After the Fall Read online

  Duncan led the horses over to the back porch of the house, tying their reins loosely to the railing. Slowly he walked over to where Taylor knelt, not wanting to startle her but hoping his nearness would comfort her somehow. She did not acknowledge him, but he knew that she knew he was there, and that was enough.

  He read the names on the markers, the simple act offering up both his respects and a prayer for their souls. Taylor reached out a hand, touched the swollen grass before her, clutching then releasing her fist upon one grave, then the other. Her sobbing subsided, replaced with what, Duncan did not know. He watched as she kissed her fingers and then reverently transferred the kiss to each of the markers, a clear good-bye. Then she stood and turned toward him, full of power and grace. Duncan thought she might push him away, might retreat to that dark place that had consumed her for so long. But he could see in her eyes none of the darkness he feared for her. They held sorrow to be sure, but her face was open, a mixture of grief and peace, as if she could finally let herself rest. Clearly, her parents had died months ago.

  Duncan risked reaching out a hand and settled it on her shoulder, still unsure of how she would react even to such a tentative offer of support. She reached her hand up and covered his, squeezing it gently in gratitude. In that moment, Duncan knew that no matter what else they found in Asheville, Taylor would really and truly be all right.

  “They must have died early on,” she said quietly, turning back to gaze down upon the final resting place of her parents. “Back when folks were still burying their dead.”

  “Then there’s still hope,” Duncan offered.

  “Yeah. My sister’s place is about a mile from here. We should head there next.”

  “Don’t you want to go inside?” Duncan asked, nodding toward the house. “There might be things you want to take with you. Mementos and such.”

  “No,” she said wistfully, staring up at the house one last time. “Let it rest in peace. I have my memories. That’s enough.”

  Duncan nodded, knowing that Taylor had found all she had needed to find. He untied the horses, and they mounted Stu and Goldie, heading off toward her sister’s home.

  This time Duncan did not wait by the side of the house when Taylor went around back. This house, too, was devoid of life, and they knew what they would find. Just as at her parents’ place, two makeshift gravestones marked the backyard, crosses of wood lovingly etched with the names of Taylor’s sister and brother-in-law. Taylor’s ritual was the same, and Duncan gave her time to weep upon their graves. She offered them her final kiss good-bye and turned back to Duncan.

  “My brother lives on the other side of town,” she said, taking the reins back from Duncan.

  “Do you want to wait a while? Take a break or something?” Duncan feared racing off only to find one more gravesite, and along with it the end to Taylor’s entire family.

  “I’m fine. But thanks. Unless you think the horses need a break?”

  Duncan thought Taylor was simply in denial, that she was beginning to shut down despite what he had thought earlier, but he soon realized her concern for the horses was real. As long as she was feeling concern for something, Duncan reasoned, she was still doing okay.

  “No, I think they’re fine. We can go if you’re ready.”

  They headed off toward Taylor’s brother’s home, and the last of Taylor’s hope for her family.

  It took more than an hour to reach the far side of town. They rode past home after home, storefront shops and churches, all of which showed absolutely no signs of life. Although the town looked like a bigger version of the one he grew up near, it reminded him more of the ruins of some long-lost civilization he had studied in school than a once-thriving town. Wherever the group of survivors was that had helped Adam and his family, Duncan could see no sign of them.

  They reached the outskirts of town, where there were fewer houses and more open land. On a street called Maple, about halfway down the block, they found Taylor’s brother’s home. This time, Taylor did not dismount at the front of the house. She barely even paused before leading Stu around to the back. Unfortunately, the change in ritual did nothing to change the outcome. Four graves awaited them in the back, the wooden crosses rising up from the earth, silent witnesses to the end.

  Taylor slid down from Stu and made her way over to the graves. Duncan dismounted and took hold of the horses, giving Taylor her space. He looped the reins over a low but sturdy branch of a nearby tree. This was truly the end, then, Duncan thought, saddened even though he was not surprised. He mourned for Taylor’s family, mourned for Taylor. All he could hope for now was that these graves would bring her more than despair and heartache. That somehow, someway, they would allow her to get on with her life.

