Wasn’t she just curious? She didn’t really care if anyone else remembered, did she? Especially Will?
Of course not. That part of my life is over. I was the one who severed it.
“No, it’s just me,” Carly said. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she said and smiled again. She still wasn’t sure how it came out. It had been such a long time since she had company, had to fake a smile for the benefit of others. Did it at least look mildly convincing? “All right,” she said, “let’s light it up.”
Carly put the tray down on the foldout table where Kate ate most of her meals. Carly dug out a lighter and lit the candle on the cupcake, then held it out for her. “Okay, blow. But make a wish first.”
She nodded, closed her eyes and pretended to make a wish, then blew out the candle.
“What did you wish for?” Carly asked.
“I can’t tell you or it won’t come true,” she said, playing along.
Carly smiled and nodded. She looked happy.
This isn’t for me, it’s for her.
Carly stayed with her for exactly ten minutes. They talked about little things. Pointless things. Carly asked if she was still keeping her journal, but Kate told her she gave it up a month ago.
Carly looked disappointed. “I was hoping to read it.”
“Sorry. I threw it away.”
Eventually the conversation stalled, and Carly waited for her to say something, but Kate didn’t feel like it. This visit had already gone on long enough, and she was ready for it to end.
“I should probably get going,” Carly said and got up.
“Thanks for the cupcake,” Kate said. She stared at it, half-eaten, on the tray in front of her, with the beets and carrots and the disgusting tofu turkey. “I’ll eat the rest later.”
“Promise?”
I’m not your little sister, Carly. I don’t have to do what I promise you.
She said, instead, “I promise.”
Carly nodded, satisfied, and went to the door. She looked as if she was in a hurry to leave.
At the door, Carly stopped and looked back at her. “We miss you, Kate. You should come have dinner with us sometime. We all miss you. Danny, Will, Vera…”
“I will,” Kate lied. “Thanks again for the cupcake.”
“Sure,” Carly said, gave her a pursed smile, and left.
Kate closed the door after her and locked it. She didn’t think she could stand another surprise visit today.
What’s the point, Carly? she had wanted to ask the other woman. What’s the point of celebrating a birthday when the world above us is dead?
“What’s the point?” Mabry asked.
She was in the dream again, though it was sometimes hard to tell where the dream began and ended. It had begun to merge with her life in Harold Campbell’s facility. Or what passed for a life, anyway.
Sometimes she liked the dreams better. She couldn’t go to Deussen Park in real life. Not anymore. She couldn’t go anywhere in real life. She was stuck in Harold Campbell’s concrete facility. The place that was supposed to be her salvation had become her prison. She realized that now, more than ever.
What’s the point?
“Exactly,” Mabry said, leaning against the gazebo railing next to her. He had come out of nowhere again, like always.
She looked over at him. “What?”
“Exactly,” Mabry said. “What’s the point?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Don’t you?”
“No.”
“Then why continue like this? What’s the point of going on like there’s still a point, Kate, when you know in your heart there isn’t really one?”
“I don’t know,” Kate said. “Do you?”
He shrugged, and gave her an amused look. “That’s for you to find out. I’m just some guy in your dreams.”
“You’re an annoying guy in my dreams,” she smirked at him. “Why can’t I get rid of you?”
“Maybe you don’t want to. Maybe subconsciously I’m here to ask you the very question you can’t bring yourself to ask when you’re awake. But you know, deep down, that it’s a question that demands to be answered.”
“Bullshit.”
“Is it? Tell me. What do you think about when you’re awake, Kate?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Of course you do. You think about Luke. About Ted. About what’s up there, in the real world. The world above the facility. You wonder what the whole point of it all is. The world as you know it is gone. You’ll never get it back. You know that.”
“I know that,” she said quietly. “So you’re just repeating what I’m thinking, is that it?”
“What else could it be?” He smiled at her. “I’m here because you want me to be here. You need me to ask the question you refuse to ask out there.”
“What’s the point. Is that the question?”
“Is it? You tell me, Kate.”
She didn’t answer right away. “Maybe,” she said after a while.
“You’re not sure?”
“How can I be? I’m talking to myself, if what you’re saying is true. That in itself is disturbing.”
He laughed. “I guess it can be viewed that way.”
“What other way to view it is there?”
“Maybe you’re finally just accepting reality.”
“What reality is that?”
“That the world is gone. Your father is gone. Will is gone. That everything you know and trust and understand is gone.” He paused, as if to let his words sink in. “So tell me, Kate. What’s the point?”
She closed her eyes.
“What’s the point?” Mabry asked, his voice echoing inside her head.
Or maybe it wasn’t his voice. Maybe it was actually her voice.
What’s the point?
When she woke up in her room, on her tiny cot, her nose was bleeding. She raced to the small sink in the corner and watched the blood drip down to the metal pan, the ping-ping sound of the nosebleed almost hypnotic.
She looked up at the thirty-two-year-old woman staring back at her in the mirror. The stranger looked haggard, dark, with no color along her cheeks or forehead. Even her lips were dark and blackened, lifeless. Her eyes gave the impression of a woman who hadn’t slept in days. They were hollow and unattractive.
She remembered when her appearance was everything. When she could walk into a meeting with clients and, on pure will alone, get them to sign with her, commit their entire annual advertising budget with her company. She could have sold them anything.
But that was the old world. That was the old Kate.
What was she now? A thirty-two-year-old woman in an underground facility, surrounded by unyielding gray concrete. Living with men and women who didn’t know there was no point to all of this. They were just going through the motions, living out the remainder of their lives until they grew old and died.
It wasn’t much of a life. It was nothing compared to the life she had.
She idly noticed blood on her shirt. She wiped at it with some paper napkin soaked in water, but it only diluted the blood and made it cling to the cheap fabric. The old Kate would never have been caught dead wearing something like this.
She sighed and tossed the bloodied napkin into a nearby trash bin. She missed badly, and the crumpled sheet fell into a corner. She didn’t bother picking it up.
She looked down at the bloodied shirt for a moment, then turned off the water.
What was the point of cleaning it? She would never get the blood out of the shirt now. Blood was hard to get out. Blood was forever.