by A. R. Shaw
Then he could not help it. Graham broke down again as an image of tossing a ball with his father in that very spot crossed his mind. He dropped the shovel and put his hands on the back of his neck. He fell to his knees in the damp grass. “No, this cannot be happening,” he cried, lifting his face toward the sky.
At that moment, out of the corner of his eye, Graham spotted a form in gray next to the barberry bush. It was so slight that he nearly missed it altogether. In one fluid motion he quickly retrieved his rifle, cursing himself for not noticing something sooner.
Graham leveled the rifle and aimed, grief fueling his anger. “Get back! I will shoot you!” The shape slipped back around the corner, but he knew it hid there. He could sense its presence, but had no idea of who or what it could be.
“There is nothing for you here, so please leave,” he added more calmly.
Then a muffled coughing signaled someone around the corner. Graham knew it was not his imagination; he took several wide side steps to view the hidden space, then adjusted his aim to get a visual of the one who dared intrude upon his private grieving.
A slight female form stood against the house, hooded, bent over in a futile attempt to restrain a persistent cough. When the cough lessened, she lifted her head to gaze at Graham. Her eyes pleaded with him as she raised her hand up in a gesture to show she meant no harm.
The frail woman limped forward, stopped, and raised her hands again. Graham could tell she was weak with the disease, and after she took a couple more steps he could clearly see she would not last more than an hour or so. Her face showed all the signs he’d seen before, and the fact that she was able to stand was a miracle alone. Her whole body rattled with the endless coughing. Graham walked within fifteen feet of her and lowered the business end of his rifle. He met the woman’s pleading gaze with his own, knowing her dying breath might come at any minute.
She must be one of the few still alive with the virus. But not for long.
“I am Hyun-Ok,” she said, barely audible; it was the voice of a woman weakened and scarred. She gestured vaguely behind her. “This is my son Bang.”
Graham took several steps back and held up his hand, knowing right away what she wanted from him. He shook his head. “No, I can’t take on someone else.”
She shuffled forward a few steps and pleaded again. “I have watched you, you’re a good man. Please, you’re the only one. He is immune, like you.”
Before she could say any more, she stumbled on the rocky driveway, falling to her knees and coughing again. Bang ran to her side.
Surprised at seeing such a small child, Graham slung his rifle over his shoulder and took several steps closer to her. He’d never taken any notice of the danger the virus might cause him. Hell, he’d even tried to catch it once Nelly had passed away.
Graham lifted the dying woman’s small frame into his arms while the boy watched his every move. The child trailed him closely as he moved toward the house.
He had few choices here. He could not watch this woman die right in his driveway, especially with her child there; he doubted his father would have allowed this either. He opened the sliding glass door with one free hand while the lady continued to cough in his arms. He could not see the boy, but knew he was close behind. He laid her down on the living room sofa and heard the boy slide the door closed. Graham pulled his mother’s red floral quilt down from the back of the sofa and laid it over the tiny woman.
He watched as the little boy ran to his mother’s side. She reached for him, and once she regained control she reached for Graham’s hand as well. She looked at him with desperate eyes.
“Please, Graham, you must take him, there is no other,” she said.
He wondered how she knew his name. “Let me get you some water,” he said, trying to stall the conversation. It dawned on him how cruel her plight must feel, knowing she would leave a young child alone and helpless in this new world.
“No, there is so little time now,” she mumbled. “Please don't bother.”
Graham no longer felt so sorry for himself; he knew the boy’s predicament was much worse than his own, but still he felt unprepared to take him on as a responsibility.
Hyun-Ok grabbed his hand to keep him close.
Before she uttered another word, she joined her son’s small hand with Graham’s. “You need him as much as he needs you. Please, take him,” she continued, crying.
Graham found himself nodding as he became more aware of her desperation. At any second she would perish right there on the couch in front of her son. He could not take any more heartbreak.
He gave in.
“I’ll take him. I’ll take care of him.”