  Taylor rose from her knees, and Duncan took his cue, softly approaching. She remained facing away from him, her attention focused on the four grave markers. He squeezed her shoulder, letting her know he was there.

  She looked up at him weakly, her face a mask of anguish. She worked to regain some sense of composure. Duncan could feel her willing herself to take control, to realize that nothing had changed, that they had known this was going to be the result as soon as they had found her parents’ graves. That the peace was in the knowing.

  She drew herself straighter. “I’m okay.”

  Duncan nodded, releasing her.

  “What do you want to do now?” Duncan asked. “Should we keep searching for the survivors Adam talked about? Try to find out what happened?”

  She stared off into the distance for a long moment, and Duncan wondered if she was saying good-bye to all that she now knew she had lost. She turned back to him.

  “We head home. There’s nothing left for me here.”

  He wondered if maybe they should wait, allow Taylor to take more time given all that had happened, maybe try and get some answers from the survivor colony. But then he wondered what he would want to do if it had been him in Taylor’s place, and he realized he would feel the same as she seemed to feel. The only answers that mattered were the ones she had found in the graves of her family. The details were not important now. He handed her Stu’s reins.

  “We should find some place to bunk down for the night, before the rain lets loose,” he said as they walked back around toward the front of the house. Taylor started to reply but her words died as a man with a shotgun stepped directly into their path, his gun pointed square at Duncan’s chest. The only thing that surprised Duncan more than that shotgun was what came out of Taylor’s mouth.

  “Nate?”

  Chapter Thirty

  I stare into the face I have known since childhood, that now seems unrecognizable and unbelievable and yet familiar and real all the same. This is my family, and it has survived. It has not all been in vain.

  “Taylor? My God…”

  His voice is scratchy and disbelieving, his eyes worn and bloodshot. He lowers the shotgun, still gripping it tightly as if it is the last thing he has to hold on to. I can tell he has lost weight even though he’s always been skinny, and rough, patchy stubble lines his face. He never could grow a proper beard.

  “Nate?” I say again, trying to get my brain to accept that he is really here, standing in front of me, alive.

  “Taylor? Is that…are you really here?”

  I lunge for him, flinging my arms around his neck and squeezing with every ounce of strength I have. I need to know he is real, touch him with my own hands, feel his lungs expand and contract, his heart beat. He returns the embrace, wrapping his arms around me, the shotgun now held loosely in one hand. We have never been all that close, our ages and temperaments too similar for us to appreciate our differences, but none of that matters now.

  “My God,” he says. “My God.”

  I pull back, just enough to see his face. I study the lines and memorize the features, as if he will disappear at any moment, and all I’ll have left is the image scratched into my mind. Tears spring up in his eyes. I have only once seen my brother c
ry, and I can’t help the tears that answer in my own eyes.

  “Look at you. You look pretty good for a survivor.” He strokes my cheek, pausing to trace the scar under my eye. His eyes crinkle, as if he realizes he might have spoken too soon.

  “Best diet ever,” I say breezily, trying to shuffle past his discovery. We might not be close, but he can still read me like a book, and he nods. There will be time for details later.

  Dunk coughs, announcing himself.

  “Oh, Nate, this is my friend Duncan. Duncan this…this is my brother, Nathan.”

  “Nate,” my brother says, reaching out his hand.

  “You can call me Dunk.”

  I smile at that.

  Nate glances at the horses. “Where in the world did you come from, Taylor?”

  I laugh. “It’s a long story.”

  “I’m sure it is,” he says with a chuckle. He sobers. “We thought you’d gotten caught by the bomb.”

  “I got out just before. Was trying to make my way here. I…I got hung up. But I finally made it.”

  “Mom and Dad would be proud.”

  I have to know. “What happened, Nate?”

