Vivants, Tome 0.5 : The New Hunger

1ère partie en anglais :

THE NEW HUNGER

ISAAC MARION

For my niece and nephews. May they not grow up in a world like this one.

A dead man lies near a river, and the forest watches him. Gold clouds drift across a warming pink sky. Crows dart through the trees—dark pines and cedars that hover over the dead man like morbid onlookers. In the deep, wild grass, small living things creep around the dead man’s face, eager to eat it and return it to the soil. Their faint clicks mingle with the rush of the wind and the screams of the birds and the roar of the river that will wash away his bones. Nature is hungry. It is ready to take back what the man stole from it by living.

But the dead man opens his eyes.

He stares at the sky. He feels an impulse: move. So he sits up. His eyes are open but he can’t see anything. Just a blur that he doesn’t know is a blur, because he has never seen clarity.

This is the world, he reasons. The world is blurry.

Hours pass. Then his eyes remember how to focus, and the world sharpens. He thinks that he liked the world better before he could see it.

Lying next to him is a woman. She is beautiful, her hair pale and silky and matted with blood, her blue eyes mirroring the sky, tears drying rapidly under the hot sun. The man tilts his head, studying the woman’s lovely face and the bullet hole in her forehead. For a brief moment he feels a sensation that he doesn’t like. His features bend downward; his eyes sting. Then it fades and he stands up. The revolver in his hand slips through his limp fingers and falls to the ground. He starts walking.

The man notices that he is tall. Branches scrape his scalp and tangle in his matted mess of hair. The tall man notices other things, too. A leather chair floating in the river. A metal suitcase hanging from a tree branch. Four more bodies with holes in their heads, sprawled out limp in the grass. These ones are not beautiful. They are pale and sunken, spattered with black blood, regarding the sky with strange, metallic grey eyes. He feels another unpleasant sensation, and he kicks one of the bodies in the head. He kicks it again and again, until his shoe sinks into the putrid mess of its brain, and then he forgets why he’s doing this and keeps walking.

The tall man does not know who he is. He does not know what he is or where he is, how he came here or why. His head is so empty it hurts; the vacuum of space is twisting it apart, so he forces a thought into it just to ease the pain:

Find someone.

He walks away from the blonde woman. He walks away from the bodies. He walks away from the column of smoke rising out of the trees behind him.

Find another person.

A girl and her kid brother are walking in the city. Her brother breaks the silence.

“I know who you like.”

“What?”

“I know who you like.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yeah I do.”

“I don’t like anybody.”

“Do too. And I know who it is.”

Nora glances back at Addis, who is such a painfully slow walker she wants to put him on a leash and drag him.

“Okay, who do I like.”

“I’m not telling.”

She laughs. “That’s not how blackmail works, dumb-ass.”

“What’s blackmail?”

“It’s when you know a secret about somebody and you threaten to tell people unless they do what you want. But it doesn’t work if you don’t say what you know.”

“Oh. Okay, you like Kevin.”

Nora fights a surprised smile. The little shit’s got eyes.

“You do!” Addis crows. “You like Kevin!”

“Maybe,” Nora says, looking straight ahead. “So what?”

“So I got you. And now I’m gonna blacknail you.”

“Blackmail. Okay, let’s hear your demands.”

“I want the rest of the cookies.”

“Deal. I don’t even like Oreos.”

“And you have to carry the water an extra day.”

“Well…fine. But only because I really don’t want anyone to know I like Kevin.”

“Yeah, because he’s ugly.”

“No, because he has a girlfriend.”

“But he is ugly.”

“I like ugly. Beauty is a trick.”

Addis snorts. “No one likes ugly.”

“I like you, don’t I?” She reaches back and grabs a handful of his woolly hair, shakes his head around. He laughs and wrestles free. “Okay, so are we good here?” she says. “Do we have a deal?”

“One more.”

“All right but only one, so you better make it good.”

Addis studies the pavement scrolling by under his feet. “I want us to look for Mom and Dad.”

Nora walks in silence for a few sidewalk squares. “No deal.”

“But I’m blackmailing you!”

“No deal.”

“Then I’m gonna tell everyone you like Kevin.”

Nora stops walking. She cups her hands to her mouth and sucks in a deep breath. “Hey everyone! I like Kevin Kenerly!”

Her voice echoes through long canyons of crumbled highrises, gutted storefronts, melted glass and scorched concrete. It rolls down mossy streets and bounces off piles of rusted cars, frightening crows out of a copse of alders that sprouts through the roof of an Urban Outfitters.

Her brother scowls at her, betrayed, but Nora is tired of this. “We were just playing a game, Addy. Kevin’s probably dead by now.”

She starts walking again. Addis hangs back a moment, then follows, still scowling. “You’re mean,” he says.

“Yeah, maybe. But I’m nicer than Mom and Dad.”

They walk in silence for five minutes before Addis looks up from his gloomy study of the sidewalk. “So what are we looking for?”

Notfign="lefra shrugs. “Good people. There are good people out there.”

“Are you sure?”

“There’s got to be one or two.”

“Do I still get the cookies?”

She stops and raises her eyes skyward, letting out a slow sigh. She slips off her backpack and pulls out the bag of Oreos, hands it to her brother. He shoves the last two into his mouth and Nora studies him as he chews furiously. He’s getting thinner. A seven-year-old’s face should be round, not sharp. It shouldn’t have the angular planes of a fashion model. She can see the exhaustion in his dark eyes, creeping in around the sadness.

“Let’s crash,” she says. “I’m tired.”

Addis beams, revealing white teeth smeared black with cookie gunk.

They set up camp in a law firm lobby, wrapped in the single wool blanket they share between them, the marble floor softened with chair cushions. The last red rays of the sunset leak through the revolving door and crawl across the floor, then abruptly vanish, severed by the rooftops.

“Can we make a fire?” Addis whimpers, although the night is warm.

