Michael Bunker - WICK

“I don’t mean to preach,” Clive said, “but it gets me hopping mad that cities and industrialism cause a problem, then they get credit for solving the problems they cause, even if they didn’t really solve the problems at all. They just postponed them for a century or two. Listen, an individual, or a family, or an extended family group living on the land unmolested in the year 600 would have the same life expectancy as people do now. The trick is to live unmolested. It’s a simple thing to grasp, really.

“Walled cities were not places—originally—where people lived. They were once called ‘citadels,’ and they were places where people went to get away from occasional violence, and also to worship. The citadels stored up food and supplies from the countryside, and eventually people stayed there to trade and do business because it was safer, and of course there were more people there. A lot of those people ended up staying, because it didn’t make sense to keep traveling when you could just live in or around the citadel. Once the people got used to the cities though, most of them figured they liked it better than having to work in the fields or forests for their food, so they eventually raised armies to go and plunder other areas, and to defend their own city. The cities became occupied military bases and home to mercenary armies. Rampaging armies have a way of causing… you guessed it… citadels in other places, which is the root cause of more armies, which cause cities. It’s a loop. Diseases and a high mortality rate are the result of cities and, of course, ignorance and violence, which are the result of the wickedness in the hearts of men.”

Clive stopped again and twisted his mustache between his thumb and forefinger. “Anyway, too many people have these simplistic conceptions about the middle-ages, and they therefore have mistaken ideas about cause and effect.” He had his hands in his pockets now, like a professor, and he paced back and forth as if he were lecturing to his students.

“Many people will make it through these critical days only to be killed by tetanus or cancer or hunger, or whatever.” Clive looked up and then he froze. He followed Red Beard and Calvin’s glances, and looked over his shoulder. He saw that Veronica was glaring at him, and he immediately recognized the insensitivity of his words. The three men all apologized in unison. “Sorry, ma’am.”

Clive looked at her and smiled underneath his mustache. “He’s a strong boy, Veronica. He’ll be all right.”

Veronica weakly returned his smile.

They all knew that Clive was lying.

After a while, Veronica came down the hallway and sat with them. How long had she been standing over her Stephen? What is time when your son is dying? She leaned her head against the cold of the concrete wall and sighed. She sat listening to her own breathing for a moment. The others were content to let her have the silence. Then she spoke. Heartbreak filled her voice.

“Youth and innocence die first in war. Don’t let anyone tell you differently,” she said.

Red Beard spoke first. “You’re right, Veronica. You are surely right.”

Veronica woke from a deep sleep and the feeling ( was it imagined? ) of cold air rushing across her face braced her. Something left her unsettled. She sat up and looked to her right. There was her sweet child. He was breathing heavily, and the sweat glistened from his head in beaded droplets. She bent down to brush his forehead with her hand, and he rolled his neck forward. She kissed his cheek and held the face that had looked up at her so many times. Now, his eyes were ablaze with fire and intensity. He was alive, but barely so.

Veronica didn’t see or hear anyone else. There was a light from down the hall, and she heard the whirring of someone cranking the lamp, and she called but no one answered. The noise of the dynamo stopped, and after what seemed to her to be only a few moments, she got up to look around, and there was no one to be found. She and Stephen were alone in the bunker. She grew frightened. Anxiety formed in the pit of her stomach and poured out from her towards some unknown point in the future, some obstacle she’d not yet encountered. She thought of the fact that the two of them were locked inside the earth, alone, following a nuclear attack.

She felt, for the first time in her life, like she was in prison. A lifetime ago she and Stephen had locked themselves in the nuclear bunker under the Brooklyn Bridge, but that had been an adventure. This was not an adventure. This was a long nightmare. One from which she could not wake.

Stephen’s body jerked violently and Veronica wrapped her arms around him and held on tight. His muscles bulged out of his neck, showing the tendons all the way to the shoulder blades and sockets. In an instant, he became all skeleton and sinew. His pelvis arched up and outward. His feet bent back until the bones seemed ready to snap. His fingers looked as if they would pop out of their sockets. Veronica held her son in her arms and whispered in his ear. She rocked him as she had done on those nights when he was just a baby, and as she’d done after they’d learned about his father’s death. She held him, swaying with him until the tension relaxed and his muscles released. This scene went on for a while, repeating its own little history as if it were an endless loop.

After a while, Veronica heard a bustling at the door of the bunker, and before she could get up to see what it was, Red Beard came hustling down the stairs. He was wearing a fallout suit. “Are you awake, Veronica?” He leaned his head into the doorway and got his answer. “Good. Sorry for not waking you earlier. We decided you needed some sleep. Come with me for a moment.” He motioned with his hand toward the door.

Veronica got up and began moving in that direction. She hesitated, looking back at her boy. What if? Then she followed. She didn’t even think to ask why.

“We decided that there were things that needed to be done—things that can’t wait any longer.” He didn’t explain what he meant, and she didn’t ask. He indicated with his hand to a fallout suit hanging on a hook by the door, and Veronica began putting the suit on without question. Red Beard continued talking while she did so.

“Clive mentioned that he knew someone, a man on the next farm over—the Amish farm.”

“Mr. Stolzfus?” Veronica asked. “Clive has talked to us about him before.”

Red Beard nodded. “Okay. Stolzfus’s old man used to serve as doctor to the whole community. The son, Henry, runs it now, and he learned a thing or two from his daddy, I’m sure. We have to take our doctoring where we can get it now.” He finished zipping up his own yellow suit. “Anyway, you don’t run a farm or build a barn or raise a roof or clear a field without a cut here and break there. You learn some field medicine by necessity when you’re a farmer. The man won’t be able to do much, Veronica, but perhaps he can ease the boy’s pain.” He motioned down the hallway toward Stephen. “We didn’t want to see him go on like this any longer.”

Pat half-way smiled at Veronica, and she was overcome with emotion. She looked at him standing there in his bright yellow suit, with his head of red hair exploding out over the top, his facial hair spilling onto his chest, and she wanted to hug him. At long last, she smiled. Red Beard smiled back. He wondered whether anyone alive had ever seen such a beautiful smile as hers.

“We’re saddling up some horses,” Red Beard said to Veronica. “Clive is going to ride over there with the boy in a little bit.”

Veronica looked back at him. “I’ll come, too.”