We weaved through the bamboo until we came to one of those blissful, enigmatic blank patches, then we walked side by side, holding hands.
“A mockingbird,” Phoebe said, lifting her head to look for it.
“You know the sounds different birds make?”
“Just mockingbirds, because they’re easy. They learn songs from other birds and sing them one after another. Listen.”
We listened. Sure enough, it went through a whole repertoire of different songs. We followed the songs of the mockingbird to a little house on a dirt road and headed down the driveway, trying to spot it.
“It has white spots on its wings,” Phoebe said. She stopped short.
The mockingbird was perched on the branch of an elm tree, in the back yard. A man and a woman were hanging from a low branch of the tree, beside a picnic table. The woman twisted slowly in an imperceptible breeze, the rope creaking. It looked as if they’d been dead about a week.
The mockingbird went right on singing.
We turned around without a word and continued our walk. We were avoiding any talk of bad things, which was a challenge with corpses hanging from trees, especially if you haven’t eaten anything except wild herbs and bugs in two days, and nothing beyond that except the occasional bird or squirrel for the past few weeks.
The tiny strip of businesses that passed for Elberton’s downtown did not include a movie theater, nor a Dairy Queen. There was a hair salon called Shear Perfection, a restaurant called Kountry Kooking, and a few long-vacant storefronts.
“So, what position did you play on the softball team in high school?” I asked, putting my arm around Phoebe’s waist.
“Third base,” she said. She eased toward me, allowing her hip to press against mine.
“That makes a lot of sense, with your rocket arm. I miss sports. I hope professional baseball comes back.”
“I miss new things. Shrink-wrapped things that have that brand-new smell.”
What we both really missed was food. I wondered what this date with Phoebe might feel like if I wasn’t so hungry. I was certain that I would be floating, that I’d be butterflies-in-the-stomach in love. My stomach was too empty for butterflies to survive, but as it was, I still felt like the dials on all of my senses had been turned up. I felt like I belonged next to Phoebe with a certainty I’d never felt before.
“This is going pretty well, considering. Don’t you think?” I asked.
“No complaints. Best date I’ve had since you took me to the Time-saver. We should start heading back, though. It’ll be dark soon.”
We passed Kountry Kooking again. There was an illustration of a piece of partially shucked corn on one side of the sign, an ecstatically happy pig on the other.
A walking skeleton who could have been a man or a woman pushed out of the bamboo into the clearing and crossed in front of us. Two starving children with haunted eyes trailed behind him or her. As they disappeared back into the bamboo on the other side, the smaller kid glanced our way. It was easy to forget that there were still people here. Not many, but a few.
“I’m worried that we’re going to be too weak to walk all the way back to Savannah once we get to Athens,” I said to Phoebe. “It’s a long way.”
“I had the same thought. We won’t have many options, though. Either we try to make it to Savannah with Cortez, or we join Colin and Jeannie.”
“Do you consider Doctor Happy an option?” I was almost afraid to ask; I didn’t want to think about that possibility, unless there turned out to be no other options.
“Yes. But I’m scared. It scares me to think about it,” Phoebe said.
“Me, too. I don’t know what to make of Doctor Happy. Look what happened to Deirdre.” I swept a spider’s web out of the way with the back of my hand.
“Why do you think Deirdre did what she did?”
“I’ve thought a lot about that.” I gestured toward a house with a porch swing. “Want to sit a while?”
We sat on the swing, sitting closer than friends but not as close as lovers. Phoebe gave us a push with one foot; the swing squealed, but swung nicely. She looked at me, waiting.
“I think Deirdre decided she’d rather be dead than happy.”
Phoebe looked taken aback by the idea.
“You had to know Deirdre,” I said. “Happy Deirdre is about as easy to imagine as clean filth.”
Phoebe laughed.
“I swear, it’s true.”
“And you went out with this woman?” Phoebe asked.
I gave the swing a push. “I know I can’t explain that one.”
“I’m sure it had nothing to do with her breasts,” she teased. It had slipped my mind that Phoebe had met Deirdre that one brief time at the beach. “So you think she couldn’t stand being in her own happy skin?”
