Ruby

Ruby used to tell me there’s no point checking car windows, but I looked through them anyway. A long line of cars were abandoned on the bridge. They had been heading away from town and did not make it far.

“You’re only going to find food you can’t eat, things you can’t have, or people that you can’t save.” she had told me. After a while she stopped trying to stop me and let me look. In the back of an SUV was a child’s car seat and I tried to get the door open, but my tether pulled and I was forced to keep walking. In the reflection of the window, I saw the smoky collar around my neck and the long black strand trailing away from it.

A sign for the town welcomed us. We had spent the last few days searching through the backwoods, not exactly sure what we were supposed to be looking for, the Shadow’s instructions were never specific, though Ruby’s guess was simply anyone trying to hide like “you were”. This town seemed to be connected to the rest of the area by this single bridge. As we walked past the sign, Ruby told me to look down onto the pavement. The bridge continued into a thin fog and there were grey streaks on the road, so faded that I probably would have walked right over them if Ruby hadn’t noticed them first.

“Ash remnants.” I said.

Ruby came up beside them and knelt down, tracing her hand along the road. “The guard probably tried to make a last stand against the Shadows.” she said. “You can tell because there’s a lot of them grouped together in a line.”

“So Shadows already came through here?” I asked.

“They didn’t stand a chance against them.” She said as if not hearing me. “And they knew that.”

I looked up and saw the silhouette of our Shadow in the haze a few yards in front of us. It was concealed enough that I could see its slender form, but when my eyes started throbbing I looked away. Ruby had said someone she knew stared at a Shadow too long once and went blind.

“A Shadow doesn’t have much use for anyone that can’t see.” she had said. “So treat that thing like it’s the fucking sun and don’t stare directly at it.”

The road led into the main street and it was just like all the others. Destroyed store fronts, windows smashed and merchandise dragged out. There was evidence that a battle took place, but all signs of people were absent, not a corpse or even a drop of blood in sight. There was the uncomfortable silence that did not belong at the center of town in the middle of the day.

I felt the cold of the Shadow’s presence and understood that it wanted us to start combing through all the buildings. The Shadow communicated to me in this way, as suggestions that suddenly popped up in my mind, as if they were my idea. Ruby always acted like the Shadow spoke to her differently, her movements were quick and her tether never pulled hard the way mine did.

Scavenging like this had been the routine ever since I was captured and I waited for all the usual changes. A burst of adrenaline flowed down through my body. My eyes dilated and things became more focused. I saw Ruby as she arched her back. Finally our tethers connecting us to the Shadow went slack and we were free to walk where we pleased while it waited silent and stoic in the center of town like some grand statue.

Ruby walked up to the shattered windows of the pharmacy.

“I’ll get here and you check down the street.” Her words were commanding, but warm, somewhere between a drill sergeant and a patient teacher. She always checked the grocery stores and places that sold medicine. Before the Shadow made us split up, I used to walk with her as she combed the aisles with calculated accuracy, never missing any sort of important clue like a fresh footprint or a wet stain.

As I went down the street, I looked for similar things but found my attention turning towards an overturned car and another one that had crashed through the front of a bar. I peered through the huge hole and saw liquor bottles still on the shelf. I had been in a bar the night Ruby found me. I had been drunk like every night before, trying to pass out into a dreamless sleep underneath the pool table. The door to the place had flung open and I saw Ruby’s black combat boots for the first time.

“I know you’re underneath the pool table.” she had said in that commanding voice, which sounded much more menacing before I knew her. “I’ll let you know there’s no chance to escape so just come out.”

I had pathetically crawled out, unsure of what was going to happen next and not caring much anyway. There had been long and painful days before and I was separated from anyone I had cared about. Ruby was there in her army fatigues, her eyes cold and dark. She had the tether around her neck that was trailing toward the door and I was confused by it.

“She’s better than nothing.” she had said to the Shadow, but that too I was confused about and believed she was talking to me. “At least use her until we can find someone better.”

“Someone better.” I thought before my Shadow pulled me back into the present. I sighed and went back to the street.

The first house I saw was at the end of the block. It reminded me of one next to my old house, a small stone walkway leading up and a dark door between two bushes, only these ones had long since decayed. I walked up to it and turned the knob, the door opening without resistance.

