by A. R. Shaw
Graham pulled out the little red plastic cup that had always been reserved for his niece. He filled it with cold tap water and handed it to Bang with the steaming bowl of food. The boy peered down at his bowl and for a second, Graham thought he might toss it on the floor, but hunger won out.
Seeing this, Graham felt a pang of guilt at how easy their family had had it compared to others; at least they had not gone hungry. He felt happy to be able to ease the boy’s hunger even in this little way. Once he finished, Graham debated giving him seconds, but thought it might not be a good idea given how little Bang had probably eaten in recent weeks; he looked skinny. Instead, he offered more clean water; he did not want the boy to throw up what he’d eaten.
With their meal completed, Graham took the time to ask Bang a few questions. After all, he’d only known the kid a few hours and held full responsibility for his life now. As much information as he could get would help him decide their next step. Graham knew they would be leaving for the family cabin up near the Old Cascade Highway by the Skagit River tonight. The plans were already made. At least there, he hoped, they would be safe from the wild animals and the stench that had brought them to civilization. Even now he could hear the howls of the packs in the distance. Additionally, the fires that had started in Seattle continued to grow unabated. What started as a distant glow seemed to be spreading, rapaciously consuming the vast amounts of fuel on its way.
Waiting for his father to pass had felt like the only thing holding Graham back; his dad would never have considered being buried away from his mother. But now it was time to make a clean break.
“So, it’s just you and me,” he said to Bang, who sat on the counter with his small legs dangling down, resting his heels against the cupboard. Graham knew he needed to get some dialog going with the obstinate child. Remembering Hyun-Ok’s letter, he asked, “So, how old are you, Bang?”
Instead of answering, Bang held up his hand and splayed five fingers. Graham tried again.
“Can you hunt?” he asked. The boy’s face brightened a little and he nodded his response. “Well, I’ll have to see you do that sometime,” he said, trying to make the best of it, even if Bang did not want to talk back.
Graham thought he should probably make some things clear to his new ward before they got started. “Bang, we need to set a few rules to be safe,” he said. Recalling his sister’s voice to her own daughter, he said, “You need to always stay nearby. I need to know where you are, all the time. If you have any questions, you can ask me, all right?”
Bang just nodded.
“Do you have any questions?” Graham asked him, putting him on the spot.
Bang’s face was blank, but then he asked, all of a sudden, “Do you have a truck?”
With a relieved smile Graham knew he’d made some kind of breakthrough with the boy. He also remembered being a boy of five himself and an aficionado of trucks.
“Yes, I have a blue truck. I thought we could use it today, but now I’m afraid we’ll have to make different plans. We have to leave here tonight and go somewhere that’s safer before the winter weather takes hold. We’ll start packing now and leave after dark. We have a lot of work to do.”
He helped Bang down from the counter, then pulled out several Ziploc gallon bags and showed Bang how to fill and seal them with the leftover dry rice remaining in the opened twenty-five pound bag.
Watching the child sift the little grains into the bags with a cup reminded Graham of memories, though very recent ones. His mother had been partial to the pinto bean—“as versatile as it is,” she would say—but had not restricted the family to only one kind of rice. There were ten twenty-five pound bags of several different varieties—jasmine, Calrose, long grain, and basmati—stored in the garage. It kept things from getting too boring, at least.
Graham and his dad jokingly fought over which bag they would open next, finally settling on a system of rotation. Graham favored the jasmine, but Dad preferred the short, sticky grain Calrose. His father argued the benefits were that it “stuck to your ribs” and said, “Now that’s rice that’ll get you through men’s work.”
Here I go again, stirring up memories that will do nothing but hold me back today. Graham figured it was probably normal to go through memories after a loved one passed away, and he wondered if Bang was doing the same thing. He hoped that, since Bang was in new and different surroundings, there were not as many stimuli to provoke such memories. Graham hoped his own reminiscences would subside a little once they got to the cabin. He did not want them to go away completely, just enough to prevent him from going insane or living a life filled with grief.
