Reeferpunk Shorts

by David Mark Brown

  Fifty reps and I know I must keep living for my sons. Their voices carry through the bedroom wall from the kitchen. Fifty five reps, I worry about my youngest, Mik, remembering the glazed look he gave me the night before. Mykola, always lost in books like his mother, but with a heart so dark and bottomless it’s haunting.

  Sixty reps, I hear Pyotr arguing with Leonid about the location of the new hemp field. Sixty one and my muscles complain. They say they’re finished, like I’m finished—an old cripple pretending he’s still a whole man because he can do chin-ups. Seventy reps, I curse my body and curse my mind, but not before it reminds me that today is my fortieth birthday. Forty. I repeat it three times until I almost lose count.

  Seventy five reps and for the first time since yesterday morning I imagine the numbing comfort of vodka on my tongue, burning my throat, washing away the red dust. Eighty reps, and there is nothing left but rage and the strength of will. Ninety reps, the poison is gone. Determination replaces thought. Ninety five reps, courage replaces fear. One hundred reps and I drop from the bar back onto the creaking mattress and roll to the edge. I love my sons.

  “The field has been planted. It stays.” I raise my voice before settling into my chair, fair warning for the whelps to sort themselves out, quickly. I strap down my withered legs with leather at the ankles, all the hair rubbed off long ago. Two slaps reverberate throughout the sturdy craftsman home as I clamp the .44-40 Mare’s Leg and the 12-gauge shotgun in place. “Straighten up. We’re riding to Bertie’s for supplies in thirty.” I hear dishes dropping into the sink, Mykola preparing to wash.

  Disengaging the break, I test the wheels with a quick forward and back followed by a 360 degree spin before sidling up to my shelf next to the door. Routine guides me. I drop my bandolier over my neck and arm, sheathe my lance over my right shoulder and with two fingers transfer a single kiss from my lips to the photo of Rosalyn holding our baby Katerina in her lap.

  ~~~

  After shoveling down what’s left of the morning’s oatmeal with a wooden spoon, I drop the pot into the sink and reach up to slap Mykola on the back. With my legs I would have been taller than him, but he’ll outgrow us all before puberty runs its course.

  I turn to Pyotr, my middle-born, sharpening his knife at the table. “The quicksilver lights burned all night this time. Good job, son.”

  “It’s kind of a shame. They work so good we haven’t had govno for fun around here—“

  “Hey, use English for swearing. Don’t tarnish our mother tongue with filth.” My eldest, Leonid, drops his boots on the floor and sits to put them on.

  Pyotr stabs his knife into the table. “Roger that, dillweed.”

  “Both of you—“ A screeching whistle followed by a pop cuts my reprimand short.

  “Fireworks.”

  “The perimeter!” Pyotr sheathes his knife, flashing a wicked grin.

  “Leo, eyes!” I block Pyotr’s attempt to get past me to the back door and wait for Leonid to rush up the stairs to the crow’s nest.

  “Come on, Papa. It’s the first time in a week.”

  Pulling my middle child close, I growl the words, “We do nothing if—“

  “We don’t do it together.” Mykola and Pyotr finish the family mantra in sync.

  I release Pyotr’s shirt. “Start the truck, and stick to protocol.”

  “For a perimeter alert, in the middle of the day?”

  Threatening him with a glare, he finally relents and bolts toward the front leaving only Mykola and me in the room. “I don’t like the feel of this one. It’s too hot outside. Something isn’t right. Keep an eye on your brother.” He nods and scoops a three gallon jug of water from under the sink before following Pyotr out the front door. We’re still a family I remind myself. Function as a family and there’s something worth fighting for.

  I rake four survival packs from the bottom shelf into my lap, roll into the entry and flip the lockdown lever. Calculating the remaining daylight in my head, I turn the timer to eight hours and set the cycle to repeat. On cue, the diesel four-stroke in the crawlspace under the floorboards chugs to life, wafting an acrid smoke into the living quarters. Slamming the metal door on the electrical box, I know the house will maintain perimeters whether we return to it or not.

  The storm shutters lurch into motion before settling into a gentle crawl downward. Forty seconds and the house will be locked tight. Forty seconds for a forty-year-old cripple to—with a jolt I remember the photo. Nimbly I spin my chair and zip back to the master bedroom. Pocketing the picture, I reach the front door just before the lowering shutters bar the way.

  While I don my goggles against the red dust Leonid drops from the roof to report.

  “Station 12 went off, but I can’t see anything.”

  Pyotr shouts from the driver’s seat of the truck. “That’s my new trench. We caught one!”

  Leonid continues, “nothing on the horizon. It isn’t a hunt.”

  “Good.” I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with sulfur. “Fire sign?”

  “None, Papa.”

  “I still don’t like it.”

  Pyotr guns the engine and slaps the seat beside him. “Jump in Mik. We got us a twitcher to kill.”

  Mik lowers himself from the bed of the truck and scoops the survival packs from my lap. “Leviathan’s ready," he nearly whispers the words. I’m already wheeling toward the tailgate before he finishes. Leonid remains vigilant, scanning the horizon for movement, until the chairlift comes to a stop. Eighteen seconds to load a forty-year-old cripple into the back of a truck. I roll forward and lock my chair into Leviathan. As it’s gears tug me into position atop its two triangular tank treads, Leonid finally steps onto the runner and slaps the door.

