Ben Bedard - The World Without Crows

Only moments later, the Land Rover was gone, leaving Eric alone in the field of grass.

In the forest, they became lost. Lucia and Sergio were in tears over John Martin and walked in a daze. Stopping sometimes as if aware suddenly of their surroundings, they tried to turn back, to find John Martin. Eric stopped them, arguing that they needed to get away from Carl Doyle. They needed space between them. Eric feared he might snap at any time and kill them, just as he had shot down John Martin.

In grief, they staggered up and down inclines, over downed trees, across dirt roads, deeper into the forest. Eric felt sick when he thought of John Martin back there, motionless upon the road. He tried to tell himself they were doing the right thing, but he was sure that John would not have left any of them. But they had no weapons, and Carl Doyle was crazy. Eric led them on through a maze of woods and thorns, down into the heart of the forest, as far from roads as they could get. By nightfall, they had climbed to a hilltop, overlooking the undulating forest. They threw down their backpacks and collapsed, exhausted. They were too shouldered with grief and guilt to build a fire.

Birdie was the most confused of any of them. “Where’s John?” she kept asking. “Where’d he go? Eric? Eric?”

That night, Eric heard Birdie in his sleep. Where’s John? Eric?

Eric?

They had never journeyed so far into a forest. When they woke up the next morning, they could see nothing but trees. Birds twitted noisily in the forest, and, as they made a fire, a chickadee came down, perched on a branch, and watched them curiously until the fire was sparked. Then it flew away and did not return.

Eric felt he woke into a nightmare. John Martin was truly gone. He hadn’t realized how much safer he felt with John near them. Now they were alone and helpless. Anything, anyone, could do what they wanted with them. As he waited for the water to boil, Eric kept his hands in his jacket pockets.

They were shaking.

They pushed east through Allegheny, avoiding roads, houses, any sign of other people. Sergio and Lucia, in their sorrow, seemed to have abandoned any thought of going north and leaving them. Eric only wanted to keep moving, and didn’t want to ask them about their plans.

Up and down they hiked, through the forests of Pennsylvania. The time for flat lands and fields seemed long ago. Now the hills became steeper and harder to climb. They hiked with a kind of desperation, as if the sweat and exertion could melt away their guilt for leaving John Martin behind.

On the second morning, they woke to find one of their backpacks missing. After finding a trail where it had been dragged, they followed it down to a brook where the backpack and its contents had been shredded by raccoons. It was Sarah’s backpack. All of their salt was missing and most of the spices she had scavenged. Standing over the mess, Sarah sobbed great, heaving gasps, such as they had not seen in her before, even when Brad had died. She sat down hard in the water and couldn’t be moved.

They waited until she lifted herself from the water and then they quietly helped her salvage what they could, setting it out to dry before they re-packed it in Eric’s bag.

“Where are we going?” Sergio asked him later that day.

Eric just pointed east. “That way,” he said.

Sergio hurt his ankle. They were crossing a stream whose bed was made up of smooth, round stones. He slipped, turned his ankle strangely, and then yelped in pain. The ankle swelled alarmingly quickly. To keep the swelling down, they put him by the stream, with the ankle in the cool running water. They made camp there and boiled water. Lucia stayed by her brother most of the time. She and Sarah wrapped his ankle in gauze, but he could not move that day.

Eric stayed up far into the night, staring at the fire. They had begun to hoist their backpacks up into the trees at night to keep them from raccoons. When the wind blew, the backpacks swung and caused the branches to creak eerily. Birdie sat with her head against him, sleeping.

Lucia emerged from her tent and came to sit at the fire, next to him.

“How is he?” asked Eric.

“The swelling is going down,” she said. “I don’t think it’s serious, he’ll be okay.” She threw a twig into the fire. “I wanted to be a lawyer,” she continued abruptly. “Imagine that. A lawyer. I thought I would be able to make a difference in the world. Now the world that I wanted to help is gone. Gone. I can’t even help my own brother.” She gave him a weak smile. “Tell me about your island, Eric.”

So Eric told her what he knew, what he remembered. The call of the loons over the calm water. The smell of pine trees. The gentle lapping of the water against the shores of the lake. The hills, the mountains, the lakes between them, and nothing, as far as you could see, but green and blue. He told her about the cabin they would build, maybe two, for the first winter. Then how in the following years, they would build from there, planting fields with corn and squash and beans.

When he was done, Lucia had a calm look on her face. “If it was just us two, Sergio and I,” she said. “If it was just us and Sergio broke his foot, what would happen?”

Eric’s face constricted sourly. It was a terrible thought.

“We need each other,” Lucia concluded. “You know that, don’t you?”

Eric nodded. She got up and went back to her tent without another word, but Eric knew that they were coming with them to Maine.

Sergio’s ankle was much improved the next day. He argued to let him walk, but they couldn’t risk it. So for another day, they rested uncomfortably in their grief and guilt. Eric, Sarah, and Birdie stayed away from the siblings. It was like when Brad died, grief separated them. Lucia and Sergio had been saved by John Martin, they had lived with him for months, and together they had planned on starting a new life. Now he was gone and they had left him. They hardly had words for their guilt. They sat together, talking Spanish in hushed voices.

Sarah and Eric went fishing. Eric was getting better at it. He knew where to drop his line, in the shadows and the dark, swift water, where the trout swam. The two of them pulled several fish from the waters, which emerged like wild miracles from the cold water. They strung the trout through the gills with a branch and then carried them back to camp.

On the way, they stopped on the crest of a hill. They sat over the green expanse of the forest. It was easy to think that the world that had been, the world of cities and roads and stores, the world of fast food and blaring music, the world of television and movies, of guns and jets and nuclear missiles, all that world had never been. There were just these forests and the hot sun above them. Eric could sense the whole forest, breathing.

It was then that Sarah kissed him, first on the cheek, and then, turning his head, full on his lips. He’d never been kissed before. He imagined it would be a wild, exciting moment, but, instead, it was deeply calming and soothing. He held her when she was done, her yellow hair falling down upon his back.

He was going to tell her something. He felt he should tell her something, but he never got the chance.

Sarah was weeping on his shoulder.

Lucia wanted to stay another day, but Sergio was insistent on leaving. The swelling in his ankle was nearly gone, but he limped heavily on his tightly wrapped foot. They fashioned something like a crutch from a tree branch, and Sergio tried to keep up the pace.

In the early afternoon, they emerged from the Alleghany forest. Below them was a town, and, because they needed supplies, they circled it, warily. Using the binoculars, Eric scanned the town. There were several Zombies, but no sign of cracked Zombies or gangs.