Chapter Text
August, 2018
There was absolutely no movement by the little white church below. There had been no movement for hours and the deadline had well and truly passed. This happened sometimes: deals fell through. It wasn’t like people could rely on public transport or safe roads to get them places and, frustrating though it was, Joel was somewhat accustomed to this happening. But when they had walked for four days to get out there and it would take that many again to get back without getting paid … well. That tended to test a man’s patience.
He glanced at Tess. They were sitting in a Mr Whippy van, the truck long since rendered incapable of driving or singing or offering soft serve. The passenger side door was so badly dented that they couldn’t get it open, but it hadn’t stopped Tess from finding a way to curl up in the seat to get some sleep. She told him to wake her if he saw any movement down the hill at the Episcopal Church. All he had seen so far were birds.
Bored, Joel adjusted the rear and side view mirrors. He leaned forward and squinted at his reflection. It had been awhile since he’d seen himself. They didn’t have a mirror in their apartment anymore – he’d come home one day to find it gone, a clean square patch on the bathroom wall where once it had been. Tess had traded it for a thermal shirt. That didn’t seem like a very fair trade to Joel, but people wanted what they wanted.
But … Jesus. When had he started looking this old? The greys were coming in stronger now. He was in his fifties, but he hadn’t anticipated going grey yet. His father hadn’t gone grey until very late. Tess was sporting a few long, silvery hairs now, too. She had plucked out the first of these she found and waved it at him.
“This is you. You did this.”
“What, made you start goin’ grey?”
“Kept me alive long enough so that I could.”
“Cute.”
Joel smiled a little to himself in the ice cream truck. She still had a fuckin’ way about her. How long was it now? Fourteen years together? He looked from the church to Tess. That couldn’t be right. There was no way it had really been fourteen years. It didn’t seem possible that they could have come far enough to actually be going grey.
He pumped the window down a little further. The sun was climbing higher and suffocating the countryside with heat. Fresh air drifted into the cab, birdsong. He arched his back away from the seat and felt sweat damping his spine. For about the third time he tried to push the seat back, but it was busted and wouldn’t go. His fingers scraped against something – just some old paper, the same as he’d felt the first two times he had tried to get the seat back. But this time he was bored enough to investigate. Joel pulled it out.
It was a nondescript A4 envelope, spotted with age, but otherwise intact. The sticky seal was still covered with a line of backing paper. Joel reached into the envelope.
At first glance, it was not a particularly engaging find. It was a pile of soft plastic – window decals, he realised, the kind you could peel off and put somewhere else. Maybe Mr Whippy was handing them out to the kids, because most of the designs were of sundaes, colourful ice cream cones, ice cream scoops with disconcerting grins. There were a few bears and a rabbit and …
And a butterfly.
Joel held it up to the light. Sarah had a thing for butterflies. They were all over her room, stickers stuck down to her desk, and she had put one just like this in the kitchen window. Joel tossed the other decals over his shoulder and carefully slid the butterfly back into the envelope and into his pack. Sarah and her butterflies. He hadn’t thought of that in years.
Sarah, running downstairs at full tilt and screaming her four-year-old lungs out. Joel groaned and tossed the face washer in the tub, where it went into a punishing tailspin after catching itself beneath the still-running tap. He sat back on his haunches and pulled his soaking wet shirt away from his stomach. He had to hand it to her. That was a very neat escape.
“Sarah!” Joel called, more amused than angry (and knowing if she heard that it was well and truly over), “Sarah, it’s gotta come off now.”
Two days of glittery butterfly girl. She’d gotten her face painted at the carnival and it had been a good job – strong black lines with aquamarine and purple wings festooned with glitter. He’d acquiesced last night and let her sleep with it on which was a huge fucking mistake, that paint was never coming off her pillow slip and the glitter would be with them until end of days. Her face was a smudgy mess, but Sarah still felt like a butterfly, and she was not prepared to give that up.
Joel stepped out of the bathroom and saw his daughter standing at the bottom of the stairs, face smeared with colour, bent wings on her back, body covered with those fucking paints Tommy had given her for Christmas. Blue and purple, making the transformation complete. He sat on the top step and looked down at her, aiming for stern, landing on laughter. She beamed up at him. Jesus, she even had glitter in her teeth.
“If you come up here now and jump in the tub, we’ll go to the Butterfly House again tomorrow. But you gotta do it now. Or the deal’s off.”
“Tomorrow?”
Nod.
“One sleep?”
Nod.
Sarah spread paint on to the banister and hung back, thinking it through. Then she dashed up the stairs and practically bounced past him on her way to the bathroom. He took a moment to enjoy his excellent parenting and then heard a tremendous splash.
“Oh, shit!” Joel dashed after her and found his worst fears confirmed. Sarah might have finally been in the tub, but the paint was a watery mess over the walls, the floor, the damn ceiling… She looked up from scrubbing her fingers and grinned.
He needed to stretch his legs.
