by Micah Thomas
“I don’t feel like breakfast. Do you mind if I just meet up with you later?”
Fine. He’s always so damned sensitive. Thelon wanted to enjoy himself, but found his experience intruding hin his thoughts after Marcus left. Why did I lie? Because I didn’t see shit that made sense. Marcus’ vision had been pastoral. Sure, it evoked a sense of loss and that could be sad, but he hadn’t seen the same home. Marcus, unless he was lying too, hadn’t seen what the country had become. Not sure it chilled his bones, but it was sad as fuck. He knew this word from school: “totalitarianism”. It hadn’t scared him. No. It only reassured him that he’d made the right choice. The things people did for kicks. That last part though had been a gimmick. The mask had to have some neurological brain scan that played back his own subconscious soup.
He took a sip of the out-of-this-world-perfect espresso. Why’d he get a shit vision and Marcus a good one? Marcus was the one who had deep thoughts, always talking about how they were in that movie The Matrix. No. This was real. It was dreams that weren’t real. Maybe I should grow a beard. You gotta be the magic you want in the world.
Thelon spent the rest of the espresso and half a muffin telling himself that he was all right, but he didn’t feel all right.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BACK IN AMERICA, traveling with Don was a welcome change to Cassie. They were going to the house mentioned in the journal. The patient zero of the Black Star Institute’s experiments. This was the info Don had for her: to go and see what there was to see. Cassie wasn’t certain there’d be answers, but perhaps…perhaps.
Don had planned so much for the trip. He knew so much. She enjoyed his gentle, fatherly sense of humor. Cassie listened as he listed off facts about the region. While the coal mines were still important to the establishment, there were few checkpoints. Low risk. Don told Cassie this would be the case up the inland coast, but with NYC in their way, they’d have to swing wide into Pennsylvania before cutting northeast to reach Massachusetts. They didn’t want to go to New York. From what Don knew, NYC was officially the capital now. Even Henry was impressed by Don’s preparedness. He’d negotiated with the few farmers they’d met, letting them pick over his hoard of goods; cartons of cigarettes, peanut butter, AAA batteries—staples in a land where the supply chain has broken.
Cassie was shocked, while at the same time not surprised, that the country had fallen into such disrepair. It had only been two years. People seemed wary, but they weren’t roving bands of cannibals. They were scared. They talked about credit systems and government men. The country was still a country, but she was getting the picture that a sad, negligent totalitarian system had taken over. Everyone they met knew so little about the overall state of things. When she’d left, the 24-hour news cycle plus the abundance of smart phones had meant the general populace knew details troubling each part of the globe. Now, people didn’t seem to know for sure whether there was a rest of the world anymore.
Don’s truck ran exceptionally well. Clearly, he loved the machine. Still, even the best machines needed fuel. They’d been running on fumes after using Cassie’s spare tank from her bike. They had to stop for gas, and luckily, they saw a station in the middle of nowhere on this rural, Appalachian road. Don gave her a wink to say everything would be fine.
As they pulled up, an old-fashioned bell rang, summoning the attendant. A man emerged and greeted them with cautious head nod. He was a white man in his 30s, wearing dirty coveralls and an honest look of distrust.
Don leaned out of the open window to greet him. “Hey there, sir. My daughter and I are going north to visit her mother’s people, now that the flu has passed over down there.”
“Uh huh.”
“We are looking to trade some goods, if you know anyone with a produce farm. Maybe some eggs?”
“Mister, we don’t have enough for ourselves. Why don’t you just keep on up the road.”
“We plan to. Always say, I hate to eat and run, but I don’t like doing dishes anyways,” Don said with a smile.
The man laughed at this. Cassie was impressed by Don’s ability to incorporate this man’s language patterns without mocking the accent. He was using code; telling them he was all right.
“Well, the phones don’t work, but I can punch out. Not much business through here anymore. I’ll take you up the road to my sister’s place. She might be interested in what you got, but don’t try to con us. Before the fall of mankind, I was a lawyer. We are not some bumpkins from the set of Deliverance.”
