Ruin

I knew they had it. I knew they had my locket.

It wasn’t enough that the world had fallen into rot and ruin, the water tainted, the skies the bleak color of ash and smoke. It wasn’t enough that food was scarce and field rats had become a delicacy. It wasn’t enough that sickness and war and death were now as common as the tulips in the Netherlands used to be plentiful.

No, people still needed to steal; they still needed to take from those who had less. Words like ‘bountiful’ and ‘plentiful’ and phrases such as ‘more than enough’ had long slipped through the void and lost their meaning.

Some said the Russians started it, others the Chinese, and of course the Americans—something my family still called themselves—were at the top of the list as well. Whoever was responsible, one day the bombs were put into action and the world became fire and nuclear glass.

The people who didn’t die instantly had it worse. My grandmother rotted from the inside out from the radiation; a crippled corpse of pain and suffering, and after she died my mother inherited her heart shaped locket. Jewelry was worthless; once the infrastructure was gone, people didn’t want diamonds they wanted gasoline to power generators and seeds to plant crops—but mom loved her locket.

When I was six, mom went to the river for water and was found in pieces. Our clan—The Carpenters—and the clan across the river—The Beavers—had been fighting over land and food for years, but killing in cold blood was unexpected. The locket became the property of the Beavers, and war ensued. I remembered the gunshots and the screams of soldiers being brought back to our ruins and wondered if my father and brothers would ever be coming home.

The war ended with a peace treaty signed underneath a purple maple on the river’s edge. An agreement was made that neither party would venture to the other side of the river without permission, stealing was forbidden, and no more killing. The locket was returned to my father without even an apology.

My mother assaulted and chopped into pieces and all we were given was her locket and a handshake.

I hated the Beavers for what they did and I hated father for agreeing to the terms, but I didn’t let it show. I couldn’t control my feelings, but I could control my actions. A boy in our clan even made friends with another boy from the Beavers. His name was Tomas and I was polite when he came around even though it pained me.

Tomas had raven hair and grey eyes, his sense of humor flat and dry and mysterious like the wastelands to the north where New York City once stood. A few of the other girls in the Carpenters swooned over him, but not me.

This was fine and I made it work until he stole my locket. My mother’s locket. A dark hair Judas, Tomas turned out to be. Late at night I’d hear my father talking to the other clan leaders about missing sheep or crops; they suspected it was the Beavers but there was no proof, and Elmer Rocco, the leader of the Beavers, denied they were breaking the treaty. I was always waiting for Tomas to betray us, and the day my locket disappeared I saw him slipping out of a side hallway near my family’s rooms.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

Tomas looked around confused, pretending he’d lost something. “Where is David? I was using the bathroom and he said he’d wait.”

I found that strange; the only bathroom this deep in the building was my family’s. There were several bathrooms by the front of the compound he could have used.

“He’s outside,” I said.

Tomas nodded, his gaze sliding up and down my figure. I was seventeen and starting to fill out and people were saying I was the spitting image of my mother. I never cared for the comparison, it was just a reminder she wasn’t around.

“Can’t believe he didn’t wait for me,” Tomas said, putting a hand on my hip as he slipped past me. It wasn’t overtly forward so I let it slide; I didn’t want to cause a problem when it wasn’t necessary.

The moment Tomas was gone, however, I rushed down the hallway. I checked my father’s room first, nothing more than a square block of concrete, a bed, a chair, and a few books stacked on the floor. Nothing was amiss.

I went to my room next which was basically the same as my fathers except I didn’t have a chair. I went for the small box underneath my bed where I put the locket while I worked in the fields. Tomas knew I took it off while working in the fields; he’d seen me without the locket on more than one occasion and asked where it was.

I popped open the box: it was empty.

Tomas has stolen my locket and that was something I wouldn’t let slide. Father would try and stop me, but this was a transgression that wouldn’t be allowed to pass with a handshake and faded ink on paper.

I waited until the cover of dark before I slipped out of my window, down the side of the building, and out of our compound. I was strong from growing up in the clan, fighting for everything we had and constantly burying people who succumbed to the radiation sickness that still plagued the earth. Father, and my only brother that lived through the war, taught me how to fight. I was good with a knife and I was quiet. They used to call me Slink, because as a kid I was always slinking around.

I swam the river in a shallow portion where a building had collapsed into the water decades ago. The opposite bank was steep, but manageable. The dry, cracked earth full of tree roots that made for good handholds. I made it up the embankment and paused at the top to check my surroundings. The Beavers enclave was only a few hundred yards up the river, right next to a dam made from metal and concrete. They had guards posted along the wall, but I knew a way inside.

