David Dalglish: A Land of Ash

Hands grabbed his mangled body. They rolled him over. He felt weak, and with blurred vision he watched a man lift Alyssa up. He held her out as if inspecting a sensitive work of art. Beside him was another human form, this one was smaller and holding a rifle. It kicked the motionless body at its feet. Several others walked by, just ghosts in his foggy eyesight. Their voices chattered on.

A shadow blocked out his vision. A man’s face. He wore a bandana over his nose and mouth, blood soaked like the others. The eyes though…blue, kind, and concerned.

“My name’s Jason,” the man said. “We’re friendly. Who were those kids?”

“Gone wild,” Guido said, his voice rough and weak. “And hungry…hungry for things they shouldn’t, they shouldn’t…”

Jason glanced over at Alyssa and then nodded to show he understood.

“She’s all right now?” he asked, unable to look for himself.

“She is,” Jason said. “She’s with my daughter, Melissa.”

Guido tried to nod, but didn’t have the energy.

“Did you hear the announcement?” he heard a young girl ask, most likely Melissa.

Alyssa responded, still quivering but on the edge of excitement. “We did.”

“They’ve come!” said the girl between coughs. “We’ll be safe and warm!”

Guido felt a bit of gratitude as Jason lifted his head so he could see her better.

“We’ll take care of her for you,” he whispered. “What’s her name?”

“Alyssa,” Guido coughed. “My granddaughter.”

Contented, he leaned his head back, smiled, and let the darkness take him.

“Just a few more steps,” John told his wife. “We’re almost there.”

Susan took his outstretched hand into her own.

“Thank God,” she said, forcing a weary smile. “My feet feel ready to fall off.”

John pulled her up the final flight of stairs to the third floor of what had once been an apartment complex in the northern stretches of Maine. The ash had fallen light there, so far to the east, and the building remained structurally sound. Rows of doors remained opened, broken by looters or left unlocked by former inhabitants as they’d fled. John couldn’t imagine why they hadn’t stayed. Of all the United States, Maine was the one state that had gone almost completely unscathed.

A bit of smoke trailed out from the second door to their right, and John led them just to the side. He let go of Susan’s hand so he could grip his gun in both. His bullets were few, but he had enough to kill a man. He’d never been a good shot, not until the ash fell. Over the months since the ash fell, he’d learned quick.

“Hello?” John called, knocking on the wall beside the door. “My name’s John Crawford, and I’m with my wife, Susan. We’re looking for Faye.”

He held his breath and listened for the telltale sounds of ammo clips and shotgun pumps. Nothing, only labored footsteps toward the door. He dared a glance around the corner.

“Julie send you?” a rail-thin black woman asked, her eyes large walnuts, her hair tied back in a ponytail. She stood in the center of the room, bundled in a multitude of coats and hats. In one corner was a pile of wood, broken and ready for burning. Where the stove used to be was a fire, its smoke billowing out a small hole in the roof. In the kitchen was a mini-fridge, its handle gray and smeared with dirt and ash.

“She did,” John said, stepping full before the doorway. The woman’s eyes flared at the sight of his gun, and with a subtle shift, she revealed a similar pistol clipped to her belt.

“I have no food to spare,” the woman insisted. “Julie should have told you that. I help out when I can, but this ain’t one of those…”

Faye stopped when Susan joined her husband’s side. Her walnut eyes looked to Susan’s swollen belly.

“Jesus,” she said. “No wonder Julie sent you. Come on in, girl. The cold’s no place for a pregnant woman.”

“Thanks,” Susan said. Because of her weight and the thick coats she wore, she waddled toward the small fire. Grunting with pleasure, she sat down before it and removed one of her coats.

“Benefits of being pregnant,” Faye said as she hurried into her kitchen and started scrounging for food. “It’s like having a little furnace in your belly. Keeps you nice and warm. Me, however…”

She laughed as she gestured to her thin frame, her eyes sunken into her face, her cheeks stretched, and her neck a thin piece of bone and veins.

“I take it you sleep close to the fire at night,” John said, trying to make light of things.

“ In the damn fire, and still not always warm,” Faye said, laughing.

John sat beside his wife and removed two of his coats. The fire had a musty smell to it, but it was warm. He held his hands over it, closing his eyes and trying to relax. He clicked on the safety to his pistol as Faye sat a small plate of mixed vegetables from a can beside each of them.

“Heat it over the fire if you must,” Faye said as she ate directly from the can with a spoon. “I’ve gotten used to it cold, though. Winter in Maine was never easy, but lately…I swear, it’s like the ash blocked out the sun. What I’d give to be in South America right now, hell even Africa. Some days I think I’m hungry enough to wrestle a meal away from a lion.”

She watched the couple eat while she sucked on the spoon.

“I know Julie sent you,” she finally said. “But did she tell you why she was sending you my way?”

John removed his wife’s second coat, pushed her long blond hair to the side of her neck, and then began massaging her shoulders.

“You’re a nurse,” he said.

“I was,” Faye said. “Damn good one, too. Don’t you have any worry, Mrs. Crawford. I’ve performed hundreds of these procedures, and I’ll make sure nothing happens to you while I’m removing the fetus.”

“Removing the…?” Susan pulled away from her husband.

“You said we were coming here for my labor,” she said.

“I said we should be here before your labor starts,” John said, but his words sounded like the words of a lawyer, not a husband.

“Is that what Julie said? That why she sent us here?”

“This is no world for a child,” Faye said, her voice calm in the face of their anger. She’d seen a thousand arguments so very similar, and she knew how to let them roll over her without upsetting her. “You know this as well as I. There’s no food, not for a baby.”

“I’ll have milk,” said Susan.

“Milk ain’t free,” Faye said, shaking her head. “It’s coming from you, and my old jackass of a boss wouldn’t have been happy with how little weight you’ve gained during your pregnancy.”

Susan stood. When she waivered unsteadily on her feet, John was there to help her. She pushed him away with a choked sob.

“Let go of me,” she said. “I didn’t carry this child for nine months just to give up.”

She put on one of her coats and stormed out the door. John watched her go, a mixture of anger and helplessness on his face.

“She’ll come around,” he said, trying to force a smile. He did a poor job of it.

Faye shook her head and finished the last of her meal.

“Don’t force her,” she said. “You do, she’ll hate you until she dies. I want you to remember something, John. I’ve done plenty of procedures, but I’ve helped deliver as well. I won’t tell you what to do. You both have a decision to make. I won’t say it’s just hers, because she’s got to rely on you for everything afterward in a world like this. Keep or not. Up to you. But if you do decide to keep it, you better be damn sure you know why.”

John put on his coat and turned away.