story

He could feel her ribs through her sweater. Lying on the ground, the dry dirt beneath them, damp only with the sweat that their clothes had collected, Guy’s hand was spread out over Ruth’s ribs. As he felt her breathe, he thought that it’s unfair that it has taken his body more time to eat itself than it did hers—hers being a product of strenuous care and discipline, his of lenience and a casual attention. His body was flush against her back, pulled close out of both affection and practicality.

At night, the temperature drops only just enough to chill ones lungs to the point of distress. Even though the sun has set, the sky remains an orange haze, filtering the brilliant stars behind the atmospheric screen—a lost monument that remains only a vague and familiar reminder of what once was, at once, both intimate and ignored. Now, instead of a black sky diffused with radiant white speckles, it is a mucky and iron stained pond spread thin through the air in every direction, producing no light to guide them at night.

Underneath the grey blanket they shared, he moved his hand from her ribs to her shallow chest, where she, asleep, readjusted to pull his hand as close to her as their bodies would allow. Their daughter, Nina, lay asleep on the other side of his wife, their horse and caravan tied to a tree beyond their feet. He was usually the last one awake, stirring partly out of protective unease and partly out of hunger and distress. His wife and daughter had always been more adaptive to the continually changing environments that they found themselves transitioning between. Tonight they were sleeping in what was once a corn field. It was a welcomed change from the abandoned houses that they usually occupied.

It’s quiet, he thought, listening to the wind against his ear. There’s little threat this far from the city, and they will be walking to the next one for at least two or three more days. Somewhere in these thoughts he falls asleep.

***

The sound of the gravel shifting beneath the caravan’s wheels served as a droning hum, accented by the syncopated tapping that Guy, Ruth, Nina, and their horse created as they walked along the road in silence. The urge to talk—the inspiration for conversation—had run dry months ago, just as the naturally drinkable water had. There was nothing to discuss, no jovial banter, no daily routines that they didn’t share, as they walked in the shroud of damp and warm air, day after day.

The things that came to Guy’s mind were not of light recourse: what was containing his attention for the time being was his daily acknowledgement of the decaying status of their horse—a horse they decided against naming. The horse’s legs were trembling more and more upon each step every day, his skin draping over what was now nothing more than bone laced with strands of muscle and tendons. They couldn’t ease his load much further without sacrificing the possibility of sustenance.

They collected things. What was valuable was not what had been before—paper money carried less value as a currency than it did as fuel for a fire. What bought food and water was not a currency stranded in hypothetical value, but rather in what those who had food and water wanted: practical items, hygienically products, seemingly sentimental objects, antiques, labor, jewelry, cigarettes, alcohol, medicine, sex. Since the people who had a surplus of tradable food and water were usually in a position that allowed them to pick and choose what they were willing to trade, most practical items, sentimental objects, and labor were easily found. Still, salvaging anything that could be worth something—or at least seemed to be somewhat interesting—was their main source of survival, if not traded to the Tycoons, than to other caravans.

No one rode in the caravan, despite having seats more than able to seat all three of them, in an effort to help their horse last. They had been periodically emptying items from the back of the caravan—typically the heavier ones first—to help as well, dropping power tools, working electronics, and books off at the side of the road. The grass, although thinly spread over a lot of land like tan threads of hair, was like cardboard, nutrient wise. Just as grass becomes starved of natural sunlight, like in winter, buried beneath layers of snow, so does it starve those that rely upon it. Whatever it was that was in the air, creating a thick blanket of a cloud across the sky, prevented the nutrients of the sun to be absorbed on earth. People became sick, animals starved, plants died. The world became a humid winter—gloomy and monotonous, yet warm and suffocating.

Guy was walking to left of the horse, his hand loosely holding its reins, while Ruth and Nina walked behind him in no order or fashion. They walked simply, without any sensed reason to be next to one another, nor any inherent reason not to. They were following a gravel road they believe leads to a train station that could take them to Harbor—the town between two high mountains, fertile with fresh water and—somehow—breached sunlight. People talked of Harbor without much recourse, its existence assumed to be somewhere between a place of imagined existence to a rumored trap to an actual communal paradise, yet it seemed no one ever thought actually trying to go there. After months of witnessing the decadence of enforced wanderlust, Guy, Ruth, and Nina all decided that there was little less they could do with actual purpose. They wanted to make it to Harbor, despite the improbability of its existence.

Lying on the side of the ride, Guy led the caravan around a hollowed carcass of what must have been a cow, its rib cage large enough to crawl inside of. The thought of stopping for a moment quickly passed as Guy eyed the skeleton, noticing not a single ounce of meat still attached to the bones. Even had there been some meat, it would have no doubt been rotten through and dangerous to even approach. There was no viable cure for most diseases, and one would be better off trying to trade aspirin for water than choking it down an already dry throat.

Up ahead, stopped in the middle of the road, a black car sat stalled. There was no saying if there was anyone or anything inside of it, but it wasn’t uncommon for people to have driven their vehicles as far as they could before the gas ran out, forced to abandon what was once a luxury vehicle wherever they were stranded. Either that, or they were hijacked by desperate people, looking for something—anything—to help, usually realizing that their captor was in no greater position than they were, especially now, considering they were without a vehicle.

Nearing the car, Guy, remembering their desperation—a desperation that he made his own—reached back towards Ruth, making eye contact. Without much more than a smile, she took his hand and walked up next to him, setting her unheld hand upon his arm. Nina recognized their remembrance and joined them, walking next to Ruth.

