The Age Page 12

  At Megan’s, Andri orders Gerry to wait on the back porch. She shivers, watches their outlines through foggy glass as Andri and Megan argue and pace, Michelle and Ian silent at the kitchen table.

  “You called the guy,” Andri says. “You asked him what we paid for?”

  “What I paid for.” Megan’s voice is sharp. “We called from a phone booth. He hung up on me. Twice.”

  “The girl is smart.”

  “That’s not how this goes.”

  “How it goes? My dear, this is how it is. Without her we have nothing.”

  “How does she know the door code?”

  “What does that matter? We need both codes, we only have one.”

  “Then make her tell us.” Megan turns to look at Gerry, her expression obscured by the murky window.

  “Don’t you think I tried?” Andri’s shout rattles the glass. “She’s too stubborn.”

  Ian knocks over his chair as he stands, moves to the door so fast that Gerry hasn’t time to step back before it flings open and Ian has her wrist gripped and torqued, pulled up between them. “This isn’t a game now,” his voice cold and hard. “Tell them what they want to know.”

  She sucks a breath to ride out the pain of his hold, shakes her head.

  THE DAY ARRIVES WITHOUT SURPRISE. Too many men have fallen ill. Dan tells the boy in front of everyone, so that he can’t make a fuss. The girl runs to the hut. Wives snicker at her weakness. The boy finds her sitting cross-legged on the bed. You don’t have to go, she says. They can’t make you.

  He doesn’t explain that he wants to go. Instead, he stuffs the stove with branches, tucks her into bed, lies behind her, on top of the covers. His hand pats a soft, lulling rhythm on her hip. He worries about her, left alone through the night.

  Her breath smooths to a deep tide, her body still. He knows she pretends for his sake, and if he spoke, she would reply in a clear voice. He rises from the bed at the first murmur of men on the beach, slips into his jacket. The outline of her body develops in the grey light of the cabin. He opens the door.

  The men meet his presence with neither welcome nor rebuff. Each glance, eye grazing eye. All of them have been out before. Dan arrives with the same black equipment bag, doles out guns and ammunition. The rifle sits heavy in the boy’s hand, metal barrel cold against his fingers. He asks how to use it, but no one answers. Dan hands a piece of paper to Roger, a firefighter, one of the few to have gone on every expedition. Roger catches the boy’s stare, waves the paper before folding it. Shopping list, he says.

  The men chuckle, a palpable release of tension.

  The trek is long and slow. Many of the men are unwell. Terry, a librarian who has lost so much weight he ties his canvas belt in a knot, vomits repeatedly before the group is even out of the camp, ignores insistence that he turn back. Chester, an older man, complains about his weeping sores until Roger asks him to stop.

  The night hangs low in the trees. One man carries a small flashlight, its dim beam shudders. The group navigates by shadows and sound. The boy trips and scuffles his way along, while others step sure and heavy. He waits for conversation to begin, mutterings to fill the long, dark minutes that stretch in front of them, but there is no small talk, only the intermittent Shit as a man missteps or Goddamn as a tree branch catches him in the face.

  As the group arrives at the road, the flashlight goes off. The men take on a casual march formation with the boy near the middle. Men breathe on either side of him, but he cannot see their jackets in the dark. They walk the road for hours, far beyond the village where the empty faces of abandoned homes loom above.

  Light dimples the landscape, sporadic fires perforate the mountain’s surface, signal that town is close. As the road leads past gas stations and storefronts, the boy hears a distant scurrying on gravel, whispers under the scuff of men’s boots.

  On the ready, Roger says.

  The men raise rifles, scan the empty streets. The boy does the same, though he has no idea what to look for. Four men with flashlights turn them on. As the group comes to the main street above the Quay, their flashlights flick on and off in an erratic pattern. The sounds confuse him, whistles, shouts, the dull stomp of footfalls in retreat.

  The group stops at the corner of Lonsdale and Eighth. The centre of town, streets strewn with debris, shop windows shattered, storefronts charred, the shambolic work of looters. Roger separates everyone into groups of three and assigns tasks.