“Yeah, I do.” I considered for a moment. “There was something in her eyes when the infection first kicked in; something I couldn’t quite place. The more I think about it, the more I think it was terror.”
Phoebe wrapped her hands across her upper arms. “God, that gives me chills. Do you think that reaction was just because of who Deirdre was, or do you think everyone feels it when they get infected? I can’t help but wonder if there’s an underside to Doctor Happy—if it’s not all sunshine and lollipops.”
“I once asked Sebastian about being infected, and he said it gives you a glimpse of the infinite, and a glimpse is enough, because if you could see any more you’d probably go mad.”
Phoebe considered. “That does sound terrifying. But not the sort of terrifying that makes you jump off a building… more like you’re tightrope walking without a net. Terrifying, but exciting, too.”
“Maybe it was just Deirdre, then,” I suggested.
A bird landed on the porch railing. “Ooh. Mockingbird,” Phoebe said. We stayed still, letting the swing slow. The mockingbird opened its little beak and belted out a remarkable series of chirps and twills and tweets before turning and taking wing over the bamboo.
“The funny thing is, I actually don’t mind Doctor Happy people. I sort of like them,” I said.
“Me, too,” Phoebe said. “I’m just not sure I want to be one.” She gestured that we should get moving. We headed back toward camp.
“What if we lived near Athens?” I suggested as we pushed into the bamboo. “If that’s the new cradle of civilization, maybe we could be their semi-civilized neighbors. The Sparta to their Athens.”
“Ooh, keep using historical metaphors. That’ll win major points with me.”
“What do you think, though?” I was pretty sure I was blushing from her compliment.
“What would we eat? I’m guessing the area surrounding Athens is pretty much like this.”
I thought about it. “We could salvage things to trade with Athens, go on foraging trips into the outlying towns to find things they need.”
“Can’t they do that themselves?” she asked. She tilted her head to one side. “I guess it’s possible, though.”
We returned to the back yard of the house where we were staying and found the tribe in good spirits. Cortez had shot a squirrel with the assault rifle. We could smell it roasting over an open spit. There weren’t many squirrels around. I wasn’t sure if that was because of the bamboo, or climate change, or because hungry people were eating them all.
“I’m going to make soup,” Cortez said as we joined him. “Goes further that way.”
While we ate in the kitchen, I laid out my sketchy idea. The tribe picked up the thread and ran with it, and we hashed out a plan. By the time we’d sucked the marrow out of the squirrel’s bones, it was dark, and we could barely see one another.
When we topped a ridge and saw the mass of buildings that used to comprise the University of Georgia, it was like seeing the Emerald City. After tramping through wilderness and abandoned buildings for so long, civilization looked shiny and magical.
Much of the bamboo had been cleared, although there were copses here and there worked into the landscape as if it were an ornamental plant. The town was ringed by a high wall that looked to be constructed of red clay blocks. Guard towers stood at strategic points along the wall, and each housed a big steel thing that resembled a satellite dish. Inside the city, the old brick and concrete buildings were interspersed with new buildings made of the same red clay. The clay buildings were rounded, and snaked crazily through the campus.
We circled the wall until we found a gate. It was open; people were going in and out. They were all so absurdly clean. By pre-collapse standards they weren’t that clean, but by current standards they were like walking moons.
Attempting to look like we knew what we were doing, we went right up to the check point.
“We’d like to speak to whoever’s in charge of trade,” Cortez said.
“Trade?” the guard asked, shaking his head. He had the inevitable shiny eyes and easy grin of a Doctor Happy carrier.
“Yes,” Cortez said. “We have goods we’d like to trade.”
“Hold on,” the guard said. He ducked inside a little round booth that was also made out of red clay bricks and got on a walkie-talkie.
The guard came back out. “Someone will be with you in a moment.”
“Can it possibly be this easy?” Phoebe asked, her voice low.
“Looks like we’re about to find out,” Jeannie said.
“Get a load of this,” Cortez interrupted, gesturing beyond the gates.