  ~~~

  Ghosts never sleep in the dust zone, and the living expect each day to be their last. Worse yet, will this day be the day the toxin tips the scales of a loved one? It’s rightfully said that in the dust zone everyone sleeps with a rifle under their bed and a bullet in their brain—God willing someone loves you enough to put it there when the time comes.

  Katerina had just celebrated her seventh birthday when she started to turn. The outbreak had been raging for a year, but I hadn’t lifted a finger to move my family to safety. The twitchers crippled me when they took Rosalyn, and for a year I did nothing but drink. Neighbors disappeared. The local government collapsed until only the helium plant remained. Connections there, deals I made with the ones who brought the twitch upon us, made sure my family had food to eat and I had vodka to drink.

  One day, watching the skies turn red from the front porch, I heard Leonid’s voice calling me. The vodka had run out, so I cursed and wheeled back indoors. Our porch had a loose floorboard at the threshold. Unable to step over it, too lazy to fix it, the board mocked my laziness and inadequacy every time I entered my own home.

  Upset at the floorboard and the lack of vodka, I rolled into the living room to see my gentle Leonid holding the Winchester .44-40, my father’s rifle, with closed eyes and clenched teeth. He shook as he pointed it at the closet door.

  “Leo!” I chided him. He startled and dropped the rifle, angering me further. I only cared that he broke the rules, abused my father’s rifle. “What are you doing?” I slapped him with the back of my hand, angry that the vodka had run out. Angry that the board had mocked me and that I was sober enough to hear it.

  I slapped my eldest in anger, and he looked at me, the same expression as the floorboard, as the bottle—flat, empty eyes. Never, since that moment, have I seen the gentle Leonid, the boy who used to love his father. I killed him with the back of an angry hand.

  I mocked him. “You’d rather shoot the closet than listen to your papa?" Steadily, he shook his head and pointed at the closet. I raised my hand a second time, but he’d finished with me. Fixed on the closet again, he moved quickly for the Winchester, raising it into firing position before I wrested it from his grip. Throwing him against the wall, I charged the closet and thr
ew back the door.

  In that moment I knew no judgment of heaven or hell would ever be severe enough for my transgressions. Curled up on the floor, my Katerina hissed at the sudden light flooding into the darkened closet. Scratching at her blind eyes, toblind eshe pulled the skin from her face in bloody flakes. Spittle strung from her swollen lips, no longer little-girl-pink.

  I slumped to my dead knees and pulled her against my chest, propping us up against the closet door. A cold sweat had soaked through her nightgown, the only clothing she’d worn for three days. Her hummingbird heart rattled in it’s cage. I tried to hug her, but she groaned in pain and slashed my cheek with wicked nails.

  There beside us both, unflinching, Leonid, the boy turned man, held the Winchester at arm’s length. I placed Katerina back on the floor in the closet, lifted myself into my chair, took the rifle from my son, and buried a bullet into the brain of my only daughter.

  I shut the door and we moved eleven miles out of town that day—as far from the hell Amarillo had become as I could manage. We didn’t know then that the plague dwelled in the water, the food, eventually the land itself. That you couldn’t avoid it. That every rudder’s days were numbered until the bullet in the brainpan went off. Every day for nearly 2,000 days since, the four of us, the Founder men, have haunted the dust zone, just as it haunts us.

