Soon after the women began dying at the windows, they had all woken one day to find them covered on the outside by frosted panels. The work was roughly done. Little chips of concrete where they’d drilled holes in the exterior still lay trapped on the sills beyond the glass. The wind can’t reach them to blow them away. Instead, they’ve become reminders of all that Charlotte has lost. Instead of a green countryside, they can see only a gray horizon once they return indoors.
“It’s okay, Mom. They don’t use the Care Rooms anymore.”
That’s what they called the place they used to take the women who spent too much time looking out the windows. They thought it might save them, but it hadn’t. They still tilted their heads and died. It seemed to Charlotte that they died quicker there. Perhaps that’s why they don’t use them anymore. Perhaps they noticed that too.
Her mother’s hand rests on hers where it lies limply on the arm of the chair. “No, but if they decide to cover the windows entirely, we’ll all lose. You understand, Charlie?”
That makes Charlotte stop looking. “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.”
“I know, sweetie. I know.”
“I’ll play cards instead.”
“Yes. Let’s play cards instead.”
The Forest
Wilhelmina, who is now simply called Willa, creeps on silent feet toward the overlook. The cliff face there gives her a wide view of the lower ground. The trees butting all the way to the edge provide good cover. The watch on duty will be there, but it’s good to visit them now and again so they don’t get lulled by the peace and miss something vital. And that’s not even considering that the watch stationed there is eight months pregnant.
Near the edge, she makes a small sound like an insect chirp. It’s their signal. The signal is returned, so all is well. Willa steps lightly around the trees and across the spongy earth toward the lookout. The watch is almost invisible where she’s stationed herself, her brown clothes blending into the trees, the dirt on her face erasing the symmetry that would attract attention. Underneath the dirt, she is beautiful. Stunning, even.
With the dirt, she is something else. A wild thing, still beautiful, but also dangerous.
Willa reaches her and says, “Anything?”
The young woman, Bee, who was once Beatrice, points below them to a clearing edged in tightly by more forest. “There. Two of them. They’re getting brave.”
Willa purses her lips and nods. She sees the darker shade of green where the wild grasses and plants have been trampled. It’s about a hundred feet down and a few hundred yards out, but she can see the scars of their passage and their waiting.
Bee looks at her expectantly.
“Be ready. That’s all. They won’t try this route. We killed too many of the last group that came up the cliff. All those old bodies down below will tell them this isn’t a good route. They’ll come around the other side, up the path. Maybe both paths to try and overwhelm us. If any come up from this direction, you know what to do.”
With a grim smile, Bee pats one of the many quivers filled with arrows tied to the trees. “I do.”
Bee is a good shot, one of their best. She’s also not at all affected by what happens when she shoots an arrow into a man and stops his heart. That’s a far rarer quality, but one that’s becoming less rare as time drags on.
She was once a hair stylist in Seattle.
Willa had been an executive at Amazon HQ.
Things are different now.
“I’ll get the others into position. Should I send you a second shooter?” Willa asks, already stepping away from the lookout position.
“You can if you want, but I’d rather see another shooter on the park slope.”
Willa knows where she means. It’s the side of their encampment that had once been most traveled by hikers and park service vehicles. The trees were cleared away from the track there, leaving far too much space for invaders to travel. Yes, they’d felled trees to block the road during that first year, but even so, there’s room for men on foot.
Bee glances out at the world, then looks at Willa with a question in her eyes.
“What is it, Bee?”
With a shrug, Bee says, “I was really hoping these would be good guys. I’m so sick of bad guys. They helped us with the really bad guys, so…well…I just hoped they’d be good ones.”
Willa lays a hand on Bee’s shoulder. They all wish that but wishes don’t influence reality and that’s what they have to be ready for. “They still might be good, Bee. I’m not going to risk all of our safety, though. Would you?”
“No, I wouldn’t. Best to put another bow on the park side of the slope. Just in case.”
Nodding, Willa leaves, melting into the trees as if she were born to it. Bee returns to watching.
Then
Miranda
Miranda laughs after she blows her nose. It’s a big laugh, her voice hoarse from the terrible cold she’s been fighting for days and days. She’s begun to call it The Endless Cold, a cold so persistent it requires a full title. The laugh is because her friend, Sharon, looks so entirely disgusted.
“For heaven’s sake! How do you get so much liquid to come out of such a tiny, insignificant nose?” Sharon asks, leaning away from Miranda and her spreading circle of germs.
Miranda wads up the sodden tissue and drops it into the basket next to her on the bed. It’s already half filled with used tissues. She plucks another tissue from the box to do the mop-up work.
Around the tissue, she says, “I have absolutely enormous sinuses.
