The Forest of Hands and Teeth

Tears blur my eyes as I focus on Travis below. His fingers open and close. Finally, he lowers his arms until they hang limply at his sides, his effort expended.



With a whoosh I allow myself to drop and I crawl to him. He's leaning against the trunk of the tree just inside the gate. His body shakes. His breaths come ragged and sharp. But he is still alive.



“Travis!” I yell as I pull him close to me. I rock him like a small child. “You'll be okay,” I tell him. “You're okay.” My chin rests on his hair, his head tucked against my chest.



I can feel his blood seep into my own flesh.



“Why did you do this, Travis?” I ask. “Why?” My voice cracks and I can feel his lips moving but cannot hear any words.



His eyes roll back into his head.



I shake him now, almost violently. “You can't!” I shout in his face. “I won't let you!”



A smile twitches at the corner of his lips where a trickle of blood begins to trail down to his chin.



“We'll fix this,” I tell him. “Maybe there's another village. Maybe there's a healer. Are you sure you were bitten? Are you sure they're not scratches like mine?”



His small chuckle stops time, pulls us into our own world back before this village and the breach. Before his broken leg.



Back when we were children. Before we knew of the world.



“It wouldn't have mattered if they were scratches or not,” he says, his voice like liquid. “I was bitten during the escape from the house.”



My limbs go weak, everything inside me folding in and collapsing on itself.



“I was already dead,” he says, opening his eyes.



I can only mouth the word Why. I cannot find my voice, cannot force sound from my shuddering body. I swallow. I rub my hand over his forehead, his skin slick with sweat and blood. I bring my head down to touch his. My mouth hovers over his and all I can think about is the days we spent together in the Cathedral when I would tell him stories about the ocean.



“Let me pray for you,” I whisper. My nose runs; my eyes are swollen with tears.



“You were never very good at praying,” he says with a small laugh. “That was never what drove you. It was always the stories.”



I shake my head, squeezing my eyes shut. “It was you,” I say.



He laughs softly again, more like an exhale than laughter. “I wish it could have been,” he says.



I pull him tighter into my lap, wanting to squeeze the infection from his body, to clean his blood with my love. “I'm sorry,” I whisper. “I'm so, so sorry.” The sobs roll over me now so that I can barely hear him tell me that he knows.



All I can think about is how I have wasted my last day with Travis being angry at him. That I should have spent this day memorizing his face. Counting the freckles on his shoulders.



I realize that I will never again see him when he smiles at me with the sun in his face, making him squint and bringing out the little wrinkles beside his eyes. I will never watch him walk, the rolling gait of his limp.



I will never feel the press of his palm against my cheek.



Suddenly, all I can think about are all the things I don't know about him. All the things I never had time to learn. I don't know if his feet are ticklish or how long his toes are. I don't know what nightmares he had as a child. I don't know which stars are his favorites, what shapes he sees in the clouds. I don't know what he is truly afraid of or what memories he holds closest.



And I don't have enough time now, never enough time. I want to be in the moment with him, feel his body against mine and think of nothing else, but my mind explodes with grief for all that I am missing. All that I will miss. All that I have wasted.



That we will not spend our lives together. That I do not have enough time to memorize him and even now I am forgetting him.



That I am not ready for this, not ready for his death.



“Tell me about the ocean, Mary,” he says. “Tell me about how it's the last place untouched by all of this.”



I shake my head. “The ocean is nothing,” I say. “It's just like the rest of the world.”



He takes my chin in his hands, his grip surprisingly strong. “Promise me you'll go to the ocean,” he says.



I shake my head. “But you said—”



“Forget what I said. Promise me you will taste the salt for me.”



I want to pull back time, to grab it and stop it from unraveling. I want to gather it to me and hold it close and keep this moment from slipping away. But I can't. And Travis's hand falls from my face.



“No,” I say, clutching at him, trying to keep him with me. “I choose you. I choose you over the ocean.”