To bring her peace, he lifted the child onto the couch next to his mother. As Bang cried, Graham’s voice cracked. “It’s okay. I promise to take good care of him.”
He wanted to give her this gift. He’d had no control over the loss of his loved ones, but he could at least give this stranger peace. He wanted to show her some humanity in her dying moments. He missed the kindness of the living.
Hyun-Ok looked up at him, and Graham saw that the same peacefulness that had come over his father just before dawn was now coming to her. Her face softened and she managed a weak smile, moving her eyes from Graham to her son. She blinked away tears and her smile faded. Then her mouth fell open. The spark of life was gone just like that. She had completed the transfer on borrowed time.
Graham stared at her for a few moments in silence. He heard a low, muffled cry starting deep in the boy, who remained curled up next to his mother. Graham could understand his sorrow; the boy, too, had seen too much death—and so early in his life. He stroked Bang’s head as the boy clung to his mother’s side, sobbing.
Graham gently closed Hyun-Ok’s eyes and laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “It’s going to be all right,” he said, but Bang pulled away from him and clung to his mother.
Graham stepped back. He shook his head, cursing himself for the promise he’d just made. He walked away, leaving the little boy there. He now had another grave to dig before sundown.
3
The Dark before Dawn
Graham dug the dead woman’s grave next to his beloved Nelly’s; he wanted to think that the two would have gotten along in the living world. They both loved children, and he didn’t think he wanted this brave little lady to be alone. This just seemed like the right thing to do.
Exhausted, he trudged back inside, stomping the dirt off his boots at the door. The boy still lay at his mother’s side. Graham knew this wasn’t a good sign. What if I can’t get him away from his mother’s dead body?
He walked over to the boy and shook him awake. Eyes just like his mother’s, but now rimmed in red, looked up at him.
Hey, kid, what’s your name again? Graham asked. The boy hesitated.
“Look, my name’s Graham. What’s yours?”
“Bang.”
Graham wasn’t sure he heard it right. “What?”
“Bang!” the boy said and rolled over, weeping.
“Come on, Bang, I need your help,” Graham said.
The boy closed his eyes and buried his face in his mother’s side.
“Hey, come on. We have work to do,” Graham insisted, pulling him away from his mother and off the couch. Bang began to kick and scream, landing a lucky strike against Graham’s shin.
“God dammit, kid!” He held Bang firmly by one arm, and pulled him, kicking and screaming, into his father’s bedroom.
“Look!” Graham said, pointing to his dead father and yelling over the crying. Bang quieted and looked up at Graham, terrified. His eyes and nose were running, and he tried to stop his sniffling.
“We have to bury him, and then we’ll bury your mother,” Graham said in a stern voice. “But I need your help.”
Graham let go of the boy’s arm, and Bang took hold of the dead man’s sheet. Graham took a deep breath.
“All right, Dad, here we go.” Graham worked his arms under hi
s father’s lifeless body, which had already begun to stiffen. It was easier to lift than he had thought it would be, and he cradled his father against his chest.
“You follow me,” he told the boy. He didn’t expect him to be happy, or even quiet; he just wanted to give him a part in the task to keep him busy. Bang followed him through the house and out the door. Once outside, Graham stopped for a moment and buried his head in his father’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Dad,” he said, wishing he knew of a more dignified way of transporting him.
The late afternoon sky was gray, and more rain was on the way. Graham laid his father at the edge of the grave, then jumped down into the hole and looked up at Bang. Somehow the boy had quieted, maybe because he had something to do, or maybe because he was stunned with so many dead people around. Whatever the reason, Graham was grateful.
“Okay, you help me get him in here,” Graham said, struggling to hold back his own emotions. “Try to give him a little push.”
Graham dragged his deceased father over toward him. The boy helped push as much as he could, which was barely at all. The body started to sink to the bottom too quickly in what ended up in more of a controlled fall. Graham couldn’t help but cry. He settled his father neatly within the grave and started to climb out of the hole. The first thing Graham noticed above ground was the kid had completely disappeared. He looked all around the yard but saw no sign of him.
