He ran to the woman, his eyes half shut, his lips pressed together tight, and pushed the woman’s shoulder to rotate her body. She was stiff and bloody and didn’t roll easily with her arm bent back behind her. But Bingwen dug in his heels, and finally the woman’s torso moved enough for him to reach in and pull the cartridges free. They clattered to the ground in front of him, and Bingwen scrambled back a heartbeat later, scurrying away on all fours and hating himself for being such a coward.
His eyes were wet with tears, he realized, and he wiped at them quickly. He got to his feet, collected the cartridges, and dropped them into the tool pouch. Next he tied a rope around Mazer’s chest, securing him to the stretcher; then, after one final look back at the wreckage, he took the lead rope and pulled hard. The water buffalo moaned in opposition and resisted, but after another hard jerk from Bingwen, the animal followed.
Bingwen had heard aircraft all day, most of it far away, but now the skies were quiet. It was dusk, and he figured he wouldn’t reach the farmhouse until well after dark.
They arrived at the valley of corpses and found that the aliens had killed all the remaining crops. Without any healthy grass to walk on, Bingwen cut north, looking for another place to cut back toward the mountain. He found one a kilometer later, another wide field of crop without much standing water.
There were more bodies here: people and animals. A family of pigs. Three water buffalo. A group of children.
And Mother and Father.
Bingwen saw them from fifty meters away and stopped dead. They were lying facedown in the mud, Father’s arm draped across Mother’s shoulder, as if comforting her.
Bingwen didn’t move. He couldn’t see their faces, but that was Mother’s shirt and Mother’s back and Mother’s shape. And that was Father’s clothes. And Father’s boots and Father’s hair. And the glint of sunlight was off Father’s watch on his left wrist where he wore it.
Bingwen felt as if his body were made of air. His eyes couldn’t focus. His knees felt flimsy and unstable. He stood there, staring at them, him upright and alive and breathing and them not. Their hearts weren’t beating, their lungs weren’t taking in air, their mouths weren’t moving, telling him how much they loved him and that they would protect him and that he would be safe with them. Their arms weren’t wrapping around him and pulling him close to their chests. Their bodies weren’t doing anything except lying there in the mud and misted grass.
Bingwen stood there for a long time, how long he did not know. An hour perhaps, maybe double that. The water buffalo mooed and pawed at the ground, impatient. Bingwen ignored it. He ignored everything. If aliens were coming, he wouldn’t run from them.
He breathed in and out. No tears came. No wails. No cries of anguish. Everything was broken inside. Everything was empty. He wouldn’t make tears anymore, couldn’t make them. He wasn’t going to allow that. Tears belonged to the old, dead version of himself, the previous Bingwen, the boy who sneaked into the library and who worried about tests and going to school and who had a friend with a twisted foot and parents who loved him and sat him by the fire when he was wet and cold. That Bingwen was gone. That Bingwen was lying there in the mud with Mother and Father, his arm draped across Mother’s shoulder just like Father’s was.
He would make Mazer well. Yes, he would make Mazer well, and then Mazer would stop everything. Mazer would end the mists and the fires and the bodies in the fields. And Bingwen would help him. He’d give Mazer the cartridges, and he’d carry Mazer’s water, and he’d do anything to put an end to it, to make it all go away. Then he would allow himself to cry.
It was full dark when he reached the farmhouse. Grandfather ran out to greet him, embracing him, kissing him on the cheek, cursing himself for letting Bingwen go. Only then did Grandfather see that the water buffalo was dragging someone behind it.
The others came outside as well. They saw Mazer and the travois and they stared at it all, as if they couldn’t understand what they were looking at, as if the rational part of their brain were telling them it wasn’t possible. The old woman turned to Bingwen and regarded him with an expression Bingwen couldn’t read. Confusion? Awe?
No one moved. No one jumped to help.
They didn’t know how to respond, Bingwen realized. They didn’t know what to do. “He’s alive,” Bingwen said. “We need to help him.”
Grandfather took charge. “Untie the stretcher. Pull him inside. Quickly now. But gently, do it gently.”
Bingwen stood there and watched as they untied the travois and pulled Mazer into the farmhouse still on it. They laid the whole structure on the floor and surrounded the body.
“I need light,” said the old woman.
“She’s a nurse of sorts,” Grandfather said to Bingwen. “A midwife. Do you know what that means?”
“She helps women deliver babies,” said Bingwen.
“Yes,” said Grandfather. “She knows things about medicine.”