“In the morning.”

“But it’s scary in here.”

Nora can’t argue with that. The building’s steel skeleton creaks and groans as the day’s warmth dissipates, and she can hear the ghostly rustle of paperwork in a nearby office, brought to life by a breeze whistling through a broken window. But it’s a law firm. A place utterly useless to the new world, and thus invisible to scavengers. One threat out of a hundred checked off her list—she will sleep one percent better.

She pulls the flashlight out of her pack and squeezes its handle a few times until the bulb begins to glow, then gives it to Addis. He hugs it to his chest like a talisman.

“Goodnight, Adenoid,” she says.

“Goodnight, Norwhale.”

Even with the powerful protection of a 2-watt bulb against the endless ocean of creeping night, he still sounds scared. And she can still hear his stomach, growling louder than any monsters that may lurk in the dark.

Nora reaches across their makeshift bed and squeezes her brother’s hand, marveling at its softness. Wondering how mankind survived as long as it did with hands this soft.

For the first time in weeks

, Julie Grigio is having a dream that’s not a nightmare. She is sitting on a blanket on a high white rooftop, gazing into a sky full of airplanes. There are hundreds of them, gleaming against the sky like a swarm of butterflies, writing letters on the blue with their contrails. She is watching these planes next to a silhouette who loves her, and she knows with warm certainty that everything will be okay. That there is nothing in the world worth fearing.

Then she wakes up. She opens her eyes and blinks the world into focus. The tiny cage of the SUV’s cabin surrounds her, spacious for a vehicle, suffocating for a home.

“Mom?” she blurts before she’s fully conscious, a reflex born from years of bad nights and cold-sweat awakenings.

Her mother twists around in the front seat and gives her a gentle smile. “Morning, honey. Sleep okay?”

Julie nods, rubbing crust out of her eyes. “Where are we?”

“Getting close,” her father answers without taking his eyes off the ringoad. The silver Chevy Tahoe cruises at freeway speeds down a narrow suburban street called Boundary Road. It used to terrify her, watching mailboxes and stop signs streak past her window, imagining neighborhood dogs and cats thumping under their tires, but she’s getting used to it. She knows the faster they drive, the sooner they’ll find their new home.

“Are you excited?” her mother asks.

Julie nods.

“What are you excited about?”

“Everything.”

“Like what? What do you miss most about the city?”

Julie thinks for a moment. “School?”

“We’ll find you a great school.”

“My friends.”

Her mother hesitates, struggling to maintain her smile. “You’ll make new friends. What else?”

“Will they have libraries?”

“Sure. No librarians, but the books should still be there.”

“What about restaurants?”

“God, I hope so. I’d kill for a cheeseburger.”

Julie’s father clears his throat. “Audrey…”

“What else?” her mother continues, ignoring him. “Art galleries? I bet we could find somewhere to show your paintings—”

“Audrey.”

She doesn’t look away from Julie but she stops talking. “What.”

“The Almanac said ‘functioning government,’ not ‘thriving civilization.’”

“I know that.”

“So you shouldn’t be getting her hopes up.”

Audrey Grigio smiles stiffly at her husband. “I don’t think any of us are in danger of a hope overdose, John.”

Julie’s father keeps his eyes on the road and doesn’t reply. Her mother turns back to her and tries to resume the daydream. “What else, Julie? Boys? I hear the boys are cute in Vancouver.”

Julie wants to keep playing but the moment has died. “Maybe,” she says, and looks out the window. Her mother opens her mouth to say more, then closes it and turns around to face the road.

Behind the perfect movie set of beige houses and green lawns, the border wall looms like a studio soundstage, making suspension of disbelief impossible. Big red maple leafs painted every hundred feet serve as stern reminders of who built this barrier, and who’s keeping out whom. Julie loves her mother. She has high hopes for this new life in Canada. But she has seen more nightmares come true than dreams.

“There it is,” her father announces. The truck hops a curb and descends into the border park lawn, tearing muddy grooves in the weedy grass. They drive past the booths where glorified mall cops once pretended to interrogate nervous college kids. How long will you be staying? Are you carrying any alcohol? Where were you on September 11th?

All that quaint border-crossing pageantry is over now. There is only one question still of interest to the gatekeepers of nations:

Are you infected?

The Tahoe rolls to a stop in front of the gate and Julie’s father gets out. He approaches the black glass scanning window with his hands upraised. “Colonel John T. Grigio, U.S Army,” he shouts. “Requesting immigration.”

The wall is an impressive feat of construction for something built in such desperate times: thirty feet of reinforced concrete running from half a mile off the coast of Washington to somewhere deep in dedere deethe Quebecois wilderness, and the whole length of it garnished with razor-wire. The “gate” is just two tall slabs of galvanized steel, fitted flush to the concrete to make any prying or tampering impossible. Not that the automated guns mounted above it would allow the attempt.

The scanning window emits a few beeps. The guns twitch on their arm mounts. Then silence.

Julie’s father glances around expectantly. “Colonel John T. Grigio, U.S Army,” he repeats, “requesting immigration.”

Silence.

“Hello!” He lowers his hands to his sides. “I have a wife and kid with me. We came from New York by way of the north and middle territories and have much intel to share. Colonel John T. Grigio, requesting immigration!”

A red light blinks on behind the black glass, then fades. The twin surveillance cameras wobble briefly but remain pointed at random points in the grass, as if fascinated by some caterpillars.

“How old was that Almanac?” Julie whispers to her mother, gripping the seat to pull herself forward.

“Two months,” her mother says, and the tightness in her voice pushes Julie’s heart underwater.

“We have skills!” her father yells, his voice filling with an emotion that startles her. “My wife is a veterinarian. My daughter is combat trained. I was an O-6 colonel and commanded federal forces in twelve secession conflicts!”

