“You know the rules,” the Bagger continued. “We do a head count when we’re done. If any of you are missing, the entire group dies.”
“Have they ever followed through on that?” Mason quietly asked the girl behind him.
“Two groups so far,” she whispered. “Brought back to camp and shot in front of everyone to prove their point. Both times they found the deserters too. You don’t want to know what they did to them. It wasn’t pretty.”
* * *
Several hours later, he stood on the seventh floor, covered in sweat and smelling like rancid flesh. The window in front of him was gone, lost in the earthquake. Nothing but an open hole, where a small breeze did very little to fix the smell permeating the carpets and furniture.
The toes of his sneakers stuck out over the ledge. Looking down, he could see the white van, tiny in the distance, and two of the prisoners carrying out a badly decomposed body.
He could jump.
Would it be that easy?
Yes, it would. He knew that he could solve all his problems in one quick step forward. There would be no more pain. No more hiding. No more having to deal with the darkness that kept drifting across his mind, no matter how hard he tried to push it aside.
No more self-loathing.
But then there would be nothing.
And he wasn’t ready for that.
The sun was going down and he had a perfect view of the bright yellow ball as it slowly sank into the ocean. In the distance he could see one of the offshore islands, a small dark glimpse of land at the edge of the horizon.
If he could get out of this, he might try and convince Aries and the others to head for the islands. Joy had told him the coast was full of them, the biggest being Vancouver Island. If they headed far enough north, they might even be able to find ones that hadn’t been touched by the Bagger nightmare. They might find people. They could start a new civilization.
He could picture them living in a small cottage, one that had to be heated by firewood in the winter, and in the summer they’d have a garden. They could learn to survive in this new world; both Michael and Clementine had grown up around hunting. Mind you, Mason had never shot a deer and he wondered if he’d be able to do it.
Nice thoughts.
Unreal as they were, they were more than enough to keep him from going over the edge.
Besides, if he did that, then the Baggers won. Mr. Leon would smile that big grin, knowing that he managed to get under Mason’s skin. And everything he’d done since burying Chickadee would have been a waste.
Turning away from the window, he stepped into the room, his back to the brilliant sunset. His nose wrinkled at the smell. The bodies spread out on the floor before him had been there for a long time. There wasn’t much left to make them recognizable. It was better that way.
He went into the bedroom and stripped the sheets off the bed. It took extra time, but he wasn’t about to touch them without having some sort of protection. Once he’d wrapped them up, another prisoner appeared and helped him carry the first body down the stairs.
Once upon a time, elevators used to make everyone’s lives so much easier.
The street was steadily growing dim and the shadows lengthened as the remaining daylight came to an end. They tossed the body in the street, piling it up against the others.
On the first floor they’d found seven people. Two were children.
On the second floor they’d found ten. They also found two dogs and a hamster in a cage.
The third floor brought sixteen.
And so on.
The pile grew.
The Baggers weren’t in sight so Mason decided to take a break. “I’m going to use the toilet,” he said to his partner.
“Your death wish,” the other guy said before heading back into the building. “Just don’t make it mine, too. You’d better come back.”
He went around the corner, wondering how far he could walk before the device on his leg started to make noise. Would it be loud like a siren, or silent? Probably not a good idea to try and find out.
He did his business next to a garbage bin and zipped up his pants. Only then did he notice the movement out of the corners of his eyes.
He looked up, catching a quick glimpse of blond hair.
Blushing, he quickly ran his hands along his pants to make sure everything was closed. How long had Clementine been watching him?
She was too far away to talk to, and he couldn’t take the risk of calling out to her. But she was looking right at him and she waved quickly to let him know she’d seen him. He glanced around to make sure no Baggers were sneaking up on him and waved back. She didn’t stick around. Turning a corner, she disappeared into the shadows.
It was hard to ignore the warmth growing in his stomach. Clementine would tell Aries, and she would come for him. It was dangerous to feel this happy, especially when he knew they’d be risking their lives for nothing.
The good news was he wasn’t alone.
The bad news was he wouldn’t be able to go back with them.
ARIES
The funeral was brief. They stood in a circle in the backyard, everyone silent and lost in their own thoughts. Even Jack was there, brought out and supported by Joy, who stuck to him like glue. His useless eyes stared up at the sky, a dark frown etched on his face as he stared at something he could no longer see.
Colin of course refused to go. “You’re all a bunch of hypocrites,” he said. “Those other girls died and all you did was toss them in the Dumpster.”
Aries and Clementine had returned to discover that both Emma and Janelle had died while they were gone. Larisa and Claude had removed the bodies from the house by themselves without saying a word.
But Colin’s comment had really brought out the anger in Larisa. She actually went over and smacked him upside the head. “Don’t you dare,” she said. “You didn’t know them. I did and it was my decision. And we didn’t dump them in the trash; we merely transported them to a place where we know the Baggers will come and collect them. If Aries and the others want to bury Nathan, I’m all for it. You were friends. But don’t you dare criticize me for my decisions.”
They stood in the garden, the hole beneath them, Nathan’s body wrapped in blankets found on the second floor. The yard was silent except for the sobs coming from Eve.
