Strangers in a World Unseen
an excerpt

The pastor lay the last of the items, a boning knife that had only just begun to rust along the blunt edge, out on the altar in front of him. The stiff blade was still sharp and serviceable, five inches of steel with a handle nearly as long. “Seth found it,” he said, in a slow and lazy drawl. “T'other day. Reckon, ah, reckon y'all, uh...”

Kurt nodded as he picked up the knife and studied it a moment. “We might be interested in it, sure, Dwayne.” Someone had taken the effort to monogram the handle. The initials 'BEK' were faintly visible from the glow of the oil lamp, and below that, a year: 2013. Four years before the Fall. It was in remarkably good shape, considering. A monogram meant that it had been not just a tool, but a gift of some sort. Kurt had received his own share of bizarrely personalized Father's Day gifts in years past, and decided that a monogrammed boning knife was no better or worse than the engraved socket set he received one year. Well, wherever BEK was now, if he was now, he was about to find himself short one kitchen knife.

“So, trade?” Kurt asked, as he set the knife back down again. Behind him, he could feel Adrian's unvoiced impatience, and ignored it. This was the way they had always traded, and though he didn't mind showing someone else the ropes, they would be his ropes.

The pastor considered. He looked to the blade first, and then to the remaining items that were on Kurt's side of the altar. He chewed on the inside of his cheek a while. He studied the rafters a bit after that, and almost seemed to doze off like that, before a startled little snort drew him back to awareness. After that, he spent a few long moments in wordless conversation with his wife. Then he chewed on his cheek some more, working his jaw. And finally, just when Kurt was certain that Adrian would literally explode from impatience, the pastor drew in a breath of air and spoke. “Well...” The word hung there a beat or two, until he exhaled, with a grunted: “Hunh.”

“Could trade you a clip of bullets,” Kurt suggested patiently. He nudged it forward with a finger, to the pastor's side of the altar. “Or maybe some coffee? Freeze-dried instant, but it was down in deep chill, still good as the day it was packaged. Had some just last week, in fact, from our own stash. Tastes fine if you let it set a while, and then reheat it, give it time to permeate.”

By then Adrian had stalked off from the negotiations table in a state of extreme agitation, probably gone off to find where the kid had gotten himself off to. That was fine. Keeping tabs on the kid wasn't a bad idea, and Kurt didn't have time to keep up with him right then. Outside, the last of what daylight there was had all but faded. Time to wrap things up.

“How about I throw in the coffee and the clip,” Kurt offered, another nudge of his finger tapping the plastic container forward. The label on it had faded over the years, but personal experimentation with another container in the same box had revealed it to be some sort of decaf brand. Figures. First coffee he'd had in almost a decade, and it was decaf. Of all the luck.

The pastor conferred briefly with his wife, and Kurt took the opportunity to glance around and keep tabs on the other in his group. Adrian was pacing at the back of the church, like a caged panther. The kid, Cody, was sitting at one of the pews, and Molly Ann was there right beside him, like Kurt knew she would be. She was the pastor's daughter, more or less, but unless she had the Bible written in Braille up under her blouse, he kind of doubted that the two of them were exactly studying scripture. Not that he begrudged them, really. They were kids, after all, and he could still remember what it was like to be a teenager. Some things never change.

“A'ight,” the pastor said, which was what pulled Kurt out of his brief moment of reverie. “The, uh, the clip there, a'ight. And, ah...”

“And the coffee,” his wife Malinda finished brusquely. “We'll take the clip and the coffee, in trade for the knife.”

And that was the last of the month's trades. These last few items traded hands, and a handshake sealed the deal. Malinda stepped out from behind the altar to shake. The pastor was recovering from not one but several strokes, or so the doc thought, but whatever you wanted to call it, neither his grip nor his mind were quite as strong they used to be. Not even when compared to just a year ago.

“We were short on ammo,” Malinda said quietly, just to Kurt. “I know you probably don't need another knife, but we're running lean.”

Kurt nodded. “I know. Don't worry about it, we'll work something out. Nobody wants to see anyone starve, and you've been good neighbors. I'm sure you'd do the same turn for us, if the shoe was on the other foot.”

“Well, just know it's appreciated,” Malinda said, and what struck Kurt wasn't the sincerity of her tone, which he'd come to expect from his dealings with her, but rather the subtle undercurrent of despair. That, and the dark circles under her eyes, spoke volumes on the state of affairs in Cedar Grove. Not good.