“It’s empty,” announces Brennan. He’s jittery—excited, I think. “That means someone emptied it, right? There are other people around here?”
I step forward to touch the plastic box. Cool, smooth, inorganic. I imagine a massive jet stocked with these instead of passengers, arriving home empty. “Also someone else out there organized enough to pull off a Marshall Plan,” I say.
“What’s a Marshall Plan?” asks Brennan, ducking into the crate and examining its ceiling.
It’s hard, so hard. Conversation. Is this how Cooper felt at first, talking to me? “You didn’t make it to World War Two in school?” I ask.
“Nazis,” he counters. His voice echoes slightly. “World War Two was Nazis.”
“Touché.” It slips out and I want it back. More than I love you, we said touché. Banter followed by a kiss. “It doesn’t matter,” I say. “I don’t think the reference even works.” Because the Marshall Plan was different from the Berlin Airlift, wasn’t it? And it was an airlift not an airdrop, and though I’ve always assumed the supplies drifted in on parachutes, maybe the planes landed.
Are there enough people left for the proper nouns of history to matter?
This crate would suggest so. I’m not sure how that makes me feel, for there to be enough, but for those I loved not to be among them. It’s another readjustment, and I don’t know how much change I have left in me.
Brennan pops his head out of the crate. “Should we try to find them?” he asks.
Movement catches my eye and I see it, see them: a trio of strangers standing among the trees, watching. An old black man with bright white hair, a youngish white woman, and another man, also youngish, who looks like he might be Latino, but maybe he just has dark hair and a tan.
“Mae?” asks Brennan.
“I don’t think we need to,” I say.
“Why not?” He hops out of the crate. “Do you—” He notices my gaze, follows my nod. “Oh,” he says.
—
“Name?” asks the old man. A different old man. This one is white and bearded, and this farm has been in his family for generations. Or so goes the lore. A little over a month since the plague—that’s what they call it, the plague—and this sanctuary tucked away in western Massachusetts already has lore.
This is the first question he’s asked us, but he’s already taken several notes in his leather-bound ledger. Race and sex, I assume. General impressions. Brennan’s bouncy energy, my scowl.
“Brennan Michaels,” says Brennan. He’s sitting straight in his chair, too straight. His right leg operates an invisible sewing machine.
“Immune or recovered?” asks the man.
“What?”
“Were you immune to the plague or did you catch it and recover?”
“Oh. Immune.”
The old man makes a note. “Any skills we should know about? Tasks you’d be especially fit for?”
“I, uh…”
“He’s thirteen,” I interject.
The bearded man turns to me with lifted brows. I don’t like him. “What about you, what are your skills?”
“I don’t die,” I say, “even when everyone else does.”
The brows lower. “We’ve got three hundred and fourteen souls here who can say the same. Any actual skills?”
I dislike him a little less.
“She can build fires!” blurts Brennan. “And shelters out of branches and stuff. And she’s really good at—”
I shoot him a stilling glance. We didn’t see much of the farm, walking in with our escort, but it’s huge and populated with multiple structures. There were running tractors, noise. Life here is beyond debris huts. “I’m not a doctor or an engineer,” I say. “I can’t track a deer and I don’t know how to build a roof, but I’ll do whatever needs to be done. Teach me, or I’ll figure it out on my own. Either way it’ll get done.”
The man jots a few more notes. “Well, you don’t sound lazy,” he says. “As long as you’re willing to contribute, we can use you. And what are you, immune or recovered?”
“Recovered, I think.”
“What’s your name?”
“Mae,” I say. Perhaps I should have hesitated, or given the other, but Mae’s the version of me who made it this far.
“Mae what?”
This time I do hesitate, and then I give the only answer that feels true. “Woods.”
In the Dark—Trying to find my wife …
[+] submitted 1 day ago by 501_Miles
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sorted by: popularity [-] LongLiveCaptainTightPants 1 day ago A friend of a friend of mine met the banker guy from the show in a camp outside Fresno. He was evacuated along with a few of the others. Says he thought it was all scripted at first, took him a bit to realize there was a real emergency. I’ll reach out, see if I can get contact info.
[-] 501_Miles 1 day ago Thank you. This is the first lead I’ve had—thank you.
[-] LongLiveCaptainTightPants 4 hours ago Got it. PM to follow.
[-] Trina_ABC 1 hour ago 501_Miles—I’m with an ABC affiliate outside of San Francisco. We heard about your search for your wife and would love to speak with you. If you’re willing to share your story, please PM me. Maybe I can help.
…
26.
“This place is pretty nice, huh, Mae?” asks Brennan. He’s sitting on his cot across from mine, tying his shoelaces. We’re in a barn that’s been converted to a dorm and houses two dozen people. This corner is ours. It was kind of them, to give us a corner.
“Could be worse,” I reply. I’m getting better at putting in my contacts left-handed, but it’s still difficult, especially without a mirror.
“About Vermont…” says Brennan.
“We’re better off here.”
He looks up, hopeful. “You think we should stay?”
I take my hand away from my eye and blink rapidly. It stings for a second, then the lens settles. “Yes, I think we should stay.” Because his future is more important than my past.
We’ve been here four days. It’s difficult, being surrounded by people after so long alone, or nearly so. But there’s less drama than I expected. Everyone has a role, and seems to fill it with minimal complaint. “Most of us had it rough, getting here,” the doctor told me when I went to see her about my hand. “We know how bad it could get, if we let it. So we don’t.”
Another bit of lore: There was an attempted rape, early on. They let the assailed choose the punishment and she chose instead to forgive. Something about there being enough grief in this world without adding to it. It’s unclear who exactly this woman was—no one ever gives her a name when telling the story—but if this is truly a new world, someone’s bound to dedicate a statue to her before too long. Or a church. Soon her memory and eventually her myth will be begged forgiveness for sins beyond count or measure.
There’s no one left to forgive me.
I asked the doctor about my period; she said nearly every woman here has missed one. It’s the physical stress, like I thought. She had me stand on one of those tall, creaky scales, the type that measures height too. One hundred four pounds; almost thirty below the weight I think of as mine. She said my body should be getting back to normal soon, now that I’m safe. She actually used those words: “normal,” “safe.” I think that’s what made me tell her about the coyote. She stared. Turns out I know more about rabies than she does. If I’m still standing a month from now, I’m in the clear.
I haven’t told Brennan. I figure it’s best not to mention rabies until and unless I develop an irrational fear of water. He’s befriended a few kids around his age, but slingshots back to me every meal, every morning, every “town hall,” and every evening. I’m grateful.
“Mae,” says Brennan as I move on to my right eye. “When we were at your house—”
A different world, a different life, a different me. “I told you, Brennan, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But it’s different now.”
“No,” I say, firmly. I blink my second lens into place.
“But, Mae…”