Earthfall (Novella): The Remains of Yesterday

by Knight, Stephen

  “Okay. This is getting stupid fast. I’m doing this.” Mulligan peered down at Benchley. “Alone.”

  “This is Old Guard business, and you are not alone in this,” Benchley said. “I realize I’m only a lowly infantryman, Green Beret, but my withered old ass is following you out that airlock. Suck it up, soldier. It doesn’t happen any other way.”

  The two men stared each other down for a long moment. Then Mulligan finally gave a curt nod. “Hooah.” He backed out of the doorway, and Benchley hauled himself out of the copilot seat.

  “Sir,” Andrews started.

  “Son, you’re ruining a perfect opportunity to be quiet,” Benchley snapped. “Just do your job, and keep your thoughts to yourself. Understood?”

  “Sir, you shouldn’t be going out there.”

  Benchley leaned toward Andrews with such speed and ferocity that Andrews snapped his head back. He truly thought the Old Man was going to head-butt him, but instead he stopped when his face was only an inch away.

  “Boy? When I tell you to shut up, it’s not a suggestion. This engagement is over, and you lost. Questions?”

  Andrews felt his face grow hot from the anger he felt, but he knew how things were going to end up if he persisted. Having both a major general and a command sergeant major rat-fucking you at the same time was never the best way to make a name for yourself.

  “No, General. No questions,” Andrews said, his voice tight.

  Benchley smiled then, and there was something feral, something almost wild about the expression. His blue eyes were full of rage and a peculiar vigor that Andrews had never seen before. It was as if a demon had suddenly been awakened inside of Benchley, and there was no way to exorcise it.

  “You don’t like it, Captain?” Benchley asked.

  Andrews didn’t know why Benchley was being so confrontational, but the least he could do was keep the old man entertained. “No, sir. I don’t like that you’re taking a crazy risk like this. Bad enough that the installation command sergeant major is. That the post CO would do the same is essentially bat-shit looney, from where I sit.”

  “Corrine Baxter told me the same thing. I’ll tell you what I told her: Too. Fucking. Bad,” Benchley said. And with that, he straightened and pulled himself out of the cockpit.

  4

  Mulligan led the way toward the lopsided house, his advance straight and unwavering. He carried with him a shovel and three plastic body bags. He realized there was a chance there might be more bodies in the structure, but he was only interested in three. Anyone else who might have expired inside the residence had come in after the nuclear detonation and were not his concern. He was aware that Benchley was right behind him, and wouldn’t have been surprised if the Old Man was marching in step with him. Mulligan was of two minds about the unexpected company. He had intended this to be a solo venture, but it was somehow fitting that Benchley attended; he knew the general had lost his son and grandkids in San Francisco. He would never be able to lay them to rest, so perhaps the chance to help Mulligan finally complete his last mission was a reasonable trade-off. No matter what his motives were, Mulligan was suddenly grateful for the companionship.

  The house was a mess. All the glass had been blasted inward, and the kitchen floor was covered with it, including shards from the storm door that had apparently offered only a token defense against the shockwave that had hammered the dwelling. The wallpaper, what little of it remained, was blackened and scored by the intense heat the nearby nuclear blast had generated. The kitchen table and its attendant chairs had been flung against the far wall with enough force to perforate the sagging drywall. Even the refrigerator door hung open, canted at a crazy angle. Along with the sharp pieces of glass, the floor was coated with a generous amount of dust. There were even dead cockroaches there, their desiccated husks plainly visible beneath the patina of chalk-like dust.

  “Sir, watch out for the glass,” Mulligan said. The voice emitter in his facemask augmented his words, so that they were audible even while he wore the full-face component.

  “Roger that. You do the same,” Benchley responded.

  Mulligan pressed on through the kitchen, walking slowly, choosing his steps carefully. He regarded the shattered remains of the table from behind his mask’s visor. He remembered many a happy meal at that table. Now, it was just a collection of splintered wood. A fitting reflection of his history.

