Ben Bedard - The World Without Crows

“Help us?” Sergio asked incredulously. “Help us? You’ve got to be kidding me! Have you forgotten John Martin already?”

“No,” Eric said quickly. He blushed. “Of course not.”

“How can you say that bastard is helping us?” Sergio was red with anger.

“If it wasn’t for Doyle, we’d either be dead or in some jail in Boston by now,” Eric reminded him. “You’re right, he’s dangerous, he’s a murderer, but we need to avoid him, not kill him. John Martin wouldn’t murder him either, remember?”

“It’s not murder,” Sergio spat.

“It is.”

“It is,” Lucia agreed.

Sergio kicked a stump and crossed his arms in irritation. They said nothing for a long while. They watched the water boil and listened to the fire. Eric turned his attention to the stars. There were no clouds and the sky was awash with starlight. Eric could only pick out one constellation for certain. The Big Dipper. He was somewhat sure he could find the North Star too, but not sure enough to guide them if he had to.

“We need to learn some astronomy,” said Lucia suddenly.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Eric said, keeping his head up.

“You two,” Sergio said venomously. “The stars aren’t our problem now. Our problem is down here, but you just keep looking up. Look away.” He hissed and stood up, striding away, kicking up dirt into the fire.

Eric turned back to the stars. Birdie, who had been sleeping next to him, suddenly sat up, and then lay back down, this time with her head in his lap.

“He’s just scared,” Lucia said, apologizing for her brother.

“I know,” Eric said.

They were too tired to say anything more, but they watched the stars silently for a long while.

In the morning, as they hiked down the mountain, Lucia told Eric about a dream she had the night before.

She was flying over a lake. It was night and the dark water reflected the sky. Stars shivered from the disturbance of her passage over the water. She came to an island of tall pine trees, so tall they seemed to pin their tops to the sky. She circled the island again and again, feeling the wind through her hair and smelling the pine trees. Then she saw Birdie and Sergio down at the shore of the island, waving at her. Eric wasn’t there. She flew through the trees and searched the entire island, but he wasn’t there. He never made it.

When she finished telling him, she gazed at him with deep, serious eyes. “Please be careful, Eric. I don’t want to lose you.” She put her hand on his arm.

Eric smiled awkwardly. “I’ll be careful,” he said.

But all that morning, he thought of it. The island without him. It seemed right to him, somehow. He would be their guide, but he would not reach it with them. The feeling was strong and painful inside him. The island was for a new beginning, and he was old, with most of his life still back before the Vaca B, a world of movies and junk food and schools crowded with clean, well-dressed children and expansive malls.

Maybe the island was not for him. Maybe the things he would have to do to get there would make him unsuitable for it. Maybe it was reserved for new fresh beginnings with pure hearts, for people like Birdie and Lucia. Not him. He would be forced to do things.

He would have to kill Carl Doyle before the end.

Across the Pemigewasset River was a town full of block-shaped clapboard houses. Each house had a large, overgrown lawn. Sergio scanned the town and the bridge leading to it with the binoculars, but he saw nothing. No Zombies, no gangs, nothing. But the empty town made Eric nervous. He drew out his .22 and checked to see if it was loaded. A second later he checked again.

They had little choice but take the bridge. Swimming across was too dangerous, especially because the water could be infected with the Vaca B. All it took was a single gulp of water to kill them. They had survived that danger once, but it was no guarantee they would survive again.

As they moved down toward the bridge, Eric up front with Lucia, and Sergio and Birdie hanging back, Eric felt the same sense of doom he had earlier. He felt that all the time now. Walking across the bridge, Eric’s heart thumped in his chest, but all he heard was the wind over the river. The bridge was a simple, short overpass, but it seemed to take forever to pass over the bridge. Eric felt he could see them moving over the bridge from some great height. Four specks in a haunted world. From that height, it seemed ridiculous and dangerous to be so exposed. For a moment, his heart pattered in him dangerously fast. His face flushed. He had the urge to run, but he didn’t. Somehow he kept himself together until they reached the other side. His heart calmed from its furious pace.

While he stood there, with some portion of relief, he watched as a cat with bright yellow fur walked lazily to the middle of the road and sit down. The cat watched them with false indifference, licking its paws. When they approached, the cat rolled over on its back and Birdie stroked it, laughing. When Sergio approached, the cat rolled to its feet and dashed away.

“Oh,” whined Birdie. “Why’d you scare it, Sergio?”

“I didn’t do nothing,” said Sergio.

They all watched the cat vanish under a house. Birdie looked at Sergio angrily.

Sergio shrugged. “I didn’t do nothing,” he repeated.

“Well I wish you hadn’t done nothing,” said Birdie angrily. “Nothing scared it.”

While they were in the town, they agreed to search it. They always needed food. Eric and Birdie went to one side of the street, Lucia and Sergio to the other. The town had no Zombies in it, they were fairly sure. At least they had seen none, and Eric doubted any cracked ones would have been able to resist the lovely blue waters running just west of the town. They were careful all the same, moving through the houses quietly and checking all the doors and closets before they rummaged through the kitchen and basement.

In the first house, as Birdie crawled inside the bottom cupboards to look for cans of food lost in the shadows, Eric stared at the refrigerator. It was covered with photographs. There were children dancing in absurd costumes. There were old people sitting on deck chairs. There was a picture of a boat and several people waiting to board it, lit by yellow Tiki lights stuck in the sand of a beach. There was a postcard from Las Vegas and another from Los Angeles. Stuck to the fridge by a round green magnet was an American History quiz about the Civil War with a 98 written and circled with red ink. The answer to the first question, written carefully, was FORT SUMTER. Eric reached out to touch a picture when he heard an engine.

Grabbing Birdie by the legs, he pulled her out of the cupboard.

“Don’t Eric!” she cried.

But then she heard it too, the sound of screeching tires and then a door slamming. Eric ran to the window facing the street, dragging Birdie behind him.

It was Carl Doyle. He had a rifle pointed at Lucia and Sergio, who had their arms up, cans of food rolling around their feet.

“Where is my boy!” boomed Doyle. “What did you traitors do to him?”

Carl Doyle tensed his rifle to his shoulder, and, before he had time to think, Eric flew out the door, waving his arms, and shouting, “Doyle, I’m right here! Don’t shoot!”

Doyle turned to him and then let his rifle drop. “Eric, my boy! I knew you’d make it, by God!”

Doyle’s eyes were almost black now, dripping with thick, mud-like tears. His head was nearly bald and dark with dried blood, except for disturbing patches, shining like pearl, where his skin had been itched away to the skull. His clothes were ripped and covered with gore and filth. His leg was now bound in a wooden splint. The slats of wood were tied together with oily rope. It made him walk in a rolling movement with his leg out to one side. Still, he moved surprisingly fast toward Eric. For a second, he thought Doyle was going to catch him up in an embrace. His heart pattered in him like a mouse scampering to hide from a cat. But Doyle stopped a few feet from him and grinned. His teeth were dark as molasses.