Текст книги "Bird box"

Автор книги: Josh Malerman

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

fourteen

Cold river water splashes across Malorie’s pants as she rows. Each time it does she pictures one of the creatures in the river, cupping its hands, tossing it upon her, mocking her attempt at escape. She shivers.

Olympia’s baby book, Malorie recalls, taught her many things. But there was one sentence in At Last . . . a Baby! that really struck a chord:

Your baby is smarter than you think.

At first, Malorie struggled to accept this. In the new world, babies had to be trained to wake up with their eyes closed. They had to be raised scared. There wasn’t room for unknowns. Yet, there were times when the Boy and the Girl surprised her.

Once, having cleaned the upstairs hallway of the children’s makeshift toys, Malorie stepped into the living room. There, she heard something move in the room at the end of the first-floor hall.

“Boy?” she called. “Girl?”

But she knew the children were in their bedroom. She’d locked them in their cribs less than an hour before.

Malorie closed her eyes and stepped into the hall.

She knew what the sound was. She knew exactly where every object in the house was located. It was a book falling from the table in the room Don and Jules once shared.

At the children’s bedroom doorway, Malorie paused. Within, she heard soft snoring.

A second crash from the unused room and Malorie gasped. The bathroom was only a few feet from her. The children were sleeping. If she could just get into the bathroom, she could defend herself.

Blindly, her arms raised in front of her face, she moved quickly, smashing into the wall before finding the bathroom doorway. Inside, she hit her hip hard against the sink. Frantically feeling along the wall, she felt the cloth of a towel hanging. She wrapped it tightly around her eyes. Knotted it twice. Then, behind the open door, she found what she was looking for.

The garden axe.

Armed, blindfolded, she exited the bathroom. Gripping the axe handle with both hands, she inched toward the door she knew was always closed. A door that was now open.

She stepped inside.

She swung the axe, blindly, at eye level. It struck the wood wall and Malorie screamed as splinters exploded. She turned and swung again, this time connecting with the opposite wall.

“Get out! Leave my children alone!”

Heaving, she waited.

For a response. For movement. For whatever it was that knocked the books over in there.

Then she heard the Boy, at her feet, whimpering.

“Boy?”

Stunned, kneeling, Malorie found him fast. She removed the towel and opened her eyes.

In his tiny hands she saw he held a ruler. Beside him were the books.

She picked him up and carried him into his bedroom. There, she saw the wire lid of the crib open. She set him next to it on the floor. Then she closed it again and asked him to open it. The Boy just stared at her. She toyed with the little lock, asking him to show her if he could open it. Then he did.

Malorie slapped him.

At Last . . . a Baby!

She recalled Olympia’s baby book. Now her own.

And the one sentence from it she tried hard to ignore came back to her.

Your baby is smarter than you think.

It used to worry her. But today, in the boat, using the children’s ears as guides, she clings to it, hoping the children are as prepared as anybody can be for what may come, farther along the river.

Yes, she hopes they are smarter than what may lay ahead.

fifteen

I’m not drinking that water,” Malorie says.

The housemates are exhausted. They slept packed together on the living room floor, though nobody slept for very long.

“We can’t go days without water, Malorie,” Tom says. “Think about the baby.”

“That’s who I’m thinking about.”

In the kitchen, on the counter, the two buckets Felix filled are still untouched. One by one the housemates lick their dry lips. It has been twenty-four hours and the likelihood of its being much longer weighs on all their minds.

They are thirsty.

“Can we drink the river water?” Felix asks.

“Bacteria,” Don says.

“That depends,” Tom says. “On how cold the water is. How deep. How fast it flows.”

“And anyway,” Jules says, “if something got into the well, I’m sure it’s gotten into the river.”

Contamination, Malorie thinks. It’s the word of the hour.

In the cellar are three buckets of urine and feces. Nobody wants to take them outside. Nobody wants to go out there at all today. The smell is strong in the kitchen and hangs faintly in the living room.