He stands in front of the gate, waiting with apparent patience, but Julie can see his shoulders rising and falling dangerously. She realizes she is seeing a rare sight: a glimpse into her father’s secret bunker. His hopes were as high as his wife’s.

“Requesting immigration!” he roars savagely and hammers the butt of his pistol into the scanning window. It bounces pitifully off the bulletproof glass, but this action finally elicits a reaction. The red light blinks on again. The surveillance cameras wobble. A garbled electronic voice fills the air—ARNING—SAULT RESPONSE—ETHAL FORCE—and the guns begin spraying bullets.

Julie screams as geysers of dust erupt inches from her father’s feet. He leaps backward and runs, not toward the truck but into the grass of the park. But the guns don’t follow him. They spin on their arms, strafing the road, bending downward and bouncing bullets off the steel door itself, then they abruptly go limp, barrels bouncing against the concrete.

Julie’s mother hops out of the car and runs to her husband’s side. They both stare at the wall in shock.

FILE, it declares in its buzzing authoritarian baritone. RESPONSE FILE CORRU—RETINA SCAN—AILED. REQUESTING RESPONSE FROM FEDERAL AUTHORIT—ASSWORD. ASSWORD—EQUIRED. WORK VISA. DUTY-FREE. APPLE MAGGOT.

The guns rise.

Julie’s parents jump into the Tahoe and her father slams it in reverse, lurching backward just as the guns spray another wild arc across the road. When they’re out of range he pulls a sharp slide in the muddy grass, flipping the Tahoe around, and they all pause to catch their breath as Canada’s border goes about losing its mind. The guns have stopped spinning and are both pointed down at the same spot, diligently pounding bullets into the dirt.

“What the fuck?” Julie’s mother says between gasps.

Julie digs through the duffel bag on the seat next to her and pulls out her father’s sniper scope. She runs it along the top of the wall, past coil after coil of razor wire, scraps of clothing and the occasional bits of dried flesh. Then she sees an explanation, and herligion, an heart finishes drowning.

“Dad,” she mumbles, handing him the scope. She points. He looks. He sees it. A uniformed arm dangling over the edge of the wall. Two helmets caught in the razor wire, one containing a head. And three city-sized plumes of smoke rising from somewhere beyond the wall.

Her father hands the scope back to her and drives calmly toward the freeway, steering clear of the gun turrets that bristle from the Peace Arch. His face is flat, all traces of that unnerving lapse into passion now gone. For better or worse, he is himself again.

After five minutes of silence, her mother speaks, her voice as flat as her husband’s face. “Where are we going.”

“South.”

Five more minutes.

“To where?”

“Rosso’s heard chatter about a fortified enclave in South Cascadia. When we get in radio range we’ll check in with him.”

“What happened?” Julie asks in a small voice. Her only answer is the roar of the tires on the cracked, leaf-strewn pavement of I-5 South. There are dozens of answers for her to choose from, everything from anarchic uprising to foreign invasion to the newer, more exotic forms of annihilation that have recently graced the world, but the relevant portion of every answer is the same: Canada is gone. The land is still there, and maybe some of its people, but Canada the safe haven, Canada the last vestige of North American civilization, Canada the new place to call home—that Canada is as lost as Atlantis, sunk beneath the same tide of blood and hunger that drowned the home she fled.

Suddenly exhausted, she closes her eyes and slips into nightmares again. Graveyards rising out of the ocean. Her friends’ corpses in the light of their burning school. Skeletons ripping open men’s chests and crawling inside. She endures it patiently, waiting for the horror film to end and the theater to go dark, those precious few hours of blackout that are her only respite.

Julie Bastet Grigio has reasons to sleep darkly. Her life has seen little light. She is twelve years old but has a woman’s weathered poise. Her abyss-blue eyes have a piercing focus that some adults find unsettling. Her mother ties her hair in a ponytail but Julie pulls it out, letting it fall into a loose mess of yellow and gold. She has fired a gun into a human head. She has watched a pile of bodies set alight. She has starved and thirsted, stolen food and given it away, and glimpsed the meaning of life by watching it end over and over. But she has just turned twelve. She likes horses. She has never kissed a boy.

What city is this

? When did it die? And which of the endless selection of disasters killed it? If print news hadn’t vanished years ago, Nora could find a paper blowing in the street and read the bold headlines declaring the end. Now she’s left to wonder. Was it something quick and clean? Earthquakes, showers of space debris, freak tornados and rising tides? Or was it one of the threats that linger? Radiation. Viruses. People.

She knows that knowing wouldn’t change anything. Death will introduce itself in its own time, and when she has shaken its hand and heard its offer, she will try her best to bargain with it.

“Can I go swimming?” Addis pleads.

“We don’t know what’s in there. It could be dangerous.”

“It’s the ocean!”

“Yeah, but not really.”

They are standing onspa a new coastline. The ocean has grown tired of living on the beach and has moved to the city. Gentle waves lap against telephone poles. Pink and green anemones compete for real estate on parking meters. A barnacled BMW rocks lazily in the shifting tides.

“Pleeease?” Addis begs.

“You can wade in it. But only to your knees.”

Addis whoops and starts pulling off his muddy, shredded Nikes.

“Keep your shoes on. There’s probably all kinds of nasty stuff in there.”

“But it’s the ocean!”

“Shoes on.”

He surrenders, rolls his jeans over his knees, and sloshes into the waves. Nora watches him long enough to decide he won’t drown or be eaten by urban sharks, then pulls the filter out of her pack and kneels at the water’s edge to fill her jug. She remembers a photo of her grandmother doing the same in some filthy Ethiopian river, and how it always made her glad she was born in America. She smiles darkly.

