“You done?” he asked.
“Don’t start with me Jake!” I warned.
“Well, while you’re out here throwing a fit like a fucking baby, Brent is in the backseat dead. We have to deal with this. It doesn’t matter how you feel…we have to deal with this!”
I glared at him. Somehow all of this was his fault. All he cared about was his own ass and he’d sacrifice anyone to save it.
He threw his hands up in defeat and huffed loudly. “Max, come on man. We’ve gotta get him out of the car. Cindy’s back there with him for Christ’s sake.”
I looked back into the car. Cindy was still cuddled in the backseat with her face toward the window. I felt my heart drop at the sight of her. She was mumbling to herself, her face covered in dried tears.
Sighing, I dropped my face into my own hands in desperation. I yawned then turned to Jake and lowered my head. “Fine, let’s move him. I’ll see if I can find something to dig with in the trunk.”
Jake tipped his head and returned to the car. I opened the trunk and began to shuffle through the piles of junk that the Honda owner had amassed through the years. Where were they now? Were they like Brent, dead and left buried on the side of the road? Or had they made it out? Or had they been one of the lucky ones, to have never lived long enough to see the abyss our world spiraled into?
I’d never know, but as I shuffled through the remnants of their life, I couldn’t help but wonder. Pulling myself back to reality, I felt my way through mounds of clothes, hoping to find a spade or metal object. The best I could find was a tire iron and an old, plastic cup.
With our tools in hand, it was time to get to work. It took us the entire day to dig a hole. We watched the sun rise and start to set as we raged war upon the ground we stood on. The process was sobering and every little bit of dirt that I moved felt like a pile of guilt I stacked on top of myself.
I stabbed at the earth with the tire iron. The soil was loose and moved freely. Sweat dripped from my hands and slid down the rusted metal, enough to turn the ground muddy. But the labor was my penance for failing him, that along with the pain that I would carry until I joined him beneath the dirt.
My arms ached with every thrust into the soil. Every rake of grass and dirt I pulled away, I felt down to my core. I faded into the monotony, letting my mind get lost in the nothingness. To think was to feel and I didn’t want to feel anything. In some ways, I was just there, an empty vessel, the shell of a man after the soul had been ripped from the body and crushed underneath the weight of the world.
“I think this is deep enough,” Jake said as he scooped a cup of dirt over his shoulder.
I looked down into the hole, into the spot that was to be Brent’s final resting place. A shallow grave off the shoulder of some highway in the middle of nowhere. No one besides us would know he was there, no one besides us would miss him.
“So, this is what it’s come to?” I mumbled.
For the first time Jake looked bothered. He dropped his head and frowned then turned his face into the wedge of his arm. He was crying and it wasn’t subtle, it was sniffles and grunts and heavy breathing. It was pain and the actualization of what was happening. It was a last goodbye to a friend that had been there when no one else was.
“I’m sorry Brent, I’m so sorry. I fucked up man,” he moaned.
The sky rumbled as if to answer him with its discontentment. A light wind picked up and some of the dirt blew into the air. It was a fitting farewell, a perfect reflection to the storm brewing inside of my own head.
“He’s gone man,” Jake whimpered then dropped to one knee.
I didn’t have the words to console him. I was battling my own demons and in some ways, I faulted him for how far apart I felt we’d drifted. Brent had always been the middle man, the guy that kept our little friendship together when one of us was being a stubborn asshole.
Who was going to patch us up now? Who was going to be that glue, especially now when we needed it so much.
“Help me get him out of the car,” I finally said after giving Jake a few minutes to himself.
Jake nodded and we moved Brent to the edge of the hole and placed him on the ground. In silence, we stared at him until the sun began to vanish. As an orange haze shined across the sky, I knew it was time to let him go.
Biting my lower lip, I grabbed Brent’s arms and Jake followed suit. We lowered him slowly, like a delicate piece of art. Even in death, he was our friend and he deserved more than what we gave him.