Glancing at Tess, determined not to wake her up, he carefully eased his fingers around the door release and squeezed. He heard the mechanism pop and pushed slightly. It creaked. He hesitated.
“I’m awake,” Tess mumbled, turning to face the other way. “Just go.”
Joel thrust the door open with hand and foot. He paused once out, glancing around, but the lush landscape was silent around him. He was standing uphill from the church in a little four-car pile up between the Mr Whippy van, a cop car and two mashed-up relics that no longer had an identity. The intersection was just off the main highway. One road connected up this highway with the next, running parallel to the church, and the third direction would take them to a small town. It was a pretty area. The church itself was set with its back to the woods and a long, overgrown grassy meadow and lake. A humble cemetery lay at its feet.
Tess and Joel preferred to wait outside the immediate area of where meetings were set to take place. They were suspicious by nature. Meeting them involved being met - they never appeared to be the ones sitting around waiting for the other party to arrive, even though they usually were from a good distance. Using the pile-up wasn’t ideal, it was kind of obvious, but it was the best spot to provide some cover that still had a view of the church. There was no point waiting somewhere you couldn’t see the meeting point.
He stretched, walked around the pile-up, squinted down at the church. He felt the insufferable stagnation of boredom begin to set in. He counted graves at a distance. He tried to count butterfly genus, the way Sarah had when she was nervous, but he couldn’t remember a single one. Finally, sick to death of it all, he leaned back into the van and shook Tess’s shoulder.
“Something’s wrong. Let’s check it out.”
“If something’s wrong maybe we should just get the fuck out?” Tess mumbled. It was hot in the cab and she was muzzy with sleep. She had slept very little the previous evening. “Does that sound like a good idea to you?”
“I walked four days to get here and I’m not walking four days back without getting paid, Tess.”
“Okay.”
“If I’m not getting paid I want to know why.”
“Okay.”
“And if there’s something I can do about it.”
Tess rubbed her face. “Have you got that water there?”
Joel pulled out the canteen and unscrewed the cap, passing it to her. “If we’ve been fucked over there might still be something we can do about it.”
Tess took a few deep mouthfuls. “Nobody left their calling card down there, Texas.” She climbed over the gear box to get out, brushing him aside when he tried to help. “But if you want to play Detective, by all means.”
“I’m just saying we will have walked eight days for nothing if this is a bust.”
“I know what you’re saying.”
“Fuckin’ waste of time.”
“No arguments.”
“And not getting fuckin’ paid.”
Sometimes they could break up their payments so they still got something in high-risk situations if the arrangement didn’t pay off the was it was supposed to: but not always. This was one of those times. Joel watched Tess throw her head back and drink. She splashed a little water down her neck. Tess didn’t get mad – but she always got even. She had Joel to rail for her while she worked out what their next step would be. She rarely wasted time getting angry.
Unless it was with him, of course. Then all bets were off. In fact, in all their fourteen years together, he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her as angry with somebody else as she could get with him.
That made him feel a little better.
They headed downhill. The further down they got the more distance they put between themselves, fanning out in case someone was waiting for them in the church. It didn’t make a lot of sense to lure them here to shoot them from afar, but it never hurt to be very careful.
“One, two princes kneel before you, that’s what I said now,” Joel muttered to himself as he swept around the back. There was nobody in the old cemetery, nobody inside the little church with its cluster of purple plants by the stoop. They were completely alone.
“Tess!” Joel called. “Look at this.”
She came around his side of the church, waving the loose shirt over her singlet to cool herself down. That was one of his shirts, he thought – or at least originally. There was so little going around that it was just better to, wherever possible, trade for clothes that would fit them both. Tess said she didn’t care if she was wearing men’s shirts if it meant they could still get toothpaste or soap. She said she didn’t care what she looked like anymore. Joel said nothing about it to her, but he liked the sharing.
He pointed out flattened grass that had been invisible to them from Mr Whippy. It snaked behind the church and into the grassy field beyond. Tyre tracks.
“Okay, Hercules,” Tess gestured. “Detective away.”
“Who’s Hercules?”
“Poirot. The detective?”
Joel gave her a look. “And that’s the one I get to be?”
“He’s my favourite.” Tess smiled and gestured again. “Allons-y!”
“Wasn’t he Quebecois?”
“Belgian.”
“They speak French in Belgium?”
“Dutch and maybe German, too.”
They followed the tracks. The path swerved crazily and then went straight on. Tess held up her hand. “Oh, wait. I think there’s a lake up here.”
“You’re not sure?” Joel frowned at her. Tess memorised maps whenever she could.
“I remember there being a lake, but I thought it was further away. Maybe it was further away. It’s not like these things are in date anymore, right?”
They proceeded a little more carefully through the flattened grass. The ground stayed firm underfoot. And then – sure enough – there it was. The tyre tracks ended at the edge of a big, deep lake. They stared across the pristine surface. They didn’t have to guess. This was their contact and that had been their car. The lake had eaten them.