  “Mom and Dad were already sick the last time they talked to you. They didn’t want to worry you. We took care of them as best we could, but…Well, you know. They went about the same time. I was grateful for that. I buried them underneath that old tree. I thought Mom would like it there.”

  Of course it had been Nate. My heart sinks at what it must have been like for him. I see recognition on Dunk’s face. He understands better than I ever will what it means to bury your parents with your own two hands.

  Nate tells me how our sister got sick next, but she lingered, even after her husband had gone. Nate had buried them, too. Nate’s wife and young son had fallen last.

  “But the graves,” I say, remembering. I search his face for some answer. “There were four graves. You have a headstone.”

  “Oh, Taylor, I’m so sorry,” he apologizes. “Lily begged me to do that. She didn’t want her mom and brother to think we abandoned them.”

  “Wait,” I say, struggling to put the pieces together. “You mean…Lily?”

  “She didn’t get sick. She’s alive, Taylor.”

  The image of that little girl’s face fills my mind, and relief washes over me.

  “Come on.” Nate turns on his heel and strides down the street. Dunk and I hurry after him, anticipation surging in my blood. We reach the end of the street, which dead ends in a cul-de-sac. And there, peeking out of windows and screen doors, are the survivors of Asheville.

  Nate is already calling out to them, telling them it is okay, that Dunk and I are no threat. Slowly they come out into the world to meet us, uncertain but full of hope. They are young and old, mostly men and a few women, a microcosm of the residents of Burninghead Farm. And there, among the children hiding nervously behind adult legs, is my niece. I haven’t seen her in more than a year, and with everything she has been through, I wonder if she will even remember me. But as her eyes settle upon my face, recognition dawns and she shoots forward, all hesitation gone. She runs straight into my arms, and I scoop her up in a mighty hug.

  “Hey there, sweetheart,” I sigh into her hair, holding her close. Her arms tighten around me, and for the first time in a long time, I offer up a silent prayer of thanks.

  The next little while is a blur of hellos and handshakes, and before I know it, we’re sitting around in lawn chairs, drinking and eating and talking. To the casual observer, it might have seemed like a typical neighborhood barbecue, except for the warm beer and stale potato chips and the lack of any real food. They’d managed to siphon off enough gas from abandoned cars over the months to run a couple of generators, but food had become a problem. They had exhausted their rations for the day, so the real food would need to wait for tomorrow.

  “There’s just not much left to salvage around here,” a man named Bill says, taking another swig of his beer. “There’s gas enough to leave, and water, but without a place to go…”

  “Better to try than to stay here and starve.” This from Simon, whose frustration is obvious.

  “You know we can’t,” a woman named Sharon says, glaring at Simon. “Not with the children.”

  “You’d rather they die here?” Simon retorts.

  Clearly this debate has been raging for some time, and everyone is entrenched in their positions.

  “No one wants to die, Simon,” Nate says finally. He stares off after Lily, who is running in circles with the other children, chasing imaginary butterflies. “The choice is the same today as it was three weeks ago. We stay here and wait for the food to run out completely, or we go out in search of something we might not be able to find. Neither option is good, but we’re going to need to choose one sooner or later.”

  “I think we can help,” I say. All attention turns toward me. “With a destination, anyway. You can come back with us.”

  “Come back where?” It is Nate who asks the question.

  “Burninghead Farm. In Indiana. That’s where we came from,” Dunk supplies.

  “That’s where I’ve been, Nate. Not the whole time, but for a while.” I rush my words, desperately needing to apologize for my failure. “I spent months walking, Nate. I thought you all were dead, that Asheville was gone—”

  “It’s okay, Taylor,” Nate assures me, but I do not hear him.

  “But then I found out people had survived, and I came to find you. I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner—”

  Nate comes over to kneel before me, taking my hands in his own. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

  I swallow hard and accept his words as truth. He doesn’t forgive me, because he doesn’t need to. He is telling me there is nothing to forgive, and with that, I am finally able to begin to forgive myself.

