45
THAIS
Esra and June made their way slooowly down the steps; Esra turned to his wife and reached out his arm to help her.
“You call me slow as molasses,” he muttered as June gripped his arm with her feeble fingers for support, “but yer so old ya can barely make it down the steps by yerself.”
I suppressed a smile.
“Better watch yer mouth,” June grumbled; she went down the last step, gripped her husband’s arm. “I might just feel like one day I’m gettin’ dementia and ferget how’ta cook yer supper.”
Esra grunted.
Atticus and I exchanged a quick look—my face read: I kinda like them. Atticus’ face read: I’m slightly confused, and being confused makes me uncomfortable.
They led us to the edge of the bluff where Esra stepped aside, held out a hand and gestured.
“Have a look,” he said.
We stepped closer to the edge, out of the couple’s reach, and looked over the fifty-foot drop. A small mound of bodies lay at the base of the bluff, mostly skeletal remains, still dressed in the clothes they’d died in; a few at the top of the pile may have been dead only a couple of weeks.
The smell, carried on the breeze, rose into my face and I felt sick to my stomach suddenly. I choked and covered my nose and mouth with my hand.
“We poured cat litter and bakin’ soda down there when we had it,” June said. “Y’know, to help cover the smell, but nothin’ much can really help that stench.”
“You killed all those people?” Atticus asked; his eyebrows crumpled in his sweating forehead.
Esra nodded matter-of-factly. “Sure did,” he answered. “It was their own faults. They weren’t like yens”—he glanced toward the supply cabin—“went in there and damn near ransacked the place, tried to carry everthin’ they could off wit’em. Took June a week once to clean up the mess.” He pointed upward. “We shoot ‘em from the trees. I’m a damn good shot; can pick a fly off a horse’s ass from a good ways.”
“There was one time,” June said, “some people caught me down here in the cabin as I was fixin’ stuff on the shelves. I thought they was gonna kill me—and they were goin’ to! But Jeffrey came a’runnin’ in there, swingin’ his shovel. Beat two of ‘em over the heads. Esra came in with Miss Mary just in time and blew the other two into hell.”
“Who’s Miss Mary?” I asked.
“The shotgun,” Atticus answered.
June smiled; a set of yellowed dentures glared back at us.
“You got a name fer yours?” Esra glanced at Atticus’ gun, still clutched in his hand where it had been the whole time.
Atticus shook his head.
“So then why didn’t you shoot us?” Thais asked.
“Well,” June said, “we ain’t in the habit of killin’ good people.”
“And just how do you know we’re good people?” Atticus challenged.
June and Esra looked at one another.
“You ain’t shot neither one of us yet, have yens?” June pointed out.
Atticus and I were armed—neither June nor Esra were, save the pocketknife sticking from the chest pocket of Esra’s overalls. And he willingly left Miss Mary inside the supply cabin.
“So, you just risked your lives to see if we’d shoot you first?” Atticus said, probably finding the explanation illogical.
“Well no,” Esra answered; he reached behind him and scratched his bald head. “Jeffrey is the reason you ain’t down there, dead in a pile o’bones.”
June and Esra escorted us away from the supply cabin. “He’s up in the house,” June explained as we slipped into the woods. “Probably gettin’ ‘imself ready.”
“Ready for what?” I asked.
“To meet you, o’course.”
Atticus and I exchanged a look.
“Why does he care to meet us?” I said.
“Oh, he’s not too much lookin’ forward to meetin’ him,” Esra said about Atticus. “But he’s takin’ quite a likin’ to you.”
I was uncomfortable suddenly. So was Atticus, I could tell right away judging that uneasy look on his face.
“But don’t you worry,” June said, and we stopped near the base of an enormous tree. “My sweet Jeffrey is a gentleman. Ain’t seen too many pretty girls in his lifetime”—she beamed at me—“he thinks yer an angel sent from God.”
I raised a brow.
“Jeffrey! We’re a’comin’ up!” Esra shouted with his hands around his mouth. He looked up in the tree where a treehouse was perched amid the massive, crawling limbs.
It was an impressive sight, made of perfectly-cut logs and a set of skilled hands; a giant porch wrapped around the structure. Like the supply cabin, a portion of the treehouse was blanketed by vines, the summer months helping camouflage it with fully-matured branches with dense, green leaves. The treehouse must have been built before The Fall; it was far too detailed and professional, made with the best materials that could never have been found after The Fall.
There was movement on the porch; a shadow slipped over the cracks in the surface of the porch’s underside, and I heard the padding of shoes going over the planks, and then shortly thereafter what sounded like the cranking and screeching of something that needed to be oiled; the buckling and cracking of wood being separated from an enclosure. A portion of the porch floor opened up a square, breaking apart from the rest of it as an elevator slowly lowered by a thick, strong cable wire.