  He lumps the boy with Marcus, a short insurance salesman, who despite camp rations and illness has managed to stay rotund, and Chuck, a bespectacled bus driver who shares a house with his dead brother’s wife.

  Roger hands each of them a keychain flashlight, a touristy thing decorated with a photo of a ski resort gondola.

  Shops, says Roger.

  Marcus groans. Jesus, there’s nothing left.

  Roger moves on to the next triad, tears off a piece of the shopping list.

  Why don’t we get a list? the boys ask Marcus.

  Marcus smiles. ’Cos of you.

  They do the first shop together, a ransacked outdoor adventure store. The boy mimics the other two, fills his sack with a stray water bottle, some loose bike repair tools, two granola bars he finds jammed between the cash register and wall. After that, they split up, tackle three stores at a time, meet back on the sidewalk to gauge their success.

  In the appliance store, the boy finds a mess of overturned dishwashers and clothes dryers, all the microwaves missing. He wonders who took them and for what. Who thought all the greeting cards from the stationery store or the aquariums from the pet store would prove useful? He works his way through the broken glass and past the debris to backrooms, offices, culls janitor closets and inventory cupboards.

  While he’s in a skateboard shop, digging through cardboard boxes filled with Styrofoam packing, a rifle blasts outside. He runs into the street and finds himself alone, the other two still in their shops. Three more shots fire in the distance. The boy dashes into the Indian supermarket Marcus claimed as his territory, finds Marcus on his hands and knees, flashlight in his teeth. He sweeps a scatter of dried lentils from the floor into his palm, studies them under the flashlight, then slaps his palm to his lips.

  Marcus.

  Marcus turns, startled, struggles to swallow. He coughs, his face red. Yeah, what? It was less than a handful.

  The boy points to the door. They’re shooting.

  Marcus shrugs. So what? His flashlight beam trails along the floor, hunts under the lip of the empty shelves. He looks back over his shoulder. Get lost, will ya?

  The boy heads back to the skateboard store.

  In the stinking, graffitied staff washroom, he finds a brick of weed meticulously wrapped in plastic, taped inside the dry toilet tank. He stands and weighs the score in his hand, marvels at its size before slipping it into his bag. A thin whistle hisses out behind him. He fumbles with his flashlight, draws back against the toilet, and shines the beam into the corner.

  A man huddles against the garbage can, his clothes shredded and dirty. His face, a skinned peach, fleshy and damp, hairless, features melted into suggestions of eyes, a nose. His mouth, a raw slash, opens and closes, the wheezing sound, his breath. The boy cries out, a sickened, terrified wail that echoes around him. Underneath the man lies a woman, bloody, inanimate. The man raises his left hand, barely, but enough for the boy to notice a thick gold watch hanging obscenely from his wrist.

  The boy looks to the door. Two steps, three, at most. Flashlight on the man, he inches away from the toilet. The man’s hand jerks and the boy screams, runs out of the bathroom, out of the store, barrels into Chuck on the street.

  Whoa. Geez. Meet your maker?

  It takes the boy a second to find his voice. He babbles about the bodies.

  Chuck slaps him on the arm. Don’t worry about it, chum.

  They scavenge until dawn. Now and then, a burst of gunfire, a rash of yelling, a scream. Chuck seems unaffected by the noise. The
sounds cause Marcus to pause on the sidewalk, stare wistfully up at the house-dappled side of the mountain. The three of them make their way back to the meeting point and wait for the others as the sky lightens, black to charcoal to muddy grey. The boy and Chuck struggle with their hauls. Marcus catches the boy eyeing his empty bag.

  Ain’t much worth taking, am I right?

  The men return slowly. Roger and his team arrive first, sacks full, one of the men with a scrape across his forehead.

  How’d it go? Marcus asks.

  Roger gives a single nod.

  Of the next group, only two men return, and between them, only one bag. Jojo, a Slavic gas station attendant, sniffles and wipes his eyes. His partner, Brett, a long-haired musician, carries a bag in one hand, props up Jojo with the other.

  Oh God, oh God, Jojo says.

  Roger pats him on the back. You did good, Jojo, you did good.

  The last group comes back with nervous smiles, bags full. Marcus lures one of the men aside, asks urgent, whispered questions. The man replies quickly, also in a whisper, makes a gesture with his hands, locking his thumb and fingers in an O. Both men grin.