  “So this farm of yours…” Bill says, trying to lead the conversation back.

  “Right,” I say, swiping the tears away. Nate stands by my chair, his hand resting on my shoulder. “We have a pretty big survivor colony there, nearly fifty of us. We’re pretty self-sustaining. The man who runs the place, Buck, has things set up well.”

  “And anyone is welcome,” Dunk adds.

  “Would there be enough room for all of us?” Sharon asks hopefully.

  “It’ll be tight, but we’ll find a way. Buck and I talked about it before we left.” I look up at my brother. “Come back with us.”

  Nate surveys the small group, which has grown to include everyone as the conversation has gone on. Scared yet hopeful faces look back at him. Clearly Nate has become the leader of this little band. My heart swells with pride.

  “Okay then,” he says finally, the decision made. “If we’re going to leave here, then we’ve got a lot of work to do. We’d best get some sleep and start early tomorrow. We’ll meet up at eight to start planning.”

  The party breaks up with everyone returning to their respective quarters. Dunk and I go with Nate and Lily once Dunk has settled the horses in around back. After nearly a week on the ground, it feels good to sleep in a real bed, even if I am shoved into the wall with my niece pressed in beside me. Lily insisted that I sleep in her bed, and I couldn’t have said no if I had wanted to. The look on Nate’s face told me all I needed to know about how much Lily missed her mother, and so for a night I become her surrogate mom.

  Shortly after dawn, the group begins making its preparations. It is quickly decided that given the children and the cold, we will need to drive to Burninghead Farm. That proves to be much less difficult than I might have imagined, with the stockpile of gas they’d stored. I know that driving will be too fast for the horses to keep up, but I push that thought off to the side, deciding to worry about it later. Dunk goes out with Simon and another man to requisition two large vans to accommodate everyone, while everyone else works to pack up a few possessions and the remainder of their supplies. It takes two days to get everything ready, mostly so the children have enough
time to adjust to leaving behind what they have grown used to, and we decide to leave early the next morning. The vans sit ready in the cul-de-sac, looking like a gypsy caravan with their burdens of bags and boxes strapped to every square inch of their roofs.

  “Taylor, come out front,” Nate shouts to me from outside the house. I push open the screen door to find the best surprise of my life. Parked next to the vans is an old, beat-up pickup truck with a horse trailer big enough for Goldie and Stu.

  “Dunk mentioned he was worried about getting the horses back, so I sent one of the guys out to the Johnson place to borrow one of their trailers.”

  Leave it to Dunk to take care of things. Thank God Kate and Buck had been stubborn enough to insist that Dunk come with me. Even though I had been worrying about the horses, I had never even considered mentioning it to Nate or thought of using a trailer to bring the horses back.

  The next morning we leave Asheville, heading for home. What had taken Dunk and me nearly a week takes our traveling caravan a matter of hours. I ride with Dunk in the pickup, Stu and Goldie tucked safely away in the trailer.

  As the miles fly by, I think about all I have gone through, all I have seen and all I have done since leaving DC. My father’s voice over a broken phone line, John and Claire and Melanie and the rest I could not help, the terrible things Jacob did to me, Tim dying in my arms, that old woman I buried behind her home, the nameless places where I found brief respite and the nameless faces who tried to hurt me, the smell of rotting flesh near the cities and the serenity of the open fields where crops wasted away, all the days I wanted so desperately to give up but kept pushing on…These things are no longer stones in the wall I use to defend myself, but are the foundation upon which I will build my future.

  When I arrived at Burninghead Farm, I thought it would be like any other place I had passed through on my journey home. The journey was my only purpose, my rules were my only guide, and Mugsy was my only friend. I was not looking for anything more, but I found it all the same. I found a new home, and a family, and a woman who made me dream of something better, when I no longer believed such a thing was possible. And now, finally, I understand what Kate said to me about choosing hope over fear. Survival means nothing if you don’t have something to live for.