On another morning Cass might watch them for a while, taking in the details of the clothes they’d been wearing since before they turned, of what was left of their hair. It could be a fascinating exercise, looking for clues to who they’d been-a gold watch that still hung on a bony wrist, the remains of a tattoo in the ruin of a bicep, a hank of dreadlocks stringing across a filthy scarred scalp; a T-shirt with a now passé slogan or a skirt with last season’s flared hem.
But today she didn’t care. She just didn’t care anymore. After last night…dear God, the boy had looked so terrified, his skin already getting the sheen. He had to be what…two days in? What had they served two days ago?
It was a useless exercise, since everyone was allowed to visit the pantry freely and help themselves to the snacks the cooking staff left out each day, bowls of greens and pans lined with kaysev “cookies,” the hard little nuggets studded with dried berries and sweetened with the syrup made from cooking the juice crushed from kaysev stalks.
It was just impossible to know, especially since the kids liked to spend their free days on North Island, frequently plucking raw kaysev to avoid coming back and eating at the community table. Cass understood that, remembered how much she’d wanted an identity of her own at that age, how she’d cherished the fleeting moments of freedom when she and her friends could pretend that they never had the homes and parents and lives they were all so desperate to outgrow. She knew the kids stole kaysev wine from the pantry, that they’d learned how to roll their own cigarettes. She even knew where they kept their little weed patch, although she hadn’t been sure it was the kids’ and didn’t feel right turning it under or trying to catch the gardeners in the act. It wasn’t her place to judge-that was for damn sure, especially now.
She thought of the little band of New Eden kids, Phillip and Colton and Kalyan and Shane, all the girls-Kyra and Sage and especially Sammi, oh, Sammi, and the thought of her hit Cass with a fresh assault of dread and fear and guilt. She had to talk to Sammi, had to explain again how they must never, ever eat anything that hadn’t been grown on Garden Island, that hadn’t been checked and rechecked and prepared by the kitchen staff. But how could she get Sammi to listen? What if Cass had had a chance to reach them, warn them, and had squandered it?
What if Phillip was her fault
No, no, she couldn’t do that, wouldn’t do that. It didn’t help. And God, it hurt, it hurt so much to wonder about all the ways she’d failed and people she’d hurt, if she indulged that kind of thinking for even a minute she’d never get up off her knees in the mud at the edge of the river, she’d just sink into it until it covered her over and buried her. And that wasn’t happening, not as long as Ruthie lived.
Cass splashed her face with water and dried it with the cloth she kept in her kit. She squatted to relieve herself, the urine splashing into the brackish edge of the river, and as she watched the Beaters it almost looked like they were trying to copy her, crouching and crab walking at the water’s edge.
Only…they weren’t at the edge of the water. They were in it. Water lapped around their ankles, their shins, soaking the bottom of their pants. Stupid beasts, their shoes would be ruined, waterlogged; the skin of their feet would swell and peel and, if they weren’t Beaters, succumb to rot and gangrene. But because of their wretched immunity they’d keep walking even after the skin had sloughed away and they walked on bone-ends and raw pulped flesh, never knowing and never caring.
Something almost sounded like laughter. They were playing like children, patting at the water with their hands and crowing. There was a commotion as they jostled for position, going farther and farther into the water until it was up to their chests, their underarms. They had to be freezing. A citizen could last ten, maybe fifteen minutes in that water before hypothermia sucked the life from them, but a Beater…they were too stupid to stay out of the cold water. It would serve them right if they fell facedown, dead, in the river.
The water was the only barrier between them and the island, and seeing them breaching it spurred a deep, almost insensible terror. Of course they couldn’t swim, and the wide brown river surged and churned with whirling currents and floating debris and hidden hazards. Cass was perfectly safe on this side, but the dread that accompanied this odd sight was undeniable and complete.
Cass gathered her things. She would tell the others, would find Dana or Shannon or Neal and let them know, as they were supposed to report any Beater sighting and especially any behaviors that were out of the ordinary. They’d know what to do. And Cass was more than happy to let the others handle it.
She was stuffing the cloth back into the little zipped ditty bag that held her collection of toiletries when a startled squawk reached her ears. She looked back over the water and saw that two Beaters had given a third a shove, pushing it into deeper water, and were watching it flail. Water flew and frothed as it gasped for air and flung its arms out wildly, cheered by its babbling, grinning comrades.
The current began to carry it, slowly spinning, on a lazy ride downstream, and for a terrifying moment it almost seemed as though it was floating toward the island, but of course the river carried its bounty in the center, and only when a log or branch jutted into the water would it get snagged and dragged and deposited on a silty bank. By then it would be drowned, as dead as dead could be, sodden and already starting to decompose, just another bit of Aftertime detritus to be broken down and absorbed back into the earth, no longer a danger to anything.
Cass watched it struggle, beginning to tire, swallowing great gulps of river water. But right before she turned to go, she saw something that made her pause.
The Beater stopped flailing and paddled. For a moment she doubted what she was seeing, but the longer she watched, the more she became sure of it. Its hands stroked the water in front of itself, a sloppy dog paddle, fingers splayed and weak against the current. A moment later it sank beneath the surface, the water quivering and swirling above where it disappeared for a moment before the current smoothed it over.
The Beater was as good as dead.
But before it died, it had started to teach itself to swim.
The kids were all fussy, as though they had sensed Cass’s mood despite her efforts to cover it up. Twyla whimpered and sucked her thumb, a habit Suzanne had been trying to break her of for some time, and which she had given Cass strict instructions to monitor. But today wasn’t the day for it, and Cass let the little girl comfort herself, wiping her tear-streaked face gently.
Dane and Dirk squabbled, and as the morning wore on, it got worse, Dane making a game of snatching away any plaything that caught Dirk’s attention. The little boy was enraged, screaming and bunching his hands into fists, so Cass picked him up and walked him around the living room, making loops through the kitchen. On one of her rotations she came back to find Dane holding his hands squeezed tightly together, yelling at Ruthie.
“She bit me! Cass, Ruthie bit me!”
Cass sighed and set Dirk down next to Twyla, who was giving play shots to a stuffed dog with a fake plastic syringe. Then she bent to examine Dane’s hand. Sure enough, there was a perfect angry red imprint of Ruthie’s teeth on the soft flesh of his palm.
“Oh, Ruthie,” Cass said, and Ruthie shyly picked up the skirt of her play dress and pulled it up over her head, a new habit that Cass usually found charming. “Were you two fighting?”
Dane shrugged, and Cass saw that he was trying to hide the pile of play money behind him. Dane was a hoarder, and she frequently had to intervene when he took things from the others, only to find little stashes here and there around the house, piles of doll shoes and board books and spoons. She was always at a loss as to how to discipline for this habit; the parenting books of Before never gave advice about what effect seeing your dad beaten to death trying to defend a water supply, or watching your happy-go-lucky neighbor get dragged away by a horde of screaming monsters, might have on children and what you could do to help.