Ben Bedard - The World Without Crows

He looked at Eric. His eyes were sad and large. Eric thought back to that starry night just a few days out of Athens when he had similar thoughts. Fear crept up his arm at the memory. He had been so close.

“But I couldn’t do it,” he said. “Instead I broke out of my own prison. I began to wander the streets. And that’s how I found Lucia and Sergio.” He smiled. “They think I saved them, but they saved me. You can’t just shut yourself off from people, Eric. We need each other.”

Eric thought about it and looked out over the water. The moonlight sparkled there.

Maybe John Martin was right. Maybe the island had never been about safety. Instead, it was about escape and fear and shutting himself away from the world.

“I have to think about it,” Eric said. “I have to talk to Sarah and Birdie.”

John Martin didn’t say anything more. After another moment, he left him alone, listening to the water’s edge, the waves hushing through stone, and the moonlight glittering on the dark surface of the lake.

They stayed the next day at the shore of the lake. Though the sun was brilliant above them, the lake remained the color of steel. Eric and Birdie spent the day wandering on the beach while Sarah fished. She joined them for a while. They talked about whether to join the others and go to a farm in northern New York, or if they should continue to Maine, to the island. Sarah was strangely adamant about Maine. She said it was far enough away to be safe. Eric wasn’t so sure.

“I want to see the island,” Birdie said.

“Wouldn’t it be good to live with John and Sergio and Lucia?” asked Eric.

“They should come with us,” Birdie said. She picked up a flat stone and sent it sailing into the lake. Sarah smiled smugly and looked at Eric who could only shrug.

In the afternoon, Eric helped Sarah clean the fish she caught. When he was little, with his father, he had sickened and cried when his father gutted the fish. His father had given him a sour look, as if to say this is no son of mine. Now Eric didn’t have a problem. Although he still hated the feeling of the knife cutting through skin.

While he cleaned, he watched Sergio and Lucia play catch with a baseball. Both of them had carried gloves and a baseball with them. It seemed bizarre to watch them play, the white ball hurtling through the air. They laughed and talked back and forth in Spanish as they played. It was like nothing had happened and they were on vacation. Except, sometimes, when they grew quiet and solemn, Eric guessed they were thinking of different times and people who were no longer with them. Even in these times, the baseball spun through the air and smacked into the soft leather of their gloves. In the afternoon, after they had been playing for a while, Lucia jogged over to them. Eric turned his head away from her to study the entrails of the fish as he pulled them out with his fingers.

“Sergio could use a break,” she said. “Do you want a turn?”

Eric continued to clean the fish. Sarah poked him in the side, and Eric looked up at Lucia’s smooth face, dark hair, and deep eyes.

“Me?” he asked.

Lucia laughed. “You,” she said.

Eric shook his head and blushed. “I don’t play baseball.” The only contact with baseball he had was with the jocks who played it. It had not been pleasant.

Lucia made a strange face, something between surprise and disappointment, or maybe, Eric thought, mockery. He cleared his throat and picked up another fish, pushing the knife into its anus and then sliding the point up the pale belly. It’s red and purple innards spilled out on the rock.

“Okay,” Lucia said. Eric heard but did not watch her walk away.

“She likes you,” Sarah said when she was gone.

“Shut up, Sarah,” Eric said angrily. He blushed, dropped his knife and then walked to the shore to wash his hands of blood.

By the shore, he thought of his father, his mother, Brad, Jessica shot in the gutter, all the friends he had lost.

At some point, Birdie joined him, and they wordlessly sat together. They watched the water until the sun had turned the gray waters red and the sun had dipped low in the sky. By then Eric knew he wanted to keep moving to Maine.

They would not be going to the farm with Lucia.

The decision seemed obvious.

When they woke up, they ate a quiet breakfast. Eric had told John Martin his decision the night before. They did not seem happy about it. John Martin had shaken his head in disapproval, the same way he had done when Brad announced he was going to the farm to look for a gun. Sergio and Lucia looked at them with disbelief and some anger.

Now they consulted the map together for the last time. The plan was to move to Allegheny National Forest. From there, they would split up, John Martin, Sergio, and Lucia would move north into New York, while the rest of them would continue east to Susquehannock State Forest. All of them wanted to put miles between them and Cleveland. In the clear morning air, they could see smoke rising from the city, a black, acrid cloud that gathered over the city like an omen. The city was burning to the ground.

“It’s the gangs,” John Martin said. “They’re trying to burn each other out.”

Nobody knew if this was true or not, but they said nothing in response. John Martin loaded his gun that morning with profound gravity.

Rested and fed, they hiked swiftly east. Not long in the morning, they noticed the signs had changed. Somewhere they had left Ohio and were now in Pennsylvania. The land was a patchwork of forest and field. They were able to keep out of sight mostly, moving east steadily through the day. They had finished eating a quick lunch and continuing east when Sergio came up to walk next to Eric.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Eric mirrored, his thumbs hooked in his hiking straps.

“I don’t mean to be pushy, man,” he said. “But why won’t you come with us? I mean, we all like each other, don’t we?”

“Yeah,” Eric said.

“Then come help us start a new life,” he said. “Everyone wants you to come with us. I don’t understand what’s so special about this island.” He paused, but when Eric didn’t say anything, he continued. “It’s hard to find people you like, you know. Don’t you think you might regret it?”

“Maybe,” Eric admitted. He looked up from his feet. Lucia and John Martin were walking ahead of them. Lucia had a way of walking that made his mouth dry. He turned to look back down at his feet.

“I wish you’d change your mind,” Sergio said.

“It’s not my decision,” said Eric. “It’s Birdie’s and Sarah’s too.”

“Come on,” Sergio said. “They listen to you. You could persuade them if you wanted. What is it? You don’t like Latinos or something?”

“No,” Eric said. “I just. I don’t know. I’ve got to go there. It’s what I set out to do.”

Sergio sighed and then threw up a hand. His hand twisted in anger and he said something in Spanish that Eric didn’t think was too polite. “Whatever, man!” he exclaimed. “I think you’re making a mistake, a big mistake. You’re going to lead these people to their death, that’s what I think!” He hissed and then walked swiftly ahead of them.

Eric paused for a second. His heart pattered in his chest. He had never thought of himself as anyone’s leader. The idea nearly choked him.

The weather was beautiful. Blue skies with lazy white clouds. A brisk but warm wind fluttered their hair. Through green fields they hiked. Deer bounded away from them or picked up their heads and followed them cautiously as they passed with their large, dark eyes. Yellow flowers and purple thistles bloomed at their feet. Crickets and beetles hummed and birds swooped. Far above them, black turkey vultures circled, and once, Eric saw a brightly colored little hawk, blue and brown, dive upon a feeding flock of kinglets. The kinglets fluttered away, safe, while the hawk perched stoically upon a fence post, unsuccessful but undaunted.