After Tomorrow

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. There was little to see most of the time, just the walls of the buildings across the square, now nearly lost in evening shadow. Sometimes, in daylight, if the sun shone at just the right angle, she would see people in one or two of the windows, but there were never any lights at night and most of the frames were empty of glass.

If she stood on tiptoe, and pressed her face against the window, she could just make out the familiar wooden platform on the steps of the building at the head of the square. She couldn’t see the building itself, just the makeshift rectangular structure with its stark upright beam standing at the center of the deeply maroon-stained planking. It was mostly in darkness now except for a soft, flickering orange glow emanating from down the street and she assumed that early arrivals had built fires to keep warm during the night. Occasionally, she could hear a distant shout, and sometimes even a snatch or two of song.

It was cold standing at the window. Her nightdress had once reached all the way to her ankles, but it barely covered her knees now, and it had become threadbare and almost paper thin over the years. She had no clear idea how long she had been in this awful place. Sometimes, she had faint memories of a happier place on tree lined street where she had a friend called Mary, or Margie, or something. She could remember that they would play and tell each other stories while the bigger kids from the neighborhood were at school, but she didn’t remember much else except that Mary (or Margie) had her sixth birthday just a few days before she did. How many years ago, was that? There was no way to be sure, going by memory, and she thought that, by now, she must be at least about fourteen or fifteen.

She went to her tiny metal-framed bed and stripped it of its single, once white sheet and wrapped it around her shoulders as she sat down. Her eye fell upon the iron wrist restraints hanging from the metal bar forming the bed-head, and, not for the first time, she gave silent thanks to the heavens that she had not been locked up when the police gang came to take him away. He only restrained her when he was sleeping, or when he was using her, and it was a stroke of pure luck that they had come in the morning instead of at night. Her situation might be desperate as things presently stood, but slowly dying in her open filth while locked securely to the bed didn’t bear thinking about.

She had been in the little washroom when he was taken. She wondered again what would have happened if she had revealed herself. She might have been free of this prison, but who knew what they might have done to her? Her first act, once they had gone and she felt it safe to emerge once again, was to test the great sliding door that led out to the rest of the building. It wouldn’t budge, however, and she could couldn’t even get the locking lever to move.

She sat shivering on her little bed as she considered her situation, and pulled the sheet even more tightly around her. She was desperately wishing there was some way she could start a fire when, all of a sudden, in a flash of instant of clarity, a realization came to her:

THERE WERE BLANKETS ON HIS BED!

She couldn’t imagine how she had not thought of this before. In an instant, she was coursing down the length of the cavernous room, her bare feet slapping against the wide, unpolished wooden floor planking as she raced passed the rows of empty storage shelves. His sleeping quarters were atop the little office that now served as their food and supply store. When she reached the foot of the metal steps that led to the area atop the office, she suddenly stopped. She had been forbidden to ever ascend those steps and the memories of punishments for even the most minor transgression were powerful and unpleasant. Still, that didn’t matter now. Did it?

She mounted the steps slowly, experiencing a curious mix of excitement and the still palpable guilt of transgression. At the top, she peered into the gloom, her nose wrinkling at the almost fetid animal smell. The place was a mess, with bits of food wrapper and other detritus strewn across the dusty floor, and the bed, a large, queen-sized affair with a padded headboard, was unmade. It was piled, though, with luxuriantly thick blankets. She started to go and take one and then spotted a large chest of drawers beside a little desk and chair set across the room. She approached it and pulled open the top drawer.

The drawer was filled with a jumble of clothing but right in the middle was a thick woolen sweater of the sort favored by fishermen. She gave a little squawk of delight and pulled it out. When she put it on, she was delighted to discover that the voluminous garment fell nearly to her knees like some rustic dress. It was deliciously warm, though, and that was all that mattered. She rifled through the rest of the clothes and found a large pair of woolen socks of dark, emerald green. She pulled these on too, and wondered at the luxury of the sensation. It was the first time her feet had been covered in more years than she could count.

The second drawer revealed riches indeed. There was a box of matches along with a handful of candles, and beside them, in a small cardboard container, a treasure trove of chocolate bars and assorted hard-boiled candies. She found herself drooling at the sight and she tore open one of the bars with trembling fingers and stuffed her mouth. At once, the incredible sweetness exploded in her mouth and she almost fainted with pleasure.

After he had been taken, she very quickly came to the awful realization that he wasn’t going to be there to feed her any longer, and she became seriously alarmed. She had earlier found some cans of beans and Spaghetti-O’s in the little kitchen are beside the office (thankfully of the pull-top variety) along with a half-full plastic container of granola. It wasn’t much she realized, even if she husbanded it very carefully, and she had wondered if she would soon have to resort to trying to catch some of the rats that infested the place. She thought she would eventually get over her distaste enough to eat them raw, if it came to that, but, as yet, she had no idea how she would actually go about hunting them.