“Shit!” Graham said, followed by, “Hey, Bang!”
Graham ran to the back door of the house, thinking that perhaps Bang had gone back to his dead mother’s side. But looking through the glass door he couldn’t see the boy. Then he heard a yell and a dog barking from the front of the property.
Graham grabbed his rifle and ran to the front of the house to see Bang running down the street with a pit bull at his heels. He yelled and ran toward the dog, startling it enough that it turned in his direction. Graham aimed and fired, killing the attack dog instantly.
Knowing they had caused a commotion enough to attract other predators, Graham didn’t delay; with one arm he grabbed Bang, who was crying and kicking, and ran home, closing the gate behind them. He then sat Bang down in the grass and knelt next to him.
“Okay, okay, be quiet! It’s done now. The dog is dead,” Graham said. He felt guilty for forcing the kid to behave, but he needed him to quiet down. Graham went to the front gate to look for more dogs; so far there weren’t any.
“You need to be quiet or the other mean dogs will find us,” he said, rubbing Bang’s head. The boy tried to stifle his crying. “Are you okay? Did he bite you?”
Bang shook his head. Graham took a rag out of his pants pocket and wiped the tears and snot away. The little boy’s chest heaved with his effort to hold back his sobs.
“I know this is tough, but you can’t run away from me. Your mom wanted you to stay with me so I could take care of you. I promised her. Please don’t do that again. Now, come on, let’s finish our job.” Graham got up and headed back to the graves, taking his rifle with him all the while keeping an eye on the street for more dogs. If he were lucky, the dead, rather than he or Bang, would attract predators.
“We need to be quiet out here, okay?” he said to Bang. The boy followed slowly behind him at a slight distance.
Graham knelt at the edge of his father’s grave, as if in a moment of prayer or meditation, then stood up and grabbed his shovel. When Bang walked over, Graham handed him a smaller shovel.
“Here, you can use this one,” but the boy just started shaking his head and crying again. “Fine,” Graham muttered in frustration. “Just sit down there, then.”
He reluctantly picked up a shovelful of dirt and slowly swung it over the hole. He started at his father’s feet and carefully dropped in the soil. He grabbed another shovelful, and another, but when it came time to cover his father’s face he was reluctant. He didn’t cry, but still he shook with grief.
The next thing he knew, the boy shouted out as a dog snarled close behind them. Graham looked up and saw two more. He reached for Bang and pulled him away just as the dog bit into the kid’s jacket. He flung the boy behind him, toward the edge of the grave. Bang scrambled away from the edge, bawling. Graham swung the shovel at the attack dog and smacked it in the head. He then grabbed his rifle, putting a bullet into the skull of the stunned dog.
“Get out of here!” he yelled at the other two.
With its teeth bared, head down, another dog came at him. The third tried to edge around him toward the boy. Graham shot the closest dog squarely in the forehead, so close that he felt the misty splatter of blood on his face.
The last dog tried to take advantage by lunging at Graham, but it was too little too late. Using the gun barrel as a club, he knocked the dog to the side. He had just enough time to squeeze off a shot, wounding the dog in the hip. He cocked the rifle one last time and fired.
Nothing happened. He was out of ammunition, right when an enraged and wounded beast was coming after him. He tossed the rifle down and grabbed the shovel again, slipping in the mud and falling on his side. The injured dog locked its teeth into Graham’s pants leg.
He swung the shovel with all his might. There was a clang and a yelp, but he still felt the dog pulling on his pants. He swung again and finally heard silence. He scrambled to his feet.
Bang just stared at the dead animal. The growling had stopped, but the boy’s bawling did not; he was nearly hysterical. Graham dropped the shovel and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Shhh, be quiet, or more will come,” he told him in a harsh whisper. He left him there and quickly filled in his father’s grave, mounding the dirt deeply and looking all around him as he did.