Nina coughed. “Let’s stop for a bit,” Guy said, slowing his pace, leading the horse to do the same. He took from the satchel on the side of the horse a canteen, took the cap off, and pressed the metal rim to his lips. He stopped drinking after some warm water coated his tongue, and handed it to Ruth, who handed it to Nina, who took a drink.

“Nice car,” Guy said, standing not more than a hundred feet away from it.

Nina made a noise, acknowledging what he said as she drank a second sip. She then coughed again and handed it to Ruth, who drank and gave it back to Guy, who put the lid on and set it back in the satchel.

Off in the field to the left of the car was what looked like a pile of brush. It had first caught Guy’s eye, being unable to look away, a gaze that both Ruth and Nina followed. All three of them stood by their emaciated horse, looking off into a field, struck by what they saw.

It wasn’t the first time that a site like this had been witnessed, but the irregularity of it never ceased to catch them off guard. Piled five feet high, ten or so feet in diameter, a brush pile of bones, colored charcoal by fire, sat. Distinguishable from where they were standing was what was unmistakably human skulls, no longer attached to the bones that they had once harnessed. Mass graves had become too tough to dig as machinery became unattainable and energy became more reserved, so the burning of those who had passed become the most economically sustainable way of treating the dead.

Above the pile, barely noticeable between grayish-brown trees, was a green speckle. Receded a mile or so into the rural farmland was what was most likely a farm house. Guy noticed first, pointing.

“We know,” Ruth said, responding to the burned pile.

“No, look above it,” he said, pointing again.

“Oh. Hm,” she said, “Do you think we should go check it out?”

“I think so. I don’t know how often people have been through here. We haven’t seen anyone yet, and it looks like it might have been pretty decently hidden, ya know?”

“Yeah. I suppose. Let’s get going then,” she said, wiping hear forehead of the perspiration that her body managed to squeeze out of her.

“Yeah,” Nina followed, turning back to her parents.

With a light tug, Guy encouraged the horse to continue walking forward. As they passed the car, they noticed the windows missing, the interior as worn as the paint. Without so much as a second glance, they kept walking forward. The abandoner probably ravaged anything worth taking when they left it years ago.

As they walked along the road, the driveway leading to the green house became clearly identifiable a few hundred feet up the road. The dry fields that had been framing them for the last ten or so miles was turning into a austere forest of barren trees, lacking any hue of life. The trees, which were once flooded with the lush, brown color of bark and the vivid green leaves that hung from the extending branches, seemed like a purposeless scaffold, extending from the ground to reach out in every direction, leading to nowhere. What separated the trees from the field was that they, unlike the various carcasses, were erect, supported by the earth, where the skeletons were falling into it, resting upon the ground.

As the sound of the gravel beneath their feet and the caravan’s wheels deceased, Guy, Ruth, and Nina stood in front of the driveway that the supposed lead to the green house. Tugging the horse’s reins, Guy led them down the narrow driveway, dead trees lining the edges.

***

Alan, sitting at his wooden desk, inside the study of his house, set the piece of paper down, looking at in silence. The once bleached piece of white paper held its brightness, smeared with dirty hands at the creases, making eight crumpled white rectangles. In the middle of the page, in barely readable cursive, said:

“Alan, If I perish, I perish. Love, Mariam”

He looked at it, his eyebrows holding back whatever emotion it was that the letter continued to summon. Sighing, eyes locked on the note, he leaned back, his chair accompanying his recline. He crossed his feet, holding his hands together near his stomach—eyes persistent.

Alan wore a grey pinstripe suit, minus the jacket. His pants and vest were a gentle gray, striped with a series of blacks and lighter grays, bringing attention to his face and his shoes. Worn, yet painstakingly kept after, his black leather shoes looked to have acted like more of an armor than a classist expression, scuffed on every surface. His face was consciously shaped—his beard and hair trimmed weekly, a light scruff and a length never going beyond his eyebrows. His hair was once black, but now littered with white and gray hairs, a gentle comment on his age.

His house was made of logs, a distinction from the majority of the houses that had been fabricated before. It was cut down and built with the help of his friends—friends that lived no more than a hundred feet from his from door.

The successive knocks rapped on the door behind him. He leaned forward, responding to the knock while quickly folding up the letter, setting on the shelf above his desk, next to the lit oil lamp.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Hey Alan, can I come in?” It was Judah.

“Yeah,” he got up, walking towards the door. Judah opened it and smiled, extending his hand.

“Hey Alan. How you doin’ today?”

“Oh. Pretty well. How are things out there? Everything fine?”

“Oh yeah,” he said, “Everything’s fine. I hadn’t seen you all morning. I wanted to come and check up on ya. You feelin’ okay?”

“Just a little tired is all. Couldn’t sleep much last night.”

“Yeah, them wolves out there never shut up. We can never find em, either. Think we should go out some night, lookin’ for em?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s just noise. The fences keep ‘em out,” it wasn’t the wolves that kept him awake, “I think I’ll be fine. Has anyone else complained about the noise?”

“Naw. I don’t think so. If anything, I’d bet that they’d be liking the auxilery noise. You know, like the sound of cricket or so. You know?”

“Yeah. I suppose so. Well, I think I might try and take a nap. You sure you don’t need anything?” Alan said.

“Naw. We’re good. Everything’s good. You let me know if you need somethin’, alright? It’s all fine out there, no problems. Nope. Just let me know, alright?” Judah smiled.

Alan nodded, smiling back. “Thanks, Judah. I’ll see you at lunch.”

Judah walked to the door, opened it, stepped outside, and said goodbye again before shutting it. Alan stood in the middle of the room, looking at the door. His eyes wandered about the room. His shadow danced on the wall in front of him.

***