The chocolate and candies were a significant boost to her tiny food supply, but even that could only go so far. The main food cache they had been eating from was locked in the little office, but she had already given up any idea of managing to breach the door, or the wire reinforced little window beside it. She decided, for the time being, to worry about the food situation later, and continued her investigation of the rest of the drawers.

The third drawer held only papers and some folded maps of the gas-station variety, none of which interested her very much. The fourth and final drawer, however, contained some things of interest. The first was a box of what confused her at first, but which on closer examination proved to be mouse traps. She recognized them, but had never operated them before. She thought, though, that she could puzzle out how to set them, and it seemed, for now at least, that she had solved one of her problems.

There was a large hunting knife in a sheath beside the traps, which she though might come in useful at some point, as well a small hatchet, and a sharpening stone. There was also a compass, a set of yellow wet-weather plastic rain gear, and something she thought might be a bear trap. It occurred to her that she might be able to use the hatchet to chop up some of the wooden storage shelves and maybe build a fire, perhaps in one of the metal garbage cans in the kitchen, and she filed the idea away for later consideration The only other article which interested her at the moment were the pants from the rain gear. She was hardly expecting to get wet at any time soon, but even that thin material would help keep draughts from the stretch of her legs not covered by the socks or the sweater.

After donning the plastic pants, she pulled one of the thick blankets from the bed and began to pile her treasures into the middle. She gathered the corners of the blanket together to form a bundle and then hauled it up over her shoulder. For a second or two, she considered adopting these sleeping quarters as her own, but she quickly dismissed he thought. Her own bed was not particularly comfortable but the thought of laying her head where he had slept revolted her, and, frankly, the smell of the place was bit nauseating.

She hauled her treasure back down the steps and over to her corner of the room. She thought about having another bar of chocolate but resisted the impulse and, instead, untwisted the wrapper from a lemon candy. She sat on her bed, savoring the refreshing acidity, and reflecting on the recent changes in her existence. There had been a sort of security for the past many years… she was fed, and sheltered from the elements, but now she was facing possible starvation in the very near future. On balance, though, she had some possible options and the new uncertainty was worth being shot of her jailer. He was wasn’t going to be there to bother her again, but she was almost certain that she would be seeing him again very soon. Perhaps no later than noon tomorrow.

That night, she dreamed of her mother. Now, after all these years, it was only in dreams that she could see her mother’s face, but, as always, the image of her features evaporated on awakening like a dawn mist. When the troubles had first begun and electricity disappeared forever, her mother had comforted her by reading stories by candlelight and telling her everything would be alright. It had been quiet in their neighborhood for a while, but then they began to hear gunfire at night and the neighbors began to leave. One night, men with guns had broken into the house. They had done things to her mother and then killed her with a hammer while she and her father hid beneath her bed. She had tried to go and help when her mother was screaming, but her father held her tightly with his hand over her mouth and told her to be quiet lest the men find them and kill them. Her most vivid sense memory of the whole horrible event was the sickly-sweet fumes of corn whiskey riding the outbound train of his breath.

It was just beginning to get light when she awoke. She had taken the plastic pants off in the night as they actually made her uncomfortably hot, but it was chilly now and she pulled them back on after getting out of bed. She considered having some of her chocolate supply but then decided that some granola would make a more sensible breakfast. It struck her that her decision was a very grown-up one, something her mother would approve, and she felt a brief glow of burgeoning maturity before harsh reality quashed it dead. She reflected that being actually grown up was probably a faint hope for her.

After a couple of mouthfuls of dry, stale granola, washed down with a little tap water, she decided to see if there was any movement yet outside. This time, and for the first time ever, she dared to drag the table over to just below the frame and clambered atop it.

From this vantage point, she was able to see quite a bit more of the square than she could just standing on tiptoe. Looking down, she could see pavement nearly all the way to the base of her building. There were steps leading up to the front of it, but they looked suitable for people traffic only, and she guessed that the loading dock for shipping boxes and other cargo must be on the other side.

She saw that some people had already taken places in the square, just back from the stairs beneath the wooden platform. One small group across the way was passing around a jug of something and the rest stood, or sat in little huddles here and there. Directly beneath her, one man was lying on the hard ground, his head thrown back and his mouth open. She couldn’t tell if he was sleeping, or had perhaps died in the night.

She was disappointed to find that, even craning her neck, she couldn’t see much further down the street than she could before. She could see a few more windows in the buildings opposite, all empty and devoid of glazing, but little else. She was desperate to know what lay beyond. When her father had taken her from her home for the last time, he had simply told her they were going ‘to the coast’. This had intrigued her, despite the awful realities of their situation, as she had never seen the sea before. She had no idea, though, whether they had made it that far or not.