I followed his gaze. Sebastian was running toward us with open arms, laughing like a lunatic, eyes wide. “You made it, you made it.” He roped an elbow around my neck and leaped, wrapping his legs around my waist so that I had to catch him or fall over.
“We made it,” I said as I held him.
Sebastian dismounted, suddenly got serious. “I don’t see Ange.”
I’d forgotten that Sebastian hadn’t been there when we lost Ange. So much of the past was a hungry blur. I shook my head. “Ange didn’t make it.”
“Ah, fuck,” he said. He teared up, looked up at the rafters for a moment. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
He cheered up almost immediately and rubbed both of my shoulders. “But I was sure you were all dead by now, so this is a net gain.”
It was a sobering idea, that Sebastian had simply assumed we were all dead. It was a reasonable assumption, I guess. How many people who’d been living in Savannah (or any other city, for that matter) were still alive? Less than a quarter, easily. It could be as little as one in ten. Was it just luck that we were among the survivors? Cortez certainly had a lot to do with it, but maybe I wasn’t giving the rest of us enough credit. I’d never thought of myself as a survivor, but we had survived a lot, had defied the odds in staying alive.
“We haven’t made it yet, though,” I said. “We’ve made it to the gate. We need your help to make it the rest of the way.” He raised his eyebrows. “We have a plan for how to live on our own terms. Help us convince your people.”
I explained our plan to set up a camp nearby and establish a trade relationship with Athens. Sebastian moaned theatrically, rolled his eyes as I laid it out.
“You always have to do it the hard way,” he said. “One little pinprick!” He reached out and poked Cortez with his index finger. “One little pinprick and all will be vascular.” I couldn’t help but feel annoyed by his antics; we were tired, near-starving. This was no joke to us.
“That’s not the way we roll,” Cortez said. “Will you help us?”
Sebastian shook his head. “What you’re suggesting just isn’t possible.”
My heart sank. “Why not? Why isn’t it possible?”
“Because people have been planning this for five years,” Sebastian said. “They thought out these communities very carefully. One of the fundamental guidelines is that the community be homogenous. No exceptions.”
Communities? So there were others forming.
“I don’t have any more influence than anyone else here, until my turn comes up to be on the decision board,” Sebastian went on, “and that’s not likely to happen any time soon.”
“Can you get us a meeting with them?” Colin asked.
“They’re just going to tell me to tell you to join the community. And that’s not how you roll.” He waggled his head, gently mocking.
“Will you at least ask?” I said.
He shrugged.“Sure, I can ask. I can also ask them to form a human pyramid and sing Christmas carols.”
An hour later Sebastian returned. As he approached I tried to read his expression, hopeful that he had succeeded in convincing them to at least talk to us, but he was always smiling, so it was impossible to glean anything from his expression.
He shrugged. “They’re just not interested.”
I felt like crying. I was so tired, so hungry.
“They said that besides the homogeneity issue, we have teams who go out on salvage runs every day. We don’t need to trade.”
“How are you fixed for medicines?” I asked. I grabbed some of the samples I’d put together. Instead of being stuffed into pouches, each was in a separate pill container with a child safety cap. We’d found them in a medicine cabinet in Watkinsville, all empty. I opened one, tipped some of its contents into my palm. “Chamomile. For inflammation. It also works as a mild sedative.” I opened another, wiped a bit of the goo that oozed out onto my palm. “Aloe vera. For burns and—”
Sebastian shook his head. “We’ve got it all growing in our greenhouses, and herbalists to work with our doctors.”
I wiped the aloe on my pant leg.
“Look,” Sebastian said, “why don’t I show you around the town, and we can talk about what Athens has to offer.”
“No, thanks,” I said.
Sebastian shrugged, looking perplexed. “Okay. Suit yourself. I’d better get back to my work. I’ll check up on you when I can, see if you change your mind. I hope you will.”
We set up camp twenty yards from the gate, at the edge of where they’d set up their rhizome barrier. We had no tents, so we used sheets we’d salvaged from houses along the way. Once we were settled, we initiated plan B. Each of us chose a trade item and took up a position outside the gate.
