I don’t know what to do. I start to cry, and I feel my anger rising, the lack of control, the fucked up reality of all of this. My powerlessness. And he just barely gets a smile out at me. And then he shakes his head again, more gently this time. Like he’s not telling me to stop fighting for him this time, but that he’s telling me not to cry. Not to get upset about that he’s dying. And that Voley shouldn’t either. Because Voley starts to whimper, and he pulls himself up close to me. He puts his paw out on Dusty, pulls it back and does it again. I extend my arm and wrap him completely and bring him into Dusty with my own body. We stay tightly together, and Voley starts to lick around Dusty’s wounds. Trying to heal him with kisses. I lean in and look at Dusty, I tell him it’s going to be okay. I tell him the only bullshit that I know, that everything is going to be alright. It’s the farthest thing from the truth, but I can’t stop the sinking now. It’s filling up my stomach and my throat and my head. Eating me alive. And then there’s something else I can do, all of a sudden. I kiss him. He smiles softly again. And then he goes. Right while he’s pulled in against me and Voley. His eyes stay closed. My head slides down to his chest, and I hear the last rise and fall, labored and long, and finally the life goes out for good. And I am tears and breaking. And Voley, for the whole long time that I lay next to Dusty, continues to clean Dusty’s wounds, uncertain why his master has gone to sleep so early in the day. And for the life of me, I can’t muster the energy to care that there are probably a great many more men coming now to find out why someone has been shooting guns. Why their friends haven’t returned from their inspection. I don’t care about anything. I slip into cold sleep, and dream about the time when I was on the hilltop in Blue City. I remember leaping down a muddy hill, deciding I would follow him back. To the hot shower. To a future with the boy with dark handsome eyes and a smile that made me forget the rain. The last future I had left.
Part 3
Chapter 10
I don’t know if I’ve slept for an hour or ten minutes. Light hits my eyes and I try to breathe but my nose is too stuffed. My cheeks hurt when I open my mouth to take a breath. It feels like the flesh is ripping. I raise my finger to touch where it hurts and feel hard streaks. Thin lines of ice crack away as I pick at them. Tears have hardened into icicle razors. All around me the light falls on frozen blood. I see it first instead of anything else. Then I see the brown of Voley, still by my side, curled up now and waiting. I don’t know what he’s waiting for because it’s over. We’re all gone. Almost all of us.
His eyes stay on me now that I’m awake, and he stares at me long and hard. He’s ready for something to happen, something before freezing to death. I roll off of Dusty’s body but I don’t look at him again. It’s just his body and I’ve already seen it in my head—frozen and stiff and cold and lifeless and pale. No warm lips or voice or soft dark hair. No anything at all. A memory.
The next thing I see after the icy red is silver. It’s bright and seductive, calling me back to life, asking me to loosen my muscles—it’s glare coming from the barrel of one of the pistols. I grab it and then search quickly for the other. It only takes me a moment to find it, and in that instant I relive everything that went wrong. I’d rather have frozen to death than called them to us with the fire. I tell myself that lie anyway, and reach to the snow walker’s rug-smushed face and take the second gun. Voley works up onto his legs and hisses a little bit, but I don’t pay attention. One glance and it’s clear that he wants Dusty to rise because it’s time to leave. I set the tone by rising from the dead, refusing to join Clemmy—Time to go, I say. But Dusty doesn’t stir and Voley gets irritated. My fingers slide into the pockets of the rug-faced man, my gloves slipping across the collective red, searching for anything. I think of the blood now, all one mixed layer of rock. A disgrace to Dusty’s memory. Part of me wants to scrape away the blood, somehow separate his from the face eaters. Because he doesn’t deserve to be frozen together with them forever. Stuck until radiation dissolves them. But then I feel ammo. A clip. I take it. I repeat the search on the other body, making sure I don’t see behind me. Bodies don’t faze me but Dusty’s belonged to me and it’s different this time. I need to get what I can and get away. Just check. Search inside the pockets and ignore the slippery red ice. I dig and dig and there’s nothing. And with a beating heart I leave the dead, walking into the dark hallway that mirrors back my emptiness. A weight is pulling me down, reminding me that I’m mostly broken now, and the anger of Russell’s voice reminds me that I did this to myself. It was supposed to be just us: no feelings, no veneer, not until Leadville, he says. I say that this is Leadville, and it doesn’t matter anyway. No it’s not, he says, and you’ve been screwing up since Blue Island. Letting people in. And the voice of Russell’s ghosts disappears with the vision of white through the window of the tent room—simple and indifferent to all this human garbage my mind wades through. I look down at my dirty sweater, red now mixed with its gray. Spots and streaks. It feels like justice that the blood is separated on my clothes. I try to figure out which is Dusty’s and that’s when it hits me. I need something from him. Something to remember him—to believe he was mine. I stand still in the hallway and there’s a whine behind me. It’s Voley. I turn and he’s still standing halfway in the hall and halfway in the apartment by the body. He’s hesitant to really leave it there. What he mistakes for his old friend.