“I’m Don and that’s Cassie.” He extended his hand.
“Okay, then. I’m Matt.” He filled up their tanks and flipped a sign on the door from “open” to “closed”. “You’re gassed up. Ready to go?”
Don nodded and started up the truck.
“Do you think they’ll have what I need?” Cassie asked Don with a sense of urgency.
“Look, we have to get closer to people. To the places where commerce happens, but where there’s women. I have a feeling we’ll find something that will do.”
Don opened the cab’s rear window when Matt climbed in the back amidst their tarp-covered goods and Cassie’s bike. Don knew the man wouldn’t pilfer. He’d spent the last few years among these Appalachian people, and Don trusted them.
Matt gave the pair directions through the open cab window. “It’s just a few miles as the crow flies. Hey, speaking of crows, know what my grampaw said?”
Cassie liked this guy and shouted back, “No. What did your grampaw say?”
“He said, if you split a crow's tongue, it could speak like a man.”
Cassie laughed. “Oh yeah?”
“It’s not true though. They just bleed to death.”
Was that a threat or small talk? Cassie wasn’t sure. They bounced hard off the paved road to a dirt and gravel road—hard enough Cassie’s teeth clacked. The gravel was long worn down and badly in need of a refill that would likely never come. Don drove slowly and deliberately down the single lane of a winding road, the sheer cliff’s edge beside them giving Cassie a view of a glistening stream far below.
“Hold up here now,” Matt said.
He jumped out the truck and opened the rusted pig iron gate to their left. It was practically concealed by the overgrowth of grape vines and bramble. Matt held the gate for Don to drive through and closed it behind him.
They continued down a path which was little more than old ruts where a tractor had chewed up the ground, branches smacking the windshield. Cassie had to pull her arm inside to avoid getting hit. The smell of honeysuckle and other flowers was intoxicating. Even in mid-Autumn, things were still alive here, starting to turn from green to gold. They drove up and over a hill, managing to bypassing the largest rocks. Had they been trying to build a stone fence but forgot? Cassie wondered.
The red farmhouse, practically a barn from a bygone era, sat near a pond. Henry thought of a life-sized Monopoly piece.
They pulled up closer, still about twenty yards from the porch, when Matt said, “Hold on here.” A warning in his voice set Cassie on edge.
Matt again climbed out of the truck and walked up ahead.
“Linda!” he shouted, “you can put your guns down. Got a couple of decent folks out here that want to talk to you.”
Cassie looked at Don, who shrugged.
Henry said, Don’t worry. I have a good feeling about this.
A woman stood out on the porch, rifle held in her arms like she knew how to use it. Must be Linda, Cassie thought. The gun suits her.
“What are you doing bringing people out here?”
Matt looked at his feet and kicked a dirt clod. “Don’t be that way. They are looking to trade a few things.”
A toddler’s cries pierced the air, and a teen girl also came out, holding a squirming, red-faced little one in her arms.
“Well, come on up to the house then. I’ve got coffee on the stove and can warm up something to eat.”
Once inside and introductions done, Don and Matt
sat at the dinning room table and talked while the women headed into the kitchen. The peeling walls needed a fresh coat of paint, and the warped floorboards squeaked, but there was love in the house. Sock puppets and hand carved toys sat on shelves lined with family photos, some in color, some black and white. Matt bounced the baby on his knee and it grabbed for his nose and mouth with its stubby little hands.
“Linda’s man ran off up to New York when the shit came down,” Matt explained. “He wasn’t from here originally. Hillbilly life never came natural to him, and he saw an opportunity, I guess.”
Don asked, “Didn’t try to take his family with him?”
“Little Gan here had just been born and the bastard cut and ran.”
In the next room, Cassie stood next to the sink and offered to help Linda with the meal. She saw her chance to raise the sensitive topic. “I know we haven’t talked about trading anything yet, but I have a favor to ask you.”