“Thoughts, Detective?”
“How the fuck did they end up in the lake?” He looked back toward the church, now well out of view. “Chased? One of them get bit and turn on the other? Good time gone bad?”
“I guess we should just be glad it’s hot.” Tess took off her pack and let it drop. She steadied herself on his shoulder as she kicked off her boots. “This would be a lot less fun if it were cold.”
“Fuck,” Joel muttered. There was no point arguing this. They wanted to get paid. He stared at the lake for a moment and shunted aside his anger. It wasn’t the time. They just needed to get on with this. “I remember it turnin’ out pretty fun last time you took a dip in a cold lake.”
Tess laughed. “Tommy didn’t think so.”
“Well, you were insatiable. What was I supposed to do?”
“Me? I was insatiable?” Tess laughed louder, stripping off her tops. “All I wanted to do was sleep and you couldn’t keep your hands off me.”
“You’re such a fuckin’ liar,” Joel shook his head, mock aghast.
“Get undressed. You’re going in, too.”
Joel unshouldered his rifle and bent to unlace his boots. “Sounds familiar.”
“It’s not like we had anything else to do. Had you fucked anyone else since Outbreak?” Tess brought her pistol closer to the water’s edge and set it on her jeans. She stepped into the lake, testing it out.
“No, ma’am.”
“Well, neither had I. And I had needs, Texas. I had needs.”
“Yeah, I know,” Joel muttered, stripping faster to catch up with her. “Jesus, how many times did I wake up with your lips wrapped round my – Tess, wait. Slow down, okay?”
“I can’t see the car. It’s gone well under. I wonder how deep it is?”
“Deep enough.” Joel stepped into the water. It was refreshing in the shallows, but he had no doubt the belly of the lake would be very cold. “Looks clear though. Clean. Fuck, Tess. Can’t shit just be easy for once?”
“You want a win?” Tess laughed. “Okay.”
“One, two princes kneel before you.”
Tess looked at him, shielding her eyes from the sun with a cupped hand. “You haven’t done that in years.”
“No?”
“No.” She gave her head a firm shake: you know you haven’t. Then she waded deeper until water lapped at her chest. “Stay here. I’ll see if I can find it.”
“The fuck else am I supposed to go?” Joel muttered as Tess neatly divided beneath the surface.
He ducked down and wet his top half, raking his fingers through his hair. It revived him. The kitchen window butterfly lingered in his mind’s eye and he found himself drifting off to the day Sarah had put it there, her stomach pressing into the sink as she leaned over to secure it into place. He had rubbed his thumb against the wing tips she couldn’t reach. He thought he might have been drinking coffee because he remembered the light as being warm and yellow.
Tess surfaced further down and he brought himself to, with some reluctance. “Anything?”
“I see it! It’s not so deep, just over that way a bit more.” She pointed and started paddling.
Joel followed along in the shallows, making the ground on foot before swimming out to meet her. “Anything moving down there?”
“Not sure yet. Maybe fish.”
“Forget it.”
“Was not even going to suggest it. Wait.” She ducked under again.
Well, what was the point in waiting? If he waited, he would just go back to the kitchen. Joel dived down after her.
Light dappled the clear water, which grew colder for every stroke Joel descended. He could see the car. How could he not? It was a beautiful vintage piece that had no business being on the road these days, let alone at the bottom of a lake. Tess swam to the front and took hold of the hood, peering inside. She crouched, bare feet on either side of her hands. Joel could see two figures inside but neither were moving. The windows were wound up and unbroken.
Tess saw him and nodded. She used the hood as a springboard and shot up for the surface. She started talking the instant he emerged a few feet away, gasping for breath.
“Did you see that?! That’s a Chevrolet Chevelle. Do you have any idea how rare they are? They’re valuable!”
“Not anymore.”
“And those assholes just drove her into a lake!”
“Yeah, that’s so different than a big tree, Tess.”
Tess, treading water, gazed expressionlessly back at him. “You were never supposed to know about that.”
“But I do know. I know all about it.” He combed back his hair. “You gonna be all right? Do you need to go sort yourself out before we go on?”
“Oh fuck you.”
Joel laughed. “So did you see the merch?”
“No. I’d say it’s in the trunk. There might be a button in the glovebox.”
“That’s a lot of work. I’ve got the crowbar.”
“Great. Smash the window, hit the release button, use the crowbar to jimmy it open.”
“Let’s if I can get it open without smashing the window.”
“What about water pressure?”
“Better than that glass going everywhere if we can help it.”
“Point,” she conceded. “I’ll get it.”
Tess swam off. He took a breath and looked underneath the surface again. There were no changes to the bodies that he could see. Joel broke for air and turned on to his back. Water lapped over his ears and the buoyancy gave him a rare sense of peace. He watched streaks of cloud meander overhead and thought about Sarah’s butterflies.
