The Second Intelligent Species: The Cyclical Earth

by Dale Langlois

  I touched Tara’s head, careful not to wake her. “I’ll start a fire to make coffee. We’ll eat, then get stuff together and head for Buffalo.”

  “Can we make it all the way with the fuel we have?”

  “I doubt it. But we shouldn’t have too far to walk when we run out.”

  Beth shifted Tara over to the other shoulder. “Do you think Buffalo is going to be in any better shape than Syracuse? All the cities are going to be exactly the same.”

  I snapped the handle of a push broom into three pieces over my knee. “Seen any more brooms?” I asked.

  Two brooms and a shovel handle later, the coffee was on.

  All the adults surrounded the pot of hot water when the grounds were immersed. Not exactly espresso, but the end result would be the same. The aroma of coffee after so long without it overwhelmed an olfactory system desensitized by the constant smell of death. The perfume from the mountains of Columbia transported us away from reality for a moment. Once again I sat at my kitchen table checking the news online before heading off to kill the neighborhood pest, my third coffee steaming my glasses. I imagined Beth was transported to the dining hall of the hospital. Maria’s and Sarah’s minds seemed to wander as they too inhaled not only the brewing drink, but the can of grounds as well. The smell alone was enough to change our demeanor. Somehow our day brightened even though it was still dark. Some hidden message in our wiring said this is the way a day was supposed to begin.

  The children were fed, the wagons were hitched, and supplies were gathered. We were Buffalo bound. Five stainless steel bathtub-looking things being towed by an ancient work horse, all used to make fake food to feed the masses, was a sight to behold. Two cars could hold passengers. The occupants would rest comfortably on bedding made from several layers of company uniforms. Assorted snacks were at the reach of each guest, though the littlest guests were not allowed to reach them. Each car had its own water supply in the form of plastic water jugs (twenty-three in total). The third car in the train held the whole oil tank, estimated volume: two hundred gallons. Lifting it was no problem considering the engine of the train was a forklift. We filled the fourth vat with wood. Some of the bathroom walls in the garage were sacrificed. The caboose held assorted tools, extra batteries, more uniforms, water, and the fifty-gallon drum of motor oil.

  “C’mon everybody, we’re going on a hay ride!” Beth set Tara down in the first portable vat.

  “No, here!” Tara squealed, then immediately ran over to the other side of the trailer.

  Marcos jumped onto the wagon, without asking the “Queen of the wagon’s” permission.

  Tara ran over and hit him on the back. “Nooooooooooo. Mine!” Then she utilized every centiliter of air in her little lungs to force out a shrill scream that lasted so long she nearly passed out. After “The scream heard around the world,” as coined by Sarah, Tara got all quiet. She just stood there quivering with a surprised look on her face. We all broke out in laughter. She started to cry and catch her breath at the same time. It wasn’t working. The rapid in and out movement of air through those little vocal cords made a sound that Sarah also described as, “a chipmunk on acid.” That made us all laugh louder.

  Beth decided it was time to intervene. “Don’t you pick on my baby,” she said. “C’mon, honey, you come to Ninny. Those meanies. They better leave my baby alone.” She picked up Tara and hugged her. The toddler instantly stopped crying and wrapped her legs around Beth’s waist. I couldn’t see, but I’m sure the old crocodile tears were flowing.

  We were ready to travel.

  The antique fired up without hesitation. “Is everybody holding on?” I put the lever into the forward position. I could feel the transmission shift through my seat. The clunk of the pin that held the trailer was a sign we had begun to move.

  More laughter came from the wagon as we began to roll. It was short lived because the engine’s pistons slapped like a metronome and put the little ones to sleep like a recording of white noise.

  Traveling along the thruway proved difficult due to cars piled up near underpasses just like the trip down to Syracuse. This time we could use the high lift to move them out of the way, bodies and all. Another thing I wasn’t counting on was how badly the trailers whipped side to side the faster we went. To prevent this we could only travel at half throttle. Though it took longer, safety was more important than speed.

