Commodity

  She continues to look at me sideways as we finally start moving again. She’s trying to keep up a good pace, but she doesn’t last long. We stop again, and she grips her stomach with both hands.

  “Falk?” She looks up at me, her voice barely a whisper. Her eyes are wide and full of fear.

  “What is it?”

  “I think…I think I might be in labor.”

  No. No, that can’t be.

  “I thought you said it was gas?”

  “That’s what it kinda feels like,” she says, “but not quite. And the pains are getting more frequent.”

  “You’re not due for weeks, Hannah.” I shake my head. There is no way this is happening, not now.

  “This isn’t an exact science, you know!”

  “But the baby will be too early, won’t it? You can’t have it yet.” I don’t believe it. Maybe if I don’t let her believe it, it won’t be true.

  “I don’t think I get much of a say in the matter!” She cries out then, doubling over as I grab her arms to keep her upright.

  “We have to get to the new camp,” I tell her. I look around quickly, not even sure what I’m trying to find. There’s nothing. I look back to Hannah. “I think…well, I think my arm’s broken. I’m not sure I can carry you. Can you keep walking?”

  “Do I have a choice?” she growls through clenched teeth.

  I support her as much as I can, stopping every ten or fifteen minutes as another contraction hits her.

  “How much farther?”

  “A half mile, tops,” I tell her.

  “I don’t think I can make it.”

  After everything else we’ve overcome, this can’t possibly be happening now. I don’t know that much about pregnancy or babies, but I know newborns that arrive too early need a lot of help. They need extra oxygen. They need incubators. They need someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing.

  I’m not even sure getting her to the rest of the group will make any difference, but I know the chances of having a successful birth in the street are right about nil. I have to get her moving.

  I move in front of her and place one hand on her belly and the other on the side of her face.

  “Hannah Savinski,” I say, “I’ve seen you do shit the most alpha guy in the world would balk at. You’ve endured what would cause most people to give up—put a bullet in their skulls. You are the strongest woman in the world, and you can do anything if you set your mind to it.”

  Her chest rises and falls rapidly as she stares at me. The fear is still in her eyes, but there’s something else as well—the determination I’ve seen from her so many times before.

  “We’re going to make it to the group,” I say. “We’re going to keep going, and we’ll stop when we need to, but we’re going to make it.”

  “Okay,” she says, nodding quickly. “We’re going to make it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “There’s something you gotta do for me though.”

  “Anything,” I say.

  “Tell me what you meant when you said all that shit to Caesar,” Hannah says. “Tell me all of it.”

  “Not now.”

  “Yes, now!” she yells at me. “I need the damn distraction, and I have the feeling I’m going to be furious at you! That’s as good a distraction as any!”

  I glance at the dark sky. We need to move, and I don’t have the time to argue with her.

  “All right,” I say, giving in. “I’ll tell you.”

  “Damn right you will.”

  We start walking, and she glares until I start talking.

  “When I was out patrolling a few nights ago, I found one of them.”

  “One of the aliens?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did it look like?” she asks in a whisper.

  I don’t know why she’s whispering or who she thinks might hear us, but I lower my voice as well.

  “I have no idea,” I say. “It was wearing a suit—like a big metal robot covering up what it actually looked like. It said the suit provided the right kind of atmosphere so it could breathe. It was also bullet-proof.”

  “You shot it?”

  “Yeah, but it didn’t do any good.”

  “But you talked to it?”

  “Yeah,” I say with a nod, “for a while.”

  “What did it say?”

  “A lot of shit,” I respond. I’m not prepared for this conversation, and I have to sort through the discussion I had with the alien to figure out what I want to divulge and what I want to keep to myself.

  “Like what?” She starts to say something else but has to stop as a pain hits her. Once it passes, and she catches her breath, she berates me to continue.

  “I asked it what happened to the women and children,” I tell her as we start walking again, “and why the men were killed.”

  I tell her most of the story, leaving out anything that might hint that I’d spoken to the same creature years ago.

  “You told it to kill everyone there?” Hannah asks when I finish.

  “Honestly, I didn’t really think the alien was serious,” I tell her. “I had no idea it would actually call down ships to bomb the whole place. I just…I just said what was in my mind. I wanted Caesar and all the rest of them dead. I didn’t expect them to annihilate the place.”

  “Those other girls were still there,” Hannah says in a low voice.

  “I know.” I take a deep breath. “That wasn’t my intent—you know it wasn’t.”

  “What about the rest?” she asks.

  “The rest of what?”

  “Did you kill Beck?”

  I swallow hard. I should have realized she would eventually find out. I should have prepared some kind of statement, but I haven’t.

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “Christ, Falk!”

  “He fucking deserved it!” I stop and turn to her. “You know he would have been the first in line to rape you. Tell me you believe otherwise, and I’ll consider apologizing for killing him before he had the chance.”

  “You don’t know that.” She looks away from me, and I know she doesn’t believe what she’s saying.

  “He told me he had you cornered. He laughed and said you needed to get over it. So yeah, I lost my shit. I punched him; he punched me. I hit the table, and we struggled. I ended up on top, and I choked the life out of him. I’d do it again, too. I only wish I’d done the same thing to Brett when I had the chance.”

