Sophie Littlefield - Rebirth

Cass peered anxiously at Ruthie’s face, but her daughter’s expression showed only puzzlement, maybe boredom, or sleepiness perhaps. She yawned and rested her face against Cass’s chest and Cass thought, That’s it then, I can’t leave her here alone to check it out, and she wondered if she should just get in the front seat and turn the key in the ignition and go. Cass’s heart was pounding so hard with fear that she was amazed Ruthie didn’t mind. Would Ruthie fuss if Cass buckled her in the backseat and got out, even for a second? But what if Dor wasn’t hit, what if he had done the shooting, or if he’d shot someone who shot him back-maybe he was hurt, right now, lying on the floor in agony-or maybe he wasn’t even hurt that badly but he needed her help to get back out. She listened, as hard as she could, but there was nothing, just the skittering of a dead leaf now and then across the pavement.

Cass waited in an agony of indecision. She should settle Ruthie in and just make a run for it, thirty seconds tops, long enough to just see what had happened, nothing more. She didn’t owe Dor anything beyond that, she reminded herself-he’d said as much, and he wouldn’t want her to risk their safety if he was down. If he was dead -she made herself think the word.

But when she finally convinced herself to go, and tried to lift Ruthie off her lap, Ruthie wrapped her arms tight around Cass’s neck and held on.

“Don’t go,” she whispered against Cass’s skin, so softly Cass almost didn’t hear it.

She froze. She settled Ruthie back onto her lap-slowly, carefully. She waited, but her daughter did not speak again. They held each other, and the leaves skittered and the wispy smoke curled out of the chimney and the dead men lay in their sticky puddles of blood. And Cass wondered if she had imagined her little girl’s voice.

After what seemed like a long time, a figure came out onto the porch, and terror seized Cass as she realized she could not make it to the driver’s seat in time now and she wondered if her indecision would be their death. But it was only Dor. He had a duffel bag in one hand, a plastic sack in the other, and as he approached the Jeep he gave Cass the skeleton of a smile.

He set the duffel in the back with the other things and got in the driver’s side and set the plastic sack on the console between the seats and then he sat for a moment without speaking, staring forward and breathing deep. Ruthie relaxed, releasing Cass from the viselike embrace. Cass readjusted Ruthie’s seat belt and kissed her soft cheek, her fingers shaking as they traced the curve of her daughter’s cheek.

Cass got out of the backseat, shut the door gently and opened the passenger door, feeling almost unbearably vulnerable outside the car. She could never be fearless when Ruthie was only a few feet away-but once she was inside again, she saw how shaken Dor looked. Cass knew then that the sounds were indeed gunshots, and that he had probably killed someone, maybe two people, and she didn’t know how it felt to kill and wondered if she should offer comfort, if that was her role now, as well…but surely Dor had killed many more before and took his comfort from his own, unknowable sources. Her efforts would be awkward and unwelcome. Cass was a mother and she knew everything there was to know about her daughter, but she was not easy with other people. She observed from a distance, she read their emotions and divined their stories, but it was a strange truth that the ones she wanted most to know sometimes remained mysterious and remote.

But still.

“What…?” she said, not knowing how to ask.

“They’d laid in quite a few supplies,” Dor said quietly. “Look, I didn’t want to bounce Ruthie around if we didn’t have to, but…hang on.”

He started the car and it crept forward slowly, over the edge of the road onto the dirt, bumping and lurching. Ruthie shut her eyes, her small body absorbing the turbulent ride, Cass steadying her with a hand pressing her against the seat. They passed the wreck and Cass saw how still the bodies were, a bug of some sort flitting around the one on the ground with interest.

Then there was a sound, a stirring of the air, and a large black shape flapped past her face, only inches away, clumsy and fast and tumbling in the air, and settled on the body with a fluttering of its enormous, ragged ebony wings. The sound it made was not what you would expect from such a huge creature, it was a throat-rasping high-pitched frantic cry that split the air around Cass and she threw her arms over the seat, reaching for Ruthie whose mouth was open in a silent scream but her eyes were still shut tight thank God she still had her eyes shut because the next thing that happened, as Cass pressed her hands to her daughter’s face and told her that everything was going to be all right it was going to be just fine, a second bird settled with a thrashing of feathers on the body of the hat-man on the car’s hood and began to tear at his flesh with its large hooked beak. Cass knew she should look away but she did not. She watched the birds’ frenzy, watched the body shudder and shake as it was molested and devoured, and then there were more, two more black flapping shapes flying in from places unknown and landing on the carcasses with joy and fury and hunger.

Soon the grisly scene was out of sight behind them. Cass kept watch out the back of the Jeep until they turned a curve in the road and the wreck disappeared and for a while she stared at the scrubby pine skeletons and red-dirt shoulders and crushed run-over pinecones in the road, all receding into the distance as Dor drove. Finally she realized she was pressing too hard on Ruthie’s face and immediately she turned the touch into a caress, and she said, “It’s all right now, Ruthie, you can open your eyes,” and it was a moment before Ruthie did, blinking in the sun. “It’s all right,” Cass repeated.

“Look in the bag. There’s a juice box,” Dor said, and Cass took the plastic bag from between the seats and there were not only juice boxes, but Fig Newtons. Opening the packages took a while, Cass inhaling the near-forgotten scent while her shaking fingers worked clumsily, and though her mouth watered she did not take anything for herself. Dor also refused. She broke the cookies one by one, giving Ruthie the sticky halves. She held the sharp-pointed straw to Ruthie’s lips and watch her drink and wondered if her daughter remembered drinking from such boxes Before, long ago, the juice dribbling down her inexpert mouth. She’d nearly mastered drinking from the straw right before the Family Services people came, her chubby hands holding the plasticized boxes with such care, her eyes widening with surprise every time the wiggling straw got away from her. Now she did fine, drinking deeply with an expression of wonder on her face. For months she’d had only the tea Cass made from her herb garden, and boiled and filtered water.

After a while, the cookies were gone and Cass cleaned Ruthie up as well as she could from the front seat and put the wrapper and empty box back in the plastic bag. It was heavy and she looked through the contents: half a dozen more packages of cookies, a large pouch of turkey jerky, several more juices. Two cans of beef broth and cans of corn, mushrooms and chili; pears and fruit cocktail and crushed pineapple.

“Wow,” she said quietly.

“Best stuff’s in back. Medicine, all kinds, I didn’t have time to look through it. Over the counter and prescriptions-probably twenty of those. They had it all in one place, made it easy for me.”

He was silent for a moment. “A couple of guns, too. They’re in the back. And ammo. I thought about taking the ones off those guys…”

Cass shivered. She was glad Dor had not touched the bodies again.