Sarah, ten years old, looking out at the field. She so badly wanted to join the Defenders. The soccer thing she’d picked up from one of her friends – Joel couldn’t remember her name, now – but it certainly hadn’t come from him. She’d had to teach him the rules so he could practice with her. And now she stood with a chance to play for her team, scared she wasn’t up to scratch, scared she wouldn’t make the cut and let her friend down.
“Celastrina ladon, Polyommatus icarus, Rhetus periander.”
“Sometimes I think you just make them up,” Joel said, trying to put her at ease. “They just called your name. You got this."
Sarah exhaled and nodded. “Papilo ulysses. I love you.” She jumped the fence and jogged to the centre of the field to line up with the others.
The water stirred around him. Joel moved out of the float and faced Tess, swimming back with the crowbar in hand.
“We’d better hope they packaged shit properly in there,” Tess said, “or we’re still not getting paid.” She gave him the crowbar. “Deep breath.”
Joel nodded. They filled their lungs and submerged in tandem. It was harder swimming down with the same precision when saddled with the drag of a crowbar. He was glad the lake wasn’t so deep. Tess swam ahead, faster, weightless as she glided into the cool depths. She waited for him by the car, long legs scissoring back and forth to keep herself in place. Once Joel was situated before the trunk, she swam behind and held on to his shoulders to help keep him grounded.
It took several tries. Between the water pressure and the very inconvenient requirement to breathe, they had to continually break up the work to swim back to the surface, gasp, and dive again. It was tiring. Complicating the matter as the fact that the trunk wasn’t in great condition, dented and warped and probably difficult to open under normal conditions.
“Fuck!” Joel gulped as they emerged again. “What the fuck are we doing, Tess? This is bullshit. I’m never gonna get that open!”
“Four day walk here and four days back,” Tess reminded him. “You really want to start that journey not knowing for sure there was nothing else we could’ve done?”
“Oh, shut up,” He took another lungful of air and swam back down.
They were getting tired. The next time they surfaced Tess turned on to her back and that looked like a pretty good idea, so Joel followed suit. She reached out and took his hand and they floated like two aging, tired little otters while they caught their breath.
“This is bullshit,” Tess agreed.
“I can get it open,” said Joel. “Just another go or two and we’ll be in.”
“This is not where I saw myself in 2018. You know when people say, ‘where do you see yourself in twenty years?’”
“Yeah, I hate that question.”
“I hate that question, too. But twenty years ago – whenever that was –“
“1998.”
“ – I would not have said, ‘trying to open the trunk of a beautiful Chevrolet Cheville at the bottom of a lake with two dead bodies in the front seat.’”
“With a grumpy old man.”
“’With a grumpy old man who gives the most fantastic head.’”
Joel snorted and felt a pleasant little twitch in his core. “I bet you say that to all the boys.”
“To all the boys, sure. You think I carry on like that for just anyone?”
He started to laugh and Tess squeezed his hand. “Hey! Cut that out. You’re meant to be catching your breath.”
“Then stop fuckin’ talkin’.”
“You ready to go again?” Beat. “I’m talking about the car.”
“ … see, Tess, it’s still not real clear what you’re talkin’ about because I hear you’re total slut for a set of nice wheels. Was the Mr Whippy van a bit much? Were you in some kind of sex coma in there or something?”
He was amazed she’d let him take it that far . Rather than lashing out Tess was just laughing, trying to stay afloat, and rocking with laughter. Tess laughed often: but it was restrained or curt or sardonic. It had been a long time since he heard her lose her shit like this. She took him with her. Unable to float in that state, they bobbed in the water and held on to each other, wracked with laughter and trying very hard not to drown.
Joel pulled her body against his and kissed her soundly. “I’ll look after you later. You ready to do this again?”
They were able to get the trunk open the next time they swam down. There was a big blue duffel bag waiting for them. They each took a side and hauled it out, which proved to be the most difficult part of the whole affair. They each held on to a side and kicked hard to the surface, clutching the precious cargo between them. They dragged it – and themselves – gracelessly on to the bank and lay in the water and the mud and the grass, gasping for air.
“You all right?”
Joel nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s not do that again.”
Tess rolled over and sat up. She squeezed out her ponytail and reached for the bag’s zipper. “I am too old for this shit.”
“Yeah? I thought you looked pretty good.”
“Uh huh.” She dug around the bag. She looked inside and her eyes went dark.
“What?” Joel sat up quickly and pulled the bag toward himself.
The packaging was lazy. The sugar had been stored in paper and all that remained was smudged labels, the granules long since dissolved to nothing. Most of the bag contained a soggy, yellowish matter that Joel suspected had been the maize – useless now, disintegrating. The only salvageable thing was four small plastic bags of yeast. They had gone to all that work to drag up a heavy hoard of nothing. The smattering of yeast wasn’t worth what they could’ve made just staying in Boston.
“FUCK.”
Joel got to his feet and started hauling on his clothes. He was livid. What a colossal fuck-up! Once dressed he went back through the bag again to be sure, tossing the yeast to one side. He noticed Tess was still naked, but she had moved to sit with her arms around her knees.
