Salt Water Tears

by Hopkins, Brian A

  She shuddered. She’d be Bogart’s partner... his wife. She thought that might be even worse than being his whore. She’d never seen the inside of his truck, but what kind of life could it be, back and forth on the highway, trading with plague survivors, none of whom could be trusted—else why all the hardware and ammunition, why Bogart’s cautious nature even just outside her gates? She knew there were roadblocks to the north, semi-effective quarantines imposed by states struggling to survive, blockades where the local militia was as apt to shoot as order you to turn back, such was the fear wrought by the plague. And those who’d been subjected to the plague and were somehow immune... well, it was rumored they were the most valuable commodity now known. Bogart had jokingly told her once that he could sell her to the North, a tissue sample at a time, and make a fortune. He’d been joking, of course—or at least she hoped that was the case. Did Bogart travel that far? Did he dare trade at the roadblocks? And even if she was safe with him, she didn’t love the man. Worse, she didn’t even really like him. She couldn’t imagine spending the rest of her life with him.

  Darcy reached out and stroked Einstein’s nose.

  She couldn’t leave the dolphin.

  She wouldn’t let the two of them be separated.

  She’d managed here well enough all this time. She could continue to hold it together. As long as she was good to Bogart, he’d continue to bring her the things they needed. She could hold out here as long as... as long as what?

  Until one or the other of us dies, she thought.

  They were safe here. They’d be fine. She whispered this to the moon and made herself believe that it was the truth. It had to be the truth.

  Two nights later, the diesel generator that ran the pumps seized and self-destructed, hurling a rod completely through the nearest wall. This was the backup system; the primary filtration pumps were electric—useless without a source of electricity. Staring at the generator, smoking and leaking oil out onto the concrete floor of the pump building, she realized she’d probably overtaxed the system. The diesel backup had probably not been designed to withstand the stress of constant use. There wasn’t another generator like it in the whole park. She knew this because she’d moved this one from the shark exhibit when the original diesel generator had failed to start.

  Without the pumps and the filters, Einstein’s tank would foul. He’d become sick and die.

  Darcy spent that next day trying to cannibalize the blown generator and use its parts to get the original generator started. By the end of the day, she was covered in grease, had torn the skin from three knuckles, and was totally exhausted. And she understood the futility of their situation.

  The next morning, she started getting together the things they would need...

  • • •

  “Latest rumor is that they’re blaming all this on a mosquito,” Bogart told her as he worked the truck through its gears. “Personally, I think they’re full of shit. What with last summer’s drought and all, I ain’t even seen a mosquito in ages. They say it’s some new strain of... what do they call it, sleeping sickness?”

  “Encephalitis?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. But, hell, people aren’t going to sleep. They’re just laying down and dying.”

  The truck swayed drunkenly as he swerved up the entrance ramp and onto the freeway.

  “Easy,” she told him.

  He ignored her. “I think they were better off with that African virus theory...”

  She’d asked to ride in the back with Einstein, but Bogart had insisted that she ride up front in the cab. When she’d argued that she needed to wet the dolphin down, Bogart had promised that they’d stop every hour and soak down the towels that she’d draped over Einstein. Besides, the tub in which they’d placed him did a fair job of keeping him wet, as long as he didn’t struggle and splash out all the water. “Too rough back there for you,” Bogart had said, unconcerned about what that meant for Einstein. “Unsafe.”

  The truck’s trailer was stacked floor to ceiling with cardboard boxes, crates, and fifty-gallon drums. She recognized canned goods and Coleman fuel, batteries and soda pop and beer. There were small, portable diesel generators and propane tanks, boxes full of flashlights and tools, clothing, bottled water, soap, toilet paper, shoes, firearms, ammunition, camping gear, fishing poles, knives, blankets, a red canoe, and even condoms (though he’d never once offered to use one with her). A survivalist’s wet dream on wheels.

  “Course, before that, weren’t they trying to blame it on some sort of biological agent sent over in a package from China? Talk about crazy theories...”

