The Town After the End of the World / Rifka Handelman

The Town After The End of the World / Rifka Handelman

Fiction

Today

The boots look to have once been black, but are now scuffed and faded and patched until they resemble a scruffy animal more than anything else. They crush the sickly grass as the woman walks across the plain. She resembles her boots in a way, a patched-together, worn look to the clothes that cover every inch of skin. Her too-heavy pack has the same look; more patches than original canvas, scarred from use and scorched from radiation fires, and the two masks clipped onto her pack are dusty. The sheath for her knife looks like it was made from an old leather jacket, the zipper flashing in the sun. The woman’s gas mask is cracked and taped together—she can feel the angry, deadly air scratching her lungs as she breathes. The only thing about the woman that looks new is the water bottle hanging at her hip, and despite the weight of the shiny metal, it is too light. She can feel the dryness in her throat and the way her blood moves sluggishly through her. The hollowed-out shell of a town the woman heads for is in almost worse shape than she is. Most of the houses are barely standing, and the ones that are have rotted roofs and smashed windows, their furniture moldy and destroyed by the animals that survived the end of the world. And yet, to the woman, it is a haven. She reaches what was once a house and moves between fragments of plaster and drywall that cling to their vertical positions. She stops. Sets down her pack. Detaches something from it—a crowbar, a lucky find in a ruined hardware store five years ago. She sticks the edge into the ground—no not into the ground, under a square of metal. With a huff, she pushes down and the trapdoor pops open. She reshoulders her pack, but holds on to the crowbar as she descends the steps, closing the trapdoor behind her. She can almost feel her pupils dilate, her eyelids sweeping open behind the goggles on her gas mask, searching for any source of light, but she might as well have closed her eyes. Automatically, she reaches back and pulls the lantern off her pack. Her fingers easily find the button and the circle of darkness around the woman is banished by dull red light. Red light saves power—her lantern has been soaking up sun for days, but better safe than sorry. She holds the lantern to the wall, making a circuit of the room. She stumbles over something, sending the pieces of it clattering across the floor, but finds the switch panel on the wall. Click, click, the whir of an air filter, lights in the ceiling glimmering to life. She switches off her lantern. She gives the air purification system a moment, then takes off her mask, breathing the fresh air gratefully. The thing she tripped over is a child’s skeleton. Until now it had leaned against the wall, in ragged shorts and an only-somewhat ragged shirt. Synthetic fabric. In front of it are two more, larger skeletons, also in a mixture of rags and better-preserved clothes. Next to them, an empty cylindrical pill container. At least this family’s end was quick. They did not have to watch each other starve to death.

Twenty years before today

The woman was once a fifteen-year old girl, at school when the news broke. She didn’t know until she reached home. There was only the sound of the principal’s fearful voice, instructing the students that they were to be released early. They knew something was wrong, but the girl and her best friend walked home, chattering and joking as if this was normal. The girl waved as her best friend went inside, then turned down the street to her own house. She never saw Hailey again. One hour to pack. Twelve in the car as the highways clogged. Six in the car on the side of the road, hidden in the brush, all lights off. Wet grass is dangerous in the car’s engine, her dad told her. Unspoken: more dangerous to be seen, to be attacked by a panicked mob. Three more hours of driving, and the girl’s phone is out of battery. She warns her group chat just before the screen goes dark—lies and says she will see them again. Three more hours of being alone with her thoughts. There are roads to the cabin, but the car sputters out so they walk. Two hours of walking. The girl’s feet hurt, and she is glad to see the cabin. She goes to her room and lies down on her mattress, not even bothering to put on sheets. Six months in the vacation cabin. In the pantry, her father counts cans of food. Her mother fills containers, sinks, the bathtub with water. The cabin is equipped with its own filter system, but also to the grid. Better get as much as they can before everything shuts off. They are glad they equipped solar panels, back when it was trendy instead of lifesaving. The girl has power in her phone, but her crush, her friends, her aunt in Colorado, none are responding. She cries at night for her cousins and grandparents, in New York and Washington. She muffles her sobs into her pillow, and so do her parents. Her parents tell her not to watch the footage of the bombs falling, but she does, the cameras not destroyed transmitting until they are eaten away by the radiation. The government sets up shelters, with gas masks and food. Her father comes back with three masks, returning bruised. They took the food, he says. Good thing you got the masks, her mother says. The news says this radiation is different; it will last centuries. The news tells them that people are having air purifiers and solar panels built into their basements and yards, but the cabin does not have a basement and they are too far away. Far from companies with solar panels and air purifying systems, but also from bombs. Bombs do fall in other places. There are so many. The girl’s own country has no more bombs left to send but their enemies do. If we go down, you’re going down with us. The cell towers stop working and the girl gets tired of the music in her phone. She helps her parents plant beans, but they will not be enough. When they have one week of food left, her parents tell her to cover every bit of bare skin with clothing. Her pack is heavy but she knows her parents’ loads are heavier so she does not complain. They set out across the world. Several miles from the cabin, the air begins to have a haze. It would have reached us in a week, her mother says, muffled behind her gas mask.