“I would drink the river water,” Cheryl says. “I’d chance it.”

“You’d go out there?” Olympia asks. “There could be something standing right on the other side of the door!”

“I don’t know what I heard,” Felix says. He’s repeated this many times. He’s said he feels guilty for scaring everybody.

“It was probably a person,” Don says. “Probably somebody looking to rob us.”

“Do we have to figure this out right now?” Jules asks. “It’s been one day. We haven’t heard anything. Let’s wait. One more day. See if we feel better.”

“I’d even drink from the buckets,” Cheryl says. “It’s a well, for fuck’s sake. Animals fall into wells all the time. They die down there. We’ve probably been drinking dead animal water this whole time.”

“The water in this neighborhood has always been good,” Olympia says.

Malorie gets up. She walks to the kitchen’s entrance. The water glistens at the rim of the wood bucket, shines in the one of metal.

What would it do to us? she thinks.

“Can you imagine drinking a little part of one?” Tom asks.

Malorie turns. He is standing beside her. His shoulder rubs against hers in the doorway.

“I can’t do it, Tom.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to. But I can ask myself.”

When Malorie looks him in the eye she knows he is serious.

“Tom.”

Tom turns to face the others in the dining room.

“I’ll drink it,” he says.

“We don’t need a champion,” Don says.

“I’m not looking to be one, Don. I’m thirsty.”

The housemates are quiet. Malorie sees the same thing in their faces that she’s feeling herself. For as scared as she is, she wants someone to drink it.

“This is insane,” Felix says. “Come on, Tom. We can figure something else out.”

Tom steps into the dining room. At the table, he looks Felix in the eye.

“Lock me in the cellar. I’ll drink it down there.”

“You’ll go mad from the smell,” Cheryl says.

Tom smiles sadly.

“We have a well, right in our backyard,” he says. “If we can’t use it, we can’t use anything. Let me do this.”

“You know who you sound like?” Don asks.

Tom waits.

“You sound like George. Except he had a theory.”

Tom looks to the dining room table, set against the window.

“We’ve been here for months,” he says. “If something got in the well yesterday, it probably got in there before.”

“You’re rationalizing,” Malorie says.

Tom answers her without turning to face her.

“Is there any option? Sure, the river. But we could get sick. Real sick. We don’t have any medicine. All we’ve had so far is the water from the well. It’s the only medicine we’ve got. What else can we do? Walk to the next well? And then what? Hope nothing got into that one?”

Malorie watches as, one by one, the housemates acquiesce. The natural rebellion in Don’s face gives way to concern. The fear in Olympia’s eyes turns to guilt. As for herself, Malorie doesn’t want him to do it. For the first time since arriving at the house, Tom’s role, how integral he is to everything that happens here, is blinding.

But instead of stopping him, he inspires her. And she helps.

“Not the cellar,” she says. “What if you went mad down there and destroyed our food stock?”

Tom faces her.

“All right,” he says. “Then the attic.”

“A leap from that window is a lot higher than one from down here.”

Tom stares into Malorie’s eyes.

“I’ll make a compromise,” he says. “The second floor. You gotta lock me somewhere. And there’s no place down here.”

“You can use my room.”

“That room,” Don says, “is the very one George used to watch the video.”

Malorie looks back to Tom.

“I didn’t know that.”

“Let’s do it,” Tom says.

He pauses, just a moment, before passing Malorie and entering the kitchen. Malorie follows. The housemates file in behind them. When he pulls a glass from the cupboard, Malorie gently grabs his arm.

“Drink it through this,” she says. She hands him a coffee filter. “I don’t know. A filter. Who knows?”

Tom takes it. He looks her in the eye. Then he dunks the glass in the wooden well bucket.

When he pulls it out, he holds it up. The housemates stand in a semicircle around it. They stare at the contents of the glass.

