so,” he said.
“Can I see him?”
Jeryl bit his lip. I’d never seen him do that before. He knew exactly why I was there. It was embarrassing, it was unnatural, but everything about the world was unnatural now.
“Come on in. I was … I think I’ll take a walk.”
He stepped out.
Ramsey was just as surprised to see me, and instead of embarrassed, he seemed flat-out scared. I jumped on his bed without a word and kissed him. He didn’t shove me away or ask me what the hell I was doing. His lips were tight, and his breath was stale. But I pushed on. I’m a trouper.
I got so far as taking my jacket off, then my shirt, and I wasn’t wearing a bra. I hadn’t worn a bra since Eagle. I rolled on top of him and felt him shaking. I looked into his eyes and saw they were wet. At first I didn’t understand what I was seeing. Crying? Was he crying?
“The hell?” I said. I know, not very compassionate of me. He was, after all, only seventeen at the time, and I was twenty-two. Not to mention the fact that he was eleven when we left Eagle. He’d probably never kissed a girl before. Still, I was surprised by his reaction, confused, and, to be honest, offended.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Keep going. It’s okay.”
I rolled off him and covered up, suddenly self-conscious of how naked I was. “Why are you crying?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
There was a lot of apologizing, a lot of awkward silences before I decided, to hell with this, I’m out of here. I dressed and left, and we never spoke of it. But when I think about it, I still get this ball in the pit of my stomach.
I don’t know if Ramsey was gay or if he was just a scared little boy. Either way, I never tried that again. So much for procreation. Oh well. Screw you, human race.
Things I don’t miss about summer:
Bugs.
Sunburns.
Sunscreen.
Freckles, freckles, freckles.
The morning after the shit storm with Conrad, I got up early, dressed, and trudged out into the snow. Couldn’t stand to be around everyone. I was in one of my moods, the ones that can be changed only by long bouts of solitude. Strange, the things that survive the apocalypse. My need to be by myself apparently outlives any flu. Back in the old world, I used to run off to the river and climb this one willow tree that hung over the moving water. I’d read, listen to music, or just sit there and watch the leaves spinning in the wind. Needed to be away from everyone, everything. That’s what hunting became for me. I liked being on my own. The quiet of it, the stillness of the snow, the familiar spruce, fir, and pine trees, the challenge of the hills, finding footprints of large and small game. All of it a world I understood and one that didn’t need to understand me.
It had stopped snowing sometime in the night, but not before another inch of fresh powder was added to the ground. There was about a foot and a half in all. We had to stock up on what meat we could before the deep snow and deep freeze set in. Grow our winter coats. Ramsey used to beg Jeryl to move us all south to warmer weather, friendlier environments. But Jeryl always said no in his most I’m-in-charge voice. He didn’t want to go south where the big cities were, where whatever was left of the world sat like a crumbling, rusting parasite, where even if everyone was dead, the air was probably still thick with the flu. We were people of the Yukon now.
When I crested the first hill, just southeast of our homestead, I stopped and sat in the snow, pulled out a bit of deer jerky, and munched on it for breakfast. Remember fluffy scrambled eggs? Crisp bacon? Blueberry pancakes? I don’t.
The sun blinked over the horizon, rubbing its sleep-crusted eyes. Trees, snow, mountains, as far as I could see. I inhaled the frozen air, trying to remember what warmth felt like. Being truly, comfortably warm. Then I realized that I didn’t care. I’d gotten used to the cold, the uncomfortable. Maybe a part of me—hell, maybe a large part of me—liked it.
The jerky was too salty, but it was filling. I stuffed a handful of snow in my mouth and started down the other side of the hill. I’d hunt east today, head for the river. I wasn’t going to check my traps, so I’d left my sled at our cabin, and despite the snow, walking felt light without it. If I made a big kill, I’d have to butcher the thing and hang the meat in a tree with the rope I’d brought in my backpack. Dad had shown me how. Then I’d head back and get my sled and maybe Jeryl to help retrieve it. All I had on me was the rope, my Hän knife, a bottle of water, more deer jerky, arrows, and my compound bow.
A healthy part of me wanted to head to Conrad’s place, stake it out, hide in a tree or the hill just behind his cabin, and wait for him to step out the door. And then, thwang, arrow through the neck. It’d be easy. That’s the thing the fat bastard didn’t understand. He was bigger, stronger than me, but if I wasn’t such a nice person, I could kill him as easy as bringing down a moose. Easier. I knew exactly where this particular moose lived.
Conrad was the opposite of my dad. Loud, selfish, fat, ugly, smelly, stupid, while Dad was boisterous without being loud, kind, smart, and strong. Dad used to let me ride on his shoulders, let me put makeup on him when no one else was home, let me stay up late watching movies, let me pick out my own clothes, let me throw temper tantrums without interrupting me or telling me to go to my room. He’d fix my lunch for school and give me money when he knew that he’d made a crappy lunch. He taught me to hunt and fish and trap and how to drive a stick shift in the church parking lot even before I got my license. And when I was really little, in Chicago, he’d sing to me before bedtime or when I woke from a nightmare. I can still remember the feel of his beard against my cheek, his strong arms holding me up. I even remember lines from some of the songs.
Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,
merry merry king of the bush is he …
It didn’t make sense that the world could spin on when people like Dad died and people like Conrad lived.
The fat oaf joined us the first year. He found our settlement after we’d put up the first few walls of Mom’s and my cabin. Jeryl had known Conrad back in Eagle, but they hadn’t exactly been friends. He told us he was thinking of settling nearby, and Jeryl said that we’d be happy to have the company, that sticking together, hunting together, would make survival all the more possible. But I could tell even then from the way Jeryl eyed him that he was suspicious.
Everything started out fine. Jeryl, Ken, and Ramsey helped Conrad build his cabin, and they all hunted together for a while. Then we got a few winters under our belt. The first few tastes of hunger. Conrad didn’t show up as much anymore. I heard grumblings about game and territory. Ken said that Conrad even took a swing at Jeryl once. Since then we’d become silent neighbors who tried to stay out of each other’s way. Mom hated him from the beginning. Not sure why. Maybe she was just an excellent judge of character.
The
