The leaves of the canopy were sapling green. As they flipped and turned in the dry wind, sunlight trickled through them and down into the clearing below, where a little boy inspected the pockets of a dead man.
The man had died of a single bullet through the head, and he lay with his eyes wide open, staring at the long wisps of thin grass surrounding him. Blood drained steadily into the sandy soil around his face.
The boy was like a specter, with a shock of white, bushy hair on his head and tan skin. His movements were small and deliberate, poking and prodding the man’s layers of camouflage clothing, looking for anything dangerous or valuable inside.
There was a photograph of a naked woman in the dead man's vest. All the travelers carried pictures of naked women. The boy studied the image, and slowly outlined her body with his index finger as the dead man watched nearby.
Where did women hide their penises?
The boy had never seen his Mother or his Aunts or Cousins naked, and never thought to ask when they were alive. He knew that men had facial hair and women didn’t, women had breasts and men didn’t... but how could someone pee without a penis?
He looked over at the dead man’s face and admired the color of his hollow eyes. They were a serene blend of green and steel blue. Like his Mother’s. Or were they?
The boy tried to envision his Mother’s eyes, but couldn’t. He could see her face-- her smooth skin and infectious smile, but her eyes were suddenly a mystery.
It had been years since she was gone. He’d grown to be about his brother’s height, and had learned to grow his own food in the gardens and to use the guns to protect himself. But if he ever forgot something, there was nobody around to tell him so. The houses were burned. If his memories decided to mix themselves up then he would never know where reality ended and fantasy began.
He set down the photograph of the naked woman, and began to strip the dead body of all its clothing.
In the beginning, the boy didn’t realize what a difference this could make. But over time, he noticed that the roots liked it better when the flesh was bare. The trees grew faster and taller. The flowers even bloomed a little prettier and the fruit was a little sweeter.
The forest was an organized mess of branches and leaves that the boy had twisted and grown into secret passageways. He was very proud of this project. It only took a few weeks for a tree to grow from seedling to sapling, so he would tie the trunks and branches up with rope and braid them together so that one day they would become sturdy bridges. By the time the trees reached maturity, they could easily support his full weight. The boy could walk up and down the trees and sprint through the canopy from one end of the forest to the other with ease.
The forest surrounded a hulking metal structure, that his family used to call “the armory.” It was a huge, arched building made of metal and covered with large hexagonal plates-- solar panels that were installed before he was born. Visitors often said that the armory looked like a “tortoise shell,” but the boy had never seen a tortoise or its shell before.
In fact, the boy had never left the compound in his entire life.
He asked every traveler if they would take him on their journey, all of them refused.
“A boy like you wouldn’t survive one day in the desert!”
“We got to take care of our own, sorry bud.”
“It’s just not good idea, Adam.”
But why?
He could clean their weapons for them, he could make medicines out of roots and tools from tree branches… he wouldn’t be a burden, he promised. The outside world couldn’t be that scary. All he needed was someone to help guide him through the desert. He could survive in the real world, he was sure of it. But the desert...
One time, a woman came to the forest.
She came with a caravan of soldiers from a land far, far away.
They were on their way toward a supposedly peaceful territory in the West, but how peaceful, they couldn’t be sure. Enhancers, or “vampire’s” as they called them, had destroyed their home country and sent them fleeing into the sea of sand.
“It’s safer for you here, sweetheart,” she’d said.
Her name was Dahlia. She wore beautiful flowing dresses, shining jewelry, and all the soldiers listened to her. Adam liked to follow her around the camp-- so often that the soldiers nicknamed him "shadow," but the woman didn't seem to mind. She would drape her arms around him, hold him like his Mother used to. She had a fragrance that was exotic and delicate.
She ruffled his hair, and talked about how it was soft and white like sheep's, whatever a "sheep" was. The texture was a bit curly, and stuck out at odd angles.
"You remind me of my little brother" she said, smiling, "He’s such a cutie, about your age, too."
"Where is he? Can I meet him?"
She smiled, “maybe some day.”
Adam smiled, “is he in the West?”