It took only eight feet to drown every port in the world. New York is a bayou. New Orleans is a reef. Whatever city this is, it’s lucky to be sitting on a hill—the ocean has claimed only a few blocks. While her brother splashes and squeals, Nora scans the waterline for any trace of actual beach, some little patch of sand on the last remaining high ground. She remembers the feeling of sweaty toes digging into cool mud. She remembers sprinting over the thin after-waves that slid over each other like sheets of glass. When she ran with the waves it looked like she wasn’t moving. When she ran against them it looked like she was flying. She refuses to believe her brother will never know these things. Somewhere, they will find sand.

When she looks back at him he’s in up to his neck, swimming.

“Addis Horace Greene!” she hisses. “Out, right now!”

“Brr!” he squeals as he dog-paddles past the post office, through soggy clusters of letters floating like lily pads. “It’s cold!”

• • •

Nora is grateful that it’s summer. The late-July heat is unpleasant but it won’t kill them. They can sleep in doorways or alleyways or in the middle of the street with nothing more than their tattered blanket to keep the dew off. She wonders how long her parents debated their decision. If they might have waited a few months for the weather to warm. She would like to believe in this tiny kindness, but she finds it hard.

“Do we have anything left to eat?” Addis asks, shivering in his wet jeans. “Even some crumbs?”

Nora digs through her backpack reflexively, but no miracle has taken place. No fishes or loaves have appeared. It contains the same flashlight, blanket, filter, and bottle it always has, nothing more. Not counting the Oreos, Addis’s last meal was two days ago. Nora can’t remember when hers was.

She turns in a circle, examining the surrounding city. All the grocery stores are long since gutted. She found their last few morsels in the kitchen of a homeless shelter—five Oreos and half a can of peanuts—but that was an unlikely windfall. Actual restaurants are the lowest of low-hanging fruit and were probably stripped bare on this city’s first day of anarchy. But something on the horizon catches her eye. She bunches her lips into a determined scowl.

“Come on,” she says, grabbing her brother’s hand.

They wriggle through a tangle of rebar from a bombed-out McDonalds, climb over a rusty mountain of stacked cars, and there it is, rising in the distant haze: a wansnt hazehite Eiffel Tower with a flying saucer on top.

“What’s that?” Addis asks.

“It’s the Space Needle. I guess we’re in Seattle.”

“What’s the Space Needle?”

“It’s like…I don’t know. A tourist thing.”

“What’s that round thing on the top? A space ship?”

“I think it’s a restaurant.”

“Can it go into space?”

“I wish.”

“But it’s the Space Needle.”

“Sorry, Addy.”

He frowns at the ground.

“But space ships don’t have food. Restaurants do.”

He raises his eyes, hopeful again. “Can we get up there?”

“I don’t know. Let’s go see if the power’s still on.”

• • •

It’s more eerie to be alone in a city that’s lit up and functioning than one that’s a tomb. If everything were silent, one could almost pretend to be in nature. A forest. A meadow. Crickets and birdsong. But the corpse of civilization is as restless as the creatures that now roam the graveyards. It flickers and blinks. It buzzes to life.

When the first signs of the end came—a riot here, a secession there, a few too many wars to shrug off with “boys will be boys”—people started to prepare. Every major business installed generators, and when the oil derricks started pumping mud and the strategic reserves burned up on a doomsday cult’s altar, solar power suddenly didn’t seem so whimsical. Even the brashest believers in America’s invincibility shut their mouths and gazed at the horizon with a wide-eyed oh shit stare. Solar panels appeared everywhere, glittering blue on highrise roofs and suburban lawns, nailed haphazardly onto billboards, blocking out the faces of grinning models like censorship bars.

By then it was too late for such baby steps, of course. But at least this last desperate effort will provide a few extra years of light for the next generation, before it too flickers out.

Nora gives her brother’s hand a squeeze as they make their way toward the Space Needle. The sun is setting and the monument’s lights are coming on one by one. The tip of the needle blinks steadily, a beacon for planes that will never leave the ground.

In a remote stretch of land that has never known human footprints, nature is witnessing a strange sight. A dead thing is moving. Crows circle it uncertainly. Rats sniff the air wafting from it, trying to settle the disagreement between their eyes and noses. But the tall man is unaware of his effect on the surrounding wildlife. He is busy learning how to walk.

This is a complex procedure, and the man is proud of his progress. His gait is far from graceful, but he has put appreciable distance between himself and the grisly scene of his birth. The black smoke is a far off smudge, and he can no longer smell any trace of the blonde woman’s rotting body.

Left leg up, forward, down. Body forward, right leg up, right leg forward, left leg back.

Repeat.

He knows he should be doing something with his arms as well but hasn’t yet deduced what it could be. Waving? Flapp heing? He raises them straight ahead just to get them out of his way while he concentrates on the ancient art of ambulation. One step at a time.

A few other things have come back to him. Words for common objects—grass, trees, sky—and a general overview of reality. He knows what a planet is and that he is on one and that its name is Earth. He is not sure what a country is, but he thinks this one is called America. He knows the strip of cloth around his neck is a tie, and that it’s the same color as the blood oozing from the bite on his leg, although that is rapidly darkening. The vacuum in his head is not as painful as it was, but there is another emptiness building in him. A hollow sensation that begins in his belly and creeps up into his mouth, pulling him forward like a horse’s bit. Where are we going? he asks the emptiness. Are you taking us to people?

There is no answer.

As far as the tall man can tell, Earth is a world of grass and trees and water. He feels like it should be more beautiful than it is. The river is a sickly greenish brown. The sky is blue but not pretty. Too pale, almost gray. He remembers a sky that looked different—sitting on the roof under noonday sun, sipping a beer and listening to his father yell—and rivers that were clean—sinking to the bottom and holding his breath, wishing he never had to come up—but the hollowness yanks him out of his reverie. He keeps walking.

The trees reach closer to the river until there is no more room to skirt around them, so he stops and regards the dark area where there are a lot of them together—forest. A smell of mildew and earthy rot emanates from it, stirring inexplicable terror in him—Hole. Worms. Darkness. Sleep. Vast mouth and endless throat, down, down, down—but he has no choice. He enters the forest.

