by Joseph Souza
“I should kill you right now, you little prick!” Dar screamed, pointing the knife in his face. “Do you know who I am?”
The kid trembled in my arms.
“Want me to waste him for you, babe? Be no problem.”
“Jesus, show some mercy. He’s just a little kid, and he’s scared out of his mind,” I said.
“I say we blow his brains out. The punk took a bite out of you, Dar. Who knows? You might even turn into one of those fuckers.”
I stared at Dar, my arms wrapped around the kid’s head, and waited for her decision. She looked the kid up and down, rage filling her.
She walked over and stood in front of him. The poor kid backed up against me, terrified. I could feel him shaking like a leaf. Despite being pregnant, Dar’s muscular physique had the sinuous appearance of a gargoyle.
“What’s my name?”
“Dar,” the kid answered.
“That’s right, and you better not forget it.” She glared at him. “You sure you don’t got any diseases?”
“No, ma’am, I’m as healthy as an ox.”
“Why were you hiding in the chimney, then?” I asked.
“They came and took my family away. They took my dad out back when he complained, and they shot him in the head.”
Dar put the blade up against his throat. “Who did?”
“Those army guys. I’m a skinny little kid, so I was able to climb up the chimney and hide. Thought you were one of them army guys. That’s why I bit you.”
Dar took back the knife and stashed it in her waistband, and then stepped off.
“They came back a couple of times already. I don’t know what they were looking for, but I didn’t want to die.” Tears fell from his blackened cheek.
“What happened to your dad’s body?”
“They put it in one of those trucks and drove away.” He sniffed back tears. “I miss my family, all my brothers and sisters, but I know they’re not coming back. I just know they’re all dead.”
“You’re right about that, kid. They’re all gone, so you might as well deal with it. You need to take care of yourself from now on.”
I pulled him in to me. “What’s your name, boy?” I asked.
“Devin. Devin Willoughby.”
“You’re okay now, Devin. We won’t hurt you.” I knelt down and stared in his eyes. “How long ago did they take your family away?”
“I got a calendar I keep in the other room. They came about four weeks ago and took them all away. And that was after we made it through the winter, which was a bad one. One day the power went out, and all the radios stopped. We didn’t know nothing about what was going on. All our cattle suddenly got sick and died. Dad kept a whole bunch of meat stored down in the basement freezer, which we ate throughout the winter.”
“This is going to sound crazy,” I said, “but did any of those cattle come back to life after they died?”
“Back to life? No, mister, they just got sick and died. Couldn’t eat ’em, so we dragged them out back and buried them in a big ditch my dad dug with his tractor.”
I turned back to Dar and stared at her. “We need to take him with us.”
Dar walked over to the boy and put her hands on her hips. “You ever bite me again, kid, and I’ll cut your damn head off.”
“I’m real sorry.”
“I’m your worst nightmare as well as your only salvation.” She put her face next to his. “We’re going to crash here today. Then tonight we’re heading south. You staying here or coming with us?”
“Nothing here for me anymore. Might as well go with you guys, if that’s okay.”
“No skin off my ass. Know how to shoot?”
“Sure. Me and my pops used to shoot trap every week. Second in Maine last year in my age group.”
“Expecting a medal or something?”
“Nah, but I’ll get better, I promise.”
“You better get better if you want to survive in this sick world. You make one mistake now, and you’re going to end up like one of them fuckers,” Dar said.
Thorn and Dar turned and walked out of the room.
“What’s a fucker, mister?” Devin asked me.
“Trust me, you don’t want to know.” I ran my hand through his soot-filled hair. “My name’s Thom.”
“That lady scares me, Thom.”
“Me too. What town are we in, Devin?”
“Bakersville.”
I remembered from the maps that Bakersville was about eighty miles north of Portland.
“Come on, let’s go downstairs, and I’ll introduce you to the others. Just do me a favor and stay out of Dar’s way.”
“No problem. She reminds me of the devil.”
“True, but she’ll also save your life if you do what she says.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because she’s my daughter.”
