19

CYNTHIA

It had been a long, long night.

Mandy hadn’t seemed to be getting better. In fact, it had seemed that with each howl, she was getting worse.

The pain had become intense. All sorts of pain. Seemingly diverse sources. Cramping. Sharp, shooting pain. Diffuse pain that seemed to be everywhere at once.

It was morning now. The sun was coming up.

Dan and James had been up all night on watch. They were serious about it. Serious about keeping everyone safe. Serious about defense and about duty. They’d learned well from Max.

Max had said that it’d been more important to impart an attitude on the kids rather than any specific skill. Of course, they’d been taught plenty of skills.

But if they knew that they could learn, if they understood what it actually meant to be able to learn, they’d be able to pick up the skill themselves when the time came.

“How’s she doing?” said Dan, poking his head into the structure.

There was weariness on his face. Big dark bags under his eyes. But there was also determination in those very same eyes. Determination etched all over his face.

“She’s OK. Thanks for the water. No word from Georgia or anyone else?”

Dan just shook his head, and ducked his head back outside.

It wasn’t strange to see a kid acting like that. Not now.

He was as much of an adult as the rest of them. In a way.

In a way, he and James and Sadie had adapted better to the post-EMP world than the “adults” had. They’d known the pre-EMP world, but not for nearly as long as the others.

Cynthia, on the other hand, by comparison, had decades of the pre-EMP easy industrialized life. That was what she was used to.

In fact, it seemed as if Cynthia had had a harder time than the others adapting.

Sure, she knew about the chores she needed to do. She had learned them all. She had learned to shoot a gun. She had learned to fight. She had learned about knives and axes and about making fire. She’d learned about hunting and about foraging food.

But while the others always seemed to think about their plans for the future, about survival tactics, Cynthia’s mind seemed to instead drift towards memories of her past life. Memories of life with her husband in their quiet little house. Memories of TV shows and good meals paired with good wines. Memories of nights out with friends at trendy bars, memories of walking down the dark streets of Philadelphia, swaying from happiness and drink, arm in arm with her husband.

Those days were all gone.

The others, sure, seemed to remember them. They seemed to suffer some brief momentary pangs of memory.

But with Cynthia it was different. She could tell it was stronger.

That was the way she was. She was more sensitive. She always had been.

She’d buried it all deep down. The others had no idea that she felt like this. They thought she was a no-nonsense woman. Practical. Didn’t dwell in the past. Thought only of practicality and the future.

But that wasn’t reality.

She was too sensitive for her own good. Back when the hordes had come, when Cynthia with the others had had to slaughter unending numbers of them, she had cried the nights away, weeping silently so that John wouldn’t hear anything.

She still thought of those days. She still thought of the faces of the men and women that she’d killed. They were faces with the crazed eyes, with the wide pupils, with the gaunt intense lines of emaciation.

And now, just when everything seemed to be settling down, problems had started up again.

It was almost too much for Cynthia to deal with.

She hadn’t wanted Max to leave. She hadn’t wanted him to go off on his own. She didn’t like the idea of him leaving Mandy here.

Sure, in a way it was a horrible thing for him to do. And in another way, it was noble. He’d do anything for a better world for his kid, even if it meant that he might never meet that very same kid.

The promise of a newborn in the camp had seemed… Well, it had buoyed Cynthia’s spirits a little. It had made it seem like things would once again be possible, as if things wouldn’t remain static and stuck forever.

Maybe they wouldn’t have to live in hiding forever. Maybe eventually they’d burst forth back into the world.

The child had meant hope. It had been a symbol.

And now? That was all in jeopardy.

Cynthia had combed through the midwifery book by candlelight.

There were many things that could have been wrong with the pregnancy and the baby.

And Cynthia didn’t have the power to do anything about them. Not one of them.

She had no training as a midwife, and the book didn’t go into enough detail. It wasn’t that sort of book.

And, anyway, when it came to serious pregnancy complications, the book pretty much just advised that the midwife take the pregnant woman to the hospital as soon as possible.

What good was that to Mandy and Cynthia? None.

So there was really nothing to do but try to help with the pain. Be there for her. Hold her hand.

Those kinds of things. Useless, really.

Cynthia preferred things that worked. Things like penicillin, which could arrest an infection before it got serious. The results were clear-cut.

She needed something like that now. But she knew that it wasn’t going to happen.

Mandy’s noises of pain had gotten so bad that Cynthia had figured that at best, Mandy was going to lose the baby.

At worst, they were going to lose both Mandy and the baby.

And Cynthia was going to have to watch it all happen.

Cynthia didn’t know if she could bear to do it.

But who else was there?

She couldn’t leave Mandy there on her own. That’d be cruel.

The kids couldn’t handle it.

“How are you feeling?” said Cynthia, in her gentlest tones. She placed her hand lightly on Mandy’s shoulder.

Mandy hadn’t been asleep, but she’d been in some kind of dazed state.

She stirred a little now, moving her body somewhat restlessly, acting as if she had been asleep.

“Better,” said Mandy, but her voice sounded weak.

But she wasn’t grunting in pain. She wasn’t panting laboriously.

“Everything feel all right?”

Mandy shrugged. “I guess so,” she said.

“You seem like you’re feeling a lot better actually. No more pain?”

“Not really,” said Mandy. “I just feel exhausted. Depleted, I guess.”

“Hmmm.”

“Did you find anything that book? Anything that it might be?”

“A few things caught my attention, but…” Cynthia didn’t quite know what to say. It was hard to find a delicate way to say that there was nothing they’d be able to do for any of those problems.

Mandy nodded, though, as if she already understood.

“I was worried about getting pregnant in the first place,” she said. “It seemed crazy to want to bring up a child in this world.”

“Life has to go on,” said Cynthia. “Just because we don’t have electricity, and the government had fallen away…”

“Yeah, that’s what Max and I decided. Things have to keep on going. You can’t just pause life because…” Her voice sort of faded away.

It was one of those types of discussions, where they each started to say something that sounded like it would be dramatic and important, but then didn’t quite know how to finish the sentence.

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

Mandy had her eyes fully open now. Her face looked like it had been through the wringer, with dried sweat, and, it seemed, even some new lines. Lines from dealing with the pain. Lines from the stress of the whole thing.

“Maybe I’m going to be OK,” said Mandy, sounding as if she was nervous to even suggest the possibility. “I really don’t feel that bad… Is there anything in the book about some condition that can come and go this suddenly?”

“Maybe. I’ll have to look back through it…”

“Here, give it to me.”

“You’re feeling that much better?”

“Yeah. Good enough to read. Maybe not good enough to take a watch shift, or chop firewood.”

“Here you go.”

Cynthia handed the book to Mandy.

Mandy took it and began flipping through it.

“I guess we don’t know if it’ll stay gone, or if it’ll come back. The pain, I mean. And the other symptoms.”

“No,” said Cynthia. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

And that was the truth. There wasn’t anything they could do but wait and see.

Hopefully, Mandy and the baby would be all right.

Hopefully, nothing would happen.

How terrible would it be if Max returned, and there’d been some horrible problem with the pregnancy?

Or if Max didn’t return at all? And his sacrifice had been completely in vain?

It all seemed too terrible, and Cynthia buried her face in her hands.

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