  The living room was in a similar state of disrepair. The furnishings had been flung about, pillows slightly charred. All the art on the walls had been ripped down, torn right off their mounts. The expensive 3D television the girls had adored was cracked and crazed, its sensitive electronics fried by the electromagnetic pulse that had arrived a microsecond after the nuke had detonated. The windows had been blown out, and only ragged curtains remained, fluttering in the cold breeze. There was a credenza against the wall opposite the kitchen. In his memory, it had been the resting place of a battalion of framed photos—the Mulligans when they were first married, the birth of Chastity, and then Erica. He and Tess with Tess’s parents in Ohio, the two of them and the girls with his folks down in Texas. He and his brother Johnny on hog hunts outside of San Antonio. All those mementos of a past life had been swept away and scattered across the floor, where they lay beneath a thick coating of that same chalk-white dust that had permeated the kitchen. It was as if the interior of the house had become the surface of the moon.

  Mulligan pivoted and turned toward the hallway to his right. Save for a small patch that was illuminated with light courtesy of a hole ripped through the roof, the corridor was dark. Fluffy tendrils of pale, pink insulation flapped there, moving back and forth in the cold breeze that rustled through the house. For the first time, Mulligan felt like he was about to lose his shit.

  They’ll be in the master, he told himself. In a corner, maybe under the mattress, if they had the time and they heard the sirens.

  Mulligan regarded the passage for a long moment, then turned a little farther to his right. Benchley stood there, in the doorway to the kitchen, holding a pickaxe in his hands. The general’s eyes looked bright behind his visor, and he slowly nodded. Go ahead. I’m right here.

  Pausing to take a breath, Mulligan pushed into the hallway. He batted the insulation out of the way, and it essentially disintegrated at his touch, disappearing into motes that were carried away by the wind. He walked past the bathroom, then his girls’ bedrooms. Both doors were closed, and for a moment, he couldn’t decide on whether to check them or not. He pressed on down the hall, which terminated at the master bedroom.

  The room hadn’t fared any better than the rest of the house. The ceiling had partially caved in, though if that was from the shockwave or the decade spent at the mercy of the elements, Mulligan had no clue. The box spring mattress was in the center of the room, and as he stepped inside, he saw that the king-sized mattress was indeed canted up against one corner. It sagged at the center, collapsing against the incessant pull of gravity.

  “Do you want me to look?” Benchley asked softly, coming up behind him.

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, Martin. I’m sure,” Mulligan said, and his voice sounded controlled and modulated even though he was shrieking inside. He knew what was behind the mattress, and he knew there was no way he could ever prepare himself for what he was about to see. He laid the shovel on the box spring and reached for the mattress with steady hands. He grabbed it and pulled it toward him.

  Ten plus years hadn’t left much behind. Tattered, faded clothing. Skin stretched tight against bone, so shriveled and shrunken that it almost looked fake. Their blonde hair—Tess and the girls shared the same tawny tresses—was still somewhat brilliant, even after the passage of time. Dust coated them, albeit in a very light patina. Their eyes were mercifully closed, but even if they hadn’t been, Mulligan wouldn’t have been able to see them because of the damned dust that seemed to be everywhere. They had died together, Chas on the left, Eri
ca on the right, with Tess holding them both. Even if One Truck hadn’t been wrecked, the girls wouldn’t have had a chance. They would have been dead by the time he had arrived, or so near it that nothing could have been done. Just the same, Mulligan stood there transfixed, aware he was hyperventilating, but unable to stop it.

  My wife. My girls...

  “I should have been here,” he whispered.

  “There was no way you could have. There wasn’t enough time. But you’re here now,” Benchley said.

  Mulligan squeezed his eyes shut, taken aback by the quiet horror of what lay before him. He knew it would be like this, but when it came to facing it head on and in the real, he found his reservoir of strength was empty. He wept, standing there in the shattered remnants of his rented house in Scott City, Kansas, the mummified remains of his family lying at his feet. They had died behind a king-sized mattress, probably in great pain and agony, but they had died together. In each other’s arms. A family, up until the very end. All the pain and remorse that he had endured over the past decade hit him again like a freight train at high speed, and Mulligan was powerless to do anything but let it wash over him. Every man had his saturation point, that moment in time when he couldn’t take it anymore. No matter how strong or skilled he might have been, he was still only flesh and blood. Finally seeing them there after all these years was catastrophic.