His skin had grown cold, void of life, empty of all the things I’d taken for granted. I questioned how my world had become so morose. Death was something that humans couldn’t comprehend, a fallacy like time and all it did in the end was bring us pain.
“Should we say something?” Jake asked as he stared down into the grave.
“I’m sorry Brent,” I started. “You deserve better and I wish I could’ve gave you it.”
I looked to Jake, but he’d already started crying again. I grabbed his cup from the ground and started to toss dirt over Brent’s body. It fell softly, but I cringed with every clump of soil that hit him.
“Wait!” Cindy called out.
I turned and found her rushing toward us. She stopped short of the grave and knelt down. Her face was smeared with tears and her eyes were red and puffy, but she looked like herself again.
“Brent, you were a friend when you didn’t need to be. You were a brother to me and I’ll love you forever for it,” Cindy whispered.
She took her watch off and dropped it into the hole with him. Tearing up, she blew him a kiss then with a deep breath, she stood up and headed back to the car.
As the last pile of dirt fell over Brent’s body I dropped the tire iron from my hands then stared up at the darkening sky. A silent flash of lightning flickered through the clouds as a light rain began to fall.
Brent was gone, but we were still here, still here trying to survive in a world that was falling apart. Brent was at peace now, but our fight was just beginning.
CHAPTER 20
AS THE STORM COMES
The air outside had begun to cool. It flowed in through the broken windows and swirled in the cabin of the aging Honda. We needed to find a new car soon. It was only going to get colder and from the looks of it, rain was on the way.
Flashes of light grew in the distance, wicked webs of electricity, dancing through the clouds. It was unnatural, something that would’ve been amazing to see in different circumstances, but now it was just another thing that could kill us.
“We’re low on gas,” I mumbled in a groggy tone then rubbed my eyes.
Jake looked over at me and shrugged. “Let’s go into town.”
I pulled off of the highway at the next exit. So far the infrastructure was sound and I doubted anything had happened out here. We’d clocked nearly three hundred miles and the horrors of Nashville were far away, but somehow still with us.
“I’m thinking if we find gas or a new car we can make it to Wyoming by tomorrow afternoon,” I grinned.
Jake nodded, but didn’t respond. With a yawn, I turned onto the surface streets and made my way toward the city. I felt a cold twist in my stomach as I thought of what we might find once we got there.
“We’ve gotta be close to something,” I added. “I can’t see a damn thing though.”
It was dark and our headlights were our only lifeline to safety. The world had been cast into the shadows with death lurking in every corner. I felt like an explorer on a distant planet. Like we were the first to step foot on Mars and everything we did set a new precedent.
“It’s empty,” Jake mumbled.
“What?”
“This town, it’s empty.”
He was right. There were a few deserted cars on the street, but it was a ghost town. From the road signs, we were about thirty miles outside of St. Louis, Missouri. With such a big city near I thought we’d see people everywhere.
“Maybe they all got out,” Cindy sa
id in a weak voice. “Maybe the National Guard evacuated them.”
I glanced back at her and smiled. I was happy to see her talking again. She still looked out of it, but at least she was engaged.
“I hope they did,” I replied.
“Me too.”
“Do you guys hear that?” Jake asked and sat up in his seat then leaned out of the window and looked around. “It’s close, it’s really close.”
I slowed the car down to nearly a stop. The brakes screeched and the tires crushed tiny pebbles as we veered near the shoulder.
Straining my ears, I listened in silence as the car coasted. More lightning flashed and brightened the sky, exposing monstrous clouds, black and menacing as the grim reaper. The wind had picked up, howling and shoving things around, but that was all that I could hear, the sound of the storm we all knew was coming.
Sighing, I stopped the car next to an empty field and put it in park. I cut off the engine and looked at Jake. He still had his head leaning out of the window like a dog.
“I don’t hear anything,” I told him after a few minutes had passed.