Two years after today

The woman walks through the top floor of what was once a shopping mall. The walls are cements and these windows have survived, but it is better to be careful, so she keeps her mask on. Through the window, movement. She found the antique spyglass when she first got here, and has always thought it looks strange in her heavy glove. She trains it on the movement. Two children, hurrying across the grassy sea, the taller one clutching the littler one’s hand. Two men, behind them. They run slower—they trade a mask back and forth back every couple of steps. The smaller child turns its head to the adults, slowing, and the older one moves back and scoops it up to run, moving further from the two adults. The woman is transfixed, her eye glued to the spyglass. Then—one of the adults stumbles, falls. The woman sees the older child turn, for only a moment, then keep running toward the town, pulling the younger child along. The other adult is bending over the second one, shaking them and the spyglass falls to the ground and the woman is moving down the stairs, and out the door and running across the yellow grass, past the children, to the people—men, she can see now—crouched on the ground. The woman hauls the fallen man up, slinging his arm over her shoulders.

Today

The woman takes the arm and leg bones of the two adults. Within her pack, there is a plastic bag, with other bones in it. Beside it, a bag of polished, clean bone tools—needles, fish hooks, flat scrapers. She does not touch the bones of the child. The basement is out of food, but they have gas masks and mask filters. She discards her old cracked mask, putting the filter into the new mask, and takes the family’s filters. They last five years, the good ones longer, and the woman has enough by now for several lifetimes, but she takes them anyway. She passes over board games in mouldering boxes, deflated rubber balls, dusty books, a box of chalk. The dead family’s cell phones are stacked neatly in a corner—she has no use for these. A bin with a CD player and CDs labeled “Music” she ignores. A stack of solar lanterns is a lucky find, and she places these carefully in her bag. The beds, one large, one small, are moldy, though she finds a blanket that she rolls up and stows away, discarding a more ragged one in exchange. She finds a metal filter-water-bottle bigger than her current one and switches it out for the one at her hip, drinking the last few drops. She stuffs the old one full of socks before putting it in her backpack—her pack can only hold so much. Last of all, she finds a sink and an incinerator toilet behind a screen in the corner next to chairs and a table. It’s strange to sit on a toilet like this—she rarely finds one that works. She stands and flushes. Automatically, she turns on the sink. The water is dark brown first, but in a moment it runs clear. The sound is deafening in the heavy stillness of the basement. She washes her hands, then fills her bottle, letting the water run into and over the filter. This is different from the hundreds of towns the woman has visited.

Seventeen years before today

They have not seen other survivors in months. The last group was friendly—they traded new pairs of socks and a knitting lesson for beef jerky and energy bars, then went on their way. They were a group of eight—two families and a couple. Safety in numbers, but numbers mean more mouths to feed. So the girl waves excitedly when they spot another group cresting a rise as they head out of town. Her father places a warning hand out and crouches low, but it is too late—a shout rises up from the other group. Like swarming insects, they move toward the girl and her parents at a run. The girl is the first to see their guns. Run, she says, and does, but her parents are slower, and a crack rings out and her father screams and the girl nearly crumples at the sound. She turns and her father is standing stock-still, scarlet welling out from between where his fingers are clutched over his stomach. Dad, the girl says and steps toward him. Go, he says, and the girl’s mother takes her knife and cuts his pack from his shoulders, takes his mask from his face. The girl takes them up before her mother can. Run, her father says, and they run, back into the town. They are coming here, the girl says. She is awkwardly holding her father’s backpack to her chest and his mask is slung around her neck. Her mother is crying, the sounds leaking out from behind her mask. The girl is not. We need to leave, the girl says. She and her mother run. When they cannot run anymore, they walk. They can’t run forever either, the girl says. Her mother stops crying when they reach the outskirts of town and walk into the woods. North, the girl’s mother says. She helps her daughter sort the contents of her father’s pack, dividing them up. They leave what they cannot carry. The girl clips her father’s mask onto her backpack and wipes tears off her face.

