The road is nearly impossible to see underneath the ash and mud. The only indication that there is a road comes from the power poles and the fence posts that I drive past. Houses look more like dried, old snakeskins than domiciles now. All the humans have gathered up and scampered away, seeking hope upon the horizon, but as I drive, I realize that it’s a vain attempt. Every house I stop at is a haven for corpses. I don’t enter when I can smell them. I don’t want to see them. I don’t need that.
I had hoped that there was somewhere out there untouched by all of this, but that’s nothing more than a fairytale. I know that’s hauntingly cynical, but I can’t help but feel like we’ve been given up to God’s own cynicism. This world is a husk rolling through space. I haven’t seen a person since I got onto the road. Everyone must have packed up and abandoned Michigan. From what I’ve seen, I don’t blame them and wish I’d done the same, sooner.
I spend most of my nights in houses that have been abandoned. I spend most of the time satisfying my own morbid, disturbed curiosity about the houses for the first few hours. There’s something about an empty home that turns me into a sneak and a snoop. I check every room to make sure I’m alone before I really start to investigate.
I’m not a thief by any means. I only take what I need to survive, and honestly that’s very little. I have everything I need for now. It’s the phantoms of who used to be that drive my curiosity. I see smiling faces decorating the walls in a world void of hope or laughter. I hold their pictures and examine the look in their eyes, the way they twinkle and are full of life at those frozen moments. Their lips spread wide with delight, their teeth immaculately white. I love the pictures of families the most. Those few houses I’m forced to take shelter in that don’t have pictures of their loved ones seem like crypts. They’re abandoned monuments to what used to be and I can’t help but feel their ghosts watching me.
Along the road, I find my first body. He is on the shoulder, rolled up in his sleeping bag. As I drive by, I can’t help but stop and wonder about what kind of a man would sleep on the side of a highway. I only have two guns. My Winchester hunting rifle, with a scope that could easily show that the man wasn’t moving from where I park the Jeep, is loaded and ready to put down anyone who tries crossing me. I slowly approach him. My heart is thumping faster and faster as I near the motionless man. Each step I take towards him sends jets of ash shooting up the sides of my boots and legs. There is no subtlety in this world. Anyone could see me coming by the trail of billowing ash the Jeep leaves in my wake.
I call out to the man once, holding my rifle’s butt firm against my shoulder, staring through the scope with the crosshairs right at center mass. When the man doesn’t respond and I am welcomed with silence, I scan the horizon with paranoid eyes. Amidst the dead trees, there is nothing moving but the ash drifts in the slightest of breezes. I fully expect to find someone leaning against a tree, their own gun stalk against their shoulder, and with a flash of light, I will feel the bullet ripping through me and with that, I’d be dead. But there is no one. A lazy creek filled with brown sludge still manages to trickle along the road, and holds no surprises for me either. I call out to the man again, but there is still no response.
I decide to approach him further and, with trembling, sweaty hands, pull the sleeping bag back and witness the emaciated corpse inside. His eyes are sunken in, as if they had simply fallen into his head, his cheekbones sharp from hollowed out, gaunt cheeks that are stretched too tightly down to his jawbone. Most of his hair has fallen out and the man is as cold as squishy iron. I stumble backwards, horror and disgust fill me at the man I had found. I stare at his lifeless face, that odd, peaceful expression on his frigid features and I wonder where he’d come from. The man’s skin has discolored to a sort of brownish yellow. Nothing looks healthy about him but I am thankful there are no flies working on him. There isn’t enough food around to encourage the flies to migrate out to him. Their lives are too short to waste on such journeys nowadays.
There is no ceremony for this corpse, this dead man. I roll him out of his sleeping bag and immediately search him over. I find his gaunt fingers wrapped around a crinkled picture of a man with three sons and a smiling wife behind him. I recognize the balding man in the picture as my dead friend here. His wife had been lovely. She had hair like Tiffany’s. I wonder what he was doing out here alone on the road. For a moment I feel truly sorry for him. What had he been thinking? Where is his car?
Before I leave him, I wrap him up in his sleeping bag and write on the outside of it with a Sharpie. ‘Dead inside, husband and father of 3.’ It is the best tombstone that I can give him. I drag the sky-blue sleeping bag down into the ditch and give him one last look before I turn and walked away—abandoning him once more. The only thing of value he had was a pocket knife.
The only thing that I have ironically on my hands is time. It’s the one thing against me, but on that road, I’ve got more time than I want to keep. There’s nothing to look at, nothing to listen to, and nothing to behold upon the road that doesn’t evoke nightmarish feelings of dread and loss. Between obstacles my thoughts are consumed by the past. I think of the girls, Christmases together, birthdays, those special moments we had together. But, inevitably, my thoughts flow down the dark river of the past until I see her standing on the shore. I seek her out whenever I have time to think. Love does that to me. I am not a man who can love in moderation. It is an immolating process for me. I was never good at structuring or moderating how I felt about Tiffany. She was my everything, and that’s just the way I had wanted it. It was the gamble I made. It was the risk that nearly destroyed me.
