The Garden of Darkness

WHEN SHE NEXT reached the summer house, trundling the wagon behind her, the marigolds in Marie’s garden were beginning to close. It was time to hurry; night was coming, and Clare realized that she was going to need the power flashlight. It provided a brilliant beam of light; it was heavy; it was a potential weapon. The flashlight was in the closet near the front door, and Clare had to stand on a chair to get it. For a moment the chair teetered, and Clare realized that, if she fell and broke something, that would probably be the end.

When she got back to the Loskey place, Clare sat for a moment while Chupi hopped about in his cage. She opened her shirt and looked down at her Pest rash. She was infected, and yet her father had bet on her survival.

She went to the kitchen and opened a jar of pickles and chewed, thoughtfully.





AN HOUR BEFORE the electricity cut out, a single broadcast came though on the television. Robin and Clare couldn’t know it, but this was the last television broadcast they were ever to see.

“I am master of the situation,” a man in a white lab coat said. “All the adults are going to die except me. But if you’re alive, then you’re probably a child, and I can help you. You don’t have to be taken by Pest, now or ever. I can cure you. Once all the sick are dead, I’ll reveal my location. Tune in to your radio.”

“What do you think?” asked Robin.

“You can’t possibly believe him,” said Clare.

“He’s still alive,” said Robin. “Why not believe him? What else do we have to believe?”

“We could believe that some adults are going to survive.”

“Everyone says all the adults are going to die, Clare,” said Robin. “My parents died. Example A.”

“My parents are fine,” said Clare.

Robin looked at Clare contemplatively.

“I think this master-of-the-situation should be part of our plan,” she said.

“We don’t have a plan,” said Clare. “Our plan is my father and Marie.”

“I just meant that he could be Plan B,” said Robin.





CLARE RAN HER hand lightly over her rash.

Plan B.

That night, the Loskey’s double bed looked too big and exposed. Clare slept in the closet, curled in Michael’s letter jacket, Chupi’s cage above her.

At first Clare couldn’t sleep. She realized that she would have to learn to be alone. Clare, not for the first time, missed Robin terribly. And she also knew with certainty that she was never, in the course of her life, going to find out what had happened to her.

As Clare finally began to doze, she wondered if all the wild animals had died, too. But the next morning, when she left the Loskey place for another trip back to the house of the dead, Clare saw, brilliant in the sunshine, an enormous stag browsing in the cabbage patch. He raised his head and seemed to look right through her, as if she weren’t there, as if she were no more than a ghost of the past.





CHAPTER FOUR

AND THE OLD WORLD WAS GONE





CLARE SLEPT FOR twelve hours, this time in the double bed, and when she woke, the covers were sweat-soaked and tangled around her. Her dreams had been terrifying, and she rubbed her face hard, checking to see if the marks of Pest had begun to manifest. They had not. She had to pee and discovered, much to her disgust, that there was a blockage in the toilet. The plunger was useless. She tried pouring a bucket of water into the tank and then flushing, but the toilet immediately overflowed. Clare fled the bathroom.

She went to the kitchen and ate a can of tuna fish. When she filled Chupi’s feed bowl, she noted that he looked listless. She took him out of the cage and put him on her shoulder, and he perked up a bit and pecked at her earring and then pulled at her hair. When she put him back, he immediately tucked his head under his wing. Chupi didn’t like change; Clare wished she could block out the world as easily. She sat at the rough table and started making lists of things to do. Lists kept her mind from the still forms under the bedclothes in the other house. And from the emptiness that was Robin’s absence. And from the thought of Michael dead. She wrote:

Food

Water

Things for winter

Fix toilet or

Dig Latrine

Then, with a sigh, she added ‘Tampons.’ And, after that, she added ‘Tylenol.’

That afternoon, Clare went to Sander’s Hill, the one place from which the city was clearly visible. She had taken Jane Eyre, and she also took Chupi, who liked to peck at the margins of the book, leaving behind holes that seemed full of meaning.

The city below her was rotting, but it wouldn’t rot forever. Clare pictured the days and weeks and months to come. She envisioned nature creeping through the streets and covering the buildings like a blanket.