The details of Felix’s story chill Malorie all over again.

Carrying the glass, Tom leaves the kitchen. Jules gathers some rope from the kitchen pantry and follows him.

The other housemates do not speak. Malorie places one hand on her belly and the other on the counter. Then she lifts it quickly, as if she’s just put her hand in a deadly substance.

Contamination.

But there was no water where she put her hand.

Upstairs, the door to her bedroom closes. She listens as Jules ties the rope around the doorknob and fastens it to the railing of the staircase.

Now Tom is locked in.

Like George.

Felix paces. Don leans against the wall, arms crossed, staring at the floor. When Jules returns, Victor goes to him.

A sound comes from upstairs. Malorie gasps. The housemates look to the ceiling.

They wait. They listen. Felix moves as if he’s going to go up there. Then he stops.

“He must have drunk it already,” Don says quietly.

Malorie steps to the entrance of the living room. There, ten feet away, is the foot of the stairs.

There is only silence.

Then there is a knock.

And Tom yells.

Tom yells Tom yells Tom yells Tom

Malorie is already moving to the stairs, but Jules passes her.

“Stay here!” he commands.

She watches him climb the stairs.

“Tom!”

“Jules, I’m okay.”

At the sound of Tom’s voice, Malorie exhales. She reaches for the railing to steady herself.

“Did you drink it?” Jules says through the door.

“I did. I drank it. I’m fine.”

The other housemates are gathered behind her now. They begin talking. Quietly at first. Then excitedly. Upstairs, Jules unties the rope. Tom emerges from the bedroom holding the empty glass before him.

“What was it like?” Olympia asks.

Malorie smiles. So do the others. It’s funny, in a dark way, right now, asking what drinking a glass of water was like.

“Well,” Tom says, descending, “it was probably the best glass of water I’ve ever had.”

When he reaches the bottom he looks Malorie in the eye.

“I liked the filter idea,” he says. When he passes her, he sets the glass on the end table with the telephone. Then he turns to the others. “Let’s put the furniture back in order. Let’s put this place back together again.”

sixteen

On the river, Malorie feels the heat of the midday sun. Instead of bringing her peace, it reminds her how visible they must be.

“Mommy,” the Boy whispers.

Malorie leans forward. Her palm is pierced by a splinter from the oar. This makes three.

“What is it?”

“Shhh,” the Boy says.

Malorie stops rowing. She is listening.

The Boy is right. Something moves on land to their left. Sticks break. More than one.

The man in the boat, Malorie’s mind screams, saw something on this river.

Could it be him? Could he be out in the woods? Could he be after her, waiting for her to get stuck, ready to rip off her blindfold? The children’s?

More sticks break. It moves slowly. Malorie thinks of the house they’ve left behind. They were safe there. Why did they leave? Is the place they are heading going to be any safer? How could it be? In a world where you can’t open your eyes, isn’t a blindfold all you could ever hope for?

We left because some people choose to wait for news and others make their own.

Like Tom used to say. Malorie, she knows, will never stop being inspired by him. The very thought of him, here, on the river, brings her hope.

Tom, she wants to tell him, your ideas were good.

“Boy,” she whispers, paddling again, fearful that they are too close to the left bank, “what do you hear?”

“It’s close, Mommy.” Then, “I’m scared.”

There is a moment of silence. In it, Malorie imagines a danger only inches away.

She stops paddling again, to listen better. She cranes her neck to the left.

The front of the rowboat connects with something hard. Malorie shrieks. The children scream.

We’ve run into the bank!

Malorie jabs a paddle at where she thinks the mud is but she does not connect.

“Leave us alone!” she yells, her face contorted. Suddenly, she longs for the walls of the house. There are no walls on this river. No cellar beneath them. No attic above.

“Mommy!”

As the Girl screams for her, something breaks through the branches. Something big.

Malorie jabs the paddle again but it only breaks the water. She grabs the Boy and Girl and pulls them close.

