Malorie(8)

“Jeez,” Olympia says. “And no evidence of an actual catch.”

Tom sees the name of a town, Indian River, and a person, Athena Hantz, but he can’t let Olympia’s last statement just slip by.

“No. But that doesn’t mean anything. Someone’s got one out there, Olympia. You have to remember: there are so many people in the world. We just live in one little camp in one little part of Michigan. Know what I mean?” When he pauses, Olympia sees distance in his eyes, as if he’s on the road to other places. “Someone’s done it. And I wanna know who.”

“Tom. Come on. Don’t be a fool.”

But Olympia understands. A list like this is all and everything Tom has ever wanted. Places where people think like he does. Places far from an abandoned camp harboring a mother with as many rules as she has blindfolds.

“Do you have a book of maps?” he asks her.

“In the library. Of course. Why? You thinking of heading somewhere more progressive?”

Tom laughs, but she hears frustration there.

She takes the pages back.

“Lists,” she says, happy to move on for now. Tom, she knows, will be reading these pages for months to come. Maybe even years. “So many lists. Streets. Incidences. Temperatures. Names.”

“Names?”

“I would think you would be more interested in the achievements than the actual people involved.”

Tom elbows her gently.

“Let me see the names.”

She shows him. Tom squints. Olympia knows this face well. Tom is connecting dots.

“Survivors,” he says.

“How do you know that?”

“Look.”

He points to a legend at the bottom of the first page of names. Symbols beside words like seen and spotted, rumored and…

“Alive…” Olympia says. “Oh, wow.”

They both sit a little more erect on the bed.

“Check if we’re in there,” Tom says. “Go to Michigan.”

Olympia shakes her head.

“We won’t be. We would’ve been if Mom had let him in.”

“Ah. Right.”

But Olympia goes to Michigan anyway. There are dozens of pages for the state, as there are for most of the states in the Midwest.

“That’s a lot of people,” Tom says. “See? Someone’s caught one.”

“Well, if you consider the population seventeen years ago, this isn’t that many. Remember when Mom told us about the phone book? And all the calls they made?”

“Yeah.” Tom gets it. “And that was just for their immediate area.”

“Exactly.”

They flip through the names. Some are illegible. Others stand out.

“I got an idea,” Tom says.

He hops up off Olympia’s bed and goes to the dresser beside his own. From the top drawer he takes a pencil.

“Let’s put our names in there anyway,” he says.

Olympia is relieved. She’d been worried the list of modern cities might send her brother into weeks of self-reflection. Tom has gone quiet before. Especially when he starts thinking of the world outside the camp. Despite Malorie referring to him as “her optimist,” Tom actually has long bouts of visible consternation. Olympia has read all about characters who get quiet when they get serious. But then again, she’s also read of hundreds who’ve changed by the end of the story. And changed those around them.

Tom is beside her again. He takes the book from her and flips to the last page of Michigan names.

He writes Camp Yadin near the bottom of the page, where there’s room. He writes his own name. He hands Olympia the pencil.

She likes this idea. She’s smiling as she reads the seemingly infinite list of people. But her smile begins to sag as two names leap out at her, two that are familiar to her, though Malorie hardly ever refers to them by their actual names.

“What’s up?” Tom asks.

Olympia is already flipping the page back, checking the name of the city where these two people were found.

“Olympia, what’s going on? You look scared.”

She doesn’t even realize she’s looking Tom in the eye now; all she sees are the two names written in chicken-scratch and the name St. Ignace like a banner, swinging weakly in a world decimated by creatures who drive you mad when you see them.

“Olympia, are you okay?”

“We have to get Mom, Tom.”

“She’s sweeping the camp. Besides, I don’t want her to know about this—”

“We have to get Mom now.”





THREE


Malorie thinks of Gary.

It makes sense. A man arrives at the camp. He knocks. He speaks from the other side of the door. All good intentions, of course. Until you let him in, of course. Then he makes friends with the others, ingratiates himself to the point where your own kids turn on you, and presto, you’ve welcomed an old-world madman into your life.

It’s not hard to imagine Tom gravitating toward a man like Gary. A man who claims to know the truths of the new world. Nor is it difficult to imagine Olympia wooed by a stranger’s tales of traveling the country, keeping notes on everything he’s learned.

“Sweep the camp,” she says. Tom and Olympia have assured her the man is gone, and truly, there’s no better alarm system than their ears. Still, Malorie wants a look around. Did this man really just arrive, or had he been squatting in one of the other cabins for weeks? Tom was outside when he came. Does this mean something? All three of them were together when he knocked. Does this?