44
ATTICUS
“I think we should go a little farther out,” I told Thais the next day. “We need to see if there are any other cabins nearby; search them for supplies.”
She wore her only pair of pants; her sockless feet were shoved into the oversized hiking boots. We each wore a backpack, packed with only things we’d need for a short trip away from the cabin. And as always, we carried our guns.
We headed north, in the opposite direction of where I’d dragged Mark Porter’s body and covered him with leaves and tree branches.
“You should go back and get it,” Thais said about his backpack full of supplies. “He doesn’t need the stuff anymore. And we do.”
I agreed to go back and get it later.
There was a rustle of leaves, and a squirrel jumped onto a tree, skittered upward and out of sight.
“There are so many squirrels out here,” Thais said. “If we stop catching fish, at least we’ll have plenty of squirrel meat.”
“No, we won’t. We’re running out of ammo.”
“Then we should hunt bigger game—more meat per bullet.”
“We’ll have to,” I said. “Maybe I can build a smoker to help preserve the meat—might get lucky and find a tarp or something else I can use. I’ve never done it before, but I’ll figure it out.” I regretted not paying more attention to the jobs citizens were assigned to in Lexington City.
“But we can’t stay here forever,” I said. “We have to move south soon, and we’ll definitely need the bullets out there on The Road.”
“I think we should stay,” she said. “I want to stay here.”
“I know you do.” My voice was consoling. “We’ll talk about it later. I think I see a cabin.”
We stopped on the trail and gazed ahead through a clearing. On the other side, over tall stalks of yellow grass bending gently to the breeze, a structure sat perched on a rocky hill surrounded by engulfing trees.
“It could just be a shack,” Thais said.
“Whatever it is,” I said, stepping up to the border where the forest met the field, “we’re going to search it.”
We kept to the trees, going the long way around rather than cutting through the wide-open field and risking exposure. We weaved through a rock maze on an incline, and by the time we made it to the top, Thais complained that her feet were killing her.
The rocky ground became compact dirt, spreading outward in a curvy path, flattened by years of human foot traffic and possibly ATV travel. Trees were marked by circular reflectors, red and blue; faded red barrier ribbons hung from a bush here and there. Out ahead, a tire hung from a rope in a tree, and just beyond it there was a cabin, nearly unrecognizable from the overgrowth of vines that covered the front porch and the outside walls and almost the entire roof—a few more months of growth and we never would have spotted the tiny cabin from the bottom.
“Probably overrun by snakes,” I said. “A machete would be really nice right now.”
“Maybe it’s better around the back.”
“Hopefully.”
We went around to the back of the cabin where the overgrowth had been cut away; a porch overlooked the bluffs fifteen feet from the bottom step.
“Whoever owned this place,” I said in a lowered voice, “didn’t want it to be easily found, that’s for sure.”
“What if they still own it?”
“That’s what worries me.” I gripped her hand.
“Hello!” I called out before going up the steps. “Is anybody here?”
No answer.
“Do you smell that?”
I sniffed the air; the stench was faint, but it was there and distinct and that was enough to set me on edge. Only one thing could smell like that.
“It’s probably a dead deer or something,” I said.
I hope like hell that’s all it is. I tugged Thais’ hand.
I opened the back door with reluctance, expecting to find a dead body inside the cabin—better dead than alive, I supposed—and as sunlight spilled into the doorway, my eyes widened and my breath caught. For a long time, I couldn’t move. Thais stepped up beside me, and her hand involuntarily went over her mouth.
It was supply heaven. Where all the long-lost items needed for survival must’ve been taken and stored the day The Fever took its first victim. From floor to ceiling, against all four walls of the one-room cabin, there were metal shelves chock full of MRE’s (Meals Ready to Eat) and gallon jugs of water and five-gallon buckets of dehydrated food and boxes upon boxes of powdered laundry detergent and tea bags and coffee and a plethora of other things I couldn’t begin to name because my head was spinning like a happy drunk in bar.
Plastic crates were stuffed with tubes of toothpaste, toothbrushes, bottles of shampoo, boxed bars of soap, tiny bottles of mouthwash, body wash, every kind of wash one could imagine. On another shelf, there were canned goods and jarred jellies and pickled eggs and pig’s feet and God only knew what that black gunk was in other jars, and I was afraid to know. Rubbing alcohol; peroxide; boxes of Band-Aids; veterinary suture needles with nylon thread; cans of disinfectant spray; small bottles of bleach; one shelf was dedicated to hundreds of jars of spices and oils and powders.
Together, Thais and I homed in on the shelf on the back wall, turned our heads toward each other with wide eyes and said at the same time: “Is that…toilet paper?”
We just stared at the shelves packed with rolls upon rolls of heavenly white softness that was more valuable than any gold or silver or precious gemstones. I could’ve fainted if that was the manly thing to do—I got tired years ago wiping my ass with cloth and newspaper and leaves, and thought I’d never see another roll of toilet paper in my lifetime.