She hears a growl.

“Mommy!”

“Quiet!” she yells, pulling the Girl even closer.

Is it the man? Deranged? Do the creatures growl? Do they make any noise at all?

A second growl now and suddenly Malorie understands what it is. It’s doglike. Canine.

Wolves.

She doesn’t have time to coil before a wolf’s claw slashes her shoulder.

She screams. Immediately she feels the warm blood cascading the length of her arm. Cold water sloshes in the rowboat’s bottom.

Urine, too.

They smell it on us, Malorie thinks, frantic, turning her head in every direction and aimlessly wielding the paddle. They know we can’t defend ourselves.

She hears another low growling. It’s a pack. The rowboat’s tip is snagged on something. Malorie can’t find it with her paddle. But the boat swivels, as if the wolves have taken ahold of the bow.

They could jump in! THEY COULD JUMP IN! Crawl to the front of the boat. You have to set it free.

Swinging the paddle above the heads of the children, screaming, Malorie rises. The boat leans to the right. She thinks they’re going to tip. She steadies herself. The wolves snarl. Her shoulder is hot with a kind of pain she has never experienced before. Holding it, blindly, wildly, she waves a paddle at the boat’s tip. But she cannot reach it. So she steps forward.

“Mommy!”

She drops to her knees. The Boy is beside her now. He is holding on to her shirt.

“I need you to let go!” she yells.

Something jumps into the water.

Malorie turns her head toward the sound.

How shallow is it here? Can they get in the boat? Can the wolves GET IN THE BOAT??

Turning quickly, she crawls to the end of the rowboat and reaches out, into the darkness.

The children scream behind her. Water splashes. The boat rocks. Wolves bark. And in the darkness of her own closed eyes, Malorie’s hand feels a stump.

She yells as she reaches with both arms now. Her left shoulder aches. She feels the frigid October air on her shredded skin. With her second hand she feels a second stump.

We’re wedged. That’s all! We’re wedged!

As she pushes hard against the two stumps, something bangs against the boat. She can hear claws, scratching, trying to climb in.

The boat grates against the wood. Water splashes. Malorie hears it from every direction. There’s another growl, and heat, too. Something is close to her face.

She screams loudly and pushes.

Then, they are free.

Turning fast, Malorie stumbles and falls into the middle bench.

“Boy!” she screams.

“Mommy!”

Then she reaches for the Girl and finds she is pressed against the middle bench.

“Are you two all right? Speak to me!”

“I’m scared!” the Girl says.

“I’m fine, Mommy!” the Boy says.

Malorie is paddling hard. Her left shoulder, already pressed past the point of exhaustion, resists. But she forces it to work.

Malorie paddles. The children are tucked at her knees and feet. The water breaks beneath the wood. She paddles. What else can she do? What else can she do but paddle? The wolves could be coming. How shallow is the river here?

Malorie paddles. It feels like her arm is dangling from her body. But she paddles. The place she is taking the children to may no longer exist. The excruciating trip, blindly taking the river, could result in nothing. When they get there, down the river, will they be safe? What if what she’s looking for isn’t there?

seventeen

They’re scared of us,” Olympia suddenly says.

“What do you mean?” Malorie asks. The two are sitting together on the third step up the staircase.

“Our housemates. They’re scared of our bellies. And I know why. It’s because one day they’re going to have to deliver these babies.”

Malorie looks into the living room. She has been at the house for two months. She is five months pregnant. She too has thought of this. Of course she has.

“Who do you think will do it?” Olympia asks, her wide, innocent eyes trained on Malorie.

“Tom,” Malorie says.

“Okay, but I’d feel a lot better if there was a doctor in the house.”

This thought is always looming for Malorie. The inevitable day she gives birth. No doctors. No medicine. No friends or family. She tries to imagine it as a quick experience. Something that will happen fast and be over with. She pictures the moment her water breaks, then imagines holding the baby. She doesn’t want to think about what’ll happen in between.