This barren landscape is nothing more than a metaphor for what I had been living years ago. I had witnessed this kind of devastation on a very intimate level then. I remember the morning she found the lump. It had been small, hard, and I immediately tried to belay any concerns my wife had as she stood in the bathroom, her hair dripping as her eyes stared widely off into the ether. I hugged her close to me, she was warm and damp. Her fingers clung to me as if she had known from the moment her fingers found the lump what was coming. I was in denial for most of it. I think they call fighting brave because we refuse to let go of what we have. But in reality, I think that what we call brave is just self-delusion.
I did all the right things. I refused to let my wife give up. I took care of the girls while she was in the bathroom throwing up. I gave up my dreams of being a writer and took the job at the university teaching so we could have the benefits and stable income. I went to chemo with her and laughed with her as I held her hand, trying to keep her mind off of what had come to pull upon our thoughts like a black hole. I watched the woman I love wither into a skeletal husk of what she had once been and I loved her as much as I had the first day I saw her.
When I first saw Tiffany, I was in college. I was a sophomore walking around with my notebook tucked under my arm, living the bohemian lifestyle and telling the world and all its order to go straight to hell. I was going to be the next great writer. I was going to change the world with my written words. I knew that I had a destiny and college was the first step on my road to discovering it. I wanted to go to India, to France, and Turkey, and Morocco. I was going to find every secret the world had to offer and I was going to tell the laymen all around me about it through my poetic prose. Tiffany was not so delusional. She was a photographer, snapping pictures of ducks on the quad. Or at least I thought that was what she was doing. In truth, she was taking pictures of those who were watching the ducks from a distance. She knew how to capture the world exactly as it was. She saw through all the glitter and smoke that was constantly swirling, and she could freeze a moment of innocence and beauty in time forever. I loved that about her.
On our first date, I kissed her. This was something I had never done before, but the moment I sat down with her at Gambino’s, I knew that I was going to marry her. Thankfully she didn’t slap me and run off screaming. We dated for two years, wanting me to grad
uate before we got married. We did exactly that. For the first two years of our marriage, we traveled. We didn’t go anywhere exotic or amazing. We traveled the States in our old station wagon, seeing every landmark there was to see. We ate cheaply and we slept in the back of our car most of the time. We made a foray down into Mexico and then into Canada before coming back. Then we realized that it was time to settle down and start our lives. Three years later, Lexi was born. Val came the following year.
Lexi was eight when Tiffany found the lump. We were living in Chicago at the time. I had written three books and we were living comfortably, but not with any sort of abundance. I worked freelance, writing essays and selling them to magazines for a ridiculous price. The girls didn’t understand that their mother wasn’t going to make it. Even with all the advances with medicine, there’s no telling who lives and who dies. No child should have to watch their mother die. I appreciate fathers, but many times I have cried in the dark wondering why I hadn’t died. Mothers are the souls of every family. I provided, but only by the physical standards. The girls grew up tough, independent, and strong. I often wonder what they would have grown up like if the tables had been turned.
It was a year before I got Lexi to laugh again.
This world, all that has happened to it, it’s nothing shocking or new to me. I have seen the one thing I love more than all others wither and die as I stood by helplessly watching. Sometimes life turns to shit and all you can do is try not to sink in it. Sure, I thought about suicide, but there was always the girls. There was always something worth staying alive for, despite how much it hurt to keep living without Tiffany. Even right now, as the world is dying. It’s incredibly seductive to slip into that oblivion with our planet, but I can’t. If I’m going to die, then it will be with my girls. Because they are the only lingering piece of Tiffany I have. They are the lights of my life now. They have been since the moment I watched them come into this world. Plague be damned, I’m not letting them go so easily.
Outside of the small town of Sterling Heights, the welcome sign has been painted over. Instead of ‘Welcome to Romeo’ it now reads a bit more harshly. ‘Fuck you, Sophia! I did this for you!’ is slathered across the sign in red paint with a sad face. It’s the welcoming sign to the horrors of what Romeo has become. I remember when I first read Slaughterhouse Five, I looked up pictures of Dresden to get a better image of what Vonnegut was talking about. I swear, Romeo has turned into nothing more akin to a miniature version of Dresden. All the buildings have been burnt out so that their skeletal structures stand like blackened ribs poking out of the rubble and ash. I take it slowly, driving through the streets as I see bodies among the ruins of what used to be a reasonably nice, small town. Whatever happened here must have been a testament to whoever Sophia was and I wondered if she was pleased with the work.
Passing through Sterling Heights is haunting and eerie enough, but whoever has turned the town into a pile of rubble left one last present on the way out the south side past Twelve Mile Road. A man is strapped to a sign, his clothes torn off and his stomach ripped open. His intestines now serve as morbid streamers, slowly drifting in the breeze. He has been completely eviscerated and left in the scorching sun so that he has begun to harden and shrivel. Around his neck is a sign that reads: ‘Killer of Sterling Heights’ and I feel a sense of peace wash over me, hoping that this dead man was the one responsible for everything I’d seen over the last few miles.