“Tampons. Who needs tampons?” Colin shouted without embarrassment. He held a box of tampons in the air, two more under his arm.
“Soap. I’ve got soap,” Jeannie called, while a dozen steps away Cortez was hawking water filters. Actually we only had one spare water filter—a happy find in the basement of a house in a little town called Washington. It didn’t matter—the plan was to establish ourselves, then we could seek out more trade goods.
It didn’t work. No one even approached to see how much we were asking for our merchandise. We got plenty of attention, though. One smart aleck shouted, “Blood! I’ve got blood that will solve all your problems.” That got some hearty laughs from the residents.
The steady stream of residents passing in and out of the gate was supplemented by the occasional group of new recruits coming to join the community. Some of these groups were small, others consisted of forty or fifty starving people led by one Athens recruiter. I kept expecting to spot Rumor leading one of these groups. Cortez had scouted the entire perimeter of the city, and reported that they were expanding the city on the far side to make room for all of the new recruits. I imagined they were already planning for a day when their community wound through the bamboo for miles in every direction.
After about an hour, we gave up.
There was no plan C.
Sebastian came out as the sun was setting. He squatted beside us, pulled a flat, round loaf of bread from under his shirt. We stared at it with wild, wide-eyed hunger. It smelled incredible.
“It’s all I could hide,” Sebastian said apologetically.
We took the bread behind a tent, out of view of the citizens of Athens, and Cortez divided it up with his hunting knife, giving Joel a double share.
“So good,” Colin said between bites. He was clearly trying to eat slowly.
A tear rolled down his cheek. I don’t know if he was crying with relief, because it tasted so good, or out of despair that we had fallen so far that eating a loaf of bread was like a thousand Christmases rolled together. Whatever the reason, it spread, and soon all of us except Cortez were crying softly as we ate.
As the sun set Phoebe and I crawled into the same tent. We hadn’t discussed it; it just flowed from the bonds that had been building between us. I lay there with my eyes closed, listening to Phoebe’s breathing, so grateful that she was here with me.
I don’t know why it took me so long to find her. Maybe it makes sense that it would be difficult. What does love look like when the world is falling apart? Your one true love might appear when your heart is so badly wounded that you can’t possibly bear for someone to touch it, and her heart might be in the same shape. Now that I’d finally recognized that this was the woman I’d been searching for, though, I was afraid that we might never get the chance to see where it might lead.
“We’re running out of time,” I said, keeping my voice low. Joel seemed to be shrinking, turning back into a newborn, unaware of the outside world, sometimes unable to recognize his mother.
“I know.” Phoebe took my hand under the blanket. We listened to the crickets. “If Colin and Jeannie join them, what will you do?”
I’d been thinking about that all day. “When I told Sebastian that Ange was dead, did you notice that he got really sad for a second, then he cheered up?”
“Yes, I did notice that.”
“They haven’t been scrubbed of all their negative emotions; they still feel sadness, probably fear and anger as well; it’s just toned way down. It makes it seem less like getting a frontal lobotomy.”
“So you’re thinking of joining Colin and Jeannie?”
“I don’t think I can go back into that jungle.” I couldn’t quite bring myself to say yes directly.
“Me neither,” Phoebe said. “I think we’re on the same page.” She squeezed my hand. “But I’m scared.”
“Me too.” Every time I thought of that pinprick, I felt like I was falling into a dark, unknown place.
We spent the next day doing nothing. Cortez made a few forays into the bamboo looking for food, but came back empty-handed. Phoebe and I had only slightly better luck, returning with a stingy handful of stinging nettle and some beetles. The rest of the day we sat and stared at the gate, watched the well-fed populace go about their lives.
Around noon, Colin and Jeannie crawled out of their makeshift tent with Joel in tow and their few possessions in plastic bags. Colin’s face held the grim resolve of a soldier going off to war. Jeannie’s eyes were red from crying. She went over and hugged Phoebe.
“Give it a few more days,” I said, stepping between Colin and Athens.
“What will a few more days buy us?” Colin asked.
I had no answer.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Phoebe, coming to join us.