“I’m willing to leave everything else behind,” I said, mostly in jest, “to carry back as much toilet paper as we can.”
Thais laughed, shaking her head.
“Well, I for one would love to smell like a girl for a change,” she said. “And maybe have hair that doesn’t feel like hay. A little compromise is in order, I think.” She holstered her gun and crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow at me.
I pressed my lips to her forehead.
“I happen to love the way you smell,” I said matter-of-factly, and then ran my fingers through her hair. “And your hair doesn’t feel like hay.”
“Well, just the same, we’re taking back more than toilet paper.”
Yes ma’am. I smiled, thinking to myself.
We scanned the shelves more closely, me taking one side of the room, and Thais taking the other, but neither of us putting anything into our backpacks yet—in the back of my mind I was thinking: Something’s not right about this.
“I don’t know, Thais, this place is too clean.” I turned from the shelf and looked at the wooden floor that appeared to have been swept. I turned back to the shelf and ran my fingers over the top of macaroni and cheese boxes wrapped in plastic. There was no dust. I looked up at the ceiling, and where vines and maybe even a few bird’s nests should’ve been, wooden beams were devoid of even a single swaying cobweb.
Upon realizing what my gut had been telling me all along, we stepped away from the shelves and went slowly toward each other in the center of the room.
I took Thais’ hand again. “I think we should probably get the hell out of here before whoever stocked these shelves comes back,” I said.
“Ah,” said a woman’s rasping voice from behind—Thais and I reeled around. “Yens must be tha couple stayin’ at tha Graham’s place. Esra! Com’eah!”
I stood frozen with my gun pointed at the old woman with long, silvery hair so thin I could see her lemon rind scalp as the sun beat down on her head in the doorway.
“Slow as molasses, my Esra. So, what can we do for yens? Put tha gun down, son, yer a’makin me nervous.”
The only way out was through the door behind the old woman, and I was confident I could get us past an old woman armed with only a walking cane. But who was this Esra, and what if he had more than a cane? How many more people were outside, also with more than canes?
I fitted a hand on Thais’ waist and pushed her behind me.
The old woman, short and portly on thin, bony legs that bowed slightly, hobbled forward despite the gun still being trained on her, and she went toward the nearest shelf; the end of her cane tapped against the floor.
My gun followed her while I also watched the doorway.
“Tha Graham’s have a nice place, duncha think, son?”
The old woman had to catch her breath when she reached the shelf. She extended a gnarled hand for a bottle of shampoo. “They was good folks. Lasted ‘bout, oh I cain’t ‘member, maybe four years. Here you go, dear”—she held out the bottle of shampoo to Thais—“this one smells nice; if ya use just a dime, it’ll last yens a good long while.”
“Thanks, but we’ll be going now,” I said, grabbed Thais’ hand and started for the door.
Then I heard the shuffling of boots making their way slowly up the steps, accompanied by a shadow.
“It’s just my Esra,” the old woman croaked. She placed the shampoo back on the shelf. “How long do yens plan to stay at the Graham’s?”
Confused by her unfazed reaction to armed strangers, I couldn’t answer.
“My Lord, Esra,” said the old woman, just as an old man stepped into the doorway. “If ya go any slower—”
“Be quiet, woman!” Esra barked, with the dismissive wave of a knotted, fibrous hand. “I said I was a’comin, June, so crawl outta my butt, will yah.”
Thais smiled. I squeezed her hand with warning.
Esra was a gremlin of a man, skinny as a yardstick, with big pointy ears set against a tanned, leathery head where a single tussock of white hair swirled two inches above his forehead. His back was hunched; he had bony shoulders like jagged rocks jutting from a short-sleeve plaid shirt. The blue-jean overalls that sagged around him seemed like they were too heavy for his skeletal frame—but he was strong enough to carry a ten-gauge shotgun in one hand. I noted the way he casually carried it; his hand loosely folded about the stock; his finger nowhere near the trigger; the gun relaxed down at his side like a briefcase—it was as if he were going for a stroll in the woods, not coming to blow the heads off looters in his supply cabin.
“Don’t you tell me to be quiet, you old dog”—she shook her finger at him; her beady eyes like little hard green-apple candies were set in her heavily wrinkled face—“I told ya to come wit’me when I heard ‘em yellin’, but nooo, ya had to sit there on yer lazy rump and read the magazine.” She shuffled slowly across the small space, hitting the end of her cane on the floor. “Ima burn them damn magazines, Esra! Ima burn ‘em! That’s all they’re good for anymore.” Then she mumbled, shaking her head as she moved past Esra toward us on the other side of the room. “Thinks he’s a’gonna buy a tractor to dig’im a hole for a pond,” she said, looking right at us as if Esra wasn’t in the room. “Well there ain’t no tractor stores, an’ iffin there was, how in the world he think he gonna gas it up is a mystery to me; it sure is, I tell you wut. Honey, please put that gun down. Do we really look like yens would need to waste a bullet?”
