You’re safe here. Perfectly safe. That phrase still haunts me. Haunts me because it’s always been a lie. It was a lie before they came and it’s still a lie. You’re never perfectly safe. No human being on Earth ever is or ever was. To live is to risk your life, your heart, everything. Otherwise, you’re just a walking corpse. You’re a zombie.
“He’s no different from us, Sam,” I tell him. “None of this will end until somebody decides to put down the guns.”
I don’t reach for the weapon, though. It should be his decision.
“Zombie . . .”
“What did I tell you about that? My name is Ben.”
Sam lowers the gun.
In the same moment, at the other end of the aisle, another silent battle is lost. The soldier lied; he was armed, and he used the time he had left to put the gun to his head and pull the trigger.
MARIKA
FIRST I TOLD HIM it was a dumb idea. Then, when he insisted, I told him to wait till tomorrow. It was late afternoon and the store was over three miles away. They didn’t have time to get back before dark. He went anyway.
“Tomorrow’s Christmas,” Ben reminded me. “We missed last Christmas and that’s the last Christmas I’m going to miss.”
“What’s the big deal about Christmas?” I asked him.
“Everything.” And he smiled, like that had any power over me.
“Don’t take Sam.”
“Sam’s the reason I’m going.” He looked over my shoulder at Megan playing by the fireplace. “And her.” Then he added, “And Cassie. Most of all.”
He promised they’d be back soon. I watched them from the porch that overlooked the river as they headed for the bridge, Sam pulling the empty wagon, Ben favoring his bad leg, and the sun cast down their shadows, one long and one short, like the hands of a clock.
The crying came with the dark. It always did. I sat in the rocker, holding her in my lap. She had just fed, so I knew she wasn’t hungry. I cupped her cheek and gently curled into her, discerning her need. Ben. She wanted Ben. “Don’t worry,” I told her. “He’s coming back. He promised.”
Why did he have to go all the way to that store? There had to be dozens of houses on this side of the river with Christmas trees in their attics. But no, he wanted a “new” tree and it had to be artificial. Nothing that will die, he insisted.
I drew the blanket tighter around her. The night was cloudy and the wind was cold off the river. The light from the fireplace flowed through the windows behind me and lay gleaming on the boards.
Evan Walker stepped onto the porch and leaned his rifle against the railing. His eyes followed mine into the dark, across the river, scanning the bridge and the buildings on the other side.
“Still not back?” he asked.
“No.”
He glanced at me and smiled. “They’ll come.”
He saw them first, approaching the bridge, pulling the little red wagon with its green cargo behind them. He smiled. “Looks like they hit pay dirt.”
He shouldered the weapon and went back inside. The wind shifted. I could smell gunpowder. Damn it, Ben. When he came up the walk, grinning from ear to ear like a triumphant hunter dragging the kill back to the cave, I had an urge to slap him upside the head. Stupid risk for a damn plastic Christmas tree.
I stood up. He saw the look on my face and stopped. Sam hovered behind him as if he were trying to hide.
“What?” Ben asked.
“Who fired their sidearm and why?”
“Did you hear it or did you smell it?” He sighed. “Sometimes I really hate the 12th System.”
“Straight answer, Parish.”
“I love it when you call me Parish. Did I ever tell you that? So sexy.” He kisses me, then says, “It wasn’t us, and the rest is a long story. Let’s go inside. It’s freezing out here.”
“It’s not freezing.”
“Well, it’s cold. Come on, Sullivan, let’s get this party started!”
I followed them into the house. Megan jumped up from her dolls and squealed with delight. That plastic tree touched something deep. Walker came out of the kitchen to help set it up. I stood by the door, bouncing the baby on my hip as she bawled. Ben finally noticed and abandoned the tree to take her from my arms.
“What’s up, little mayfly, huh? What’s the matter?”
She popped her tiny fist against the side of his nose, and Ben laughed. He always laughed when she swatted him or did anything that shouldn’t be encouraged, like demanding to be held every waking second. From the moment she was born, she had him wrapped around her inch-long finger.
On the other side of the room, Evan Walker flinched. Mayfly. A word that resonated, a word that would never be just a word. Sometimes I wondered if we should have left him in Canada, if returning his memories wasn’t a particular cruelty, a kind of psychological torture. The alternatives were unthinkable, though: Kill him, or empty him completely, leaving him a human shell with no memory of her at all. Both of those possibilities were painless; we opted for the pain.
Pain is necessary. Pain is life. Without pain, there can be no joy. Cassie Sullivan taught me that.
The crying went on. Even Ben with all his special Parish powers couldn’t calm her down.
“What’s wrong?” he asked me, as if I knew.
I took a stab at it anyway. “You left. Broke her routine. She hates that.”
So much like her namesake: crying, punching, demanding, needing. Maybe there is something to the idea of reincarnation. Restless, never satisfied, quick to anger, stubborn, and ruthlessly curious. Cassie called it. She labeled herself long ago. I am humanity.