Colin gestured toward Athens. “That’s the only way forward. We’ve ruled out every other direction. They’re all dead ends. Literally.”
“I don’t disagree with what you’re saying, but shouldn’t we take more time to think it through? There’s no going back once we make that decision. Why don’t we step back, talk about it some more?” I gestured toward a spot in the grass.
“We’ve been thinking it through for months,” Jeannie said. “I just want to get this over with, and get some food for my baby.”
I took a deep breath, brushed hair out of my eyes. I wasn’t ready for this. I didn’t want these to be my last hours as me, the way I was used to feeling and thinking. I looked at Colin, could see in his eyes that they really meant to go, now. My heart was racing.
A hundred yards away, half a dozen federal soldiers in tattered combat fatigues slipped out of the bamboo. They were led by a bright-eyed, smiling black guy in tan shorts. The black guy spread his arms and said something to the new recruits before leading them on toward the gate. The gate to nirvana, to Valhalla. Shangri-La.
“Come with us,” Colin said. “We don’t want to do this without you.” He shrugged. “How do we know it’s not going to be great? A couple of hours from now we might be laughing, wondering why we’d made such a big deal about it.”
I had no doubt we’d be laughing. I had no idea what would be going through our heads, though. I wasn’t ready. Maybe in a day or two, but not now.
“We came all this way with you,” I said. “I’m not saying you owe us anything, but I’m asking you to give it another day or two. That’s all I’m asking.”
Colin and Jeannie looked at each other. Jeannie nodded reluctantly.
“One more day. I don’t see what good it’ll do, but if that’s what you want…” He shrugged.
“Thanks,” I said, feeling a rush of relief. I didn’t know what good it would do, either. I just knew I wasn’t ready.
Late in the afternoon, Sebastian came to visit. I was disappointed to see that he didn’t bring any food with him.
“Let me show you around Athens,” he implored us. “Come on, what do you have to lose?”
“We’d like to see it,” Colin said, meaning him and Jeannie.
I looked at Phoebe.
“Why not?” she said. “I’m curious to see it up close.”
Cortez said nothing, but as we turned to follow Sebastian, he followed as well. Sebastian reached around me and pulled the pistol out of my waistband. “Leave this here, if you don’t mind.” He gestured to Cortez. “Yours too, please.” We stashed the guns in our tents and rejoined him.
There were no angles in the newly constructed buildings. Everything was curved, and many were open to the outside.
“We don’t like to be closed in,” Sebastian explained.
It was difficult to see where any one building left off and another began; they snaked into each other, in some places rising up to wind through the trees. The overall effect was pleasing to the eye, the colors a variety of soothing pastels.
“Are those weapons mounted on the outside walls?” Cortez asked.
“Non-lethal weapons, yes. They’re heat cannons—when you activate them and point them in a general direction, everyone in a ten-acre area will have the sensation that they’re extremely, extremely hot. Very unpleasant.” He fanned his face, chuckling. “But the heat cannons are only our most visible defense. We’ve got others—all non-lethal, but I wouldn’t want to be a hostile trying to take Athens unless I had tanks and fighter planes.”
We passed a wide, canopied space where a hundred people were eating, or lined up to eat. I couldn’t help suspect that he was leading us past the dining hall on purpose.
“Why is it you have food when nobody else does?” Colin asked.
“Like I mentioned, we’ve been planning for years,” Sebastian said. “Most of our cleared land is dedicated to food production, and everyone puts in some work in the fields every day. No meat—meat takes up too many resources to produce, plus nobody would want the job of killing the animals.”
Interesting as all this was, I was having trouble caring at the moment. My mouth was watering.
The clatter of a dropped bowl rang out. “Phoebe?” an old woman in an orange house dress was tottering, bow-legged, toward us.
“Mom?” Phoebe cried. She raced to meet her mother.