“Well I hear it,” Jake replied. “Get out of the car!”
“What?”
“Get out of the car now!”
Jake opened his door and jumped to his feet. With a grimace, he looked up at the sky then yanked open the back door and nearly dragged Cindy from the car.
“Max! Get out of the car now!” he blared.
I still wasn’t sure what the hell he was screaming about, but I slowly stepped out of the car and made my way toward the back. Jake had Cindy’s hand and was pulling her down the embankment on the side of the road.
“Follow me!” he yelled back.
I frowned and shook my head, trying to comprehend what he was doing. Cindy didn’t seem to know either, but she wasn’t fighting. I banged my hand on the hood then Screaming, I ran after him.
“Jake! What the hell man?”
He didn’t reply. He darted into the field and ran like a ghost was chasing him. Another flash of lightning lit up the sky and a boom of thunder echoed in the emptiness. But something else roared even louder.
The air swooshed and rumbled like water tumbling over the edge of a cliff. The ground started to tremble, threatening to knock me off balance. So much was happening and all I could think was to run faster.
“Jake!” I yelled, the wind swallowing the words as soon as they left my mouth. “Where the hell are you going?”
My fear told me to run back to the car, to head back to something I thought was safe. But then then I saw it, I saw what Jake had heard. It was to my left, bearing down on us like a pack of hungry lions. I could see then that it didn’t matter how fast we ran or where we ran to, there was no outrunning it.
It looked like hell had opened up and reached its gnarled fingers into the sky to pull the world down into the depths. Streaks of swirling gray whipped around, twirling through the night like malign ballerinas.
Everything in its path was plucked from the ground and churned into nothing, before being spat out like cannon fodder. It was death, it was a spinning cyclone of treacherous mayhem and it was headed straight for us.
I was never much of an athlete and now I regretted all of the PE classes I’d skipped along the years. No matter how hard I pumped my legs and swung my arms I couldn’t catch up with Jake, I’d been left to die alone. I wanted to shout, to scream, but it was useless. They wouldn’t hear me and I needed every bit of oxygen so I didn’t pass out.
The grass whipped against my legs as I charged through the field. I didn’t want to die, not here, not now. Burying Brent had given me a new appreciation for life and I didn’t want to let it go so easily.
Suddenly, Jake stopped running and waved his hands at me. They were nearly fifty yards away and the tornado was almost as close. He was shouting to me, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. So, I lowered my head and ran faster.
The ground was uneven and covered with rocks and short, thick shrubs. The closer I got to them the more uneven it became, until it took a sharp decline and I stumbled and rolled across the ground.
High off adrenaline, I jumped to my feet as soon as I came to a stop. I was almost certain I’d broken a bone or two, but that was nothing in comparison to what was coming.
“Hurry up!” Jake screamed. “Down here!”
I could see what he was doing now. The field ran into a culvert where a thin stream of water stood. I followed after him and slid down the bank, landing in the shallow muck.
“In here,” Jake called out.
As the tornado roared behind me I rushed inside of the concrete cylinder and collapsed against the wall.
“How did you know?” I huffed. “How did you know it was coming?”
“It’s a sound you never forget,” Jake replied with wide eyes, staring at the roof of the culvert.
Outside the wind bellowed its displeasure at our escape. The sound of chaos thundered as a heavy rain began to fall. The sky roared and my arms trickled with goosebumps.
“Is it safe in here?” Cindy asked.
I pulled her toward me and wrapped my arms around her. “We should be fine,” I whispered.
“It was this or the car,” Jake added. “And I’m sure the car ain’t there no more.”
A high-pitched whistle blared and gusts of wind rushed into our little shelter. Toward the back there was a metal grate that separated the culvert from where the storm drain ran underneath the road. I pulled Cindy along and we huddled near it with Jake crouched beside us.
The sound of the storm was horrid. It was every nightmare I’d ever had, every fear manifested in the destruction taking place right outside.