After introducing Devin to Kate and the kids, we decided to sleep in shifts. Kate and the kids went upstairs and slept on one of the beds. Devin and I took up in the living room while Dar and Thorn played cards and smoked cigarettes in the kitchen. Thorn discovered a half-filled bottle of whiskey in one of the cabinets and helped himself to it.
Devin and I killed time playing checkers. He was very good at the game and beat me more times than I beat him. After an hour of playing, Devin pulled out his book of the Grimm fairy tales and started to read. I pulled out my journal and scribbled furiously.
Thorn crashed next after Kate and the kids came down. Devin found some toys and stuffed bears for the children to play with. When it was my turn to rest, I took a short nap upstairs in one of the beds. I didn’t sleep well, tossing and turning the entire time. After three fitful hours, I returned downstairs to relieve Dar, but she was too keyed up to go to sleep.
“You’re going to need some rest,” I said.
“Stop worrying about me and worry about yourself,” she said, sharpening her ax. “Look at you, you look like one of those homeless dudes begging in Harvard Square.”
Darkness was now descending over the land. At Dar’s directions, Thorn and I carried as much water out to the truck as we could fit. The entire bed was now weighed down with supplies. We siphoned off some gas from the barrel and filled up the tank. Thorn checked the engine oil and water level in the radiator. When the vehicle appeared road-ready, we went back inside with some food and passed it around. Breakfast consisted of peanut butter, stale crackers and cans of green beans.
Once we’d finished eating, Dar declared that it was time to go. We exited through the back door and positioned ourselves in the truck. Dar tossed Devin a rifle, and the kid caught it and did a once-over of the weapon, declaring it fit to shoot. Then he positioned himself between Dar and myself in the bed of the truck, his chin barely above the metallic roof of the cabin. Thorn turned the ignition, and the engine roared to life. He backed out of the spot behind the house and then drove down the long gravel driveway. When he reached the main road, he dimmed the headlights and proceeded south.
“Where we going, Thom?” Devin asked.
“To Boston.”
“Why Boston?”
“To find my wife and son.”
“How old is your son?”
“About your age, maybe a little older.”
“Now I understand why you want to go to Boston. Me, I always wanted to go there and see Fenway Park.”
I remembered the words coming out of that static. Get out of there! The potential nuclear threat scared the shit out of me. And Rick had known about the threat the entire time and never said a word about it to anyone. But why? Did he want all of us to die? And who was that person on the other end of the line? Military? A government official? It appeared as if Rick had been communicating with someone higher up for quite some time. I prayed that we might make it out of here before such a catastrophic event happened.
Chapter 24
NOT TEN MINUTES INTO THE JOURNEY, we heard a tremendous noise. It sounded like a million win
gs flapping in the air, and it was accompanied by the sound of a low, undulating cooing. Thorn stopped the truck, jumped out onto the road, and looked up. We all stared skyward. A crescent moon hung in the star-studded sky, although we could barely see it now because of the procession of birds blocking everything out. Millions of them flew southward in a massive formation. I couldn’t tell what species of bird they were on account of the darkness, but it must have been quite a few. Suddenly the sound of animal hooves began to pound on the pavement behind us. “What the hell is that?” Thorn shouted, clambering back into the truck and slamming the door shut behind him. Kate clutched the girls to her as the ground beneath us began to tremble and shake. We remained perfectly still, hoping not to be stampeded to death. To my left, I made out the silhouettes of deer, horses and moose, and some smaller four-legged creatures in between. The stampede lasted for several minutes.
Then it became calm. We waited for something to happen. The sudden quiet felt eerie compared to what preceded it. Slowly the ground began to rumble and quiver, the momentum gradually building to a crescendo. The truck began to rock back and forth, and from side to side. I held onto the cabin to keep from falling. Devin lost his grip and fell back in the bed. As I scooted down to help him, I noticed a brilliant phosphorescent flash rise up in the northern sky. I covered my eyes, trying not to look directly at the growing plume. Out of my peripheral vision I watched it spread out in a mushroom formation, silent and stunning, illuminating the landscape all around us.
