“Of course I’ll go if we all go. But if he doesn’t, if Seth wants to stay, I’m not just…I’m not just going to leave, it’s too dangerous. I’ll stay here with the kids. There’s food-”
“No there isn’t!”
“Usually, usually there is. There’s protection…” Patty said. “Seth keeps things running here pretty well.”
Sue rubbed her face. “Ohhh, my god. You really believe that, you’d really rather stay.”
“It doesn’t matter, I can’t leave any kids. None of them… none of them deserve that.”
“Shhh!” So that was it. It was a goddamned mother thing. Sue stole a look out the window; no Jeep yet. “Sweetie, Brandy’s gone, you can’t help her. Let me put it to you this way: What would Brandy want you to do? She’d want you to do the thing that was best for everyone, right? Well, staying isn’t good for anyone. This is a place for dying. Think about Plaquemines Parish. Did you ever take Brandy down to Port Sulphur? Did she like it? Well, it’s great, that area, you can grow just about anything, fish, shrimp, it’s breezy… Think about the kids that are here.”
“I am.”
“Think about them growing up here, in this building. They’re not even going to last long enough to grow up. They’re going to starve here.”
“No…they’re exploring I-55, there’ll be something up there.”
“Bullshit. There’s fewer men practically every week to do that, and you know why. You want to do something good for these kids, pick which ones we can take and let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Now Patty was weeping. Jesus, what a drama queen. “You don’t have to take any, if you want. I know you don’t really-”
“All right, all right.” She squeezed Patty’s shoulder and peeked out the window again. “I’m taking the four I said I’d take, and then Sarah, with or without your sorry ass.” She smiled as she said this, realizing that some kids’ eyes were on her.
That woke Patty up. “You can’t. You can’t possibly manage five kids…”
“I can and I will.” Her face was getting warm but she anchored the smile. “Watch me. I’m making this shit happen. I’ll be goddamned if I’m gonna stay here and rot-”
“Sarah’s too little, leave her-” and then Sue stopped hearing. She must have been hyperventilating, because her head felt hot but her mouth felt cold. She ran her fingers through her hair and left the room, went for the stairs. She looked down into the main warehouse area, fully lit now by the afternoon sun through the skylights.
Wayne was downstairs. How did he get here so quietly? She didn’t see a Jeep. He was already talking with Seth, who had on his stained pink shirt and striped tie, like he was still middle management.
Sue ran down the rattling iron stairs.
“…both of them,” Wayne was saying.
Seth nodded gravely and looked up at Sue. She had her mouth open but something in Wayne’s eyes told her to shut it.
“Bad news, Sue: Zach and Ted are dead. Call everyone around.”
The manager’s office bathroom was the only real private room in the warehouse. That’s where Sue waited for Wayne after the meeting, drinking a long-hoarded Abita beer, playing with the candles on the rust-stained toilet that could no longer be used, fixing herself up as best she could in the mirror. Finally, he came in.
“What happened out there? Where’s the Jeep?”
“Shh,” he said.
“They tried to kill you, didn’t they? Why didn’t you tell Seth?”
“I…not really. Maybe they were going to.”
“Maybe? What did Seth say? Will they come?”
“I didn’t put it to them, I don’t think that’s wise.” Wayne put his hand on the wall behind Sue.
“What, we’re just going? Just us, no caravan?”
He dropped his arm. “Seth can’t be trusted.”
She stamped her foot. “How are we going to make it anywhere without that kind of backup, Wayne?”
“Do you hear me? I don’t trust Seth anymore. I don’t think Zach and Ted were acting alone. I think it came from higher up.”
Sue leaned back against the wall. “They did try to kill you.”
“Well, they didn’t get a chance.”
“The dead got them first.”
“I got…you know, I went ahead and shot them.”
“Oh, Christ.”
“I was scared, I kept thinking about the plan, I don’t even know if we were right anymore. I panicked.”
“Shh, it’s okay.” She put a hand on his chest. “You were right, you were right, just like we planned, just a little different. And it’s good you told Seth and all that they were killed by the dead, that’s fine cover, you did good.”
“I don’t know…I worry that they, that Ted or Zach, might…”
“What?”
“Might wander back here, I don’t know. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“You didn’t finish them?”
“I don’t know!”
“Christ, Wayne. You’re unbelievable, that could really be-”
“Shut…just, be quiet. Listen.” He held her wrists to her chest but she didn’t like the maneuver and pushed back away from him. “Go talk to Patty, get the kids’ stuff ready so we can go. I’ll talk to Ian.”
“Ugh. Where’s the Jeep, anyway? How are we leaving?”
“It’s four blocks from here, loaded up with MREs and water.” Her eyes went wide. “Don’t freak out, just get the shit ready, tell Patty so we can go.”
“We’ll have to walk?”
“A little ways, yes. It’s no real problem.”
She swallowed then, leaned against his chest and whispered, “Can we just go now, forget the kids?”
“No. The kids.” Now he pushed her away. “The kids are half the damn point, Sue.”
“What do you care. You don’t even know their names,” she said. “Patty’s not coming.”
He sighed. “Whatever. Just get everything together, keep it quiet, don’t spook anyone. Give me that beer. We’re leaving at daybreak. Get some sleep.”
She left the bathroom and headed upstairs, shaking and wondering if she could sleep: tomorrow would start no better than today had. In the classroom/orphan bedroom, she stepped over the mattresses in the dark and just grabbed clothes from unwashed piles as she passed, stuffing them into a backpack, trying to get things for the ones she’d decided on but just not entirely sure, in the dark, with this pitiful flashlight. Children slept like the dead. Patty was asleep on the floor. Devon breathed and it sounded like a greasy drain gurgling. The shoes: she had to be sure of the shoes. She put the correct pair next to each child’s head. Morgan, Leticia, Greg, Shawn, Sarah. These were the ones; she could help these ones.
Sue had just fallen asleep when Wayne woke her up to say the dead had found the warehouse.
The sun vanished, and others like him emerged from the forest. They shambled by, paying him little mind, some marred and broken and beautiful beyond expression, others as plain and dull and ugly as the laughing ones with the roaring metal things and the wheels.
The night was cool and damp. When he tried to breathe, the air felt empty and used up. It had nothing to give him. Fortunately, he needed nothing right then-nothing physical, at least. He could just sit there, oblivious and unknowing.
Unknowing, but not unthinking. His mind was a blur of images and feelings-people and places and things, and all the emotions they evoked in him. Several times in the long night, he clutched at his head and rocked back and forth, moaning, because the thoughts hurt him.
It wasn’t that they were all images of violence or terror-very few of them were, in fact. The pain was from the cacophony of his mind, for all the images and feelings came at him without order, logic, or connection. He could not choose what he would think, or even pick from among a certain set: he could not call forth thoughts-he was only assailed and bombarded by them, and the assault seemed as painful as any kind of physical torture.