Julie watches the backs of her parents’ heads, looming like stone idols in the front seats. No one has spoken in two hours. She watches the trees and empty fields become buildings, gas stations, college campuses. Welcome to Bellingham, an overpass mural declares, or used to declare before some cheery vandal sprayed the B into an H and crossed out ingham.

A spark of recognition goes off in her head and she lurches toward the front seats. “Hey! This is where Nikki lives!”

Her father glances at her in the mirror. “Who?”

“My pen-pal? The mailman’s niece?”

“The girl who sent you Vicodin.”

“Yes, Dad, that one. We have to stop!”

“Bellingham is exed. Nothing there to stop for.”

“But I got a letter from her like three months ago.”

“It was exed last month.”

“She could still be there.”

“Highly unlikely.”

“Can we please check?” She tries to catch her father’s eyes. “She’s my friend.”

He doesn’t answer. She waits, preparing herself to digest yet another wish denied. Then to her surprise, and without comment, her father swerves onto the exit ramp.

“John?” her mother says with some concern, but he ignores her. They drive into HBellingham.

Traduction de cet texte :

THE NEW HUNGER

ISAAC MARION

For my niece and nephews. May they not grow up in a world like this one.

A dead man lies near a river, and the forest watches him. Gold clouds drift across a warming pink sky. Crows dart through the trees—dark pines and cedars that hover over the dead man like morbid onlookers. In the deep, wild grass, small living things creep around the dead man’s face, eager to eat it and return it to the soil. Their faint clicks mingle with the rush of the wind and the screams of the birds and the roar of the river that will wash away his bones. Nature is hungry. It is ready to take back what the man stole from it by living.But the dead man opens his eyes.

He stares at the sky. He feels an impulse: move. So he sits up. His eyes are open but he can't see anything. Just a blur that he doesn't know is a blur, because he has never seen clarity.This is the world, he reasons. The world is blurry.Hours pass. Then his eyes remember how to focus, and the world sharpens. He thinks that he liked the world better before he could see it.Lying next to him is a woman. She is beautiful, her hair pale and silky and matted with blood, her blue eyes mirroring the sky, tears drying rapidly under the hot sun. The man tilts his head, studying the woman’s lovely face and the bullet hole in her forehead. For a brief moment he feels a sensation that he doesn't like. His features bend downward; his eyes sting. Then it fades and he stands up. The revolver in his hand slips through his limp fingers and falls to the ground. He starts walking.The man notices that he is tall. Branches scrape his scalp and tangle in his matted mess of hair. The tall man notices other things, too. A leather chair floating in the river. A metal suitcase hanging from a tree branch. Four more bodies with holes in their heads, sprawled out limp in the grass. These ones are not beautiful. They are pale and sunken, spattered with black blood, regarding the sky with strange, metallic grey eyes. He feels another unpleasant sensation, and he kicks one of the bodies in the head. He kicks it again and again, until his shoe sinks into the putrid mess of its brain, and then he forgets why he's doing this and keeps walking.The tall man does not know who he is. He does not know what he is or where he is, how he came here or why. His head is so empty it hurts; the vacuum of space is twisting it apart, so he forces a thought into it just to ease the pain:Find someone.

He walks away from the blonde woman. He walks away from the bodies. He walks away from the column of smoke rising out of the trees behind him.Find another person.

A girl and her kid brother are walking in the city. Her brother breaks the silence.“I know who you like.”

“What?”

“I know who you like.”

“No you don't.”

“Yeah I do.”

“I don't like anybody.”

“Do too. And I know who it is.”Nora glances back at Addis, who is such a painfully slow walker she wants to put him on a leash and drag him.

“Okay, who do I like.”

“I'm not telling.”

She laughs. “That's not how blackmail works, dumb-ass.”“What's blackmail?”

“It's when you know a secret about somebody and you threaten to tell people unless they do what you want. But it doesn't work if you don't say what you know.”“Oh. Okay, you like Kevin.”Nora fights a surprised smile. The little shit’s got eyes.“You do!” Addis crows. “You like Kevin!”“Maybe,” Nora says, looking straight ahead. “So what?”“So I got you. And now I'm gonna blacknail you.”“Blackmail. Okay, let's hear your demands.”“I want the rest of the cookies.”

“Deal. I don't even like Oreos.”“And you have to carry the water an extra day.”

“Well…fine. But only because I really don't want anyone to know I like Kevin.”“Yeah, because he's ugly.”

“No, because he has a girlfriend.”

“But he is ugly.”

“I like ugly. Beauty is a trick.”Addis snorts. “No one likes ugly.”“I like you, don't I?” She reaches back and grabs a handful of his woolly hair, shakes his head around. He laughs and wrestles free. “Okay, so are we good here?” she says. “Do we have a deal?”“One more.”

“All right but only one, so you better make it good.”

Addis studies the pavement scrolling by under his feet. “I want us to look for Mom and Dad.”Nora walks in silence for a few sidewalk squares. “No deal.”“But I'm blackmailing you!”

“No deal.”

“Then I'm gonna tell everyone you like Kevin.”

Nora stops walking. She cups her hands to her mouth and sucks in a deep breath. “Hey everyone! I like Kevin Kenerly!”Her voice echoes through long canyons of crumbled highrises, gutted storefronts, melted glass and scorched concrete. It rolls down mossy streets and bounces off piles of rusted cars, frightening crows out of a copse of alders that sprouts through the roof of an Urban Outfitters.Her brother scowls at her, betrayed, but Nora is tired of this. “We were just playing a game, Addy. Kevin’s probably dead by now.”She starts walking again. Addis hangs back a moment, then follows, still scowling. “You're mean,” he says.“Yeah, maybe. But I'm nicer than Mom and Dad.”They walk in silence for five minutes before Addis looks up from his gloomy study of the sidewalk. “So what are we looking for?”Notfign="lefra shrugs. “Good people. There are good people out there.”“Are you sure?”

