The Great Mother Page 2

  Chapter 2

  She was in an old town in New Hampshire named Arlington. It wasn't that far from where she began her mindless wanderings. Across a state line, but close in both geography and culture. It was a small town, and in the weeks that followed her decision to settle there, she discovered it was an empty one. The first few days in her new home spent riding a bicycle she found up and down the country roads, stopping at every house, even if she did smell death and hear flies buzzing. She knocked patiently on every door, no matter how much it made her gag. She checked every barn for animals, and found nothing but blackened death.

  She quickly found the center of town. They'd have called it "Downtown" and been very proud. A row of older storefronts lined one side, about ten buildings long. The other side had municipal buildings, a library and a combination fire and police station. There was also a small gazebo with a sign in front of a flower bed that proudly claimed the Ladies Garden Club of Arlington was responsible for the begonias. The street light at the one main intersection rolled through its paces, uselessly directing the leaves that swirled in the breeze.

  The town was quiet. There wasn't a soul to be seen. The park bench was empty. The stores were locked, their "closed" signs flipped in the window. The flag over the library flapped and cracked. And there were actually a few pigeons strutting near the gas station that stood at the beginning of the business row.

  She wandered around, randomly calling, getting more and more comfortable with her echo being the only response. As time went, she began to accept the aloneness. She knew that someone was out there somewhere. She made it. Someone else had to have as well. Her bull made it. She named him Phil. If she and Phil lived, then there were more.

  She cleaned the rotting cow out of Phil's barn the first day. It took her until well after dark to pull the body away after tying it to a lawn mower. She first had to figure out how to move the lawn mower. And then how to tie the body in a way that pulled instead of ripped. And then how to drag it far enough out to field where it wouldn't be a problem. And then how to find her way back to the barn in the dark. And then how to deal with the gore. And then how to hose away the guts.

  And, and, and.

  That one task started her life of "and". Every little task seemed to take far more than she thought it would. But, she stuck with it. She did the steps, no matter how draining they were, and Phil was much happier for it. Most importantly, she found out she could do it. One thing. One step. Make a list and just do them in order. One step at a time, and she could make it.

  She stood in front of the store. The town had two, a small convenience store attached to the gas station, and a larger one that looked like it carried general groceries. She stood in front of the grocery store and considered her options. The front was locked, as were the rest of the buildings, and a quick check let her know she couldn't try and get in the back door because the old building clung to the banks of a river. She needed food. What few canned items were found in a box in her kitchen were already gone. Besides, she had made a list of supplies she would need to get her through winter. She had to stock up. It was getting colder and colder and soon she wouldn't have any choice. If she was going to make it, she needed to start acting.

  Seeing no alternative, she knew she'd have to break in. She'd never "broken in" to anyplace her whole life, and once again had a task she didn't know how to accomplish in front of her. She supposed she'd just have to break the glass, and then smacked her forehead. "That's why it's called 'breaking in', moron," she chided herself as she assessed the glass.

  She didn't want to get cut. The very last thing she needed was to impale herself on shards of glass and bleed to death right when she finally had a will to live again. She decided the safest way would be to find something to smash the glass with. After looking up and down the street, she chose a rock from the Ladies Garden Club display. Gripping it tightly, she hauled back and gave the glass a solid whack. It surprised her that the very first thunk shattered the glass. It surprised her even more when she found herself in a panic, looking around to see if she was in trouble.

  Her racing heart made her laugh out loud. Who was going to catch her? The pigeons? She carefully reached in and felt along the door frame for the latch. She unlocked the door and pulled it open, then stepped gingerly over the glass.

  She had never been in a store when it was closed. The closest she came was her three day job as a cashier at a KMart when she was sixteen. They used to dim the lights at night when the registers closed and lock out customers, but there was always a night work crew working and she hadn't been alone. Her new house had been interesting to explore. New. Exciting. Enticing. It had just stood there waiting for her to enter. However, the store was different. It was almost creepy. She looked down the aisles and imagined shoppers, mothers stopping in for weekly groceries, old men squinting at packages wondering if that was the right can of beans their wives wanted, young men pretending to shop while scanning for an easy date.

