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  “Come with us,” the bald man said. His small flock of companions stood a few feet behind him, lined up in a neat row. They were all smiling. All silent.

  “Stay a few hours or spend the night if you wish,” the man said. “Eat and rest. You’re more than welcome. The end of civilization doesn’t mean we have to forget good manners. Right?”

  David looked at Eda.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  There was no point in pretending.

  “I don’t think so,” Eda said. She blurted the words out and was well aware of how blunt it sounded. After an awkward pause, she looked at the strange man and the others. The camouflage posse. They were so uniformly polite and attentive in response to her bluntness. She struggled to find the right words – to articulate how uncomfortable she felt in a way that wouldn’t cause offence.

  “Thank you for the offer though,” she said. “But maybe we should just keep walking. Take advantage of the weather while it’s dry. What do you think David?”

  David hesitated. “Sure,” he said. He glanced back and forth between the strangers and Eda. “If that’s what you want. Although…”

  “What?” Eda said. This time it was her tone, not the words that were blunt.

  David pointed to the backpack hanging off Eda’s shoulder.

  “Supplies are low,” he said. “We only took a few days worth of food and water out of New York with us, didn’t we? Maybe it’s not such a bad idea to…what I mean is, maybe these good people wouldn’t mind helping us out in terms of refilling our supplies. We can always hit the road later today or tomorrow, you know?”

  Eda nodded. It was a mechanical gesture.

  “Yeah.”

  With a nod of the head, the bald man gestured into the woods behind them.

  “We have plenty of food,” he said. “You’re more than welcome to share a meal with us. And we can certainly spare some supplies for your onward journey, be that later today or in the morning or whenever you wish to depart.”

  He looked at Eda.

  “You have nothing to fear from us young lady,” he said. “We’re merely survivors of a great disaster, just like you and your friend. We are a shy community here. Very shy. We’re a peaceful people and I suppose you might call us religious of sorts – we stay deep in the woods, we worship our god and avoid the lingering madness of cities and towns. Everything we need is here. Right here.”

  The other strangers came further forward. Now they stood alongside the bald man, forming a camouflage line. In the process, a small channel opened up in between them that led into the swampy background.

  It was an open door. It was the invitation.

  “My name is David,” David said. He stepped forward and then turned back to Eda. “And this is Eda. We’ve come from New York. And we gratefully accept your offer of hospitality.”

  The bald man lowered his head in greeting.

  “My name is Frank Church,” he said in a quiet voice. “But for as long as I remember people have called me Baldilocks.”

  “Baldilocks?” Eda said. “Are you kidding?”

  The man chuckled and pointed to the top of his perfectly round, gleaming skull.

  “It’s not hard to guess why is it?” he said. “Bald head, long hair at the back and sides – of course. Very clever, yes? Of course, it was designed as an insult. It was done to mock me. But for some strange reason my friends, I kept the name. Now I wear it like a badge of honor. Why? It reminds me that nothing lasts forever – that what we fear is but a fleeting shadow. All the jokers are dead. Yet I’m still alive.”

  He laughed, as if suddenly aware that he’d lapsed into a speech. But even as he laughed, Eda saw a hint of anger flare up in his eyes and she noticed how it lingered there, long after he’d stopped talking.

  “Forgive me my young friends,” he said. “Sometimes I get lost in my own head.”

  3

  Eda, David and Frankie Boy were taken further into the swamp.

  It felt like they were entering a lost realm, something secret that shouldn’t have existed anymore. This was the greenest place that Eda had ever seen or imagined. Easily. Central Park was one thing but the towering New York skyline was so overwhelming that it would never let Eda forget that the park was a blip, a mere oasis of green encased within a concrete giant.

  Great Piece Meadows.

  It was both a beautiful forest-like structure and a grimy sea of swampland. As they walked through it, the sky was mostly clear but as always the threat of rain was never far away. Eda kept her head down, trying to get used to walking over the soft and squishy surface of the swamp floor. She heard the loud sucking sound of feet being pulled out of the mud, a constant reminder that the terrain had taken a heavy soaking recently.

  They were deep inside the swamp now. It was a brown and green maze and it was hard to tell exactly how the camouflaged strangers could so easily navigate their way through such a dense landscape and one that was an endless mirror image of itself. But they were doing it. Eda had a feeling these people could probably find their way around the swamp with their eyes closed.

  “We’re close to the river,” David said, calling out to those at the front of the line. “Aren’t we? Maybe a little too close?”

  “Don’t worry,” Baldilocks said. He glanced over his shoulder at the travelers. “Our camp isn’t located anywhere near the water. The constant flooding means we have to keep a respectful distance at all times. As you know, the rain comes hard. It’s almost spiteful in its attack. In all our time here though, it’s never been enough to make this place inhospitable. In fact, the swampy conditions are a blessing of sort – they keep other people away. Mostly.”

  He smiled and turned back to the front.

  They hiked west for another twenty minutes and eventually reached the camp. What Eda saw there far exceeded her expectations.

