The room’s best feature was the large skylight in the center of the ceiling. It measured ten feet across, facing out into the gray sky. At night, I’d lie in bed and listen to the rain beat against it. The sound of the rain was always there, day and night, no matter where you went. Eventually, you got used to it and it became nothing but background noise. At night, though, it got pervasive again.
I wasn’t a gardener, but I’d started a garden anyway, directly beneath the skylight. It didn’t matter that there was no sunshine peeking through the clouds. I still wanted to try it. Maybe it was hopeless or perhaps I just wanted to break the monotony. Maybe I thought some ultraviolet rays would creep through and photosynthesis would magically happen. I was also just fucking tired of eating fish, seabirds, and kelp, along with the occasional scavenged bag of potato chips or a can of corn from an abandoned building.
Jimmy and a few of the others had helped me bring some pool tables up from the sixteenth floor. They were the heavy, slate-bottom type, and it had been a full day’s work. We’d placed them beneath the skylight, and then used plywood to shore up their sides. I filled them with what little dirt we could find at the time and added to it when I found more. Now there was a foot of soil layered evenly on top of the tables. We used fish bones, bird feathers, and other organic waste from our catches for fertilizer. The smell was bad, but I’d grown used to it. At one point, Lee suggested we use our own excrement for fertilizer, but I’d balked. I still had to sleep there and wasn’t thrilled at the idea of smelling and tilling through my fellow castaways’ shit.
So far, nothing was growing, except for some potatoes and a few baby pine trees and spider plants that Jimmy and I had scavenged from other buildings. Anna and Sarah used the potatoes sparingly, careful not to deplete them all until we were sure they’d continue growing. On the rare occasions when they did cook with them, they made a wonderful addition to our seafood diet. Desperate for some greens, we’d even debated eating the pine trees and spider plants, but decided we couldn’t. Not yet, at least.
I pulled out the houseplant, the bag of potting soil, and the seed packets that I’d found earlier that day, and then I unwrapped Jimmy’s head. For a moment, I saw him standing there, not so long ago.
He had stooped over a baby pine tree, inhaling the fresh scent.
“Damn, that smells good, dude! I forgot how pine trees smelled.”
“Yeah.” I sipped instant coffee, brewed with saltwater to avoid depleting the fresh water supplies. It tasted like shit, but it was still better than eating the instant coffee with a spoon. “I’d give my left nut to be standing in a pine forest right now, feeling the needle carpet beneath my feet and breathing that in.”
“Hell,” Jimmy had laughed, “while we’re at it, I’d give both nuts to be in bed with Hillary Duff and Britney Spears, and have a nice, rare sirloin steak to go with them. One that’s cold and red in the middle. And maybe a baked potato, too, with butter and sour cream, and an ice-cold beer. God damn, that would hit the spot, wouldn’t it?”
“Fucking aye, brother,” I’d agreed.
“Fucking aye.”
How long ago had that been? It was hard to tell these days. Calendars and holidays seem to have been washed away with the rest of civilization. No one even looks at their watches anymore. At least, I don’t. What does it matter what time it is?
I held up Jimmy’s head and looked him in the eyes.
“Well bro,” I said, “I couldn’t get you the girls or the steak or the beer, but you liked the pine tree, so I guess this will have to do. Sorry, man.”
I dug a hole near one of the baby pine trees and then placed Jimmy’s head in it, covering him up with the potting soil. When I was done, I planted the seeds and moved the houseplant from its tiny pot into the garden. I placed it directly over his head, so that it could feed as it grew.
While I did this, I thought about when we were kids.
I tried really hard to cry, but it didn’t happen.
Across the room, Jimmy’s bed sat empty, the sheets still rumpled from the night before. His things sat nearby, odds and ends he’d gathered during various scavenger trips: automobile and nudie magazines, cigarettes, a boombox and a half-dozen compact discs, toiletries, a half bottle of Jim Beam, and a Rolex that had taken a licking but was no longer ticking.
The room seemed quiet without him. I made sure there were batteries in the boom box and then put in a disc by Pantera. I played “Cemetery Gates,” which had always been Jimmy’s favorite song.
I said good-bye to my friend.
When it was over, I took out Pantera and played some Lewis and Walker. The acoustic guitar melodies washed over me and I closed my eyes, thinking about life before the rains came. It seemed like it had all happened a long time ago, and to someone else, as if I’d seen it in a movie or read it in a book.
I couldn’t remember being dry. Or warm. Or safe.
Later in the night, Lori slipped into my room. I heard the door creak open, and when I rolled over in bed, she stood beside me, wearing a flimsy nylon nightgown. She smiled, and I smiled back. I opened my mouth to speak, but she put a finger to my lips, looking at me with those sad brown eyes in the soft glow of the lantern. She held out her arms and we melted together. Silently, we undressed each other and then, without a word, we made love. Even our orgasms were quiet, despite their intensity. When it was over, I trembled in her arms, but still, I did not cry.
After the tremors subsided, I snuffed out the lantern and we lay there in the dark, in a room smelling faintly of rotting fish and pine trees, until the rain lulled us both to sleep.
For the first time since the rains started, I didn’t have any nightmares.
My dreams were as dry as my eyes.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lori was still sleeping beside me when I woke up. Her honey-brown hair spilled across her face, and I don’t remember ever seeing anything quite so beautiful in my life. She looked so peaceful—but troubled at the same time. Her brow was furrowed, and her eyes darted beneath the lids. I wondered what she was dreaming about. The whole thing seemed unreal. I’d forgotten how good it felt to be with someone. Not just the sex, but to actually have someone there with you, to hear them breathe, feel them move, watch them sleep. I snuggled close to her, shut my eyes, and sniffed her scent. Our musk from the previous night still clung to the bed and I savored it.
So this was love. Or the start of it, at least.
I liked it.
She felt warm—and dry. Dryness had never been erotic before the rains came, but now I couldn’t think of anything more pleasurable.
I wasn’t sure what would happen with us next. I’d been lonely. Sarah was off limits, Mindy had hooked up with Mike, and Anna was out of my age range. I’d been interested in Lori all this time, but so had Jimmy. Because of that, I’d never made a move. Now, Jimmy wasn’t even twenty-four hours in the ground and here was Lori, sleeping next to me.
She stirred, then opened an eye and stretched like a cat.
“Morning.” She smiled, flashing white teeth. Looking back on it now, that was the exact moment I fell in love with her. God, she had a beautiful smile.
Yep. This was love.
And I liked it more and more with each passing moment.
“Morning yourself,” I smiled back. “How’d you sleep?”
“Better than I have in a long time,” she yawned. “You?”
“Amazingly. Especially after—well, you know.” It wasn’t in my nature to play coy, but Lori had a weird effect on me. I glanced at the garden and then back to her. My ears felt hot.