In Another Life Read online

  In Another Life

  By Liesel Browning

  © 2017 by Liesel Browning

  ISBN-13: 978-0-692-82926-4

  PART ONE:

  THE FARM

  Chapter One

  Sadie went out to the rundown garage, her little brother Christian at her heels. Some of the weeds in the yard had grown as high as Sadie’s knees by then. She knew Glenn would have had a fit. Well, Dad’s not here, Sadie thought. She didn’t miss spending hours pulling up weeds by hand. What did it even matter? It’s not as if they ever had visitors.

  The oil lamp hung next to the side door leading into the garage. Sadie turned it on and stepped into the musty darkness. She didn’t have to turn back to know that Christian was still right behind her. She often went hours at a time without acknowledging the young boy’s presence, but he still stuck by her side. It used to annoy her, but since Glenn’s death, she’d been much more tolerant of Christian, even showing him a thing or two and letting him hold the flashlight as she tinkered under the hood of the old truck.

  Sadie set the lamp down on a stool and grabbed Glenn’s dented old tool box. She set this on the ground next to the truck’s rusty front bumper. “Raise the door,” she said to her brother, and Christian silently obeyed. He bent down, and with a little boy grunt, sent the garage door flying up. Sadie might have once snapped at him for being careless, but she hardly batted an eye as the garage door crashed to a stop above their heads.

  The garage was now flooded in sunlight, and Christian didn’t have to be told to turn off the oil lamp. He wasn’t quite seven, but he already knew that nothing was to be wasted. Sadie was lucky to have her connection in La Ronge, but even the Charles family’s store didn’t always have everything they needed. Sadie learned to hoard things like oil, toilet paper, plastic bags. She always went to La Ronge each month with a shopping list, but nothing was ever guaranteed.

  Sadie raised the hood of the truck. She could vaguely remember the day her mother bought that truck, a gift to herself after leaving her husband. She didn’t know that she would be using that very same truck to take that very same ex-husband and their child up to Canada, where she would meet her death on the way.

  But Sadie wasn’t thinking of her long-dead mother that afternoon. She waited as Christian got the stepladder. He got up and turned on the flashlight. Sadie gestured to the engine, and Christian shined the light for her, holding it steady while she checked various parts of the truck. She’d been neglecting it since the last trip to La Ronge. She used to check it a couple of times a week at least, take it out for a spin around the property to make sure it was running right, just as Glenn used to do. But she’d been pretty distracted lately.

  The truck seemed to be in good working order, though. It was brand new when her mother got it, just months before everything changed. Just months before her death. Though it never had a professional tune-up, Glenn taught himself to change the oil and make repairs, and he’d passed these skills on his daughter. By the time Christian was born, Sadie was taking care of the truck all by herself. It was a good excuse to get out of the house at the time.

  “Get me the oil pan,” Sadie said to her brother, and Christian handed her the flashlight and stepped down to retrieve it. Sadie got under the truck, preparing to change the oil. She didn’t think the truck actually needed it, but she couldn’t quite remember when she’d last taken the time.

  Christian got a can of oil as well. Sadie remembered to say, “Thanks.” Amelia had been giving her shit lately about speaking to the kid so abruptly. “Even your father wasn’t so gruff,” she’d said. Sadie used to avoid her little half-brother, but lately she found that she kind of liked the kid. He was very helpful, too.

  “Sadie?” he asked when she was under the car, so quietly that she almost couldn’t hear him.

  “Yeah?” she called, putting in the effort to keep an edge out of her tone.

  “Are you going to town tomorrow?”

  “Yup,” Sadie said. She worked under the truck, draining the old oil into the pan, as she talked with her brother.

  “Is it dangerous?” he asked. He’d never asked her this before. Sadie wondered if Christian had asked their father that same question, when he was the one going down to La Ronge for supplies each month. Glenn surely would have told the boy the truth.

  “It can be,” Sadie admitted.

  “Have you ever…seen one of them?”

  “Let’s talk about it later,” Sadie snapped.

