Ben Bedard - The World Without Crows

Now that they had no weapons, they had to be more careful than ever. Sergio, because he could not run, had to stay behind with Birdie. Sarah, Lucia, and Eric crept down together while they still had light. They just wanted to creep inside a few houses, get what they needed, and then leave.

The name of the town was Kane.

Zombies were everywhere. They slumped on lawns, ambled on the roads, stood on the porches of houses. There were men and women, little girls and little boys. There was even a Zombie sitting listlessly in a wheelchair. It was stuck on a stump, and though it kept spinning the wheels, it did not move.

Kane was a small town.

When they came closer to the center, the houses became larger. They stopped in front of a big red and white clapboard house with strange roof peaks. On the eastern side of the house alone, there was a jumble of small windows. The western side was just a clapboard wall. Next to that house was a sprawling white clapboard house with sagging porches, enclosed with aluminum framed mosquito screens. The lawns were all overgrown, grass quickly working to reclaim the varieties of garbage and waste the houses had produced. Everywhere vehicles sat, dejected, already rusting away. As they watched, a few blocks away, several white-tailed deer walked through a yard, stopped to eye them disinterestedly, and then continued onward to graze at the sweet grass of overfed lawns.

Eric found all of the houses threatening. They were too big and sprawling, filled, he imagined, with secret rooms, large closets, labyrinthine passages. Once they may have been the scene of a happy family or several families. No longer. In Eric’s imagination, every room harbored a cracked Zombie, every basement a hoard of them, every turn and twist of a hallway, only further cover for some mentally deranged survivor.

Every foraging expedition was potentially disastrous. Brad was proof of that.

To make matters worse, Lucia, who had taken over command, it seemed, said they should split up, each take one house, and then meet back in the streets.

Why did they split up? Eric wanted to say something to Lucia, but he didn’t want to be in charge either. Let her have that role.

But the thought bothered him. With only two people, when was splitting up ever a good idea?

Eric’s heart pounded as he opened the squeaking door to the first house.

It was a big, block of a house, dark gray with pea green trim. The porch was on either side of the house, jutting out like an afterthought.

When he walked inside, the musty smell hit him first. This, he thought, must be what a tomb smells like. The inside of the house was in shambles. Whoever had left, had left in a hurry. Clothes were scattered on the floor, along with books, dishes, photos, and papers, as if they didn’t know what to take with them when they left.

Eric didn’t want to be in there any longer than he must. He walked swiftly to the kitchen and began opening the cupboards, his heart beating. Without hardly looking, he pulled canned food down and stuffed them into his bag, trying to keep an ear out for trouble.

After he was finished with the food, he stopped by the wooden stairway that led up to the bedrooms. He could leave the house. He had what he came for, and the door was directly in front of him. But the bedrooms. That’s where people kept their guns.

He walked up the stairs, softly, and put his ear to the nearest door. He strained to hear any movement from within. In his mind, he kept seeing the old woman leap upon Brad, her diseased mouth clamping down upon his neck and shoulder. He took a deep breath and put his hand on the knob.

“What can I do for you?”

Eric stumbled backward in surprise and terror.

She stood in the hallway. She held a shotgun pointed at his chest.

“Calm down,” the woman said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Eric stepped back and stumbled against a wall. Then, losing his balance, he slid against the wall and fell back.

The woman repeated, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Eric sat up. The woman had dark, long hair that she had tied behind her. Her skin was brown, and her cheekbones pronounced and high.

“You’re an Indian,” he said out loud, without meaning to.

“I’m Seneca,” she said. She held out her hand to him. “My name is Kaye Cornplanter.” Eric took her hand and she pulled him to his feet. She searched him with her eyes, and Eric told her his name. “Come,” she said. Eric went first back down the stairs to the living room where Kaye sat down, resting her gun across her legs. “Sit,” she said.

“I’m just here for food,” said Eric.

“There’s no food in the bedrooms,” Kaye answered.

Eric didn’t say anything. Kaye waited. The silence weighed on Eric. Finally, he admitted to looking for a gun. “I need it,” he said. “It’s dangerous out there.”

“Yes it is,” Kaye agreed. “Sit,” she said again. Eric glanced at the door and considered running, but, instead, he did as he was told. He couldn’t outrun a shotgun blast. Kaye studied him. “Where’re you going?”

“East,” Eric said.

“Good,” she answered. She reached into her pocket and took out a can of sardines. She snapped off the key and unrolled the lid. She offered it to Eric who carefully lifted out some of the oily fish with his fingers.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” she answered. “It’s not safe to the north,” she said. “You shouldn’t go that way.”

“Gangs?”

Kaye laughed, a tiny, barking sound. “You could call us a gang, I suppose.” When Eric looked puzzled, Kaye continued. “When the Vaca B came, all the Senecas came home. Many died, but some did not. Those of us who are left are taking back our land.” Kaye leaned back in the chair and studied him. “For many years the Americans had our land. But they abused it and now they’re gone. There were always some of us who thought it would happen.” She smiled, not altogether friendly but not hostile either.

Eric looked at her gun. “What’re you going to do with me?”

Kaye shrugged. “Nothing,” she said. “As long as you continue east, you are no enemy of mine.”

“I am going east,” Eric stressed. They studied each other. “Is there war north?”

“No,” Kaye said. “There is liberation north. This time there will be no treaties, no deals, no talk. We will take our land and we will keep it forever.”

Eric felt a morbid curiosity about the struggle. “What’s it like?”

“Buffalo is burning,” she said. “We are burning it, block by block. In the end, there will be no city by the lake. Just a ruin for birds to nest upon.”

“The whole city?”

“The city began as a military camp. It will not be one again. In time, it will be swamp as it once was, a feeding place for birds. The time of the Americans is over. Look at what happened to your people when it mattered. They became nothing but gangs, fighting each other. Or they died wandering in the streets or starved in the forests. There is nothing in you that holds you together. You have no connections to each other, no connections to the lands you steal. The land belongs to those who are a part of it, who understand it. It was always our land here and now it is our time again. The time of the Haudenosaunee.”

Eric did not know what to say or do. He felt awkward and uncertain. “Can I go?” he asked finally, glancing at the door.

“You can go,” she said. He started to move, but Kaye continued, her words stopping him as he lifted himself from the chair. “But don’t go north. If I see you north, our meeting will not be so peaceful.”

Eric had no doubt she would shoot him. He nodded deeply, almost a bow, and then, faster than he wanted, he sped out the door, and down the steps of the porch. He felt Kaye Cornplanter’s eyes upon him as he joined Lucia and Sarah in the street.