“Wow,” I said, nearly breaking my craning neck as I looked up, bumping into Atticus behind me. “Did you build this?”
“Years ago,” Esra answered, “before Jeffrey’s daddy died—he was our oldest son.”
“Samuel was just like my Esra,” June said. “Always preparin’ for the end of the world. Was a good carpenter and architect, my Samuel. Died o’prostate cancer couple years before The Sickness.” She shook her head. “I sure do miss ‘im.”
“He also helped build the house we lived in just over the way”—Esra pointed to his left; the roof of a burnt-out structure peeked through the trees—“but them wicked people came through here and burnt it down ‘bout five years ago. Told us we better come down from the treehouse or else they was gonna destroy our house.”
“They was threatenin’ to burn us out o’the treehouse,” June added, “but really they wanted the treehouse for themselves. Was goin’ to move right on in and send us over the bluffs.”
“I was down to two shotgun shells by that time,” Esra said. “There was four of ‘em down there, and they was keepin’ to the trees—I had already shot one of ‘em dead. My last two bullets had to count, and even if they both did, there’d still be two more to deal with. Didn’t know how I was gonna pull that off.”
“We thought for sure we was gonna die that day,” June put in. “Even if they didn’t kill us, we was worried they’d go runnin’ and tellin’ their friends about our place here.” June looked back at us. “We cain’t never let any of ‘em live for that reason. It’s just us three livin’ here, and we can only take on so many from the treehouse.”
“So, what happened to the four people?” I asked.
The elevator made a snapping noise as it continued to descend, but only Atticus and I looked up in startled surprise; judging Esra’s and June’s disinterest, the noise was a common occurrence.
“I took the shots when I could,” Esra answered. “Jeffrey took care of the other two. He had climbed down the tree from ‘round the back where they couldn’t see ’im. Beat ‘em over they heads with his shovel.”
The elevator stopped, barely touching the ground. A door had been attached to the front, the frame made of wood, and the cover made of chain-link fence with two wooden slats across the center.
ATTICUS
My thoughts were stuck on the ammunition count. If they had only two shotgun shells left, did that mean Miss Mary was empty? And if so, if that happened five years ago, how in the hell were they still alive now?
“Tell me again,” I spoke up with suspicion, “how you’ve survived this long out here. No one can live long without some kind of weapon. And seeing as how I don’t take you for the hand-to-hand-combat-type, guns must be your only means of survival.”
Thais elbowed me lightly in the ribs, her way of telling me not to be rude.
“Guns is our means o’survival,” Esra said in his old whiskey voice. “And I got enough ammunition to last me ‘nother year or so.”
“I thought you said you were down to two bullets?” I pointed out. “Even if you took the guns and ammo off the people you buried at the base of the bluffs, there weren’t enough of them from what I saw to have been carrying much. Ten, fifteen bodies—I doubt each of them were carrying an arsenal. No one has an arsenal anymore.”
Unless you’re in Lexington City.
June flipped the lock on the elevator door and pulled it open. She braced her hand to steady her awkward balance and then stepped inside; the elevator swayed with her movement.
“You’s a sharp one,” Esra said, and stepped into the elevator with June. “Well, we did take a lot of stuff off the dead ones,” he admitted. “As for the rest of my stockpile, that was also Jeffrey’s doin’.”
He closed the elevator door and locked it; the chain links rattled in the frame.
“It ain’t strong ‘nough to carry up more than two at a time. Wait there and we’ll send it back down for yens.”
“I don’t like this,” I whispered as June and Esra were lifted into the air. “I say we leave now.”
“No, Atticus”—Thais’ hand touched my hand eagerly—“they’re good people; I just know it.”
“Like you knew with the farm family?” I didn’t mean to sound so accusing…then again, maybe it was what Thais needed.
She made a face, and sighed.
“Look, I know I tend to have higher hopes than I should about things sometimes, and I know I was wrong about them, and Mark Porter, but I’m not wrong this time. The truth is, I didn’t exactly feel safe with David and Emily—I was just letting hope dictate my instincts. The same with Mark Porter—I didn’t trust him for a second; I was scared to death of him, Atticus.” She lowered her eyes momentarily. “I was…well I was just afraid you were going to kill him. So, I let my hope dictate my instincts again.”
Her words stung me—if she knew in her heart that Mark Porter was bad, why was she still afraid I would kill him?
“I thought you”—I stopped, gathered my composure—“Thais, you told me I did the right thing.” I knew it had to be done—killing Mark Porter—but it still turned my chest to ice to hear her admit mercy for a man like that.
