Free AFTER by Ronald Kelly Page A

alive?
    Having no answers, Phyllis sighed and turned the phone off. She lay there in the darkness, listening to the sound crickets and the gentle breathing of her protector until, she herself, drifted off to sleep.
     
    For the next few days, Phyllis went nowhere. She stayed at the little shack in the woods, instead of continuing her long journey northward to Maine. She didn't know why. Maybe it was because she was exhausted, or maybe she was just weary of the unknown she encountered with each mile she traveled. In some strange way, the shack seemed like an oasis from the danger and chaos the Burn had conjured.
    Two times a day, Compadre brought her the product of his daily hunts. Sometimes it would be a squirrel, sometimes a rabbit or chipmunk. Once it was a possum, which was almost too ugly and nasty to consider eating, but she had used her culinary expertise to turn the scavenger into a feast she would have been proud to serve to the Queen of England. Together they would eat and, at night, they would sleep satisfied, their stomachs having ceased their grumbles of hunger and complaint.
    Over time, Phyllis seemed to grow accustomed to such a simple and wantless existence. Sometimes in the middle of the night, she would wake up and wonder if the TV shows and cookbooks and the lighthouse on Casco Bay had only been a pleasant dream, the interviews with Larry King and the guest spots on Oprah an elaborate fantasy. Sometimes she even wondered if Art and Sandy had been real at all or merely inventions of her imagination.
    As the lesions on her arms and face multiplied, and she grew weak and confused and her hair began to fall out little by little, Phyllis found herself believing that she had always lived in the shack by the creek and that the white dog with the mismatched eyes had always been by her side. The lighthouse and the sea became a distant memory and she began to forget what Art and Sandy had even looked like.
    Sleeping and eating the wonderful meat that Compadre provided became her life. Phyllis would stay awake only long enough to work her magic on the flesh brought to her, then she would return to her bed and descend into merciful slumber once again.
     
    Then, abruptly, simplicity changed into hardship once again.
    The offerings of Compadre's hunts in the woods turned less than desirable. The first sign that something was wrong was a woodchuck the dog brought her early one morning. The animal didn't look right; it seemed too large and malformed. When Phyllis slit its hide, she found the meat to be purple and bruised-looking underneath. And its blood was black and sluggish. She wondered if it was a result of the radiation. Maybe it had taken a toll on this poor creature… the same way it was taking a toll on her, little by little.
    After a couple of days, the infected animals grew scarce and Compadre would return to the shack with nothing. After enjoying such a plentiful bounty, the sudden loss of sustenance – of her precious meat – was both disheartening and nearly unbearable. Once again, her stomach began to grumble and complain, and the gnawing pangs of hunger returned.
    Then, one afternoon, Phyllis nearly crossed a line she had never even considered before.
    Compadre was out on one of his fruitless hunts. Phyllis was in the shack alone, tidying up a bit, although the action now seemed pointless and mundane. She was straightening up the table and chair, when she heard a noise at the door behind her. "So, did you find anything today?" she asked, turning around.
    Standing in the doorway were two men. One was a big man, bald and clean-shaven, wearing a ragged t-shirt, jeans, and boots. The other man, smaller and thinner, sported a shaggy beard and wore a tank top and shorts. Both men were filthy and riddled with radiation sores. But that wasn't what frightened her about them. It was their expressions that startled her, the fire in their eyes and the ugly grins upon their faces.
    Phyllis steadied herself against the