“Are you gonna get dressed or what?”
“What’s the hurry? Take a breath.”
“What’s the hurry?” he repeated. “I just want to get the fuck out of here, all right?”
“It isn’t personal,” she answered in that same annoying, measured tone. “This has to happen sometimes.”
“Really? Thanks for the powerful fucking insight, Tess, because it seems like this actually happens to us all the goddamn time.”
He stuffed the packages in his bag and when Tess still hadn’t moved, he reached for her clothes.
“If you throw those at me, so help me, Joel.”
He paid attention to her then – and felt his anger, at least toward her, dissipate. She was just as pissed off as he was. Joel picked up the duffel bag and threw it into the water, where it landed with a less-than-satisfying plop.
“Meet you back up there,” Joel muttered.
He picked up his weapons and went back the way they had come. The church stoop was now in shadow and Joel settled there, leaning back and closing his eyes. He’d been sitting there for awhile, trying to shunt aside the useless anger when he caught a new scent. No – not new. It had been there all along, and he hadn’t registered until just now.
Joel opened his eyes and looked straight at the purple plants. Fucking lavender. Joel despised lavender – dried or fresh, didn’t matter, it was such a persistent, bossy stench. But Sarah planted them in abundance down the back of the yard because the butterflies liked them.
He stood up quickly, just as Tess emerged fully dressed from the grassy meadow. She had that look on her face and Joel knew they weren’t going back to Boston just yet.
“What?”
“There was one bag in that car,” she said. “Just one bag. If it hadn’t gone to shit for those guys, what would we have said when they put one bag down?”
Joel straightened up. “’Where’s the rest.’”
Tess nodded slowly. “’Where’s the rest.’ Right. So where is the rest?”
They had been so preoccupied with the mystery and the car and the swim that they had almost overlooked this very obvious, very important point. They hadn’t definitively known how many bags of merch they were coming to collect, but one? Just one? That was suspicious. And the way the ingredients had been packed in there like a sample case … it was the taster.
Tess pulled out her map and spread it against the church wall. “What’s close? It has to be close.”
“There was that town.”
“Maybe.”
“First place someone’d look.”
“Didn’t see anything this way.”
“That gas station was burnt out.”
“Building behind it.”
“Possibly.”
“Couldn’t hide the car.” Tess knocked her hand on the church door. “Hm?”
“Too close.”
But if they spent the next few days searching the surrounds and then came back here in desperation … well, that would be excruciating. So out of necessity rather than expectation they broke in and checked it out. The bags weren’t there, and neither was anything else except a handful of skeletons.
Joel rubbed his eyebrow and sighed. “Let’s get on with it.”
So they ate a quick lunch and struck out in the first direction that seemed like it might plausibly yield result. The paved road offered no clues as to which way the car might have come. They didn’t see any skid marks, but they did spot some broken glass which might have connected with the damage to the trunk. Unfortunately, neither of them could remember if a tail light was broken. And neither of them were invested enough in solving the mystery beyond finding the fucking merch to swim back down there and check.
But there were subtle markers out there that could at least cancel out searching some of the buildings they encountered. Any driveway that was fully grown over was ignored. They knew these people had access to a vehicle, and it would’ve trampled the vegetation. They walked right by those places without pause or debate. They spoke little: they were hot, tired and increasingly irritated with the situation in which they found themselves.
It was a long day.
“Okay,” Tess said as the sun began to dip toward the horizon. “How bad is it if we just cut our losses?” Beat. “Okay, that bad.”
“We walked – “
“Four days, yes, I was there.”
“And then it’s been all fuckin’ day –“
“Yes, also present.”
“I’m not going back without it. What. What Tess?”
“Why do you have to take shit personally? Sometimes things just don’t work out.”
“I’m not taking this personally.”
“You are taking it personally, for all we know they stashed this shit miles away.”
Joel shook his head. “No. No, that doesn’t make sense. That’s stupid.”
“No? Well, we don’t know these guys. Maybe they were stupid. And maybe the merch is gone, Joel. Maybe there’s a third player out here and they took the rest. It could’ve been in any of the buildings we searched already.”
Joel, hands on hips, half turned away to digest that. Yeah, he knew it, but he didn’t want to consider it as a possibility because that meant they had lost before they even got here. It had just been such a shitty few years. The QZ was not the same place to which they had arrived almost ten years ago. There was less of everything, crackdowns for rule breaking all culminated in death, people were constantly wanting and increasingly desperate. The legitimate work for ration cards was back-breaking and either mind-numbingly boring or gruesome. There was no in between. And the ration cards themselves earned the holder less and less.
They needed this.
“No, it’s still out here, I can feel it.”
“Your fucking intuition? I’m still out here on your fucking intuition?”
“You got something better to do? Somewhere better to be?”
Tess stared him down. “Okay, well, will you check with your intuition for me if the woods over there are a good place to stop for the night because I’m tired, Joel, I am really fucking tired.”
