“Seems a little much all at once, doesn’t it?” the woman says, frowning uncomfortably.
Abram throws up his hands and shakes his head, chastised. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just that…truth is…they took my daughter.” Tears would be good right now, but he’s unwilling to go that far for these people. “They’re taking her to Post to do something horrible to her, and I’m out of food and water and almost out of gas, and I just don’t know how to do this without being a little rude.”
The man and woman exchange another glance. This time, to Abram’s amazement, it’s full of sympathy.
“I’m so sorry about your daughter,” the woman says. “And I’m sorry, we really can’t spare much of our supplies, but listen, Denny…we’re going to Portland. That’s pretty close to Post. Why don’t you just come with us?”
Abram stares at her in disbelief. “Are you serious?” The Denny voice slips a little, but they don’t seem to notice.
“Safety in numbers,” the man says with a shrug. “We help you, maybe you help us.”
“Or at least you live to help someone else,” the woman adds. “That’s what it’s all about, right? This ‘society’ thing?”
Abram squints. “But you don’t even know me.”
The woman smiles with a tilt of her head. “Well, how do we change that?”
Her smile is half sympathy, half motherly warmth. No part of it is malice or fear. He looks from the woman to the man as if he’s considering their offer, and for a moment he’s not sure why he isn’t. For a moment he loses himself in the character, forgets where the border lies and why he has to stay behind it. But only for a moment.
“No, no,” he says, shaking his head, “this isn’t going to work.”
And the man is pulling back in alarm because the boyish rube has just become a different person, his voice suddenly deeper and rougher, but Abram is already in motion, snatching the knife and darting around behind him and wrapping an arm around his throat.
The woman screams, of course, but that’s all. No gun hidden under the log. Nothing. It’ll be clean, a simple transfer of goods from two people who need them to one person who needs them more.
“Food and water in the bag,” he tells the woman.
Cringing and quaking, the woman obeys.
“Please don’t do this,” the man gasps.
“I have to.”
“We’ll die out here.”
“You’ll figure something out, just like I did.”
“Please—”
Abram tightens his hold, choking off the man’s whimpering. “You.” He jerks his chin at the woman. “Where’s the gas?”
“We don’t have any,” she whimpers. “Just what’s in the van.”
“You’re driving to Portland. You have at least one extra tank. Get it.”
The woman rubs her face in her hands like she’s trying to wake from a nightmare. Very slowly, she digs a big red gas can out from the back of the van. Very, very slowly, she carries it toward him. Abram feels each pulse of blood pounding against his forehead.
“Hurry up!” he barks. “Next to the bag.”
She starts crying again as she sets the can down. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. We’ll be stranded.”
Abram squeezes his eyes shut. The world is spinning around him. There are voices humming in the fire, a funeral dirge. “Shut up,” he whispers.
“Why won’t you just come with us? We’ll share everything, just—”
“Shut up!” His eyes snap wide. “Say one more word and I’ll cut his throat.”
“Please—”
He cuts the man’s throat. A short, shallow incision, just enough to get the blood flowing, but it has the desired effect; the woman shuts up, frozen in horror as a little puddle of blood gathers in Abram’s elbow and trickles over the edge.
“Dad?”
Abram whirls around, clutching the knife so tight it trembles. On the other side of the fire, two boys are staring at him with round eyes. One is fourteen or fifteen, the other is five or six. One has an armload of branches, the other has handfuls of twigs. All of it clatters to the ground when they see their father’s blood.
Abram lowers his head. He screws his eyes shut and grits his teeth. He lets out a long, shuddering breath, and he releases his grip.
The boys’ father stumbles to the ground, clutching his throat as his family rushes to his side.
“Keep pressure on that,” Abram mumbles as he turns away, head down and shoulders slumped. Limply, he drops the cube of Carbtein back into its box. Then he leaves his new friends and slips back into the dark trees, empty-handed except for the man’s knife.
He starts his motorcycle. His stomach still snarls and his throat still burns, begging him to go back and finish what he started, but he ignores their commands. The fuel gauge sinks deeper into red as he roars back onto the highway.
“What is your job?”
“To protect my daughter.”
“What are you doing…to…”
The force in R’s voice as he reached out to the Dead in Detroit, as he tried to remind them they were people…why was he so sure?
“I’m going to Post to…”
The passion in Julie’s eyes as she begged him not to leave, as she told him what her mother told her, that humanity’s a family you can never lose…why did she care so much?
He blinks dust out of his eyes and squints against the wind. Why the hell is he thinking about them? Those fools are long gone, couldn’t possibly matter less to the task at hand. His thoughts feel fuzzy, tangental, nonlinear. He starts over.
“What is your job?”
“To protect my daughter.”
“What are you doing right now to move toward success?”
“I’m going to—”
You’re going to lose her.
A chill freezes the sweat on his back. That voice again. His own, but not quite, like a skilled impersonation. A stranger muttering beneath a mask of his own face.
He repeats the drill, shouting it now.
“What is your job!”
“To protect my—”
You’re going to lose yourself looking for her, and that’s when she’s gone forever.
He skids to a stop. His eyes dart through the trees and his ears strain. But this is absurd. No one is whispering to him while he rockets down the highway at sixty miles per hour. He is exhausted. His mind is a murky stew. The stars are strange, the constellations too clear, like actual bulls and scorpions cavorting in the blackness.
He rolls the bike onto an overgrown forest road, leans it against a tree, and collapses onto the cushion of wild grass. The grass is alive and curious; it reaches out to touch his skin. The stars drift in lazy circles—a hard blink stops them, but not for long.
Let yourself rest, the voice says from behind the mask. Whatever they taught you, you are not a machine.
His face flushes with embarrassment as he finds himself answering the voice in his head. Who are you?
The only reply is the rustle of leaves and the distant roar of water. He sinks into the ground while reality churns around him.
I
THE WORLD feels bigger than it is. In this imploded era, when stepping outside an enclave is a suicide attempt and “long range” communications barely make it out of town, distance has been exaggerated to terrifying proportions. America is now a world unto itself, bordered by mysterious realms with unknown inhabitants, and other continents are just legends whispered by mad sailors, fantastic landscapes and exotic kingdoms out beyond the sea serpents.