  She stood in the doorway a long time before she got her nerve up to face the ghosts. The noise of her feet crunching the broken glass beneath them anchored her to the present. She took a deep breath. "Let's get the lights on. We'll get the lights on and start shopping and it will be fine." She half wished she'd brought Phil along for moral support. He was easy to lead on a rope as long as she didn't walk too fast. Scanning the walls around her, she found a panel of switches and flipped them on one by one. The florescent bulbs flickered as they warmed up and lit the store row by row. The last switch filled the store with soft, cheesy music. She considered shutting that off again, but found it all way less creepy with the muzak playing. The noise and lights chased away the ghosts and made the experience normal. Familiar. She walked over to the cart corral and began her shopping.

  It wasn't until she was heading for the door with a full cart, humming along to the instrumental version of a pop song, that she stopped to ask herself how in the hell she was going to get the food home on a bike. She'd need better transportation. It never occurred to her to take someone's car. She never owned her own car, and the grand theft charges of "before" seemed to form her earlier decision to explore on bicycle. She laughed at herself again. Stupid girl. She left the groceries just inside the door and rode her bike down the road towards houses. She'd have to get a car. No, a truck, she corrected. She could haul a lot more in a truck.

  It turned out she was pickier than she thought. After investigating seven trucks that didn't pass her standards, she finally found one she liked. It was old, plain, and, best of all, automatic. She'd never learned stick. It also showed a nearly full tank of gas. Now, to start it. She ran her hand slowly over her chin as she stared at the house at the end of the driveway. She'd have to go in and get the keys. She could smell a faint haze of death, and was tempted to move on. But it was getting dark. She'd need to get back, get her groceries, get home and feed Phil before he thought he was abandoned again...

  "Stop being a baby," she ordered herself. She forced her feet to move towards the house, her pep talk helping calm the terror inside. "You've already seen dead people. It's not stealing, they're dead. They can't take a truck with them. It's not like they're Egyptian pharaohs or something." She wasn't even to the door when she heard the buzzing flies. "You got this." She swallowed hard, pulled her shirt over her mouth, and tried the door. It opened with ease and she wondered if she'd ever get used to that smell. It was everywhere and she really thought she should probably be better at handling it by then.

  The lights in the house were on. There was a static noise from the tv. The people died in the living room, wads of tissues, a bottle of cold medicine, and a bucket, no doubt for vomit, surrounding their blackened, rotting corpses not ten feet from the door. She almost lost it right there. Frantically she glanced around the entrance for a key rack, a table, a hutch the family obviously used to throw their mail and keys on. Something. She put her arm up and pressed her face into the crook of her elbow, her eyes beginning to wate
r. There! On a side table next to the couch sat the keys. She counted to three, then raced in, snatched the keys, then turned and ran out the door, slamming it hard behind her. She was shaking when she tried to put the keys in the door of the truck, but she did it. Once again, she did it.

  It took a few minutes in the cab for her to familiarize herself with the truck. She had to adjust the seat. The man had been huge, and her feet couldn't reach the pedals until she found the proper lever. She adjusted the mirror. She turned on the wipers instead of the lights. But she eventually got it. She put the truck in drive and made her way back to the store. A little jerkily, and she stopped at the damn light and sat there a full minute before she asked herself what she was doing and drove through.

  She loaded up her groceries, then looked at the empty truck bed. It seemed like a waste to have all that extra space and not use it. Besides, she'd certainly eat the food. It would be much easier if she could have her own store in her house. She spent the next hour hauling boxes of food from the aisles to the truck bed. When it was full and she was sore and it was dark and she was tired, she sat on the tailgate to catch her breath and felt a bit of pride in her chest. She would need food, and lots of it. The store certainly had more, and there was plenty of room in her huge house. She made a plan and it felt great to start to think ahead.

  The next week passed in a blur for her, but a good blur. It wasn't the same numbness she'd wandered through before she found her new home. It was a blur of hard work, long days and short nights, but, mostly, the bone deep satisfaction of accomplishment. She was getting it done. She was working for herself. She was making her own life happen.