“You think I’m not tired?”
“I didn’t say you weren’t tired, I just said I was tired.”
Joel watched her throw his intuition to the wind and stalk off to the woods. She was just picking a fight for the hell of it now. They relied on their gut instincts all the time. But no, just because Tess didn’t think the stuff was still out there, that meant it wasn’t fucking out there. Sure, it was hot and they were tired and bored and pissed off with this little treasure hunt, but the payoff would be well worth it when it ultimately came good for them. He just had a good feeling about this one. Those bags were out there. They weren’t far. It just felt far in this heat and on foot.
They set up their sleeping gear, ate. Tess took first watch and they kept to themselves. Night fell and Joel tumbled off into sleep, the lumpiness of the ground at his shoulder no competition to the weariness earned from the day.
He watched the sunrise during his own watch in the second half of the evening. He had never been a morning person but he had worked long days and, especially in the summer months, was often on the way to a worksite as night and day performed their dazzling little handover. He reached into his bag and found the butterfly. He closed one eye and held it up to the wobbly orange blob on the horizon. The wings took on spectacular colour.
Sarah, thirteen, sitting at her desk with a disassembled windchime before her. A birthday gift from one of her soccer buddies – she had seemed excited when she was given it, even though Joel had cringed at the thought of that thing singing every time the slightest breath of wind rattled its janky parts. But what struck Joel was how unlike Sarah this seemed. She was always gracious with gifts, even with the raisin cookies from next door which she couldn’t get down without dramatically gagging. She hated raisins.
Joel leaned in the doorway and folded his arms. Sarah had one of the chime’s decorative butterflies in hand and a paintbrush in another. She had gone over it in white, the colour now staining her fingers, and was detailing it with purple and blue.
“What are you doing, baby girl?”
“The wings were wrong,” Sarah replied, not looking up. “The wings.”
“They looked fine to me.”
“I’ve told you before,” said Sarah with the patience of a saint. She turned the butterfly and worked on a lower wing. “The wings are different on each side. Different patterns for different things.”
“Remind me.” He knew, but he liked to hear her talk about it.
Sarah put down the butterfly and hooked her thumbs together, turning her very hands into a butterfly. “So like this is where they’re all pretty, okay? They use it to scare off predators – ‘don’t eat me! I’m poison!’ – and to find a mate. But when they want to hide,” she rolled her hands together so they were back to back, palms outward. “They can pull up like this and they blend in. They can camouflage themselves.”
“That’s pretty smart. And they can just show whichever side they want depending on what they need right then?”
“Sexy toxic butterflies.” Sarah smiled and picked up her project again. She showed him the sepia underside she had already painted. “Not as silly as people think.”
Tess was up and moving about. Joel stashed the butterfly carefully away and climbed to his feet. He was surprised to see she had already packed up her gear and that must have been evident on his face, because she pressed a package of food to his chest.
“Your hearing’s getting worse.”
“I was … thinkin’,” Joel said, trying to make excuses for himself but just digging in deeper. “I wasn’t – I was still paying attention.”
“I can’t even look at you right now.”
Okay, yeah. He deserved that.
The day was baking. They took another side road within their search circuit, banking on there being another house or storage shed up that way. They had to work for it: the next little house was perched atop a hill. To get there they had to climb one steep gradient, dip down into a sharp valley, and then start climbing a second, steeper hill almost the moment they hit the bottom.
“Oh Jesus, fuck this, give me a minute.” Tess sat down on the road and took out the water. At least there was plenty of that to find along the way, but their food supplies were beginning to dwindle. They would not have quite enough to get back to Boston without a day or two of going hungry, or getting lucky with some foraging.
Joel sat down beside her. They finished the bottle between them and stared across at the little house, which almost looked level at this degree were it not for the chasm of roadway dipping down between them. Tess pulled out the map.
“Up beyond here it starts to get a bit wild.”
“Okay. Hit this place, come back round … is that a service track?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Follow round … brings us out down here. Too remote.”
“Good place to lay low.”
“It would take days with the two of us.”
“It has to have been easy for them.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“Car like that? They weren’t processing this.”
“Definitely no secret garden.”
“No,” Tess started folding it up again. “They could’ve stashed it in a hollow tree for all we fuckin’ know. We weren’t checking those.”
“Yeah, well, it never occurred to me to strip search the fuckin’ trees, Tess.”
She looked up. “Did you check the cars before we left? The cop car and whatever the other ones were?”
“…no. Did you?”
“… no.”
Joel quickly shook his head. “No. No, nobody’s that fuckin’ stupid. They weren’t there.” Beat. “That’s the last we ever speak of that, okay?”
Tess snorted and climbed to her feet. She held out her hand and he clambered to his up, collecting the rifle on the way. He was still pissed off with her because she happened to be the only person present, but there was still nobody he’d rather be in this mess with.
