The Man on the Rock-Shore

Originally published in May 2015

Spring comes up from the Earth, the musk of a dead world rising from the dirt.

She draws a bow, aiming at a spot of red among the underbrush. The fox’s head darts up, spotting her too late. It collapses, dead in a moment as the arrow pierces its heart. She retrieves the limp animal, holding it aloft to let the blood drain. She stains her blonde hair as she brushes it away from her face.

It wasn’t always like this.

She remembers her mother unpacking beef from a paper bag, wrapped in plastic and styrofoam. She stood on her tiptoes to help her put it away in the freezer. It was never empty, filled to the brim with the meat of many animals. There was no hunger in her time.

Her stomach rarely growls anymore, but she catches herself drooling as she places the fox in her rucksack. It’s meat and fur and bone, and it’s going to bring her through the next few days.

2

The wind and rain beat against the walls of her cabin. She throws another thick log onto the fire and stirs area pot of stew, a mix of forest greens and fox meat. Her barrel is filled with water, so she doesn’t worry about having to forage this morning. She reads instead, wondering to herself all the while how many of the books are real and which were make-believe. It no longer matters. She is the only witness to history left.

Most nights, she would rather believe that the world had been full of knights and princesses and comic book heroes, that history was beautiful, and their world was great. Then she can mourn its loss with no bitterness in her heart for the ones who took it all away from them.

She and Robert were too young when it happened to understand, and no one had been around long enough to explain. They were so focused on living in those early days. There was no time to ask why, not like there was now. She used to lie in the crook of his arm at night, shortly after the cabin was built, and try to put it together with him.

They never knew for sure what happened, only what they had to do.

Her lids snap open as a crack rolls through the forest. It’s not the familiar boom of thunder. It’s a faraway memory. Eight…nine…ten…years back. The sound of a rifle.

Only she lived in these woods.

3

The sun cannot cut through the clouds, but it stops raining. She pulls on her jacket and furs, bringing her quiver along, though she didn’t need game.

Robert’s family had been hunters. They lived in a trailer court off Highway 69 but spent most of their time in the woods. He was the only lucky thing in her life at thirteen. She used to scream at her father for not letting them see each other. When he took her phone away, she smashed his in return. She clung to the boy, and when the world ended, he was all she had left. He and his father taught her how to shoot, to hunt, to track.

Her eyes scan the trees, looking for signs of disturbance. No branches are broken. No new trails have been stamped into the earth. She makes her way to the river, wondering if the shot was all in her head. And then she sees blood on the rocky shore. Parts of a doe carcass sit in a pile on the sand, the animal stripped of its useful parts. She goes to inspect.

Faded footprints lead her from the kill down the water’s edge. She hears singing and dissolves into the bushes. Smoke floods her nostrils as she grows closer.

Naked but for buckskin pants, a man washes a tin pan in the river, serenading himself all the while. He’s pale, with messy brown hair and a thick black beard. His arms are scarred. A bite has been taken out of his back. She ducks as he turns to deposit his dishes in his campsite, disappearing beneath a tarpaulin for a moment. When he comes out, he’s pulling on a worn flannel shirt and a coat of bearskin. He picks up a rifle, inspecting it for a moment before walking away in the opposite direction.

This is the first human she’s seen in two years.

4

Another rainy day keeps her inside. She knows there’s no sense in catching cold, though she worries about the man by the river. She resists the urge to go and collect him. Humans were no better than animals now.

Nonetheless, she lights a lantern, hangs it outside the door, and hopes he has the good sense to move in case the river floods.

5

The seasons betray her, and it snows. It comes down wet and hard as she retrieves a rabbit from a trap. She hoped to hunt for mushrooms, but her teeth begin to chatter and her fingers ache.

She takes the long way home, hoping to catch a glance of the man again. The scent of fire and searing meat tells her he’s alive, and her gut tells her to go home. She keeps walking. She stands in the trees, watching him huddle close to the fire, hunched over on an overturned bucket. A twig snaps beneath her feet. He looks up, eyes staring a thousand miles past her. His eyes are blue.

Robert had blue eyes.

She turns around, not knowing if he’s spotted her. She runs home, bars the door. Back to the wall, she falls to the floor and begins to sob.

Robert had blue eyes.

6

A hard fist hits the door just after midnight. She huddles in her furs. She knows it’s him.

“Please open the door. I want to talk.”

She doesn’t know if she can. The embers in the hearth pop in the silence. She slowly slips out of bed, sliding on her pants as she goes to the door. Her hands find a knife before she unlocks it.

He leaves his rifle outside at the threshold. He remembers to take off his boots. She forgot people do that.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

“Lisa.” Her voice is hoarse.

“George,” he says, extending his hand. She takes it timidly. It’s cold. He looks her up and down. “How old are you?”

“I don’t know,” she replies.

“How old were you when it happened?” he takes a seat at her table by the fire. She tries to guess his age. Thirty-five? Forty? Most probably didn’t live past fifty.

“Thirteen,” she says.

“You’re here by yourself?” He looks around. There’s no sign of anyone else, but the bed is big enough for two. She nods. He pulls a flask from his coat and hands it to her. “That’s rough.”

She sits beside him on the floor. He tells her what happened and who was responsible for putting them in these woods. She tells him about Robert and his family and the years they spent alone out there. He tells her how his wife passed in childbirth not two years ago. He holds her when she sobs.

She brings him into her bed with the sense that that’s what she’s supposed to do. She wants him to sing in her arms, his voice a growl as he paws at her. She wants him to fill her, making her feel whole, to bring the world back and bring life into it once more. It’s only them now, but it could be three, or four, or they could fill the world with children. They had fled to the mountains, and now it was up to them to cast the stones which would become tomorrow’s men and women.

And she doesn’t want to be alone anymore.

He has blue eyes like Robert.

7

All the snow is gone. George takes his rifle over his shoulder and goes to hunt. Lisa watches his back as he slips into the trees. When he’s out of sight, she goes around behind the cabin.

In a clearing, two worn crosses stick out of the dirt. She clears rotting leaves from their bases, remembering the night she awoke to find Robert cold in her arms and how six months later she pulled their son out from inside her to find that he was ice as well. She thinks of George and vows never to let him grow cold.

The world is cold enough as is.