Half Past One Read online

  ***

  “George, will you come with me to get some water?” It was getting late and I wasn’t sure how they expected me to get all of the dishes done without enough water, let alone enough help. George had been following me around for weeks like a lost puppy. He was constantly asking me if he could help me with this or that, and up until now I’d not taken him up on his offers. I had Tad after all.

  But Tad was sick today. I’m not sure what came over him but he wasn’t able to get up off of his cot this morning. The leaders of the group we are with had assigned each of us duties, and I alas did not have a valid excuse to avoid mine, even if every cell in my body screamed to stay at home in our tent and be with Tad.

  It had been at least a year since I’d seen Joan and Rock. They split us up at the compound. Something about Joan’s pregnancy being high risk, since she was exposed to the toxins that had been in the air for so long following the nuclear attack. I tried sending them letters but no one ever came to pick them up.

  A little kid skipped by, giggling and waving on friends that were close behind while we were filling the buckets. I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or girl until it got closer, and I could see someone had stuck bows to her scalp with tree sap. I reached up and rubbed my soft bare head, missing the feel of my coarse blond hair. But we weren’t alone. None of us had hair anymore.

  It was these sad thoughts that occupied my mind while George jabbered my ear off - gossiping about different camp sites and what was going on there; how many babies were being born, and whatnot. I “m-hm’d” and said “Oh really” to keep him happy, he all the time not noticing I was barely catching a word he was saying.

  In a melancholy mood I returned back to camp with the water buckets and George in tow. We went through the methodical process of cleaning all of the ‘dishes’ for our site -- A glorified name for a smoothed out piece of wood, I thought. We’d had to make do when the supplies dwindled to almost nothing. Silently we scrubbed, rinsed, and handed them off to be dried by someone else whose name I was loathe to remember. Something like Hitch.

  I stared down at my forearms as I scrubbed each dish. It was still amazing how dark and smooth my skin had become. Everyone’s skin actually. When would I get used to these changes?

  George got called away to retrieve a batch of young ones who were hanging out in the bathroom playing with the water in the sinks, toilets and showers. They couldn’t get enough of it now that we were in a place where we had as much clean water as we could possibly want.

  About a week ago we started noticing a steady traffic of people streaming by our campsites. It was odd, because they all looked really clean and well dressed compared to the miserable lot of us. Children would giggle and point, their voices full of mischief, but somehow muffled to the point of their words being unintelligible. Parents would whisk them away, chastising them in mumbled words as they went, their gestures the universal language of “it’s time to stop goofing off, let’s keep moving”.

  This flow of visitors would start fairly early for us, about the time the sun was at it’s zenith, tapering off around the time the moon had risen. It had gotten so bad that people would stop and witness us eating with cameras flashing bright lights in our faces, making many of the younger folk hide under the tables or run into their tents.

  Life had been reduced to quite the spectacle. I ached for a martini to numb my mind so bad some nights I could taste it. But we were alive, that is what the leaders kept reminding us when we’d ask for supplies that they said were no longer available to the general population. No more cigarettes, no more vodka, no more olives. Though I had seen an adult male with stylish long black hair and a handsome face pass by our encampment today with a lit Marlboro Light hanging rakishly from his unhinged mouth.

  Of course, that might have been when George was trying to get a collar on Click’s dog, who was totally out of control and tended to bounce from log to log to atop the picnic table with a zest we all envied. Yup, that is always a spectacle to see.

  Time had been moving pretty slowly for us, it was hard to believe that only a year and some change had passed. Hard to believe, and very disappointing. A human female’s life expectancy was on average 83 years. Dear God that meant I could have 51 more years of this. Maybe the nuclear bomb was the second coming and daddy was right. Maybe I am in hell.

  Times like these I envy the little girl who had died that first day, envied her for missing all of the glum un-exciting things that were going on around me day after day. All of the bazaar changes that were taking place to us, the world around us. Envied her the sweet relief of eternal sleep.

  At first, when we got to the quarantine area, people were dropping off like flies. We were heartbroken, numb, trying to process it all. After a month or so the deaths had tapered off to a more normal once-in-awhile kind of thing. It was then we knew we were in it for the duration. Some were elated to be alive. But others, like Tad and myself, felt a silent panic gnawing away at our souls. So much of our old lives were gone.

  There was no electricity beyond what the generator provided for us. And they weren’t about to waste that energy on silly things like TV, Internet and videos. Not that there was anything being broadcast anymore. The news from the underground hinted that there was energy somewhere else, but our leaders denied these rumors whole-heartedly. This was our new normal. There was nothing we could do about it.

  After a time they had brought us here, to what used to be a camp ground, and was now our home. We had two to three very well constructed tents in most sites. The earth below our feet was the hardest part for me to get used to. It was mucky - always moist and oddly warm.

  Each night at dusk what appeared to be crop dusters flew overhead and sprayed a dry mist of something fine and grey. It was a favorite time of day for the kids. They’d run through the campsite “streets” and scream in delight as the ash colored snow-like-substance fell elegantly from the sky. Just enough came down to dust the ground and everything around us. We were assured this was not poison, that this powder they were spraying was for our comfort and well-being. As with anything, everyone took it as gospel and just let it be.

  Finally, my chores done I returned to the tent. My eyes were completely accustomed to the dark by now, so when I went in, I could see clearly that Tad was lying disturbingly still.

  “Tad - are you still sleeping?” I whispered, feeling his forehead with one of my deformed hands. The poison had rendered everyone’s fingers curled and almost useless. He was cool and non-responsive to me. “Honey, honey. Wake up.” Fear caught in my throat. Be careful what you wish for, my mind whispered.

  I shook him, locking my hands onto his waist and shoulder. He was lying on his side, curled into a c position like a dead caterpillar. My efforts made no difference; he did not make a sound. I stepped back abruptly, realizing that it was true. I was alone. He was gone.

  Covering my mouth I backed up, stifling a scream that was bubbling up my throat, the acid from my stomach chasing it to my mouth, each racing for the finish line. I could hold it no longer and wretched in the corner of the tent, unable to stop the vile liquid that had once been my dinner from coming out.

  George tore through the tents opening screeching when he saw what was wrong.

  “He’s dead George. He’s dead.” I wailed loudly, at once at his side, clinging to him as tears of frustration fell freely from my unhindered eyes. Why not me?

  ***

  “Mom, mom, look at that!”

  “Honey, don’t point, it’s rude.”

  “But what are they doing?”

  The mom dressed in a bright white North Face parka with green hiking pants and Columbia hiking boots walked up behind her fair haired son and stopped, placing her hand on his shoulder. She turned her attention to what her son had summoned her here for. Beyond the hiking trail they had been traversing was the first display that the preserve had promised them.

  “Oh honey, those are just survivors from the nuclear b
omb. Remember, we talked about what you’d be seeing on the way here?” She was leaning down, talking gently to him, not wanting to embarrass him or herself at her son’s reaction to the dark brown abominations just beyond the invisible shield that separated them.

  Her son, oblivious to public humiliation, continued yelling in excitement.

  “But mom! They’re bugs! You didn’t tell us they were bugs!” His mom clamped her hand over his mouth, trying unsuccessfully to silence his loud outburst, all the while purring “Sh sh sh sh.”

  “Tom, Tom. Quiet down. Stop. Enough.” She began to pull him forward, unable to tear her eyes away from the giant cockroaches that were flapping their wings at the intrusion in their day. In the end it was the wings that did it for Tom. He allowed his mother to pull him away, sobbing and terrified.

  ###

  About the Author:

  Jennifer Douwes is a freelance writer, blogger and novelist.

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