I don’t know what I can take from him though. Any reminder I want is stuck, frozen to his body with red glue. And he didn’t have anything anyway. It’s a silly idea. Forget him faster and you might stand a chance, something tells me. Don’t stay here one second more than you have to. And I know it’s true—we never gave each other anything important anyway. There’s nothing to take. You only knew him for barely two weeks. It’s Russell’s voice of reason again. He reminds me to stay strong, to forget the horrible sinking feeling that’s destroying my gut. But it could have been much longer, I think over and over. Doesn’t potential mean anything? Even if it never comes into being?
No. There’s nothing. Nothing to take. I walk away, toward the tent and the remains of the fire and the window to the street that leads through the center of Nuke Town. And finally, when I’m already in the room and see that the fire’s still going, I hear the patter of Voley’s feet. He’s almost running to catch up to me. Afraid he’ll be left alone. I turn my head and he looks at me from the edge of the room, still in the hallway, hesitant to come inside. Enemy smell keeping him out. And he doesn’t want to be in any room anymore. Just the purgatory of the hallway. He cocks his head, the white stripe on his nose the only marking other than his thick brown. And his full bright eyes, shining the same white that kills everything outside. He’s just waiting, waiting for me to tell him what’s happened, to explain what to do now that it has happened. And I know all at once that there is something I can take to remember Dusty. I don’t even have to look for it. It’s given itself to me. I wipe away the last shards of ice from my lips and nose and say, “Come on, boy.”
Voley bounds into the room like he’s happy to finally hear a human voice. Just to know I’m alive too, maybe. I try to hide from him that part of me wants to die, to just stay here, and wait for the cold sleep to take me. Or the other snow walkers that must be on their way. I tell myself I slept for way too long, gave them time to know something went wrong. Or they knew right away with all the gun fire. They’re probably outside, waiting. Waiting for me to leave, watching. I scan the roofs and streets though and they’re empty. My fingers feel up and down along the guns, one in each of my pockets, rubbing until there’s an oily grime between the handles and my gloves. All of my anger and sadness is starting to dissolve with an itch to use them. Let them come. Let them be waiting outside.
Our two bags are dumped and everything is scattered by the fire. Empty cans of beans, some hardtack, rain suits, a couple extra pairs of socks, gloves, and a small tin box. The tent flap is opened, wide and empty and waiting, and next to it the fire is smolde
ring. Barely going. I have to start it up again. I step over the fire pit and look outside, all the way down to the industrial building. The snow falls straight to the ground, no more wild dancing. Like the wind is dead. But the white clumps are thicker, chunks of beautiful death. And everything is silent white without a sign of anyone on the road or the roof or in apartment windows or anywhere. I think that maybe the one who had the long rifle is gone, and he’s taken Ernest’s body with him like some kind of prize. Maybe they went all the way to the East Harbor. From East Game Compound. Just like the flyer said. My eyes try to focus on the industrial building but it’s covered in snow smoke. I can barely make out the tower now. But that escape happened months ago, I remind myself. Everyone’s long gone. Probably the harbor too.
The sky has the same dead expression it’s had since we first started into the mountains. A dull fog with no real sign of where the sun might be behind the clouds. But it’s still light. Midday, I convince myself for some reason. And I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to do now. Because as sad as everything feels, and as much as my stomach is a broiling pit of hopelessness, I’ve already decided I want to live. I don’t want to submit yet. Part of me thinks Russell is still here. And I know Ernest is. And I tell myself that it doesn’t all just come to this—dying alone in a shit apartment, trapped inside by the white that I thought would be better than the rain. I look at the fire and see the wooden spears lying on the floor nearby. I grab one and start poking at the embers. There’s enough to get some flames going again. I snap the chair leg in half and hold it in until it slowly starts to catch fire. Then I break the other leg and lay the pieces down in a cross. The fire starts to burn up from underneath. I watch the curling flames grow. They don’t think at all—about life and death. They are just action. Process. I wait until they warm us. And I think that maybe they are just like me. When I’m in action, my head’s off. I don’t think at all either. A process working out its course. I am the same now as Ernest waiting for Russell and Clemmy. Nothing to do, absence of action, all endless headspace. Time to go outside.
Voley is happy to have the fire again. I tell him to stay put while I go downstairs to get more firewood from the furniture wall. Before I go I check outside one more time, just to make sure I won’t run into anyone. The streets are still blank. I reach the stairwell without looking in the direction of the massacre. Voley leaves the warmth and follows me anyway.
