She held the knife in the water, letting the hot water boil away any germs that might be lingering on the blade.
"You think Joan knows what she's doing?" Liz asked Katie.
"I don't know," Katie said.
"We must all be fools for letting those men knock us up. We didn't even think about the complications of birth. Just threw our legs up to the sky and said Hallelujah, Jesus, get me pregnant."
"She can do it," Katie said. "If anyone can, she can."
"Ain't that the truth," Liz said.
"Well, I'm glad we got her," Theresa said.
Death was on all of their minds. They lapsed into silence as the snow fell, and the dead banged on the side of the trailers. There were more bangs now. Tammy's shrieks were drawing them.
"How many do you think are out there?" Katie asked.
"I don't want to know. There'll be plenty of time for that tomorrow. We'll get Mort up there to clear 'em out," Liz said.
Theresa nodded her agreement. They had both discussed going up on top of the trailers. But it felt too dangerous at night. Even during the day, they were starting to become wary of the process of climbing up on top of the trailers. Layers of snow and ice made the tops of the trailers more treacherous than they appeared, and neither woman's balance was all that great at the moment with their round bellies growing.
When the handle of the metal tongs warmed up from transferred heat, she knew that the paring knife was ready. She handed the tongs to Katie, and the metal cooled instantly. "Now, don't touch that blade," she said.
Katie, normally quick with a comeback for anything that resembled a command or gentle advice, said nothing. She carried the paring knife into the ranger station with the concentration of an overly competitive child in an egg race.
Though Theresa knew that God had forsaken her a long time ago, she sent up a small prayer for Tammy. It couldn't hurt nothin'.
****
Tammy screamed as the blade bit through her skin. Oh, lord. Oh, Jesus. These were the words that went through her head. This is really happening.
She thought back to the day that she had lain with Keith. It had been a warm day, sweaty. She remembered how the trailer rocked as they had fucked. She had known it hadn't been love. There wasn't anything particularly romantic between the two of them. Keith had been no looker, but he wasn't ugly. Just plain. But it had felt great.
She had listened as Chad had talked to her about procreation and repopulating the world. It had even made sense at the time.
Another slice from the blade sent hot fire through her brain, and she screamed and clutched Mort's hand.
Now it made no sense. With Joan down there carving her up like a turkey, she cursed the day she had ever laid eyes on Chad Mauer. She cursed the day she had ever agreed to fuck Keith Hill, a plain man with next to nothing between the ears. She wasn't glad that he was dead; he hadn't deserved that, and she thought he would have been a good father. He didn't have anything else going on. He would have raised the kid right, to be gentle, to be kind. Keith had always been that, at least. He had showered and tried to comb his hair on the day that they had set for the deed. She thanked him for that.
Another wave of pain shot through her, from the blade or from her own contractions, she didn't know.
She should have never listened to Chad Mauer, but he had been so confident, so sure of himself. He had told her that he would protect her, keep her and her baby safe from the dead. And he had. So she had believed him about the need to repopulate. That's what he called it. Repopulating, like a scientist. She was doing her good for the world.
But now, she might die for her ignorance, her blind belief in a man that she had only barely known from seeing him around the trailer park.
Her teeth ached from her jaw clamping down every time the pain surged. The muscles in her jaw were tired. Her whole body was exhausted, from her jaw to her arms and legs, all the way down to her toes and fingertips. On top of this, she struggled to stay awake. She struggled to stay conscious, though her vision swam as Joan did something else that pulled a scream from her lungs.
She worried that if she lost consciousness, she might never wake up. She worried that she wouldn't be able to lay eyes on the child that she had carried for so long, that she wouldn't even be able to give it a name. So she fought the blackness. She fought the void that pushed in on the edges of her consciousness.
They said words, the people in the room, Katie, Joan, and Mort. They were a soft buzz, their words only occasionally registering in her mind. She just wanted it to be over, but in a good way. Her head swam, the room tilting from side-to-side. No! No! No. No. No…
The pain was too much. The edges of the room went black, closing in on her. There was another slice from Joan, and she felt the pain, but she didn't know what to do with it. Then she was gone.
****
Dez cocked her head to the side. The screaming had stopped. She had listened to the steady stream of cursing and screams for hours, shutting it out by carving more swear words into the walls of the cabin.
The knife she held in her hand
