Fifteen

After that I never leave the gun behind again. I check it over thoroughly the next time we stop. I don’t know how to clean it properly, but I remove as much dirt as possible, check the movement of the safety catch, reload the bullets. I want to test fire it, to make sure that I know what to do should it ever come down to using it for real. But even here in the countryside I cannot be sure that we are safe, that the sound of the shot will not draw lurking Creatures near.

I always make sure I check each place we stop. While Lisa waits in the car I creep inside, cautious and frantic, my heart in my mouth, the gun in my hands.

Another few weeks go by, and Lisa is more pregnant than ever. We sleep close together at night. Her back hurts sometimes, and in the mornings she is almost always sick. I feel useless, because I can’t help her with this, can’t do anything. All I can do is keep the gun close and ready, and survive.

One night I wake and hear her praying. I turn over, watch until she’s done. She is kneeling with her eyes shut and her hands together, her lips barely moving as she forms the words.

When she’s finished, I say, “I didn’t know you were Christian.”

She jumps, bites her lip. Then she shrugs. She puts her hands on her bump. “I’m not. Not really. My mother . . .” A pause, then she goes on, “my mother used to pray sometimes. It helps me. When I’m scared, you know? It feels good, to think there’s someone listening.”

I nod. “Are you scared, still?”

“Sometimes. Not always. I was before. Before I met you I was terrified all the time.”

I think of telling her I was going to kill myself, but I don’t. I decide right now that this is a secret that I will keep as long as I’m alive. “I’m scared too,” I say. “If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know where I’d be.”

We sit looking at each other for a minute. She has a nice face, Lisa does, even under the sweat and dirt of the last few months.

Just then her eyes go wide and she says, “oh.” She sits up straight. “It kicked.”

At first I don’t know what she’s talking about, but then she takes my hand and holds it against the swell of her belly. I feel a tiny movement, a tiny, internal push. And it is real and alive and growing inside her. We stare at each other, caught in this strange moment. One that doesn’t seem to belong, here in the silence and the dark of a dying world.