There was a musty smell, but nothing to indicate that a body was nearby. Dull light came through the window and lit the living room. A couch and chairs surrounded a television. Next to that was a fireplace filled with ash. Ruby told me to always check the fireplaces because sometimes they’re still warm in the colder months so I dug my finger into the ashes and moved them around and they were cold.

I opened the closet door because the first house I had ever searched, a man had come out of the closet with a gun and shot me through the chest. I had passed out from the pain and shock and when I came to, I was laying in the same room, but my wound and the man with the gun were gone like nothing had happened. Ruby had been sitting in the chair waiting for me, ash on the bottom of her boots.

As I walked through the hallway I saw pictures of a family. A mother and father and young daughter in various places. Other pictures showed other people with them, smiling and ignorant of what was to come. I thought about when I told Ruby I might start collecting pictures I found in houses and she had scoffed at the idea.

“There’s no use holding on to those.” she had said. It was the first time I could remember being sad since I was tethered, but that feeling faded away quickly.

In the kitchen, plates of rotten food sat on the table. A door looked out to a dirt backyard with a plastic jungle gym. On the counter was a box of cereal that I used to love as a kid and I stared at it, trying to want it, trying to force myself to reach for the box and take a handful of it. My tether pulled and I stumbled back into the living room and headed up the stairs.

Some blood was smeared on the wall on the second floor and there were patches of it making a trail from the master bedroom to the bathroom. In the bathroom the medicine cabinet was open so I immediately traced back to the bedroom. The bed was made, but covered in blankets and towels and blood.

Behind me was a vanity. When I looked at the mirror I thought I saw Ruby, but it was only me standing alone in the room. My hair was disheveled and my eyes alert, but gaunt. The wispy black collar always looked like if I took a single step forward it would dissipate into the air, like smoke trailing from a cigarette. Jewelry was scattered and abandoned on the vanity, rings, watches and some necklaces hanging off a hook. A heart-shaped locket dangled from a thin black chain. I picked it up and studied it, waiting for the tether to pull me back, but it never did. I opened the locket and found a picture of the daughter and space on the other side. I shut it and instinctively put it in my pocket, feeling warmth rush through my body, deciding I’d give it to Ruby and see if she laughed at the irony or threw it away with a scowl.

When I got outside, the tether tightened and I felt the Shadow pulling me back towards the center of town. I tried running to keep up with it, but stumbled over a lip in the sidewalk. It dragged me anyway and I prepared for what I might see. Ruby called this a “reel-in” and had told me it only happened when the Shadow discovered something important that needed quick action. I was pulled across the road at great speed, feeling the hot friction on my legs as I tried to grasp upward. I went past the bar, narrowly avoiding the car that was sticking halfway out of it. As I came back to the center of town the pulling ceased and I tumbled forward just in front of the pharmacy.

The Shadow was still standing there, I felt colder than ever and I understood that it wanted me to go inside. I dusted myself off and ran in, shouting out to Ruby, but no answer came. The aisles grew darker as I walked, places where the sunlight could not reach it. As I came to the back by the photo center I heard quiet sobs. A girl was standing there crying, standing next to a pile of ash. It was jarring to see another human besides Ruby, but I shook out of it and got closer.

“It’s ok.” I said. “Tell me what happened.”

The girl wiped her tears. “A woman that looks like you, only older.” she said. “she was yelling to someone, telling them that she wasn’t going to do it.”

“Do what?” I asked. But I knew the answer. Ruby had not wanted to collar the child. She had found the strength in herself to resist the Shadow until it had decided not to fight anymore.

The ashes next to the crying girl did not look like Ruby. Somehow I expected them to be brighter, denser, like pieces of glass. I bent over and touched them. They were still warm.

Some darkened deep language began booming in my head and I reeled from a terrible pain until it ceased. It was grating and unfamiliar, but I knew what it meant. The girl did not move, she seemed to realize that there was no more running, she looked tired and hungry like I probably did when Ruby found me. I took the black noose from the tether and placed it around her. Her eyes widened as all her fear and tiredness and hunger washed away.

As we walked out of the pharmacy she asked me what my name was, I reached into my coat and felt the locket. The chain was nice and cool against my fingers.

“My name is Ruby.” I said. “What’s yours?”