“Phoebe, I can’t believe it. I thought you were dead.” She gripped Phoebe by the shoulders, looked her up and down. “I’m so sorry I didn’t wait for you, but these people came by with a sign that said ‘Free meal, ask me how,’ and I was so hungry, so I followed them and had a meal, and then after my meal we went back, but you weren’t back yet, and we waited, but we couldn’t wait all day because we had to come here.” She buried her face in Phoebe’s shoulder and bobbed up and down. “I’m so glad to see you. My Phoebe, I can’t believe it.”
Phoebe looked over her mother’s stooped shoulder; it looked like the weight of the world had been lifted from her. She caught my eye; I nodded, the only person there who really understood. Everyone in the dining area had stopped to watch the reunion, now a few clapped, then they returned to their meals.
Phoebe introduced me to her mom. “Is this your boyfriend?” she asked. She had one of those voices, sort of shrill and whiney, and she talked fast. Although most Doctor Happy people talked fast.
“I sure am,” I said as I took Phoebe’s mom’s hand.
As Phoebe introduced her mom around, I watched people eat. Everyone seemed friendly as hell, joking with each other, laughing. Even when nothing funny was being said people just burst into spontaneous laughter, occasionally propelling food from their mouths with the force of it.
Phoebe’s mom was astonished when she learned that we were not necessarily here to accept the Doctor Happy needle and be saved (forever, amen), but judging from Phoebe’s reaction I got the impression that this was nothing compared to how her old, non-Doctor Happified mother dealt with disagreements. Phoebe promised to find her mom again as soon as she could, and we moved on.
As we walked it occurred to me that Athens was pretty much scrubbed of any reminders of the outside world. There were no movie posters outside the theater, no ads, billboards, no stuffed Disney characters in the gift shop we passed. They seemed serious about making a new start. “So what is the plan for this place?” I asked. “How is it going to be so different from the past?”
“Well, we’re decentralizing power, for a start,” Sebastian said. “No crooked politicians for us. We’re borrowing a lot from other places that tried to make a clean start, looking at what worked and didn’t. External things, like shorter work days and a de-emphasis on material goods, is crucial, but we’re also working on the internals as well.”
“Such as?” I asked. I was truly interested in what they were putting together. In a sense, we could be living in year zero, seeing the beginning of something new. Assuming the Jumpy-Jumps didn’t plow the whole thing under.
Sebastian pulled a spiral notebook out of his pocket and held it up. “This is my liar’s notebook. Every time I tell a lie, I write it down. Everyone has one.”
“You’re all nuts,” Cortez said.
“What’s nuts is what’s going on out there,” Sebastian said, pointing over the city wall.
He led us through the old part of the university campus, where tall oak trees shaded a long stretch of lawn. People were lounging around like they were killing time between classes. It seemed so anachronistic, a scene from the time before everything went wrong.
“Everyone gets one day off a week,” Sebastian said. “Once everything is established we’ll start bumping that up, until it’s three or four.”
Colin and Jeannie were surveying the scene with the look of house hunters about to pull out a tape measure to see if their favorite sofa would fit.
As the last light bled out of the sky, Phoebe and I were tired, but couldn’t sleep.
“What happens now?” Phoebe asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Me neither.”
Murmurs drifted from the next tent, where Colin and Jeannie were also not sleeping. I wondered what they were saying. Joel let out a pathetic squeal of hunger. It was a heartbreaking sound, an intolerable sound. I would not ask them to wait another day; I felt guilty that I had asked for this one.
It was hard to think with my stomach so empty. What I really wanted to do right now was to clutch Phoebe to me and tell her that I loved her. I wanted to vanish the last bit of distance between us so we could face this together. But we hadn’t known each other long enough for that.
“There are things I wish we could talk about,” I said, hesitantly, “but they’re the sort of things you talk about when you’ve been together much longer than we have.”
Phoebe was quiet for a long moment. “Maybe we should talk about them anyway, given the circumstances?”
“Okay.” For a moment, my old, familiar insecurities reared up. Would I blow it by professing my undying love? Was Phoebe feeling the same for me, or was I just any port in a storm? Off in the distance a whimpering dog serenaded us; my psyche given voice.
The hell with it. What did I have to lose?
“I’m afraid Doctor Happy will change how I feel about you. If you love everyone, how do you parse your feelings for one person out of that giant vat of love?”
