Finding Shelter

25

It had been a relatively calm few months. Especially considering the period that they had all gone through not so long ago, when everything had seemed so intense, as if nothing was going right, as if everything that could go wrong had gone wrong.

A lot had happened in his absence.

It had taken Max about a week to get back to the camp. His leg had hurt him as he’d walked back, but he hadn’t encountered any trouble.

He’d returned to find that, in his absence, everything had apparently gone to hell.

He’d heard about how Sadie had gone missing, how Georgia had gone to look for her, and how Mandy had seemingly had pregnancy complications.

Max had felt this heart starting to skip a beat as his wife, Mandy, told him about what had happened.

“But you’re OK now?” he had said, trying to hide the anxiety in his voice.

“Yeah,” Mandy had said. “We don’t know what it was. But everything seems to be back to normal.”

Max hadn’t known what to think. But there was no way to know what had happened to Mandy. Had it just been some fluke? Had it been that the baby was turned the wrong way? Something else entirely?

Max had spent a lot of his limited free time poring over the midwifery books that they had, as well as the medical encyclopedias that they’d found recently. There were a few different conditions that seemed like they might fit, but nothing was definite.

So for the months until Mandy’s delivery, everyone, including Max, didn’t know what to expect. They hoped for a healthy, happy baby, but they had really no way to control what would happen, except to make sure that Mandy got plenty of rest and plenty to eat.

Now it was the day everyone had been waiting for.

The day that Mandy was likely to give birth.

She had gone into labor four hours earlier.

Now, she was lying on the makeshift mattress, her legs spread apart, breathing along with Georgia’s instructions.

In the little shelter, it was just Mandy, Georgia, and Max. John was limping around outside, keeping watch. He’d had a pretty good recovery from his horrible injury, but it was unlikely that he’d ever walk without a limp again. Now he had joined Max in having leg problems.

Max had tried to hold her hand, but Mandy had pulled her own hand sharply away from him, shaking her head.

“But how can I help?” said Max.

“Just keep quiet,” said Mandy.

Max shot Georgia a look that said, “what am I supposed to do here?”

“Just do what she wants,” said Georgia.

It seemed like wise advice, advice that Max intended to take.

Max knew he was out of his element.

Which was a strange feeling, being out of his element, since he’d been getting into his element since the EMP. In a strange way, the new world of violence and chaos felt more comfortable to him than the sterile, purposeless world of the office.

Over the last months, it seemed as if Max had gotten more comfortable in a variety of intense situations. They were situations that he’d never imagined that he’d be in. Before the EMP, he’d worked in an office. He’d never been in combat. He’d never been in a war.

Life since the EMP had been a war. There was no other way to put it.

The only difference between it and a regular war was that there were more enemies.

Since the EMP, almost everyone was an enemy. Everyone except those who he could trust those who had become his family.

He couldn’t have done it without Georgia, without Mandy. Without everyone who’d given their lives.

For a second, he thought of Chad. An image of his face flashed into his head.

Chad had made mistakes. Big mistakes. He’d been weak in ways that a man shouldn’t have been. And those weaknesses had cost him his life.

But Chad had died in an honorable way. He’d saved James’s life.

Max wouldn’t forget that. He knew that Georgia hadn’t forgotten it. Or James. Or any of them.

“Max?” said Georgia. “You still with us?”

“Huh? Sorry,” said Max, snapping back to reality.

“The water, Max?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Max, feeling like he was coming out of a daze.

He got up, crossed the room, and poured a glass of water, bringing it over to Mandy. He held it for Mandy to take.

Mandy was breathing hard. Very hard. She was red in the face, and she ignored the glass of water and Max.

“For me, Max,” hissed Georgia, sounding annoyed.

“Oh, sorry,” said Max, getting around to the other side of the bed and handing the water to Georgia, who drank it down in a single gulp.

“We’re coming in for the home stretch now,” said Georgia. “You can do it, Mandy. You’re going to have to push. This is going to be hard. This is going to suck. But trust me, you can do it. If I can push out those two huge kids of mine… you should have seen how big they were as babies… I know you can push out this little Max Junior…”

Mandy cried out as she started to push. He’d never seen her in so much pain.

Max took a couple of big steps back.

Seeing this scared him in some way that nothing else did. He didn’t know exactly why. Maybe it was just because it was something new, something different from fighting and survival.

Or maybe it was because he was scared of bringing a new life into the world.

After all, his kid would grow up in a world that… would be radically different.

Back before the EMP, Max had never thought much about having kids. He’d figured he’d make that decision if the right woman had come along.

And she never had.

Not until the EMP.

And it turned out that she’d been living next door to Max all that time. And they hadn’t even known each other. They’d never even spoken until Max had decided to kick down her door to rescue her.

It had been a huge decision for him. Before that moment, he’d been convinced that he’d only look out for himself, that he’d die a violent death if he stopped to try to help others.

Well, he’d stopped. He’d saved Mandy.

And he was glad he had.

He doubted that he’d even be alive if he hadn’t. After all, how many times had Mandy saved him? Too many to count.

Max was once again getting lost in his thoughts.

The next thing he knew, it was all over.

Mandy let out a huge grunt of pain. One final push. Strain on her face.

Georgia was reaching between Mandy’s legs, grabbing something.

When she came up, she was holding a baby.

A disgusting baby, covered in all the things that a baby is covered in when it first comes into the world.

Mandy was still breathing hard, but she started to quiet down. Max looked at her and smiled. She smiled weakly back at him.

“Looks like a healthy baby… and it’s a boy,” said Georgia, holding him where Max and Mandy could both get a clear look at it.

It was strange looking, the baby. But only strange in the way that all newborns look strange. Their heads can seem misshapen, and their necks are almost absent. Their skin has a strange look to it.

Overall, they look funny.

And Max and Mandy’s baby was no different.

It was all normal. It was a normal, healthy, soon-to-be happy baby.

“Let’s name him Chad,” said Max.

Georgia shot Max what might have been a quizzical, or critical, look. But she managed to stifle her normally stubborn, somewhat combative personality, and didn’t say anything.

Max looked at Mandy.

“Sounds good,” said Mandy, nodding.

Georgia was smiling the next time Max looked at her.

“Here you go, you hold her, Mandy,” said Georgia, slowly lowering baby Chad into Mandy’s eager arms. “You want to do the honors, Max?”

“The honors?”

“The umbilical cord. Sometimes the dad…”

“Oh,” said Max. “Sure. Unless there’s some trick to it?”

“Not really,” said Georgia. “I remember how it’s done. I’ll show you.”

“Let me go sterilize my knife,” said Max, taking out his folding pocketknife, and flipping it open.

The knife had been used for many things before, but cutting an umbilical cord wasn’t one of them.

All he needed was a lighter or some alcohol.

“I’ll be right back with a clean knife,” said Max, ducking out the door into the outdoors. As he did, he glanced back to see Mandy holding baby Chad, Georgia presiding over the whole thing.

“Is it a boy or girl?” said Sadie, suddenly popping up in front of Max. Her face was shining with excitement.

“Boy,” said Max. “Help me find a lighter, will you?”

Max felt foolish. He should have been prepared for the birth. He should have had everything they might have ever needed already there.

But that’s the way life was sometimes. No matter how hard you tried to prepare, things got in the way, or things cropped up unexpectantly.

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