  The strangers had built their home inside a massive clearing. It was essentially a tiny village in the heart of the swamp. There were two rows of wooden huts scattered on either side of the settlement, adding up to about forty buildings in total. A narrow lane ran in between the two rows, just like a regular street, only this thoroughfare was built of grass and mud instead of asphalt or concrete. And the traffic was human.

  Eda noticed wooden number plates hanging from a piece of string on each door. The numbers had been scrawled in childish handwriting with red paint.

  The cabins themselves were about twelve by fifteen feet at most. They’d been built on a sturdy foundation of two fat, stumpy pillars poking out of the dirt. The cabins had gable roofs and had obviously withstood the elements for many years, providing shelter for this strange little community that had set up home in a harsh environment that couldn’t have been anything other than challenging at the best of times.

  Eda took it all in, nodding in silent appreciation. They’d chosen a good spot, keeping their distance from any obvious signs of washout and erosion, which were both indicators that moving water had run through the area. The village had also been built on a slightly elevated region of the Meadows and there were sloped areas on all sides, which would provide runoff after rainstorms.

  As Baldilocks and his companions returned to camp with the visitors, people began to emerge from their cabins to take a closer look. The human traffic on the road, carrying supplies and buckets of water, stopped what it was doing too. Gradually, several people walked over to greet the visitors; they were smiling and some of them were even clapping their hands as if Eda and the others were long lost friends who’d returned home after a long absence.

  The camp was full of people of all ages – mostly in their middle to later years but there were some teenagers and a scattering of younger children too. Eda still hadn’t gotten used to the sight of young people, not after all the time she’d spent in New York swallowing Shay’s lies about the curse. It was refreshing to see youth on display, even if they were still in the minority. Everyone in the camp had camouflage jackets on, although
these came in a multitude of shades – bright green with brown, muddy brown with pale yellow stripes and many other varieties.

  Eda and David were led over to a long, communal wooden table at the edge of camp. Two benches ran down either side and to keep the rain off the table, a four-legged canopy had been erected.

  The visitors sat down. Almost immediately, people began bringing out large plates of food and placing them in front of the two guests. Eda glanced at the offering with interest. There was some sort of reddish brown meat, as well as several plates of vegetables. Water jugs were set down on the wood with a hearty thud. Somebody poured a glass for Eda and she thanked the server and then drank it down quickly. She was thirstier than she’d realized. She drank a second glass, then filled a spare bowl and lowered it down to Frankie Boy, who was at her feet.

  “Eat, drink and rest my friends,” Baldilocks said in his strange, musical accent. “Welcome to our home in the Meadows.”

  “Thank you,” Eda said, looking around. “I like what you’ve done here. It’s impressive.”

  Baldilocks bowed in gratitude.

  “We’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way,” he said. “Boy did we ever. It took us a few attempts to find the right spot to settle down. There were two other sites before this one but we got flooded out each time. We learned – learned what we needed to do to keep the water away. Now it’s perfect.”

  Eda jabbed a thumb towards the villagers. “Did everyone come from the city?”

  “We were all city people once,” Baldilocks said. “But not anymore. These days we call ourselves the Children of Nature. The Children, for short. What we shared and still share was a common goal of escape from the city. The emphasis, ever since the war, was to get away from those urban hellholes – the polluted towns and cities and everything and everyone that was ever associated with the war. We chose to start again here, to return to a simple life dictated by the basics. And thanks to the Great One, we’ve been blessed with the opportunity to do that here in the Meadows.”

  Eda’s ears pricked up. Great One? Was he talking about God? She recalled some of the women back at the Complex who spoke about God and how some of them used different words to refer to what sounded like the same thing. But Eda had never heard the term ‘Great One’ before.

  It piqued her interest, but she said nothing.

  “How many people are here?” David asked, tearing into a slice of dry meat. He sat forward, his elbows propped up on the table. Eda noticed that he was enjoying the constant attention of the people around him, as well as the food and what felt like an atmosphere of muted celebration, inspired by their arrival.

  “Seventy-four in total,” Baldilocks said. “There were more of us originally but we’ve had more deaths than births over the past five years. Such is the way with an older population.”

  A tall, slim woman brought over yet another large water jug and placed it on the table. But this woman, instead of retreating backwards like the other servers, sat down on the bench beside Baldilocks. She smiled across the table at Eda. Her long hair was white – it was the whitest hair that Eda had ever seen before. Not gray, but the color of fresh snow. Eda couldn’t tell whether it was real or dyed. She still looked relatively young – in her late forties at most.

  “Drink up,” the woman said. “You must be thirsty after your long journey.”

  “Thank you,” Eda said, reaching for the jug and pouring out another glass for herself. She checked Frankie Boy’s bowl and topped it up.

  “You’re welcome,” the woman said. Her voice was deep, almost masculine in tone. “What’s your name?”

  “Eda.”

  Eda offered her hand and the white-haired woman reached over the table and shook it. She didn’t even look at David.

  “I’m Number 10.”

  Eda screwed up her face. “Number 10?”

  Baldilocks sat watching the two women, laughing softly to himself.

  “Of course,” he said. “How strange it must seem to an outsider.”

  “Just a little,” Eda said.

  Baldilocks pointed to the villagers. Those who weren’t occupied elsewhere stood within earshot of the table, ogling the visitors with their eyes.

