Humanity (6 page)

“I’m not telling you. You can’t kill me
for not saying, because then you’ll just kill yourself.”

“True.” He replaced the prenatals in the
bag, then tossed it to me, grinning. “I shot us some breakfast while you were
gone,” he informed me, gesturing to the decomposing bodies. A furry mass lay
nearby.

“A wolf?”

“Looks like it.”

“I hate wolf meat.”

“That’s unfortunate for you. Care to cook
it up for us?”

“Care to loan me some matches?”

“Naw. Why don’t you first go get some
firewood? Then I’ll light it.”

He didn’t trust me with the matches. I
could probably burn him till he gave me a gun, or till he fainted from the
pain.

I stormed away. I didn’t want to do what
he suggested, but, as usual, I was
hungry
,
and the faster we got a fire going, the faster I could eat.

The faster
we
could eat. I twisted my mouth bitterly, looking up at the
branches of the trees above me. Getting firewood would be so much easier with
that knife of his. However, since he obviously wouldn’t be loaning it to me . .
.

I jumped for the nearest branch, grabbing
hold of it and using all my weight as I swung back and forth. The branch was
thick, sturdy, and I was too light to break it with my weight alone. I swung
until I gained enough height to wrap my legs around it, then I hoisted myself
up and looked above my head at other potential branches. I climbed the tree
till I met the middle branches, which were thinner. I used my weight to make
them buckle, and then I twisted them and pulled them free, dropping them to the
ground.

I definitely would be keeping that knife
for myself after I killed Gideon. It would be the perfect memento.

It took a total of forty-five minutes to
get enough wood for a fire, and then I had to lug it all back to the bridge.

“Took you long enough. I’m starving.”

“Good. I hope you’re enjoying that
feeling.” I stacked the branches in a teepee formation. “Match?”

He leaned forward toward the wood,
slipping a little matchbox out of his pocket and lighting one. He tossed it
onto the wood. His precision surprised me; the match struck just right, and the
wood took the flame.

“Now for the meat?” he suggested, raising
his eyebrows at me.

“Maybe I should pick up one of these
branches and use it to kill you.”

“That’ll only work if I can’t shoot you
first.”

“Yeah. I know.” I tried not to keep the
discouraged note out of my voice as I turned and did what he said: I brought
back the wolf carcass. I had to set it in front of him so he could carve at it
with the knife. Unfortunately, I still couldn’t rest while he did this because
he only had one hand, and needed me to hold the hide just right while he cut
into it.

I finally settled the meat into the fire.
We sat back to wait.

“Gideon, what’s your driving force?” I
asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Last night, you said that family is
weakness, that we’re better off learning from the beginning how to live on our
own. But families give people something to live for, something to enjoy.
There’s a source of happiness in them. Without one, you have to find something
else to live for. A driving force. What’s yours?”

“Survival.”

“Is that enough?”

“I believe God sent us to this planet to
bide our time, prove to him we’re tough enough to take what he throws at us.
Then we die, and it’s over. So what’s my driving force? Survival. I want to
survive until I die, and then I can move on from this horrid world.”

“But the continual existence of families
is proof that there’s good in this world. It’s not all bad.”

“But families don’t last.”

“How can you focus on simple survival,
though? Isn’t that depressing?”

“I learn not to think about it too much.”

“You think about nothing.”

His mouth twitched. “Correct.”

“Can you teach me how?” One day, I would
be alone. If I could be as serene as him about it. . .

“How to think about nothing? I told you,
it just takes practice.”

I looked down. “All I can think about
when I close my eyes is
them
. And
then I think about killing you.”

He was watching me. I could feel it.
“That’ll go away after a while. Their image begins to fade. It’ll help when I’m
dead. Force you to move on.”

“What if there’s nothing to live for when
you’re dead? I don’t know if survival will be enough for me.”

“You’ll learn to let it be enough. Especially
when you have a few more bad experiences, and realize that the quiet, alone
moments are the best there are. You learn to live for those moments – the
moments when you aren’t running for your life, when you aren’t fighting for
territory, when you aren’t hungry. You live for the success of survival.”