  While riding, Beth and the others sorted the uniforms. Those that wouldn’t fit any of us were cut into diapers, toilet paper cloth, and torch fuel. They also made torches. The specifications I described were followed to the letter.

  After spending long hours riding, everyone needed a break. We stopped along an area with water on both sides of the road. If any danger approached us, we would see it coming. I started a fire, and then shut off the truck to check the fuel and oil. After adding both, I walked with the others to stretch my legs.

  Marcos sat at a culvert tossing pebbles into the water. I walked over to him while the smaller children were being tended to. “Would you like to drive a while when we get going again?” I asked.

  He stopped tossing stones. “Are you serious? Yes. Do you think I can?”

  At the speed we were moving, I could intervene if he should get into trouble. “I’ll be sitting right beside you.”

  “If I do good enough, can I drive a car someday?”

  “Sure.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that even I might never drive a car again.

  He picked up a couple more stones. “Think I can hit that animal out there with a rock?”

  “What animal?” I looked where he threw last, but nothing could be seen. “Wait a minute, let me listen.” A chewing sound could be heard about thirty yards out in the water. I couldn’t see anything on top of the surface except thousands of cattail shafts. Only an inch stood above the water line, resembling the stubble on a man after five days without shaving. I shined the light towards the sound just in time to see a muskrat break the surface. “I see it. That’s a muskrat. If I could catch a few, we could have fresh meat for supper.”

  “But Sarah said she wasn’t going to eat rats.” Marcos said.

  “These are a different kind of rat than what she was talking about. These only eat plants and are very clean. I think she’ll eat anything if she gets hungry enough.” Figuring how to catch them would take a little thinking. As a nuisance wildlife trapper, I seldom received calls to trap them. They caused little damage and seldom invaded households. When one did get into some old lady’s house during the spring breeding season, it was easily shooed out the door with a broom, never to return.

  Catching them here required a different tactic. Finding where the aquatic rodents crossed under the road would be crucial to my success. Once the culvert was found, a trap could be designed. “Let’s go back to the train. You and I have a lot of work to do.” I started jogging back to the others. Soon a race developed.

  I had a shadow in the dark, and he was gaining. Now my jog was turning into a full-blown sprint. We were only about fifty yards from the others. The fire showed a clear path down the track. Not one burned vehicle cluttered the road. They’d all driven off into the water when the fires came, choosing a death by drowning over burning, in the same manner jumpers escaped the flames of a burning building.

  Only one thing stopped me from beating him back to the others, and that was because Marcos was a fifth my age. I still had a breathless twenty yards left to walk when he skidded to a halt in front of Beth. “Me and Nick are going to catch some rats.”

  “I said I’m not going to eat those filthy things,” Sarah said.

  I couldn’t hear all Marcos said as he explained the difference between the two rats due to my heavy breathing and pounding heart.

  “I don’t care what kind of rat they are, they’re still rats,” Sarah said. “I’m not eating them.”

  “That’s good,” I said, still trying to catch my breath. “I’m not sure I can catch very many anyway.”

/>   “More for the rest of us,” Beth murmured.

  Sarah’s sneer was highlighted by the flickering light of the fire. The glares and the temperatures were getting colder.

  I escaped to the solitude of the wagon train, emptied the drum of motor oil into five of the empty water jugs, and dumped the remainder into the ditch. The environment was fucked at this point. I didn’t feel any guilt.

  Using a screwdriver and hammer from the toolbox, I slowly and loudly chiseled the cover off the metal drum. The sound echoed and I was sure could be heard for miles. I was concerned the noise might draw unfavorables, yet I continued. First the top, then the bottom was cut out and discarded; chicken wire along the road would funnel the furbearers into the drum where they would drown before escaping. Marcos helped me lower the contraption into the water in front of the culvert. “Four or five hours should be enough time to trap enough rats to give us all a taste of fresh meat,” I said, as we walked back to the others.

  While I waited for supper to find its way into my fifty-gallon pantry, I swapped batteries out in the fork truck. As long as it was running, I could unhook the charged one and replace it with a dead one. As the vehicle ran, the new battery charged, leaving the charged one to be used as a power source for the drop light.