I am so busy looking at the dead man on the sign that I almost run down a girl in the middle of the road waving her arms. Swerving, I roar off the road before over-correcting and eventually coming to a skidding halt in the center of the road. I look at the girl as she stares at me with wide, terrified eyes. Adrenaline pounds through my veins, pumping around my ear in a steady rhythm as I take in shallow, sharp breaths in an attempt to steady myself. I haven’t seen a person in more than a month. There are three other teenagers stepping out of the rubble of a gas station, their forms nothing more than emaciated ghosts of who they must have been once upon a time. I quickly grab my Winchester and step out of the Jeep, holding it at the ready. I make sure it’s loaded and take a step toward the girl and the others who are slowly joining her.
“Is that your car?” one of them shouts toward me, another girl.
“Doesn’t matter,” I shout back. “You almost got me killed.”
“Almost,” the Girl in the middle of the road shrugs.
“You got any food, Mister?” one of the two boys with them shouts over the rising breeze. “We’re starving.”
“Why haven’t you gone looking for some?” I say, gripping my rifle tighter.
“We’re on our way to Detroit,” the Girl in the middle of the road says calmly. “Heard there were others setting up some kind of sanctuary for survivors. Is that where you’re heading?”
“No,” I answer. “I’m going south.”
“What’s south?” the Boy asks again. The second boy stands behind him, his eyes looking over me like the eyes of a hungry wolf, ready to strike. I don’t like this. I step back toward the Jeep.
“None of your concern,” I tell them.
“Can you give us a ride?” the Girl in the middle of the road asks. Taking a step toward me now.
“There’s not enough room,” I tell her.
The Girl in the middle of the road’s eyes dart, in a flash, behind me and that is when I know. I spin just in time to take the blow on the side of my face. My eyes immediately flash white as pain sears through the whole side of my face, sinking into the bone. The three behind me are good. I didn’t even hear them coming. I go down in a roll and squeeze the trigger on my Winchester as I see the brightness of the sky, hoping to take down my attacker with me. The rifle fires straight into my shadowy attacker’s stomach. The boy shrieks as I feel the world spinning around me. I blink and roll my head, trying to get some sense of the madness around me. My hands work instinctively, discarding the rifle and rummaging for my pistol. When I find the Beretta, I click off the safety and squeeze the trigger at the shape closest to me. Everything is fading, colors of gray flowing in and out of my blurry vision. I squeeze the trigger at anything that moves toward me until I hear the familiar click of the gun registering as empty. I feel them beating me until everything melts into a thick black, thankfully.
I am surprised to wake up. I am surprised to even be living. I gasp for ragged, painful breaths and quickly roll as jagged stabs of pain shoot through my ribs and neck. I can’t tell if anything is broken. I don’t have time for that. I stand up and look around for any sign of where I am. I see the demolished gas station and the ruins of Sterling Heights behind it. Spinning around, I remember everything and see that my Jeep is gone. Many of the supplies have been tossed out of the vehicle to make room for all the teenagers who left a trail in the ashen road off toward Detroit. Thankfully they had been sloppy in their haste. I reach up and feel my throbbing face. My fingers immediately find tender flesh that causes me to wince. There is dried blood all over the side of my head. That bastard split open my head with his bat. I know I got him good in the stomach, but he isn’t there with me as I look around.
There is, however, the Girl. She is lying in the middle of the road, only a few feet from where I had been sprawled out. Three of my Beretta’s rounds had ripped through her. One through the shoulder, another in the hip, and one straight through the left side of her neck. The ash had soaked up the blood, and I crouch by her side for hours with angry steaming tears racing down my cheeks. What have I done? I cannot comprehend what I have done to her. In the heat of the moment, I had wanted to survive. They were going to kill me, I had known it. But now I know they just wanted to take the Jeep. I had fatally shot one and murdered a second over a goddamn Jeep. I look down at her pale face, her eyes staring up at the distant clouds rolling by. I can’t help but see Val in those eyes. I can’t help but see Lexi in her bravery to step out in front of a moving car to try and stop it. I cry for hours before I get control of mysel
f and start limping toward Detroit. I gather what things they left me and continue my sojourn on foot. I leave her there in the middle of the road. I am too broken to give her any peace.
I struggle about three miles before I find my attacker tossed out on the side of the highway. His dead eyes stare off at the horizon as I look him over. They had taken his pants and boots before leaving him in his underwear and stained, white T-shirt that is now covered in blood on the front and back. I feel no sympathy for him. I gave it all to the Girl. I step over him and continue my journey south.
Chapter Three
At sunset, I stop to check everything I gathered upon the road. I have a sleeping bag, the clothes I am currently wearing, my crank radio, a pocketknife, duct tape, binoculars, fifty feet of rope, an emergency tool kit, my fire starter kit, my canteen, spray paint, and my disinfectant kit. It’s not much, but it’ll do the trick. I’m grateful that this was as much as I could scavenge from the road. They had thrown out most of my cases of water and backed over them before driving away. I scavenged as many bottles of water as I could keep in my pack before venturing onward. They left me no food. This doesn’t surprise me at all. I can’t say I would have left food for me either.
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