  “Okay,” Christian said, and was quiet again. As Sadie got out to put in the oil (some of the reserves her father had been setting aside for years), she felt bad for getting impatient with the kid. Of course he was curious. He probably thought about it all the time.

  “Hey,” Sadie said, not looking away from her task as she held the funnel and poured the oil, “I gotta take a little drive along the wall. You wanna steer?”

  “Okay,” Christian said, sounding a bit cheerful. Sadie almost smiled. Christian was grinning as he went to retrieve more oil for the truck.

  “Get the rag for me,” Sadie said as she closed the hood. When Christian handed the oily rag to her, Sadie wiped her hands and forearms. She’d need to scrub real good later. She imagined Amelia helping her wash up, and this time she did crack a little smile.

  In the truck, Christian sat next to his sister as she started it up. She let it idle for a couple of minutes as she finally answered the kid’s burning question. “I’ve seen them,” she told him, staring out of the windshield, out of the garage, out into the farmyard. Through the scraggly jack pines, they could see the brick wall Glenn and Sadie built by hand. Sadie spent months building that wall around the property with her father, spending hours a day, often when it was bitterly cold, spreading cement onto bricks that her father couldn’t lay out fast enough. He’d spent half of the money he had on the materials, and when they finished building the wall, they started again, building a second, reinforcing layer. Glenn wasn’t about to take any chances with any of the monsters out there, living or dead.

  “What do they look like?” Christian asked.

  Sadie shrugged. “Like people,” she said. “But…but rotting.” Christian nodded solemnly. “You’ll see one someday,” she said.

  “Can I come with you tomorrow?”

  “Your mom wouldn’t let you,” Sadie said. “And neither will I. It can be dangerous, I told you.” Christian nodded again. “Maybe sometime this winter,” she added. The kid had never been on the other side of the brick wall in his life.

  “Okay,” Christian said.

  “Hop up,” Sadie said, gesturing to her lap. Christian was a small boy, even for a seven-year-old, Sadie thought. But then again, how long had it been since she’d seen a seven-year-old? She’d hardly seen any other children in years, so she didn’t have much basis for comparison.

  The truck was running fine as Sadie drove slowly along the gravel driveway, letting her little brother man the steering wheel. She slowed as they neared the gate. “Turn right. We’re gonna take a drive along the perimeter,” she instructed her brother.

  She didn’t need to put her hands on the wheel as Christian guided them along, though she kept their speed rather slow. Still, it was exciting for the kid, and she actually saw him smiling brightly, which was far too rare for a kid his age. She remembered kids well enough to know that. She’d been one herself when she and her father came to the farm, and she hadn’t had much to smile about since.

  Christian followed his sister’s instructions and brought them back up the driveway again after they drove around the small farm property. Her grandparents had owned just under five acres on the property they’d purchased when they retired. Enough for a very large vegetable patch and the chicken coop. Enou
gh room for a kid to run around in, because there really wasn’t much else to do.

  Sadie parked the truck in the driveway next to the house. She’d need to load up some stuff in the bed before she went into town, things that she’d trade for the supplies they needed to live. Before she let her brother climb out of the truck, Sadie said, “Hey, Chris…let’s not tell your mom that we talked about them, okay?”

  Christian nodded solemnly again. He’d keep his word. Sadie gave him a little smile and nodded, and he climbed out of the truck. Sadie stayed behind for a moment. She opened the glovebox and took out one of the joints she kept in there. She took out her plastic lighter and shook it next to her ear, nodding when she heard the slosh of fluid. Remy Charles managed to get her a pack of three disposable lighters a few months back, but she was down to her last one. It was still holding up.

  Marijuana was probably their most valuable crop that they grew on their small farm. Glenn was the one who established the Charles family connection years before, trading decent buds for supplies that the oldest brothers ran up from Winnipeg. Glenn didn’t start using it until just after Amelia came to stay with them, and Sadie found her father much more tolerable when he was stoned than when he’d managed to get some moonshine.