It could be that the view to her left was nothing more than endless streets of decayed and gutted buildings, but who knew? Perhaps there were open fields, or a range of mountains. Maybe, they had reached a port city and this warehouse, or whatever it was, lay on the waterfront. Maybe, if she could just only find a way, she would finally be able to see the sea stretching to a blue horizon. It was longing that was almost too hard to bear and, after a few more minutes she climbed back down and attended to her morning toilet.

She had a mid-morning snack of a few squares of chocolate, carefully wrapping the remainder and putting it away out of sight and mind. She turned her thoughts to the issue of the locked office and it occurred to her that she might be able to use the hatchet to batter the door handle off and gain entry that way. The door itself was metal, or at least clad in metal sheathing, and she knew she could never chop her way through it, but the handle looked like a regular old door handle and might come loose. She actually went and retrieved the hatchet from the drawer up stairs but when she was standing in front of the door itself, considering how best to attack it, it struck her that the operation might make a whole lot of noise. The crowd had swelled now, she could hear them shouting or singing below, and it was possible that somebody might hear her efforts and come to investigate. She decided to wait until after the day’s events.

Just before noon, the noise the streets had become a solid, unrelenting roar and she knew it was nearly time. She climbed up on the table and saw, as she had before many times, that the square was now jam-packed with a raggedly dressed throng, all jostling before the platform. There was no barrier, but the crowd formed a more or less straight line about ten feet from the steps and did not progress beyond. Clearly, they knew that this was forbidden.

A few minutes later, a bell rang. She could not see where the bell-ringer was, but it sounded like a small, hand-held variety. As soon as it rang out, a man emerged from the upper reaches of the steps and strode across the platform to face the crowd. He was attired in what was obviously army combat gear, but instead of a uniform cap or helmet, he had an outsized Stetson on his head, a rakish purple sash around his waist, and a large handgun strapped to his leg. He held up his hand and the crowd fell silent.

The man pulled a sheet of paper form his pocket and began to read, punching the air with one fist for emphasis. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she had divined, from watching the displays many times, that he was announcing the days events. At the end of the little speech, the crowd cheered and the man turned towards the steps.

A trio, now approached. There were two guards, dressed like first man, but with different accessories. One had a black bandana on his head, and the other a checkered scarf. Both wore mirrored sunglasses and they too sported handguns on their thighs. Between them was a fat man, nearly naked, save for a pair of white underwear just visible beneath the roll of his belly lard. He was white with terror, and she could see that he glistened with sweat in the bright morning sun.

The two guards fastened the man to the upright wooden post with hanks of twine and then took up positions on either side of him and one pace back. They stood at ease, military fashion, their hands crossed behind their backs, and the cowboy-hat man began to read again. This time, as he spoke, he made frequent gestures towards the fat man, presumably announcing his ‘crimes’, and the crowd alternately cheered, booed, and roared with laughter. He finished his harangue, folded up his paper and then turned as the final member of the crew arrived.

This figure was not dressed in military gear, but instead in black pants, and a black shirt open at the neck. He wore a black sack with eyeholes over his head and, in his hand, he wielded a long, wicked looking blade that curved in broad crescent. The fat man gaped, and as the headsman approached, he let out an awful wail, and begun to blubber like a child.

The swordsman was unperturbed. He stopped a pace or so before the terrified victim and grasped the sword with both hands. Like a golfer, with his feet spread to brace himself, he took a few tentative swipes, testing the heft of his instrument, and then, without any further preliminaries, he swung the glittering blade in a sweeping arc neatly across the fat man’s stomach.

For a moment, the sole evidence of any sort of wound was a thin red line across the pale white flesh. There was a momentary hush as rivulets of blood began to drip downwards and then the crowd roared with approval as the fat man’s viscera suddenly burst through the opening like a tangle of greased ropes. The mass fell under its own weight and hung in dripping loops almost to the man’s knees. In the past, victims of this awful operation had sometimes shrieked as their abdomen spewed its contents, but the fat man only fainted, his eyes rolling upward before his head dropped to his chest.

There was to be no respite. The executioner stepped up beside him grasped the hair at the back of his head and pulled it back. Swiftly, he drew the length of the blade across the fat man’s throat and opened it to release a geyser of crimson. As the gore jetted in an arc to fall splattering on the wooden planking, the executioner began sawing back and forth, once, twice, and a third time. The crowd was in a frenzy now and they gave a great cheer as the head was pulled from the dripping stump and thrown down.

The head bounced twice and the soldier in the cowboy hat, evidently wanting to enter into the spirit of the proceedings, swooped in and gave the head an energetic kick, sending it flying off the platform. Like a football player scoring a goal, Mr. Cowboy hat then clasped his hands over his head and executed a little dance to the shrieking laughter of the crowd. It was much the same scene as was repeated weekly, but those who came to watch seemed never to tire of the awful spectacle.