“Promise me, Mary,” he says again. This time his voice is weak, his breath rattling.



“I love you,” I tell him. But he does not answer. Because he is dead.



Then I'm being pulled away from him.



“No,” I protest but the arms dragging me back are too strong. It's Harry and he drops me onto the other side of the path. I scramble back up.



“You must leave him,” Harry says, pushing me back down.



“Get out of my way!” I shout back, digging my fingers into the dirt as I claw my way back to Travis.



Harry grabs my shoulders. “Don't you understand? Travis is infected. He's about to turn!”



Jed is standing behind me with a scythe. He's waiting, ready for Travis to turn. Ready to end it. I reach for the gleaming blade. He must think I'm trying to stop him, trying to keep him from Travis, because he struggles against me.



“Mary!” Harry tries to pull me back from Jed but I shove him with such force that he stumbles down the path, crashing into Cass and tumbling to the ground.



“Give it to me,” I tell Jed.



“He has to be put dow—”



“Give it to me!”



“Mary, you should not be the one to—”



I lunge for the scythe, screaming, and this time I'm able to grasp its handle. I'm the one who loves him. I'm the one responsible for his infection. I'm the one he was trying to save, the one he sacrificed himself for.



“Mary, let me—”



“Release it.” My voice is a growl.



His hand slips from the handle and in one motion I swing the scythe away from him and toward Travis.



I want nothing more than to close my eyes, to pretend that none of this is real. Everything just a nightmare. But as I swing the blade toward Travis, I see his eyes open.



Those impossibly green eyes.



He used to hunger for me with those eyes but never in such a vicious way as now.



I bury the scythe in his neck, shuddering as I feel it slice through his spinal cord. His eyes lose focus as if he sees through me. His body falls limp, every muscle releasing at once.



He is gone. Forever.



Blood slips down his chest and I am sobbing on the ground.



Jed takes the scythe and picks me up. I'm too weak to resist. I want to reach out and grab Travis's hand, to feel him one last time, to let his fingers lace through mine. But he is too far away.



Already I forget what he smells like, the smoke of the fire searing away everything.



Jed carries me from his body.



“No!” I yell. I scream. I beat against Jed. I can't even draw in enough air to sob. My memories of Travis are jumbling, rolling together, twisting, corroding.



“You did what needed to be done,” he says. As if those words could be any comfort.



“I loved him,” I whimper. “He was everything. Why couldn't I see that he was everything?” Regret eats away at me, stripping through my veins as if to replace my blood.



“I know,” Jed says. I'm thrown over his shoulder and I can feel how his body shakes and I know that he is crying. For me, for Beth. And I wonder if there was ever a crueler world than this one that forces us to kill the people we love most.



Chapter 33



As the days pass we do nothing but walk, trying to put distance between us and the fire devouring its way toward us. We each deal with the loss of Travis in our own way.



Cass turns to Jacob and her love becomes fierce. It's as though he's her own child. As if this child has never belonged to another woman and she is the first. She clings to him. He's the only one who has pierced through her veil of silence.



Harry has taken for Cass. He is the one who ensures that she eats what meager rations we have, saved from the fire and dwindling with every step. He is the one who carries Jacob when Cass's arms become weak. When she stumbles under the weight of it all.



I drift down the path alone. A wanderer. Not noticing anything. Stumbling over the smallest roots, veering toward the fences and the Unconsecrated. I stare into nothing. Wondering how it can be that I have lost everything in my life but this journey. This hope that there is an end.



That this path will lead us there.



It's Jed who pulls me back to center. Who takes my hand in his when I drift toward the fences and who gently leads me onward. It's he who acknowledges the sorrow on my face. Who understands why the tears silently flow even now, three days after leaving Travis.



We have both lost our loves to the Unconsecrated. Both been forced to kill.