  They didn’t produce much, just enough to sell to the Charles family and to keep themselves in supply. Sadie liked to sit in the truck and have a smoke in the afternoon, or with Amelia after they made love late at night in their bed. Sadie felt a little tense about driving to town the next day, as she often did. They were rare up here, where it was so cold and so sparsely populated, but they were around. She had to grab the shotgun and blast one on a few occasions, though she’d never been surrounded by a swarm or anything. Not like her mother…

  It was early autumn yet, and the possibility of coming upon one was there. Sadie wouldn’t take the risk and have her much younger brother tag along, but she couldn’t avoid going to town. She had to get supplies for her family. They depended on her for their survival.

  And as Sadie sat alone in the truck, trying to relax as she got stoned and stared out at the farmyard again, she felt proud of that fact, that she had a family depending on her. She used to feel helpless. Just a few years ago, she’d been so restless and angry. If the world hadn’t become a living hell, Sadie would have been just old enough to go away to college at that point. She would have just been starting her life. But the only life she saw ahead of her was one behind those brick walls.

  That hadn’t changed, but her feelings had. Now that she had Amelia for herself, she at least had something to live for. There was a point to tending the garden, to risking her life by making the 30 mile drive down to La Ronge, to dealing with those bitchy chickens. Amelia (and yes, Christian as well) needed her.

  Sadie put out the joint, saving the rest for later. She and Amelia had just harvested that year’s crop the previous week, and it was now packed into precious Tupperware containers, stored in the hall closet. She didn’t have much of the previous year’s supply left, and she didn’t want to run out before this year’s harvest was ready. Besides being essential for trade, Sadie just liked smoking it herself.

  Sadie finally climbed out of the truck and went into the house through the back door. She found Amelia in the kitchen, lining jars of preserves on the counter. She turned when Sadie entered, and she smiled. “Hey.” Amelia stepped over to Sadie and greeted her with a kiss. “I’m almost ready to box this stuff up.”

  “Let’s relax for a little while,” Sadie suggested, and she kissed Amelia again, putting her hands on her slim waist. They managed to eat pretty well, considering that society had completely collapsed, but Amelia had been thin as long as Sadie had known her. She’d been frighteningly so when she first came to the farm, but now she was a healthy, if slim, and lovely woman.

  Amelia gave in for a moment before pulling away from her lover. “I still need to make a list, and I wanted to finish one more sweater.”

  “There’s plenty of sweaters,” Sadie said. Amelia had been knitting up a storm all summer ever since Remy Charles got his hands on a bunch of yarn. He told Sadie about how a buddy of his down in Winnipeg broke into a storage garage and found boxes upon boxes of yarn. Apparently, the garage was once rented to a knitting supply store or something.

  “It’s just a little one,” Amelia said. “For a kid.” She frowned.

  “Well, you can finish it up before my next trip down,” Sadie suggested, and she kissed her lover again.

  Amelia took Sadie’s hands. “You’re all greasy,” she complained.

  “I know,” Sadie said. “You gotta help me clean up.”

  Amelia kissed her. “All right. Then you need to help me box up this stuff.”

  “Okay.”

  As Amelia finished taking inventory of the jars of preserves, boxes of vegetables, homemade cloth baggies of herbs, cartons of eggs, and containers of marijuana that Sadie would use to trade with the Charles family for the supplies they needed, Sadie went back out to the yard, out to the well. Preparing to wash up, or cook, or even prepare any water for drinking, was a tedious task. There was no way of testing the water to make sure that it was safe, so they always had to boil it on the woodstove. They probably boiled at least three buckets’ worth of water each day.

  Sadie drew the water, and she got the fire going at the stove as Amelia finished her list. One thing they didn’t seem to have any shortage of were cheap plastic pens and little yellow note pads. Sadie remembered that Glenn was a professor at the University of Iowa before everything changed. He must have raided his office, and the Department of Religious Studies’ supply closet, before the bombs fell. Amelia used an endless amount of paper when she was teaching Christian how to read and write. And yet they always had more.

