In the After

a child now, not a baby, but my label has become her name.

What? I ask crankily. I’m sleeping.

I saw it again, she tells me, her fingers move with a desperate swiftness. The ship.

I sit up and look into her eyes, large and shining. She should be afraid, but instead she is excited. Her lips curve slightly, almost forming a smile.

Show me, I demand.

She grabs my hand and we hurry to the roof. I don’t bother to get dressed. Years ago, Before, I would never have gone out on the roof deck in my underwear. Years ago, I would have been careful of the neighbors. But now, in the After, there are no neighbors.

See? There! Baby hands me the binoculars. I look out over the houses. Sure enough, there is another black object, hovering in the distance. When we first spotted them, I told Baby they were ships, for lack of a better word. The sign in the book is actually “boat,” but Baby doesn’t know that. The signs are what I make them, a visual representation. I didn’t know how to explain “spaceship.”

The ship looks more like a helicopter, anyway, except without the tail end. No windows either. I can’t hear the engine from where we are and I wonder at the single blade, keeping it airborne. What differences in technology do They possess? The ship’s material looks odd: it’s not metal; it can’t be. It doesn’t throw the light back. Even in the early morning predawn glow, it should still reflect something. I’m impressed Baby noticed it at all. She must have been on the lookout. We’ve only started seeing the ships recently and any break from the norm is a cause for excitement. I scan the ground to see if any creatures are on the prowl yet, but there are none.

I look back to the ship, which hovers in the distance, unmoving. If it is a spacecraft, why would They wait three years to reveal their mode of transportation? If it isn’t a spaceship . . . But I don’t even entertain the idea. I’ve never seen anything like them before. The ships had to have been brought by Them.

The craft lowers itself slowly in the distance. A few blocks away, maybe more. I map it in my head: Oz Park. It landed in the park.

I’m going to go have a look, I tell Baby. You stay here.

She shakes her head no and points at the sky.

It’s not quite daybreak, but if I leave now I will be pushing it. I can get out to the park before sunup, but I doubt I’ll be able to make it back home again. I will have to be very careful.

I run downstairs and put on my camouflage pants and hooded sweatshirt. They are from years ago and the pants no longer fit me properly, my ankles stick out the bottom. Floods, my dad would have joked. I bought them when army greens were in style and haven’t been able to scavenge any that fit better. Designers probably didn’t take into account an imminent postapocalyptic scenario; they had no idea how useful these would be. With the creatures’ poor eyesight, the camouflage pattern helps me blend into grass or shrubbery. But I’ve never tried it in daylight before.

I grab my pack, with the gun tucked inside. In three years I’ve never shot it, but I like having it close. I sometimes think about taking a few of Them out, lessening their population, but there are so many, it wouldn’t do much good.

Before I run out the front door, I kiss Baby on the forehead. Stay here, I say with a look. The last thing I need is to worry about her following me.

I jog barefoot to the park. I’ve been practicing running at home on the treadmill in the basement and have developed a way to breathe silently. My mouth gapes open strangely, but who is around to judge? I run through the streets, staying close to bushes and trees. Everything is overgrown now, which provides plenty of places to hide from Them. The sidewalks are already beginning to crack, with tree roots pushing upward toward the light of day, and the roads are filled with leaves and debris. I can feel the unevenness under my feet. It doesn’t make much difference to me since my feet are so calloused at this point I can walk through the rubble of the After unfazed.

Oz Park used to be beautifully maintained. My parents, more often just my father, would take me here when I was little. I loved the swing set, which is now overturned and rusting away. Most of the grass has died, leaving pitiful weeds and sandy soil. I make my way through the park, careful to stick to covered areas, pausing under trees and along fences to survey the area.

When I reach the southwest corner, I sprint up the hill and flop down on my stomach. I crawl the last few feet through the uneven sand and try to get a better look.

The ship has already landed. It sits in the middle of an old baseball field, its blade continuing to swing around and around. There are no windows, no door. I scan the area, keeping my head low. None of Them in sight. But why? I listen carefully, my ears strain for even the smallest noise, but I hear nothing. The ship is soundless.

An opening suddenly appears in the side of the craft, more like a hole than a door. Three of Them stumble out, snarling. The gap closes and the ship takes flight, straight up into the air, silently, before vanishing.

I start to crawl back, but quickly realize that They are headed toward me. I pull my hood over my head and lie perfectly still, my hands tucked under my body. It’s still dark out, but first light is coming fast.

Crap, I think as I hear them approach. They crest the hill and shuffle by me. I wait silently until They are out of sight and consider my options. Unfortunately I don’t have many. I scramble to some nearby trees and climb one easily. Settling in, I guess I will be there for a while.

The sun is rising, but it looks like clouds are rolling in from the lake. I pray for a storm. They hate storms, especially loud ones with thunder and lightning. I can make it home easily in the rain. I remember being in the park on a similar day long ago. My mother had a rare moment for us and had asked me what I wanted to do. I insisted on a picnic, even though the weather was dreary. We wore our rain gear, yellow boots and plastic coats, and ate egg salad sandwiches in the rain. It’s one of my favorite memories of my mother. I couldn’t have been older than four or five.

I wait for the downpour and consider the ship. Clearly it’s theirs, but I can’t imagine one of Them flying it. Maybe there are different kinds of Them? It’s possible that the ones I’ve seen are the mindless drones, sent to rid the planet of us pesky humans. Maybe there are smarter ones, ones that can build things like that ship. Ones who have plans. Perhaps the ones I’ve seen are only the first wave, sent ahead to destroy us.

The rain starts, but only a drizzle. The newly lit morning sky is starting to darken and I let my mind wander to my other experiences with Them, one in particular that made me truly understand that there was no going back to Before.

CHAPTER EIGHT

It was before Baby, but not long before. Now, three years ago seems like a lifetime. Only a month into the After, I’d started searching houses, looking for signs of life. Most were simply empty, although some had a few bloody pieces of clothing in a bedroom or broken belongings scattered in a hallway. This is where They had gotten the occupants, I often thought.

It was well after dark, so though I was cautious, I was also confident. I used the sidewalk, instead of keeping to the shadows. I chose houses at random, tried the doors. Most were unlocked. A few were missing altogether, torn apart by Them. People left all kinds of useful things behind, food being the most important. I also liked looking through their books. As much as people loved e-books, there were always paper books around. You can tell a lot about people by the kind of books they owned.

I’d taken to pilfering to alleviate my boredom and keep sadness at bay. You could see just how far a family had gotten, how prepared they were. There were a lot of half-eaten lunches, a few packed suitcases. There were never any bodies, which I was glad for, but there were plenty of questionable stains, and a few odors that I’d rather not have walked nose-first into. At first I was afraid I’d run into Them, but you would never find Them in an empty house. They preferred to be in the open during the day, hunting, and at night . . . well, I didn’t know where they went at night. There just weren’t very many around when it was dark . . . unless you made a lot of noise.