  I needed to rest awhile. I was starving and out of energy. I watched the kids from the ground. Keeping them away from the fire was chore number one. Maria hovered over it ensuring their safety, and tending a pot of boiling water. Filling the empty water jugs with potable water every time we built a fire was the new protocol. Each time the water in the pot would reach a rolling boil for fifteen minutes or so, she would pour it into an empty container and put more filtered swamp water on the fire.

  “We’re almost out of food,” Beth said while changing Tara. “We’ve only a few cans of tomatoes left.”

  “Marcos, give me a hand to check if we caught anything yet.” We walked to the culvert to pull out the drum. Once we got it up to the road, we found three dead muskrats in our trap. I showed Marcos how to clean them. I tossed the guts and fur into the water.

  The pot we had taken from the coffee locker held the boneless meat. After searing it to a golden brown over the fire, I dumped in a can of tomatoes.

  “What to hell is that?” Sarah couldn’t talk without swearing.

  “Salisbury rat.” I tried to say it without snickering.

  She came over to sniff. “You know that doesn’t smell too bad.” After going without for so long, her fussiness seemed to be lessening. “Come on everybody. Supper’s on.”

  No leftovers remained in the bottom of the pot. The texture of real meat was as welcome as the aroma. Nobody missed Phony Bologna.

  Chapter 21

  Dazed and Confused.

  Moving automobiles from underneath underpasses used more fuel than I wanted to waste, but it was the only way to continue to Buffalo. Several times the wagons needed to be unhooked to maneuver the fork truck. Many miles had passed from the last blockade and we were rolling smoothly, when we noticed some of the burned vehicles had more damage than others we had seen along the way. I turned the light of the fork truck in the direction of the vehicles. Two cars were flipped on their sides. The skeleton of a semi came into view with only the chassis remaining. Apparently the truck carried some volatile fuel that exploded during the fire. I was so busy looking at the damage, I missed the crater created by the BLEVE (boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion—something I learned when I was in the fire department). Whatever the rig carried created a hole in the blacktop nearly four feet deep.

  The fork truck shuddered as it tried to skid to a stop. The trailer’s weight pushed it ever closer to the crater. The nose of the truck dropped and momentum abruptly ceased. Everyone in the train lurched forward, some nearly falling out entirely. Some of the supplies tipped over and landed on one of the children.

  The sudden stop caused me to slam my head into the windshield. The force of my skull impacting the Plexiglas windshield caused the nearly indestructible material to break in half. I fought unconsciousness by thinking about how much the others depended on me. I needed to stay awake. I grabbed hold of the levers that raise and adjust the forks to avoid falling off entirely. The fork truck stalled out. I couldn’t prevent it. Stunned, I sat back down on the seat and struggled to ask if everyone was all right. Before I could muster the ability to speak clearly, I heard a now familiar voice.

  “What to fuck are you doing?” Sarah screamed.

  All the children were crying. I managed to turn to see the nurses doing their assessments of each patient.

  Eve was screaming, while the others were only crying.

  “I fell on her when he stopped so quickly,” Sarah said, trying to put the blame on anyone but her. “I think her arm might be broken.”

  I heard other things, but was having a difficult time staying conscious.

  The next thing I remember was Beth shaking me. “Nick, Nick… Are you all right?” She shined a flashlight in my face.

  “What happened?” I was groggy. I knew Beth was talking, but couldn’t clearly understand her.

  She was checking my pupils, and though the light was hurting my eyes, I was unable to resist her. She turned my head from right to left looking into each ear.

  I was tired and needed a nap. I didn’t care about the fork truck, the children or anyone. I just needed a nap. All I remember is Beth helping me to the ground with the sound of a child crying in the distance.

  In a state of semi-consciousness, I heard Beth’s voice. I remember taking a pill. I remember the sound of Beth and Sarah arguing. My body was powerless. My head ached horribly.

  I don’t recall how long I lay there on the road.

  Beth startled me by shining the light in my eyes again. “Can you get up and climb in?” Somehow they got me to my feet. I rolled into the first vat in the line of five, and that’s all I clearly remember.