“Nobody’s that fucking stupid,” Tess mumbled, reassuring herself. “Nobody’s that fucking stupid. Okay, let’s get this one out the way.”
Down the hill – which was actually harder on the knees – and then back up its steep counterpart. Joel thought about Sarah’s butterfly wings, the upper and the lower having different meanings. One message threatening passion or poison, depending who you were, the other pretending not to be there at all. He snorted to himself, and the amusement carried him up the hill. However, by the time he crested it, it had twisted around in his stomach and was threatening to drag him back down again.
The house must have been crumbling into the expanse twenty years ago, because it was barely clinging to its foundations now. Wild roses grew twisted and thorny around a fence, dominating so fiercely that it leaned well forward and just gave up in some places. But before the short drive were a set of skid marks and the garden within was trampled. Tess and Joel glanced at one another and raised their weapons.
As hiding places went, it was pretty decent. It was so decrepit that a stiff wind might take the last, but the wild garden provided an interesting natural barrier. The roses scratched and tore at their clothes as they advanced deeper, closing in on the house. Joel could already feel its emptiness. Nobody was watching them from the windows. It had that sullen, breathless look of the utterly abandoned.
They were both badly scratched up – one particularly vicious thorn had rent a long slash in his shirt to get to his skin and he could feel it weeping into the sweat. But once they reached the shadow of the building the roses had cleared, and that was where they saw the first legs of a freshly-killed woman lying across the steps. A long smear of blood told where she had been dragged from the indoors – the mouth of the building wide and laughing – and unceremoniously thrown into the bushes. Birds scattered from the corpse. They hung back, hopping impatiently and waiting for the chance to return for a little more flesh.
Joel took point. The blood was dried, but fresh – this was a day old, maybe two. Inside they found another body with its own little fan club of hungry birds. The house was a mess and the stench of death trapped between the walls was overpowering. Dusty, grimy and sad. But in the lounge room they found a spot recently cleaned, drag marks through muck, a table with the same kind of plastic bags in which their yeast was secured. A duffel bag just like the one they had hauled up from the lake. Tess touched something grainy on the table and looked at Joel. She didn’t have to say it.
Maize.
Whether by accident or design, they had been completely fucked over. Maybe someone else from the QZ had gotten wind of the job and beaten them to it. Maybe these people had contacts or enemies elsewhere who’d cut in on the action. Maybe … it didn’t fucking matter what maybe was right. It didn’t matter who these people were, it didn’t matter who’d killed them, it didn’t matter why. He and Tess had been fucked over and they were coming out of this with four bags of yeast that wouldn’t get them shit.
He unslung his rifle and laid it by the door.
Joel picked up a chair and spun it hard against the wall. Wood splintered and clattered across the bare boards. He hit it until all that remained in his hand was a single joint, the rest spent. Tess was gone. He strode out the way she must have gone since she hadn’t passed him, away from the toxic, suffocating scent permeating the house. The back screen door was ajar. Joel passed through to the back porch.
It had once been fully enclosed with thick mesh. Most of that was still intact, it was the wood that it attached to that had began to rot and fall away. Tess had thrown her pack on some fusty old lounge swing and was pacing, hands on her head.
“What are you doing with that?” She pointed to the length of wood still in hand, and he cast it aside. “No, don’t answer. I really don’t give a fuck.”
“You’re pissed off with me?”
“I told you it wasn’t worth it. This has been a waste of time.”
“And you just would’ve walked, Tess? Bullshit. Don’t give me that shit. You wanted to find it, too.”
“I could’ve let it go.”
“Oh, really.”
“I know when I’m beaten. I knew we were fucking beaten when it was just one wet bag.”
Joel gaped at her. “You fuckin’ liar!”
Tess stopped and swung back toward him. “What did you call me?”
“Called you a liar, Tess. Or would you prefer delusional, because you don’t even know you’re fuckin’ lying? I can make that little allowance for you. We’ll put it down to heatstroke.” He shucked off his pack and set it beside hers.
“You are such an asshole. I was ready to go yesterday and you know it.”
“You’ve got very selective fuckin’ memory when you want to, Tess. You really just see what you want to see, don’t you.”
“You’re not even paying attention half the time!” Tess cried. “You are all over the place, do you know that? Where the hell are you?!”
“Stuck in hell with you!”
“I have to do all the thinking.”
Joel groaned. “Here we go. Because I’m such a fuckin’ dumbass?”
“No, because you make me because you’re not even fucking with me!”
“I am always with you!” He jabbed his finger at her. “I have always been with you, don’t you start that.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Fuckin’ see what you want to see. Fuckin’ liar.”
“Oh, you just call me that one more time Joel. Call me that one more time so help me – “
Joel leaned down so she couldn’t possibly miss it. “Your best lies, Tess, are the ones you tell yourself.”
