Tasha spends most of her nights here now, in case someone needs her. Sometimes Annie joins her, though mostly she stays at the townhouse with Elyse. When Tasha sleeps alone, she dreams of birds who burn holes in the ground. A bat made of human flesh and ribs. She wakes screaming, slick with sweat.
“We have enough,” Annie says. “If we’re careful.”
“How much is enough?”
Annie sighs. “If we’re smart, enough to last us until spring. Maybe a little longer. We’ll be eating crackers and canned tuna and nothing else by the end of it.” She circles Tasha’s right breast with her hand, thumbs her nipple. Moonlight glints on her wedding ring—silver, identical to Tasha’s. The only thing that either of them have left from their old lives, except for each other.
“Tasha,” Annie says, slowly, “help isn’t coming, is it.”
Tasha raises a hand and holds Annie’s palm to her chest. “We just have to be patient. We’ll figure it out.”
In September, one of the city residents suggests that they plant clover in the gardens to enrich the soil.
“Next spring, we can till it in, and it’ll release nutrients as it decomposes,” he tells them. His name is Joseph. He doesn’t trust Tasha. He doesn’t trust anybody.
Joseph often goes out of town on his bicycle, searching for news. Sometimes others join him and sometimes he goes alone. On bikes they are still able to weave their way along roads choked with grass and vines.
They bring back supplies—bags of rice and lentils, dented cans of tomatoes and beans. More often than not they bring only stories: death in that city, death in that town. Looting and fire and terror and fear.
One night when Joseph returns, he half staggers into the clinic, his shirt spotted with blood.
“Jesus,” Annie says. She loops his arm around her shoulders and brings him to the back room, then settles him down on the mattress. As she strips him of the shirt, Tasha pulls on a pair of gloves. A four-inch slit gapes down Joseph’s side.
“What happened?” she asks.
The front bell sounds and they all look up—it is only Elyse, coming in carrying a bag of chips.
“I—I didn’t know if anyone had eaten,” she falters when she sees them.
Tasha waves her in. She looks back to Joseph. “Tell me what went wrong.”
“Ambush,” he says, hissing as Tasha swabs his skin with disinfectant. “Pushed me off the bike and took all of the supplies. Swiped at me when I got up and ran after them. I didn’t have a lot—I guess that was a good thing.”
“They didn’t take the bike?” Annie says.
“No.” Joseph manages to laugh. “There’s so much green shit on the roads, even the bike is practically useless.”
Tasha shines the beam of a mini flashlight on the wound. It isn’t as deep as she’d feared. There is bruising and swelling around it, but the edges are clean and no ribs appear to be broken.
“No more going out alone,” Tasha says. “That’s an order.”
Annie snorts, softly. Tasha half expects Joseph to snap at her, but he only says, “I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to go out anyway. The roads are impassable.”
Tasha wipes the cut with disinfectant on a small sponge, working as gently as she can. “When was your last tetanus shot?”
“Tetanus shot?” he says. “I think the kids got theirs—two years ago?” His face clouds over. “My oldest hated needles. I got a booster of some kind at the same time so he could see it wasn’t the end of the world.” A sharp intake of breath—at his own words or the action of her hand, she isn’t sure. “It might have been tetanus. I don’t know.”
Elyse opens her bag of chips and passes it to Joseph. He reaches in, silently, and grabs a handful, crunching as Tasha cleans the wound. When she’s done, Annie hands her a small tube from a satchel that sits on the counter. Tasha’s own personal medical kit. It’s one of the first things she put together when they arrived.
“Surgical glue,” Tasha says when she sees Joseph stare at it. “It’s safe, I swear. If the cut was deeper, I would stitch you.” She closes the wound, then covers it with a bandage. “No biking for at least a week,” she says. “Also, keep it dry for at least two days. No showers, no long, luxurious soaks in the tub.”
He doesn’t laugh. “What are you going to do when the winter comes? When no one can leave the city?”
“Anyone can leave,” Tasha says. “I’m not stopping them.”
“That’s not what I mean,” he says. “What if something happens in the city? What if you aren’t enough? I see the way people look at you now. Half of them hate you and half of them look like they think you can fucking cure cancer. What are you going to do if the food runs out?”
She sits back on her heels. “I’ve always tried to be truthful. I never said—”
“Help will come,” he mocks. “You’ve been saying that for months. I’m not an idiot! You’re making it so that people don’t want to leave.”
“I’m trying to give everyone hope,” Tasha says around a sinking feeling in her gut. “I’m trying to give everyone something to do. Is that bad?”
“Is having something to do going to save them in the winter when we run out of food? What happens when we run out of the water-purifying tablets that you stole from the store?”
“I didn’t steal them, I collect—”
“You know what I mean! What happens when the sun sets at four in the afternoon and doesn’t rise till ten and people scare themselves by telling ghost stories about the mountain? You think everyone’s going to be calm and happy and satisfied when we’re in the dark all the time?”
“No one’s going to tell ghost stories,” Tasha says, trying to keep her voice light. “We’re just going to survive.”
He snorts. “You really have no fucking clue, do you. You’re already telling them a fairy tale. Stay here, work together, everything will be okay. When in the end we’re all going to become ghosts.”
We’re all going to starve. We’re all going to starve.
“We’ll find a way,” Elyse insists, her voice surprisingly loud. “Annie and Tasha will help us find a way.”
Joseph rolls his eyes. “Sure, kid, sure.”
She bristles. “I’m not a kid. If you hate it here so much, why did you come back?”
Something dark washes over Joseph’s face. “The mountain called me back. I had nowhere else to go.” He laughs a little. “Whatever. You know what? You let Tasha and Annie find a way for you, Elyse, and tell me how that goes. As for me—I’ll do just fine without you, thanks very much.”
Tasha stands up, brushes her pant legs off, and tries not to sound hurt. “Just be careful with that cut and you won’t need any saving. If you do, you know where we are.”
Joseph, looking not a little ashamed of himself, puts on his bloody shirt and heads out the door.
“We could go,” Annie says after he leaves. “You and me and Elyse. We could take one of the fire trucks and drive away from here right now. A fire truck would make it through.”
Tasha sighs. “Where would we go? What’s better than here?”
“I don’t know,” Annie says, “but it’s better than starving to death surrounded by madmen.”
“No one’s mad,” Tasha says. “They’re just afraid. That’s all.”
“So then what did Joseph mean by the mountain calling him back?” Elyse says.
No one has an answer.