August Ansel - The Attic

Her words fell off, and for a little while they sat in the faint sound of the night world. When she recommenced, Arie’s voice was rough with unshed tears. “I came back here and moved into this attic that same afternoon. In the ground I covered, there should have been well over a thousand people around. Do you know how many I counted?” She looked up at them. Curran had tears in his eyes, too, and when he lifted a hand to his mouth, Arie saw it trembling. “Eight,” she said. “Eight people I glimpsed or heard shuffling behind closed doors. By my estimation, that works out to damn near everybody dead. If the kill rate was less than 99.99 percent, I’ll be frigged.”

“That sounds right to me,” said Handy. “I was eight weeks getting here, and even going straight through the middle of Orick and Arcata I only saw a handful up and walking around. Lying dead everywhere was a different story—of those, I saw plenty.”

“The way you went door-to-door is exactly how the bosses do it,” said Curran. “There’s a big conference room downstairs in the main building there, and they’ve got it rigged out like a war room, like pictures you used to see in books of generals moving their toy troops around. There’s a map of Eureka pinned to the wall. They drew a grid over the whole thing, and they X out a box for every area they clear.”

“How do you know all that?” said Renna. “They weren’t exactly letting people roam around. Posies never got to leave the second floor, and every time I saw people outside, they were always herded in a tight bunch, walking with a boss.”

“It was the remodel,” said Curran. “Two of us Joes were doing the whole thing.” He turned to Arie. “The bosses all got two rooms apiece upstairs, regular classrooms. They had us knocking archways between the rooms so each of them had a sort of suite. It was Little Mikey who got me that gig—I told you about him.”

“An old bowling friend,” said Arie.

“Something like that. He hadn’t been a boss very long. After a few weeks, they got lax about watching us. Things had gone well, we’d been in and out of their rooms, in and out of the building with no troubles, and after a while there were so many other people to keep track of that they—” He shrugged. “I think they had us both tagged for promotion. They stopped paying attention.”

“You were going to be a boss,” said Arie.

“Maybe in someone’s head,” he said. “Not in mine. The first minute they dumped me in the room with the rest of the Joes, I was scoping my way out. The other Joe doing the remodel—I never did find out his real name—was a problem. Even though they weren’t watching us themselves, they kept the two of us on a buddy system. Little Mikey had given me this pep talk about how the other bosses were eyeing me for promotion and to keep tabs on the other Joe because they weren’t sure they could trust him. I figured they were giving him the same speech about me. It wasn’t a half-bad way to work us.” He got himself a cup of water, drank it in a few large gulps, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

“I saw into the conference room one day when we were carrying in framing materials. Only a peek, but three of them were huddled over the big table with their heads just about touching. It was weeks before I found a chance to get in there, but when I did it was obvious what they were up to. There was a halo of Xs on that map, a perfect ring. They’d make a green diagonal in the sections they planned to forage, then they’d finish the X with a red marker when it was done. That was the day I decided to run, and which direction to go in. Started packratting a cache of stuff in a downstairs supply closet that had a broken lock. Once I had enough to get me through a couple of days, I got down to the basement, smashed open a little side door, and hauled ass.”

“How long before you found your hideout?” asked Arie.

“Two days. I saw which sector they were planning to scavenge next, so I went another direction. I slept in empty houses, found a few things to scavenge myself. Found Talus. She was locked in a garage. When I broke in, she was just standing there wagging her tail at me. For a second there I figured she’d take my throat out, but she was…” He smiled. “She was just Talus. When I tried to back out of the garage, she followed me like it had been her plan from the start. I didn’t do anything to keep her. She kept me. I found the big stump that same day, and it sure seemed like Talus was my good omen.”

Arie turned to Renna. “You and Curran did not meet at the high school.”

Renna shook her head. “Never,” she said. The bosses were…” She thought for a moment. “Possessive of us.”

Arie stole a look at Handy. Throughout this conversation he’d kept his hands busy, shaving a wicked point onto another long branch he’d gathered from the yard. Two more lay at his feet. His face was half in shadow, and his long hair obscured his expression. It couldn’t be easy for him to hear this, Arie thought, but better to know it than leave it to the rot of imagination.

“The Posies, we each had our own rooms down on the far end of the upstairs,” Renna said. “It was blocked off to just those four rooms and a bathroom. There were two Bessies who brought our food, and one from the Georges who swapped out the buckets. They weren’t allowed to speak to us, but I don’t think they wanted to.” She stared off into the shadows while she spoke, studiously avoiding eye contact with any of them. “This one Bessie, though—man, she hated our guts. The whole time she was bringing in food and taking out dirty dishes, she’d be muttering to herself. One day I heard her say, ‘Must be nice.’ I guess it was because we lived in our own rooms, and there were windows. I wanted to kick her in the face.” She spoke through clenched teeth.

“You were two rats in the same maze,” said Arie. “Stuck and wanting to bite.” Renna looked at her. The ghost of rage was still evident, a well of pain, but she nodded. Like a child, she stretched out on the car seat and laid her head in Arie’s lap. The weight of it pressed against the cut on Arie’s thigh, making a small, bright pain. She put a hand on Renna’s head and combed her fingers through the heavy dark hair, caught wholly off-guard by a bolt of feeling for her, the sisterly, motherly old feeling of family. “I’d like to know how you got away, Renna,” she said.

“I killed a man,” came the immediate reply. Handy and Curran were both brought up short, their faces a little stunned, and Arie felt a similar jolt. “His name was Brody.”

“Oh, shit,” said Curran. “Yeah, I remember him. Wiry, tall guy.”

“And smelled bad,” said Renna. “Worse than everyone else, I mean.” She closed her eyes. “They weren’t supposed to fall asleep with us,” she said. “Lots of times they did, but only for a few minutes, after. Brody really fell asleep, pretty much every time. I’d wake him up on purpose and act like I was afraid for him to get caught, but I just wanted to get him out.” She yawned expansively, and Arie could feel the girl’s body settling, unwinding. “One night,” Renna said, “when he was really under and snoring, I went through his pockets. He sometimes had candy or gum, and I was always a little bit hungry. He didn’t have candy, he had a knife. I didn’t even think about it. I killed him, and I ran.”

“So,” said Handy, “he smells a lot worse now.” There was a beat, with only the quiet schist, schist sound of his carving. Then they all began to laugh. This was more than Talus could bear, being alone down below, and she voiced a long, plaintive whine that curled into a sad howl at its end.

“Talus is right,” said Arie. “We’ve blown enough wind up here for tonight.” She slid out from under Renna, who pulled the blanket around her and up to her chin. Arie bent and kissed Renna’s cheek.