“Can you teach me?”

“I don’t know if I can. If you keep
holding your parents’ death against me, then you won’t be able to learn how to
live happily with simple survival. Not until I’m dead, too.”

“Well, can you
try
to teach me, anyway?”

“Sure. We can start now.”

“Okay. . . What do I do?”

“Tilt your head back. Lean it against the
wall. Close your eyes. Relax your shoulders. Listen. What do you hear?”

“The wind.”

“And?”

“The trees?”

“And. . .”

“The crackling of the fire. The sizzling
of the meat.”

“Okay. Focus on those things. What do you
smell?”

“The burning wood. The meat. The rain
from yesterday. Dirt. A hint of death.”

“Don’t focus on the death. Block that
part out.”

I wrinkled my nose. “That’s hard to do.”

“Then refocus on the smell and sounds of
the wood and meat, and the rain, wind, dirt, and trees.”

I did what he told me.

“Relax your shoulders.”

“I’m trying. It’s hard when I’m doing so
much focusing.”

“Stop scrunching your forehead.
Relax
. Smell how good the fire smells,
and the rain. Listen to the wind. Breathe deeply.”

I did what he said. He was silent for a
few moments.

“Now, what do you feel?”

“Peace.” I opened my eyes to look over at
him for approval.

He smiled at me, an echo of that peace on
his face. “Exactly. Peace.”

Chapter 6

The days trickled by. I gave Gideon his
medicine at set intervals, those intervals traveling further and further from
each other. Gideon shot all the scavengers that came near the bodies. The smell
got worse and worse, but it wasn’t like I had a shovel, and Gideon was still
healing.

We didn’t talk much, which gave me a lot
of time to think about all the scenarios that might take place in which
Gideon’s weapons could come into my possession, or the scenarios where I might
happen by new weapons. I thought about venturing a little further than just our
nearest exit, but the fact that Gideon had gotten my gun from me proved that he
was capable of at least
some
movement
when he wanted, and I couldn’t take the risk.

This was even more important when the
medicine was no longer necessary.

“You going to kill me yet?” Gideon
taunted.

“The moment I get an opportunity, I
will,” I told him, arching an eyebrow. “You going to kill
me
yet?”

Gideon sat back against the wall some
more. “Naw. It would be way too lonely without you, what with me stuck here
healing and all.”

“Yeah, you enjoy that,” I retorted. “If
it weren’t for the fact that you’re so ginormous, I would have already
strangled you, weapon or no weapon.”

He grinned. “I guess it’s good that I’m
ginormous, then.”

These were the small exchanges we had.
The only other ones came at night, as we laid against the brick wall of the
bridge, several feet between us, eyes closed and listening.

“Anything new tonight?” he asked.

“Some scuffling,” I murmured, listening
hard. “Someone coming this way?”

“A small animal, I think,” he replied.
“We’ll get him in a few minutes. What else?”

“Just the usual,” I said, relaxing into
the now-familiar scents and sounds around me, and allowing them to sweep out
all the tension and negativity I’d felt that day. “It’s funny. When we do this,
I almost don’t feel like killing you.”

“That’s a good thing. Killing doesn’t
bring peace.”

“
You
kill.”
“I kill when I have to. I never kill when there’s another option.”

“That’s the real reason I’m still alive,
isn’t it?”

“That’s the real reason I didn’t kill you
the very first day we met.”

“If you could kill the people responsible
for your parents’ death, or for your aunt’s death, would you?”

“Well, that’s a more complicated
situation than yours. My aunt was actually the one who killed my mother because
my mother had an injury that was going to end in her death. She wasn’t going to
die for a while, though, and it was going to be painful. Eventually, when her
waking hours were filled with almost constant screaming, her sister shot her to
put her out of her misery. And my mother asked for it.” His eyes seemed glassy,
but his tone was hard.

“What about your dad and your aunt?” My
voice was a whisper as I turned my face away from him.

“It was never clear who killed them;
there was shooting everywhere at the time.”

“So no grudges to be held.”

“No grudges to be held. Do you hear
that?”

“Yes. The animal?”