The others are gathered in the living room. The morning’s chores are finished. All day Malorie has had a sense that Tom is working something out. He’s been distant. Isolated with his thoughts. Now he stands in the center of the living room, every housemate in earshot, and reveals what’s been on his mind. It’s exactly what Malorie was hoping it wasn’t.

“I’ve got a plan,” he says.

“Oh?” Don asks.

“Yes.” Tom pauses, as if making sure of what he’s about to say one final time. “We need guides.”

“What do you mean?” Felix asks.

“I mean I’m going to go looking for dogs.”

Malorie gets up from the stairs and walks to the entrance of the living room. Just like the others, the idea of Tom leaving the house has dramatically gotten her attention.

“Dogs?” Don asks.

“Yes,” Tom says. “Strays. Former pets. There must be hundreds out there. Loose. Or stuck inside a home they can’t get out of. If we’re going to go on stock runs, which we all know we’re going to have to do, I’d like us to have help. Dogs could warn us.”

“Tom, we don’t know the effect they have on animals,” Jules says.

“I know. But we can’t sit still.”

The tension in the room has risen.

“You’re crazy,” Don says. “You’re really thinking of going out there.”

“We’ll bring weapons,” Tom says.

Don leans forward in the easy chair.

“What exactly are you thinking of here?”

“I’ve been working on helmets,” Tom says. “To protect our blindfolds. We’ll carry butcher knives. The dogs could lead us. If one goes mad? Let the leash go. If the animal comes after you, kill it with the knife.”

“Blind.”

“Yes. Blind.”

“I don’t like the sound of this at all,” Don says.

“Why not?”

“There could be maniacs out there. Criminals. The streets aren’t what they used to be, Tom. We’re not in suburbia anymore. We’re in chaos.”

“Well, something has to change,” Tom says. “We need to make progress. Otherwise we’re waiting for news in a world where there is no longer any news.”

Don looks to the carpet. Then back to Tom.

“It’s too dangerous. There’s just no reason for it.”

“There’s every reason for it.”

“I say we wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“Help. Something.”

Tom looks to the blankets covering the windows.

“There’s no help coming, Don.”

“That doesn’t mean we should run outside looking for it.”

“We’ll vote,” Tom says.

Don looks to the faces of the other housemates. It’s clear he’s looking for someone to agree with him.

“A vote,” Don says. “I don’t like that idea at all, either.”

“Why not?” Felix says.

“Because, Felix, we’re not talking about which buckets we drink from and which ones we piss in. We’re talking about one or more of us leaving the house, for no good reason.”

“It’s not no good reason,” Tom says. “Think of the dogs as an alarm system. Felix heard something by the well two weeks ago. Was it an animal? Was it a man? Was it a creature? The right dog might’ve barked. I’m talking about searching our block. Maybe the next one, too. Give us twelve hours. That’s all I’m asking.”

Twelve hours, Malorie thinks. Getting water from the well takes only half of one.

But the number, finite as it is, calms her.

“I don’t see why we need to round up strays at all,” Don says. He fans a hand toward Victor at Jules’s feet. “We’ve got one right here. Let’s train him.”

“No way,” Jules says, rising now.

“Why not?”

“I didn’t bring him here so he could be a sacrifice. Until we know how dogs are affected, I’m not agreeing to that.”

“A sacrifice,” Don says. “Good choice of words.”

“The answer is no,” Jules says.

Don turns to Tom.

“You see? The one dog owner we have in the house is even against it.”

“I didn’t say I was against Tom’s idea,” Jules says.

Don looks around the room.

“So, is everyone for this then? Really? All of you think it’s a good idea?”

Olympia looks to Malorie, wide eyed. Don, seeing an opportunity for an ally, approaches her.

“What do you think, Olympia?” he demands.

“Oh! I . . . well . . . I . . . don’t know!”