Phoebe laughed hysterically. For an instant I thought she was laughing at my profession of love. “Giant vat of love?”
“Yeah. Haven’t the Doctor Happy people told you about the giant vat of love?”
“No,” she said, wiping her eyes. “But I know what you’re saying, and I’ve thought about it too.”
“You have?”
“Mm hm. I’m afraid I won’t feel the same way about you if Doctor Happy changes us too dramatically.”
One of our stomachs growled. I was pretty sure it was mine.
“On the other hand,” Phoebe went on, “if we didn’t lose each other in the giant vat of love, Athens is a place where we could stop worrying about starving or being shot. It might give us the space to be together in a real, normal way. Out here it takes all of our energy just staying alive.”
“So, you do want to be together?”
“Yeah. I do.”
A flush of warmth swept over me. I wrapped my arms around Phoebe and kissed her.
“We’re not so broken,” she whispered. “The people we thought we were are just waiting for a chance to come back out.”
She was right. The evidence was right there—the two of us, falling in love, still able to fall in love after all we’d been through.
I was up most of the night, thinking, trying to sort through a tangle of conflicting emotions.
Early the next morning, music drifted across to us from Athens—something classical, with a lot of string instruments. It sounded live. Somehow it didn’t surprise me that Athens had accomplished musicians. They had everything else.
Phoebe and I crawled out of our tent with our possessions in plastic bags. My stomach did a flip, like I had just hit the big drop on a roller coaster. This was it, I realized.
Cortez was squatting beside his tent, the assault rifle across his thighs. I pulled the pistol out of my waistband and looked at it, thought about the two men I’d shot with it, thought about Ange screaming in pain while those boys held her down, about Tara Cohn telling Cortez that he sucked. What was so nuts about wanting all of that to stop? Maybe Sebastian was right, maybe they were the sane ones.
“You want this?” I said, holding out the pistol. The words seemed to come from a distance, somewhere over my head.
Cortez ignored the gun. “You’re going in?”
I nodded.
Colin and Jeannie crawled out of their tent. When he saw our stuff packed, I thought he might hug me. “Good. Great. The tribe will stay together.” He turned to Cortez. “How about you, Cortez? Come with us.”
Beyond the gates a trumpet rose out of the softer strings. It was a beautiful, golden sound. It had been so long since I’d heard live music that clear.
“Come on, take the leap.” I tried to smile, but the muscles in my face were stiff with fear. The edges of my mouth began to twitch and I gave it up.
Cortez folded his arms, shook his head. “I probably would take a leap. Off a water tower. It’s not for me. You all go ahead.”
“But what will you do?” Jeannie asked.
The trumpet bleated triumphant, soaring toward a crescendo. Cortez paused, waited for it to recede. The song was almost over. Funny how you can tell a song was ending, even if you’ve never heard it before.
“I’ll head home,” Cortez said. “Choose the sanest gangsters and join them. In these times there’s always work for warriors.” It made sense. Cortez was the only one of us who had the right resume now that civilization had collapsed.
One by one, we said goodbye to Cortez. When it was my turn, I hugged him fiercely and said, “You’ve been like a big brother to me, watching out for me, showing me how to get by. We’d all be dead if it wasn’t for you.”
He pressed his face against the side of mine. “Don’t get me crying,” he said into my ear. I handed him the pistol; he tucked it into his waistband.
We watched as Cortez hefted his belongings, turned, and slipped into the bamboo.
“He’ll make it,” I said to the others, fighting back tears. “Somehow he’ll make it.” Unable to put it off any longer, we turned toward the gate.
“I’m scared,” Phoebe said. Her hand was cold.
“Me too,” I said.
The music ended, leaving the valley quiet.
“We’re going to be at the start of something new—the year zero,” I said.
“And they’re good people, honest and kind,” Jeannie added.
“Hell, we’re going to get to eat in that food tent three times a day,” Colin said. “No more hunger, no more bugs.”
In my college psychology class I learned that bettors are more confident about the horses they pick after they place their bets. I knew that was what we were doing; if you’re going to drink the Kool-Aid you might as well throw your head back and chug.
