Despite the clear logic in that argument, Natasha felt conflicted. “You need to know right now,” Peter told her, in a firm way, but with concern and kindness, “that much of what we’re going to need to survive is going to be found and salvaged from this point forward. We don’t have the luxury of hunting down the next of kin, or taking found goods to the sheriff’s office or authorities. There are no stores or businesses now, not from what we’ve already experienced. From what you’ve seen with your own eyes, Natasha, there aren’t any authorities.”
Natasha nodded her head, and Peter told her he was glad she understood and that he hoped that she would have the stomach for everything that was ahead of them. “Even if you don’t, however, you have to be honest about what we’re facing. This is not a movie at the Pushkinsky-Cine, little daughter. This is our life now.”
She nodded again, and told him that she knew what was required, but that she just didn’t want to lose her humanity.
“I am helping you to save that humanity, dear girl,” Peter said. He let that sink in for a beat. “We are not in the land of the living anymore.”
Peter frowned and she grimaced. Lang bent to pick up his pack. The three of them stood in the clearing for a moment, and the ancient differences between men and women swirled around them as they weighed their thoughts. Unlike the couple from the day before, they silently agreed to let those differences help them rather than tear them apart, and eventually the three of them turned to trudge back toward the tree line, to make their way out of the clearing.
Just as they were turning to take their leave, however, Natasha told them to stop. The men almost responded in anger. Peter drew in his breath to rebuke Natasha and tell her to get past her doubts. He looked at her as if to warn her that they had to get moving and was just about to speak in his impatience.
It was only then that he heard what she was hearing. Natasha raised her hand as if to quiet him, and he held his breath and his eyes followed in the direction of her pointing.
A moan came from one of the collapsed tents. They rushed to it and lifted its canvas and dug into its crevices to find the door. Once they had found it, they gently lifted the tent away until they found her.
She was beaten and bruised, and terribly afraid, but she was alive. She was still in the land of the living.
CHAPTER 23
Dostoevsky said that “the best definition of man is: a being that goes on two legs and is ungrateful.”
Lang could not help feeling that this was true of himself at that instant, as he realized that the woman in the tent was alive and that her injury was minor and survivable. He did not mean to think of rushing away and abandoning her. Such an act certainly would never have occurred to his conscious mind willingly, but it occurred nonetheless. Somewhere in his unconscious mind, his reckoning of the stench of death and fire in the clearing mixed with his guilt at the thought of leaving, his conscience burned brightly like the flames of perdition. He smelled it like charred goose feathers in his nostrils, and he melted in those flames. Had he so soon forgotten his own relatively recent deliverance from bondage? From injury? Was he that ungrateful? He considered himself a man of human compassion and was he so soon to be devoid of that feeling? His face flushed.
Lang had never really read the Bible much, but he was aware of many of its teachings, and one of the ones he liked most was the notion that a man could show no greater love than to lay down his life for others. He caught himself in his quick brush with self-centeredness and reached down a hand to help the woman off the ground. Maybe only a man who is aware of his weaknesses and failings can properly love in that way.
Elsie was her name and she was barely conscious. It took some doing to carry her into the woods and into some similitude of safety. Lang had a wounded arm, and they dared not drop their packs or weapons, so the going was slow, but they eventually accomplished the task. Once they were in cover among the trees, Peter went to work again with the first aid kit. Before long, he had her forehead wound cleaned up without too much trouble. It was harder to get her to take the two aspirin that Peter gave her for her headache than it had been to carry her into the woods. She didn’t want the pills, but it helped Peter that the woman was in shock and that she didn’t put up too much of a fight.
Before long, and with some water and attention, Elsie was able to give her name and ask where she was. Slowly, she began to piece together her new reality. Peter noticed right away that this lady was made of stern stuff.
Elsie knew that her husband was dead. She’d seen as much before she lost consciousness. Even though she’d been struck in the head with a rifle butt at the onset of the attack, she didn’t lose consciousness immediately, she told them. Her husband, before being shot to death, and in the midst of the confusion from the raid, was able to hide his injured wife in their tent. She was peeking through the tent flap with her hand over her own mouth to stifle her cries and her overwhelming need to scream, and she’d started to lose consciousness when she saw one of the men shoot her husband in the head. That’s when she passed out. Now, here she was awake, only to find out that her nightmare was very real.
As she told her story, Natasha sat down beside the woman and placed an arm around her waist. She could tell that Elsie wasn’t sure what the intentions of these three people were, and she wanted the woman to know that she was in good company now. With the telling of her story done, through sobs and tears, Elsie collapsed into Natasha’s arms and the men fell silent with nothing to say that might even begin to help.
Peter and Lang had their guns at the ready, torn between allowing this woman space to grieve for a short moment, and the need to get moving before more trouble came through the woods or up the greenbelt.
Elsie’s sobs faded, and now she seemed to draw strength from somewhere unknown. She placed hands on her knees and tried to push herself up, falling woozily back into Natasha’s arms as Peter reached out to lend a hand.
“We have to bury my husband.”
Lang and Peter exhaled in unison, and Peter’s jaw tightened as he drew in another breath. He consciously scanned the horizon in every direction for the trouble that he knew was surely coming. The two men stepped to the side to confer, leaving Natasha to comfort Elsie.
Peter and Lang stared into one another’s eyes for a moment, recognizing the difficulty of the situation. Neither man said a word for one, two, three seconds… then Lang’s eyes softened. He shrugged and nodded, and Peter’s jaw tightened again, but this time the older man closed his eyes and nodded his head in agreement.
“Ma’am,” Peter said as gently as he could manage, kneeling down in front of her so his voice would be soft and low. “I am sorry about your husband. I know that doesn’t help you, hearing me say that, but it’s the truth. The three of us have lost more friends in the past couple of days than you can possibly imagine. None of us is immune to loss… but,” he paused and searched for the best words to say what he had to say, “there are some things… I need…” He paused again and took a deep breath.
“Ma’am, we’re in the middle of cataclysmic meltdown. The whole country and, really, the whole world as far as we know — it’s never going to be the same. I can’t explain entirely, but let’s just say that I have an uncle, he was a friend to all of us. His name was Lev. He was… well… let’s say that he was a highly-placed official. He wasn’t really, but that’ll help you believe what I have to say. Lev told us that there are probably going to be 300 million people dead or dying in the next year, and… well… frankly…” he hesitated for a moment, looking at her to see if she was willing to believe him, “…we can’t bury 300 million people.