The World Without Flags

I turn my attention to the others. They are not nearly so together. Curt, who lost his mother and sister, is sitting in a kind of stupor, his food untouched in front of him. Wanda and Luna are sitting together, looking just as lost and confused. Willis and Hubert are sitting next to them protectively. They were never very talkative, but now they seem to have lost all power of communication. Even their eyes are dead. Susie Moore, who usually prattles on like a hen, just sits there, slumped down, her lips quivering, right on the edge of disaster. I see how fragile we are, how fragile we always were. If Eric didn’t need me, maybe I would be more like them, beaten down by grief and shock. As it is, I keep the grief away for Eric’s sake. If I go catatonic like them, Eric will die. They’ll shoot him in the back of the head. I can’t help imagining it. I see Franky shoot Sam. I remember him falling, the smell of smoke in the air. I see Eric then in place of Sam. Then, before I can stop it, I see Artemis in the pyre, her hair smoking and burning. I shake my head of that and focus on the people around me.

They need a leader. I try to soften my perceptions of Franky and Norman. They probably see this too. They see that someone needs to step up. There’s nothing wrong with that. I am only paranoid because I have to lie.

But still. I can’t shake it. I do not trust them.

I’m not used to being seen or paid attention to. I never really thought anyone had any opinion of me, really, not beyond Eric’s shadow. When I see Norman and Franky glance at me, I see that I was wrong. They’re thinking something.

I reach out to touch my knife. It’s there.

32

Franky starts speaking soon. People listen. I mean, they really listen, their bodies tense, their eyes wide open and hungry. They want direction and assurance. Franky tries to give them both. He reads out a list of names. All of them are ashes now. He says we will gather later to turn their ashes into the cemetery soil. He says the flowers are just beginning to sprout there. He says a few words about our grief, our loss, a few words about Diane and Amber.

“But we can’t give up,” Franky says, straightening his back. “We have to keep living. They don’t want us to die. They want us to live our lives and be as happy as we can. So as hard as it is, we have to keep working.”

He talks about the necessity of boiling water, of hauling the wood to keep the boiler going. Franky switches then into organizing jobs and he has a chore for everyone, even me. He even has a clipboard. I’m to help Crystal in the farmhouse. With Rhonda gone, she’ll need someone to help prepare the food. I nod. When he’s done, he puts down his clipboard, and looks serious.

“Eric has left for now,” he says. I guess word has already gotten around because no one seems surprised. A few people glance at me with a variety of emotions, but mostly anger. Eric has always been that way. People need him, but they don’t appreciate him much. “Eric wants time to think about this. I’ve always been willing to give Eric the time he needs to think,” he says, and again, I hear a hidden scorn in the word. “So we’ll be patient with him and do our work until he gets back.” I don’t know if anyone else hears it, but there’s something unmistakable in his tone. Something paternal, like Eric is a wayward son. Not our absent leader at all, but someone who requires patience and even a little pity. From here, I realize, the criticisms will only magnify and grow.

Not that I care. Whoever leads the twenty-odd people who are left doesn’t concern me. I have bigger problems than who gives orders to who in the next few years. But what does concern me is just how quickly it happened and who I have to watch. I think of Eric out in the woods, probably dying of the Worm, and I see just how precarious our position is. If they find him, he’s a dead man. Oh, they’ll be sad when they shoot him.

But he’ll be just as dead.

33

I can’t shirk my duties. I don’t see Norman or Franky around the farmhouse, but I feel like I’m being watched. I can’t lead them to Eric, so I can’t draw attention to myself. I follow Crystal down to the farmhouse where the both of us work like dogs until noon time. All day I want to run to the Land Rover to check on Eric, to make sure he’s okay. To be there when he dies. But I can’t. I have to act like Eric’s gone somewhere to think, and I’ve decided to act a little angry about it, as I’ve observed other people are angry at his sudden disappearance. I have to act like he’s abandoned us when really it’s the other way around. They’ve abandoned him. The only thing that keeps me together is thinking. I’ve got a lot of planning to do.