The fire still burns behind us, pushing us forward. Ash covers everything, turning the world around us gray and desolate. The air is thick, hard to breathe, which causes our steps to become slower and slower.



None of us speaks of Travis, or of the fire, or of our dwindling supplies pilfered from the platform along with weapons before it was consumed. None of us wonders aloud about how the fire is impacting the fences, if the metal is melting or becoming weak. If Unconsecrated are pouring slowly down the path behind us, slipping through breaches where the fences are falling to the heat.



We all release sighs of relief with each gate we come across and close behind us. But then the fire catches up when we sleep and we're forced to press on. Hot, tired, drained, hungry, thirsty.



One foot and then the next. Trying to keep our eyes on each other in the smoke. Trying not to smell how the air is tinged with burned, desiccated flesh. Only surviving. Existing. Not wanting to be the first in our group to give up.



Sometimes, when my feet refuse to move and my legs tremble with fatigue, I will wipe the sweat from my neck with a finger and write Travis's name in the ash coating my arms. I know that I can't let him down by stopping. He's dead because of me and I can't dishonor his sacrifice by refusing to move forward.



One night, when the dreams of Travis threaten to drown me with tears and rage, I walk away from the group craving air and solitude. The night glows orange on the horizon and my body shudders, knowing that the fire creeps steadily toward us and that tomorrow will be another long chase.



I hear sniffles in the dark and I look around until I see a small form huddled in a ball staring at the flames in the distance. It's Jacob. I go to him, sit down next to him and pull him, resisting, into my lap. Argos, who hasn't left Jacob's side since the fire, nudges his cold nose against my hand.



“I didn't mean to,” he tells me, again. Since we escaped he has done nothing but apologize for starting the fire on the platforms and I shush him, my lips against his hair. “I'm sorry,” he says through a sob and I hold him tighter. Regret washes over us both and I hate the thought of him carrying this guilt throughout his life.



“Can I tell you a secret?” I whisper.



His sobs quiet to sniffles and I feel his head nod.



“My mother used to tell me stories about the ocean, and about buildings taller than trees that touched the sky and how men used to walk on the moon.”



He giggles. “You're making up stories, Aunt Mary,” he says. But I can tell that he wants to believe me.



I lean in toward him and whisper, “It's true, and I have proof.”



I take the small book with the photograph of New York City from my blouse and hand the picture to him. He holds it close to his face, squinting. There's just enough light in the air from the fire to show the outlines of the buildings. I hear his breath catch and hold. “What is it?” he asks. He runs his fingers over it tracing the letters.



“It's a picture of a place that existed before the Return. That may still exist.”



“How do you know it's still there?”



I shrug. “Faith. Hope,” I tell him. “And that's why I am giving it to you. So that you have stories to keep you going. Something to believe in other than this path.” I smooth his hair off his forehead the way my mother used to do for me.



After a while I stand, tugging him to his feet, and lead him back to where the others sleep. For the first time I slip easily into my dreams and they don't cause me pain.



The next morning we continue to trudge down the path and I notice that Jacob holds his head a little higher, his shoulders a little straighter, and I smile for it.



But the days continue to be long and hard and unending. The meager supplies Harry and Jed rescued from the platforms are dwindling to nothing. And then finally, when I think I can go no farther, the first drop of rain slips across my forehead. Thunder echoes around us and lightning flashes. Thick drops of water begin to fall like pebbles, almost painful as they strike.



As we continue to trudge down the path I'm sure we all think the same thing: will this be the rain that quenches the fire? That allows us to slow our pace? That will allow us some rest, relief, reprieve?



I turn my face to the sky as the drops increase. I let the water slide down my face and mix with my tears and wash away my anger. Wash away the ash on my body, blurring where Travis's name was written on my arm until it's gone. I spread my arms wide, letting the water deluge me.



Cass and Harry scurry down the path, Jacob cradled between them, looking for shelter. Looking for a branch, a bush, anything to slow the sting of the punishing rain.