The New Wild (7 page)

“Nothing,” he says, his eyes
looking down into the water. In the firelight, he looks like he’s glowing. His
skin glistens. Fireflies flicker in circles all around us.

“What!” I press.

“I just think you’re really…
pretty
,
that’s all.”

Suddenly, my head is spinning. The
same guy who has treated me like shit for weeks thinks I’m pretty? He’s waiting
for me to say something, to give him some compliment in return. I’m ambivalent.
I feel just like I did that day back at camp when his stares made my heart beat
faster, but they turned out to be a big joke. He caught me off guard, and I’m
totally frozen. I can’t bring myself to say anything. But Xander keeps staring
into my eyes. He shifts closer to me.

“Jackie…” he murmurs, sidling up
to me. His legs feel slippery underwater. He leans in about as close as he can
get. His face so close to mine makes my lips tingle. I don’t know what to do. I’m
paralyzed. He has that droopy-eyed look guys get when they’re about to kiss
you. “Jackie, can I
…
”

“God, it is
so hot
in here
I think I’m gonna faint!” I blurt out, catapulting myself up onto a rock. Steam
rises off my body and dissipates in the air.

I don’t want him kissing me. He’s
hot, but he’s still a dick, and it’ll make things weird. Plus, we haven’t
brushed our teeth in, I don’t know, a week or two? The second I get out of the
water, he turns away, his face curled tightly in despair.

“Jesus, Jackie,” he says, his
voice all gravelly.

“What?”

“You wouldn’t want me if I was the
last guy on earth, would you?”

I sigh. I don’t know what to say.

“I mean, I practically
am
the last man on earth,” he continues, waving his arms around. The light hits
his muscles, giving them weighted sheen.

“Well, that’s a risk I’m willing
to take, I guess,” I say finally and try to smile. “Hey, maybe that kid from
New York is my soul mate.”

“Shit,” he says, under his breath
before lifting himself out of the spring and walking a few paces from where we
were sitting.

I yell after him. “Please come
back. I didn’t mean to sound so harsh.” He doesn’t even turn around. I can see
his body move like a black shadow along the creek. He lies down at the water’s
edge a bit farther upstream. I make my way over toward the fire, lay my head
down, and look at the stars. We could get together some day. I can picture it.
He wouldn’t even have to be the last boy on Earth…but now’s not the time. We
have so far to go. Plus, we’re so stuck in survival mode, so focused on where
our next meal is going to come from—much less our next bath—it’s just
not going to happen right now.

In the yellow glow of the
firelight, I examine my compass, turning it around in my fingers. I don’t know
what I’d do without this, without Bernard. The diamond in it catches the light
like it’s waving to me, and I kiss it. I snuggle down into my blanket to sleep.

In the
morning, Xander won’t talk to me. I don’t know if he’s pissed, embarrassed, or
both, but either way, I’m getting nothing but cold stares. Luckily, we’ve been
surviving together for long enough that we can do it without speaking. We start
walking through thick forest. Silver maples, quaking aspen, and birches of
every sort are all huddled together, their branches intertwined above us. A
group of honey-colored deer strut by us, flicking their white tails in
greeting. There’s a weird smell in the air. It gets stronger as we emerge from
the woods and into rolling meadowlands that stretch across the horizon. At
first it smells like asphalt, but since there’s very little of that left in the
world, I know that can’t be right. Then I feel it. A raindrop.

“Oh, lord.” I look up at the sky,
and there’s no blue in sight—just gunmetal clouds packed in tightly for
miles. “Xander?” I call, terror coloring my voice.

He’s striding about fifteen feet
in front of me, trying to shake off the rejection, I guess. He ignores me, of
course.

“Xander!” I shout.

He turns. “
What
?”

“Did you feel that?”

“Feel what, Jackie?” he sighs.

“The raindrops.”

“No,” he replies. “Maybe a bird
shat on you.”

“I’m serious. It’s really starting
to rain, I can feel it.”

“I’m surprised you can feel
anything,” he says coldly.

My jaw drops.

Then another drop hits my forearm.
And another. They’re sprinkling all over my skin. All of a sudden, a lightning
bolt jackknifes across the sky, illuminating the whole valley with a flash.

A second later, the thunder sounds,
rippling across the empty field. It’s the loudest
kaboom
I’ve ever
heard. I cover my ears, but it returns again. First a jolt of light, then a
jolt of ear-splitting thunder. My heart pounds. Rain trickles down in pinging
droplets, but it’s not long before it pummels so hard and fast it feels like
liquid daggers. It keeps wailing down on us in watery cannons.

We run. All I want to do is find
cover before I drown, but this field is endless, not even a tree in sight. I
put my hand over my forehead to shield my eyes but all I can see is farmland,
bare and desolate. The ground is so muddy it’s starting to look like a flash
flood came through and wiped everything out. This is so much worse than Portland
rain. Portland rain is ubiquitous, yes, but it’s also clean, tidy. It never
feels like the sky is pushing waterfalls down onto your head. The thunder booms
louder than ever, and I literally swipe my fingers across my ears to see if
they’re bleeding. My clothes and bag are soaked through.
At least they’re
clean now.
Then, not even a minute later, I trip on a rock and fall face-first
into the mud, mud that’s gushing so thick and deep that the whole front half of
my body is submerged.