After supervising Bang for a few minutes, he said, “I’m going to go right over there to the garage to work on a few things. I’ll leave the door open, so if you need anything, yell.” Bang just looked up at him, nodded, and then continued his work, but Graham noticed the boy glancing over to the couch where his mother had died. His memories were there too.
Leaving Bang to his task, Graham propped open the garage door with the petrified rock his dad kept there for that purpose. The first thing that came to him in the darkness was the scent of his father.
He flipped on the light and looked at the bikes, which neatly hung from ceiling hooks. He pulled down the one his dad often rode, as well as his niece’s pink Barbie bike, which Graham’s parents kept for their granddaughter’s visits. He cringed at the pink sparkly tassels and pink basket. He would not have dared to be seen on one of these when he had been a boy of Bang’s age, but these were not normal times, and the kid would just have to deal with it. Graham quickly pulled off the tassels and the basket, but that was the best he could do.
He brought the little bike over to his dad’s workbench, where he could still sense the man now departed. He considered using the noisy air compressor to fill the tires, but it probably was not worth the risk of attracting attention, so he opted for the handheld pump they’d always taken with them on long rides.
Graham grew uneasy at the silence from the kitchen and went back to the door to check. The boy was still busy at the bottom of the big rice bag, and Graham said, “Come out to the garage when you’re done.”
He’d taken care of his niece a few times, but never held the sole responsibility of a child. He decided he both liked and disliked the duty. He could not quite pinpoint why the job came as a hindrance to him—perhaps because it made him feel vulnerable somehow. Graham had only been Bang’s guardian for twenty-four hours, yet he knew he’d have to kill anyone who would try to harm the boy. This came as a shock; he’d never before adopted what he thought of as a macho-man attitude, but there it was.
Graham pressed his own weight down on the bike seat and handlebars, rolling it across the garage. He wanted to listen to see how much noise it made. After noticing the typical clickety-click of the chain, he heard something unexpected. He knelt and saw bunches of pine needles wrapped around the back wheel slot and bits of brush in the spokes. He picked them out and cleaned it up, then oiled the chain and spun the pedals to work the oil in. Satisfied that he’d made the bike as quiet as possible, barring the typical chain noise, he turned his attention to his own bike and did the same.
Next on the list was his mom’s bike cargo trailer, which they’d often taken on picnics. It was a two-wheel configuration that attached with a hitch to the back wheel joint; its flat platform fit a heavy duty lidded blue storage container. Graham dusted it off, rolled it around to listen for any excess noise, and oiled its moving parts.
He attached the hitch to his bike and then noticed, out of the corner of his eye, Bang standing in the doorway with his finger in his mouth. “You can come in, buddy,” he said in a cheerful tone, waving the boy in. Graham knew the little guy was not used to him yet and that he would have to build trust over time.
“Bang, do you know how to ride a bike?” Bang’s face lit up like a sparkler.
“Yes, I can ride. I have a bike at home. My mom takes me lots of times. We eve
n bike to school sometimes, and—.” His little face fell to an expression that echoed the one Graham had seen in his mirror that morning: a happy memory turned, in a nanosecond, to devastation, the good thoughts replaced by the pain of their new reality.
“Well, that’s great,” Graham said, sidestepping the strong reel of emotion, clear as hell on the little kid’s face. He hoped the pain would go away quicker if he didn’t acknowledge it, if they didn’t dwell on it. “Come on, then. Let’s see if this will work for you.” He motioned to Bang as he pulled the hideous pink bike out for him. Graham watched as the boy eyed the bike. With a look that could kill, the kid shut down.
“Look, I know it’s pink, but it’s all we have right now,” Graham said. “If we come across something more suitable for a boy, we’ll trade it then.” He leaned the bike in Bang’s direction and hoped the kid would take it, but he didn’t move.
“Bang, I don’t have time for this. If you ride this bike, as soon as we can, we’ll find you a better one. I promise.”
