Page 55 of What Blooms in Barren Lands

Einar nodded imperceptibly, looking almost confused, as if wanting to ask, “Well, what else was I supposed to have done?”

I chased limp pasta shapes around a bowl of watery tomato soup, the meal provided to us that night by the hotel’s inhabitants. The meagreness of the dinner and their willingness to share it with us only emphasised the level of their gratitude. Still, I couldn’t well live on gratitude, and my mind wandered freely in the direction of Einar’s backpack, and specifically to the side pocket which bore veritable treasures in the form of chocolate-coated granola bars.

The erstwhile hotel dining room boasted neat rectangular tables arranged in perfectly regular lines. The dirty striped carpet made my eyes swim and my temples throb with an impending headache.

Einar, Albert, Russ, and Finlay sat at a table not far from my own, engaged in a conversation with Pierre. He was the settlement’s leader and looked like my mental image of a French poet with his dainty hands and a well-cultivated blond moustache. If I strained my ears, I occasionally caught titbits of their conversation that drifted towards me above the hubbub of the room. First, they arranged the recruitment and training of new archers in exchange for weapons. Then they spoke of the events of the day and finally of the events of the preceding months. Apparently, the settlement had seen very few infected since the Outbreak. The horde was a fluke.

I was so consumed by their conversation that I barely paid attention to the one taking place at my own table. However, as the meal concluded and the noise in the room increased, I couldno longer eavesdrop effectively, and so I engaged more with people sitting close to me.

“It seems an unusual choice for a girl to be an archer, no?” the woman who sat across from me asked.

She was a few years older than I. Her face was rectangular and framed by two plaits of coarse sandy hair. She wore a red dress, rather an odd choice for a mountain settlement. She squinted her brown eyes into creased half-moons while she spoke, and her smile revealed rather large, but mostly regular, teeth. Despite her pleasant manner, or perhaps because of it, I somehow found her rough around the edges. A woman who I guessed would have a loud, annoying laugh and whose favourite pastime would be gossiping.

“Well, as a sport it’s just as accessible to women,” I told her. “And in this situation especially we need anyone who has talent for it, regardless of gender.”

“Yeah, but still, almost all of your archers are men,” she pointed out, her eyes narrowed.

I took a deep breath, and luckily, Dave beat me to the reply,

“Renata’s the one who taught us all. She’s the best of us by far.”

He squeezed my knee under the table, steadyingly, noting my dislike of her.

“Don’t let Einar see that if you don’t want to lose the hand,” I muttered to him under my breath.

“He knows I’m gay,” Dave remarked, also sotto voce.

“I still wouldn’t risk it if I were you.”

“Oooh, wooow, are you really,” the woman drawled annoyingly and leaned back.

I froze. I may have already registered it on a subconscious level. To be entirely fair, it may have been the root cause of my dislike for her. But only in that moment did I notice how herbelly rounded underneath the tight red fabric. And how her hand rested on it protectively.

“You’re pregnant.”

“Yes. I’ve only just started showing, too. A week ago, you wouldn’t have been able to tell.”

She rubbed her stomach and grinned smugly.

“You got pregnant after the Outbreak.”

Same as before, I wasn’t asking because as much was obvious. What I really wanted to know was if it was on purpose.

“Oh, yes. Well, my boyfriend and I agreed to come off birth control about eight months ago now. We weren’t trying, but we weren’t preventing either, if you know what I mean.”

Dave’s hand tensed on my knee, its continued presence a testament to his bravery and regard for our friendship. Or else an equivalent of flipping Einar off. Not wise in either case.

“I know alright what you mean,” I assured the woman, not returning her smile. “But didn’t you think to start preventing again after the Outbreak?”

My voice sounded shrill even to my own ears.

“Renny,” Dave may have said softly next to me, but I wasn’t sure.

“No, why? I mean, the world needs more people now, doesn’t it? Even Pierre said so. We need babies. It will be our, women’s, main job to repopulate the world.” Probably noting my expression at last, she added accusingly: “Our most important job. Men can do anything else, can’t they?”

It was all I could do to refrain from throwing the remainder of my soup in her face. I balled my hands into fists to stop their shaking.

Choking on the sizzling coals of hell at the back of my throat.