Fractured: Tales of the Canadian Post-Apocalypse(40)

Lindy absolutely wasn’t going to do the thing where you freaked out and went begging people to help find your lost lamb.

Wolves slip through the wall all the time, three people got eaten last winter…

She won’t have got out of the building.

Be negligent for an hour, and then free for a lifetime.

“Fuck,” she said. “Who’m I kidding?”

She grabbed her keys and ran out into the dim light of dawn. A wet, wheel-torn expanse of snow greeted her. Small footie prints, tinted red with leaked dye, led around the side of the building. There they met up with enormous tracks.

“Zazu!” She sprinted to the corner, and saw faux Matt Cardinal with the girl astride his shoulders.

“Hey!” she shrieked. Heads turned and Matt stopped.

Zazu had a waxy cellophane cereal bag containing coloured lumps that might once have been Berry Loops, along with half a box of powdered milk and a steel bowl from Lindy’s studio.

Matt offered up his lazy panty-peeler smile. “You lose someone?”

Huffing, Lindy closed the distance between them. “Put her down.”

“Kid’s walking around in her sock feet.”

“Then bring her to the stairwell.”

“I need snow,” Zazu said. She waved a steel bowl at Lindy.

“Your Maj,” Matt said. “Dunno what you’re planning, but snow here is fulla husky shit and biodiesel.”

“Go there.” Zazu pointed at the nearest tree, a big pine, laden with snow.

Surrendering, Lindy took the steel bowl. “Here?”

“Hold it up.”

She had barely begun to lift when a clump of pristine snow dropped from above. The bowl filled. The rest slid into her collar and over her body, neck to ankles; an icy shock that left her feeling as though she’d been scrubbed.

The branch waved, freed from the burden of the snow’s weight. She smelled pine oil.

“Cute trick,” Matt said.

“Can we go in now?” Lindy pleaded.

“Go!” Zazu kicked her wet heels and they retraced the pink smudged prints. Matt had to duck low to get her in the door. Polyester devil horns scraped the doorframe, szzt, szzt, sending sprinkles of fabric paint swirling.

“Down you go, your Maj.” He set her on the concrete steps.

Grabbing Lindy’s hand, she began to pull her upstairs. “Breakfast time.”

“Matt has things to do.”

“Matt,” Zazu repeated, tone neutral.

He was climbing along behind them.

“Who gave you the cereal?” Lindy asked.

“Lady. Vivian.”

“Vivian Wu?”

“She said it would rot my mouth.” Zazu bared her teeth, which were punky with orange macaroni and bits of seal.

“You should brush those,” Lindy said.

“I will if you will.”

Matt chortled. “She’s got a point.”

“Vivian didn’t know your Aunty Depressin.”

“Huh?” Lindy could’ve sworn that part of her inner monologue yesterday had been, you know, inner.

“Need meds?” Matt lit up. “I can help with that.”

What would it take to get rid of this guy? He came up to the third floor, sticking like glue as Zazu trotted to Lindy’s studio, watching as she sprinkled a teaspoon of her powdered milk onto the bowl full of snow.

She flopped on the floor, sticking her legs up. “My feet are wet.”

Lindy pulled her out of the bottom half of the devil costume and swabbed at the little toes with a varnishing rag. “I have water, you know.”

The kid stuck her thumb in her mouth and mumbled something that sounded like “Bleepul, bekka?”

“Thanks,” Matt replied. “I had breakfast.”

Kid clothes. What was she going to do for kid clothes? Lindy grabbed up a couple of her cleaner T-shirts, went over to the varnishing table and started stripping the girl and boy. Socks, underwear, shirts. No shoes— Matt let out a string of profanity, undertone.

“What?”

Zazu’s bowl of snow had melted, faster than it should have. The white flecks of dried milk were spreading within it, swirling chalky bits of colour. And the smell— “Cereal?” Zazu rolled to her feet.

“Fuck.” Lindy said. “Kid, I think you just turned meltwater to milk.”

Zazu peered into the bowl, looking puzzled. “Weird stuff.”

“It’s cream.” Lindy touched the fluid: it was ice cold.

“Part the cream, kid,” Matt said. “Like the Red Fucking Sea.”

“I know that story!” Zazu made the Moses gesture, a reverse clap, arms straight. Cream sloshed out of the bowl and onto the floor. “Sorry.”

“It’ll dry,” Lindy said. Matt gave her a faintly disgusted look, plucked one of the T-shirts out of her hand, and started wiping.

Lindy took a sip of what remained in the bowl. Homo milk, fresh, with just the right mix of fat. She hadn’t tasted anything so pure and sinfully delicious in 20 years.

Part it. What made Matt suggest that?

“Get spoons,” Zazu ordered. She sprinkled a few Berry Loops into the bowl. Lindy meant to stare at them, but immediately blinked. Like that, the bowl was full of crunchy pink and blue loops.