Thorn hit the gas pedal and gunned it. Residual blast winds caught our sails and pushed us along the road. The topography ahead appeared straight and narrow. I crouched down in the flatbed and pulled Devin under me, covering his head with my body. Dar turned and stared at the majestic explosion off in the distance. The flash of light illuminated her heavily tattooed and pierced face, making her appear demonic. I watched as the reflection of the mushroom cloud rose up in the rear window of the cab. A second later, the calamitous sonic boom exploded in our eardrums, causing the truck to vibrate and careen wildly along the road. Thorn swerved from one side to the other, struggling to maintain control of the truck before centering it on the solid yellow line.
I didn’t want to look back. I prayed that all those dead creatures had been vanquished, as well as the contagion they carried. I kept myself draped over Devin, protecting the boy the best I could. Dar shouted at me, mouthing words that I couldn’t hear or understand. It felt like my eardrums had been shattered. The static bubbled and fizzed behind us as the cloud wafted up and imploded on itself like some dying sun.
What seemed certain to me was that the government had known about the dead flesh-eaters all along. That’s why soldiers had been stationed along the interstate, making sure to quarantine the northern quadrant. They’d cleared out that sector of the state in order to obliterate every living thing, including the virus. They would have killed us too if it hadn’t been for Dar’s quick actions. Even in the best-case scenario, we would have been taken into captivity, our remaining days spent in quarantine or as guinea pigs in the search for a cure. But would that nuclear blast finish the job? Would it eliminate the viral threat? I had my doubts, because if just one infected bird managed to fly up and escape, this hellish scenario would begin all over again.
Thorn sped down the two-lane road. The brilliance from the nuclear explosion continued to illuminate the road ahead, but the further we went, the more it began to fade until the cloud finally collapsed on itself, and we were plunged back into darkness. Thorn switched on the high beams. Up ahead was the sign for Route 295. He veered the truck onto the interstate and then stepped on the gas. We sped through Portland, where I looked for the Time and Temperature building. But all the lights were off, and the city was enveloped in darkness. The entire area smelled of smoke and sulfur. We raced ahead, climbing over the Piscataqua Bridge, which divided Maine from New Hampshire, and pushed straight towards Boston. Only a few cars travelled on the highway, and the ones we encountered sped past us at over a hundred miles per hour. The closer we got to Boston, the more traffic and human activity we observed.
We drove until the sun began to rise. Through Belmont and Arlington. Cars and pedestrians clogged the streets and everyone seemed in a mad rush to enter or exit the city. There was no rhyme or reason to anything, no governmental oversight or police authority. Chaos reigned. Waves of people walked along the sidewalks, misery etched onto their sad faces, carrying what few possessions they owned on their backs. Buildings and homes along the way appeared rundown and dilapidated, stripped of all value. Stores were closed and had been thoroughly gleaned of all merchandise. Every so often, I noticed a body lying on the street. Young children stood alone on street corners, crying out or begging for food. Grown men held signs along the street, just below the bed of the truck. People shouted and screamed at each other as if ready to fight. Black marketers peddled useless wares everywhere, but hardly anyone seemed to be buying.
The tree limbs were lined with birds. They appeared everywhere: on building ledges, telephone wires, rooftops, light posts, roadside signs. The species segregated accordingly and seemed to watch all this miserable human activity with rapt interest. The farther we got into town, the worse the human suffering appeared. By the time we arrived in Cambridge, roving groups of tattered, militant gangs patrolled the streets, pushing and shoving anyone who got in their way. A few approached the drivers on the road and took from them whatever they could. With traffic jammed, they appeared to be sitting ducks to these roving pirates. I assumed from this that motor vehicles had become less valuable because of the shortage of gas.
