In the After

I found a bench nearby and collapsed on it. Baby still held my hand and pressed her cheek to mine.

What’s wrong? she asked.

Nothing. I never imagined so many people survived.

“Rice, where are we? I mean, where is New Hope located?”

“Geographically?” he asked, sitting down next to me.

I nodded and noticed he smelled clean, like soap.

“This was a university in Kansas, but I don’t think state boundaries apply anymore.”

“It looks less like a college campus and more like a military compound,” I said.

“It would. You’ve mostly seen the buildings devoted to research and development. They were working on some pretty important high-security projects here.”

I looked at him, a frightening thought nagging at me. “Rice, what keeps Them out . . . the creatures? I didn’t see any fences.”

He looked back at me, smiling. “There aren’t any,” Rice said proudly. “It’s perfectly safe. We’ve developed a sonic wave that keeps the Floraes away. They have sensitive hearing and can’t tolerate it.”

“That must be what Baby heard last night. She complained about a humming.”

He frowned, turning toward Baby. “That’s impossible. It’s beyond the range of human hearing.” He gazed at her intently, an odd look on his face. I didn’t like the way he was gaping at her, as if something was wrong with her.

“Noise keeps Them out? So, if you know how to get rid of them, why don’t you broadcast that sonic wave thing across the country, around the world?”

Rice snapped his attention back to me. “It doesn’t kill them, Amy. It just makes them unhappy, hurts their auditory nerves, their ‘ears’ so to speak. It makes them want to get away. What would that accomplish? If they had nowhere to go for relief, they’d wander everywhere just like they do now. Then we wouldn’t be safe here.”

“Is that why you capture Them?” I asked. “To find a way to hurt them, instead of just annoy them?”

Rice flinched slightly. “We don’t capture the Floraes,” he said slowly.

“Yes you do. Baby and I saw someone, in a hover-copter. They caught one the same way they got us.”

Rice looked around, then back at me. “I wouldn’t go around telling that story to anyone,” he said quietly. “Please.” He pressed his lips together and searched my face, his blue eyes penetrating. “Sometimes, the post-aps are unfocused. . . . They have to have extensive psychiatric treatment. It’s for their own good,” he assured me hurriedly. “But I don’t want you getting sent to the Ward.”

A chill ran down my spine, and Rice looked worried that he’d upset me. “I’m sorry,” he said, reaching out to touch my arm. “I don’t want to scare you. It’s just, you’re one of the first girls my age brought here in a while. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

I looked down, feeling myself blush.

“If this is too much for you, we can go back. Maybe when the director has the time, she can take you around, if that would make you feel more comfortable.”

I shook my head. “When does my mother ever have spare time?” I asked.

He smiled at that. “She’s very busy. But hey, it gives us time to get to know each other.”

His leg jostled against mine and I got goose bumps. I wasn’t used to anyone but Baby touching me.

I turned to Baby and tried to explain to her about the population. She could only count so high, but I knew she could conceptualize larger numbers.

Think of the largest number that you know, I told her. And double it again and again and again.

Baby looked at me like I was crazy. There’s that many people?

Yes. More. I felt Rice’s eyes on me. I turned and caught him staring. He blushed bright red and looked away.

“I was just . . . ,” he stammered. “That’s not standard American Sign Language.”

“No, we’ve modified it a lot.”

“Baby, she’s so quiet.” He smiled at her and she watched him with her big, brown eyes. Even if she didn’t understand him, she knew he was talking about her.

“It’s why she isn’t dead.”

He nodded. “And you really don’t know how she got that scar on her leg?” he asked.

“No, she was already hurt. I didn’t see how it happened.” I told him the entire story of how I found her, wounded and alone in the supermarket. “She also has a strange mark on the back of her neck,” I mentioned.

“Yes, but that was nothing of significance,” he told me quickly, even though I knew he looked closely at it yesterday.

I studied him while he watched Baby taking in the people around us.

“How old are you?” I asked.

He paused. “Seventeen.”

“Seventeen? And you’re my mother’s assistant? But you’re so young.”

“You have a lot to learn about New Hope,” he told me, fiddling with his name tag.

“I don’t doubt it,” I agreed, standing. “I think I’m over my initial shock, though. Let’s go get Baby some shoes.”

* * *

Dr. Reynolds is still talking. I’ve zoned in and out of hazy memories, but continue to nod my head dutifully. I tune back in to the sound of his voice, trying to concentrate on what his words mean.

“It’s a fresh start. We have an opportunity to isolate all the best that humanity has to offer and weed out the worst. New Hope is a society that will be spoken about as the birthplace of a new civilization. When humans reclaim the earth, they will look back here and know this was the foundation for a new world.”

He is talking with such passion the skin on his face jiggles slightly. I laugh despite myself.

“Is that funny?” His smile fades to a scowl.

“No . . . I’m just . . . excited.” I don’t want him to know I wasn’t really paying attention to his prepared speech. I don’t want him to be angry. Worry begins to creep into my thoughts.

“It’s all right, Amy. You can go back to your nap now.”

“Thank you, Dr. . . .”

“Reynolds,” he reminds me.

“Yes, thank you.” I lie down and pull the covers up over my head, welcoming the ease of unconsciousness.

* * *

“Let’s try these.” Rice pulled a couple of pairs of shoes down off a shelf for Baby.

“Why are they yellow?” I asked as Rice bent down, placing the shoes next to Baby’s feet to size them up.

“Class Three is yellow,” he declared, holding up a pair triumphantly. “I think these should fit her.”

“What’s all this ‘class’ business?” I asked.

“That’s how we keep track of children. After the Floraes showed up, there was a core group of survivors. Mostly researchers and military, people who were in secure, easy-to-defend areas.”

“My mother mentioned that last night.”

“Well, the post-aps . . . the ones left”—he motioned vaguely—“out there. The ones who really survived the Floraes, they’re mostly children.”

“Children? I never saw any children, except for Baby.”

“You were in a city,” Rice explained. “High concentration of Floraes, hardly any post-aps. In other areas, where there was less population density, children were the ones more likely to survive. Adults probably kept them concealed, took extra measures to protect them. And of course children are good at hiding. Once their instinctual survival skills kick in, they know how to be quiet.”

“They believed in the monsters before the monsters showed up,” I whispered.