As we approached the gate, I realized that some part of me had known for a while that this is how it would turn out. We were survivors, after all. If this was the only game in town, then we’d play.
Besides that, it felt good not to have the weight of that gun in my waistband.
We reached the gate and asked the guard to fetch Sebastian. I took a deep breath. Fine. Time to meet the future. Phoebe squeezed my hand; I squeezed hers back.
When Sebastian saw our expressions he hurried, wrapped his arms around each of us, whispered that we’d made the right decision. His eyes were bright, and just a little wild.
He led us through the gate, and this time I looked at the town through different eyes. This was going to be my home. It was such a strange notion.
“In here,” Sebastian said, sliding open a door made of yellow bamboo. We stepped into a big hall with long, narrow windows draped in wheat-colored fabric. The close end of the hall was squared, the far end rounded. Two people, a man and a woman, greeted us.
“These people are joining us today,” Sebastian said. “They’re friends of mine. We go back a long way.”
I thought of Cortez, pushing through the bamboo, and had a moment of panic. Couldn’t we do it, the six of us? Couldn’t we figure out a way to survive out there?
Maybe for a few weeks, but no more. I thought of Sophia and felt a terrible sadness. She should be here with us, safe. She was probably dead by now. I hoped she had died quickly. By gunfire, maybe.
“Ready?” The woman put her hand on my back and coaxed me toward a curtained cubicle. Inside there would be a little vial of blood and a sterile needle.
I paused. “We want to go together.” I looked back at Phoebe, who nodded.
Jeannie, who was also being led to a cubicle, paused as well. “We do, too.”
Her escort smiled. “Sure. We can fit two to a room. Or two and a half.” He touched Joel’s bald head.
The woman transferred a chair from one cubicle into another. They led Colin and Jeannie inside. The pungent, familiar odor of Colin’s unwashed self hit me as he passed. We must smell terrible to these people—it was amazing that their pleasant smiles never dropped, were never replaced by a wrinkled nose of disgust.
Phoebe and I stood at a respectful distance, waiting our turn. We heard murmuring in the cubicle, then a little cry of rage from Joel that tapered off after a few inbreaths.
Colin pushed back the curtain. He held up his arm, displaying a little round band-aid on the inside of his forearm. Jeannie followed, carrying Joel. Her eyes were red-rimmed. She didn’t show us her band-aid, or Joel’s.
“Next?” the woman called, poking her head out of the cubicle.
My bowels loosened. My heart was hammering like crazy. I looked at Phoebe; she took a quavering breath, tried to give me a brave smile. “Ready?”
“No,” I said.
“Me neither.”
We walked to the cubicle holding hands.
It was a tight fit; Phoebe’s thigh was pressed against mine. The man and woman, wearing yellow surgical gloves, sat facing us, their knees almost touching ours. It felt strangely intimate. I wondered if people in Athens shared a special bond with the person who infected them, the way Rumor seemed to think he and I shared a special bond because I squirted him in the eye with a water gun after he killed my friend’s dog.
The woman rubbed alcohol on the white underside of my forearm.
“Can you poke us at the same time?” I asked.
“Sure,” the man said.
“Relax,” the woman said, probably seeing the panic in our eyes as she unwrapped a needle from its packaging. “You’ll be so glad. I promise. You’re going to feel better than you’ve ever felt before.”
I hoped it was true. I so wanted this to be our happily ever after. We deserved a happily ever after, after all we’d been through.
They dipped the needles into vials of deep red blood. Was blood always that red? The neutral colors in the room probably created a contrast.
The woman held out her hand. I laid mine in it, palm up. Phoebe did the same.
The man and the woman looked at each other with bright, eccentric eyes. They weren’t crazy eyes, really. Eccentric was a better description. “Ready?” the woman said to the man, grinning. “One. Two…”
I looked into Phoebe’s lucid green eyes and willed myself to always love her in exactly the same way that I loved her at that moment.
“Three.”
She was very gentle; I barely felt the needle prick my skin.