Two years after today The woman and the man carry the fallen man to what is left of the closest house. The woman ducks out from under his weight to lift the trapdoor, and the man on the fallen one’s other side grunts. The children hurry up to them, and they follow the woman and their parents into the basement. This one is the first one the woman found when she first came here, and she switches on the air purification system. The family remove their masks when she does. The children are both girls, the older one around eleven, the younger one perhaps five. The first man sets the second down on the floor and takes off his mask. “Thank you,” he says. The woman jumps. She does not know when she has last heard a human voice. “My name is Jordan.” He takes off a glove and holds out a hand to her. She stares at it, and after a moment, he lets it fall. “This is Alicia”—he indicates the older one—“and Kimmy.” The woman is still silent. “This is my husband, Henry. He just breathed some bad air.” “Our filters are fucked,” says the older girl—Alicia. “You know not to use that word,” says a raspy voice. Henry is awake, breathing in the better air. He coughs. His family gathers around him. The woman opens her mouth. Takes a deep breath. Closes her mouth and opens it again. Tries to speak. Hums almost inaudibly, to herself, to check that her vocal cords are intact. She opens her mouth to introduce herself but produces no sound. She goes over to the shelf in the corner, the one left over from when the dead family lived here. She takes a piece of chalk and writes her name on the wall, the letters alien yet familiar. Her pack is sitting in the corner, and she finds three gas mask filters. She moves over to the family and holds them out. “Your name is Adrienne?” asks the older girl. The woman nods. Jordan takes the filters and attaches one to each mask. “Thank you,” he says again. The woman writes on the wall. I have extra masks. I am going to get one. She puts her own mask back on and slips out the trapdoor. Inside the basement, the small child, Kimmy looks up at Jordan. “Why can’t she talk?” “Yeah,” Alicia says. “That’s weird.” “Sometimes people who have been alone for a long time and don’t talk to anyone don’t talk.” “Why Papa?” says Kimmy. Jordan starts to give an answer then closes his mouth for a moment. “I don’t know, sweet pea. But she saved us, so she’s probably nice.” “Why doesn’t she have anyone to talk to?” Alicia butts in. “Doesn’t she have parents?”

Fifteen years after today

The girl cradles her mother’s head in her lap. The fever radiates off her skin and she whimpers whenever the girl shifts. The girl’s mother occasionally spasms, and her tortured breaths are loud in the quiet of the apartment building. The girl pours water onto a torn piece of her shirt and lays it on her mother’s forehead. No, her mother groans through clenched teeth. The girl knows her mother is telling her to conserve water but her mother sighs at the cool touch. The girl turns her head so that her hot tears do not hit her mother’s burning skin. It was a good day. They had just found a camping supply store—mostly looted, of course—but they had new backpacks, ones for hiking, and a tent that rolled up tiny, and compact sleeping bags. There was no food, but the girl’s mother had gone into a house nearby and come out balancing cans. They had eaten the sweet can of pears then and there, and sucked up the juice when they were done. Then as they were walking toward the apartment building the girl had seen—brick-walled and with intact windows—her mother had tripped and cried out, fallen against a rotted wall. The girl had turned and helped her mother up, and when they were inside the building had examined her mother’s arm. The nail had ripped through her mother’s layers of clothing and cut the skin in a jagged gash. Bandages, the girl had said, and rummaged through her pack. As her daughter pulled back the layers of sleeves and wrappings and packed gauze onto her mother’s wound, the girl’s mother caught her breath and then sighed. I’m not up to date on my tetanus shot, she had said. The words sounded like something out of a long-gone world. The symptoms set in three days later and steadily worsened. The girl re-wets the cloth on her mother’s forehead. The spasms stop—this is good, the girl thinks. Her mother still struggles for breath. At some point during the night the girl’s head droops. When she wakes, her mother’s breath no longer rasps through her chest. She is determined not to leave her mother for the maggots. She goes back to the camping supply store and finds a shovel. Her hands blister even under her gloves, but she digs her mother a cold, shallow grave. The woman clips her mother’s mask onto her pack, takes what she can carry from her mother’s things, and sets off.

Today

The woman is above the first basement, and she sees what she missed. There is a rain barrel, and a filter. She can see where the copper pipes go into the ground. Other towns have had rain barrels but no filters. This is the first thing that convinces her to stay. The second thing that convinces her to stay is the grow-room in the fifth basement she visits. The ones in between are nothing special—a few have skeletons and some even have food, but upon finding the air purification system and lights in the fifth basement the woman stops. This basement is larger than the others, and rows upon rows of shelves and bright lights stretch away from her. She inhales the smell and is violently taken back to the halls of her high school, a lifetime away. The plants are dead, but the smell of weed remains. She finds more weed seeds in a box, but underneath them are others. Potato seeds, corn, vegetables of all kinds. She finds the switch to the sprinkler system, which still works. There is a small refrigerator in the corner. The woman puts her face in her hands and sobs.