  “There are no names amongst us,” Baldilocks said. “Not anymore. Myself excluded of course.”

  “Why not?” Eda said.

  “We rejected them,” Baldilocks said, turning back to the table. His tone was lazy and matter-of-fact. “And now we reject everything about the past. Everything. Our old names have no relevance to our new lives.”

  Eda put her empty glass down on the table. She scoured the banquet with her eyes and although she was hungry, none of the food tempted her.

  “Why didn’t you give up your name?” Eda said, glancing at Baldilocks.

  “I did,” he said. “Frank Church was my name. I rejected it because it has no meaning for me anymore. But I wear my new name with pride. You see I’m the joke that lived through the End War. I was the clown, the one who wandered the streets holding up a sign and warning them what would come. I knew it would come. What did they do? They spat and called me many names. But I always hated Baldilocks the most – the jokers really took to that one back in the day. Oh yes they did. How the world turns, hmmm?”

  David took a break from eating.

  “How have you survived in here for so long?” he asked, wiping tomato juice off his chin. “I mean, with so many mouths to feed. It must be hard going.”

  It was Number 10 who answered.

  “Simplicity,” she said. “Like the animals, we ask for no more than what is necessary to survive. We live off what he provides for us. We have water and we hunt a minimal amount, always looking for the weak, old and sick animals. We have a few vegetable gardens – it’s not much but it’s enough.”

  “Yes,” Baldilocks said, nodding along to every word. “And we are thankful for your safe arrival my friends. Despite our retreat from the outside world it’s good to know that there are still some people out there. Young people especially. The uncorrupted.”

  Eda’s eyes darted back and forth between Baldilocks and Number 10. As they spoke, she could hear boots squelching in the mud behind her as the Children went about their business.

  She took a deep breath.

  “Who is the Great One?” Eda asked.

  The table fell silent. Eda noticed David looking at her with a mildly troubled expression, making her wonder if she’d committed a grave error. Then he went back to shoveling food in his face with all the enthusiasm of someone who hadn’t eaten in a week.

  Baldilocks took a sip of water and placed the glass on the table. He ran a finger back and forth around the rim in concentration.

  “The Great One is Uncle Sam,” Baldilocks said. “He’s the one who spoke to me in the past and forewarned me of the End War. He’s the one who speaks to me still.”

  “God?” Eda asked. She spoke in a whisper. “Are you talking about God?”

  Baldilocks shook his head.

  “The God you speak of abandoned us a long time ago,” he said. “You can’t blame him for that. We fell too far and so he closed the door on his creation for good. However, he left behind an empty throne and before long there came another to deal with the mess of humankind. This other was brutal in his tactics.”

  Baldilocks pointed towards the ground.

  “He lives down there.”

  “He lives in the dirt?” Eda said.

  “There’s a place near here,” Number 10 said. “That’s where he resides in darkness. With any luck he’ll stay there and let us live out our lives in peace. The End War was like a giant meal for him and he’s satisfied, at least for now. But it’s up to us to keep him satisfied. We must keep him satisfied. To love, respect and fear him. That way, we might turn his wrath away from Earth and he’ll go back to whatever dark corner of Hell he first crawled out of.”

  Eda glanced at David. He looked like he was only half-listening to their hosts, such was the level o
f food distraction in front of him.

  “How do you keep him satisfied?” Eda said.

  “We go to him,” Number 10 said. “To the place where he lives – a giant crater near Fairfield. Biggest you ever saw. We go there and we give thanks, amongst other things.”

  “That’s it?” Eda said. “You just go there and say thanks.”

  “Like I said,” Number 10 said. “Amongst other things.”

  Baldilocks ran a hand over his skull, sliding it through the dirty gray hair that sprouted from the back and sides.

  “Do we sound like mad people?” he said. “Of course we do. But you’re quite young both of you – I don’t imagine you remember much about the war.”

  David shook his head. “Just the aftermath.”

  “The wild years,” Baldilocks said. “A second End War of sorts, only we were fighting amongst ourselves that time.”

  Eda pointed to the villagers. “What did all these people do before the war?” she asked. “Jobs and things?”

  “We were all kinds of people,” Baldilocks said. “Some of them carrying water buckets over there were once big shots in Paterson and Jersey City. They made a lot of money, had families, two cars and a nice house. Their lives fit nicely into that old world model. The American Dream. They paid their taxes and put their trust in the governments and authority figures. Not for one minute however, even at the height of the pre-conflict crisis, did they believe that the war would happen. They put their trust in the wrong people. While I was on the street, a homeless bum telling them the truth, they listened to the people they trusted, the ones that wore expensive suits while they lied.”

  His upper lip curled into a snarl.

  “And you?” Eda said. “Who were you?”

  “I was nobody,” Baldilocks said. “I was an English immigrant, an outsider from the get-go. In later years, I was the madman who walked the streets of Jersey City with a sign that said ‘The End is Nigh’. I did that day and night. I used to carry another sign too and it said that ‘Uncle Sam will be the death of us all’. They didn’t realize that I knew. I knew what was coming.”