Thais cupped my cheeks in her hands; her eyes softened. “And you did,” she said with a smile. “You did. Atticus…I just haven’t gotten used to killing people—I don’t think I ever will.”
I shook my head.
“I fear that the day I get used to the killing…well, it’ll be the day I lose myself. The day I become like Mark Porter and the people in Lexington City.”
I felt a stabbing in my heart, but I somehow kept a straight face. For a moment, as the elevator creaked its way up the tree above us, I just looked at Thais. Did she have any idea what she just admitted? Did she realize on any level how much her words hurt? I didn’t think so—if she had, I knew she never would’ve said it. I was used to death and killing. Did that make me like the people she’d described? Maybe it did, I thought, and I couldn’t blame her. Maybe it did…
“My instincts are fully in control this time.” Thais pushed up on her toes and kissed the side of my neck because she couldn’t exactly reach my mouth. “They’re not going to hurt us. This time I know it in my heart. Can you trust me? If you never trust me again, trust me now—they are good people.”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek.
“Okay…we’ll go up and talk with them some more. Maybe they’ll barter with us for some things. Besides, I’m curious about this Jeffrey.”
Thais lit up.
“Thank you,” she said. “Now please put that away.”
Finally, I put the gun away.
Esra and June had known about us living in the cabin and they never tried to hurt us; they hadn’t turned us in like the people at the farm; Esra could’ve shot us at the supply cabin; he could’ve been shooting at us right then from the treehouse, but the empty elevator was being lowered for us instead.
Maybe Thais was right this time.
THAIS
I held my breath the whole way up as the elevator swayed and made awful noises. I thought about the cable pulling our weight. Was it strong enough? How old was it? I thought about the wooden box with a chain-link door that was the only thing separating us from the ground. Was it strong enough? How old was it? Was Atticus too big? Maybe we should’ve taken the elevator separately. Yes, he is quite tall and muscular; surely he weighs more than June and Esra combined despite losing weight.
As the elevator climbed closer to the top, I saw the supply cabin, and the dirt path and the edge of the bluffs; another series of paths snaked through the woods in different directions. And as we ascended higher, I glimpsed the roof of our own cabin, and had a clear view of the pond just beyond it.
June and Esra had known all along we’d been there; they’d been watching us since day one; they’d left us alone. And because of that, I felt at ease. And I think maybe Atticus did, too, even if only just a little bit.
I couldn’t get the elevator door open fast enough, and the moment I stepped out, a colorful bouquet of wildflowers filled my view. A man with a smile so broad it showed a set of crooked teeth, stood in front of me with the flowers in his hands.
“Hi,” the man said, and stepped forward, held the flowers out to me.
I beamed and took them, brought them to my nose and smelled them. “They’re lovely,” I said. “Thank you so very much.”
“My name is Jeffrey John Langston,” he said with a bright and cheery personality; he was more like a child than a full-grown man. “But you don’t have to say the whole thing; I’m just called Jeffrey.” His head had been shaved; there were scars and fresh nicks where he must’ve cut himself.
“It’s nice to meet you, Jeffrey. My name is Thais.”
Jeffrey’s eyes gleamed with wonder. “Very pretty,” he said. “Thay-us.”
I smiled, and then motioned at Atticus standing behind me. “This is Atticus”—I turned—“Atticus, meet Jeffrey.”
ATTICUS
I reached out my hand, but Jeffrey wouldn’t take it—his eyes hardened instead; he shook his head and his mouth crumpled like a petulant child’s.
Jeffrey was tall and skinny, but his arms were fit with small muscles, probably from climbing the treehouse so often. He may not have been the brightest, but I thought he was probably strong enough physically to give me a problem if he wanted.
“Go on, Jeffrey,” Thais encouraged, “it’s all right; Atticus is one of good guys. He won’t hurt you.”
Jeffrey’s big eyes went back and forth between us.
He’s not afraid of me, Thais; he’s jealous of me.
“Oh, Jeffrey,” June croaked from behind, “don’t be so rude, boy; shake the man’s hand.”
“No, it’s okay,” I insisted. “No need to force him.”
Finally, Jeffrey lumbered over to me and wrapped both arms around my back, squeezing me. “My name is Jeffrey.”
“Good to meet you,” I said; I glanced awkwardly at Thais, and her smile grew. “I’m Atticus.”
“Nice meet you, At-ti-cuss.”
Then just as unexpectedly, Jeffrey took Thais’ hand, ignoring everyone else, and practically dragged her inside with him, to which she happily followed.
“I show you my house,” he told her with a childlike delight.
It was the first time I trusted Thais to be alone with anyone other than myself.