Z for Zachariah

So I decided: if anyone does come, I want to see who it is before I show myself. It is one thing to hope for someone to come when things are civilized, when there are other people around, too. But when there is nobody else, then the whole idea changes. This is what I gradually realized. There are worse things than being alone. It was after I thought about that, that I began moving my things to the cave.

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 said I don’t know how bad a mistake it was. That’s because I don’t know what is wrong with that water. The stream merges with the other one, the pond stream, farther down the valley, and they flow out the gap as one. Downstream from where they merge, they are both dead—I have looked many times, thinking that maybe, after all this time, the water in Burden Creek might be all right again. But no fish swims into it, or if it does, it dies and drifts away.

It might be that if he had taken his glass rod, he would have found the water is radioactive. But I can’t be sure. On the radio, at the end of the war, they said the enemy was using nerve gas, bacteria, and “other antipersonnel weapons.” So it could be anything. All I can do is wait and watch. I hope it doesn’t kill him.

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 lay there realizing that it was not true, but also realizing something else. I thought I had become used to being alone, and to the idea that I would always be alone, but I was wrong. Now that somebody is here, the thought of going back, the thought of the house and the valley being empty again—this time forever, I am sure of that—seems so terrible I cannot bear it.

So, even though the man is a stranger and I am afraid of him, I am worrying about his being sick, and the idea that he might die makes me feel quite desperate.

I gave him the water and asked: “Who was Edward?” Because that was the name he had called me when he first saw me in the tent, when he was delirious.

For a second after I asked the question I thought the sickness had come back on him, because his eyes got a wild look again, as if he were seeing a nightmare. The hand holding the glass of water opened, and the glass slipped and fell to the floor. At the noise it made, he shook his head and his eyes unclouded. Still he stared.

“How do you know about Edward?”

I remember so many things about it. I started when I was two; it was my nursery school and kindergarten; I learned the alphabet there, from a picture book called The Bible Letter Book.

The first page said “A is for Adam,” and there was a picture of Adam standing near an apple tree, dressed in a long white robe—which disagrees with the Bible, but of course it was for small children. Next came “‘B is for Benjamin.” “C is for Christian,” and so on. The last page of all was “Z is for Zachariah,” and since I knew that Adam was the first man, for a long time I assumed that Zachariah must be the last man.

As I walked back to the house, I decided it might be a good omen. | am a little superstitious, and have always thought that birds bring good luck; when I wake up in the morning, look out the window, and see a bird the first thing—especially if it is close up, and looking toward me—I feel as if it is a symbol, and that something good will happen that day. I suppose that is because when I was about four and first heard about prayers, I was told that they flew up to heaven. So I thought of them as rather like birds, with wings, flying upward.

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.

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

Now it is morning. I do not know where I am. I walked all afternoon and almost all night until I was so tired I could not go on. Then I did not bother to put up the tent, just spread my blanket by the roadside and lay down. While I was sleeping the dream came, and in the dream I walked until I found the schoolroom and the children. When I awoke, the sun was high in the sky. A stream was flowing through the brown grass, winding west. The dream was gone, yet I knew which way to go. As I walk, I search the horizon for a trace of green. I am hopeful.