  Moving Einstein hadn’t been difficult. In a canvas sling, they’d winched him from the pool and into a stainless steel tub that she’d appropriated from one of the training rooms. With Bogart’s help (and diesel from one of the barrels in his truck), they’d managed to get one of the park’s forklifts running. They’d simply lifted the tub and set it in the back of the semi, Bogart complaining about the cargo and supplies that he had to offload. (More than six hundred pounds of macaroni noodles had to be left in Sea World. Bogart fretted about whether they’d still be there when he came back. “You’d be surprised what those noodles are worth!” he’d told her.) Her biggest concern had been the heat, but Bogart had propped open the door to his refrigeration unit, thereby dropping the temperature in the entire trailer. He’d then spent an hour or more going through his inventory, worrying about items he felt couldn’t handle the cold temperature. In the end, this turned out to be practically nothing, since the temperature would be cold, but hardly freezing.

  “Then there’s your religious fanatics running around screaming that it’s the last days.” He chortled. “If that’s the truth, I’d like to know how to sort the good guys from the bad. Are all those rotting corpses the sinners gone to Hell? Or are they the lucky ones? Maybe Hell is right here on Earth. It’s all us that are damned who are still walking and talking.”

  She wished he’d shut up.

  Interstate 37 took them past exits for towns like Fairview and Pleasanton, the miles of empty highway as boring as Bogart’s speculations on the origins of the plague. She took to counting the cars lined up on the sides of the road and in the median, wondering if Bogart and others that frequented the highway had taken the time to shove them off the road. Most of the cars were empty, but a few featured mummified shapes slumped over the steering wheel and smaller figures crowded together in the backseats. There was one school bus, thankfully empty save for one small, skeletal hand pressed against a back window, the twin bones of the forearm fading from sight down behind the seat back.

  “Once met a guy in a lab coat up near Dallas. He swore that the plague had been created in a lab in Atlanta. What’s the big place there? The Disease Control Center? Yeah, I think that’s it. Anyway, this lab guy claimed the government made the virus and turned it loose. He said they even have an antivirus, but they aren’t ready to release it. What do you think they’re waiting for? Do you think it’s like this in other countries? Are we waiting for those countries to be decimated before we save our own?”

  Exits for McCoy and Christine slipped by, the words on the green Interstate signs punctuated with bullet holes. A billboard with “The End is Here!” emblazoned in red paint over a faded Texaco advertisement whipped past. There were several cows munching the tall grass beneath the sign, and Darcy wondered that no one had slaughtered them yet. She took to counting the small mile markers set on the shoulder of the road, closing her eyes and trying to guess when it was time for another. She was about to ask Bogart if they could stop and check on Einstein, when they passed a sign that said “Choke Canyon Lake, Exit 1 Mile” and topped a steep rise. Below them, the Interstate was clogged with vehicles. Bogart let off the gas and began downshifting the truck.

  “Bogart?”

  “Sit tight, babe.”

  “But the road’s blocked.”

  “Actually, it’s not. See how the cars are positioned? Even with this big
rig, I could weave through them. Thing is, I could only weave through them at a snail’s pace, which means if I had no intention of stopping, they could riddle the cab—and us—with bullet holes.”

  She saw men now, flanking the road, sitting in or on some of the vehicles. All of them were armed. Several had rifles with scopes trained on the truck. She imagined them studying her face through the dusty windshield; it made her skin crawl.

  “Never fear, though; I’ll stop. I know these guys.”

  The transmission labored down through its gears. Bogart brought the truck to a halt just short of the first cars in the gauntlet. The brakes hissed, while the engine took up a laborious idle. Three men walked out to meet the truck, shotguns and what she believed were Uzi submachine guns slung over their shoulders.

  “Stay in the truck,” Bogart told her as he set the parking brake and opened the door. He didn’t take the shotgun or any of the other assorted hardware she’d seen in the cab’s sleeper, but he was still wearing the pistols in their shoulder holsters. She watched him as he swaggered out to meet the blockade’s representatives. There was some handshaking then. A bit of laughter—was it her imagination or was it nervous laughter? One of the strangers—a tall man in a red shirt and black jeans—gestured to the truck, and the other two started for the rear of the semi. Bogart gestured adamantly, turned to the side and spit. The stranger who seemed to be in charge said something and laughed.