“Don,” Tom says. “We’ll take a legitimate vote.”

“I’m for it,” Felix says.

Malorie looks around the living room.

“I’m for it, too,” Jules says.

“I’m in,” Cheryl says.

Tom turns to Don. As he does, Malorie feels something sink inside her.

The house, Malorie realizes, needs him.

“I’ll go with you,” Jules says. “If I’m not going to let you use my dog, I can at least help you round up others.”

Don shakes his head.

“You guys are fucking nuts.”

“Then let’s start making you a helmet, too,” Tom says, planting a hand on Jules’s shoulder.

By the next morning, Tom and Jules are putting the finishing touches on the second helmet.

They are leaving today. For Malorie, it is all moving too fast. They just voted on them leaving, but do they have to leave right away?

Don makes no move to hide his feelings. The others, like Malorie, are hopeful. It is difficult, Malorie knows, not to be swept up in Tom’s energy. If it were Don about to leave, she might have less faith in his returning with Seeing Eye dogs. But Tom has an energy about him. When he says he’s going to do something, it feels like it’s already done.

Malorie watches from the couch. Both With Child and At Last . . . a Baby! talk about the “stress link” between mother and child. Malorie doesn’t want her baby to feel the anxiety she feels now, watching Tom prepare to leave the house.

There are two duffel bags against the wall. Both are half-stocked with canned goods, flashlights, and blankets. Beside them are big knives and the former legs of a kitchen stool, chiseled now into sharp stakes. They will use the broomsticks as walking sticks.

“Maybe,” Olympia says, “animals can’t go mad because their brains are too small.”

By the expression on Don’s face, it looks like he might say something. But he holds his tongue.

“It’s possible that animals don’t have the capacity to go mad,” Tom says, adjusting a helmet strap. “Maybe a thing has to be smart enough to lose its mind.”

“Well, I would like to know something like that before I go out there,” Don says.

“Maybe,” Tom continues, “there are degrees of insanity. I’m constantly curious to know how the creatures affect people who are already insane.”

“Why don’t you round up some of them, too?” Don huffs. “Are you sure you want to risk your life on the hope that animals aren’t as smart as us?”

Tom looks him in the eye.

“I’d like to tell you I have more respect for animals than that, Don. But right now, all I care about is surviving.”

At last, Jules straps his helmet on. He turns his head to see how it fits. The back of it snaps apart and the whole thing falls to his feet.

Don slowly shakes his head.

“Damn it,” Tom says, picking up the pieces. “I had that worked out. Don’t worry, Jules.”

Lifting the pieces, Tom reassembles them, then fortifies the strap with a second one. He places it upon Jules’s head.

“There. All better.”

With these words, Malorie feels ill. She has known all morning that Tom and Jules would be leaving, but the moment seems to come too quickly.

Don’t go, she wants to say to Tom. We need you. I need you.

But she understands that the reason the house needs Tom is because he’s the kind of man who would do what he is doing today.

By the wall, Felix and Cheryl help Tom and Jules strap the duffel bags to their backs.

Tom is jabbing at the air with one of the stakes.

Malorie feels a second wave of nausea. There is no greater reminder of the horror of this new world than seeing Tom and Jules prepared the way they are, for a walk around the block. Blindfolded, armed, they look like soldiers of a makeshift war.

“Okay,” Tom says. “Let us out.”

Felix steps to the front door. The housemates gather behind him in the foyer. Malorie watches them close their eyes, then she does the same. In her private darkness, her heart beats louder.

“Good luck,” she suddenly says, knowing that she would regret it if she didn’t.

“Thank you,” Tom says. “Remember what I said. In twelve hours we’ll be back. Are everybody’s eyes closed?”

The housemates tell him they are.

Then the front door opens. Malorie can hear their shoes upon the front porch. Then the door is shut.

To Malorie, it feels like something imperative has been locked outside.

Twelve hours.