  Jolting across the compound to station 12, dervishes of ruddy dust whip the side of the truck. I pray for one more day as a family, for another chance to bring us together. But I worry the bullet will go off, or worse, my sons will learn the truth about the plant and how their papa is a sellout as well as a cripple.

  ~~~

  The wind and constant creep of knee-high dust obscures the opening of the pit as we pull within sight, but clearly something has disturbed it. Splintered wooden lath creates ragged jaws around its edges.

  “No one rushes in, Pete!” I yell over the growl of the engine and the constant drowning hush of sand washing past the fenders. I pound the top of the cab three times. Pyotr kills the engine and slams on the breaks twenty-five yards from the pit. “Leo, perimeter. Mik, cover. Pete…” all three boys are out of the truck crouched and ready.

  Pyotr flicks his battle ax from underneath the seat and spins it from hand to hand. I switch the M2 Browning .50 caliber machine gun to single fire and rotate my perch on Leviathan for a clear shot at the pit, over Pyotr’s left shoulder. “Pete, for God’s sake, take it slow. They could be playing us.”

  “Or just thirsty. I doused this one yesterday. Knew those damn twitchers couldn’t resist a little drink.”

  Leonid spits, visibly upset. “Ruddy hell, Pete. Now you’re inviting twitchers?”

  “Boys! Eyes up.” But I know the conversation is nervous prattle. They’re on game. Mykola shifts deftly to Pyotr’s left with the shotgun, keeping out of reach and out of my line of fire, while maintaining tight cover. His eyes are on the terrain around him while his aim is on the pit. Leonid, like a spider with the eyes of an eagle, quickly covers fifty yards to our right, his back turned to the pit. In recent months we’d seen secondary pairings waiting nearby in ambush. The twitchers were getting more sophisticated, and more violent.

  I test the gyros on Leviathan to 90 degrees either side of the pit and use my higher vantage to take one last look over the horizon. No other alarms have gone off and note r off anhing stands out. No smoldering plumes of fire sign either. Maybe it’s just a wayward pairing or a thirsty loner after all.

  “Twitcher!” Pyotr confirms visual contact. Everyone freezes. The gyros come to rest with the barrel of the .50 cal. aimed directly at the yawning mouth. At first there is no sound above the wash of rushing sand. I strain my ears. A faint moan curls up from the pit, followed by a nearly fleshless arm, striated red and brown and spasming violently.

  “Spouse?” Mykola calls for a confirmation on pairing.

  “Negative.” Pyotr maintains an alert crouch, creeping forward, now within 5 yards.

  “Good boy,” I whisper to myself before keeping my eyes vigilant, scanning our broader surroundings. I have to trust Mykola to cover Pyotr now. Everyone does their job and we all survive. Remain a family and there’s something worth fighting for.

  “Could be a loner—" Pyotr’s cut off by a gargling scream—blood cry. It’s a bluff I tell myself, keeping my eyes diligent on the horizon. But there’s nothing. Screw it. I focus on the pit in time to see a head lurch up from its dust enshrouded confines. Dark red and frothing, it's a dominant.

  “Where’s the wife?” Mykola dances closer, keeping a clear line of sight.

  “Dammit, it’s a loner, and it’s gonna’ get out! I’m going for the kill.”

  “Pete!” I’m too far to stop him. He lunges, spinning the double-sided ax back and above his head for a quick kill. A cocky move, leaving himself open. But the twitcher doesn’t lurch from the pit. He crows angrily, struggling as if held back by something, until the ax falls—removing his head cleanly at the neck before burying deep into the edge of the pit.

  A volcanic spray pulses twice from the carotid before the twitcher’s tense body sags, its bright red blood slipping silently beneath the dust. “Mik, did you see that? Damn, that one was high strung.” Pyotr laughs as he steps on the twitcher’s shoulders for leverage to pull his ax free.

  I notice Mik is frantically wiping the twitcher’s blood from his goggles, his shotgun lowered. Something isn’t right. Why would a dominant be out this far at midday by himself? And why hadn’t he lunged— “He’s not a loner! Pyotr, there’s another—“

  In sickening slow motion I watch a second hand clutch Pyotr’s ankle and yank his feet out from under him.