  At least, that's what she told herself at night, when she lay in the bed she had brought to the basement exhausted. That's what she said to calm her racing mind and convince her aching body it was all worth it. She was no longer afraid of being alone. She was afraid of not being ready. Sometime during the week, when she was toiling to clean out the grocery store and set herself up with enough food for the winter, it dawned on her that this might be forever.

  Maybe it was the night she ate through two cans of tuna, a jar of peaches, and two bags of chips, utterly ravenous after the exertions of the day. Maybe the pile of empty containers filling two trash bags hammered it home. Maybe the fact that she'd already had to consolidate three nearly empty cardboard cases was the spark she needed to really accept her situation.

  Whatever it was that brought it about, the realization that the new life was permanent became a constant driving force. She went through food faster than she thought she would. An entire store seemed like so much. It filled up the two rooms in the top level of the house. But she was plowing through it and she knew that the rooms would be emptier far sooner than she'd like. The panic was like a tiger nipping at her heels. She knew that if she didn't plan, if she didn't get more, if she didn't do more, than she'd slow down enough and the tiger would catch up.

  While she wanted to believe someone would save her, she'd seen nothing, heard nothing to make that a viable hope. They were always taught that the government was there in emergencies, that there were police and firemen and ambulances with EMTs to help in any situation. Yet the fire trucks sat gathering dust. The police station was dark and unmanned. The ambulances were parked and had been for months. She knew she could not rely on help. She had to act if she wanted to get herself and Phil through the first winter.

  When the gas tank on the truck was almost empty, she had her second epiphany. Food was not her only concern. She sat huddled under a blanket in Phil's stall after that thought rocked her. He was a warm body and she couldn't be alone. "We need more than food, buddy." Her shaking hand stroked him as her head filled with the hundreds, thousands of things they still needed.

  It wasn't just about supplies. If that were the case, she probably wouldn't have been so terrified. Supplies she could get. Just like the groceries, they'd be tiring, but manageable. She'd need to do that, go raiding for other items. She'd make a list of everything she wanted, then go around and find it. Warm clothes for winter, extra hay for Phil, band aids and Bengay and all that could be gathered from different stores. The frosty mornings told her it would get more and more difficult as the days passed, but she could do it.

  What made her shake and need the comfort of Phil was the knowledge that she would also be responsible for everything. Cooking, cleaning, sewing, repairing...those were easy. But what about getting gas? She had no idea how to siphon gas from the big holding tanks. At the moment the pumps would work, and she could probably bash the keys on the registers enough to get the gas flowing. But what happened next? The lights would stop working eventually. Even if they were automated, it would be winter soon. The trees would fall on lines. Storms would snap the poles. There would be a day without electricity. The lights would go off and the world would get dark and stay dark.

  What about running water? Would that go when the electricity did? A pipe could freeze. She had no clue how to fix that. And even if they made it through the whole winter with electricity and running water, she didn't know how to run a snow plow. They'd be stuck. And what if there was a fire? Or she tripped and fell down the stairs? How was she supposed to set her own broken bones?

  The "stuff" was the easy part. Getting "stuff", she could handle. It was the rest of the future looming that terrified her. She didn't know enough to make it. She once watched a tv show on "preppers". They were people that planned for the world to end. They made shelters underground and hoarded supplies. They practiced home medicine and hunted and killed their food.

  Would she have to hunt? Panic rolled through her in electrified waves. If she wanted meat, of course she'd have to hunt. She'd have to kill things. She'd have to peel the skin off and scoop the guts out. If she wanted a steak, she'd have to find another Phil and tear him apart.

  "I'm not a prepper! I don't know what the hell I'm doing!" She threw her arms around Phil as he placidly munched his hay. She let herself bawl, not for her old life. She already truly accepted that life was gone. She bawled for all the sudden fears of her new one. When she was completely spent, she lay next to Phil. The good, soul-deep cry left her calmer and as she listened to the strong, steady, grounding heartbeat of her only friend, she began to put things into boxes in her mind that she could handle.