  I thought Beth was checking my eyes again, but realized it was the sun high in the summer sky. This time the light didn’t hurt my eyes. I was in my backyard during a barbeque. Sally bounced on my knee, while Beth played with Sally’s cousins on the swing set. The wind blew a gentle breeze, but sounded different somehow, like a predictable monotonous mechanical heartbeat.

  I lifted the cover of a grill I’ve never owned. This one looked like a homemade version of a smoker, all stainless steel, with wheels. I placed enough faux frankfurters on the searing hot grate to feed each family for the next three days. Beth would make up take home trays when they all left.

  I felt my face’s muscles pull back into a smile. Then I turned to my right to see Marcos playing on the swing. Beth never even said a word. I was confused. I’d never met Marcos back home before, or had I?

  While I thought about it, I opened up the lid of the grill to turn the dogs. I started to turn about thirty Phony Bologna wieners, when they turned into harry muskrats, tails and all. Their flesh burnt to a crisp.

  Surprised, I stepped back to think. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. I looked for Beth to see what her reaction to this was but couldn’t find her. Panic ran through my body. I could count my heartbeat without looking for a pulse.

  Suddenly I knew we were going up a hill. The fork truck bellowed and I smelled the sooty exhaust. I felt acceleration as we rolled down the other side. I sensed every bump and joint in the pavement. The wheels on the vats were made of solid rubber. The vats were not designed with suspension. Due to the constant joints in the road, I was fading out again.

  Again, I was in my backyard. This time it was dark. Sally and the other grandkids were gone. Marcos must have gone home too. The grill cover was red hot, and black smoke billowed from the sides. I met flames when I lifted the cover and stepped back. I felt my eyebrows singe. There in the huge grill, I envisioned Beth charred like the dogs that turned into rats. I reached down to lift her out when some of her flesh tore from her body. As I pulled my burning hands away, the crucifix the pri
est gave her caught on my finger. As I pulled harder the chain cut into the burnt flesh of her beautiful neck. The more I tried to prevent it, the more it dug in. I screamed.

  The fork truck slowed. “Nick, are you okay?” She stopped the rig and came running back to my personal car. “Nick?”

  I had never been so glad to see her face as I was at that point. The nightmare was over and I still had her. “My head is killing me. Please give me a kiss.”

  She did. She was as glad to see life in my eyes as I was to see life in hers. I took another pill and went back to sleep. My perceived reality depended on whether I was awake or not. Both felt eerily real. I faded in and out of dreams from the past, but it was hard to distinguish which one was a nightmare and which one wasn‘t. I thought we were heading back the way we came. I didn’t question why, where, or how we were going; I had all I could do to know that we were.

  Chapter 22

  Thank God for the

  Amish

  The couplings of the wagons clinked together, telling me we were stopping. Still groggy, I could tell the light of the truck was being moved though the vehicle remained parked. I sat up to see Beth and Sarah walk ahead. I didn’t know what they were looking at, but I heard both of them scream. Their shrill squeals were soon followed by intermittent laughter.

  “What’s going on up there?” I had all I could do to lift my head over the side of the vat. My head felt like it weighed fifty pounds. The light of the forklift hurt my eyes even though it was aimed forward away from me. I felt sleepy again and lay down. They would get me if they needed me.

  I lifted the grill one more time to check the dogs. Again the smoke curled around my head. During the summer my eyes were always bloodshot due to the smoke of my grill. My next memory took me to the Yoder farm. Mr. Yoder handed me two steaks and said they had another gift for me. Mrs. Yoder came out of the house with something in her hands. When she got closer, I noticed the woman was Beth in Amish garb, not Mrs. Yoder. She held something that seemed to squirm in her hands. “Don’t touch it. It’ll bite your finger off.” Again I was confused, but I was getting used to it. I knew she was alive and these were only hallucinations. I could rest in peace. But when the thing in her hands turned into a snapping turtle, I knew this was a concussion-related dream. As she drifted away the turtle turned into the cross and chain the priest had given her. This was all a hallucination that would soon go away.