  So he wept. It was all he could do.

  5

  Andrews deployed the backhoe attached to the rear of the SCEV. Using the rear cameras, he excavated a single trench, making multiple passes in a bid to ensure it was at least six feet deep. He had thought he would dig three of them, separated by a yard or so of hard, dry earth. Instead, he chose to dig one that was almost nine feet across.

  “Why aren’t you digging three?” Leona asked quietly, as she sat in the copilot’s seat. They’d heard nothing since Benchley’s quiet report that they had discovered three bodies in the house, and that they would begin removal once Mulligan was ready.

  “They’ve been together for more than ten years,” Andrews said. “I don’t want to separate them now.”

  Leona nodded slowly at that, and turned back to look at the silent, lopsided house. Andrews retracted the backhoe and secured it. When he was finished, he watched Leona for a moment, trying to figure out what to say.

  Do I even need to say anything? he wondered.

  “He’ll be all right, Lee,” he said finally. “This is his way. He has to face his past, otherwise he’ll never heal.”

  “I know,” Leona said, but her voice was small and uncertain.

  6

  “General,” Mulligan said, after what felt like an eternity. His voice was raw and husky.

  “Yes?”

  “Spread out one of the body bags on the bed behind me. Open it up. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to hold it open for me when I put Chastity inside.”

  “Nothing to apologize for. Do you want me to help you with them?”

  “No—I don’t want you touching them.” Mulligan thought that was a bit harsh, so he added, “They’re biological contaminants. I don’t want you coming in contact with them, sir.”

  He heard Benchley released a long sigh. “I’m here for you, brother. I don’t give a damn about contaminants. Whatever you need, I’ll do it.”

  Mulligan heard the older man lay out one of the body bags, then the ripping noise as he pulled down the zipper. Plastic rustled as he spread the container open. Mulligan pushed the mattress against the far wall and set about extracting his eldest daughter’s remains from the pile on the floor. It was grisly work; bodily secretions had formed a tough bond between the corpses, and he had to break them apart. The corpses were fragile, so he went about his work as gently as possible. It took almost ten minutes to get Chastity freed from her mother and sister. But finally, he was able to lift her from the hardwood floor. In life, Chastity had been the family athlete, tall and strong and muscular. What he held in his arms now was a frail echo of that life lost, and her remains weighed maybe thirty pounds, at most. Moving slowly and with the utmost care, Mulligan turned to the box spring and lowered the remains into the body bag. He heard Benchley take in a deep, quivering breath, but the general held the bag open so that Mulligan could place his daughter inside. Once she was finally inside the plastic container, Mulligan zipped it up and moved it to the floor at the foot of the bed.

  “Next one, please,” he said.

  Benchley spread the next body bag across the box spring, his eyes glittering behind the lens of his facemask. Mulligan avoided looking at him and turned toward his youngest. It took just as much time to separate her from her mother, and it was no less difficult. As he worked, Mulligan felt fragments of his sanity break off from its core and spin away into a darkness so deep and so vast that he knew he could never recover them. Erica had been the bookworm, always studying, always dreaming of reaching for the stars as an astronaut. She’d been nine when she’d died, and those dreams died with her. Mulligan bundled her up as best as he could, moaning slightly when her ribs suddenly poked out through the dusty layer of parchment paper-like skin and the fabric of her tattered T-shirt. Behind him, Benchley breathed heavily as he spread open the body bag. Mulligan turned toward it and gently deposited his youngest into the plastic receptacle. He peered at what remained of Erica’s face for a moment, then slowly zipped it up.

