Em Garner - Contaminated

He gives me a sympathetic look and starts the car moving again. We follow the long, twisting road, make a turn or two. For a minute I’m afraid I’ve forgotten, actually forgotten how to get to my house. Everything looks different overgrown and not taken care of. Then I recognize the bend in the road.

“It’s just up here, on the left.” I point, leaning forward, eager now.

My stomach should be used to twisting and knotting by now, but this is different. I’m anxious, but excited. I want to go home. Oh, how I want to go home.

There’s a fallen tree blocking the end of the driveway. It’s knocked down some wires and sent the telephone pole tilting at a steep slant. Mr. Behney can’t get up the driveway, so he pulls up as far as he can to park.

“Velvet, are you sure this is what you want to do?” He peers through the windshield, clearly not impressed.

“Yes.” I don’t tell him we have no other choice. He’s just nice enough that he might tell us to come home with him—and I’m almost desperate enough to want him to. But what if he doesn’t? What then? “It’s our house. I think it’ll be better for her. You know, be in a familiar place. It might… help.”

They’ve told us nothing can help. Well, except the collars, and those are meant for prevention, not progression. I look into the backseat, hoping to see my mom straining toward the door, but she’s sitting quietly without expression.

He nods. “Yes. It might.” He turns off the car. “I’ll walk you up.”

“You don’t—”

He shakes his head. “I’ll walk you up. Come on.”

He helps my mom out of the car. She doesn’t pull away from him when he links his arm through hers. We have to climb over the tree, and she struggles but manages with his help, while I carry the backpacks.

We have a long, steep driveway. By the time we get to the top, Mr. Behney’s huffing and puffing and so am I. Those bags are heavy. Only Mom seems unmoved. She stands in the drive and stares up at the house. I wonder what she’s thinking. I wonder what she can think.

I don’t have a key, which is so stupid, I want to kick myself. Then I remember the spare key hidden in the plastic rock in the rosebushes by the front door. The bushes are bare of blooms but full of thorns, and one scratches me as I reach for the rock. The key’s still inside, and sucking at the blood on the back of my hand, I pull it out.

“You have a broken window.” Mr. Behney puts a hand on my shoulder as I’m fitting the key in the lock. “Let me go first.”

He’s older than my dad, with a belly. He doesn’t look strong. It’s nice, though, that he offers, when I’m sure he must be as nervous as I am. I don’t want to let him go first—I feel like I could defend myself better than he can. He goes first, anyway.

“Looks okay.” He sounds relieved and steps farther into the house. “C’mon in.”

He’s wrong. It doesn’t look okay. Someone’s been in our house. The dining room’s immediately to the right, and the table inside has three claw-and-ball feet in the air. The fourth leg’s missing. The chairs are broken and overturned, the curtains shoved to the side. The door to the left that leads into the living room is closed. The family room’s straight ahead, and I push past him to check it out.

The furniture here, too, has been overturned and trashed. The fireplace screen is missing, and someone took a piece of burned wood and drew pictures on the walls. There’s a window broken back here. The bookcases have all been dumped, books everywhere, pages bent and torn.

Connies didn’t do this. They’re destructive, murderous, violent, but they don’t care about vandalism. Regular people did this, just because they could and get away with it. My stomach twists again.

Mr. Behney’s moving around the house, looking for who knows what. From the family room, I can see into the kitchen. The sliding glass door that Craig broke was boarded up when we left the house, and at least it still is. The fridge hangs open, the light not on. There’s no stink of spoiled food, at least, since whatever was in there’s long gone. I expect to see the dishes shattered, but they’re all in the cupboard.

Everything’s covered in dust, the floor gritty with dirt that crunches under my shoes. All the hanging plants are dead and dry, but the bushes outside have grown up lush and thick against the windows. It makes the inside of the house dark, with moving shadows I catch from the corners of my eyes.

My mom walks slowly, following me. In the kitchen, she stops. She looks around. She painted this room with sunflowers, bright and cheerful. Everyone always complimented our kitchen. She walks to the wall and strokes one of the flowers.

“We’ll clean it up, Mom. Don’t worry about it.”

Her head turns toward the sound of my voice.

“We’ll clean it up,” I tell her again. “Just like new.”

Mr. Behney’s feet sound on the stairs, and in the next minute he’s in the kitchen. “Whoever messed around down here didn’t do much damage upstairs.”

He pauses, looks embarrassed. “I think they stole some things, but they didn’t ruin the rest.”

I shrug. “It’s okay. I don’t think we’ll miss much of what they could’ve taken.”

He nods. He flicks the light switch. Nothing happens. “You’ll need to get the power turned on.” He goes to the sink, turns the faucet. Water comes out.

“We have a well,” I tell him. I don’t mention that I probably don’t have the money to pay for electricity, which was included in our subsidized rent before. Not to mention that the fallen tree out front looks like it ruined the wires. “My dad always said the pressure was so good that even with the power out, we’d have water. I guess he was right.”

“Velvet, are you sure about this? Really?” Mr. Behney looks around.

My mom’s moving around the kitchen, slowly touching things. She shrugs out of her coat as we watch. She lets it fall to the floor without paying any attention to it. I remember doing the same thing when I was a kid, only she’d yell at me to pick it up. I don’t yell.

“Look at her,” I say softly. “She knows this place. What if they’re wrong about them? What if they can get better?”

“That’s the problem, Velvet. Nobody knows. It hasn’t been long enough for anyone to know. There aren’t enough resources to do the sorts of testing required. This,” he gestures at her, “is maybe the best anyone can do.”

“That’s why I had to bring her here. To do the best I can.” These words taste right, like truth, even if it’s more complicated than that.

“I’m not sure it’s safe for you girls out here alone.”

“We can take care of ourselves. We did it before. We’ve been doing it for over a year.”

He fumbles in his wallet to pull out a business card. “Ignore the stuff on the front. I don’t work there anymore. But here.” He scribbles a number on the back. “If you need something, anything, you call me, Velvet, okay?”

“Sure, Mr. Behney, thanks.”

He looks into the family room, at the overturned chairs and the scrawled obscenities on the walls. I see a struggle on his face. I think he might be ready to offer more than a number. Just minutes ago I half hoped he would, but now that we’re here, in our house, I know I can’t ask him to take us on. He’s a stranger. This isn’t his responsibility. It’s mine.

“I’ll find out if there are still patrols that come through here. Make sure someone checks on you.”

I nod, though that might be the last thing I actually want. “Sure. That would be great. Thank you.”

He pulls a couple of bills from his wallet and presses them into my hand, though I try to pull away. “No, take this. You can use it. You have your mom and sister to worry about now. And I have… only me.”