Chapter Twenty-One
Safety
“Found these in the canteen,” Ryan announced as he came into the classroom. He tossed a bundle of dishtowels in Cahz’s direction.
Cahz was already naked, sitting on the only adult-sized chair in the room, warming his hands by the fire.
“Thanks,” he said, catching the cloths.
“Ingenious,” Ryan said nodding at the makeshift clothesline.
Cahz had knotted together a line of skipping ropes and was drying his fatigues over the fire.
“Adapt, improvise and overcome,” Cahz quoted as he rubbed his wet hair with the small towel. “They’re going to stink of smoke, but no one ever died of a smell.”
Ryan pulled up a miniature plastic chair and sat down on it. His knees were up by his chin as he squirmed, trying to get comfortable.
“This is no good,” he said, admitting defeat and sitting cross-legged on the floor.
“Did you take a look outside?”
“Yeah, but it was too dark to see anything,” Ryan said. “I could hear them moaning and rattling the fence, but there can’t be more than a handful of them.”
“What’s that?” Cahz asked, looking at the tin in Ryan’s hand.
“Canned milk,” Ryan said. He pierced the lid with the tin opener. “I thought Rebecca might like it since we’ve run out of crackers.”
“How you going to feed it to her?”
“Spoon it in, I guess,” Ryan said, brandishing the utensil. “Got one from the kitchen.”
“Listen, Ryan…” Cahz stopped rubbing his hair. “About earlier…” He looked down into the fire and summoned up the courage to speak. “I’m sorry.” He looked into Ryan’s eyes. “I’m sorry for the shit I pulled on you. I was out of order.”
“You lose anyone close before Cannon?” Ryan asked.
“Sure. Friends, family, girlfriend.”
Ryan shook his head. “No, I mean up close. I mean right in front of you?”
Cahz folded the wet dishcloth and put it to one side. “I’ve seen countless people get devoured or put down-”
“That’s not where I was heading. Have you seen anyone you cared for die in front of your own eyes?”
Cahz looked back down at the fire and nodded gently.
“When Sam died everything collapsed for me,” Ryan said, looking at the baby as he opened the tin of milk. “I held her in my arms as she went. I felt the tension leave her body. I heard her last breath. I felt her hot blood on my fingers. I mean, like you, my friends and family died when all this shit kicked off, but that’s different. I know they must be dead but I wasn’t there with them. I mean, I know my dad is dead; I had to put him down, but I didn’t see him die. I just saw him as one of them. It’s a hard thing seeing someone you love die. I dealt with it by going on a bender. I drank every last drop of alcohol that was left in that warehouse. I didn’t want to think about it, to feel it. I saw you in that same place this afternoon.” Ryan flicked the moisture from his cheek. “You don’t need to apologize. I’m just glad you snapped out of it quicker than me.”
“Thanks,” Cahz said.
Ryan fed a spoonful to Rebecca and the two men sat quietly by the crackling fire. The wind and the rain outside drummed at the windows.
“You ever thought of doing it?” Ryan asked.
“Doing what?”
“What Cannon did.”
Cahz pursed his lips in thought. “No, not really.”
“I have,” Ryan said. “Nothing serious. It became kind of normal. There were a lot that first year. I remember I walked in on one. He had the noose and the chair all ready and I walked in as he was just climbing onto the chair. And do you know what I did?”
“No,” Cahz whispered.
“I apologized,” Ryan laughed. “I said sorry, looked at my shoes and walked out. Like I’d walked into the men’s room and saw him taking a dump. I said sorry and walked out, embarrassed that I’d disturbed him. How fucked up is that?”
“You didn’t try to stop him?”
Ryan shook his head. “Nope. I’ve seen so many, but never right in front of me. You know you’d wake up one morning to find someone’s taken an overdose, or break into someplace to find a body with a blood-splattered suicide note. It became normal.” Ryan waved the spoon towards the window. “You know, normal like not in the normal world normal but in the fucked-up world normal.” He laughed. “Did that make any fucking sense?”
“A little,” Cahz said.
“We had this one woman-Petra she called herself. I don’t think that was her real name, by the way. She went on and on about it. Talked all the time about how she was close to killing herself, but she never did. Then we had that first one. An older guy slit his wrists and… Elspeth cleaned that up like she did after Sam.” He shifted uneasily and placed a hand on his stomach as if he were suffering from indigestion. “Well, once he’d done it, that was the taboo broken. We had four that first summer.” Ryan shrugged. “I guess what I’m saying is, who can blame them.”
Cahz took a deep breath. “I used to wonder if you went anywhere when you died; Heaven and Hell Sunday school kind of thoughts. Then all this fucked up world-as you put it-happened, and it didn’t seem possible anymore.”
Ryan smiled at Cahz’s use of his description and gave a snort of understanding.
“It doesn’t seem that God is listening. Cannon killed himself and that’s supposed to be a sin, but he isn’t walking around out there.” Cahz sighed. “That mass suicide at Masada doesn’t seem as crazy now.”
“No,” Ryan said. “No, it doesn’t.”
The two men sat staring into the fire, trapped by their own thoughts.
Abruptly Cahz broke the silence. “Give it over here.”
“What?” Ryan replied, puzzled.
“The milk. You’re dribbling it. Pass it over here and I’ll feed Rebecca. It’ll give you a chance to get your wet clothes off.”
Cahz scooped up Rebecca from Ryan’s arms. Ryan handed over the open tin of milk and a spoon he’d liberated.
“Should we heat this up first?” Cahz asked, looking at the milk.
“I haven’t a clue,” Ryan admitted, struggling out of his wet shirt. He stopped, the shirtsleeves still covering his arms, his torso bare. “Elspeth did all that,” he said, looking into the fire of burning school books.
Cahz poured a spoonful for the child. “I don’t know about any of that shit about sterilizing bottles. It’s not going to harm her giving it to her cold?”
Ryan shrugged. “I guess not. She’s been taking it cold and she ate the cracker all right. We’d better get rescued soon, if only because we’re shit parents.”
At that he pulled off the wet shirt and hung it on the clothesline.
“You want a can of soup heated up?” Ryan asked as he peeled his jeans off.
“Sure,” Cahz said. “Pierce a couple of holes in the lid and stick it on the fire.”
A dribble of milk ran down Rebecca’s chin. Cahz gently wiped it away with a dish cloth.
“She seems to be taking this,” Cahz said, pouring another spoon.
“Good.” Ryan nodded. “So how do we signal this chopper?”
“Three possible answers to that,” Cahz explained. “I’ve got a radio. It’s only short range, but if the chopper passes close enough I should be able to raise them. If the radio doesn’t work, I’ve got a flare.”
“And the third option?”