  “One more left, Martin,” Mulligan said. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” Benchley said, though the response was more of a sob than a word. Mulligan knew that the old man’s thoughts were of his own departed son and grandchildren, incinerated when ground bursts hit San Francisco. He picked up Erica’s body bag and placed it beside Chastity’s. Benchley sniffled as he spread out the last bag, unzipped it, and spread it open.

  Mulligan turned back to the last corpse. Tess Mulligan had been a lovely woman in life, vivacious, active, and with a hearty laugh. He couldn’t reconcile what he saw now with his memories of the woman he had married. Her mouth was partially open. It was full of dust, her teeth practically indistinguishable from the stark, chalky substance that was everywhere. Mulligan knelt and touched her cheek with his gloved hand. He felt nothing but a distant contact through the glove’s heavy, airtight material. Mulligan had meant it as a caress, but he was denied even that.

  He gathered the remains into his arms. They felt nothing like his wife. Just a shell held together by dried skin the consistency of beef jerky. He rose to his feet, turned, and lowered the cadaver into the waiting body bag. He started to zip it closed, but stopped when something metallic winked at him. Tess’s wedding ring, still on her finger. He studied it for a moment, then sealed it inside the bag.

  “Okay. Okay,” Mulligan said, mostly to himself. He looked over at Benchley, standing on the other side of the box spring. The general’s posture was slightly stooped, and he looked back at Mulligan with blue eyes that glittered with tears.

  “Sir, are you all right?” Mulligan asked.

  “Yes, Scott. Are you all right?”

  Mulligan thought about that for a moment, then decided it was a rhetorical question. “I’m going to take them outside now.”

  “I’ll help you, of course,” Benchley said.

  “No need. They don’t weigh very much.”

  “Mulligan, for the love of God—”

  “I’ve got this, General. It’s what I have to do. You just be careful not to perforate your suit. Okay?”

  Benchley said nothing.

  Mulligan removed Tess first. Eschewing the handles on either side of the body bag, he just gathered it up in his arms and eased her off the bed. He carried her through the house, exiting through the kitchen door. When he stepped into the back, he saw the SCEV had already dug the grave. It was a single trench, a little more than six feet deep and almost twice as wide. One end of the burial place was sloped. It would help make placing the bodies that much easier. Mulligan hadn’t thought of that, but Andrews had. The kid was sharp.
/>   His voice came over the radio a moment later. “Mulligan, is there anything else we can do?”

  “No, sir,” Mulligan said. “Thanks for making the ramp.”

  “Is one grave good? I didn’t want them to be separated from each other. I thought they should be together. Is that all right?”

  “That’s great, Captain. You’re right on. They should be together.”

  “Scott.” It was Leona. “Do you need me to come out?”

  “No, Lee. Stay where you are. This will be over soon.”

  Mulligan walked toward the grave and shuffled down the ramp. The earth was packed pretty hard, so he didn’t have to worry about stumbling. He placed Tess in the center and planned to put the girls on either side of her. It seemed the best way. He wished they had a more dignified vessel to spend the rest of eternity in, but there was no practical way to haul heavy coffins in and out of the rig. Body bags would have to do.

  He returned to the house and found Benchley kneeling beside the two girls, head bowed. Mulligan stood in the doorway for a moment, watching. While there was no doubt the general’s grief was real, it was also just sympathetic. Mulligan found he resented the intrusion, and he pressed into the bedroom.

  “Excuse me, sir,” he said.

  Benchley cleared his throat and clambered back to his feet. “I’m sorry, Sergeant Major. Yes, let me get out of your way.”

  “Thanks.”

  Mulligan scooped up his daughters, first Erica, and then Chastity. He placed the bodies on either side of their mother. Benchley shambled out of the house after him and stood at the side of the grave, watching. He didn’t ask to assist again. He just watched as Mulligan made minute changes to the position of the corpses. Mulligan didn’t know why he was so worried about how they were placed. They’d spent more than ten years behind a decaying mattress. Now, they would be trapped beneath thousands of pounds of earth. They could feel nothing. But he did it anyway.