If this happened months ago when I
was in Portland, I’d be choking back tears. But today, I can handle it. And other
things are so much more important. My mom. Bernard. Getting home. I lift myself
up to my elbows and hear Xander sloshing toward me.

“Christ, are you okay, Jackie?” He
picks me up out of the mud with one hand.

“Yeah,” I murmur.

The rain slows to a soft and
steady drizzle, so we no longer need urgent shelter. I stand and let the water
wash over me, clearing the mud from my face and clothes. I open my mouth and
let it fill, then uncap the bell jar and do the same. For a while, we just
stand there, in the rain, letting the sky have its way. When we finally get
moving again, I don’t know which way is west. Xander doesn’t either, though
he’s happy to point and pretend like a dick. I reach for my compass, swiping my
fingers around my neck, chest, even under my shorts. It’s not there. It’s
nowhere. I inhale sharply. Now I
am
going to cry.

Xander frowns. “What is it?” he
asks.

“This is bad,” I say, completely
monotone.

“I know, I think I’m ready to
drown.”

“No, Xander. I lost my compass.”

“
What
?” His eyes are
the size of saucers.

“I. Lost. My. Compass!” I
enunciate, tears brimming in my eyes.

“Oh, shit.”

“
Yeah,
shit,” I snap.

“In the mud?”

I drop to my knees, kneeling down
in the sludge, and comb through it with my fingers. Xander does the same. I
pull up pebbles, and a couple of beetles, but no compass. My heart sinks. How
could I be so stupid? How could I lose my most treasured possession? And more
importantly, without it, how the eff am I gonna get home at all? I know my
directions about as well as the average toddler, and Xander’s no better. We
are, in a word, screwed.

For a few seconds, I want to lie
there and die, let the rain wash my body away, never to be seen again. A
heartbroken ache washes over my chest.

 Just when I think I can’t
take any more, the rain turns to hail. Lethal, icy, ping-pong ball hail. I feel
like the sky has become one giant, gray jawbreaker dispensary, because they’re
coming down on us like it’s their freaking
job
.

Again, I run. Xander scampers
after me. The mud is so thick it’s like jogging in quicksand. It grabs at our
feet. We’re not sure where we’re going, no idea which direction, no trees in
sight. It’s like we stumbled upon a giant, human-sucking wasteland. And then,
out of nowhere, it ceases and the whole earth is white.

It’s unsettlingly quiet now that
the hail has ended and a hush has settled over the land. I fall to my knees,
breathless, as Xander looks every which way, trying to figure out where we
should head.

“
Jackie
,” he says,
panting.

“What?” I manage.

“
Look
.”

At first, all I see is yards of
white hail unfolding over the plains. But then, out in the distance, set like a
beacon over the sea, I notice a tiny farmhouse, lights blazing.

“Oh, thank God, oh my God,” I say,
tears pooling in my eyes.

Xander grabs my hand, yanking me
to my feet, and drags me toward the house. It looks like new
construction—built within the last year or two—but like it was
modeled after the houses of the 1700s. There are low, carefully crafted gables
over the windows, and rippled glass like it was manufactured before factories
perfected the process. The lights that cast a surreal yellow glow over the hail
fields aren’t the world’s LED standards, but antique gas lanterns flickering in
the breeze. I’m scared to knock—my ingrained fear of psychotic strangers
still intact—but Xander struts right onto their unadorned porch and
pounds heavily on the door. I hang back a few feet from the stoop and notice a
couple of little kids peering down at me through an upstairs window
—
one Asian, one
Latino. They smile and hide when they see I’ve spotted them.

Just as Xander’s fist is set to
thud again on the wood, the door swings wide open. An older man with a long, gray
beard and dancing blue eyes smiles at us.

“Well, hello,” he says, his voice
deep and inflected with an odd, lilting accent. “We’ve been expecting you.”

Xander frowns. “Really?” he says.

“Come in now and dry off. You must
be freezing.”

The man is wearing old-school,
simple black boots, slacks, a blue-and-white-striped button-down shirt, and blue
suspenders framing both sides of his long beard. He steps back and swings the
door wide open to let us pass. “Yessir, we had a sign from above you’d be
coming. Two new flowers on Ezekiel's tree,” he says, pointing out the window at
a tree with six pink and white blossoms open to the sky standing on a blanket
of white hail. “Every time a new person comes, that tree lets us know ahead of
time. We get lots of signs from above, you know. We just have to be aware
enough to see them.”

“Uh,
yeah
…
” Xander says. “Where are
we?”

“You’re in Fairweather,
Pennsylvania. I’m Joseph Bender.”

