She hadn’t gotten a quarter of the way around when she spotted Melanie standing at the barricade, looking out at the sun-baked plain.
“You okay?” Kath asked cautiously.
“Would it sound weird if I said that was kind of fun? Good trauma practice, you know? Nice, thinking I actually helped save someone.”
Kath stepped forward, well into her space, and kissed her. Jangling nerves stilled. Melanie pulled back, surprised, glancing around to see if anyone was watching.
“We’re not being discreet anymore?”
Kath shook her head. “I told Maggie. She was freaked out that I was going to get knocked up.”
She laughed, hugging Kath close. “That woman needs to chill the hell out.”
“Yeah. But I don’t know. She’s the one holding all this together.”
They walked on for a while, arms around each other. The sun felt warm this morning instead of scorching. Kath finally felt ready to lie down for a nap.
Looking ahead, along the junkyard edge of the barricade, Melanie asked, “Where would you be now? If none of this had happened?”
She wouldn’t be in Melanie’s arms, for one. That was a weird thought, that if none of this had happened she wouldn’t have Melanie. And that would be a shame. She rested her head on her shoulder and sighed.
“It doesn’t matter. This is where I am.”
THE ELEPHANTS’ CREMATORIUM
TIMOTHY MUDIE
Timothy Mudie is a writer and editor whose fiction has been published or is forthcoming in Lightspeed, Escape Pod, Kaleidotrope, and numerous other magazines, anthologies and podcasts. He lives outside of Boston with his wife and son.
Liyana had seen elephants form into protective circles when calves were threatened, but this was different. These days, animal behavior was all but impossible to predict, of course—prey turning to predator; trees turning to stone in moonlight—but this didn’t feel random. There was intent in the way the elephants moved. The seven of them—she counted three juvenile males, two juvenile females, and two adult females—plodded into a loose formation a dozen or so meters from where Liyana crouched in a blind nestled deep in a thick copse of thorny bushes. Moving in unison, the elephants faced inward, heads turning slightly, inspecting one another as if making sure they were all ready.
Lower back beginning to ache fiercely, sharp twinges shooting up her spine, Liyana wanted more than ever to shift position, to stand up and stretch. To pee, even though it seemed like she’d just done so moments ago. To wipe the sweat pooling in her lower back and between her breasts. Without speaking, she mouthed an apology to the baby inside her. Just a few more minutes.
The largest adult called, a low rumble that Liyana felt more than heard, her heart vibrating, pressure rising through the soles of her feet despite her thick boots. The rest joined in, a basso profundo chorus.
For almost a full minute, the elephants sang a low note that Liyana couldn’t help but think of as mournful, though she was always reluctant to anthropomorphize the animals she’d studied and protected. Abruptly the sound cut out, leaving behind an even deeper silence. One by one, like a string of firecrackers, the elephants burst into flames.
Liyana gingerly lowered herself into the sagging remains of what had once been an overstuffed armchair in what had once been the lounge of what had once been the Amboseli Adventure Safari Lodge, where tourists had once paid extravagantly to live in comfort while pretending they were bush explorers, seeking lions and leopards and elephants. Sometimes, even though it had been years—seven as best Liyana’s people could tell—it still amazed her to think about how people used to live. At one time, someone had probably complained that the lounge was too cool from the air conditioning. Even with the windows long broken and a breeze riffling through the room, Liyana sweated through her clothes.
“I found out what’s happening to the elephants,” she said to James. She grimaced. “Sort of.”
“How are you feeling?” James asked. “You look pale.”
She tried to smile at him. Just like James to worry about her more than the elephants. Though she knew he’d never really love her, that he couldn’t, he did care. That was enough. “You’re not going to believe this—well, maybe you will, things are crazy—but the elephants seem to be spontaneously combusting.”
He ignored her. “I’m serious, Liyana. Are you okay?”
“Did you hear me? They’re practically exploding. Fire everywhere. I saw it myself.” When he leaned forward, an expression of concern on his face, she waved him off. “I’m fine. My back hurts from crouching in the blind so long. It’s nothing.”
He leaned back, but his brow remained furrowed. “Okay then. The elephants are spontaneously combusting. Is it just happening? Or are they inducing it somehow?”
“Why would they do it on purpose? And how?”
James shrugged. “Why does anything happen anymore? A week ago, I saw a pack of hyenas surround a zebra. The hyenas melted into some sort of amoeba and absorbed the zebra. When it was gone, they reformed and took off running like it was the most natural thing in the world.”
“I guess it is, now.”
“My point is that the world is dangerous and unpredictable. You shouldn’t be trying to have a child at all, and you certainly shouldn’t be going out alone right now. Who knows how an animal would react if it could somehow tell you’re pregnant.”
“You’re sweet that you try to protect me,” Liyana said. “But I hate it.” She stood up. “Anyway, I’m going to lie down, but first I need to talk to—” Her voice snapped off into a sharp intake of breath as pain stabbed her stomach and she doubled over. In an instant, James was on his feet, his hands on her elbows. She couldn’t stay on her feet, so she let him guide her to the floor, first on her knees, but even that was too much, and she curled onto her side.
“Stay here, stay here,” he said, looking around frantically, though there was no one in the lounge. “I’m getting Charlotte.” For a moment, Liyana thought he would kiss her as he leaned forward, but he turned away and sprinted for the door, shouting already for the doctor, for help from anyone.
As Liyana lay on the floor, hands clutching her stomach, teeth gritted and eyes watering, she thought the same words over and over. Please. Please, not a miscarriage. Not again.
Before the world ended, she’d never actually been in a hospital for anything other than to visit a sick family member, hadn’t needed to. She had her tonsils, her appendix. Had never broken a bone or had a terrible fever. Now, as she lay sweating in bed in what had been a tastefully appointed hut for the tourists, Liyana was grateful for that. She had no idea what she was missing.
“You need to take better care of yourself,” Charlotte said, sitting next to her, stethoscope on Liyana’s belly, that barely-visible bump that said she was with child. She nodded, removed the cold scope. “Baby’s fine, though. Not to jinx anything, but…”
“Seventeen weeks. I’m farther along than I’ve ever been,” Liyana said.
“Well, now you’ve gone and done it,” Charlotte said, but she smiled. “Farther along than anyone since… you know.”
Liyana nodded. There was no name for it, not really, the thing that had ended the world. A war, some new weapon, bombs that ripped a hole right in reality. Some author had once said that any far-enough advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic. Well, they’d gotten there. The little they’d seen before the internet and TV and radio all stopped working showed cities and people imploding, disintegrating, blinking away into air. Reporters just as mystified as everyone watching. Everything broke, the world became surreal. Nothing to do, Liyana thought, but to forge ahead, to will the world back to normalcy.