I could hear Gideon sit up, and then his
gun went off. He laid back down. “We’ll collect it in the morning.”

I grimaced. “Can’t wait.”

~ * ~

“You’re limping pretty heavily,” I noted,
“but you’re walking, which is good. How’s your arm?”

He grinned with one side of his mouth.
“The best way to test that out is to arm wrestle.”

“That’s a good idea. Too bad you have no
opponents.”

“You’ll suffice.”

I arched an eyebrow at him. “Suffice,
will I?”

He nodded upward. “Let’s go to the top of
the bridge,” he said.

“I suppose I have to,” I replied,
standing. “Now that you can walk, you might escape if I don’t follow you.”
There was a hint of teasing to my voice; I fell into step with him. We strode
up the hill at a slow pace. He wasn’t grimacing, so we might actually be able
to make some distance today – get away from this bridge we’d been camping under
for three weeks straight. It would be slow, but maybe we could fit in a few
miles. It was lucky the bullet hadn’t hit bone.

We reached the railing of the bridge; he
positioned himself on one side of the railing, still standing in the grass.
Then he lightly took my wrist and guided me to the other side of the railing,
where the asphalt was. He knelt down, and I followed suit. He was so much
taller than me that him being below the bridge’s level brought him right to eye
contact with me.

I blinked.

He stood his injured left arm on its
elbow, holding his palm out to me.

“I’m right-handed,” I said uncertainly.

“So am I, remember?” He reached out and
took my left hand, using his right hand to angle my elbow appropriately.
“There. Ready?”

“Can I say ‘go’?”

“Sure.”
“’Kay. Three, two, one, go!”

I pressed against his thick hand with all
my strength, pushing, pushing. I wasn’t gaining any leeway. I had to remind
myself that this was a good thing – at full strength, of
course
he would beat me. He was two hundred pounds of pure muscle!
– but it was also frustrating. Gideon was always so sure of himself, it would
have been nice to beat him at something, even if that meant he was less healed
than we’d hoped.

Gideon began pushing my arm down, the
back of my hand inching closer to the concrete. I used all my strength, shoving
back, not giving in.

He caught my eye, and blinked.

I started gaining ground. I was so
astonished that I almost forgot to keep trying to win. But I pushed, and
pushed.

And then his hand hit the concrete.

“I win,” I breathed.

“Huh. Yeah. You win. I guess I’m not as
healed up as I thought.” He stood.

I looked up at him suspiciously. “You
didn’t
let
me win, did you?” I asked.

“Huh? No, of course not. I couldn’t
possibly let that big head of yours get any bigger, could I? Naw, I guess my
leg’s just doing better than my arm, that’s all.”

“Really. Because I was the one who
treated your wounds, remember? Your leg was worse.”

He shrugged cluelessly. “I don’t know how
the human anatomy works, darling. Can we get going? I’d love to be clear of
those carcasses.” He nodded at our friends rotting on the asphalt.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, frowning.

“Good.” He held out a hand to me,
bringing me back to my feet, then started walking in the direction we’d been
heading three weeks before.

“Hey. Where are we going?” I asked.

“Careful. If you ask too many questions,
I might just decide to kill you. I’m done with your medicine after all,
remember?”

I made a face. “Yeah. And depleted the
whole supply. You better hope you don’t get any more infections.”

“It won’t matter unless the infection
comes from someone or something other than you. You’re trying to kill me,
remember? If
you
cause the infection,
that would be a good thing. I’m sure you’d love watching me die a slow,
gruesome death.”

My chest tightened. “Well, not
necessarily slow. Anyway, with me unarmed, I doubt I will be the first person
to cause you an infection.”

He lifted his arms to indicate the empty
road. “I currently see no other threats,” he pointed out.

“Where are we going?”

He looked one eye down at me before
looking ahead again. “There’s the remains of a carnival set up just a few more
miles from here. That was where you were following me to before I got shot. I
thought it might be fun to check it out. I’ve been to a few carnivals, but each
of them is different.”

“Life is about exploration,” I echoed.

“Yes. That’s a good way of putting it.
Where’d you hear that?”

“You.”