“What is it, honey?”
“Well…”
“Look, I know he ain’t your daddy, and I don’t need to know your business. Are you in trouble?”
Cassie felt the implied question: was Don abusing her? “It’s not about that. Don is a good guy. He had a little shelter and I knew him before…before you know what. He’d been ready for the Raid. He’s something of a prepper, but he didn’t exactly prepare for hosting a woman.”
“Oh! Jessica! Come on in here,” she called to her teen daughter.
“Yes, Mom?” The girl bounced into the room. She was tall and athletic, sandy hair worn with big bouncy bangs.
“Can you take Cassie to the bathroom upstairs and, uh, show her what we have of feminine products?”
“Mom, jeez.”
Cassie was picturing some hand wash, cloth diapers; something old-fashioned to match the wood-burning stove and hand canned veggies and fruits in the kitchen. Relief ran through her when Jessica showed her the bathroom closet.
“Dad ran the pharmacy in town. Before.”
“Holy shit,” Cassie said, taking in the boxes of tampons, pads, and panty liners in all sizes, shapes, and for every flow type.
Jessica giggled. “There’s more than that. We took the whole inventory. Drugs, baby formula, and the like.”
“May I?”
“Please. Take what you need. I’ll be downstairs when you’re done.”
Nice kid, Henry said.
I need you to not talk to me right now, Cassie thought back while grabbing a pack of Tampax Pearls from the closet and checking that the bathroom door was locked.
She pulled down her jeans and was happy to find that the blood hadn’t seeped through. Don had given her a little towel, the kind used to dry a wet dog or clean up a spill in the auto shop. She’d lined it in a grocery store plastic bag and every step had made a small crinkle sound and Cassie hated the adult diaper and the waddle it forced into her step.
After everything she’d been through—the supernatural shit, the apparent super-fucking-power of pyrokinesis—Cassie thought it’d be a riot if she died of toxic shock. I’ll have to find another way to die now.
She bagged up the bloody towel and Jessica was outside the door waiting for her. “I’ll take that. Mom told me you might have something that couldn’t be flushed.”
Cassie was embarrassed, but infinitely grateful.
“It’s been hard for everyone,” Jessica said. “You don’t have to worry about it.”
“Thank you.”
“Hey, where are you going? New York? Somewhere else exciting? Are you going to…them?” Jessica asked in a hushed tone.
“No. We have business further north.”
“Oh,” she said, crestfallen, “I’ve gotta get out of here.”
“It looks like you have things pretty good,” Cassie pointed out.
“Look around. You see any boys?”
Cassie shook her head and followed Jessica back downstairs where the smell of biscuits and gravy filled the air.
They sat around the table as Linda said grace. “Lord Jesus in heaven, thank you for all that you’ve given us. Please watch over our guests in their travels and us in our struggles. Amen.”
They ate, passing the biscuits and butter. It was so damned good. It was real and normal. After their meal, Don pulled out their wares from the truck bed while there was still light enough to see them. They traded things they didn’t need for end of season corn, eggs, canned veggies, aspirin, and more tampons; they gave up peanut butter, detergent and soap, and a Walkman with extra batteries and a few tapes—the last item, Jessica was extremely happy about.
They offered to drop Matt back at the station, but he stopped at the gate, saying he had other things to do. With their business done, they were back on the road.
These people were good. Before the Raid, they’d have been on Facebook ranting about abortion, faceless immigrants taking their jobs, and virulent nationalism. Now they were a working community taking in strangers—one of them even a Mexican. This had to be an improvement.
Don hummed a tune as he drove. Cassie stared out the window, wishing the headlights peered further into the dark.
She sent a thought out to Henry: Hey, you’ve been quiet today.
What she got back was monstrous. For a moment, she felt herself slipping into the fire, the vibration of the bumpy road was replaced by the vibration of the atoms all around them, of the truck, of trees outside, of Don. “No!” she shouted out loud.