“There's got to be one or two.”

“Do I still get the cookies?”

She stops and raises her eyes skyward, letting out a slow sigh. She slips off her backpack and pulls out the bag of Oreos, hands it to her brother. He shoves the last two into his mouth and Nora studies him as he chews furiously. He's getting thinner. A seven-year-old’s face should be round, not sharp. It shouldn't have the angular planes of a fashion model. She can see the exhaustion in his dark eyes, creeping in around the sadness.“Let's crash,” she says. “I'm tired.”Addis beams, revealing white teeth smeared black with cookie gunk.

They set up camp in a law firm lobby, wrapped in the single wool blanket they share between them, the marble floor softened with chair cushions. The last red rays of the sunset leak through the revolving door and crawl across the floor, then abruptly vanish, severed by the rooftops.“Can we make a fire?” Addis whimpers, although the night is warm.“In the morning.”

“But it's scary in here.”

Nora can't argue with that. The building’s steel skeleton creaks and groans as the day’s warmth dissipates, and she can hear the ghostly rustle of paperwork in a nearby office, brought to life by a breeze whistling through a broken window. But it's a law firm. A place utterly useless to the new world, and thus invisible to scavengers. One threat out of a hundred checked off her list—she will sleep one percent better.She pulls the flashlight out of her pack and squeezes its handle a few times until the bulb begins to glow, then gives it to Addis. He hugs it to his chest like a talisman.“Goodnight, Adenoid,” she says.

“Goodnight, Norwhale.”

Even with the powerful protection of a 2-watt bulb against the endless ocean of creeping night, he still sounds scared. And she can still hear his stomach, growling louder than any monsters that may lurk in the dark.Nora reaches across their makeshift bed and squeezes her brother’s hand, marveling at its softness. Wondering how mankind survived as long as it did with hands this soft.

For the first time in weeks

, Julie Grigio is having a dream that's not a nightmare. She is sitting on a blanket on a high white rooftop, gazing into a sky full of airplanes. There are hundreds of them, gleaming against the sky like a swarm of butterflies, writing letters on the blue with their contrails. She is watching these planes next to a silhouette who loves her, and she knows with warm certainty that everything will be okay. That there is nothing in the world worth fearing.Then she wakes up. She opens her eyes and blinks the world into focus. The tiny cage of the SUV’s cabin surrounds her, spacious for a vehicle, suffocating for a home.“Mom?” she blurts before she's fully conscious, a reflex born from years of bad nights and cold-sweat awakenings.Her mother twists around in the front seat and gives her a gentle smile. “Morning, honey. Sleep okay?”Julie nods, rubbing crust out of her eyes. “Where are we?”“Getting close,” her father answers without taking his eyes off the ringoad. The silver Chevy Tahoe cruises at freeway speeds down a narrow suburban street called Boundary Road. It used to terrify her, watching mailboxes and stop signs streak past her window, imagining neighborhood dogs and cats thumping under their tires, but she's getting used to it. She knows the faster they drive, the sooner they'll find their new home.“Are you excited?” her mother asks.Julie nods.

“What are you excited about?”

“Everything.”

“Like what? What do you miss most about the city?”Julie thinks for a moment. “School?”“We'll find you a great school.”

“My friends.”

Her mother hesitates, struggling to maintain her smile. “You'll make new friends. What else?”“Will they have libraries?”

“Sure. No librarians, but the books should still be there.”“What about restaurants?”

“God, I hope so. I'd kill for a cheeseburger.”Julie’s father clears his throat. “Audrey…”“What else?” her mother continues, ignoring him. “Art galleries? I bet we could find somewhere to show your paintings—”“Audrey.”

She doesn't look away from Julie but she stops talking. “What.”“The Almanac said ‘functioning government,’ not ‘thriving civilization.’”“I know that.”

“So you shouldn't be getting her hopes up.”

Audrey Grigio smiles stiffly at her husband. “I don't think any of us are in danger of a hope overdose, John.”Julie’s father keeps his eyes on the road and doesn't reply. Her mother turns back to her and tries to resume the daydream. “What else, Julie? Boys? I hear the boys are cute in Vancouver.”Julie wants to keep playing but the moment has died. “Maybe,” she says, and looks out the window. Her mother opens her mouth to say more, then closes it and turns around to face the road.

En francais :

LA NOUVELLE FAIM

ISAAC MARION

Pour ma nièce et neveux. Peuvent ils ne pas grandir dans un monde comme celui-ci.

Un homme mort les mensonges près d'une rivière, et la forêt l'observe. Dérive de nuages d'or à travers un ciel rose de chauffage. Les corneilles dardent par les pins et les cèdres arbre-foncés qui planent au-dessus de l'homme mort comme les spectateurs morbides. Dans l'herbe profonde et sauvage, les petites choses vivantes rampent autour du visage de l'homme mort, désireux de le manger et de le renvoyer au sol. Leurs clics faibles se mélangent avec la précipitation du vent et des cris perçants des oiseaux et de l'hurlement de la rivière qui enlèvera ses os. La nature a faim. Il est prêt de rapporter ce que l'homme a volé de lui par la vie.Mais l'homme mort ouvre ses yeux.