I watched helplessly as a driver got pulled out of his car and thrown onto the pavement. And when the driver ran back over to his car, the young thug pulled out a club and struck him in the head numerous times. He fell back along the road, bleeding. Traffic diverted around him as he lay there, blood oozing out of the crack in his skull and pooling along the pothole-filled street. One of the thugs approached our truck in a menacing manner. Dar pointed the M16 down at his head, and he backed away in surprise, his arms raised. Just one look at Dar was enough to scare the shit out of anybody. Had he taken another step, I was certain she’d have blasted him clear across the road.
The chaos seemed complete. It nearly brought me to tears to find my beloved city in such a ruinous state. I prayed to God that I might find my wife and son safe and sound in our Back Bay home. But judging by all the buildings we passed in Cambridge, I had a bad feeling about what I might find.
Dar crawled onto the roof, and stood clutching the rifle up over her head as the truck crawled along.
Black smoke filled the sky. Everything seemed to be burning, sulfurous, acidic. The sky appeared sickly and diseased. Angry mobs filled Harvard Square and stood atop the newsstand in the middle of the island. Grimy hands reached out to grab or greet us, but we kicked them all away. One man tried to jump up onto the truck, but Dar cracked him in the face with the butt of her rifle, and he fell back against the pavement. She pulled out her handgun and pointed it down at the others. They shouted and cursed at us, but made no attempt to jump on board. I aimed my rifle at them and steeled myself at the prospect of having to shoot one of them. A few of the brick buildings that comprised Harvard University were going up in flames. Staring down the long strip of road that was Massachusetts Avenue, I could see two of the skyscrapers off in the distance billowing smoke.
Dar cut quite a figure on top of that cab, her Mohawk glistening and her camouflaged face snarling in anger. Birds everywhere watched us travel along the route. They sat atop buildings, telephone poles, wires, ledges and treetops. They watched all this human misery with a calmness that confounded me. Up in Maine, the animals had acted savagely, sickened by the genetically engineered life forms, as well as from the pollen spores that had been caught up in the wind and spread far and wide.
It worried me. Everything worried me, especially the contagion I envisioned spreading throughout the countryside. It w
ould only take a few birds or animals to carry with them the mutated genes that caused all these problems. Then it would happen all over again. The Reawakening. I prayed that the mushroom cloud had obliterated every scintilla of toxic DNA, sparing the rest of humanity from the horrors we had experienced.
A gentle breeze drifted down from the north, a troubling sign. Soon the radiation cloud would be making its way towards this area. We needed to get out of here or face a painful, lingering death. Once Margaret and Stephen were on board, we had enough fuel in the bed to travel halfway across the country. Most of the gas stations we’d passed along the road had been boarded up, looted or closed. The severe fuel shortage would soon limit travel altogether.
We crossed over the Charles River. When Dar was small she used to refer to it as Charles’ Liver. It was a running joke in our family whenever we saw it. “What is Charles’ liver doing in the middle of Boston?” I would joke. “We all know that Charles’s Liver is in the heart of Boston,” Margaret would reply. Now fires blazed over the rainbow patches of oil and grease that floated on the waterway’s surface. Homemade barges floated en masse along the river, carrying the poor, sick and huddled. Pollution and raw sewerage filled it, black with sludge, wood, and shit floating from the Cambridge side over to the banks of Boston. There were corpses, bloated and corpulent, bobbing along with the flotsam and jetsam, and covered in slimy lesions.
The truck cruised slowly over the bridge and entered the Back Bay neighborhood. Misery and human suffering appeared everywhere. The incessant sound of sobbing filled the air. Many of the brick buildings appeared vacant, as if they had been carpet-bombed. We were so close to my building now that I could practically jump off and walk to it. But so many desperate and crazed people loitered around us that it would have been suicide to abandon the truck. My heart began to race inside my chest in anticipation of being reunited with my family. The truck hung a left on Marlborough Street and continued on. He drove for another block until we’d arrived at the once-stately row of condos that lined our quaint street. Squatters scampered in and out of the front door that had once been my home. Tears ran down my face as I stared up at all the surrounding buildings, noticing that every window in the block had been smashed or broken.