Don was startled and swerved, yet maintained control of the truck. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” Cassie said. Armageddon averted. The fire spirit had quieted. “I thought I saw a deer. Just my eyes playing tricks on me.”
Don nodded and adjusted in his seat.
In her mind, Cassie said, Henry, what the fuck was that?
I’m sorry. It’s been a hard day. I’m holding it back.
Why didn’t you tell me?
It was an inconvenient time.
Cassie wanted to ask more, but she could feel he didn’t want to talk. They’d had slipups before when the fire got loose. She wanted to believe that over time, they could master it together. More and more, it was clear that wasn’t going to happen.
***
They were close, but still had a ways to go. Cassie had run out of topics of conversation—at least the surface things. Yes, this part of the country was beautiful. Yes, it was incredible how things had changed. No, she didn’t know the elections were suspended for next year. Don turned the radio on, and then turned the radio off. The programming was terrible; religious talk, rants about staying strong, and how god was testing us. This was broadcasting by the government. There weren’t any golden oldies stations.
“I have this theory,” Don said. “Want to hear it?”
“Sure,” Cassie answered.
“What if we all died already? There’s this thing called ‘Cotard’s Syndrome’—in psychology, that is. It’s when a person believes that are dead.”
“A zombie?”
“Could be, but I was thinking more like, we all died and are in some afterlife.”
“Like the Raid was the Rapture?”
“Maybe.”
“I don’t know. There’s still good people around. Shouldn’t they have gotten sucked up?”
“I don’t mean in a Christian sense. Do you feel alive ever since the Raid? Really alive?”
Cassie took a moment to think about this. Henry wasn’t paying attention. Not participating. Sullen. She wondered if he’d have a perspective on what it meant to be alive. She contemplated again whether she should tell Don about him. Instead, Cassie said, “Just because the world is fucked up doesn’t mean we’re dead.”
“I guess not. I’ve been alone too long. It colors a man’s thoughts to be so alone. Were you there in Vegas? Like they said on the news?”
“Yeah. I was there,” Cassie said.
“I get the feeling you’ve been alone a lot since then too. What really happened? How did you survive?” Don
was still an investigator.
“I don’t know what happened. Not in a big sense. It was chaos. I was there with Henry. I’d finally found him, you know? It was accidental. I’d given up looking. You guys were long gone. He just walked into the bar where I was singing.”
“You sing?”
“It was karaoke. I wasn’t doing a great job.”
“Oh, man. I wish I’d have met him. What would have happened if I had done my job better? I mean, could I have changed the way things played out?”
Cassie held back her defensive tone. “He didn’t start anything. He was just a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“You still defend him? After he torched all those people? You know, I didn’t even believe what they said he was capable of. Not until the Raid. Black Star never said shit about Hakim to us. It all just sorta happened on the news. On social media. By then, I was already hunkered down. I had a premonition. I didn’t believe any of it literally, but I still had a premonition.”
Cassie sat silently. On the inside, she was reliving the moment of joy. Reunited with Henry. He’d been not much more than a stranger, but the deep sense of attraction she’d felt instantly with him—something more than physical—had been the single greatest moment of love she’d ever felt. Now, knowing Wiseman had been in some way manipulating Henry, Cassie could almost doubt the reality of her feelings. Except for the fact that even after Wiseman, the bond remained.
“Oh boy! Here we go,” Don said as they headed down a steep hill.
The road curved, hugging the dark hills. Cassie looked out over the autumn leaves covering the hills and valleys, every shade of honey gold and cherry red in the dusky light. No wonder people came to this part of the country for the fall foliage, she thought.
Don pumped the brakes and swerved, narrowly missing the boulders which had fallen and blocked half the lanes. Another car hadn’t been so lucky; the front end was smashed up against the rocks, frame bent.
Don stopped the truck. “Do we take a look?”