Hell Followed with Us(12)
Erin gathers me when I’m done changing, noting my freshly washed hair and clean face with a soft tilt of her head. “Looking better already.” I’m glad I look better. I had to resist the urge to rinse my mouth with the blood water, as if that would get out the taste of the Flood. “Ready?”
Walking into the ALC is like walking into a funeral home.
The boy’s death has gotten into the walls and under the floorboards of this place. He lurks behind faded pride flags and flyers advertising STD tests and water-restriction protocols. He’s even made his way between the wires of an ugly ham radio sitting in a back corner of the lobby. Teenagers and young adults of every shape and size have huddled together, refusing to look up. One mends cloth face masks in silence. Another slumps by a barred front door, resting their forehead against the wall.
“Most of us were here on That Day,” Erin whispers, and I make note of the proper term to use. She shows me around the gaunt kitchen and food pantry. “We had a great summer program for at-risk teens. So when everything happened, a lot of kids just didn’t leave.”
She takes me to the chalkboard near the barred front door, where people volunteer for chores like cleaning, cooking, and guard duty. There are about forty names. One section is separated: the Watch. I recognize all the names written there. Nick, Aisha, Faith, Cormac, Salvador, and a fresh smudge. Cormac must be the sunburned redhead I remember cutting off ears. The smudge is the dead boy.
“I could’ve gone home, I guess,” Erin says, gesturing for me to follow. “But I was too worried about everyone, so I stayed behind. You can see how well that went. At least it’s easier to transition when the rest of the world is gone?” Someone steps aside to let us down a narrow hall, eyes downcast. Erin’s voice is quiet with sadness. “I mean, all the hormones are either expired or spoiled, but at least there are no transphobic relatives to worry about anymore.”
I don’t want to think about hormones. Even if they weren’t years too old or baked by the summer heat, I won’t be in this body long enough for it to matter.
“How did you all survive?” I ask instead. The Angels made it as long as they have through sheer numbers, strict travel protocols, and culling people at the first sign of infection. The ALC doesn’t seem to have enough people or supplies to pull that off.
“Well, some of us didn’t. But if I had to guess, it’s some combination of…I don’t know. Timing? Location? Sadaf’s parents were doctors, and Aisha’s were doomsday preppers, so that helped. And luck, maybe? There’s got to be some credit due for being scared kids who locked ourselves in and waited for adults to come save us, even if they never did.” She shakes her head as we get to the storeroom. “Whatever it was, things got easier when Nick picked up the slack. He can be rude in making sure people stay safe, but he’s good at what he does. Anyway, here are the pads and tampons if you need them. Just try to be stingy, okay?”
My face flushes. I really don’t want to think about being on my period and having to deal with Seraph at the same time. Shedding my insides out one orifice is more than enough. “Okay.”
Our last stop is the gym, which has been rebuilt into dozens of one-room apartments the size of closets. Sheets stand in for doors. A few femmes linger in the narrow pathways, and they watch me the way deer pick up their heads when they think a wolf might be nearby.
One “apartment” at the back of the gym is mine. It’s much smaller than my dorm at New Nazareth, but it’s perfect.
“Nick and I think it’s best to let you get some rest before you make your final decision,” Erin says while I push aside the sheet. Even though I took Nick’s knife, it’s not a done deal. “So take it easy, okay?”
“Thank you,” I say, even though it isn’t nearly enough for what they’ve done. “Really.”
Erin pauses for a moment, then says, “Trevor’s funeral will be in a few days. I don’t want to push, and you don’t have to if you don’t want, but I think it’d mean a lot to his partner if everyone came. Just to show their support.”
Trevor. The boy’s name, the boy with bones like monuments. I turn it over in my head. Such a normal name, normal like Steven’s and everyone else’s.
“I’ll be there,” I promise.
If grief gets caught in my body like it’s tangled up with burrs, the least I can do is support the people who can actually feel something. The least I can do is help the people who are helping me. That’s what it means to be good.
* * *
I don’t mean to lose the rest of the day, but as soon as my body recognizes I’m safe, it shuts down on me. No guns, no Graces, and my brain is out like a light. I barely have time to pull the curtain door of my apartment closed. If I was on the fence about trusting the ALC before, my body has made the call for me. And my body has also made the call to whisper as I press the heels of my hands into my eyes and topple onto the mattress: Thank you, God, thank you.
Before I know it, I’m waking up the next morning, disoriented and dry mouthed. There is no cross on the wall watching me sleep, no Bible waiting for me to open my eyes. The strange pattern on my sheets is penguins and polar bears. I roll onto my back and stare at bare plywood.
Penguins and polar bears. Have all the animals of Earth been doing better without us? Two years isn’t nearly enough for Earth to recover. Even late spring can be deadly hot, and I haven’t seen snow since I was really little, even though Dad told me it used to snow in Pennsylvania every year. But the world must have gotten at least a bit better, right?