A Better Man

I come out of the ruins of Knoxville and catch their trail. From the freshness of the wheel treads they might only be a day ahead. A flush of excitement comes over me. I’m finally getting closer.

I make my bed at the foot of an elm, wrap my tarp tight around me. My revolver I keep at my side, always within reach. I do something I shouldn’t. I take the locket from around my neck, and shine my flashlight on the pictures inside. It could give away my location, but I like seeing them before bed. It helps me sleep.

The right picture is a woman, dark hair, grey eyes, warm smile. Emma.

On the left, a baby girl with a tuft of auburn hair. Alice.

In my mind I’m reading Alice a story on a rocking chair, while Emma is asleep in the bed next to us. I hold this in my mind as I drift off.

---

A group of about twenty sheltered inside of a park’s visitors center. Horses tied out back. Their patrols are too wide, and I’m too experienced. I sneak inside at nightfall.

Most of them are asleep on the floor. In a few minutes I’ve snatched up all the food and water I can carry without making a sound. A thought crosses my mind.

Kill them all or they’ll follow you.

It’d be easy for me. I could slit everyone’s throats in silence and my hand wouldn’t even shake. But I can’t. Emma and Alice need me to be a good man.

I head towards the horses when I spot him.

Out of the corner of my eye, a little boy, eyes wide open. I put a finger to my lips. Quiet. He keeps staring at me.

I’m barely out the back when he screams.

I panic. I accidentally jostle the horse as I get on. It pulls me off my feet and I end up in the mud. The strap on my pack breaks. Everything I stole spills into the grass.

As I stand, a bullet sails over my head. A guard is on his knee, sizing up his next shot. He won’t miss. Inside the people are scrambling to their weapons.

I leap onto the saddle. The second shot scares the horse and he bolts. When it leaps over an embankment I’m thrown. I land with my left arm behind me and feel a snap. My body rolls down the hill and through the trees.

Their voices cry out behind me and I stumble into the claustrophobic dark.

---

They search for me through the night, before they pack up and head east. I spot the boy with them, carrying a pistol. I know if he found me he would kill me.

My left arm is bent at an angle. I break it against the trunk of a tree and almost pass out. I tear off my sleeve and use it as a sling. I keep thinking about how much easier it would have been to just kill the boy and everyone inside.

---

My second day on the road I pass two men weighed down with heavy packs. Before I can ask for help, one of them draws his shotgun on me. They take my knife and what’s left in my pockets. Then they ask for the locket.

I take it off my neck. Before I can hand it to them I toss it far into the woods.

“I hope it was worth it,” the one with the shotgun says.

He cracks me in the gut. I fall to the road and he hits me again and again until he’s tired. They debate whether or not to kill me. Neither wants to waste the ammo. They leave me by the roadside.

---

I search for hours until I find it among the low growth. It feels good to have it back in my hands.

Heading east I see a fire below me. The valley is on fire. Wind whips the embers high into the night sky. A man moves out of the flames towards me. His cheeks are painted in ash. When he sees me, he opens his arms in an embrace, and I wake up screaming.

---

It’s the third day and I’m losing myself. I cannot hold anything in focus except for the pain. I make sounds like a wounded animal. I don’t know how much longer I will be alive.

Across a low slope I see a cemetery. An old man sits with his back to one of the headstones. He plays fetch with his dog.

I collapse nearby. The last thing I see is the old man standing over me, trying to decide something.

---

He keeps me at a distance across the fire. His hand is on his rifle, his dog inches from my face. He tosses me a ration pack and I stuff it into my mouth, my head going dizzy from the salt.

“What’s that?” he asks, tapping his neck.

I tell him about the locket, about Emma and Alice. He calls them my “Northern Star”. I start crying.

“I’m trying hard to be good for them. But it’s not easy. It’s not the way I’m built. I just don’t know if I can do it...” I say, between tears.

He nods as he listens, then tosses me something in the dark. A piece of black coal.

“The past can be heavy. Go bury yours on one of those headstones. I know it helped me.”

I’m addled enough to believe him.

Stumbling around, I find a headstone with the name worn off long ago. I write my own.

---

Next morning he sends me off with supplies and a compass. I can’t thank him enough. As I pass the meadow beneath the cemetery, I know why he had extra supplies to spare. The field is littered with corpses. The old man was good with that rifle.

Why he chose to help me, I’ll never know.

---

I’ve found them.

There’s a shelter inside of an old Walmart. The army has long since abandoned it. Now it’s guarded by volunteers.

