The Second Intelligent Species: The Cyclical Earth

by Dale Langlois

  The same woman answered. “They’re drinking out of the river now. They’re straining it through cloth. Dead bodies and rats are in that water. Cholera is just around the corner. This place is going to be where the new plague starts. We’re leaving the city, we don‘t even know where to go, but we have to get away from here.”

  The conversation was broken by the cries of a couple children and then the screams of another.

  “Did you work at the hospital?” Beth asked.

  “Yes, I work in pediatrics. My name’s Sarah. This is Maria, we both worked very closely with Dr. Stone.”

  “Dr. Raymond Stone? I know him. We see each other each year at the conference for the National Downs Syndrome Society in Arkansas. He and I used to…” Again she paused realizing how much life had changed for everyone. I’m sure she was thinking of Sally.

  “I knew him.” Rapidly she switched from remembering the past to concentrating on the present. “How did you survive with all the children?”

  “I could only grab two before we went down into the shelter. It happened so fast. Everybody else was caught up in the evacuation. The top three floors of the hospital collapsed from the earth quake, they didn‘t see the fire coming.” She handed the other baby she was carrying to Beth. “This is Megan and you’ve been holding Tara. Maria is holding Adam and Eve, at least that‘s what the gang at the hospital called them… it was some kind of a joke to them…We don‘t even know what their real names are.”

  Sarah covered her head with her hands, sat down, and broke down. This was the first time that she could let go of her responsibilities and mourn her own situation.

  Beth and I both knew what she was about to go through. We had to face the same irreversible truth. First she’d realize all her loved ones were dead, and then she’d come to the understanding that everything she experienced in the past, everything she planned for the future, was now irrelevant.

  Beth held the toddlers as if they were her own grandchildren. “There, there. Shhh, Tara. Hug Ninny. That’s a good girl.”

  Now the only sound was crying.

  We’d found somebody to be with, but they needed us as much as we needed them.

  We sat there until Sarah gained her composure. She stood up and we all walked together. I led the way as if I knew where I was going. I didn’t, but faked it.

  We made our way to the second overpass Beth and I had climbed earlier. The only sound was that of footsteps. The smell of dirty diapers filled the air, but was a break from all the other smells we had become accustomed to, almost refreshing. The children were all sleeping. They had all played themselves out from crying. Now was a good time to rest. I was exhausted. Water was our first priority, but this fever had me drained.

  Our little party of refugees took shelter underneath that overpass. Water would have to wait until we woke up.

  With so much on my mind, sleep evaded me. Maria and I were still awake, the rest were out. I listened to Maria praying. She didn’t realize that I was awake too. Beth must surely have been sleeping, or she would have made a comment. Maria hadn’t talked since we met. This was the first time I’d heard her voice.

  Chapter 14

  Awakened by the

  Breakdown of

  Society

  I didn’t sleep much. I was continually getting up to go to the bathroom. Let me rephrase that. I kept getting up to walk about fifty feet away from everybody, to spill myself someplace, away from where we would be walking.

  The cloth that I had stored just for this purpose had run out. Both sleeves of my shirt had to be sacrificed. I couldn’t wait until this thing was over, maybe it would dehydrate me enough to kill me.

  No. I had convinced Beth to keep going because of the firemen’s sacrifice. Something called beaver fever was not going to kill me; I wouldn’t let it. We’d go back to Mick and get some more water and make a plan so that everybody would win. I could talk to Mick. Once everybody else learned that we now had two other nurses with us, they should accept us. I wondered if they would accept the children. I really needed to find or make a weapon. I was worried about the tower being so valuable.

  After my fifth or sixth trip to the privacy of the darkness, I made my way back to the underpass. Just before I reached home, I heard five gunshots ring out in the area of the Dome. They sounded like they all came from the same gun, just as fast as you could pull the trigger. I’m not an expert, but they sounded like shots from a smaller caliber pistol, like a thirty-eight caliber, or something similar. It wasn’t as big as a forty-four caliber. A friend of mine used one when we went hunting together. With most of the buildings gone, sound traveled further than it did when all the sounds of the city drowned them out, so it was hard to be sure.