Then, in an abrupt about-face, Bang simply nodded his head and grabbed the handles.
“You’ll have to ride around in here for now, and we’ll see if we need to adjust anything,” Graham said.
Bang looked eager to show off, so he hopped on the bike and began skillfully riding around in circles. Graham then realized Bang had no helmet. Oh crap, there is no way that kid will go for that, he thought, eyeing the pink Barbie helmet. It probably won’t fit him anyway; the kid has a big noggin. Graham reached into the sports cabinet and pulled out his mom’s helmet, which thankfully was olive green.
“Hey, Bang, stop for a minute. Let’s see if this will fit you,” he said. As the little bike skidded to a stop right in front of him, Graham realized that the kid really could ride, and loved to do so. After adjusting the helmet to fit snugly, he let Bang practice a few more times around the garage. He noticed that he even stood on the pedals, leaning on one side or the other when turning. This boy has some skills, he thought. That’ll come in handy—as long as he doesn’t get reckless.
After adjusting the seat, Graham went on to other matters. “Next, we need to start loading. We only have a little space, but we’re going to load up as much as we can with food, sleeping bags, ammo, and a first aid kit.”
Graham and Bang worked side by side, busily collecting and stuffing as many essentials as they could into the trailer tote, which seemed far too small for a trek like theirs. Using bungee cords, they strapped the sleeping bags to its top. Graham knew he should take several other things, but there just was not room.
He grabbed his dad’s pocketknife, putting it into his jeans pocket. Then he noticed a smaller one—his own from childhood—which he handed to Bang. “Keep this in your pocket, buddy. It is for work, not play, do you understand?”
The boy met his gaze with a serious face, nodded his understanding, and put the knife in his jeans pocket. Graham hoped he could entrust Bang with such a thing, but he guessed that someday soon the boy, struck with a fit of boredom, would run his thumb along the blade, causing a thin red gash, as he himself had done as a child and as his father had done before him. By circumstance Graham was passing the gruesome rite of passage down to this boy.
Having just evoked yet another memory, Graham growled under his breath and retreated into the house. He went to collect a few pieces of silverware and some bar soap, as well as the first aid kit and the plastic shower curtain to use as a barrier against the constant drizzle. Most important, he went into his father’s closet, with Bang close behind him. He opened up the gun safe and collected two of his dad’s Garand rifles and his Ruger handgun. He put the rifles into cases and strapped his father’s holster at his waist for the handgun. He felt awkward wearing it but, as with his own rifle, he’d soon get used to it.
They went back to the kitchen counter for the map that he and his dad had drawn up for the best route out of town. His great-great-grandfather had built the cabin as a trapping lodge in the 1920s. Over the years it came to serve as a winter hunting lodge and summer retreat for the whole family. They spent several weeks there each summer, and in the winter Graham and his father went there to hunt. Now, with everyone else gone, it belonged to Graham alone.
Almost every visit had brought improvements to the cabin. His grandfather had built on a bunkroom and the attached bathroom. Running water and electricity came next, and just the previous year an indoor composting toilet was added; it was a huge improvement over the old outhouse. Most recently they’d replaced the old woodstove with a larger and more efficient one his dad had found on Craigslist; hauling the heavy cast-iron thing had made them both ache and groan for days afterward, but it had been worth the effort.
The structure, built well in the beginning, had had many repairs and upgrades over the years. On one visit, as a teenager, Graham had helped rechink the grout and replace rotted boards. On another visit he and his dad had replaced the cedar roof shingles. He had always suspected his dad had arranged these chores to keep him out of trouble during the summer months.
He just could not escape the memories.
With their gear all packed, including their personal backpacks, Graham plotted his and Bang’s possible route through town. Though he’d play it by ear, not committing them to any particular course, he’d adjust as needed for safety. Typically, they’d take the highway up near Seattle and then shoot northeast. But it was safer to snake up the less-traveled back roads.