Two years after today

The woman brings back not only an extra mask, but food and bottled water, and extra dishes for the family. There are only three chairs, so they sit on the floor to eat. Henry accepts the extra mask with wide eyes and both he and Jordan thank her profusely. “What are those masks?” Kimmy points at the woman’s pack. They’re special, the woman writes. “She says they’re special,” Alicia tells Kimmy after peering at the words, her small brow furrowed. The woman sets out the food—cold baked potatoes, canned beans, pickles. The children reach for it eagerly, but they stop at Jordan’s outstretched hand. “I don’t mean to be rude,” he says slowly. They’re safe to eat, the woman writes. I tested the soil where I grew them. She brushes the words away then writes again. I can show you after this. They need no more prompting. The children have to be reminded to use forks and knives—the woman forgot to bring napkins, but Henry takes some clean cloths out of his pack. “How long have you been here?” Jordan asks in between bites. The two men are clearly trying to be polite, but the woman can see that they have been hungry for awhile. “I’d assume not long.” He nods at her pack and the woman realizes that it’s still full of most of her stuff. Two years, the woman writes. There is water and food here. She glances at the pack. I just like to be prepared. She brushes her words away and gestures to them, to Kimmy and Alicia both happily stuffing food into their mouths and raises an eyebrow. “We were both studying at the University of Illinois. I had almost completed my teaching degree and Henry was in the botany master’s program. We had been on a road trip when the bombs hit Chicago. We got the news and just kept driving until the car ran out of gas. Both of our families were in Chicago.” Jordan closes his eyes for a moment. “We just drifted around, scrounging, I guess. We found Alicia when she was five. We found this decrepit farm—it was falling to pieces, and she was half-starved from living on crackers and peanut butter. Her parents—they must have just abandoned her there. We couldn’t leave her.” His voice catches. “She doesn’t talk about the years before then. She didn’t speak till we found Kimmy a year later. Her mom—Kimmy’s—was in labor when we found her. Kimmy was okay but her mom had complications. She asked us to take Kimmy with us. We found her I.D. in her pocket and named Kimmy after her mom. We’re lucky my teaching program had a mandatory infant care course.” He snorts. “I thought it was the dumbest thing while I was doing it.” He shrugs. “Then we just drifted around some more, and, well, here we are.” A pause. “What’s your story?” The woman takes a deep breath and adjusts her grip on the chalk. I was fifteen. My parents and I scavenged too. Other survivors shot my dad, and my mom got tetanus from a rusty nail. I just walked around finding what I could. I found this place. All the people here had nice basements. I think they were rich. The grow room, I can show you, it was for weed. The grin feels alien on her face but she tries it out anyway. I found the library and survived on canned food until I read a couple books on gardening. I grow enough to eat. You’re a botanist, right? You can critique my work. Henry laughs as he reads the sentence. “I’d be happy to.” What happened to your mask? Henry runs his hand over his face. “The dumbest thing, I swear. It was yesterday, and I tripped and fell on my face and it cracked. Pretty fuckin’ dumb, right?” “Dad!” says Alicia. “You said that’s a no-no word!” Kimmy leaps up and hops from foot to foot. “No-no word! Daddy said a no-no word!” Alicia starts chasing her around the room, shrieking “No-no word!” Jordan looks apologetic. “Sorry about them. You’d think that after that run they’d be tired.” Kimmy runs full tilt into Jordan, nearly knocking him over. She grabs his neck and buries her face in his shoulder. “I’mma sleep,” she says. “You’re welcome to stay.” The words fly out of the woman’s throat. Her voice is raspy from disuse and she puts a hand to her throat. Henry and Jordan both stare at her. “I—I mean it. You can help grow more food in the grow-room and there are plenty of basements to live in.” She’s babbling now. “Your kids need stability. We’ll still need to scavenge and stuff—but there’s probably towns around here and there’s tons of kid’s toys and whatnot. I—not that I can stop you. I’m just—inviting you.” She coughs. “Yeah.”

