The World Without Flags

I come out of the woods and suddenly there’s the lake with the little island in the middle where we used to live. I stutter to a stop and look over the waters, lead gray on this cloudy, cold spring day. The island is like a green emerald on a pewter dish. Sometimes in the summer I swim out to it, go back to the hut that we built that first year. I look at the dirt floor, the cast iron stove that Eric had to build a wooden raft to float to the island. Back then there were still zombies. Back then you couldn’t sleep without worrying one might find you and you’d wake up screaming as it ripped you apart. Living on the island was very difficult but we slept well knowing the zombies couldn’t get to us, huddled together like puppies for warmth. I remember the smell of Lucia next to me and how sometimes Eric would reach out to touch my arm, gently, just to be sure I was still there.

But I should focus. Something is wrong and Eric should know about it as soon as possible. I look around and listen. There’s a chickadee somewhere going chick a dee dee dee. I smell the pine needles and the air is heavy with the humidity from the lake. The water is lapping softly against the bank, driven by the slight breeze in the air. I listen. I hear my own breathing. My heart beats, still thumping from the run and the excitement. The quiet and stillness extends like it’s laying down over the landscape, a phantasm.

Then far off, up a slope to my right, I hear it. Thump. My eyes fly open and I smile. I dart off to my right, following the sound, bounding over fallen trees. I know where he is. There’s another thump. He’s testing the trees, giving them a hit with the butt end of the axe, to ascertain the health of it. Such a waste of time to fell a tree and find it’s hollow or the upper half is rotting. Eric is careful with that. He must be looking for ridgepoles for new houses.

I cover the distance in just a minute, maybe less. When I jump out in front of him, he’s about to swing his axe gently with one hand, and he’s surprised enough to see me that he fumbles the axe, hits the pine tree off center, causing the axe to fall to the ground. His blue eyes fly open at the sight of me and his whole body goes rigid in fear for a second before he sees it’s just me.

“Holy crap, Birdie!” he exclaims. Birdie is my real name, as far as I know, but Eric is the absolute only person allowed to call me Birdie. Eric blows out a big breath, shaking his head. “Don’t do that! I’m going to have a heart attack one of these days!” He reaches for the axe.

Eric is tall and strong. Over the years, his arms have grown very thick, like the trees he cuts down. Ever since Lucia died, he’s grown a beard. It’s not very long, but it’s bushy. I trim it when he lets me. His hair is very dark and longer than I would like. It goes down to his shoulders. People that see him now wouldn’t recognize the Eric that I first met. He was a lot weaker then and much more fragile. Now I think he’s the strongest person I’ve ever known. I don’t think there’s anything that Eric can’t do if he wants to do it. But like all the older ones, he’s haunted. There are days when his eyes go blank as if a terrible veil dropped over them. I can tell he’s remembering people he’s lost. He’s lost inside himself, in his pain, in his past. Those are the days I leave him alone.

“You have to come back,” I tell him.

Eric loses him smile. “What is it?”

“Randal is back and he needs to see you.” I give him a serious look. “Something’s wrong.”

Eric’s smile collapses into a frown.

“Okay,” he says, swinging his axe to his shoulder. “Run back and let everyone know I’ll talk with him in the Lodge.” The Lodge is what we call our biggest house. We built it for gatherings. Eric steps forward. “Have you got it?”

I pull out my knife and show it to him.

“Is it sharp?”

I nod.

“Good,” Eric says. “Be careful, Birdie.”

I just nod and turn away. As I run through the forest, I hear Eric following behind at a trot. I can’t really explain it, but just by the way he sounds moving through the forest, I can feel him thinking. Eric is always thinking. He thinks more than anyone I know.

But there’s no time for thinking about that. I need to focus. Running through a forest is no simple thing. It requires concentration and reflexes sharp as a razor. I duck under a fir bough and then turn around a white birch before I bound up to the path. It’s way easier now. I don’t have to worry about hitting a stone, maybe turning my ankle. That happened to me once before, and it’s no picnic. I’m running as fast as I can now, although as it turns downhill, I miscalculate and have to readjust, my arms flailing. I hit the ground hard enough to jar my poor bones to slow down. Running downhill is the pits. I burst out of the forest and to level ground and speed up approaching the Village.