  Even though I couldn’t see, I ran towards the survivors from the hospital, and Beth. When I got to where they could be seen, I noticed Beth had already taken control of the situation. The babies were being gently muffled while they were crying. Each nurse had one or two children in their arms and were either holding them tight, reassuring them or muffling them.

  “Shh, baby shh. Quiet honey, shh” were the only sounds after the shots were fired.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Beth. Everyone else was busy with a child.

  “Didn’t you hear it? Somebody shot down towards the dome.” She was back to whispering again.

  “Do you think that was the police?” I knew that was a stupid question when I asked it.

  Before she could humiliate me, more gunshots rang out in the distance. Then more, only this time some came from the hospital. “Let’s take these kids, get some more water, and get away from the city. I’ve got some ideas.”

  I was the only man along with three women, and four children. I wasn’t about to walk up to the tower with any woman. Rape is one of the evils to show its face when society starts to break down, looting comes first; we’d done lots of that already.

  “Why don’t we just get to fuck out of here?” Sarah screamed, without thinking about what we would need to do just that.

  “We need water.” I was going to have to go alone. “I’m not letting any of you go to that tower. You said they were raping and killing already.” I looked in the direction of Sarah and Maria. I couldn’t help but wonder whether either of them had been raped. “I need some kind of weapon. Everyone keep a lookout for some kind of long pipe, or something sharp, or something I can use as a club.” I used to be a bow hunter, but I was sure there would be no bows left functional in the debris. Unless a person had a gun in his pocket, there would be no way to find functional firearms or ammunition.

  “I’m not going to let you go up there alone, Nick. You’re not going to leave me alone with these kids.”

  “Those kids are not alone as long as you’re with them. They need you. I need you… to keep all the kids quiet and off in the distance. Nobody was there two days ago, nobody will be there now.” All the time I was looking on the ground for something I could use as a club or a spear.

  “You sneak up on them, like you used to with me. Only this time, do it better. After the first time, I could hear you and… I knew what to expect.” Her voice trembled.

  I held her close. “Well then how come you never stopped me?”

  “Maybe, I wanted to be caught by surprise.” She said with tears on her face.

  I could taste them.

  Chapter 15

  Back to the Tower

  I found a pipe that was once the water line of a house. Beth and I pulled and twisted until it broke free. Galvanized pipe breaks easily at the elbows. It was about six feet long and worked well as a walking stick too. I guess if it were made of wood, it would have been called a staff.

  I had to choose between the small axe and the knife as a backup weapon. The axe would be useful to Beth and the others should I not come back; plus I could keep the knife on my belt loop freeing up my other hand. If I needed it, I could just tear it off, loop and all. With that and my trusty staff in hand, I feared nothing. My
real plan was that nobody would be there.

  The women and the children were out of hearing distance, or at least they had all the children quiet. Either way, they weren’t attracting any attention.

  I had to put all my efforts into getting as much water as I could carry, then get away before anybody else got there. I had all the baby bottles and empty soda bottles I could carry in my pack, and the canteens. I decided to toss the soup cans.

  I knew I was heading in the right direction. The grade of the land gradually increased. I didn’t see any light coming from the tower, no fires, torchlight, or flashlight. That helped me with my pace, since I didn’t think I had to sneak as much as I thought I was going to have to. If anybody was there they would have some kind of light.

  I had one, and I was practicing all the way up the street with my secret weapon, like some “Cowboy Quick draw.”

  In the darkness, I could make out the tower and the steel that was piled beneath. Nothing had changed as far as I could tell. Just in case, I started to drag my staff with my right arm behind me, with the broken kinked end of the pipe wedged into my shoulder blade. I started to limp up to the tower house, or what was left of it. I felt that anybody seeing a limping man would underestimate him and lay off of their attack.

