Bird box

Don enters the room. He sits in the easy chair, then gets up and leaves. Olympia comes downstairs. She looks for something under the sink in the kitchen. Malorie watches her as she realizes she’s already holding what she seeks. She heads back upstairs. Cheryl is back, checking the picture frames. She just did this. She’s doing it again. They’re all doing it again. Nervously passing through the house, trying to occupy their minds. They hardly speak to one another. They hardly look up. Getting water from the well is one thing, and the housemates worry about one another when they do. But what Tom and Jules are doing is almost impossible to suffer.

Malorie stands up and heads for the kitchen. But there is only one place in the house that feels less like the house. Malorie wants to go there. She needs to. To get away.

The cellar.

Felix is in the kitchen but he does not acknowledge her as she passes. He doesn’t say a word as she opens the cellar door and takes the stairs down to the dirt floor beneath.

She pulls the string and the light comes on, illuminating the space as it did when Tom showed it to her two months ago. But it looks different now. There are fewer cans. Fewer colors. And Tom is not here, making notes, counting in rations the amount of time the housemates have before starvation and desperation arrive.

Malorie steps to the shelves and distractedly reads the labels.

Corn. Beets. Tuna. Peas. Mushrooms. Mixed fruit. Green beans. Sour cherries. Lingonberries. Grapefruit. Pineapple. Refried beans. Vegetable blend. Chili peppers. Water chestnuts. Diced tomatoes. Plum tomatoes. Tomato sauce. Sauerkraut. Baked beans. Carrots. Spinach. Varieties of chicken broth.

She remembers it feeling crowded down here. The cans once looked like a wall of their own. Now there are holes. Big ones. As if a battle occurred, and their supply was targeted first. Is there enough food to last until the baby comes? If Tom and Jules do not return, will the remaining stock carry her to that dreaded day? What exactly will they do when they run out of canned goods? Hunt?

The baby can drink her mother’s milk. But only if her mother has eaten.

Caressing her belly, Malorie walks to the stool and sits.

Despite the cool air down here, she is sweating. The restless footsteps of the housemates are loud. The ceiling creaks.

Wiping her hair from her forehead, Malorie leans back against the shelves. She counts cans. Her eyelids feel heavy. It feels good to rest.

Then . . . she drifts.

When she comes to, Victor is barking upstairs.

She sits up quickly.

Victor is barking. What is he barking at?!

Crossing the cellar quickly, Malorie climbs the stairs and rushes into the living room. The others are already here.

“Cut it out!” Don yells.

Victor is facing the windows, barking.

“What’s happening?” Malorie demands, surprised at the panic in her own voice.

Don yells at Victor again.

“He’s just edgy without Jules,” Felix nervously says.

“No,” Cheryl says. “He heard something.”

“We don’t know that, Cheryl,” Don snaps.

Victor barks again. It’s loud. Sharp. Angry.

“Victor!” Don says. “Come on!”

The housemates are gathered close to one another in the center of the living room. They are unarmed. If Cheryl is right, if Victor thinks something is outside the house, what can they do?

“Victor!” Don yells again. “I’m gonna fucking kill you!”

But Victor won’t stop.

And Don, yell as he might, is as afraid as Malorie is.

“Felix,” Malorie says slowly, staring at the front window. “You told me there was a garden outside. Are there any tools?”

“Yes.” Felix is staring at the black blankets, too.

“Are they in the house?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you get them?”

Felix turns toward her and pauses. Then he leaves the room.

Malorie goes through the items of the house in her mind. Every furniture leg is a potential weapon. Every solid object ammunition.

Victor keeps barking and it’s getting worse. And in the brief spaces between his barks, Malorie hears Felix’s anxious footsteps, searching for the paltry garden tools that might protect them from whatever it is that’s out there.

twenty

It is noon the next day. Tom and Jules have not returned.

Tom’s twelve hours have been more than doubled. And with each one, the emotions within the house grow darker.

Victor still sits by the blanketed window.

The housemates were up late, gathered together, waiting for the dog to stop barking.