Aries couldn’t cry anymore. Her eyes were dry. She wanted to try and explain it to Eve, but she couldn’t find the right words. It didn’t help that when Eve looked at her, there was nothing but hatred in her eyes. Aries had felt she needed to be honest when she told Eve. She’d only be damning herself further if she lied.
Her fault.
And she was as dry as a bone.
“Maybe someone should say something?” Joy said.
No one spoke.
“I’ll do it,” Jack said. He stepped forward, carefully escorted by Joy. Everyone turned to him, waiting for the right words to make the funeral proper.
Eve sniffled and blew her nose with a tissue.
“I didn’t know Nathan for a long time,” Jack said. “In fact, I’m kind of sorry I ever got to meet him at all.” He turned and faced Eve, drawn to the sound of the sniffling. “Because if none of this had happened, we wouldn’t have met both of you. And I still lie in bed and try and wish this new world away. All those ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys.’
“But we’re here, and now one of us is gone,” he continued. “And I guess in a way we should be thankful that we’ve lasted this long without more deaths.”
Joy reached out and took his hand.
Aries nodded. “We’ve done the best we could.”
“We have,” Jack agreed. “At least that’s what I keep telling myself. But this isn’t about us. It’s about Nathan.” He turned and stared blindly at the grave. “Nathan and I had some great talks, but it’s only now that I realize I didn’t know anything about him. I never knew his favorite band. Or what he was studying in school. I never knew if he had a girlfr
iend.”
“He did,” Eve said. “But she was a bitch.”
Joy covered her mouth to hide her smile.
“So in honor of Nathan, who I hardly knew but still liked,” Jack said, “I suggest we get everyone ‘home’ and make this our one and only casualty from here on in.”
“Here, here,” Aries said.
They lined up and hugged Eve, and Aries tried to pretend that she didn’t believe the younger girl had given up, even though her embraces were weak and she refused to look anyone in the eye. When it came to Aries’s turn, Eve turned her back and moved away.
“She’ll get over it,” Joy whispered in Aries’s ear. “You’ll see. She just needs time.”
“No, she won’t,” Aries said. “But that’s okay. I wouldn’t forgive me either.”
One by one they took turns with the shovel until Nathan was buried.
* * *
“I found Mason!”
Clementine burst into the room, followed by an eager Raj, their arms filled with bags of goods taken from both the liquor and hardware stores.
“Really? Where?”
“He was part of a cleaning crew just over the bridge,” Clementine said. “They’re making him and a bunch of others bring out the bodies from the condos.”
“Others? Was Daniel there? What about Graham’s little girl?”
Clementine shook her head. “Sorry, I looked, but I didn’t see either of them. That doesn’t mean anything, though.”
Aries nodded.
“Meanwhile, we’ve got lots of work to do if we’re gonna pull this thing off,” Raj said as he began grabbing liquor bottles out of the bag. “We’ve got two options. I can waste these fine bottles, or I can mix up a bunch of the cleaning supplies we snagged from Canadian Tire. Either way, we’re gonna have lots of flames on our hands.”
“Cleaning supplies,” Clementine said. “Wasting booze on Baggers seems wrong to me.”
“Yep,” Aries said. “No booze wastage. That’s just sacrilegious.”
“Done and done,” Raj said. “Now let’s get to work.”
* * *
Jack was back in his room when she knocked softly on the door about an hour later. Joy was with him, sitting on the bed, and they were talking in hushed whispers. She stood up when Aries entered, brushed off her shirt, and ran a hand through her hair.
“I’ll let you guys be,” Joy said. “Should be starting with dinner, I suppose. Not much to work with tonight. The Safeway is starting to get a little sparse.”
“We’ll have to go farther out,” Aries said. “I promise you, once we get Mason back, we’ll take a chance and hit up a Superstore or Costco.”
Joy nodded and headed out. Jack waited till he heard the door click and her footsteps echoed down the stairs.
“Eventually we’re going to run out of food,” he said. “The grocery stores can’t support us forever. What isn’t hoarded by the Baggers and remaining survivors is only going to get eaten by the wildlife. Mason told me he saw deer a few days ago, wandering down Granville Street.”
“Yeah,” she said as she sat down beside him. “The raccoons and skunks have all pretty much realized they run this town. The last time I was at Safeway, the cereal aisle and all the crackers were demolished.”
“Raccoon heaven.”
She choked back a sob.
“Hey.” Jack’s voice was soft as he reached out to touch her face. He missed and brushed her ear instead. Her sob turned into a half giggle, a noise that didn’t sound happy in the slightest.
“What am I going to do?” she asked. The tears were falling again. Now that they’d started, it felt like they weren’t ever going to end. “If I hadn’t been so pigheaded, none of this would have happened. I killed Nathan. And now I’m falling apart and I can’t let anyone see.”
“Why not?”
“Because someone has to lead this group. Someone has to keep everyone safe. And what good am I going to be if I’m having a mental breakdown? How on earth am I going to lead them all into battle? I’m breaking down, Jack, and I can’t tell anyone.”