Il regarde fixement le ciel. Il sent une impulsion : mouvement. Ainsi il s'assied. Ses yeux sont ouverts mais il ne peut voir rien. Juste une tache floue qu'il ne connaît pas est une tache floue, parce qu'il n'a jamais vu la clarté.C'est le monde, il raisonne. Le monde est trouble.Heures de passage. Alors ses yeux se rappellent comment se focaliser, et le monde affile. Il pense qu'il a aimé le monde meilleur avant qu'il pourrait le voir.Le mensonge à côté de lui est une femme. Elle est belle, ses cheveux pâles et soyeux et emmêlés avec le sang, ses yeux bleus reflétant le ciel, larmes séchant rapidement sous le soleil chaud. L'homme incline sa tête, étudiant le beau visage de la femme et le trou de balle dans son front. Pour un bref instant il sent une sensation qu'il n'aime pas. Ses caractéristiques se plient vers le bas ; sa piqûre de yeux. Alors elle se fane et il se lève. Le revolver dans sa main glisse par ses doigts mous et tombe à la terre. Il commence à marcher.L'homme note qu'il est grand. Les branches éraflent son cuir chevelu et embrouillent dans son désordre emmêlé des cheveux. L'homme grand note d'autres choses, aussi. Une chaise en cuir flottant en rivière. Une valise en métal pendant d'une branche d'arbre. Quatre corps supplémentaires avec les trous dans leurs têtes, étendu mou dans l'herbe. N'est pas beau. Ils sont pâles et submergés, éclaboussé avec le sang noir, concernant le ciel avec les yeux gris étranges et métalliques. Il sent une autre sensation désagréable, et il donne un coup de pied un des corps dans la tête. Il la donne un coup de pied à plusieurs reprises, jusqu'à sa chaussure descend dans le désordre putride de son cerveau, et alors il oublie pourquoi il fait ceci et continue la marche.L'homme grand ne sait pas qui il est. Il ne sait pas ce qu'est il ou où il est, comment il est venu ici ou pourquoi. Sa tête est si vide il blesse ; le vide de l'espace la tord à part, ainsi il force une pensée dans lui juste pour soulager la douleur :Découverte quelqu'un.

Il marche à partir de la femme blonde. Il marche à partir des corps. Il marche à partir de la colonne de la fumée se levant hors des arbres derrière lui.Trouvez une autre personne.

Une fille et son frère d'enfant marchent dans la ville. Son frère rompt le silence.« Je sais qui vous aimez. »

« Ce qui ? »

« Je sais qui vous aimez. »

« Aucun vous ne faites pas. »

« Ouais je fais. »

« Je n'aime pas quiconque. »

« Faites aussi. Et je sais qui il est. »Nora jette un coup d'oeil de retour à Addis, qui est un marcheur péniblement lent qu'elle veut le mettre sur une laisse et le traîner.

« Correct, qui font j'aimez. »

« Je ne dis pas. »

Elle rit. « Qui n'est pas comment le chantage fonctionne, le muet-cul. »« Ce qui est chantage ? »

« Il est quand vous savez qu'un secret au sujet de quelqu'un et vous menacent d'indiquer des personnes à moins qu'ils fassent ce que vous voulez. Mais cela ne fonctionne pas si vous ne dites pas ce que vous connaissez. »« Oh. Ok, vous aimez Kevin. »Nora combat un sourire étonné. La peu de merde obtenue des yeux.« Vous faites ! » Corneilles d'Addis. « Vous aimez Kevin ! »« Peut-être, » Nora dit, regardant droit devant. « Ainsi ce qui ? »« Ainsi je vous ai obtenu. Et maintenant je vais au blacknail vous. »« Chantage. L'ok, nous a laissés entendent vos exigences. »« Je veux le reste des biscuits. »

« Affaire. Je n'aime pas même Oreos. »« Et vous devez porter l'eau par jour supplémentaire. »

« … Fin bon. Mais seulement parce que je vraiment ne veux pas que n'importe qui me connaisse aimez Kevin. »« Ouais, parce qu'il est laid. »

« Non, parce qu'il a une amie. »

« Mais il est laid. »

« J'aime laid. La beauté est un tour. »Addis renifle. « Personne n'aime laid. »« Je vous aime, ne fais pas je ? » Elle atteint de retour et saisit une poignée de ses cheveux laineux, secoue sa tête autour. Il rit et les luttes libèrent. « Bien, sommes ainsi nous bons ici ? » elle dit. « Nous avons une affaire ? »« Un plus. »

« Bien mais seulement un, ainsi vous le rendent mieux bon. »

Addis étudie le trottoir faisant défiler par sous ses pieds. « Je veux que nous recherchent la maman et le papa. »Nora marche dans le silence pour quelques places de trottoir. « Aucune affaire. »« Mais je te fais du chantage ! »

« Aucune affaire. »

« Alors je vais dire chacun que vous aimez Kevin. »

Nora cesse la marche. Elle met en forme de tasse ses mains à sa bouche et les suce dans une respiration profonde. « Hé chacun ! J'aime Kevin Kenerly ! »Sa voix fait écho par de longs canyons des highrises emiettés, des devanture de magasin étripés, du béton en verre et roussi fondu. Elle roule vers le bas les rues moussues et rebondit outre des piles des voitures rouillées, corneilles effrayantes hors d'un taillis des aulnes qui pousse par le toit de l'les fournisseurs urbains.Son frère scowls à elle, trahi, mais Nora est fatiguée de ceci. « Nous jouions juste un jeu, Addy. Kevin probablement mort à ce jour. »Elle commence à marcher encore. Addis accroche de retour un moment, puis suit, encore renfrogné. « Vous êtes moyen, » il dit.« Ouais, peut-être. Mais je suis plus gentil que la maman et le papa. »Ils marchent dans le silence pour cinq minutes avant qu'Addis recherche de son étude sombre du trottoir. « Ainsi ce qui sont nous recherchant ? »Haussements d'épaules de lefra de Notfign= ". « Bonnes gens. Il y a de bonnes gens là. »« Êtes vous sure ? »

« Il doit y avoir d'un ou deux. »

« Je néanmoins obtiens les biscuits ? »

Elle arrête et soulève ses yeux vers le ciel, laissant un soupir lent. Elle glisse son sac à dos et retire le sac d'Oreos, mains il à son frère. Il pousse les deux derniers dans sa bouche et Nora l'étudie pendant qu'il mâche furieux. Il devient plus mince. Un sept-année-vieux visage devrait être rond, non pointu. Il ne devrait pas avoir les plans angulaires d'un mannequin. Elle peut voir l'épuisement dans ses yeux foncés, s'introduisant autour de la tristesse.« Brisons-nous, » elle dit. « Je suis fatigué. »Addis rayonne, indiquant les dents blanches a enduit le noir de la matière collante de biscuit.