She continued smiling, although a little sadly then, “no,” She paused a moment and shook her head, "I miss him dearly. And I may not see him again for a long time. Although, if the Western lands are not as peaceful as they say, then we may be reunited very soon."
She ran her fingers through the boy's hair and was silent for a moment.
The boy leaned into her soft hand, enjoying the sensation of touch. It wasn't something he was used to, but it was something he craved. He couldn't remember the last time he felt so comfortable around another person.
He remembered things that other travelers had said about the West. Other visitors who had stopped by the forest to rest before journeying on into the desert. They used words like "anarchy" and "nuclear."
"The war is still going on in the west," he said, recalling what he was told.
She shook her head, "well, the war is still going on all over. People will use any excuse to kill each other," her tone then turned quieter, more serious. A painful memory had suddenly sprung to mind. One that she'd long buried, of her little brother, and of blood.
She struggled to blink back tears, but they still fell.
Adam watched her carefully. It was a familiar look of sorrow. An expression he knew too well.
"Your little brother is dead," he said.
She answered slowly, a bit surprised, "yes."
They shared a moment of silence.
There was a phrase that people liked to say when talking about death.
'I'm sorry.'
It was a strange reaction. 'Sorry for what?' It wasn't as if they were directly responsible. What would they be sorry for?
But when the boy talked about how his Parents and Brother and Aunts and Cousins and Uncles had died, they would always say it. Automatically, a custom that had lost its meaning long ago.
He had always been eager to say the phrase to someone else, to see what it felt like.
"I'm sorry," he said.
The woman wiped her eyes and smiled, "Thank you, Adam."
Then added, "so am I."
---
The next day, the soldiers got the twitch in their eyes.
It was just a slight movement, you could see when they blinked.
Adam stayed in his cabin behind the armory, and watched them from afar. The cabin was nestled into the back of the armory and perched atop a steep rock formation that few people dared to climb. It was hidden by trees and bushes, and from afar it was totally obscured. But he could see clearly through the front windows at the carnage below.
The twitch got into their shoulders, their arms, until their whole bodies were fidgeting.
He heard shouts, "What's happening!?" "Sargeant!" "Oh my God!!" "Where's the boy!?" and soon their words fell apart to rambling.
One by one, the men doubled over, dropping to the ground like flies. There, they convulsed in piles of wild, flailing limbs. They screamed and gurgled, slowly losing control of their bodies and their minds.
Their brains were changing, readjusting to accommodate the sickness, with some parts shutting down and other parts lighting up with new life.
About 80% of all visitors got the sickness. The air would fill with the sweet scent spores and pollens, released from the trees and flowers, mixing into a deathly fume.
Adam heard a sound at the door.
It was a soft ruffling, pressing up against the wood.
He put his ear against the door and listened.
On the other side was ragged breathing. A low, rattling growl. It was the sound of fingernails scratching at the door, trying to get inside.
He grabbed his pistol and carefully aligned it at the center of the door, where the sound of breathing was heaviest.
A gunshot rang out over the clearing, and all the sick men heard it. It was only a matter of time before they came.
Adam grabbed his machine gun and opened the door. Her lifeless body fell away in a heap, but Adam didn't have time to look. He stepped over the body and climbed up onto the cabin roof. Raising his pistol to the air, he shot a few more times to make sure the rest of them knew exactly where he was.
Soon the afflicted men were all standing, with eyes unseeing, and they poured into the clearing from all directions, with new life, running up the little hill toward the boy.
By then he'd set up the machine gun, like he did many times before, and as the hoard approached he aimed his weapon and let the bullets fly. A barrage of sound filled the air and birds took flight. Even the insects were hushed into silence. When the last man fell, he let go of the gun and Adam was alone again.
---
After stripping the bodies, he dragged the naked corpses through the forest to the edge, where the luscious green grasses were replaced by dry, desert sand.
There he planted each body a few feet apart to give them room.
He buried the woman last.
He thought about it for a very long time, but when he went to pull off her skirt, he felt like the forest was watching him do it and he felt ashamed. He had never seen his Mother naked, or any woman naked.
He planted her far away from the others, on the side of the forest that was closer to his cabin.
The next day, red dahlias had bloomed atop her grave.
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