3
THAIS
The closer I got to the town, the stronger the stench of smoke; I could taste it in the back of my throat. When the path widened and the leaves became more numerous under my feet, I glimpsed something charred and black out ahead. I stopped, listened for any signs of movement; my heart beat furiously, pushing blood hotly through my veins. I was afraid: afraid to go any farther, afraid to let my sister down, but mostly I was afraid of what I would find.
I waited, and waited, just to be sure, and then pushed myself forward until the trees thinned out and more charred houses came into view. Including my own.
Everything had been burned. People lay dead everywhere, maimed by bullet wounds. I choked on tears as I crept past my house and went into the street. I had to see them, the bodies that lay haphazardly, strewn about like ragdolls with grotesque open mouths and lifeless open eyes and blood-soaked hair. An old man lay face-down next to a rusted truck across the street. I went over, crouched beside him, and placed my hand on his arm. A shiver went up my spine when I touched him, skin on skin, life on death; I held a breath deep in my lungs as I turned him over. My neighbor, Mr. Hatley, stared up at me with dead glass-like eyes. I gasped, jerked my hand away; his body fell back against the dirt.
I stood up and went to the next body. And then the next. And after six bodies, I came to only one conclusion: they were all elderly people, those who would be considered by the raiders to have nothing left to offer.
My father was not that old; he was in his late thirties, but not old. He could still be alive, I thought, and hope pushed me forward, lent movement to my paralyzed legs. But that hopeful moment ended all too soon when I thought about what might become of him if he had not been murdered—death might be a kinder sentence. Oh, Daddy…my heart felt too heavy to carry suddenly.
Choking back more tears, I braced myself to witness what had once been my home. I didn’t want to go in there. I didn’t want to see it, to face the truths I knew it would tell me. It had been why I passed my house up and wanted to place names with the bodies in the street first. Out of trepidation, I needed to save my own house for last.
On rubbery legs, I went toward the blackened rubble; thin slivers of smoke spiraled upward from the caved-in roof. The front porch was the only thing not entirely touched by fire. Where the front door had been there was nothing left but the frame, a steaming dark thing that in some sick way beckoned me like a witch in the woods with an apple. I wanted to go inside, needed to go inside, but I was afraid. I knew there was nothing in there for me but heartbreak; a sinking feeling sat sour, heavy, in the pit of my stomach. But still, hope somehow pushed me forward.
I stepped onto the porch and walked through the open doorway on trembling legs. I paused. My stomach ached not with hunger anymore, but with sadness. I entered the house, lit by the early morning slate light beaming from above where the roof used to be. Now the roof lay like a black smoking blanket across every stitch of furniture, every knickknack my sister and I had collected over the years, every book stored and cherished and our only source of knowledge of the Old World. There was nothing left.
I wanted to break down; I could feel myself unraveling, like a thread that held a garment together being pulled into its inevitable destruction. But I sucked the tears back, swallowed my grief and pressed on.
I tiptoed through the living room, stepped over debris that still smoked and felt warm when I got too close. A crackle-crackle-crash sounded behind me when more of the roof fell from above and hit the floor in front of the doorway. I jumped at the sound, losing my breath in one sharp gasp. I couldn’t stay inside the house much longer or it would all come crashing down on top of me next.
My eyes darted all around; I hoped to find something, anything I could take back to the cave. I thought about going down the hallway to the bedrooms, but the hall was also blocked by portions of the roof. I went into the kitchen instead. The cabinets were black from top to bottom, but they were still intact. Stepping over debris, I reached for a cabinet knob, jerking back my hand a split second after touching it in case it might still be hot. Carefully pulling back the cooled cabinet door, I saw that it was empty inside. All of them were empty, and I knew that every other house would be the same.
There was only one thing left to do: check the pockets of the dead.
I turned on the soot-covered floor, my sandals and feet covered in powdery black dust, and I stepped over more debris, intent on leaving. But instinct stopped me, and I turned to look behind me instead.
My heart sank into the soles of my feet; my lips quivered; my hands shook. I stood frozen, a pang of horror and heartbreak crashing through my insides like a violent wave. My hand flew up and covered my mouth; the tears I had tried to hold back sprang from my eyes, tearing through the dirt and soot that clung to my cheeks.
“Oh no, Daddy, no…no!”
I dashed across the room toward the window where Sosie always sat. An old black boot on the end of a pair of burnt blue jeans lay against the floor, unmoving, sticking out from underneath a pile of burnt debris.
“No, no, no, no!”
In a frantic rush, I pulled the rubble off my father, piece by piece, chucking it here and there with crazed abandon; pieces of roof and board and broken furniture crashed inside an already destroyed house, making noise for anyone who could still be nearby to hear, but I didn’t care.
My father was unrecognizable. His unkempt hair was gone, his face with bright blue eyes just like mine, disfigured by the flames so terribly that I thought him a monster and I couldn’t help but look away. I stumbled backward, tripping over something that sent me crashing onto the floor. I fell on my bottom and my hands; a broken board jabbed me in the small of the back.
I took a long time to get up, to notice the splinter that had stung and throbbed in the tip of my index finger. My face scrunched up in a painful wince as I took the sliver between two fingernails and pulled. A trickle of blood surfaced behind it, cutting a path through the blackness on my hand. I wiped both hands on my blouse and took a deep breath. “I have to get back to Sosie.” I tried to get my head together, looking for an excuse to be anywhere but here.
I raised my chin and straightened my shoulders, pretending to be strong, pretending to be someone I knew I wasn’t. I looked down at my father again, took another deep breath, and then crouched beside his body with all the courage I could muster. I worked my hands into his pockets and felt the cool metal of the pocketknife he’d always carried brush against my fingertips. I searched inside his other pocket but it was empty, then around him for his shotgun, but it was nowhere to be found.
Pushing aside my fear, and the shock of seeing my father in such a horrific state, I thought of the last time I saw him alive. I thought of the last time I saw him smile, and when he hugged me. Tears blurred my vision as I touched my fingers to my lips and then to his burnt face. “I love you, Daddy”—I was trembling—“I’ll take care of Sosie. I promise I’ll take care of her. Tell Momma that I’m keeping my promise…”
I ran out of the house and back into the street where I checked the pockets of each body—anything to help distract me from my father.
Mr. Hatley had six thick matches wrapped in an old handkerchief hidden in his shirt pocket. I also found on him another pocketknife, and a wallet filled with American money that no longer held value. Sifting through the wallet compartments, I found photos of his sons and his wife who had died when The Sickness hit. I left Mr. Hatley with his wallet and his smiling family and I went to search the other bodies. I barely found anything more, just a lot of pocketknives and photos.
I continued to search everywhere for anything I could take back with me. I found a roll of fishing string beside Mr. Hatley’s house; a stainless-steel water bottle without a top, at the next. I plucked it from the dirt and hastily wiped down the sides. In another yard, I found a backpack. By the time I set out for the trail again, the backpack carried not only the fishing string and pocketknives and stainless-steel water bottle, but also a can of pinto beans, a small iron pan that weighed the backpack down, and an old soda can that had been faded by the sun. It wasn’t much, but more than I had when I set out. The only other thing of use I left with were two pairs of work boots that laced up the front, also taken off the dead. I wore one pair on the way back, the other pair hung over my shoulder, tied together by the long, black strings. They smelled rancid but were better protection for Sosie’s feet than the open-toed sandals she wore now.
As I hurried up the path back toward the cave, my eyes burning thinking of my father, I saw Sosie’s walking-stick still where I’d tossed it. I grabbed it and took it back to my very appreciative sister.