They scan me with the geiger counter. I hold my breath and pray. The ticks don’t rise. They tell me not to cause any trouble as they let me through.

Inside there’s a smell of fear in the air. Hundreds crowded amongst cots. People whisper about the men of Smoke, the murders, and their mad cult leader. Everyone watches each other with hunger. This is no place for a woman and her daughter.

There’s a cluster of cots near the far wall. My heart skips a beat.

There they are.

Emma is thinner, Alice so grown. My legs almost buckle as I approach.

“It’s me,” I say.

They both turn from their bed, stare at me.

“It’s Robert. I’ve missed you both.”

Emma’s eyes widen with fear and confusion. She puts an arm around Alice and steps back. In her other hand is a knife.

“Wait, wait, please,” I say.

I can see fear in Alice’s eyes. People around us are starting to look, take out their weapons.

“Get away,” Emma says.

“No, it’s ok. See?” I take the locket off my neck and show it to Alice. “Do you remember when you gave this to me?”

Alice slowly gets under her mother’s arm. She takes the locket from my hand, opens it, and looks up at me with those big eyes.

“Daddy,” she says.

My chest hurts. It sounds so good to hear I almost cry. Emma pulls her back.

“Stay away or I will kill you,” she says.

I back away. Alice is crying, asking Emma why. I take my belongings and move to the other side of the shelter. Any time I look over to their cot, I see Emma staring back at me with fear and hate. But I know it won’t be long until that changes.

---

The Army Corps dropped off supplies in the parking lot. People fell on them like locusts. I snagged more than enough rations.

I hand them all over to Emma and Alice. Emma stares at me with distrust.

But I’m patient. I can wait.

---

One night, a man pickpockets people in the shelter while they sleep. I find his hand halfway into my bag and snap his wrist. In his satchel I find the locket he stole off Alice’s neck and give it back. She calls me daddy again.

Emma is not so distrusting this time.

---

A few days later, a family tells Emma and Alice to give up their cot. They don’t ask nicely. Emma is strong but she can’t take all of them. I step in, and offer the family my cot. I could kill them. But I won’t.

I take my stuff outside to go sleep in the little ditch along the road. Before I leave I see Emma’s face. There’s a softness in her eyes now.

---

“Robert.”

I wake with Emma standing over me.

“Are you going to take care of us?” she asks.

“Of course. You’re my family.”

Her eyes tighten. She looks me up and down, searching for something.

“You make sure we’re safe, and you can travel with us,” she says.

“Of course. I’d do anything for you and Alice.”

She holds back saying something. Tears come down her cheeks. When I reach to wipe them away, she recoils and walks off.

---

We leave the shelter, together. I feel like I can fly.

After some searching we find a caravan to join and head East towards the radio signals. Emma keeps me at a distance, but she’s been letting Alice get closer.

“When I find a camera,” Alice says to me one day, “I’m going to take a picture of you and put it in the locket”.

I tell her I would love nothing more.

---

I met Robert Beal while I was traveling with the Smoke. We saw him by the roadside selling his wares. He was half mad with drink. Among the little trinkets laid out on a blanket was a heart-shaped locket. When I saw the pictures of Emma and Alice inside, I thought of my mother and sister.

Soon after the conflagration, my father left us to find supplies and never came back. Then the Smoke came to our town. They put me in a cage and made me watch what happened to my mom and sister. Then they bred me to kill. That was my life until I saw those pictures.

With a beard, Robert was my twin. I decided to take him on the road with us. I think I had the plan in my mind already.

I fed him liquor and kept asking for stories. He abandoned his family. Said it was too hard. Thought they were dead, but told me where he last saw them. I memorized his stories, started mimicking his mannerisms.

He fought hard when I put his head under the water. I knew he’d be the last. No more killing. I would find Emma and Alice, and I would be a good man for them. I cut up his body and buried it deep.

He didn’t live his life the way he should have. I’d fit it better. The conflagration wiped away the whole world, all the records. The only thing left are memories, and those can be changed.

--

A few months on the road together. Alice calls me daddy and I call her my daughter. Emma has warmed to me. Every so often she’ll look at me with that uncertainty. If she knows, she doesn’t care. I’m better to them than Robert ever was.

We pass the cemetery. The old man and his dog are long gone. From the cart I see the headstone where I wrote my name.

Kyle Hilty.

I don’t even call myself that in my thoughts. I am husband to Emma and father to Alice. I am Robert.