Afterland (4 page)

“It’s just- it’s not right,” I mutter.

“Of course it’s not right, but it’s always been like this and it always will be like this, and there’s
nothing
, nothing at all that we can do to change it.” She smiles sourly. “We just have to learn to live with it.”

The rest of breakfast goes in silence. All of us are thinking about how we will survive the tax increase. I can’t help but think that this year might be our last.

“You alright, Molly?” my mother asks at the end.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m fine.” The lie tastes metallic and wrong on my tongue. “I just overreacted.”

“We’ll be fine,” she says emptily. I nod, equally as emptily.

“I’m time for me to go to work,” I say quietly. “You two be safe, all right?”

“Remember to eat lunch,”  is all my father says in reply.

I head to work, empty-handed but full-minded. I have the length of Centre Street to brood on the tax increase.

I still can’t believe it. Ten percent.

They want us dead. They want us dead, otherwise they wouldn’t do this. How did this happen? How could we have ever let this happen?

The fact remains that, no matter what my mother wants me to believe, we won’t be fine. We
aren’t
fine. And yet we keep repeating to ourselves, to the world:
I’m fine, I promise, I’m fine.
We don’t believe it anymore. How could we? It’s the most common and the most acrid of lies. And yet, always those same words. Always the same lie, heavy with  the weight of the truth it has managed to suppress. When will we stop?

I’m fine.
I’m not okay.
I’m fine.
Help me.
I’m fine.
When will this end?
I’m fine.
What did I do to deserve this?

I walk into Thirty One. The bar smells like a bar should: a combination of the acrid smell of cigarettes, the sweet smell of alcohol, and the familiar smell of bile. I have to stop myself from coughing; the air is filled with smoke and dust and the desire to forget.

The head of the bar greets me by number.

“Number fifteen. You’re late.”

“I’m half an hour early, actually,” I mutter and pull my apron off the wall. I take my place behind the bar and wait for new customers to start flowing in. Most of them are already drunk, but my job is to pour out drinks, not question the customers’ life choices.

“Pour me some tequila, hon,” a man says. I can’t help but notice how his eyes skate over my body. I sigh and pour him a glass. I can’t do anything about the customers, and I can’t really do anything about this job, so all I do is pour the tequila that he wants. A couple of hours pass as more drunks stumble in and out of the bar. Some of them tell stories. Most of them are barely comprehensible and the ones that are are rarely worth listening to, but sometimes, somebody will come in with a real story of life before the Blast, and I’ll listen to those will great eagerness, trying to imagine what the world was like, and what my life could have been.

I listen to a pair of men talking in the corner.

“It’s been too long, Philip,” one of them says. “It can’t be much longer now.”

“You’re talking nonsense again,” the man who must be Philip replies. “How many times have you said the same thing and how many times have you been wrong?”

“Not wrong, just not on time,” the other man corrects him. “But you can feel it too, can’t you? That’s why you’re so afraid.”

“I’m not afraid. If anybody’s the coward here, it’s you, John. You can’t keep hiding behind the pretense of a future.”

“It’s no shame to be afraid of a little revolution,” John says taking a drink. My ears perk up at the word
revolution
and I lean farther over the counter. “And I’m sure as hell not hiding. Just waiting.”

“Waiting for what? The revolution? You’ve seen how the previous attempts have gone. There’s a reason people aren’t trying it anymore.”

“The executions,” John mutters. “Not this time, Philip. The air is thick with revolution. We’ll get it this time.”

“You’re insane, John. Insane.”

“Number fifteen.” I force my energy away from eavesdropping on the conversation and towards the crooked face of my colleague.

“What?” I say, with perhaps a bit more vehemence than I intended.

“We have a drunk in the bathroom,” the other bartender says - there are four of us on duty right now. “Come over here. We’re drawing straws.”

Sometimes we have particularly, well, not well-off customers and they start vomiting in the bathroom. So in the interest of so-called fairness, we draw a short straw for who will drag them outside and clean up the vomit. I sigh as I pick a straw from the clammy hand of my coworker. I unclasp my fingers and wrinkle my nose at the short straw in my hand. Everyone looks at me.

“Guess it’s you this time.”

“Guess it is,” I say, and smile sourly. I have particularly bad luck with the straws. I should have a one in four chance, but in reality, it ends up being more one in two.

I guess my luck just isn’t cut out for this world.

Miserably, I walk over to the bathroom. The door is half open, letting out the noises and the smells. I breathe in as much clean air as I can and walk into the bathroom.

“Sir?” The man on the floor continues vomiting. I sigh and roll up my sleeves. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.”

The man doesn’t react. He only vomits once more. I swallow bile of my own and grab his collar. I need to get back out into fresh air before my breath runs out.

“All right, let’s go, it’s time-” I stop. Through the walls of the bar, I hear a noise.

It’s a bell.

It’s Hopetown’s alarm bell.

CHAPTER 2

I grab the drunk and run back out into the bar. People are already running outside. I join them. Hopetown has survived so much. What could possibly be important enough to ring the alarm bell?

I drag the drunk on my shoulder. I run, as fast as I possibly can. Too slow. The man weighs me down and both of our weights are too much to carry. Too slow. I have to reach the alarm tower before...

