Aftertime

the contrast with the morning sun beating hot against her back was delicious, and Cass closed her eyes and concentrated. With Ruthie back, she wouldn’t feel so dead anymore. Maybe her senses would wake up again, maybe she would be able to taste and smell and hear the world around her again.

Cass concentrated on the sun on her back and the brick under her hands and listened to Ruthie’s laughter and thought that later they might join the other families in the conference room that had been converted to a playroom, that the companionship that had eluded her so far might be possible now. Maybe she would take her turn reading to the children, playing hide-and-seek in the stacks, folding origami from paper torn from books. There would be conversation and laughter while the little ones napped. She would hold Bobby’s hand when the dinner dishes were done and together they would tuck Ruthie in to sleep at night.

The thought was so tempting that at first Cass didn’t realize that anything was wrong. The sounds didn’t penetrate her mind, occupied as it was with happier places. And as for the reverberations under her hands, the thud of footsteps approaching-Cass had gotten sloppy. The caution she had honed so fine lay buried under joy of possibility, of having her baby back.

But then there was a frantic yell from the door, where the morning-shift guards had been standing and enjoying the sun.

Run-

They screamed at her but she had to get to Ruthie, Ruthie had wandered to the edge of the lawn, where the circular drive met the book drop, she had found a clump of yellow blooms, she was watching the Beaters with wide eyes, she didn’t budge, she didn’t know to be afraid, and Cass had to get her and she threw herself through the air running racing screaming but it was like slow motion like a movie she wasn’t fast enough-

And somewhere in Cass’s mind she knew this was only a memory only a memory and she tried to say “no” tried to push it back, stuff it down, cover it over, bury it deep deep down in her heart where it couldn’t come out but there was Ruthie in the sun, there was Ruthie with her fistful of dandelions, her baby her precious-

And Cass screamed and screamed but no sound came out because she wasn’t real anymore she was trapped on the inside with the memories and this time no one could help her as the terrible day came back with all its sharp sounds and flashing colors and settled into her senses and played across the wide wide screen of her mind and showed her how she had failed, failed, failed.

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SHE WAS SCREAMING, THE PEOPLE AT THE DOOR were screaming, the Beaters were snorting and wailing- the world burst with sounds of rage and terror as she ran for Ruthie.

The cold brick and hot sun forgotten, she saw the Beaters stumble-run toward her down the street, over the curb, across the library lawn. Four of them or five; it was hard to tell as they crowded and pushed each other like hungry puppies, slapping and shoving and making their strange excited voracious sounds, and their greedy eyes locked onto Ruthie, who stood small and alone with the bunch of dandelions in her hand, breeze riffling a curl of hair around her chin.

Closer closer lungs tearing arms reaching Cass threw her self on top of her daughter, flung her small body into the dirt and pressed herself on top. Ruthie’s heartbeat, rapid as a trapped rabbit’s, fluttered against Cass’s chest as she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to make herself big, enormous, wide enough to cover Ruthie so they’d never find her.

And then.

The way the earth beneath them trembled with the footfalls of the Beaters. The heavy thud of a boot tripping on her legs and then an infuriated scream as the Beater went down, falling on Cass’s calves, hurting her with its weight. The smell-God, the smell, obscene in its bloom of foul rot.

A Beater’s hand closed on her forearm and Cass jerked it away, seeing only the chewed fingers, the torn and missing nails, the crusted black blood and the oily pink of the most recent wounds on its wrist and forearm. The hand was grotesque, bone showing in a couple of places, a finger hanging loose and useless-but the grip was surprisingly strong and Cass could not free herself.

“Someone help! Get Ruthie!” she screamed. She couldn’t see anyone, because the library was behind her, her only opportunity for escape a dozen yards away. And even then she knew there was no chance for her at all because the Beaters were upon her with their miscalibrated eyes and their lusting feverish mouths. Their hands scrabbled at her. She had expected ripping and tearing and pain but they closed their festering hands on her with singular purpose-they would not feed here, they would not take their first bite until they had her back in their nest.

Then they would lay her out on her stomach and kneel on her limbs while they feasted.

But Cass did not allow that thought to overtake her yet. She squeezed her eyes shut and kept screaming for the others to come for Ruthie and fought to make her body large, larger. She imagined that she was a great weight that would press down on her baby even while the Beaters tugged her and tried to rip apart her grip.

But she couldn’t keep them away with her will. She felt her hold on Ruthie float away as they pulled her in four different directions. Panic made her stronger and she fought hard and Ruthie wriggled and cried out in fright and Cass’s tears ran salty in her mouth. Cass opened her eyes and looked frantically for something, anything, that would help, and saw only the scattered yellow petals of the dandelions Ruthie had dropped, already curling in the sun in the dead grass.

And then-Bobby’s shoes. How had she forgotten this? Bobby’s shoes, an incongruously flashy pair of Nikes, silver appliqued on black. Bobby favored army surplus but he’d loved these shoes, lifted from a routed and wrecked sporting goods shop, nothing he’d ever wear Before, but they appealed to his irrepressible sense of irony and he’d laced them with glittering silver shoelaces and teased Cass that they made him stronger and faster-an Aftertime superhero.

Bobby’s Nikes were in front of her and Cass sucked air and screamed Ruthie’s name one last time, Take Ruthie, help Ruthie, let them have me and she saw the shoes hesitate for only a second and then she knew that he knew she was right.

The Beater who held her forearm in his grip was suddenly torn away. Bobby kicked at it and went for the next one, but Cass felt herself being dragged by the pair that held her feet. Their voices crescendoed, a mad, incoherent cacophony chorded through with fury, and her body bumped along the ground, but Bobby had bought himself a few seconds.

The Beaters who were dragging her away let her fall to the ground at the edge of the lawn and then each seized a hand and a foot. She was lifted roughly, her spine scraping against the curb, and as the Beaters carried her away she craned her neck and saw Bobby with Ruthie in his arms, running to the door where others waited with blades ready, the Beaters in lurching, determined pursuit.

She watched helplessly as Bobby raced for the door and threw himself at the entrance, never letting go of Ruthie, who looked so small in his arms. Cass could not see her face, only her blue shoes and white socks and small fist still holding one wilted dandelion. Bobby’s shoes flashed in the sun and then he was inside and Maynard, that was his name, the guard with the shaved head-Maynard’s arm swung wide and one of the Beaters went down in a spray of arterial blood and the doors shut with a clang and Ruthie was gone and Ruthie was safe and inside the library and outside the doors were one bleeding Beater distracted by its own blood and one who pounded its body against the door as though it could bend the steel if it tried hard enough.

Ruthie was saved. Ruthie was saved. A prayer, a deal done-it took all the energy Cass had left and she stopped fighting. She lifted her voice to the God she long ago stopped daring to trust. Hold her safe in Your arms. Love her for me.

So that was done, and she closed her eyes and prayed for death and knew that instead she was headed for something far worse.

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