Tess cuffed him across the face. Joel didn’t even pause to enjoy the stinging heat before smacking her right back. He reined himself in a little – but not much. Her head cracked to the side and she stumbled but kept her feet, hand going to her cheek. Joel didn’t give her the luxury of recovery. He snatched her wrist and pulled her flush against him while his hand went round to the back of her jeans. He pulled out the pistol and tossed that on the swing sofa, too.
“Tell me how you want it.”
This was her out if she wanted it. He would always, always give her that moment. She could have what she wanted if she very expressly gave permission. He needed it for his own sake and sanity. The trust had to run in both directions.
“My way,” she answered.
There it was. Her most toxic colour; the invitation.
“The fuck should I do that? All that shit you said, Tess.” Joel asked. He tugged the elastic from her hair, smoothing it down and sinking his fingers in. He sighed regretfully. “If you want it your way, you’ll have to get down on your knees and beg for it, you proud … little … bitch.”
Tess slugged him in the stomach, almost winding him. He lost his grip on her wrist and hair and staggered. She was on him at once: he’d seen her perform this move countless times, but never on him. What Tess lacked in physical strength she made up for in sheer persistence and agility. She leapt on him, locking her arms around shoulder and neck, legs cinching his waist. He’d seen her gouge throats with broken bottles like this. She knew she never had long, and she didn’t need it. He bit her arm before she could tighten it around his neck. If he really wanted to hurt her he’d drop on his back and crush her, but that was taking it a little too far. She yanked his hair in retaliation to the bite and then gave a very satisfying cry as he threw himself up against the wall, dislodging her. Tess fell from his back and on to all fours.
Joel backed up a bit to catch his breath. She could fucking hit, and that one to the guts knocked the stuffing out of him. He took a few deep, urgent breaths and moved in to grab her before she could get to her feet.
The disparity here was that Joel had to pull his punches. He had to keep a lid on himself, no matter how angry he might be, because he was the one who could really deal the damage if he lost his head. Tess saw herself as under no such restriction. She’d do whatever the fuck she liked and count on Joel to be fast enough to stop her.
And that was just fine by him.
“Right where I want you,” he muttered as he approached, unbuckling his belt. “FUCK!”
Tess laid her hands on the length of wood he’d carried from the house. She swung it in a wide arc and it connected with his left leg, just below the knee. It knocked him clean off his feet. He was probably supposed to have dodged that, but he had no idea how. That was a sneaky fucking trick. He grabbed his leg and rolled sideways.
“Jesus - fuck, Tess!”
He heard her toss the wood aside – excellent, good, yes, they didn’t need to use that anymore – and he rubbed his leg.
“ … it’s not that bad,” Tess muttered.
“The fuck would you know?!”
Tess got to her feet. He didn’t know what she planned on doing and he didn’t want to find out. She rose a little gingerly – that hit to the wall had probably been harder than intended – and he lunged after her, grabbing her ankle and bringing her down again. Tess kicked back, catching his chest and shoulder. He let go. She surged up to her feet and he followed, catching her around the waist as she neared the kitchen door.
“Where you goin’? You think this is fuckin’ over, Tess?”
They grappled. It was intoxicating when she fought him. It had been simmering for days. It he hadn’t been so distracted with the past he would’ve seen it coming, known what they would both need if this didn’t work out the way they wanted. The fury had to channel somewhere or it would just slash them up from the inside. He burned for her.
Tess managed to twist around and Joel bore another sharp slap across his jaw. He brought her with him as he staggered and shoved her sideways. She stumbled into the swing. It squeaked in protest, so rusted that it barely moved at all.
He took off his belt, panting, while he waited for her next move. His cheek smarted painfully.
Tess sat up and pushed hair out of her face. She looked up at him, looked at the belt. Slowly, she came to her feet. Her right hand was tucked behind her back. He nodded toward it with his eyebrows raised, breathing hard: Come on. Showed you mine.
She displayed her knife.
Joel frowned, seemingly disappointed with her. “I really do let you get away with too much.”
But she’d lost. There was no way she could carry through with this. Tess wasn’t really going to stab him. Probably, almost definitely not. He raised his hands placatingly at her, the belt buckle swinging in the air. His first approach was slow. She was enjoying this. He could see the amusement dancing in her eyes as he hesitated just out of reach.
And then Joel darted forward with a burst of speed and strength and thrust her up against the wall of the house. He seized her wrist and pushed it high above her head, but she would not release the knife. He ground his body up against hers, meeting her in a rough kiss as he sought to control her other hand. Tess moaned into his mouth and arched into him, but she would still not let go. He got the second hand above her head and pinned them both there, squirming. It was over for her, now. She’d lose the knife with a little more pressure and then she was going to beg …
Tess gasped in sudden pain, breaking the kiss. He hadn’t started the pressure yet. And then movement caught his eye: beads of blood collecting on her hand, sliding down her arm. Joel immediately released both her hands to figure out what was going on and how to fix it. In the very next breath Tess had the blade against his throat.
“I win. My way.”
“You … you did that on purpose,” he realised, stung by the extent of her need for victory.
“On your knees, Texas.”