The World Without Flags

And two have entered a different state. They have come out of the fever, but they are not themselves any longer. They just stand all day and do nothing. Rhonda and Sam. They are both a lot older than me. I knew them in the way that everyone here knows each other, but they weren’t close to me. I always thought that the Homestead was so small that we all knew each other way better than we should, but I know differently now. Even in such a small group, we tend to form smaller and smaller groups. The Worm has exposed all the fine cracks that separate us. And I see now, as they all die, how little I really knew any of them.

Rhonda lived in the farmhouse and worked with Crystal in the kitchen. She was quiet, but good-humored, and when I was younger, she always let me in the back door and gave me an oatmeal cookie. She was small and plump and she liked to wear bright colors. Her face was always covered in red blotches and some of us used to call her Patches behind her back. All she did here was make sure we had food to eat. She got up every morning to cook for us, to preserve what she could, to make sure nothing went to waste. I cannot remember a single thing more about her than this.

Sam Jackman was one of the few people here that is (or was) truly lazy. He didn’t do anything. He was always complaining about his back or his constant headaches, but he was always first to sit down at the Lodge for meal time. He was always first with his opinions too, and liked to give them sitting back in his chair with his legs crossed, looking over at us from this position like we were fortunate to listen to his wisdom. He was also lecherous and handy and all of us girls knew to keep away from him. Most of us ignored him. Despite all the evidence, Sam seemed to be convinced he was the greatest thing ever to happen to the Homestead.

Now he’s standing in the corner of the quarantine house, his mouth hung open. Sometimes a little white worm rolls off his tongue and falls wriggling to the floor. He bangs his forehead against the wood sometimes, not hard though. Like he’s knocking. His eyes are black with knots of white worms in the corners.

We’re meeting in the Lodge. We’ve come to talk about what to do with them, the ones who are on duty.

I want to say that it’s a careful discussion, but it’s not. We’re beyond exhaustion. Our hearts don’t do anything but pump blood anymore. I don’t feel a damn thing. I haven’t since I saw Crypt get shot. I don’t think anyone else has either. It’s me, Franky, Norman, and Crystal who make the decision. Franky leads Sam and Rhonda out to where we’re going to burn them. They walk wherever we lead them, shuffling oddly. They don’t resist. When they get to the wood pile, they just stand, swaying slightly. Crystal shoots Rhonda first, pressing the gun in the back of her skull for a second before pulling the trigger. Crystal sobs as Rhonda collapses at her feet. Sam doesn’t move, just stares dumbly into the distance, his mouth hung open stupidly. Norman shoots him once in the back of the skull. Then they drag them onto the pyre and I walk forward with a burning length of wood from the stove. I push it into the seasoned wood and it starts to burn. I get the awful thought that we are wasting a lot of good wood and will have to pay for it next winter before I realize what I’m thinking. I cringe at my callousness and step back as the flames begin to set their red teeth into the wood.

As the flames crackle and grow and begin to consume Sam’s corpse, I realize I have no idea how many have died and how many have survived. I stand there dumbly trying to work out the terrible math. But I can’t focus. I’m looking at my hands. They’re dirty. They’re filthy. I look back into the fire and see the fire begin to burn Sam’s hair. Worms come boiling out of his mouth and nose as if trying to flee the flames. Instead they shrink and twist as they combust. My stomach turns. I turn away from the fire and start to walk home. I feel so exhausted, I feel like I too am shuffling forward like they were, hardly alive.

It’s not until I’m fully immersed in the scalding water of the tub that I wonder where Eric has gone. The days have become so filled with horror, I don’t remember when I’ve seen him last. It’s strange he wasn’t there to help us with Rhonda and Sam. I have the sudden certainty that he wouldn’t have let us kill them . He would’ve told us to be patient. And we wouldn’t have done what we did. It’s the first time I realize that what we did might have been wrong. A pang of guilt is replaced with a gut-wrenching need to see Eric, to talk to him, to ask him to forgive me. I lift myself out of the tub and grab a towel. I need to tell him what we did. I need him to tell me it’s all right, that he understands. I throw on some of my last clean clothes and then climb the ladder to the loft.

I smell him before I see him. A horrible, dark, rotten stench of death I have become too familiar with.