“Oh. Huh. I’m kind of a smart guy, aren’t
I?”

“More like a dead man walking.”

“That would be a zombie.”

“Nope. That would be you. What are
carnivals like?”

“Well, back when electricity worked,
they’d be all brightly lit, with sparkling colors and music. There’d be games
to play, and rides, and shows. Lots of animals on display. Of course, it’s not
the same now. All the animals eventually escaped and wandered off when they got
too hungry to wait around for their vanished keepers. The lights don’t work –
most of them are usually broken, and there’s no music. Any canvas has been
stripped away to use in others ways, and a lot of gears are missing from the
rides and games. But most of the props are still there, and, if you walk
through the street, you can almost imagine what it would have been like to
visit when the place was
alive
.”

“Sounds sad.”

“Why?”

“To have to imagine what it used to be
like. To know it can’t be like that any more. To just walk through it like a
ghost town.”

“Candace, you know how we’ve been
practicing thinking about nothing? Feeling the peace of your surroundings so
that simply
being
is enough?”

“Yes.” I loved it when we did that. When
we just listened and smelled and
felt
the
world around us, there was no loneliness. There was no death. There was no
sickness. There was no hunger. There was breath. Life. Tranquility. There was
just me and Gideon, alone in a peaceful world.

“When we go to this carnival, I want you
to try a variation of that. Don’t focus on the loss of what
was
. Focus on the beauty of what
is
.”

“What about what it was meant to be?
That’s lost.”

Gideon shook his head. “It doesn’t
matter. Humans think they’re in charge of this earth, but they’re not. We’re
just inhabitants, leaving our mark until we ourselves are removed. The carnival
is a mark one set of humans left. Now, we get to cherish the beauty of what
nature has allowed to remain.” His breath was becoming more labored as we
walked, our interchange causing more strain to be put on his lungs than
necessary, considering this was his first walk since getting a gun injury.

“I’m not sure I can do that.”

“I’ll help you. First, we have to get
there. And I think I’ll be able to move faster if we do less talking.”

I nodded, shutting my mouth. The sun was
bright above us, and I could hear nothing but the birds chirping, the sound of
our footfalls, and Gideon’s breath. After several moments, I peeked over at him
out of the corner of my eye, analyzing how he was doing. He was limping worse
than when we’d started, and his face was deep red.

“I think we should rest,” I told him.

He caught my eye. “Worried about me, are
you?”

“No. But I don’t want you to kill
yourself before I get the chance.”

“I’m fine, Candace. We’re only half a
mile out now. See that?” He pointed.

I looked in the direction he indicated,
peering around a few buildings that used to be department stores. There, just
out of reach, was a Ferris wheel.

I grinned in spite of myself, wanting to
sprint the rest of the way there. I glanced back at Gideon.

His lips twitched. “You can go on ahead,
if you don’t want to wait for my slow pace.”

“Not a chance. I’m staying right where I
can see you.”

He chuckled, and we kept walking at a
gentle, steady speed. The Ferris wheel drew nearer. We passed the department
buildings, and I was able to make out the shape of other parts of the carnival:
vendor stands, a small roller coaster, fences surrounding everything.

It was more like the skeleton of a
carnival than anything else. The only color remaining, outside of the greenery
that covered everything, had been painted on metal. Any wood that had been
there was long gone. Broken, colored light bulbs lined the faded names of
rides, games, and snack stands. The game stands that had once hosted a large
display of stuffed animals you could win were stripped bare. Very little
remained.

“This is depressing,” I murmured, biting
my lip.

Gideon was watching me. “Then don’t see
it for what it used to be. See it for what it is.”

“How?
All
I can see is what it used to be. And anyway, you said we should imagine what it
was like when everything was alive.”

“That’s before I realized you’d think it
was sad. Look, close your eyes.”

“I don’t know that I trust you with my
eyes closed.”

“Candace, you’ve been with me, unarmed,
for weeks. You close your eyes all the time – you’ve been sleeping very soundly
every night, ever since you started thinking about nothing. Now, close your
eyes.”

I rolled them before I closed them.

I felt his hands on my shoulders, gently
pushing me forward.