“You’re doing a good job telling me.”
She let out the half sob, half giggle again. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
“Do you feel better?”
She sat back down on the bed and kicked at the bedpost with her heel. “Maybe.”
“Let’s make this easy, then,” Jack said, reaching out and taking her hand. “You messed up. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it, although they keep telling you otherwise. You know why? They believe in you. Yeah, you screwed up. So have they. We all have. But you’ve managed to last the longest. Everyone looks up to you, Aries. Just because you made one mistake, it doesn’t turn you into a monster. It makes you human.”
He pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her. “Come on, even leaders need a good hug now and then.”
She fell into his embrace, holding him tight. Jack was like the brother she never had. He always managed to make her feel safe. They stayed together for a while, him holding her while the tears rolled down her face.
“It seems like I’m crying all the time these days,” she said after a while. “I bawled on Mason’s shoulder when we were back at my old house. Now you. I can’t control myself.”
“Me neither,” he said. “I guess we’ve all been wrapped up in our own problems. I’ve been feeling rather sorry for myself. I guess I should have paid a little more attention to you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.
Jack paused. “I need to ask you something and I don’t want you to say no.”
She pulled away from the hug and sat up. “You sound serious.”
“I am.”
“Okay.”
Jack rubbed his forehead and winced, the frown lines digging deeply into his skin. “This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about,” he said. “If something happens, like as in we have to leave the house in a hurry, I’m not coming.”
“What? Why not?”
“It’s my choice, Aries,” he said.
“You’re talking about suicide.”
“Oh, come on, you know it’s not that,” he said with a forced chuckle. “I just don’t want to slow the rest of you down. And don’t make that face. I may not be able to see you, but I can hear the frown forming on your lips.”
“I’m not frowning.”
“Yes, you are. What kind of friend do you think I am? I’ve only known you since forever. And that’s why I know you’re going to give me your word.”
She sighed. “I can’t lose you, Jack. I can’t.”
“Then let’s hope you won’t. But you still have to make the promise.”
“Fine. But it’s not gonna happen, so there’s no point in this discussion anyway,” she lied.
“Exactly,” Jack said. “Now can you hand me some of the Tylenol on the counter? My head’s about to explode.”
She fiddled with the childproof cap until she finally managed to get a few of the pills into his outstretched hand.
* * *
A few hours later Aries, Clementine, Raj, and Joy dressed themselves completely in black. They carried backpacks filled with handmade Molotov cocktails that Raj had cooked up in the bathroom.
“So we stick to the plan,” Aries said. “If things become too hard, we get out. No questions asked. Be careful. We can’t lose anyone, especially not so soon after . . .”
Joy nodded. She pulled up her sleeve, checking the digital watch taken from the hardware store. They were each wearing one, all set to the same time. “Do you think Eve is going to be okay staying with Jack? Larisa and Claude are here, but they don’t really know her well enough if she breaks down again. Do you think it’s enough? Maybe one of us should stay too?”
“No,” Aries said. “Give Eve more credit than that. She’s strong. And besides, she’s got Colin.”
Joy snorted and Aries grinned at her.
“Then let’s get out of here,” Clementine said. “And, Aries, you
know that tomorrow we’re doing the exact same thing for Michael.”
Raj groaned. “How on earth did I get into the rescue business? All I did was follow a few of you home and now you’ve got me going all Mission: Impossible. I should start charging you for my time.”
Clementine smacked him on the arm.
“Tomorrow we get Michael,” Aries agreed, shaking her heavy backpack and listening to the bottles clink together. “Let’s just hope his rescue doesn’t involve as much firepower.”
NOTHING
Jingle bells. Jingle bells.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
I’m dreaming of a white Christmas.
Fa la la la la, la, la,
la
La.
Okay, I’m lying. It’s so not beginning to look like the holidays in any way, shape, or form. That warm fuzzy feeling people normally get when they drink too much eggnog? It’s extinct.
This year the city really went downhill with decorations. Gone are the big Christmas trees, the fancy shop windows, and the ice rink in Robson Square. Gone are the hot-chestnut vendors and the people rushing through the night, umbrellas in one hand, last-minute packages in the other. Gone are the multitude of bright lights, miscellaneous chocolate, and candy canes that taste like peppermint.
No staff parties this year. No mistletoe or drunken binges that may or may not end with someone throwing up in the parking lot.
Gone but not forgotten.
Everyone remembers. I can see the tension on their faces. They know what day is coming. But no one wants to say it out loud.
Can it still be Christmas if no one believes? If I gave you a gift, would you treasure it always? Or would you fret because you didn’t get me anything in return? Wouldn’t it be nice if I could gift my curse to you, package it up in a nice bundle, and place a silver ribbon over my life? I would give it to you in a heartbeat.
Of course, you would probably just return it the next day.
I wish I had a tree. If I could, I would sneak off into the mountains and wander until I found the perfect pine. I wouldn’t chop it down; that would be too cruel. I’d just like to sit there and stare at it, enjoying the smell and the beauty that is all around me. I might never want to come back.