  The next morning she got in the truck and headed to the gas station. She needed to figure out how to make the pumps work, and that was all there was to it. That was the first item on the new list. It didn't take too long fiddling with the register before "pump 1 ready" flashed across the digital display. She threw her fist in the air and hooted. What she'd do once the station lost electricity, she didn't know. As she was filling the truck, a display of red gas cans in the window of the station made her smack her head. She left the nozzle locked to keep filling, then went back in and grabbed four cans. She spent the next hour going back and forth, gathering more empty cans and filling them until she was out of empties and the "sale" display on the pump read $5,273.98. She laughed and laughed as she hoisted the filled cans into the bed of the truck.

  "Okay, girlie. That's one thing off the list." She knew she'd need more gas eventually. But, this would get her through the winter, and the station would still be there in the spring. For now, she needed to open one mental box at a time, deal with the contents, then shut the lid and move on. If she didn't, she'd be swamped under the sheer enormity of the life ahead.

  So she went about her days doing just that. She wrote a list of things she needed to gather first. Since she had gas, stronger muscles every day, and roads clear of snow, it was the time to gather. At night, she would read the survival books she'd raided from that awful trip to the library. If the empty store was creepy, the silent library bordered on horrifying. She was sure she was followed into the stacks, down the narrow rows, around the whole old building. She couldn't shake the vibe and once she found the section containing the survival guides, she grabbed as many as she could fit into her backpac
k and ran out of there. She got the shakes whenever she thought about it, but was glad she stayed firm and got the books. While they scared her with hundreds of horrible possible deaths, they told her how to avoid them, too. She had nightmares, but it was necessary. Those books amazed her. They taught everything from how to purify water, to how to interact in a post apocalyptic society.

  She thought about that part a lot. They all spoke of apocalyptic scenarios. She talked to Phil about it, ask his opinion. Was it an apocalypse? Was that what happened? There was no one around her. They all got those gaping, blackened sores and died. Some of the books talked about natural disasters. Some of them talked about nuclear war. There was an incredibly fun to read silly one that spoke of zombies and how to prepare for them that had shockingly sound advice, even if the premise was absurd. There was one that insisted the "world will end" from biological warfare.

  "That happened, didn't it?" she asked, running a grooming brush through Phil's short coat. He seemed to really like the brushing, and as his horns looked just a little bigger every day, she thought keeping him calm and mellow as often as possible was probably a good idea. Besides, it soothed her just as much, those evening chats with her pal. "We're in an apocalypse. Do you call it an apocalypse, or the apocalypse? I don't suppose we can really have more than one."

  She said the words, but she didn't accept them. She said the words simply to have something to say when she ran out of things to tell Phil she collected and did through the day. She said the words, but the notion was still an abstract. It was still only a plot for a movie, not something that happened in real life. It had to be. If it wasn't, there would be no hope.

  Her life took on a rigid structure. Before, in her old life, the one with people and rules, she found the idea of a scheduled existence ghastly. Follow someone else's arbitrary time table? No thanks. But with so much to do, in so many directions, in so little time, her mind automatically regimented her days. She'd get up early. She'd eat, then feed Phil in a different stall while she mucked his. She'd head out to find and gather whatever was on the list for the day. She'd be back up to her house by lunch with the first load, grab a bite, check on Phil, then spend the afternoon unloading and sorting her bounty. She'd give Phil his brush down, top off his trough, then head in and cook her own meal. After dinner she forced herself to read at least two chapters in the books and take notes before she'd let herself have a luxurious shower before bed. She'd go to sleep and fight the nightmares before rising early the next day to do it again.

  And she liked it. She found she really liked the structure. It didn't feel oppressive like it always had before. It felt solid. Firm. It felt like a lifeline, as if without the schedule, she would just stop as everyone else had. It made her feel useful and needed and important. Even if she was only doing it all for herself and one little bull, she was still doing something. She was no longer numb.

  Her lists changed constantly. She'd make a plan for the week, then read something in one of the survival books that resonated and end up changing the order of things, or canceling ideas all together. She added things she could never have thought of on her own, and realized the folly of some of the things she did. She felt proud when books confirmed some instincts she had, only to be dashed with self disappointment when she'd turn the page and read about something she damn well should have known.