Five years after today

The engineer and the doctor are the next people to arrive. They come bouncing across the plain in an old pickup truck with worn-out suspension. Alicia, old enough to be on watch, calls through the intercom Jordan made. Something about it is reassuring to Adrienne—perhaps that, though Jordan had little knowledge of any kind of engineering, he read enough books from the town library to construct it out of scrap. Perhaps it’s a sign—that they can continue to survive. When Adrienne slowly approaches the pickup truck, hands held in front of her, there is a moment of dizzying fear—that these people are not the friendly kind, that they will shoot her down the way they shot her father—and she remembers the gun that they found in one of the basements, and the way her hands would not unclench when she tried to pick it up. The old couple who step out of the truck do point a gun at her, but she stands firm with her empty hands out. The knife she carries is heavy at her hip but she knows she cannot draw it before they pull the trigger. The three are frozen for a moment—the old couple with the gun and the woman with her hands in front of her—and the weapon is lowered and Adrienne takes a step toward them. She invites them into her house. It is still the basement she found, but it has been cleaned out, and a wall divides her living space. There is a tiny kitchen-like area and the table and chairs from the previous owners are still there. A mint plant, potted in soil from the grow-room sits on a shelf under a light. Her pack, her parents’ gas masks are behind the wall, out of sight, but she can feel the still-full pack weighing on the back of her mind. The old couple are named Katherine and Benjamin. Benjamin is a doctor—“worked in the ER,” he tells Adrienne as she sets down cups of mint tea—and Katherine is an engineer, with dual PhDs in electrical and mechanical engineering. “Not that that means anything.” She laughs a little. “But I can fix the truck, and I made a decent water filtration system.” “And she made us an oil press,” says Benjamin. “That’s how the truck runs, on cooking oil.” They tell her a bit about how they survived, and Adrienne can sense moments where they hold back the darker parts, glancing at each other in a moment of shared remembrance. Adrienne tells them about how she found this place. Katherine cocks her head when Adrienne tells her about the intercom and the water filter, and Adrienne is happy to show her. They stay.

Six years after today

The next group is on foot. A haggard young woman, who likely does not remember a time before the bombs, with three young children who all call her “Miss Ava” and a silent boy with headphones firmly over his ears. Later that year, four teenagers with guns. One of them, startled, lets off a shot that hits Adrienne in the shoulder, but she stands there with blood running down her arm until they come and talk to her. The boy who shot her is called Briar and he will not stop apologizing until Benjamin lets him assist in pulling out the bullet.

Seven years after today

A lone man with tired eyes who has packs of seeds stuffed into the bottom of his pack. They are all out of space in the grow-room and they work on sealing up the mall properly and purifying soil. Katherine works day and night, and Adrienne helps in any way she can. She often has to remind the old woman to sleep and eat, but soon the bottom floor of the mall is covered in a layer of radiation-free soil.

Eight years after today

A family, a mother and father with two boys. A lone girl with angry eyes. Another doctor, who takes over the infirmary when Benjamin dies of a stroke. They still do not have a name for the town. Alicia is seventeen and has taken a great interest in chemistry. She takes a shine to a scarred boy who stumbles into their town one day.

Ten years after today

Katherine falls in love with another engineer, a woman with a Southern accent whose mask is on its last legs and who is coughing by the time Adrienne meets her on the outskirts of town. Together, they make plans for a dome over the town, a place where the children can run around and breathe clean air. Katherine has leukemia and dies in her sleep, the plans half-formed, but Louise, her wife, continues. Adrienne unpacks her old backpack. The food and supplies go into the community warehouse. Her parents’ gas masks she hangs quietly in the donation area, for anyone who might need them.

Fifteen years after today

Adrienne gets to hammer the first nail into the first plank that will be the dome. There are enough people now that the plans are finished and they can begin to build the dome. They have given the town a name. First it was just their home, but then it took root, and the town is called Home. As she hands the hammer off to Alicia, who is elegantly managing the entire thing, Adrienne collapses, clutching her stomach. She has been lucky so far, but twenty years of walking through clouds of pollution and radiation will come back to take their toll.

Twenty years after today

Adrienne sits quietly in a rocking chair, breathing in clean air and looking up at the sky. The dome is finished, and the skylights send sunlight into mirrors hung specifically around the enormous space, transforming it into something light and airy. It is tall enough to grow trees in, but Adrienne will not live to see the oaks grow big and strong. The outside is plastered with solar panels. A group of children runs across the field, shrieking. All the children in the town of Home call her “Grandma Adri.” Two, Daisy and Sam, sit at her feet, begging for a story. Briar is at her elbow, offering her another dose of meds. The cancer has progressed now, and all they can do is manage the pain. She takes the pill with quiet thanks. Tomorrow, Kimmy will go before the elected Council and will ask their permission to set out and start a new town with her friends. They will debate—Henry is on the council and does not want to see his youngest daughter in danger—but will tell her yes. Tonight, Adrienne will die in her sleep. Now, she takes a deep breath. She will brighten the story for them—there is simply too much trauma and pain to tell it in full—but these children were born in the town of Home and love the adventurous stories of her life. “Before there was a town called Home, before there was radiation, before there were bombs, there was a world full of people.”