“You don’t know that.”
“You’re right… I can’t promise that you and Lisa and the rest of us will be shot up and skullfucked somewhere along the highway… or thrown into the big pit and left to die. It’s not definite… it’s just highly likely.”
“More scare tactics from the master,” Graham said. He turned to walk away.
I grabbed his arm. “I need to show you something.”
He glared at me for a moment, like he was about to stay on the attack, but I think he could tell that I was about to let him in on something that mattered.
I took Graham down into the basement. I led him past the half-dozen shelves overflowing with aluminum cans and boxes of dry goods, past our three chest freezers, and over to a tower of six long and deep plastic boxes stacked up along the dampest of the damp concrete walls.
I pulled off the top three boxes, one by one. I could tell I was already pushing my heart too hard.
I moved on to the fourth box. I pulled out one of the white and gray binders I’d saved from the committee. I let the binder fall open to the middle, and I flipped over until I found the right page. I began to read.
“Beginning in the month of February approximately five hundred and twenty people left Cochrane for neighbouring areas, including Timmins and Aiguebelle. A public plea was made for all evacuees to make contact with us in any way open to them to assure us that they were safe and that the road was clear. As of March 31st we have not received a single message confirming that any Cochrane residents have arrived at a secure destination.”
“That could mean anything,” Graham said. “Phones and networks were down more often than they were up. And I doubt most people know much about making calls on the radio anymore.”
“I was sent down toward Timmins to see if I could find any trace of our people. I found some of them.”
“And they didn’t make it.”
“They didn’t make it. They were slaughtered, sometimes by marauders, sometimes by The Souls. Bodies lying on the paved shoulders like roadkill. Who knows how many more ended up in the big pit. Sometimes the marauders would burn the bodies to keep down the stench, but other times the corpses rotted where they were left; they didn’t bother to hide the mess, and they certainly didn’t bother to dig any graves. It’s here in hard copy, Graham. The committee took each one of my photos and printed them out. Take a look.”
I handed him the binder and watched as he flipped through several pages of photographs. I hadn’t shown these to anyone before, and I doubt I’d share them with anyone else in that cottage. To me and Graham, these were just unfortunate people who got caught up in something terrible. To everyone else these could be neighbours, or friends… in Sara’s case, they could be her sisters. No one else needed to see them.
“This was over a year ago,” Graham said. “I’ll bet the majority of those marauders have moved on. And I’ll bet The Souls have better things to do these days. Those highways are empty now… there aren’t enough people traveling on them to justify lying in wait. I really don’t see how this changes the situation.”
“That’s why you’re dangerous, Graham. You’ve made up your mind.”
“What about you? You seem pretty stuck on digging in no matter what it costs us.”
“I think I’m starting to understand. This isn’t about how many guns we have, or whether or not it’s safe out on the highways. This is about how you’re so scared of having to fight that you’d rather pin all of your hopes on running away.”
“That’s not it.”
“That’s so it, man. I thought you were naïve. Turns out you’re just chickenshit.”
Graham made some kind of growl and shoved me square on my shoulders. I felt my head strike the wooden staircase.
“Don’t start something with me,” I said as I took position with my fists out.
“You’re right. I’ve seen what you’re capable of. I don’t want to end up like Marc Tremblay. People seem to keep dying around you, Baptiste.”
He turned away again, and I didn’t say a word as he walked back up the basement steps. I looked up the stairwell to see Lisa waiting for him at the top. I’m sure she heard some of it.
I found an old wood step stool and sat down. I wasn’t ready to go upstairs, not yet. I wasn’t ready to face any of them.
Sara chaired the meeting between the seven of us, apparently hoping that if everything seemed official that we’d all spend less time yelling across the table at each other.
We all sat around the pinewood table, Sara at one end and Graham at the other, and the rest of us clustered around them based on our little orbits, Fiona and I on one side and Lisa at the other, with Matt and Kayla smack in the middle.
“Things might get a little heated,” Sara said. “I know a lot of us have pretty strong opinions on the topic of whether to stay or go. So let’s all raise our hands like in school, without any interrupting.” She said it in a half-joking way, but I think everyone knew not to fuck with her. “I’m going to start.”
Graham raised his hand.
“You can go next,” Sara said. “All I really want to say is that we all have our jobs around here. I’m in charge of inventory and Fiona runs the kitchen. That doesn’t mean that Kayla can’t speak up if she thinks we’re too low on firewood, or that Matt shouldn’t care if we don’t have enough cutlery. But what it does mean is that each of us owns a specific part of our collective responsibilities… and in that one area that person will have the final say.”
Graham was shifting violently in his chair, but he held his tongue.
“Baptiste is in charge of security,” Sara said. “That’s his expertise and I don’t think anyone here truly questions that role. But we’ve had a series of incidents lately that have made us all a little uneasy.” She paused for a moment, biting her bottom lip. “Ant wasn’t doing the most he could, and it killed him. Marc Tremblay slipped and hit his head, and he didn’t make it, either.”
I glanced back to Graham. He was staring directly at me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, if he was considering telling the truth about Marc and what had really gone on out there.
“We know what happened to the Girards,” Sara said. “And we have reason to believe that the same thing may have happened to the Smiths and the Lamarches. And now Ryan Stems is trying to close us in to this side of the river.”
“And Ryan Stems was able to sneak up on us,” Graham said. “And could have killed every last one of us if he’d wanted to.”
“Hold on, Graham… I’m almost done. Stems came when we were vulnerable, when maybe too many of us were away from the house at the same time. That’s something we’ll need to fix going forward.”
She nodded to Graham.
“I respect Baptiste,” he said, “I really do. He’s done a lot for all of us. Just as we’ve all done a lot for him. But it doesn’t matter how much you like or respect someone… if a situation is unsafe, it’s unsafe. Baptiste can’t change that, no matter how hard he works at it. It’s not safe here… so we need to find somewhere that is. It’s that simple.”
Matt spoke next. “I really don’t know who’s right on this,” he said. “Today was too close. Too fucking close. I don’t know what I would’ve done if something had happened to… the girls. Maybe that’s all of our screw-up, not just Baptiste. I should have been there―”
“The point?” I asked.
Sara scowled at me, but all I gave in return was a shrug of my shoulders. Someone had to remind Matt that we were all just humouring him.