Bird box

The housemates smile.

Except Don.

Don who declared them dead. Don who was already counting their rations as his own.

In the hall, Tom sets the box of birds on the floor, against the wall. Then the housemates gather in the dining room. Felix gets some water for Tom and Jules. Once they have their glasses in front of them, they tell the story of what they experienced out there.

twenty-three

The moment the door closes behind them, Tom is more afraid than he thought he’d be.

Out here, the creatures are closer.

When we get to the street, Tom thinks, far enough from the house, will they attack us?

He imagines cold hands closing over his own. His throat slit. His neck broken. His mind destroyed.

But Tom is very aware that no report described a man being attacked.

This is the way to think, he decides, still standing on the front porch. Forcing this philosophy deeper into his mind, searching for the soil of its roots, he allows himself to breathe, slowly. As he does, other feelings emerge.

For one, there is the unbridled, slightly reckless, sense of freedom.

Tom has been outside since arriving at the house. He’s retrieved water from the well as often as anyone. He’s carried shit and piss to the trenches. But this time it’s different. The air feels different. Just before he and Jules agree to start walking, a breeze passes over them. It moves across his neck. His elbows. His lips. It’s one of the strangest feelings he’s ever known. It calms him. As the creatures lurk behind every tree and street sign in his piqued imagination, the clean, open air brings him giddiness.

If only for a moment.

“Are you ready, Jules?” he says.

“Yes.”

Like truly blind men, they tap the ground before them with broomsticks. They step from the porch. Within three feet, Tom senses he’s no longer walking on concrete. With the lawn beneath him, it’s as if the house has vanished. He is out to sea. Vulnerable. For a second, he’s not sure he can do this.

So he thinks of his daughter.

Robin. I’m just going to get us some dogs.

This is good. This helps him.

The broomstick passes over what must be the curb and Tom steps onto the concrete of the street. Here he stops and kneels. On his knees, he searches for a corner of the front lawn. He finds it. Then he removes a small wood stake from his duffel bag and jams it into the earth.

“Jules,” he says, “I’ve marked our lawn. We may need the help finding our way back.”

When he rises and turns, Tom bumps hard into the hood of a car.

“Tom,” Jules says, “are you okay?”

Tom steadies himself.

“Yes,” he says, “I think I just walked into Cheryl’s Wagoneer. I feel wood paneling.”

The sounds of Jules’s boots and broomstick guide Tom away from the car.

Under different circumstances, with the sun shining against only his eyelids, with no blindfold and helmet to obscure it, Tom knows he’d be passing through a peach and orange world. His closed eyes would see colors change with the clouds, shift with the shadows of the treetops and roofs. But today he sees only black. And somewhere in the blackness he imagines Robin, his daughter. Small, innocent, brilliant. She is encouraging him to walk, walk, Daddy, farther from the house, toward things that could help those still inside.

“Fuck!” Jules says. Tom hears him fall to the street.

“Jules!”

Tom freezes.

“Jules, what happened?”

“I tripped over something. Do you feel it? It felt like a suitcase.”

Using his broom, Tom traces a wide arc. The bristles come to an object. Tom crawls to it. Setting the broom beside him on the hot pavement, he uses both hands to feel for what is lying here in the middle of the street. It doesn’t take long before he knows what it is.

“It’s a body, Jules.”

Tom can hear Jules standing up.

“It’s a woman, I think,” Tom says. Then he quickly removes his hands from her face.

He rises and the two continue.

It all feels too fast. Things are moving too quickly already. In the old world, discovering a dead body in the street would have taken hours to assimilate.

Yet, they continue.

They cross a lawn until they reach some bushes. Behind the bushes is a house.

“Here,” Jules says. “It’s a window. I’m touching the glass of a window.”

Following his voice, Tom joins Jules at the window. They feel along the bricks of the house until they reach the front door. Jules knocks. He calls hello. He knocks again. They wait. Tom speaks. He worries that in this silent world, his voice might attract something. But he doesn’t see a choice. He explains to any possible inhabitants that they mean no harm, that they’re here to look for more supplies, anything that might help. Jules knocks again. They wait again. There is no movement from within.

“Let’s go in,” Jules says.

“Okay.”