  All right, cut it out, Rogers says. Let’s head back.

  Men take turns with rifles ready, four at a time, while others carry the bags. The boy doesn’t get a turn at rifle duty. An hour in, a rock scuttles across the road and Brett fires into the trees, three quick shots. The boy waits for Roger to reprimand him, but no one says anything.

  He smells the camp before he sees it, rodent soup boiling on the fire, the perfume of civilization. Relief wells up inside him. Men break into a trot as they enter the wooded area. The boy follows, bag slamming his lower back, strap cutting into his shoulder, his neck.

  He expects a cheer to erupt as he makes it to the beach. Instead, everyone falls silent. Each man drops his bag at Dan’s feet. The boy does the same.

  Dan shakes his hand and says, Thank you. Looks him dead in the eye.

  The girl waits for him by the fire with his meal, burnt bread like gritty stone, a bowl of watery soup. He walks to her and lays his arm across her shoulder. She wraps herself against his waist, squeezes. As he eats, he’s distracted by her presence, senses every shift in her body. He pushes his food toward Marcus, who accepts it with a scowl. The boy leads the girl to the cabin.

  Before the cabin door is closed, she is on him. Mouth, tongue, hands, her body smashed against his. Her salty-sweet taste undoes him. She tears at his shirt, fingers cold against his skin, kisses his chest, her lips warm. His hands feel under her cardigan, to the watery softness of her shrunken breasts. He kneels in front of her, suckles at one side, then the other. Her hands grip the back of his head, pushes him down, down.

  He pulls at the button of her woolly pants, lets them drop down her legs, thin, pale, goosefleshed. Her panties, grey and frayed at the elastic edges, sag off her hips. He smells her, the candied tang of her unwashed skin. With his tongue, he works the fabric against her. She gasps, opens her legs and his tongue slips deeper, fabric pushing inside, a tiny hardness against his upper lip.

  She grabs his hand and pushes it to her, grips him through his jeans. She moves quickly, unbuttoning, unzipping. Her thumb and forefinger smooth down him in a fluid motion that makes his legs twitch. His fingers burrow inside her.

  She draws him down onto the cot. While he untangles himself from his clothes, she raises her knees. He stares into the dark of her hair, the folds of her skin, braces the cot with one hand, guides himself slowly. She rocks her hips and whimpers, legs tight around him.

  He lowers his chest to her body, so that he feels her everywhere, holds himself, her body rocking beneath him. She gazes up at him, small lines around her wide, glistening eyes, creases at the sides of her open mouth. He sees clearly how much older she is. A wave of tenderness overcomes him. His groin tightens. He grips her shoulders and thrusts, the future rushing through him.

  She touches his face. Her fingers trace him, shoulder, back, hip. She kisses his forehead. He closes his eyes and, for the first time, hears the lap of water on the beach outside their hut.

  THE MOOD AT MEGAN’S IS SOMBRE, cheerless. Gerry struggles for a deep breath, bodies closed around her at the kitchen table as she recites the route step by step. Megan stops her at every slip, when she says clockwise but means counter-clockwise, when she calls the cut-through an alley, when she gets the timing wrong. The interruptions confuse her, force her to double-back and stumble through details she’s covered. “I know it in my head.”

  “You don’t.” Megan’s face has sloughed its kindness, splintered into prickly impatience. “These are stupid mistakes.”

  Andri, too, is moody, distracted, chews on the skin around his thumb until it looks pink and shredded. “Have you noticed a van?” he asks Megan. “A white one?” He makes circles with his finger. “Driving around?”

  Megan ignores him.

  “There are lots of white vans. It doesn’t mean anything.” Michelle massages his neck, but his anxiousness infects her, causes her hands to patter and fuss until he fans them away with an annoyed grunt.

  Only Ian seems unaffected, body slung like rope as he watches them, his expression amused. He outpaces Megan and Andri two beers to one. Gerry doesn’t dare take a sip, her mind already too loose and unsure.

  Megan rubs her eyes. “That’s enough for tonight. We’ll do it again tomorrow.”