“And I’m his wife, Annie,” a
diminutive, gray-haired woman says as she strides out of the kitchen, her
cheeks as big as apples. She, too, is dressed in simple clothing like she
stepped right out of a catalogue from 1886. “You must be famished. And wet. Joseph,
get a fire going. Come with me, let’s get you out of those things.” She leads
us to the bottom of a tiny stairway. “Heavens! I almost forgot. What are your
names?”

“Oh, I’m Jackie. Jackie Dunne,” I
say, eyeing Xander expectantly. He’s still taking the house in. It’s amazing to
see a place that’s intact, and this one is fascinating, mostly because nothing
in it is even remotely modern. Everything, from the simple flickering candlesticks
to the braided rag rug, looks like it was made centuries ago. The air inside
the house smells like warm apple pie, a scent so delicious it brings tears to
my eyes. I poke Xander in the stomach.

“Oh! I’m Xander. Hi.”

“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet
you,” she says, her voice soft and sweet. “Come on upstairs with me, and we’ll
get you a fresh change. Mario! Eunice! Come out here for a second. I want you
to meet some special people.”

A door swings open at the top of
the stairs, and two kids run out—the same ones that peeped out at me from
the window. Their smiles are huge. Mario wears a tiny version of Joseph’s
outfit
—
simple
slacks and a long, buttoned shirt with blue suspenders. Eunice has long, raven-black
hair in fishtail-braided pigtails and wears a romper. I’d say she’s about five.
Mario must be eight or nine. They’re totally adorable.

“Youngsters this is Jackie and…Xander,
was it?”

He nods.

“They just came in from that
hailstorm, so you be on your best behavior.”

“Yes, ma’am,” they say in unison.
Mario is fidgety as heck. Eunice is half hiding behind a banister, all shy
smiles.

“We think their parents died in
the Reckoning,” Annie says softly, just to us. “Poor things were dropped off
here by total strangers who’d found them and couldn’t take care of them.
Mario’s been here a few weeks. Eunice came just a couple days ago.”

“Wow,” I say. “Crazy.”

“We’ll take anybody in, poor
things. Because we’ve rejected most technology and lived simply for hundreds of
years, the families in our Order survived just fine, so it’s the least we can
do. We need some fresh blood in our gene pool, anyway.”

“I’m sorry, your order? What do
you mean by that?” I ask, as she leads us into yet another simple, tidy room.
This one has a tiny twin bed and a ceramic water pitcher on the oak bureau next
to it.

“Ha! You must not be from around
here,” Annie says.

“No, I’m from Oregon. He’s from
Montana. We came from the east. We were at camp when, uh, everything happened.”

“Well, we’re the Amish you’ve
probably read about in books.”

“Oh! Cool,” I say, then feel like
an idiot. Do the Amish say words like “cool”?

“Ours is a new Order—we
broke off from the Old Order just a few years ago to help combat global warming,”
Annie says. “Our goal is to teach the world what we know, so they can go home
and lead simpler, greener lives. We even have our own Ordnung—our rule
book—that teaches simple living. Some Amish say teaching is showy, but we
think our reasoning would be all right with the Almighty.”

“Well, simple living is
everybody’s way now,” Xander says. I look at him with my eyebrows raised. He
barely talks to me about this stuff, and here he is preaching to the choir.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,”
Annie says softly. “But once the pesticides of modern farmers encroached on our
farmland—killing off the bees for our honey, our crops, bringing cancer
and blight—we knew we had to do something. Anyway, enough of that talk.
Xander,” she says, lifting some clothes from a trunk. “You may wear these. They
belonged to Ezekiel, our son, who’s now buried under that tree out front.”

I look over at him, and his eyes
are glistening like they’re about to shed a tear or two. It’s so weird to see,
because he’s normally so tough. “Thank you,” he says. “I’m so sorry to hear
about that.”

“It was the way of the Lord, but
he was our one and only. We sure miss him. Got leukemia just a few years after
that benzene chemical spill at the factory in town,” she says, looking down at
her hands for a few seconds too long. “You can wash up using that water in the
pitcher there. Jackie dear, come with me.”

We leave Xander to dress and walk
to another room, this one a little bigger than the first. It must be her and
Joseph’s. The mattress looks old and caved in the middle, but it’s covered with
a pretty hand-stitched quilt. The few clothes in the closet are all black or
navy, plain as plain, but her slips are all different colors: beet red, apple
green, corn yellow. She gives me her one spare dress to wear and leaves me
alone to change. I notice a mirror across the room, over a chest of drawers. I
race to it and gasp the second I see myself. I hardly recognize the girl in the
reflection, the creature looking back at me. I’m so painfully skinny, but toned.
I didn’t even know I had some of the muscles that are popping out now. My skin
is so tan I could have been born hundreds of miles closer to the equator than
Oregon. I’m covered in flecks of dirt. My hair is caked with mud, matted down
on my neck and back in dirty, Rasta-looking clumps. But what really startles me
is my eyes. They’re such a piercing blue they almost look neon. Maybe all the
other things I had back home—all the makeup and colorful outfits I wore everyday—made
them less noticeable.