Z for Zachariah

But what I wonder—should I wear a dress? Suppose it is a real rescue party, an official group of some kind? I guess I could sneak back and change. I do have one pair of real slacks left. The others wore out. But I haven’t had on a dress since the war. Anyway, I can’t climb a tree very well in a skirt. But I think I will compromise and wear the good slacks.

I suppose it seems wrong to be so afraid of that. But I don’t know what the man will do. I liked most people. I had a lot of friends at school. But that was a matter of choice; there were some people I didn’t like, and many that I didn’t even know. This man may be the only man left on the earth. I don’t know him. Suppose I don’t like him? Or worse, suppose he doesn’t like me?

“I’ve been digging,” I said, which of course he had already seen. “This is going to be the garden.”

“Hard work for a girl,” he said, noticing, I suppose, how messy I looked.

“I’m used to it.” I started to tell him that most of it had already been dug before and was therefore easy, but then I decided not to. I did not want him to know how afraid I had been when I first saw him coming.

So to me the idea of getting married seemed like quite an enormous step. Still I thought, when Mr. Loomis recovered from his sickness, there was no reason why we could not plan to be married in a year; that is, next June, perhaps on my seventeenth birthday. I knew there could not be any minister, but the marriage ceremony was all written out in the back of the hymnal. There should be a ceremony; I felt strongly about that, and it should be in the church, on a definite date, with flowers. The whole idea was thrilling. I thought I might even wear my mother’s wedding dress. I know where it is, folded up in a box in her closet.

A strange thing had occurred. Though we had both known the fever was coming, and I had dreaded it more than he had (or more than he had seemed to), now that it was there, and he was visibly distressed, my own fear seemed to vanish. I felt calm—almost as if I were the older one. It was as if when he got weaker, I got stronger. I suppose that is why doctors and nurses could last through terrible epidemics.

And then he said:

“You’re a thief and a liar, Edward, but it’s no use. Stand back from the door.”

A pause.

“No. I warn you. I will shoot. The suit will stop radiation, but it won’t stop bullets.”

Then I made a mistake.

I said: “In the end, I did go to the church.”

“To church?” He sounded as if he could not believe it. “To church!” He lay back in the bed. “How long did that take?”

I said: “I’m not sure. I went three times.” I realized that I should not have mentioned it at all. It seemed to irritate him so.

“Three times to church, and the field not planted.”

“But I can. If you’d lend me the suit, I could go.”

I could hardly believe how annoyed that made him. I should have known, I guess, having heard him dreaming when he was sick, and the way he talked to Edward.

“No,” he said, his voice very quiet, but angry and hard. “You could not go. Understand that. Keep away from the suit. Never touch it.”

I had a theory about it, more than one really. I thought the murder of Edward, the months alone in the laboratory, the long desperate walks, also alone, through the dead countryside—all that had been so horrible and deadening it had blotted out everything else in his mind. When he thought back, that was what popped up, so he did not think back, nor talk about the past. But beyond that, his sickness and at the end the high temperature may have done something to him; the temperature might even have changed parts of his mind. It was not impossible, I thought.

The more I thought about it, the more the feeling grew in me that it was wrong; it was as if he were playing some kind of a trick on me. And that idea made me feel more nervous than ever—in fact, afraid. Then I got quite angry with myself for feeling that way. I told myself I was making up problems. There was no reason to believe that he did not really want to be read to, even though he did not pay close attention. The sound of a voice can be soothing; surely he must be bored and restless with inactivity. I reminded myself that that, at least, was sure to get better as he was able to walk farther and do more. I must be patient.

But I had tripped over his leg in my dive and before I could get my balance his hand, grabbing blindly, had caught my ankle. His grip was strong; I was amazed at his strength. He was pulling me back, and my hands, grasping for something to hold, slid backward over the smooth floor. His other hand groped forward and caught the back of my shirt. I pulled forward again, heard the shirt rip and felt his fingernails tearing the skin of my back. I hit back with my elbow as hard as I could.

Poor Faro! He had never in his life been tied up. When he finished eating, he shook himself again, trying to get the collar off, and then trotted away. When he came to the end of the tether, his head snapped back and he fell down. He stood up, shook himself, and tried again. Next he turned around and backed off, trying to pull the collar over his head. Mr. Loomis watched; at last, having seen that the dog could not get away, he turned and went back into the house.

“I have no choice. I can only hope you will change your mind,” he paused, “and act more like an adult and less like a schoolgirl.”

I thought of the gun again. It was frightening to see. But perhaps not so frightening as it had seemed at first. I was beginning to get used to the way his mind worked, the way he thought about things. There was a pattern that kept repeating. In the case of the gun it meant—or, I thought, it might mean—not that he was planning to shoot me, but that he thought I might shoot him. I still think that might be correct. He may have reasoned that if I was encamped in the store and saw him coming, I might be frightened, and might try to drive him away. But what made him think I had a gun at all? My guns had been at the cave all of the time since his arrival, and I was quite sure I had never mentioned them.

And I suddenly realized that he was not trying to miss. He wanted to shoot me in the leg so I could not walk. He wanted to maim, not to kill me. So that he could catch me. It was a simple plan, a terrible one. Starvation would force me to come to the house or the store. And the gun would keep me from going away again. And I knew he would try until he succeeded.

And so I have decided to leave the valley. I am convinced, since the shooting incident, that Mr. Loomis is insane. We will never be able to live in the same place in peace. I have lived in constant fear of being seen and hunted down: the sound of pebbles sliding on the rocks, a twig snapping, even the wind in the leaves can make my blood run cold. The valley, which has been home and shelter for my whole life, seems now to threaten me wherever I go, whatever I do.

And if I saw him, what would I say then? He would be mad with rage, and ready to kill. He would do anything to keep me from leaving. He would say anything. He would tell me of the horrors of the deadness, of the loneliness of silent roads and fields. He would speak of bodies in the houses and in cars; he would say he knew there was no other place: surely he had searched long enough. He would say, Come back to the house, come back, come back: this time I will leave you to yourself.

“Don’t go,” he said, “don’t leave me. Don’t leave me here alone.”