I glance over at her. She’s just scratched some perfume sample and has lifted the page to her nose; she smiles with a tilt of her head and rubs the page on the sides of her neck before turning the page.
No, I don’t think so. Poor little Janey will be numbered among the faceless dead, I’m afraid.
But what about Polly? Hard to say there. She’s a tough one to read. Maybe so. If I’m right about this t-shirt theory of mine, that is.
That night, when we were smoking and talking in the kitchen, I had this idea in the back of my mind that I’d only hinted at. I’d mentioned the changes I saw going down, and put forth the same premise I was just thinking about… more or less. The weak will perish and the strong will survive.
Her shirt at that time was the one that said Evolve or Die.
And after everything that happened, after the supply line, after the old man and the dumpster, after smashing the coffee table into unrecognizable bits; after all that, what’s the first thing I see when I open my eyes? Polly. In a shirt reading Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. Well, I stepped way the hell out of mine didn’t I? And in those moments after I’d killed the old man, when the adrenaline was still coursing through my veins and my senses were more keenly acute than they have ever been… in those moments, for the first time, I truly felt alive. I knew what it meant to be the hunter, the provider, the alpha dog of the pack. And I liked it. I really liked it.
So, here’s the question: are Polly’s shirts messages from some higher power? Are they meant to guide me along this strange, new path I’ve found myself on? Or is it more secular than that? Is she specifically choosing these shirts? Is she the one speaking to me in a type of clothing code, telling me all the things she can’t really vocalize in front of the others?
I’ll have to pay closer attention. Which, to be perfectly honest, shouldn’t be too big of a challenge. After all, it’s a perfect excuse to look at her chest.
There’s a soft knock on the door and Cody pokes his head through. What the hell does he want?
“Hey, guys” his tone is soft and apologetic, the voice of fodder, “sorry to interrupt but we thought you might want to see this.”
He’s quiet for a second as he swallows hard and tries not to make eye contact.
“The White House.” he finally says. “It’s on fire.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Cody, as it turns out, is a master of the understatement. It wasn’t just the White House that’s burning… it’s damn near the entire city of DC. We cluster around the television in the guest room, cloaked in silence as we watch the news reports roll in.
Jane is leaning forward with one hand over her mouth as if she’s stifling a burp that never comes. She rocks back and forth like a mental patient and slowly shakes her head no. Polly is sitting cross-legged on the floor and Cody keeps trying to put his arm around her, to pull her close, but she keeps shrugging him off which I secretly find to be the funniest thing I’ve seen all week. He’s persistent, like a goofy little puppy so eager to please that it doesn’t matter how many times he gets swatted on the nose. He just keeps coming back again and again and again.
I’m standing near the back of the room with my arms crossed over my chest, alternating my attention between the images that play out across the little television screen and wondering if I can see down the front of Polly’s shirt if I angle myself just right.
“Damn it, Cody… no. I’m trying to watch!”
The news keeps cycling through various footage which all seem to be variations on a single theme. The silhouette of the White House with a wall of orange and red flames blazing behind it, little yellow tongues licking through windows, hungry for every bit of oxygen they could ever hope to consume. Cut to the Lincoln Memorial, Honest Abe’s stony face flickering in light and shadow, and then to the Jefferson Memorial, the Vietnam Wall, and finally to the giant obelisk of the Washington Monument: it stands like some sort of Egyptian stronghold rising up through the fires of Hell. The trees on either side of the National Mall are ablaze and mirror images of the destruction ripple in the waters of the reflecting pool.
“It’s like something of Biblical proportions out here, Nancy.” an unseen reporter yells at the anchorwoman. “The heat… the heat from these fires is just… well, it’s truly beyond words. Never in all my days have I seen anything like….”
“Carlos?”
The camera cuts to a woman in the studio who looks as if she were pulled out of bed and not given the chance to put her TV face on. Her makeup is smeared and crooked, her hair looks as if she’s been repeatedly pulling clumps free with her fingers, and her suit jacket is buttoned incorrectly.
“Carlos, I’m afraid we have to cut in for a moment. My producers…”
She puts a hand to one ear and tilts her head slightly for a moment.
“My producers are informing me that reports are coming in from all major metropolitan areas across the country: New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Seattle, even Anchorage, Alaska. All of these cities have reported widespread fires that simply seemed to ignite as if from nowhere. There are further reports of looting and riots on a massive scale, but these have not been independently confirmed and should not, at this time, be necessarily linked with these out of control fires burning through our largest cities.”
The anchorwoman listens to her earpiece again and continues on in the same, breathless voice.
“This just in. Las Vegas has joined the ranks of the cities confirmed to be burning and an evacuation plan has been set into motion. We take you now to local affiliate….”
Jane is rocking even faster now and she keeps whispering my God, oh my god, my dear sweet God and I can see a single tear sliding down her cheek in the bluish glow of the television. Polly has now pushed herself as far from Cody as she can possibly get and he sits, skulking and ineffectual, near the edge of the bed.
Jane’s switched her mantra now. It’s the same pattern of words basically, the same teary over-emotional tone whispered into her hands: all those people, those poor, poor people….
On the television a reporter with a pencil thin mustache is standing at some undisclosed location. Or at least if it was disclosed I missed hearing about it because of Jane’s incessant whimpering. He holds a microphone with a cube just underneath the foam globe and the cube has a bright orange 9 that looks somehow manages to look cheerful without the benefit of expression.
“Excuse me, excuse me sir?”
He pulls a man by the sleeve into the frame of the shot and for a moment I notice how I can see distant fires reflected on the dial of the reporter’s wristwatch. But then he drops the arm and shoves the microphone into the face of someone who looks like he might be an accountant or perhaps a computer programmer.
“Vin Boucher, Channel Nine news. Sir, could you tell us what you’ve seen these last few minutes?”
The man ignores the camera, looking downward instead in silence.
“Sir, if you could just share with us some of your experiences, I think the viewing audience would greatly….”
“That’s a nice watch.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s a nice damn watch.”
Without any warning, the accountant-looking man launches a fist into Vin Boucher’s face. He pummels him as blood begins to gush from a broken nose and a lip that has split like an overripe tomato. The reporter is trying to push the man away but they’re on the ground now, rolling and thrashing and flailing.