  As they waited for the water to heat up, Amelia and Sadie sat at the table and wrote out their shopping list…more of a “wish list” than anything else, really, though Sadie sometimes got lucky and managed to get everything they needed, and then some. The box of yarn was a big surprise, and Amelia, who’d apparently enjoyed knitting even before the world changed, made good use of it.

  “See if you can get any more of that lemon-mint soap,” Amelia said. “That’s the best we’ve had in years, I think.”

  Sadie didn’t tell her lover that Manny Charles, Remy’s younger sister, made the soap herself. It was a side project she’d gotten into, since her brothers managed to hook her up with some lye. Amelia didn’t know about Manny Charles, and Sadie wanted it to stay that way.

  “I’ll try,” Sadie said. At least Amelia would be pleased when Sadie came home with a couple of bars. She didn’t need to know where it came from.

  Amelia frowned. “We’re gonna need more sugar. I’ve got more raspberries than I could preserve, they’re gonna go to waste.”

  “Let’s just box them up and I’ll take them with me,” Sadie said. She reached across the table and grasped Amelia’s hand. “We’ll have everything we need for winter. We always manage to make it through, don’t we?”

  “I know, I just…” Amelia couldn’t finish her thought, but she didn’t need to. Sadie knew her well enough to finish it. She knew her better than anyone, another fact that made her proud.

  After they finished their shopping list, Sadie grabbed the bucket and hustled it to the sink. They’d removed the faucet years ago; there was no point to it. The house had no running water, no electricity. If the world hadn’t turned upside-down, it would have been an unsuitable place for two young women and a young boy. But in this day and age, it was a rather luxurious abode.

  Amelia got a clean rag and a bar of soap. It wasn’t the lemon-mint kind that Manny made, but just the cheap sort that the Charles family managed to get in abundant supply. It was all they had for washing themselves, their clothes, their dishes…but it was better than nothing.

  Sadie tore the dark blue bandana off her head as Amelia wet the rag in the steaming water and scrubbed the bar of soap against it. Sadie rolled up
the sleeves of her flannel shirt, a shirt once worn by her father, and held out her bare arms to her lover. Amelia scrubbed Sadie’s arms and hands over the sink. Sadie watched her as Amelia focused on her task. Amelia was frowning as she cleaned the oil from Sadie’s skin, but Sadie was smiling. Amelia was so lovely. Sadie admired her cheekbones, her sharp jawline. She leaned in and kissed her jawbone, distracting Amelia for a moment.

  “When’d you last wash up?” Amelia teased, tussling Sadie’s short brown hair. Sadie never bothered to do much with it, just hacking it short every couple of months and hiding it under her bandana. What was the point? They couldn’t get their hands on hair care products, anyway.

  Sadie shrugged. “It’s been a couple of days.”

  “Come on, head over the sink,” Amelia instructed. Sadie took off her flannel shirt and tossed it aside. She was down to her undershirt, a rather new one. Another recent treat from the Charles family store were a couple of packs of cheap cotton tank tops, the kind that one used to purchase at those big box stores. The undershirts Sadie got were still rolled tight and wrapped in their original plastic, though the packaging was all wrinkled. Still, it was rare for Sadie to find anything new and factory-produced. Cotton panties were a luxury, too.

  Sadie dipped back over the sink. Amelia used a chipped mug to slowly rinse Sadie’s hair. The water was comfortably warm, and Sadie once again watched her lover as she was absorbed in her task. Amelia used the same bar of soap to wash Sadie’s hair, working it into a lather before she gently rinsed her again. Amelia grabbed a clean washcloth and squeezed Sadie’s hair before allowing her to stand up straight again.

  Sadie pushed back her damp hair and kissed her lover. “Thanks,” she said.

  “Will you braid my hair later?” Amelia asked. Amelia allowed her blonde hair to grow long. When she’d first come to the farm years ago, her hair was all shaved off, just a short layer of blonde fuzz. She’d scared Sadie a little, reminding her of pictures she’d seen of Holocaust survivors at school. Well, hadn’t Amelia survived her own sort of hell?