  "I can't think of everything," she told Phil, brushing him with more force than was necessary to work out her frustrations. "These books want me to know everything all at once! I'm trying, baby. I'm trying." She gave him his feed and patted his rump and went to take notes on harvesting corn.

  According to the books, the fields she had to the back side of her farm were corn and wheat. The wheat looked almost completely lost, ruined by time and wind. The books said she should have harvested that a month before. She was going to try to find the stalks with wheat on them still, but knew her better bet was the corn that was dried on the ears still in the fields. There was too much for one person, but the book was right. She had to get whatever food she could anytime she had the opportunity. It would snow very soon, and then all of that food would be ruined.

  She got her own meal of soup and decided to sit on the porch. If she went out through the front door, she overlooked a wide driveway that led into a road and down the hill into the town center. She could see the whole place, and had intentionally left the lights on in the buildings below to give her a sense of people, a feeling that she wasn't alone. She sipped her soup and looked at the glowing village and felt calm again. She liked to pretend that she was in a castle, looking over her people. The farmhouse was a princess tower, and below were her loyal subjects. She wasn't sitting on the porch because she really was alone, she was simply above them. They were down there living their lives and she was lording over all. It made her smile and feel the warmth of the soup down deep.

  She never made a list that night. She never took notes. When the evening faded to full dark and the warmth of her soup was only a memory in the chilly breeze, she went to take her shower and spent nearly an hour afterwards simply staring in the mirror at herself. Before, she never gave much thought to her life, to where she was going, to what she would be someday. She had thought about herself, but in general terms. She never liked the way she looked. She never liked the thoughts she had. She never liked how hard it was to talk to people, or how clumsy she felt around anyone else. She hated that the basics came so easy to some, while she had a hard time remembering not to daydream while people talked on and on. She didn't spend much time thinking about spirituality, and really had no idea if she believed in God, or many gods, or the power of crystals. She never even considered whether she wanted children, or a husband, or a career. In short, she never gave much thought to who she was, and didn't like the little she knew.

  She stared in the mirror at the unrecognizable face. She had a fleeting thought about looking like her father, but shut that right down, as she always did when thoughts of the past wanted to move in. She made different expressions and moved her head this way and that, looking at her face from every angle. She had a new small scar on her lip, the result of a careless run-in with a post in the barn that totally jumped out at her. Her cheeks were far sharper than they had ever been. She'd always been round and soft. Now she was almost angular. If she sucked in her cheeks, she looked very much like a snooty model.

  Her eyes were very different, she concluded. They made her look old. Old and tired. She wondered if other people out there looked the same in the mirror now, looked completely different from their old selves. Her hair was the same, and that was about it. A little stringy, maybe, because she half-assed the shampooing, but definitely the same. She frowned. The hair didn't fit. It didn't fit the person in the mirror anymore. She opened the drawer in the bathroom cabinet and took out the scissors she had unpacked and put away. She stared at the stranger in the mirror, then watched as the mirror hand lifted the scissors to the stringy mirror locks and began cutting. A tiny familiar voice in her head yelled at her to stop. Stop! What would your mother say if she could see you chop off all that pretty hair? The snip of the scissors cut that voice off. There was nothing her mother could say anymore.

  By the time she was done chopping off the hair, the person in the mirror didn't feel so much like a stranger. She never knew who she was before. And while she didn't really know who she was now, she did know that whoever walked around in her body in the past was gone. The hair was just the final goodbye. Whoever controlled her arms and legs, whoever dreamed silly thoughts with her brain, whoever used her hands to doodle stupid drawings and write pointlessly inane diary entries, was gone. She died. She died with the rest of them. The woman in the mirror, the one looking back at her with old and tired eyes, and spiky hair that wouldn't get in the way, and sharp cheek bones, and the scar from hard work, that was the person left behind. That was who had to go through the new life. That was her, and the moment she accepted that fact, a lightness replaced the uncomfort
able heaviness and feeling of loss inside. The old her died. The new her was just beginning to live.

  She swept the hair off the floor into a dust pan, and, in one easy toss, threw the rest of her old self away.