  Nothing made me suspicious and I almost felt it was safe, when I heard some metal roofing move.

  “Do you want to get supper, or do you want to be supper?” A voice in the black yelled out.

  My heart went into high gear. “I just want some water and I’ll leave you alone. Can you spare some? My cats are still thirsty, and all I want to do is… is wash my hair. I’ll trade you two cats for the water.” Once I spotted a second man, I was sure it was a good idea to have them underestimate me and think I was a senile old man.

  I slowly walked closer to them, dragging my staff behind me.

  “Stop right there, motherfucker. You want some water, you are going to have to pay for it.”

  I couldn’t see who was talking to me in the dark. They were hiding behind some steel that had been thrown to the side.

  “My cats, I just want to get some water for my cats, I have some tuna fish cans here. Here pussy, pussy, pussy.” Little did they know that I was talking to them and not my imaginary cats. My former state of weakness was replaced with a cocky fearlessness; adrenaline was pushing me into a confrontation. Their shadows appeared behind sheets of distractingly noisy steel. Apparently my disguise had fooled them. They were leaving the security of the darkness to confront the poor crippled crazy person they had expected might taste good with creamed corn.

  When I felt there was enough room to confront both of them at the same time, I stopped. I kept quiet while waiting for them to creep out of the shadows like demons out of a nightmare. I couldn’t make out their faces, but I knew what they had in mind.

  I jiggled my left arm to adjust the location of the flashlight, like a magician would do with trick flowers. I felt as I had when bow hunting in upstate New York. There were times when I was the predator and deer were the prey. I felt like the predator once again. I was just biding my time for the strike. I knew what I had to do to save us all.

  These guys were scum and wouldn’t be missed, and really shouldn’t be allowed to be involved in creating the next generation of men. Man didn’t need their DNA in the gene pool.

  I let them both get closer to me. My staff was about six feet long. I figured I could let them get at least eight feet away and then strike.

  “Looks like he’d be pretty tuff, don’t he?” the skinny one said. I recognized the bogus southern accent.

  “Tuff like he might kick our asses, or tough like we might have to chew him longer,” the bigger one said.

  They both laughed the way crazy people did in the movies.

  “Keep laughing boys,” I said just low enough so they couldn’t hear.

  “Bring us all your cats, and we’ll give you water.” They seemed to be stalling, sizing me up. I had to act fast.

  “Blow me asshole.” I said defiantly hoping to draw a confrontation.

  Amazed at the cockiness of a crippled man, they decided to teach me a lesson. “Git that cocksucker,” one of them said.

  They both charged at me. As soon as they were about ten feet away, I drew my secret weapon. With one swift, well-practiced move, I slid the flashlight down my sleeve and turned it on. I shined it into their eyes. It stopped one of them.

  As the light flared, I swung my staff. Because I had it anchored against my shoulder, I could swing it with leverage and power.

  It connected with Tex, knocking off his hat. He dropped in his tracks. When it collided with his head, the sound reminded me of a pumpkin when it hits the road at thirty miles an hour. I know. I tossed pumpkins when I was a kid. The impact jarred my hand and I dropped the pipe.

  I tried to shine the flashlight in the face of the bigger one, but all it did was to let him know exactly where I was. He bulldogged me onto my back. I landed on some jagged metal, and dropped the light. It rolled over to where Tex was laying. I reached for my knife. His hands were around my throat, and I couldn’t breathe. His right leg had my left arm pinned to my side. I could feel my knife but I couldn’t move my hand enough to break it free. I was not going to let go of it for anything. My right hand was all I had to protect myself with.

  I wasn’t just fighting to save my own life, but to save the life of those four children and their nurses. One of them was Beth.