He tossed the dogs’ bodies in a wheelbarrow, and then went back to kneel again at his father’s grave. Though Graham had never been a religious man, he hoped now that all of his loved ones were in a better place. His heart ached as he smoothed the mounded dirt with his rough hands to level it out.
“It’s so hard to say good-bye, Dad. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.” Then he remembered what his father would expect of him. He stood, grabbed his rifle, and led the sobbing boy inside the house.
There was still the boy’s mother to bury, and dusk was quickly falling, so he knew he had to hurry. Bang immediately ran to the body, and Graham could tell this was going to be a battle.
He used a rag to wipe mud from the rifle quickly and reloaded it. “We have to bury her now,” Graham said when he was done.
“No!” the boy cried.
“We can’t leave her here. It’s getting dark, and we have to do it now,” Graham said gruffly, walking over to the couch. Bang put his arms around his mother as if to guard her. Graham pulled him back by the shoulders and said, “Look, kid, we have to do this right now. You can either help or you can stand back. Don’t make me lock you in a room. The least you can do for your mother right now is be strong and help me.”
Graham pulled the red floral quilt down from the back of the couch wrapped it around Hyun-Ok, much as he’d done with the others. At first Bang just stood there sobbing; then he began patting her wrapped legs. As Graham started to cover the rest of Hyun-Ok, he noticed a necklace with a medallion. He took it off her body as the boy watched. He then reached for Bang, who pulled back, clearly untrusting until he realized what Graham was trying to do. He let Graham put the chain over his head. The medallion landed with a thump against Bang’s narrow, bony chest.
“She has a book in her pocket there,” the boy said, pointing to her gray jacket. They were the first words he’d spoken other than his name and “no.”
Graham felt in her coat and found a small journal in a leather sleeve.
“Is this for you?” Graham asked Bang, who just shrugged, not knowing the answer.
“Well, you hold on to it for now,” Graham instructed. He continued to wrap Hyun-Ok but stopped when he got to her face.
“Go ahead and say good-bye,” he said to Bang.
The boy sniffled, and the
n kissed her on the cheek. He hugged her one last time and stroked her long silky hair.
Graham looked outside and realized the night was coming quickly. He pulled the boy back gently from his mother. “Okay, it’s time. We need to get her buried now.”
The boy watched as Graham covered her face with the quilt. “No, no, no!” he cried again. Bang tried to tear the quilt off, and Graham had to pull him away, restraining him. He knew this was heartbreaking for the boy, but he didn’t have a choice.
“Look,” he said, “we have to bury her now or we’ll have more trouble with the dogs. Do you want that? Your mother wants you to be safe and stay alive. We can’t do that if there are dogs attacking us.”
Bang looked miserable and confused and just shook his head again.
“All right then, let’s get this done before dark,” Graham said, slinging his rifle over his shoulder.
He picked up Hyun-Ok’s light frame and led the small procession out to her last resting place. The boy followed, unable to suppress his grief. The closer Graham got to the grave, the more Bang struggled to pull the quilt away, and Graham ordered, “Knock it off!”
When they reached the grave, Graham lowered Hyun-Ok’s body to the grass at the edge of the hole. Bang pulled more of the quilt off, exposing her feet, and Graham pushed him away, landing him on his rear.
Looking around first for any more predators, Graham jumped into the hole. “Give me a hand, kid,” he whispered, but the boy ignored him.
Graham pulled Hyun-Ok’s body into the grave and gently lowered her to the bottom. Bang scrambled over to the grave’s edge, again yelling, “No, No!”
Graham quit worrying about the kid and instead shoveled dirt into the grave as quickly as he could with Bang crying all the while. He felt awful having to do it this way, but the circumstances left him with no choice. Nightfall meant predators.
By the time Graham finished it was nearly dark, and Bang’s sobs had faded to whimpers. Graham, exhausted both emotionally and physically, began to smooth the mounded dirt atop the grave. To his surprise, Bang shoved his hands away and began smoothing it himself. Graham let him do it.