  They were going to find Einstein!

  Darcy popped open her door and climbed down to the ground. She saw anger on Bogart’s face before she turned and dashed to the back of the trailer, slipping in between the two strangers as they swung open the doors. When she jumped into the back of the truck and ran to the dolphin’s tub, Einstein whistled in greeting and slapped his flukes.

  “What the hell is it?” asked one of the strangers, a chunky guy in a cowboy hat, with ostrich skin boots that looked to have been taken new from a store just the day before.

  “I’ll be damned,” said the other, as he climbed up after her. “It’s a dolphin!”

  They stood staring, while Darcy took a bucket and began soaking down the towels draped over Einstein’s back. The young, handsome one was staring at the dolphin, but the one in the hat was staring at her, his cold eyes appraising her unblemished skin, long blonde hair, and feminine curves. When she glared at him, he did not avert his eyes. Instead, he licked his lips, arched his eyebrows, and smiled.

  Bogart was at the back of the truck now. “I told you I don’t have your motorbikes yet, Carl. Next trip, I promise. But I did bring the propane and the coffee beans that you asked for.”

  “And what’s this?” asked the man in the red shirt, gesturing with a sawed off shotgun to Darcy and the tub.

  Bogart laughed. “You know me, Carl. If it can be got, I’ll get it. Some loony in Corpus Christi wants a dolphin. It’s part of the arrangement to get your dirt bikes.”

  “You’re trading a dolphin for motorcycles?”

  “No, but the guy with the bikes wants a hundred pounds of Florida oranges, which is what I’m trading the dolphin for. Hell, Carl, you want to spend all day discussing all the various deals I’m brokering, or you want to unload your coffee so I can be moving on? I’m wasting a gallon of diesel a minute just sitting here.”

  The one named Carl appeared neither amused nor concerned. Like the guy with the cowboy hat, he was openly appraising Darcy.

  “Can I touch him?” asked the young guy.

  “Sure,” she said with some hesitation, sliding back one of the towels. “He’d probably like that.” She tried to keep her own hand from trembling as she continued to scoop up water and pour it over Einstein.

  The guy with the hat grinned. “Can I touch, too?” The way he said it made it obvious that he wasn’t talking about touching Einstein. Darcy ignored him, but she could feel his eyes on her. Glancing down, she noticed that her blouse was gaping. She pinched it closed with her free hand.

  “Who’s the woman?” asked Carl.

  “She goes with the dolphin,” Bogart replied. “Fish doctor or something. She’s the reason it’s still alive. I’m to deliver them both to this guy in Christi.”

  “For two dirt bikes?”

  “For a hundred pounds of Florida oranges.”

  “Some guy’d trade her for oranges?”

  “Her and the dolphin.”

  “I think you’re full of shit.”

  Bogart brushed the hair back from his forehead, wiped away the gleam of sweat there. He rubbed his hand on his thigh. “How long we known each other, Carl?”

  “Long enough that I know when you’re lying.”

  “Who brought your old lady that pediatrician from New Orleans? Saved your baby’s life?”

  “This’un don’t look to be kidnaped, though. She looks to be traveling with you of her own free will. Might be she’d like to stay in Oakville of her own free will. Plague hit our women pretty hard. A woman like that... well, she’d be popular.”

  “I thought Oakville still had some semblance of law and order,” said Bogart. Darcy thought it an absurd statement for one who’d just been labeled a kidnaper.

  Carl shrugged. “I ain’t talking gang rape. But a women like her, a woman in her child-bearing years, she’d be a catch for somebody and a big contribution to Oakville’s future.”

  The guy with the hat pulled it off, revealing a mostly bald top, and chuckled. “Will you marry me? We’ll make real purty babies.”

  “She ain’t for sale,” said Bogart.

  “Maybe I don’t need those motorbikes no more.”

  “Maybe you can find someone else to bring you the things you do need.”

