, pushing her down, wishing she could send Ruthie into the ground where she could be cradled and protected by the earth itself.

Elaine sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Well, you…they got to you and…took you. Four of them.”

Cass nodded. By then, the Beaters had worked out a system. They didn’t fall upon their victims in the street anymore; they took them back to their nests, where they could devour them in peace. Four Beaters: each took a person’s arm or leg and then they hauled their victim away, taking care to keep their quarry from dragging on the ground, oblivious to their screams.

“And then?”

“There were two left. And then Bobby came running out.”

Bobby ? Cass racked her brain, trying to remember. Elaine at the door with a group of women, talking in the sunshine. But Bobby? Had he been there?

“He heard you screaming. He ran out of the library,” Elaine went on. “You wouldn’t stop screaming Ruthie’s name and he ran to you. Everyone was yelling at him…but it was like he didn’t hear them, like he didn’t care. He was almost all the way to where you were when you…”

“I what? I what? ”

“You were being dragged, but you were holding on to Ruthie and you screamed at him to take her.”

Cass widened her eyes, incredulous. “But that means…”

“He did. He got her,” Elaine said quietly. “He fought hard. He got between them and Ruthie, even though they were…they bit him. He held them off long enough for us to come and get her. Barbara and me. We waited until they were focused on him and then we ran and got her.”

“And they took him? Away?”

“No, Cass. He was able to run, when the Beaters saw us. They let go of him for a second and he got away. Everyone ran. We carried Ruthie back inside and…and Bobby ran to the creek.”

“To the creek? Why would he go to the creek? ”

“He didn’t stop there, Cass. He followed it down to the cliffs.”

A sick understanding dawned in Cass’s mind, the full horror of what had happened.

“The cliffs…”

A mile down, as it wound past the edge of town, the creek widened and formed a deep pool rimmed with packed-dirt banks and cattails on one side and limestone cliffs on the other. They rose hundreds of feet into the air, pitted and carved by the elements. In the water below lay broken, rock-strewn shelves of shale.

On sunny days, Cass used to take a beach towel and a pail full of toys and lie on the banks, swatting at mosquitoes and watching Ruthie try to catch the frogs sunning themselves on the rocks.

“He jumped.” Elaine’s voice had gone flat. “They found his body the next day, on the rocks.”

“HE DIED,” CASS WHISPERED. BOBBY DIED, SAVING Ruthie.

How many people are going to suffer for you?

Was that why she couldn’t remember? Was it guilt? She hadn’t been able to save Ruthie. She hadn’t been able to save anyone.

“You said she was attacked,” she said. “Ruthie. Did they…I mean…”

“Bobby got there so fast,” Elaine said. “She had scratches, but they could have come from when you threw her down, or from the ground. That’s what we told ourselves, anyway. After we lost both you and Bobby in one day…well, no one wanted to believe we were going to lose her, too. And then…”

She took a deep breath and looked off into the distance, where the sun was starting to climb higher above the tops of the dead trees. “We’re out of time,” she said. “I need to get you back before group one comes out.”

“No,” Cass said. “Tell me the rest. You have to tell me the rest.”

“Fine. But I’m making it quick so don’t interrupt-seriously.” She started cutting across the center of the courtyard, toward the doors back inside the building. “Ruthie was fine for almost a day, and then she got the fever, and her eyes…well, you know. Some people wanted to…you know. Put her out. But she was just a baby. We couldn’t do it. So…I said I would take her. I said I’d stay with her, in the mail room, because there was a slot in the door. A quarantine…until we could be sure.”

“Oh, Elaine…” Cass said.

Elaine held up a palm to stop her. “Don’t. Just let me finish. By the next day she was crying around the clock. Picking…well. The way they do. I was careful…I wrapped her in a blanket before I held her, and I didn’t let-you know, her mouth, her saliva. I was careful. But the thing was, I knew I was probably dead. That it would only take one bite. If I fell asleep or looked away at the wrong moment… But I didn’t care.”

Cass waited, her heart barely beating, imagining Elaine in that little dim room, as Ruthie’s tiny body grew hot and damp with sweat, as her wails escalated to screams of pain and anger, as she started to attack herself, her tiny fingers scraping at her own flesh. As the others steeled themselves against yet another loss, as they took the long route to avoid hearing the sounds coming from the mail room.