  “When you are falling asleep tonight, go through the timing.” Andri taps his finger to Gerry’s temple. “Program the subconscious.”

  “I know the timing.” Gerry tries for defiance, but it comes out as a whine.

  Megan pushes away from the table.

  “Wait.” Andri leans down, gathers a battered gym bag into his lap. “You wanted to see how the switch works.” From the bag he lifts a flat, rectangular gift-wrapped box, gold foil paper tied with a red bow. He turns it over, flicks his finger across the short edge. “Like this. A simple tab, you tear it off. The device is activated. A child could do it.”

  “A child is doing it.” Ian stretches his legs, crosses his boots.

  Gerry pulls a tight smile to show his jibe has no effect.

  Megan takes the package from Andri. “You’ll have to give it a good push, so that it slides. The floors are marble, but you don’t want it to get caught on a seam.”

  “Make sure you slide it.” Andri eases his arm forward in a fluid motion. “No bounce. Aim for the centre of the lobby. The charge will take out the glass, but the concrete terraces in front of the building will act as a buffer, keep the marchers on the street safe. Like we said” – he nods to Megan – “property damage only.”

  Megan turns the package slowly in her hands, rocks it back and forth so that the kitchen light glints off its wrapping. She holds it out to Gerry, an offer, her face expressionless, then lobs the package in the air. It tilts, falls. Gerry catches it just before it hits the table’s edge. Her hands clamp in reflex, she sucks a gasp. Andri stares, eyebrows arched. Everything they do now feels like a test. She steadies her grip, stifles a frightened laugh.

  The device is dense. Its inner workings shift slightly as her fingers search the edge through the wrapping for the raised bump of the tab. When she can’t find it, she tries not to let on, weighs its heft once more, then decides to make a joke. “Feels like a box of chocolates.”

  “Ha!” Michelle’s voice cracks in the air.

  Ian snatches the package from her hands, rips the paper from the corner. A black box printed with a rainbow and the words Pot of in gold script. “Moron.”

  “It would be imprudent to handle the actual device.” Andri breaks into a hairy grin. “But there is a delicious one called cherry bomb.”

  Heat rises through Gerry’s neck and face. Michelle shakes her head at Andri.

  Megan rolls her eyes. “Can we move on, here?”

  “Okay.” Andri clears his throat. “Like I said, impact is not good for the device. Extreme heat, also not good. And whatever you do,
do not put it near fat people.” His body shakes, a high-pitched hee-hee-hee leaking from him. His laughter scores into Gerry. Perhaps all men were this way, giddy for humiliation. She imagines herself in the middle of the march, trapped in a crush of bodies, the knapsack tight against her back. A rough jostle, a loose pin, a flash of light without warning, her body bursting, spraying through the crowd in a million bloody sparks. He would be sorry then.

  The possibility rumbles through her as Andri winces with delight, sighs to catch his breath, wipes tears from his eyes.

  ——

  Because Megan tells him to, Ian drives her home. Windows down, the churchlike chords of “Five Years” carry out into the dark, Bowie’s voice a torture of hopelessness and despair. They pull up in front of her house, and she reaches for the door, gathers herself for a polite thank you. Ian tosses something at her. It lands in her lap.

  “Happy birthday,” he says.

  She feels the delicate weight on her leg, not a full baggie but more than half full. “My birthday’s in September.”

  “Yeah, well, I figured you’d need it now.”

  The plastic crinkles as she touches it, broadcasts her appetite. She moves her hand away. “You’re an asshole, you know that.”

  “Fine. Give it back.”

  “I’m not telling you my numbers.”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t want your stupid codes. That’s your shit to deal with now. If you’re feeling in over your head–”

  “I know what you’re doing. You’re praying for me to fail, like every single second.”

  “No. I know you’re going to fail. There’s a difference. You backed them into a corner, good for you. But if you think they’re going to go through with this.” Ian shakes his head. “You’re an idiot.”

  “Shut up.” She folds her arms across her chest. The space around her tightens. Something has sealed her in while she wasn’t paying attention, a membrane that separates her from the rest of the world. She’s sure if she reaches out, she will feel it resist, waxy and supple like the skin of a balloon.