Up in her window, she continued to watch as the fat man was followed by a skinny woman, naked save for a placard with the words ‘I am a Whore’ scrawled across it, and when her head was kicked down the steps and her body tossed unceremoniously off the to the side of the platform, an old man, followed by a small boy, or perhaps ten years old were brought out and bloodily dispatched. She wondered if this was perhaps the last for the day but, then, the crew brought forth one final offering.

They had saved him for last.

Immediately, she saw that her long-time jailer had been severely beaten. Both eyes were black and there were red and purple marks all over his body and limbs. He walked stiffly upright between the two guards with a curiously mincing gate as though a large stick had been inserted up into him, and it was obvious he was in pain. Hanging from his neck, there was a hastily made placard like the woman before him had worn, but his was emblazoned simply with the word ‘Thief’.

Even after all the years of torment, and despite her deep loathing and hatred for the man, she found she had little joy in what was about to happen, and didn’t want to watch the spectacle of his death. She slid down and sat with her back to the wall, clasping her knees tightly to her in her arms. She heard the harangue of the cowboy hat man, then the successive cheers of the crowd, and she continued to sit immobile until it was quiet in the square once again.

When she stood up and looked out, the bodies had been cleared away, the execution crew absent, and the crowd was almost gone. A few stragglers were walking desultorily back down the street whence they came. She continued to watch for a few minutes longer, and then climbed down from her table.

She had no appetite for the moment, and instead of attending to lunch, she turned her mind to the problem of the locked store room. She was calculating when it might be safe to begin hammering on the door handle in hopes of smashing it off, when she was suddenly struck with an awful realization. Ultimately, she knew, it was really just an exercise in futility. Even assuming she could break her way in, in the end, it would only delay the inevitable. She might extend her food supply for a few weeks, maybe even longer, but eventually it too would be exhausted, and she would be no better off than she was right now. The only hope for her, she now understood, was to find some way out of the building, no matter what dangers lay beyond.

Going through the main door was out of the question, of course. She could beat at it with her little hatchet six-ways to Tuesday, every hour of every day until her food ran out, and she would still do little more than scratch it. The walls were solid brick, far too thick to hack through, and this avenue too was barred to her. The only way out, it seemed, was the window.

The problem with the window, though, was obvious. The room was four floors above the street and it as a long and nasty drop to the hard pavement below. She considered tying blankets and sheets together to fashion a makeshift rope, but a quick mental calculation led her to conclude that, at best, she would be left dangling somewhere half-way down the wall.

The realization came as blow that almost made her inert with hopelessness, but she summoned her inner reserves and began a rigorous search for anything that might help her in her quest. She went back up to his old sleeping quarters and re-inventoried that contents of the drawers, even searching the pockets of each piece of clothing. She turned over the mattress, searched the desk, and even tapped on all the floor boards in hopes of locating a secret hiding place. She spent the whole afternoon in an exhaustive search but, in the end, she came up with nothing new and, after a joyless supper, she retired to her bed in a thick fog of gloom.

When she arose form her bed the next morning, she did so with a renewed sense of purpose. She had lain awake in the middle of the night and, in the silent hours, the solution to her problem had come to her. She felt as though a huge burden had been lifted, and that she was happier than she had been in longer than she could remember. She even hummed to herself as she made and consumed a gargantuan breakfast of beans, granola, two chocolate bars, and a handful of candies.

Having a delightfully full stomach was also something she had not experienced for a long time, and that simple comfort added to her new lightness of spirit. Working with a deliberation born of confidence, she retrieved a chair from the kitchen and put it on top of the table. She then fetched her little hatchet and took one last look around at her prison. Satisfied that nothing else needed to be done, she clambered atop the table once again and got to work.

It was a simple matter to smash the large paned window with a good blow of the hatchet. As soon as she did so, a rush of air streamed in and she smelt the outside world for the first time in many years. It was nearly gritty with smoke and the industrial smells of soot and tar, but it was still fresh air, and she luxuriated in the change from the stuffy atmosphere of her prison. Some of the shards fell inwards, missing her thankfully, but the large pieces went out and fell to the street. It made a lot of noise, especially when they smashed on the pavement but this no longer worried her at all.

After knocking looses a few pieces that still swung precariously from the frame, she climbed up on the chair, and, singing softly to herself, began methodically chipping out the nasty shards remaining along the bottom. Finally, when she was done, she carefully grasped the edge of the frame and stepped up onto the sill.

Her heart was happy now. She was about experience freedom and the prospect gave her a calmness and serenity, but one tinctured with the exciting thought that, if only briefly, she would finally get to see what lay beyond the square to the south. She stood still for a moment, then took a final deep breath and held it.

Would she see the sea, she wondered?