Julie leads her brother by the hand. He stumbles behind her, mute and traumatized. His feet leave the ground as he is pulled along by his stronger sister. They fall farther and farther into forest, stretching out under its slip covers, to where night is held close to the ground, underneath trees, never leaving. Soon boulders begin to glow, caught by an afternoon moon hanging beneath the lowest bower of a distant tree that peeks through a slice ahead of them. Stars hang in funnels from branches, no longer
“I’m hungry.”
Jimmy looks up at his sister. Her eyes are racked with grief. She wipes them with the backs of both her hands. There are a thousand ways to start crying and her face is wiggling to suppress them all.
“I’m sorry, Jimmy, but I am. I’m hungry. Aren’t you?”
Jimmy lifts a small stone with the toes of his shoes. It turns sideways under the pressure and falls soundlessly onto moss.
“I think maybe you should start talking soon, Jimmy. I’m gonna go crazy.”
Jimmy finds the stone with his heel and depresses it into the soft ground. Julie reaches over and lays her hand on the back of his neck. Jimmy shuffles toward her, curling against her chest and in her protecting arms.
“It’s OK, little man. It’s OK. We’re gonna have to be alone now, I think. We will have to look after each other. I think it’s what we’re supposed to do.”
Julie drops her hand and slips off her brother’s shoe. She cradles the bare foot in her hand, lightly pumping it with her fingers.
“Nothing new, right?”
Jimmy nods slowly, rubbing the top of his head under his sister’s chin.
Except they aren’t exactly alone. Thirty feet south of where they sit a zombie that has been lost in the woods for almost a week is lying face down on a long bed of ferns. It is still breathing, though barely. When Julie and Jimmy fall asleep in each other’s arms, this creature uses up its last tiny breath and passes, imperceptibly, from living thing to dead thing.
The next morning the children stir under the same night sky that they had fallen asleep under. They begin to silently make their way to Pontypool. Around noon they sit on the black sponge of a fallen tree, and they both begin to cry with hunger.
“What can we eat? What? Leaves? Stones?”
Julie scoops out a spoonful of wood from the log. She turns her finger on her knee, leaving a lump of pulp there. It leaks a cold drool down her leg.
“I don’t know. I’ll eat anything. Anything.”
Jimmy stands up and walks over to where a diffuse shaft of light has penetrated from above, lifting an area at the base of a large birch tree. He crouches at the edge of the lighted patch of tiny shoots and reaches across it. He touches something hidden on the far side. Julie watches his hand disappear. She waits to see what he has, expecting a little snake or a plump slug. Either way she has decided to bite off a piece of whatever he retrieves. He’s only making the decision that she’s putting off. Julie imagines the frantic muscle of a living thing push against the roof of her mouth.
“What is it?”
Jimmy goes down on his knees in order to reach with both arms. He pulls them back, hiding what he has in pregnant, praying hands.
“What is it, Jimmy?”
Jimmy looks back at his sister and smiles. Then he looks down at his hands and lifts his eyebrows.
“What? Jimmy, what have you got?”
His hands open and the light falls between them.
“Raspberries! Are those raspberries?”
Julie leaps to her feet and joins her brother. She picks a raspberry out of his palm and squishes the cold fruit against her teeth. A bright sugar buzzes to life in her mouth. She bites down, cracking the tiny pits. Jimmy reaches across and bends a large bush into the light. The bush is heavily jewelled with clusters of fat red berries. Julie looks at her brother with wide eyes as he pops his handful into his open mouth. Within an hour they have devoured a good portion of the bush, and with digging, adventurous fingers they uncover a patch of tiny onions. They crunch the bulbs, dyeing the cells pink, before lustily swallowing a raspberry-onion stew.
“We can live here, Jimmy.”
Jimmy is lying on his back. His lips are swollen, in reaction to the onion, and slicked bright crimson from crushed berries. Julie looks over, past the shoots of poison ivy that ring her face.
“Maybe not here, exactly. I’m thirsty now. We have to find water.”
Jimmy rolls over onto his stomach. He feels a jolt in the base of his abdomen. He curls his toes and closes his eyes until it passes.
“Jimmy? We need water. Let’s go find some.”