Graham knew they would have to rough it on bikes until they bypassed the bad guy Campos. Since he had not ventured out lately, Graham really didn’t know what conditions he would find, but he knew there were the feral animals to worry about. He also knew that the highways were cluttered with abandoned cars, and maybe they could secure one. The best idea was to adopt a wait-and-see approach. Once he could see where the bad guy hung out, then maybe he and the kid could slink through unnoticed.
Unfortunately there was no other way to get up to and across the overpass either by road or on foot. They would just have to go as quietly as possible under the highway and cross by the gas station.
Graham hoped to get past without drawing the guy’s attention. According to Hyun-Ok’s letter, this Campos character apparently stopped folks who were coming into town, not those trying to get out. If he had to confront him he would just reason with him or offer him food to pass through peacefully. But Graham would be armed, and he would have Bang ride on his left, providing a little cover for the kid in case things got hairy.
To get to the cabin on the outskirts of Cascade, along the Skagit River, they’d go hopefully by “borrowed” truck, up the road through Fall City and Carnation. Then, they’d go finally up to Monroe, but Graham doubted they could drive freely on Highway 2, so he opted for the less traveled back roads that would take them around the lake and then north to Granite Falls. From there, they’d take another back road through Darrington and then finally north to Cascade.
All these small towns were now deserted. If they ran into any trouble, they could always change their route. The last thing he wanted to do was end up hiking with a five-year-old, making it an epic trek through the wilderness.
Now that Graham had his plan mapped out, he also thought it might be wise to grab his dad’s binoculars so that he could scout ahead.
Graham heard a grumbling noise coming from the little guy who was shadowing his every move; this signaled lunchtime. Again Graham resorted to rewarming the last of the leftover beans, forgoing the rice this time. There was just enough for the two of them.
“Okay, Bang,” he said. “It’s time we tidy up this place so if—when—we come back here someday it won’t be a mess. We’re going to ride our bikes out of here tonight, and I don’t know when we’ll get a chance to sleep. So, if you need to take a nap before we go, this is the time. What do you think?” he asked the boy.
Bang hastily shook his head, and with an offended glare, answered, “I don’t take naps.”
Note to self: Bang does
not do naps. At least he was learning more about the boy.
Looking Bang over, he decided the boy needed more cold weather gear. Nightfall often brought cooler temperatures. Bike riding at night would be quite cold indeed until they could procure a decent vehicle to drive. He checked out the hall closet for extra gloves and jackets. He found pink gloves and mittens but did not even try to pass them off to the boy. Instead he opted for one of his own black knit hats and his mom’s black knit gloves, which stretched to fit all sizes.
As he rifled through the closet Graham kept thinking about a potential confrontation with the Campos guy. He thought it might be wise to stash the boy and their bikes nearby while he confronted Campos on foot. He would wait to decide until he could get a visual of the situation. If it were true that Campos had already killed two people, as Hyun-Ok had claimed to witness, he’d likely killed more. “How crazy could this guy be?” he muttered. In a few hours the answer would be clear.
Graham looked through his mother’s hall of portraits, about which he often chided her. He looked for one with a decent likeness of them all and small enough to carry around in his wallet. He rarely carried his wallet with him now, but in the impossible event the world did indeed come back, he wanted his identification and his family picture with him. Or, if he admitted it to himself, he just really felt like taking them along with him on this journey.
Never in a million years did he think he would trek by bike and an unknown truck to the family cabin, past bad guys and wild animals, with a kid named Bang, at the end of humankind. How life had changed in the course of just a few months. Graham had no idea what would become of them next year at this time. Staying alive was the plan right now.
The night started to descend, so Graham made the last of the rice for dinner with his mom’s southern gravy recipe. He heated and then whisked together a little melted venison fat with the remaining flour and canned milk. He diluted it with water and sprinkled it liberally with salt and pepper. His dad would have been proud of the dinner. Graham offered a bowl to Bang and he wolfed it down in quick order.