Ils ont installé le camp dans un lobby de cabinet d'avocats, enveloppé dans la couverture simple de laine qu'ils partagent entre eux, le plancher de marbre ramolli avec des coussins de chaise. Les derniers rayons rouges du coucher du soleil coulent par la porte giratoire et rampent à travers le plancher, puis disparaissent abruptement, divisé par les dessus de toit.« Pouvons nous faire un feu ? » Addis pleurniche, bien que la nuit soit chaude.« Pendant le matin. »

« Mais il est effrayant dedans ici. »

Nora ne peut pas discuter avec cela. Les grincements et les gémissements en acier du squelette du bâtiment comme chaleur du jour absorbe, et elle peut entendre le bruissement fantomatique des écritures dans un bureau voisin, apporté à la vie par une brise sifflant par une fenêtre cassée. Mais c'est un cabinet d'avocats. Un endroit tout à fait inutile au nouveau monde, et ainsi invisible aux extracteurs. Une menace hors de cent coché la liste-elle dormira un pour cent mieux.Elle tire la lampe-torche hors de son paquet et serre sa poignée plusieurs fois jusqu'à ce que l'ampoule commence à rougeoyer, puis la donne à Addis. Il l'étreint à son coffre comme un talisman.« Bonne nuit, adénoïde, » elle dit.

« Bonne nuit, Norwhale. »

Même avec la protection puissante d'une ampoule de 2 watts contre l'océan sans fin de la nuit de rampement, il semble toujours effrayé. Et elle peut encore entendre son estomac, grognant plus fort que tous les monstres qui peuvent menacer dans l'obscurité.Nora atteint à travers leur lit expédient et serre la main de son frère, s'émerveillant à sa douceur. Se demandant comment l'humanité a survécu tant que elle a fait avec des mains ce doux.

Pour la première fois en quelques semaines

, Julie Grigio a un rêve qui n'est pas un cauchemar. Elle s'assied sur une couverture sur un haut dessus de toit blanc, regardant fixement dans un ciel complètement des avions. Il y a des centaines d'eux, brillant contre le ciel comme un essaim des papillons, écrivant des lettres sur le bleu avec leurs contrails. Elle observe ces avions à côté d'une silhouette qui l'aime, et elle sait avec la certitude chaude qui tout sera bien. Ce là n'est rien dans le monde intéressant la crainte.Alors elle se réveille. Elle ouvre ses yeux et clignote le monde dans le foyer. La cage minuscule de la carlingue de SUV l'entoure, spacieux pour un véhicule, suffoquant pour une maison.« Maman ? » elle laisse échapper avant qu'elle soit entièrement consciente, un réflexe soutenu des années de mauvaises nuits et des éveils de froid-sueur.Sa mère tord autour dans le siège avant et lui donne un sourire doux. « Matin, miel. Ok de sommeil ? »Julie incline la tête, frottant la croûte hors de ses yeux. « Où sommes nous ? »« Obtenant la fin, » ses réponses de père sans prendre ses yeux outre du ringoad. Chevy Tahoe argenté croise aux vitesses d'autoroute en bas d'une rue suburbaine étroite appelée Boundary Road. Elle la terrifiait, les boîtes aux lettres et les signes de observation d'arrêt strient après sa fenêtre, imaginant des chiens de voisinage et des chats cognant sous leurs pneus, mais elle s'habitue la. Elle sait que plus ils conduisent rapidement, plus ils trouveront leur nouvelle maison tôt.« Êtes vous excité ? » sa mère demande.Signes d'assentiment de Julie.

« Ce qui sont vous excité environ ? »

« Tout. »

« Comme ce qui ? Ce qui vous manquent les la plupart au sujet de la ville ? »Julie pense pendant un instant. « École ? »« Nous vous trouverons une grande école. »

« Mes amis. »

Sa mère hésite, luttant pour maintenir son sourire. « Vous ferez de nouveaux amis. Quoi d'autre ? »« Ils auront des bibliothèques ? »

« Sure. Aucun bibliothécaire, mais les livres ne devrait encore être là. »« Que diriez-vous des restaurants ? »

« Dieu, j'espère ainsi. Je tuerais pour un cheeseburger. »Le père de Julie dégage sa gorge. « Audrey… »« Quoi d'autre ? » sa mère continue, l'ignorant. « Galeries d'art ? J'ai parié que nous pourrions trouver quelque part pour montrer vos peintures »« Audrey. »

Elle ne regarde pas à partir de Julie mais elle cesse de parler. « Ce qui. »« L'almanach a indiqué « le gouvernement de fonctionnement, » « civilisation non prospère. « »« Je connais cela. »

« Ainsi vous ne devriez pas obtenir ses espoirs. »

Audrey Grigio sourit raidement à son mari. « Je ne pense pas que l'un d'entre nous est en danger d'une overdose d'espoir, John. »Le père de Julie garde ses yeux sur la route et ne répond pas. Sa mère tourne de nouveau à elle et essaye de reprendre la rêverie. « Quoi d'autre, Julie ? Garçons ? J'entends que les garçons sont mignons à Vancouver. »Julie veut continuer à jouer mais le moment est mort. « Peut-être, » elle dit, et regarde la fenêtre. Sa mère ouvre sa bouche pour dire plus, puis la ferme et tourne autour pour faire face à la route.