Faith

“We always thought that we ourselves would end the world. That there would be some nuclear disaster, a war lasting minutes, and then not much of anything else. We didn’t account for nature to destroy itself, like a snake biting its tail-“ Faith cut herself off, pausing the radio transmission to reach for a handful of crumbs out of some unbranded, grey military bag of chips.

“Or you know, something less pretentious. It is 11AM, on a Monday, I think, and I am once again coming to you live from the ice wastes. Or, I mean, inside, hiding from said ice wastes. I’m coming to you from an empty military base, completely empty, except for one person who never learned how to shut up.” She paused again to pour crumbs into her mouth. “It’s been seven months, and as far as I know I’m talking to myself out here. But I really hope you’re listening. Especially because by now you know so much about me. About my absent father, my overly attentive mother, my weird little brother. Poor kid. Anyway, you know all about that by now if you have been listening. If you’ve managed to somehow not die. The temperature outside is a warm -38°F, which is -38°C too. Is that right?” She stopped speaking again to tap at the outdoor thermometer’s output screen. The numbers flickered in response to her touch before stabilizing. “Yeah, those are coming out as the same. I don’t know why it’s warmer today. I hope you’re enjoying it, you know, getting that sun, because it’s out there, somewhere. I’ve seen it, you know. Sort of. There’s a room in here which is like an enclosed garden – it’s like a little courtyard with plants and an artificial stream and a little bench and a skylight. It’s nice. The skylight is actually covered in a layer of snow, but it’s still light in there. Something’s still coming through.”

Faith set the radio speaker down, letting the static grow as she flicked the dial between the different frequencies. All static. In the earlier days, someone had been playing music on one channel, a seemingly endless stream of obscure 80's music. But it had stopped after a few weeks. And since then, Faith only had herself and constant radio static for company. She picked up the speaker again.

“Great little update. Last night I found the master key for the lockers. And I have been doing a lot of snooping around. I know what you’re going to say, it’s not ethical or moral to search through other people’s stuff. But they’re all dead, so it doesn’t matter. That’s the excuse I’m using, anyway.” Faith threw the empty bag of chips over her shoulder, not bothering to look back to see where it landed among the tangle of wires and electrical equipment that she had hooked up into a rudimentary communications system. Instead, she reached over to the bottle of suspiciously unlabeled military issue “40%” alcohol, took a swig, and kept talking. “So I’ve been going through all of them, methodically, by number. Except I couldn’t find the corridor that had numbers 1 through to 69 so I started at 70. But methodical other than that.”

“And I have found some good stuff, let me tell you. Some new clothes, which are too big but I am making it work. This one guy’s locker had the softest sweater I have ever worn. I’m wearing it now, so thanks to the unnamed soldier of locker 127. Anyway, what are you wearing? Don’t answer, I’ll just picture it.”

Faith flicked crumbs off her stolen sweater. “But what I keep thinking about is locker 133. This woman had so many beautifully worded, handwritten letters, from a woman who loved her. They had kids together, but it wasn’t clear from reading if they were biological or adopted or from an earlier, failed marriage. Who am I to speculate? On one of the pegs there were her dog tags – they said her name was Edha de Costa. Edha. Ed-Ha? And next to the dog tags, there was this heart shaped locket – not my usual style, but I have been wearing it, it looks nice.” Faith reached down her top to pull out the locket which had been pressed coolly against her skin, placing it down gently over the soft material of her sweater.

“I haven’t worked out how to open it yet, but it’s pretty. Not too big, and a kind of rusty looking rose gold color. The chain is the same, it looks old, sort of vintage. I wonder if it’s some kind of family heirloom or something. I like it, anyway, so it’s mine now. I’m keeping it. If you have a problem with that, why don’t you come over here and say something?” Faith let the static ring out into the sparingly furnished room. “That’s what I thought, coward. Really though, if you’re out there, I have enough food to feed 1,487 people for at least a year. So, two people could probably share that for a while. If you’re interested. Feel free to just say.” She flicked through five channels of static again. “Say anything. Anything at all.” She sighed, placing the radio transmitter down again.

She turned her attention back to the locket around her neck. What she had first assumed to just be an intricate pattern banded across the heart was actually writing, she realized, delicately etched onto the surface in a language she couldn’t read. At the opposite end of the hinge, too, was a small clasp and button. She pressed down, hoping that this time the locket would open, but again it remained shut. She fussed over it for a while, trying to pry it apart with her fingernails to no avail. On one of these attempts, she accidentally twisted the button, which released the clasp mechanism, allowing her to open it.

She let the locket open into the palm of her hand. She was met with the smiling faces of a now dead Edha de Costa’s equally dead family, happily beaming at the person taking the photo. There were three kids, two girls and a boy, all close in age – about seven or so, or younger. Faith wasn’t sure. The two girls were wearing matching yellow summer dresses. The boy was dressed smart, with a tiny yellow tie. Faith wondered if the photo had been taken at someone’s wedding. She also let herself wonder about Edha de Costa, trapped out in the cold until it was too late. Faith wondered if it even was the cold had got her first, or the hunger. She thought about the gate. She had seen from the security feed how many people had been out there, civilians as well as military personnel. Whole families, with all of their belongings hopefully strapped to their backs, as if they were going on holiday, as if they were going anywhere which had a destination where they would actually get to wear any of the clothes they’d packed or kitchen utensils they’d planned to cook with. Parents with toddlers on their backs. Kids with cuddly toys.

Faith knows she is not a bad person. She believes it, deep in her core. She is good. This is the thought that she has which makes her able to get out of bed in the mornings, the thought she has when she showers, when she steals personal belongings from dead people’s lockers. She knows she is good, deep down. She also knows that when she gets really scared, she freezes. She’s always frozen when she gets scared; in response to a car backfiring or a particularly loud ambulance or whenever someone touches her neck. So, when 5,000 people tried to occupy a military base with the capacity to look after just under 2,000 for a year, that’s exactly what she did. She froze.

For one person, that’s about three lifetimes’ worth of food. Faith actually sat down and did the math. If you try to divide that by even just 50 people you end up with not enough, not enough to last even 20 years, not enough to survive. And that’s before you bring use by dates into the equation. So that’s what you’re left with – one person with more food than they’d ever know what to do with, safe and warm and inside, and 5,000 souls outside, in the cold, hungry, and very much not being allowed in. Faith had let her hand hover over the button to release the gate for hours. But she couldn’t move. She could see the arguments that would arise, about leadership and rations and living quarters. If she let them in, she would die along with them. Slowly. But if she didn’t? they wouldn’t die slowly – the cold would get them, or they would get hungry. It wouldn’t matter. Faith would be safe, warm, inside. And alone.

Faith picked at the picture inside the locket with her fingernails until the skin underneath started to bleed. That night, she walked back to locker 133 to place the locket back on top of a pile of neatly stacked letters. “Sorry, Edha.” She spoke to the open locker. “If I could take it back, I would. I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known it would hurt this much.” She shut the locker and locked it with the master key, which she left in the lock. She took another swig of ‘40%’ and stumbled back to the radio room, putting the bottle next to the mattress on the floor. She hadn’t realised how tired she actually was, until her head hit the pillow. She drifted off easy, like every night, to the sound of radio static.

She awoke to what she first thought was rain, before she remembered it was too cold, too cold to even snow. But there it was, a quiet yet persistent tapping. She glanced at the security footage of the main gate, and went to find more alcohol.