  Carl scratched his nose. “You ain’t the only one running 37, Bogeyman.”

  “No, but I’m the best.”

  “But you ain’t irreplaceable.” The sawed-off swung around, its twin bores focused on Bogart’s chest. “I could put one of my own in this truck. Start making supply runs that don’t concern nobody but Oakville. Probably work out a whole lot better for us. Cut out the middle man, so to speak.”

  Bogart refused to even glance at the shotgun. “You got a driver, Carl? You think this is the same as driving your mama’s minivan?”

  “I think a man could learn most anything if he set his mind to it.”

  Bogart nodded. “Maybe the other traders would even learn to forget what you did here. Maybe, given enough time, they’d even go back to trading with you. I wouldn’t want to bet on it, though... not over one bitch that smells like fish all the time. You want a go at her, I’ll go up front and shut down the rig, loan you the use of my sleeper, give you thirty minutes or so to work out whatever lust you’re feeling, but I ain’t selling her. She goes with Flipper there.” Bogart pushed the barrel of the shotgun away. “Meanwhile, you figure out which of these fellers you trust not to go tell that wife of yours. My guess is that fat fuck with the faggot boots is the first one that’ll be talking. The plague changed a whole lotta things, but jealous women is still jealous women.”

  The guy with the hat turned away from Darcy for the first time. He swung his machine gun around on its sling and pointed it at Bogart. Darcy heard a sharp click that must have been the safety. “Say the word, Carl, and this fucker’s trucking days is over.”

  For a moment, silence owned the back of the truck. Then, Einstein whistled.

  Carl laughed. “Why’s that, Bud? Cause he don’t like them queer boots of yours? Put your fucking gun away. Tell Mark to quit playing with that goddamn fish and get our coffee unloaded. Hurry it up, Bogeyman ain’t got all fucking day to wait on you two lame-asses.”

  • • •

  “Einstein needed to be wetted down,” she said, her face pressed against the window glass.

  “I told you to stay in the goddamn truck,” Bogart fumed.

  “They might have hurt him.”

  “I told you to stay in the truck!”

  “I’m sorry, Bogey.”

  She counted the
mile markers. Five of them whipped past before Bogart slammed on the brakes and brought the semi to a shuddering halt in the shade of an overpass. Darcy hadn’t remembered to fasten her seat belt. She was thrown to the floor. She was crawling back into her seat when he hit her across the face.

  “All you had to do was stay in the fucking truck!”

  “I’m sorry, Bogart!”

  He hit her again. Grabbed her by her hair and jerked her into the space between the seats. Her lip was cut. Blood was running from her nose.

  “They might have killed me just so they could take turns fucking you!” he screamed at her. “Don’t you understand that?”

  “I didn’t know.”

  He shoved her toward the sleeper cab. “Get back there. Now!” When she didn’t move fast enough, he punched her in the kidneys, kicked her in the ass.

  “Please, Bogart, I’m—”

  “You’re sorry. Yeah. I heard you.” He crawled into the sleeper behind her. She kicked at him and her foot tore open one of the sores on his face. A stream of bloody pus wept from the sore and trickled down across his cheek. He grabbed the front of her shirt and ripped it open. She kicked at him, but he slapped her again. Her head was reeling. She tried to push his hands away as he fumbled at her jeans, but he simply brushed them aside. Her jeans burned the backs of her calves as he ripped them off of her.

  “I’m going to show you exactly what you’re worth in this world, Darcy. You’d better not forget it.” Then he pressed his weight down upon her, pinning her arms and kicking her legs apart...

  • • •

  Darcy made sure the towels were back in place and that they were good and wet. Bogart was pacing outside, smoking a cigarette. She could hear his boots crunching in the gravel on the shoulder of the road. She’d wiped the blood from her face, but she couldn’t wipe away the pain. Not the pain in her face. Not the pain in her lower back where he’d hit her. Not the pain where he’d bruised her arms. Not the pain where he’d torn her by taking her so brutally. Her underpants were damp and, knowing why, she wanted to puke.