  Hannah doesn’t look at me. Instead, she stares at the ground in front of her feet as she walks. I’m not sure if I’ve made her angry or if I’ve frightened her.

  “We don’t live in the same world anymore, Hannah,” I say. “It’s not like you can call the cops and get someone arrested if they fuck with you. Yes, I killed Beck. Not only would I do it again, but if anyone else threatens you, I’ll going to kill them, too.”

  She looks over and stares at me, wide-eyed.

  “Get used to it,” I finally say when she doesn’t respond. “It’s how it’s going to be.”

  We start walking again, and Hannah remains quiet for several minutes. I’m still tense. I feel like I’ve outed myself. I might as well confess my part in the death of every human being who has ever died at my hands—in war and otherwise.

  Yeah, Hannah—you were escaping from a bunch of violent men, and your only protection is a killer. Sorry about your luck.

  “Falk?”

  “What?” My tone is harsh. I’m expecting her to argue some point about how we need to hold onto our humanity or some other bullshit, but she doesn’t.

  “The pains have stopped.”

  I look her over. She’s breathing easier now, and though her hand still rests on top of her belly, she isn’t clenching her abdomen like she was before.

  “You sure?”

  “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” I look at my watch. It’s been more than half an hour, at least. “Can you keep going? If we can keep up this pace,
we’ll be there soon.”

  “I never believe you when you say that.”

  “Ten minutes. I promise.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that.”

  Twelve minutes later, we reach our destination. It’s a small neighborhood just to the east of the bypass that surrounds Atlanta. We cross a bridge over a small creek that still has some water in it and make our way to the coordinates.

  I can smell a fire as we approach.

  “It smells like Christine’s cooking!” Hannah says with a smile.

  “Let me check it out first,” I say. “Stay back here for a—”

  “Falk?” Hannah grabs my arm, halting my words.

  “What is it?”

  “Please don’t leave me alone.” There are tears in her eyes as she speaks, and I nod before giving her a hug.

  “I won’t,” I tell her. “But we’re going to go in quietly, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I hold Hannah’s hand as we creep through the edge of the neighborhood, sticking close to the trees. Locating the exact house is pretty easy—we just follow the smell from the fire. As we get close, I can see the smoke rising from the back yard of a huge house. Around the fire, Marco, Sam, and Katrina are all sitting in lounge chairs. Christine appears a moment later with bottles of wine in her hands.

  “Aren’t they underage?” I ask as Hannah and I step out of the trees.

  “Falk! Hannah!”

  They all run up to greet us. There’s a lot of hugging, which I put up with for a moment before letting Hannah take center stage while I back off for a cigarette. I close my eyes and lean against a tree, just watching.

  Caesar’s dead—for sure this time. Hannah is with friends, and she’ll have more help besides me when the baby decides to really come. I don’t know what the future will hold for us, but for the time being, I’m going to allow myself to relax.

  Just a little.

  Chapter 10

  “Hey! Check this out!”

  Inside the storage unit, I stand and walk across the small open space to Marco. He’s pulling a cardboard box from a large, plastic storage bin.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a portable DVD player!” he says. “Runs on batteries, and there are a bunch of movies with it, too. We got a Star Trek movie, Tron, Aliens, and even the Charlie Brown Christmas Special!”

  “Looks like a waste of batteries,” I respond.

  “You are no fun.” Marco holds the DVD boxes to his chest as if I’m going to try to steal them from him.

  “I am practical.”

  “Morale is important.” He grins up at me, and I roll my eyes.

  “You seem to be getting plenty of ‘morale.’” I raise an eyebrow at him, and he actually has the decency to blush.

  I had initially been concerned there would be a fight over Katrina—both Marco and Sam were obviously interested. Katrina could have gone either way, or she could have been disinterested in both. What I didn’t expect was for the three of them to all be…well...together—or sharing, at least.

  “It works for us,” he says with a shrug. “Beats fighting over her, and I’m not sure she would have liked having to choose.”

  “She seems pretty happy with the whole arrangement.”

  “She is.” Marco wiggles his eyebrows at me. “In fact, yesterday morning—”

  “No details, please!” I cut him off, shake my head, and go back to the other side of the unit as Marco chuckles to himself.

  Finding a nearby storage facility with most of the units undamaged has been a godsend. A lot of what we find I would have considered crap before all this happened, but now I see uses for almost everything we come across.

  We gather up our haul for the day and head home. I push the shopping cart with my left hand and rest my splinted-up right arm on the handle while Marco carries the backpack. As soon as we get back, Marco heads into the living room to show everyone the DVD player, and I head into the first-story master bedroom where Hannah and I have been sleeping.

  Christine insisted on it. She said she didn’t want Hannah climbing the stairs.

  “Any luck?” Hannah asks as I walk in.

  “Not really.” I drop the pack on the table. “I found some of the things on the list but none of the medical supplies. I did get you some more clothes.”

  “That’s a bonus.”

  “Hope they fit.”

  “Nothing fits!”

  Ah shit—here we go again.