  ~~~

  Pyotr’s chest hits the edge of the pit hard, catapulting shattered lath and earth in an explosion of dirt and blood cry. Bouncing backwards into the pit, he’s gone in an instant, taking with him his mother’s fair hair, slight frame and lightning temper.

  “Pyotr!” I watch impotently, my twitching finger resting on the trigger of the .50 cal. Mykola rushes the pit, his goggles still half muddied with twitcher blood and blowing dust. Dear God, I pray, I won’t lose two sons today. I flip the machine gun to rapid fire and depress the trigger. In the split second between my body’s assent and the gunpowder’s explosion in the chamber of the .50 caliber, my mind registers Pyotr's face lunging above the edge of the pit.

  I tug the aim high and watch dirt kick up immediately behind him. Several thunderous rounds tick off before I can release the trigger. Pyotr’s dagger flashes, the tip facing backwards, as he launches his upper body from the side of the pit bringing his full weight down with the savage blow.

  Shrieking in pain, the twitcher’s torso emerges from the pit for the first time, and a chill grips me. So dark red as to nearly be black, the beast’s face is a blur of movements too rapid to discern—it’s physical actions outstripping my racing mind’s ability to interpret them. Twice it slams Pyotr’s body into the side of the pit. Gripping my son from behind with only one hand, a vaporous boil of blood bursts from its injured shoulder with each rapid pulse of its heart.

  “Dammit, Pyotr. Get out of there.” Mykola’s standing only five feet away, already dangerously close. But his shotgun would tear both of them apart. I rest my finger on the trigger. One more second and I’ll have no choice. If the twitcher decides Mik is more of a threat it could be on him before there’s time to respond.

  Then the miraculous happens. In the flurry of uncontrollable movement Pyotr guesses right. Grasping his ax with his left he throws a backward jab with his dagger in his right. The thrust, directed originally at thin air, catches the twitcher’s dancing head in its jaw. Spasming in pain, the monster throws Pyotr through the air like a rag doll, ax and all.

  Gunfire explodes as both Mykola and I unleash hell’s fury. But the twitcher’s lightning quickness renders the .50 cal. worthless, like trying to shoot quail out of the sky with a pistol. Mykola blasts the animal’s leg off with his first shot—five feet away wi
th the choke set to full spread and he nearly misses.

  The twitcher spins and takes a moment to regain balance on one leg, focusing on Mykola now. The trigger still depressed, I sweep the ground aiming for his second leg while battering the desolate plains with the machine gun’s echoing thunder. The recoil starts to tip the truck, and I adjust my aim accordingly. Mykola pumps another round into the chamber and fires at the twitcher’s midriff.

  Both of us are late as the twitcher leaps toward my youngest. The shotgun blast rips off another leg, but fails to stop it. In a desperate effort Mykola grips the shotgun like a bat. Suddenly with a whuffing thud Pyotr’s ax strikes the twitcher full mast and in mid-flight. With a final blood cry the beast’s torso knocks Mykola to the ground and falls motionless, bleeding out in the ruddy dirt.

  I slam Leviathan’s gyros into a full 360 sweep of the horizon, searching for twitchers who may have heard the gunfire, and come up empty. In the seconds it takes me to remount the machine gun onto the truck and begin lowering the ramps, Leonid lifts Mykola to his feet. Mykola dashes toward Pyotr while Leonid dislodges the ax from the dead twitcher.

  All three sons are huddled together by the time I bring Leviathan’s treads to a stop right beside them. “Pete? Dammit, Pete.”

  Mykola leans back so I can see my middle born. Leonid has him propped up, and he’s smiling.

  ~~~

  “Did you see that?” Pyotr winces as he sits up.

  “What the hell was that thmen was thing?” Mykola whispers.

  “Screw that. Did you see the way I knocked it out of the air with my ax?” Pyotr pokes Mykola in the chest. “I saved your hide.”

  “After you put all of us at risk with your impulsive behavior.” I come down hard on him, angry that he behaves irrationally to prove himself. “It takes a man to know the difference between courage and stupidity.” But I vaguely remember what it was like to be fifteen and how a boy needs affirmation from his father, so I smile and try to soften the rebuke. “It also takes a man to hold his own with a twitcher and keep his wits.”