Pellets of rain pushed by the wind swept into the tunnel like machinegun fire. The sting against my back was agonizing, but I squeezed Cindy tighter and shut my eyes. It sounded like the world was falling apart above our heads. Loud booms and deafening collisions shook our little haven. Every time the culvert rattled I thought it was going to cave in and crush us.
A loud roar droned as the tornado stopped directly above. The strafing rain stopped and I could feel the cyclone pulling at my back.
I reached around Cindy and locked my fingers into the grate, pinning her underneath me. A barrage of shrills and resounding clatter filled the culvert. I could feel the wind pulling at me, ripping me from the ground.
My legs slipped in the grimy water and Cindy shifted underneath me. She latched onto my waist and I grabbed her and pulled her back toward the grate.
“We’re gonna die!” Jake shouted as he clamped his fingers around the thick, metal.
It was like the tornado was alive. It had found us and wouldn’t leave until it peeled us from our hiding spot like a pearl from an oyster.
“Don’t let me go,” Cindy said as the wind shrieked in pain.
I tightened my grip and struggled to plant my feet back onto the ground. Everything seemed unreal. There I was, nearly horizontal with the floor, being sucked into the air by a giant vacuum.
“I’m losing my grip! Max help me, I’m losing my grip!” Jake cried out in panic.
There was nothing I could do. I had one hand over Cindy’s and the other squeezing the grate with every ounce of strength I had.
“It’s gonna pass!” I yelled, my attempt at encouragement.
“Max help me!” he screamed and I felt it in my spine.
He made a loud groaning noise then he was plucked from the grate like a feather. Jake didn’t go quietly though. As the tornado pulled at him he slammed into the ground the caught my leg on his way out.
The sudden jolt ripped my hand off and I slid down Cindy’s waist. I grasped at the air, but found nothing solid, I was flying and suddenly I was outside.
CHAPTER 21
THE TRUTH HURTS
I slid across the slime covered concrete as my life flashed before me. The wedding that didn’t happen, the children I would never have, the sound of my daughter calling me daddy. It
was the life I’d wished for, but put off for so long, always thinking there would be more time.
I strained to keep my eyes open. Fighting my own instincts to brace for my death like a coward. I wanted to see it, I wanted to look death in the eyes before it took me.
Flinching, I stared up to the dark sky and gasped. The cyclone had shifted and was tearing across the field back toward the road. It dropped us onto the concrete like unwanted laundry and left. We weren’t gonna die, not yet.
I jumped up and ran back toward the culvert. Cindy was still latched to the grate, shaking and crying hysterically.
“Cindy!” I called out to her.
She turned her head and glared at me like she was seeing a ghost. Her hands trembled as she slowly uncoiled them and reached out toward me.
I knelt down and wrapped my arms around her. She buried her head into my shoulder and moaned in pain. I’d never felt closer to her than I did in that moment.
“I thought you were dead. I thought you left me.”
“I thought I was dead too, but it passed right over us.”
“I’m alright too,” Jake called from behind us.
I kissed Cindy’s cheek and squeezed her tighter. With a deep breath, I sucked in the scent of her hair, vowing to never forget it. There was something surreal about holding someone that you thought you’d lost forever.
I could’ve sat there for hours, hours just holding her. I wanted to stay with her for the rest of my life and that’s when it hit me.
“Marry me,” I suddenly said.
I felt her jolt and she lifted her head slowly. “What?”
“Marry me. I don’t care how, I just, I just want you to marry me. I’m sorry it took me so long to ask, but I’m ready. I want you to marry me.”
Cindy dropped her jaw in shock. She looked like she wanted to pass out. He eyes were wide and unfocused like she was staring right through me.
An explosion of thunder stole my moment and I was reminded of the danger we were still in. Lightning flashed and Cindy shivered in my arms.
The Mayflower Project: Deconstruction Book Two (A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller) Page 12