  Hannah is due any day now and absolutely miserable. I’ve done everything I can think of to help her be more comfortable, but all the things that used to work on her just don’t anymore. She can barely sleep at night, so she’s exhausted all the time, and she’s driving me crazy.

  I don’t mention the latter.

  “I have to pee!” Hannah suddenly cries out as she runs for the bathroom.

  Hannah has to pee every fifteen minutes. Thank God the toilets in the house continue to flush. I can only hope they’ll last a while longer.

  Grabbing my backpack, I pull out the box of shotgun shells I found in one of the storage units. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to stockpile some ammo. I don’t have anywhere near enough, but at least I’m making progress. I wish I had found the actual shotgun, but there was no sign of it. Marco was too excited about the DVD player to convince him to go through one more storage unit, so I’ll probably head back there tomorrow. Maybe Katrina would like to get a look inside one of them.

  Hannah comes back into the room, her face pale.

  “What is it?” I ask as I go to her. “More of those Braxton-Hicks?”

  Katrina has looted every book on pregnancy and childbirth she could find and has been educating all of us on the topics. She even found a book on home birth, and we’ve found all the supplies listed. The whole thing scares the shit out of me, but it’s not like there’s a choice.

  “I don’t think so.” Hannah grips her stomach and scrunches her face for a moment. “I think the baby’s really coming this time.”

  “You thought that before.”

  “Yeah,” she says, “but my water just broke.”

  *****

  “Breathe!” Christine yells. “Come on, now! It’s not that bad!”

  Not that bad?

  I hold my hand against my chest and wonder if I’m having an actual heart attack. I’ve never felt such pain before and almost wish I were just sewing up another gunshot wound.

  I’m going to be a father.

  “I…I…I can’t!”

  “Goddammit, Falk!” Christine pulls back and slaps me across the face. “You get your shit together, man! That baby is going to be born any minute now!”

  The shock of her hitting me has the same effect as being shocked with a defibrillator. My heart starts beating again, and I finally draw breath.

  “I can’t handle this shit,” I tell her.

  “You get your ass in there, Falk Eckhart!” Christine hauls back, this time with a closed fist.

  “All right! All right!” I head back into the bedroom where Hannah is on all fours with Katrina poised behind her like a World Cup goalie.

  “Almost there, Hannah,” Katrina says softly. “Just a few more times!”

  I can see the baby’s head, and I almost throw up. I start to turn and run out, but Christine is right there, a fist at the ready.

  I go back to the foot of the bed where Hannah is kneeling and crouch down beside her. She looks over at me, her face red with sweaty hair hanging in her eyes. I push a few of the strands off her forehead.

  “I love you, Hannah,” I say softly.

  “I kinda hate you right now,” she replies. She squeezes her eyes shut and her arms begin to shake.

  “One more big push, Hannah!” Katrina calls out. “Come on!”

  “You got this, Hannah.” I lay my hand on the back of her neck. “You’re the strongest woman in the world.”

  She shifts her hand and places it over mine on the floor, gripping it ti
ghtly. She takes in a big breath, holds it, and her face practically turns purple.

  A moment later, I hear a cry.

  “Oh my God! Oh my God!” Katrina is squealing. “It’s a boy! Hannah, you have a little boy!”

  Holy fuck, she was right!

  “Is he okay?” Marco and Sam ask in unison.

  “He’s perfect.” Christine kneels next to Katrina with a pair of surgical scissors to clamp and cut the cord. “Falk, give me that blanket.”

  He’s got all his fingers and toes.

  He’s wrinkled and streaked with blood and yellow mucus. His eyes stay closed, but he keeps opening and closing his mouth. The cries that come out of him are barely audible.

  “Falk—the blanket!”

  His ears are pointy.

  “Here you go.” Sam hands a receiving blanket to Christine, and she wraps the baby up.

  “He’s kind of a mess,” Marco says.

  The baby stops crying once he’s swaddled in the blanket, and Katrina takes him from Christine’s arms and lays him across Hannah’s stomach. Hanna is still breathing hard, and tears are running down her face, but she’s smiling.

  I have a son.

  “He’s beautiful,” Hannah says with a sniff. The baby opens its eyes and stares up at Hannah’s face though he doesn’t seem to be able to focus very well. “You see, Falk? He looks just like you. He even has your eyes.”

  He’s healthy. Hannah’s okay.

  Christine takes the baby, and Katrina helps Hannah get back up on her hands and knees to deliver the placenta. I lean back against the bed and stare into space until Christine sits down beside me.

  “Come on, Falk, you big dork! Hold out your arms so you can hold your son.”

  I do as she says, and Christine lays the baby in my stiff arms. My throat seizes up. He weighs practically nothing. He’s so, so tiny. His fingers aren’t even as long as one of my knuckles. His nose is so small, I’m not convinced he can breathe out of it. He proves me wrong almost immediately as he lets out a strange cry.

  “Did I fuck it up?” I ask.

  Christine laughs.

  “No, you did not ‘fuck it up,’” she says. “Just relax a little.”

  I take a deep breath and try to relax my arms, but the baby keeps crying. I have no idea what I’m doing, but Christine is obviously wrong—I am fucking it up.