I worked my way through the fields, staying low to the dead grass. I found the spot in the fence where the earth was soft and the chain-link could be moved. I arched my way underneath the wiring and then slithered behind a stack of old, wooden crates. I glanced around and found four guards: two by the front gates, one up in the tower at the top of the old insurance building, and the fourth was inside the front door.

A spotlight lit up the yard but it was focused on the front gates. I worked my way along the fence and around the side of the building, away from the guards and spotlights. A thick drainpipe ran down the east wall, dark and warped like a vein on someone’s temple.

The pipe was sturdy with thick brackets and I climbed it easily enough. I made my way to the flat roof and then walked to the third window on the left. Tomas’s window. He liked to keep it open at night to listen to the nearby river.

I slipped inside and landed softly in the shadows. The moonlight was cutting through the smog, casting slivers of white light along the cracked floor. I pulled my knife out and crept towards the bed.

Tomas was fast asleep, breathing level and evenly. The boy whose clan had murdered my mom and five other women while they went to get water. Part of me wanted to plunge my knife into his heart while he slept, but I needed to make sure. I needed to know for certain he’d stolen the locket. I needed to place my hate aside for reason. I needed to be just in a world of only chaos.

I eased myself onto the bed. I paused and waited. He shifted slightly but did not wake. I positioned my hand over his mouth and clamped it down as I put the knife to his throat.

Tomas woke up, his eyes wild and his hands flailing about. I pressed the knife deeper, drawing blood. I shushed him and he froze, feeling the tip of the knife and seeing the shadow above him.

“Where is my locket?”

His face was only half in the moonlight, his eye dilated. He muttered something I couldn’t hear.

“You’ll be quiet or I’ll kill you.”

He nodded; I moved my hand enough for his lips to move.

“I don’t have it,” he whispered. “Why would I have it?”

“You were in our wing of the house.”

“I don’t have your locket,” he repeated, but I saw his eye glance at the small end table by his bed.

I pressed the knife harder into his throat, my silent command understood. I reached over, opened the drawer, felt around inside, and when my hand brushed over something cool and metal and heart shaped my own heart stopped.

Tomas saw it, his eyes widening in fright as he tried to pull away. “No…you don’t understand.”

I plunged the knife into his neck and held his mouth closed while he died.

* * *

I made it back to my clan a little before midnight. I was tired and shaken, but stilled my beating heart by touching the locket in my pocket. I slipped in through the upper windows and back towards my room. I knew what I’d done was bad, but Tomas had stolen from me. The locket was mine.

When I rounded the corner I found my brother, Brandon, outside my door. He felt my presence and turned. Brandon was fourteen years older than me. My brothers were planned and I was not because contraceptives were harder to find after the bombs went off. He was tall with dark hair and sad eyes. My father once said he’d never met someone who smiled as much as Brandon, but after fighting in the clan war he never rediscovered his sense of humor. But he was kind and I loved him.

“Where were you?” he said.

“Couldn’t sleep,” I said, acutely aware of my knife. I touched my locket again.

“I have a surprise for you.”

“Oh?” I said.

Brandon nodded. “I went on a scavenger hunt up north in the ruins.”

“Oh?” I rubbed my hands together, wondering if there was blood on them.

Brandon nodded. “We found an outfitter store. But also found a jewelry store.”

I frowned.

“I found some jewelry cleaner,” he said, reaching into his jacket. “I’ve been waiting to surprise you. Mom’s locket is so dirty.”

My heart stilled.

Brandon pulled his hand out of his jacket, holding my heart shaped locket in his hand. It glittered like diamonds.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” he said, giving me a rare smile.

His smile was the worst thing I’d ever seen.

“What’s wrong?” Brandon said. “Are you mad? I wanted to surprise you …I didn’t mean to frighten you…”

I reached into my pocket and ripped out the locket from Tomas. It was a locket, but it was not mine. It was rough and made from scrap metal, with initials carved into both sides.

“That looks like the silly little locket that Randolph’s daughter made for Tomas,” Brandon said. “She’s been telling everyone she’ll marry him. Where did you get it?”

I lowered my hand. I realized I was starting to sway on my feet.

“Sis,” Brandon said. “What’s wrong?”

A horn sounded outside, shrill and wild as all the flood lights turned on. One of the guards called out a warning right before a gunshot split the serenity of the dark night sky.

The End