I run past the Gate and gasp. It is being closed. There are several men slowly pulling the lever. The Gate comes down in short bursts, creaking in protest while it does. I can’t stop myself from gaping as we go past. The Gate has remained open for more than a decade. The Gate isn’t afraid of anything.
Anything.

“Hey! What’s going on?” I ask one of the men closing the Gate.

“They’re telling everyone to go to the bomb shelter,” he barks curtly. “Hurry up.” I gasp again. The bomb shelter.
Sweet Jesus, are they nuking us again?
None of us will survive if they….

I run down the drunk-filled streets as fast as I can to the bomb shelter. It is eerily quiet as everyone filters through. I search for my parents and meet them at the door.

“Mom! Dad! Are you alright?” I say as quietly as I can, careful not to disturb the religious silence of dejection. I push the drunk into the hands of a guard and let him be escorted inside.

“Molly, there you are! Thank goodness!” All of our voices are muted.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. They’re just telling everyone to get inside. Someone said that there’s something coming from the forest,” my father says, his gray eyes showing concern in my presence for the first time in many years.
Something coming from the forest?
I think.
Well, that can’t be bombs. That’s a start.

Suddenly, I hear a noise tear apart the silence. A noise I haven’t heard for years, and never expected to hear again. Everyone looks up.

“Is that...a motor?” It can’t be.

“I think it is,” my mother whispers quietly. My jaw drops. A mix of relief, excitement, and exasperation surges through me. Our last electric snow plow crashed years ago. But coming from the forest is a motor vehicle.

A
motor vehicle.

That one phrase means so much. It means hope and danger and a chance of something different. My heart pounds even faster than it already is. So much rushes through my head, that I begin to feel dizzy.

“Is someone going to meet them?” I ask.

“Meet them? We’re hiding from them!”

“Wait, Dad, you’re telling me that a motor vehicle, something that is extremely rare nowadays, something that we couldn’t keep alive in Hopetown, is coming out of the forest,” I pause to listen. “And that sound like more than one, if I’m not mistaken, which is more than we’ve seen in the last thirteen years, and nobody wants to know what’s going on?”

“Well...yes.”

I throw my hands up in exasperation. I shoot a glance in the direction of the sound. Nobody is going to meet them, true. But I can’t miss this. I could go myself. But...nobody knows who or what they are. Nobody knows if the motors are benevolent or malintending. Could I face them alone? Almost definitely not. What’s the worst case scenario? I could die. So that’s pretty bad.

Then again, if I don’t find out what the motors are, I might as well die now. I make a decision.

“Screw it!” I spit out. “Then I’m going!”

“What? Molly! What are you thinking?”

“I’m definitely thinking something, I’ll tell you that.”

“No! Molly, are you mad?” My mother grabs my hand.

“Yes,” I respond, freeing my hand. “And you know why? Because this dump has only gotten worse and worse over the last thirteen years. They call it Hopetown, but there has been no hope here.
Ever,
” I shout in a burst of passion, drawing looks from the rest of the townspeople. “How can you pass up the first chance at hope we’ve had since the Blast?”

“Molly, please, use your head!”

“I am!”

“No, you’re not! You can’t do this! You’re not even a legal adult yet!” My mother shouts desperately. I give her a look. What’s a legal adult? And what am I then? An
il
legal adult? Hopetown doesn’t even have real laws! My thoughts jump around my mind in an incomprehensible tangle, and the only thing I understand is that I
need
to find out what the motors are.

“Nobody else is going,” my father pleads with me in a desperate last attempt.

“Exactly,” I growl, and run back before they can say something else. I can feel the eyes of everyone who is still outside pressing into my back, but nobody tries to stop me. Who cares if I die anyway?

The Gate is almost closed when I reach it. I duck under it and run out. One of the guard shouts something at me, but I ignore him and in a moment, the Gate thuds shut behind me, throwing clumps of snow at my back. Whether or not the townspeople want to let me back in is their decision now.

I can hear the motors clearer now. There is no mistaking the sound. I run until the road turns into a forest path and wait.

The forest is dark and I can’t see what’s inside, so I can’t help but be afraid. Excited, but afraid.

My hands are shaking from the fear and the anticipation. I don’t know what I’m doing, and I have the distinct feeling that I shouldn’t be doing it, but I
have
to. I stare out into the forest with my hands clenched into fists so that they don’t shake.

What comes out of the forest knocks the breath out of me. For the fourth time that day, I gasp, despite myself. I watch in awe as one, then two, then four snowmobiles emerge from the forest. I have never seen so many of them in one place. I quickly bite my lip to keep my mouth closed and put my hands on my hips, trying to exude an air of authority. I’m not sure how well it is working, especially with my wine and vomit stained apron still tied around my waist, but I try my best.

The power of the snowmobiles raises the ungroomed snow from the ground. My eyebrows coat with a thin layer of ice and my hair rises behind me. All of the unknown visitors are wearing helmets and protective glasses, so I can’t see their faces. Their anonymity seems like a shield, and I am suddenly very conscious of what I look like.

The faceless rider in front continues driving until the mobile stands only a few centimeters in front of me. I hold my ground, although I am realistically terrified that it will keep driving straight through me. I can see my face reflected in the lenses of his dark glasses, and I’m glad that it doesn’t look frightened. The rider pulls his glasses up and I see that it is a relatively good-looking young man in his early twenties.

“And who exactly are you, then?” He asks me.