“Cut the cultspeak. I want to know.”
It killed Cal not to have the full picture. How could he live in ignorance after he’d used every argument he had, every fact available to him, to convince Frida to leave L.A.? He’d told her there was a better world beyond than the one they knew. It was untouched; it had to be. A year before they left, another flu epidemic had hit the Northeast, and the population had been cut in half. (At least there was an upside of the oil crisis, people said; disease couldn’t afford to travel very far anymore.) The storm that killed his parents in Ohio had been followed by bigger and worse ones, and before the Internet went dead entirely, Cal read that only a third of the population in the Midwest and the South remained. “Anyone who’s left is staying put,” he told her. That was true in L.A., where people hung on to what was familiar. The city was rotting, it couldn’t be denied, but at least it was their city. And even if people wanted to leave, the state of the roads and the rising price of gasoline kept most from doing it. Soon, the oil would run out. Kaput.
“What about the Pirates?” Frida had asked, many times. There were stories about people who had tried to leave town only to be murdered as soon as they crossed the city limits. Rumor had it that Pirates collected victims’ teeth and hair and recycled them into household goods. Women were raped, people said. Men tortured. Cal didn’t know what to tell Frida, except that there was no proof that the Pirates really existed. He’d researched it, asked around, and came up with only more gossip, more fear. First he told her they had to be a myth. Then he promised her they’d drive fast and that they’d only stop to refuel once they were safely in the woods.
“And I have the gun,” he’d said. Someone who worked with Frida had sold it to them a few months prior.
On their way, Cal and Frida had been vigilant, but there had been no trouble. A miracle, Frida said at the time. They’d seen no one but that one harmless man, and Cal’s theory turned out to be right: everyone left was either hibernating in the cities, waiting out hard times as if they’d ever end, or they were safe in the Communities. Or they lived out in the middle of nowhere and didn’t want to cause trouble. Could that be the whole story, though?
“It’s safe if you mind your own business,” August had said suddenly to Cal. “Don’t kid yourself—they can’t be bothered with you.”
Before Cal could speak, Frida had returned, and August was back to hawking his wares as if nothing had happened in her absence. Cal would not ask August any more questions.
*
All these months later, he’d pretended he wasn’t curious about August and the territory the man canvassed. Cal had hoped Frida would follow his lead, keep her head down, and focus on survival, on being happy in whatever way they could. Didn’t she understand that safety was most important? Especially now, if there was going to be a baby.
He looked once more at his wife sitting across the table from him. Her plate was still full.
“Eat,” he said.
She didn’t reply, but she took a bite. Relief spun through him like a cure. She’d listened to him for once.
Cal knew it was settled: he would protect their family, whatever it took. He wouldn’t say a word to Frida about what August and Bo had told him. He couldn’t.
5
At dawn, Frida slipped out of the house before Cal could stir. She was headed to the creek to do laundry, a chore that now felt like a hobby.
By the time they’d gone to bed the night before, she no longer felt the Vicodin, but she still couldn’t recall a single fragment of dream. This morning it was like her entire nervous system was wrapped in layers of gauze. She felt empty. At fifteen, she’d smoke until she hallucinated, and the next day, she would awake sharp as fangs. Now she was older, and her body had grown too used to being sober. It couldn’t handle having fun, not like it used to.
She still enjoyed the walk to the creek: it was hard to be afraid this early in the day, when the world felt so new. In the woods, there were many mysteries: the cat’s cradle of trees, for instance, why some fell sideways, as if pushed, branches lodged in the bramble, and why some lost their leaves and turned black, as if dipped in shoe polish, even as the others remained perfectly healthy. The pine needles still made her think of shredded wheat, though she hadn’t had a bowl of that in almost twenty years. She loved the hushed quality of her steps along the path—Cal was religious about keeping it clear—and the sounds of the earth groaning. Even the rustling of small animals didn’t bother her. If she listened closely, she could make out all the different kinds of birdsong: the beseeching, the joyful, the forlorn.