  I reached up with my right hand and dug my finger into the eye of this big bastard who was trying to kill me. My finger went into the orbital socket as eye goo ran down my arm. He still didn’t let go. I clawed, punched, and dug at him as fiercely as I could. A tidal wave of fear overcame me. Not the fear of dying, but the realization that I had failed the others. I started to black out when he just went limp and fell on top of me. When he fell, he released his death grip on my neck. I could feel warmth all around him. He was all covered in blood and so was I. Close to passing out from lack of oxygen, I still had enough consciousness left to be confused by the blood. I could smell it. Other than his eye, I had done little damage.

  It took a few attempts to roll his limp corpse off my chest. I saw Beth, shaking, vomiting and crying all at the same time. She had the Leatherman in her hand.

  She had killed the big guy before he killed me. Being a nurse she knew just where to stab a man for the quickest, most efficient kill. She had stuck him under his arm and lacerated an artery, then again in his chest under his arm, piercing his lung. One last jab in his mid back sliced his liver. She never had time to reach his carotid artery. He collapsed before she could.

  “Nick, Nick, I’m sorry I followed you, but I couldn’t let you leave us alone.” She bent down to pick up the flashlight that was still on.

  I tried to talk but my windpipe was crushed and I was worrying about breathing, let alone talking. Air was getting in, but only enough to make me crave more.

  “Breathe, Nick, breathe.” She shined the light into my eyes. “You’ll be fine in a couple of minutes.” After diagnosing me, she kept on to the business that I was unable to do.

  As I recuperated I was amazed at how quickly she left me to fill the containers.

  Beth twisted the pipe wrench and filled the canteens, baby bottles and soda bottles. “You still okay over there?” she asked as she worked, her voice uneasy.

  “Mm hmm,” was all I could muster at the time.

  She set the flashlight down on waist-level pipes. I could see her for the first time in a long time. Still crying, and shaking, she stripped, and washed the blood off with the lukewarm water from the leaking pipe. Then she turned the flashlight towards me. “Are you feeling better?”

  I slowly got to my feet and stripped down. I was covered in blood and shit. I didn’t answer her. After washing myself and my clothes, I put the same wet clothes back on. I had thought about taking the clothes off the two dead guys, but one was covered in as much blood as I was. We did take Tex’s
clothes. We could use the material for torches, or toilet paper.

  Beth carried the backpack as we started back to the others, leaving the two bodies where we had laid them. When I panned the area to see where I was going, the flashlight caught something. I went back to it to see what it was. There on a pole was a human head. Upon closer inspection I could tell it was Mick’s. His nametag was pinned to his face. He had been too free with information. Too many people wanted the type of escape that he kept in his pocket. He’d said it was like money now.

  “I bet they have his retirement fund. I bet it’s still in the tower.”

  “We’ll look for it, but if we find it, then I’m in charge of it and you don’t tell anybody about it. Okay?” she said.

  “No way. Look what happens when you talk too much.” I pointed to Mick’s head.

  We walked back up to the tower and looked on the bodies and all around, but no drugs could be found. Mick must have taken their location to his grave—as if he was given one.

  I double-checked each man’s pockets. “I was hoping these guys might have a gun or some kind of a weapon. They didn’t even have so much as a knife or a pipe like I did. I don’t think they had been here long. They weren’t well organized or anything. I wonder if they were even the ones who killed Mick. It would have been hard to cut off his head without a knife.”

  “I think they were guarding this place for somebody else. These guys didn’t seem like they had the initiative to do this on their own. They were probably put here to frighten people away. Whoever put them here probably didn’t expect them to encounter anyone anyways.” Beth paused. “Let’s get to hell out of here. Whoever’s eating Mick’s body is going to need a drink soon. I don’t want to be here when they do.”

  Chapter 16

  One More

  We walked in the dark, not wanting to waste the batteries in the flashlight.

  It was hard to walk because we drank as much water as our bellies could hold while we were at the tower. We were bloated and uncomfortable, but we needed as much water as possible.