“How many of you are there?” My own voice surprised me; it seemed like a long time since I’d used it.
And despite June’s request, I didn’t put the gun away.
THAIS
I wished that he would put it away; at least lower it; keep it in his hand as a precaution, but not continue pointing it at the poor old woman. I should have been used to that by then—Atticus threatening people—but I knew I’d never be.
“Just me and Esra and our grandson, Jeffrey,” the old woman finally answered.
She pointed at the wall with her thumb as if to indicate where ‘Jeffrey’ was.
“But he ain’t right in the head. Knows to watch fer dangerous people—I tell yens, that boy can spot the wicked from a mile away—but he ain’t too bright otherwise. Sweet boy he is—well, not so much a boy anymore; but in spirit he’ll always be my sweet Jeffrey. Wut’s yer names? Been knowing about yens at the Graham’s since ya took residence, but we ain’t really much the visitin’ type. Got too much to do ‘round here.”
“Ya talk too much, June,” Esra grumbled from behind; his voice sounded like stout whiskey.
He bent over, set his shotgun against the wall barrel up, and then rose back up into a creaky stand.
“You’ve known we were in the cabin since last month?” Atticus asked, leery.
I reached out and put my hand atop his gun hand, pleading with him to lower it.
ATTICUS
I thought I should’ve been used to her doing that by then, but I knew I’d never be. I wanted to pull her off to the side and shake her and say to her: “Do you not remember the people at the farm, Thais? Do you not recall the thieves who tried to make off with our shit while we slept in the woods, Thais? Or—goddammit Thais!—do you not remember a man not so long ago named Mark Porter who you thought was harmless?” But I said none of these things—the hard look I gave her probably said everything actual words didn’t have to.
Despite the look, Thais kept her hand on mine, and refused to move it until I lowered the gun.
Gritting my teeth, I finally lowered it.
“Jeffrey was out runnin’ in the woods,” June croaked, “when yens found the Graham’s place. Sometimes he runs off and we just cain’t catch’im. He likes to go to the Graham’s pond and swim—it’s why Esra wants a tractor to dig a hole here, so Jeffrey’ll quit runnin’ off. We always get real worried he ain’t gonna come back. Too many wicked people runnin’ around nowadays. Some’d likely just kill’im fer his shoes—or just ‘cuz they can. Jeffrey’s fast, but he cain’t outrun no bullet.”
Esra stood dragging a pocketknife blade underneath the bed of his fingernails; he seemed little interested in joining the conversation.
Thais stepped up a foot, but remained in arm’s reach of me.
“I’m Thais,” she said, reaching out a hand to June, “and this is Atticus. We thought nobody actually owned this place…well, we realized that maybe someone did—we were going to leave without taking anything.”
“Nice to meet yens,” June said. She patted the top of Thais’ hand in a grandmotherly fashion. “Esra, come an’ say hello; maybe this strong, young man could help ya dig yer pond hole.”
A pang of dread kicked me in the back of the head—the last thing I wanted to do was dig a hole of that magnitude. In the scorching heat of summer.
“Why didn’t you all just move into the cabin by the pond?” Thais asked.
Esra made his way over, the pocketknife already hidden away in the front pocket of his encompassing overalls.
“We got too much stuff here,” June answered. “As ya can see”—she looked about the room—“it’d take a long time and a lot of muscle to move all this stuff that far. ‘Sides, the pond is the only thing better than our place. We don’ live down ‘ere on tha ground.” She looked upward toward the roof. “We’re up high enough we see everythin’ goes on ‘round here for a good ways.”
Esra stopped next to June and reached for Thais’ free hand.
I was beside her, ready, just in case.
She shook his hand without hesitation—I hated that she was so trusting.
“I mean no disrespect,” Thais said, “but…how have you stayed alive out here?” She gazed around at the goldmine of a space. “And managed to keep all of this stuff?”
Esra tapped the side of his head with the tip of his finger. “Gotta know what yer doin’,” he said. “Not just after the shit hit the fan, but long before.” He glanced at June, and although he didn’t actually smirk, it was obvious his thoughts could’ve easily accompanied one. “I was preparin’ for this for twenty-two years before people stared gettin’ sick. Everybody told me I was a crazy sumbitch, wastin’ my money and my time. ‘Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen,’ they’d say. ‘Ima burn down yer shed, Esra!’ this old woman threatened me—she’s always threatenin’ to burn my stuff—anyways, she’s been eatin’ her words ever since.”
June shook her stringy, white head, a disgruntled look on her face.
“To answer your question, honey,” June said to Thais, “when the wicked ones come along here to rob us, we blow their heads off and send ‘em into their graves.”
That one-foot step forward Thais had taken earlier, she retracted. She pressed her arm against my side, and my free hand slipped down to hook her waist.
Esra jerked his head back and said, “Come on, and we’ll show yens,” and he went toward the door without waiting to see if we’d follow.