Everything is quiet and dark downstairs. All the apartment doors are still closed, and I jog down the hall to the furniture pile and take two more chairs. One in each arm, aching a little bit where I thought I’d healed, I haul them back upstairs, Voley tracing every one of my steps. When I get back to the fire I break one of the chairs down, smashing it with all my power, using my anger to rip its legs off with ease this time. I strip away everything—the backing, the seat, I reduce them to splinters. I throw a few more pieces of wood into the fire and put my hands into my pockets again just to make sure. Guns still there. I know now. A white thought. It’s time to go. Into the snow, to search for something. I don’t know where, but I know for what. For food. More ammo. Russell. And Ernest. And anything that keeps me alive. Us alive. And I realize I have started to think for the both of us—Voley and me. He’s never been my responsibility until now. Always Dusty’s, and maybe a little Ernest’s. I look at him and he looks back at me but he doesn’t hold the stare this time. Like he doesn’t want to figure out too much from my eyes. Maybe he doesn’t want to think anymore either.
You ready? I ask Voley, grabbing him behind the ear and rubbing hard and then shaking his head. He licks my glove and gets up. Here, I say. And before we leave, I break the rest of the hardtack in half. I drop Voley’s half on the floor and he eats it up, and then I eat mine. I’m still hungry afterwards. I freeze at a thought I didn’t want to deal with yet. The last of our food is gone. And then right away the images of the bodies flood into my brain. Three rooms down. Going to waste. But not going to waste because of the cold. Just waiting for me to cook them. I have a fire for it too. And before I can get a few seconds further, where I’m eating the meat, the idea shuts down. Bury the thought, Tanner. And think of what else will keep you alive. I check the window for the last time, seeing the same emptiness out there, then walk out of the room. I step over the junk on the floor, all of it useless. And then I think for a second that I don’t know what the tin box has in it. We never checked. It’s the only thing Ernest brought that we didn’t pay attention to. I bend down and pick it up. I grab the socks and extra gloves too, and then I open the box. Inside is red powder. It moves some with my breath. For some reason I think it’s food at first, and it takes me a moment to realize. It’s the drug. Right in my hands. Ernest brought some of it with us.
Why would he bring it? What use could it have? Clint races through my head. His blue eyes. The splashing sound when he went over. The death that relieved my horror. Just in case, I tell myself. He brought it just in case. But not yet, I say. And I ready myself to put it back down on the floor. For some reason I can’t explain, I don’t. I put it into my pocket instead. Come on, I tell Voley. Together we go down the stairs. And even though the fire is going again, with enough wood in it so that we can go out and search and come back and still have warmth here, part of me thinks I’ll never be back in this apartment. Never sleep in the tent again, see the fire pit again. But then I’ll never see Dusty again too. I already know this but it makes me want to cry all over. Rip more ice razors from my cheeks. But I can’t fight off the thought as I start down the stairwell. When we’re near the last steps, something brings me to run back up to the second floor. Voley waits in confusion near the bottom.
I look down the hall and I almost say it. Something and I don’t even know what. Part of it is Goodbye, and part of it is I Love You. They’re mixed like the blood in a thought that’s stuck between my heart and words. But I just end up staring down the hall, and the piece of me that thinks I’m talking to Dusty if I say something fades away. He’s not listening anymore. I don’t say anything, but I think it. And before more tears can come out and form daggers, I go back down. Without Dusty to help us through the window, I’m going to have to break up the furniture wall this time and go out through the main door. Voley and I walk the dark lane toward the furniture. Let’s get to work, boy.
Chapter 11
I tear everything down at the door and then budge the couches enough to make a crack for us. We slip outside.
The air has stopped. No more wind. No sounds. The snow doesn’t even talk to me anymore. It just lands, covers everything. I wonder how long it will take for it to bury the whole town and make a memory out of New Leadville. Everything under an unbroken dune. Forgotten. All of us.
Voley follows me out and we look around for a clue that will tell us where to go. Sound returns with my crunching boots. My feet sink in easier than yesterday. The snow is softer, warmer. The apartment maze looks the same in every direction and I draw out both guns. I keep them down at my sides but my energy starts to flow through my muscles, my fingers become ready springs. The moment I see a dark form breaking the white, I’m pointing and shooting. There are no more attempts to talk. Ernest gave it his best shot and it failed. I saw what talking got him from the second story window. There’s no one here to talk to.
There might only be one man left. Long rifle man. I know which side he shot from. The left building, three down on the main road. I tell Voley softly to come on, and he comes. For some reason he trusts me. And he’s not protesting anymore like he did at first. I make a way for him through the heavy clumping quicksand and he’s right behind me.
We turn right onto another blank street. No footprints. Nothing at all. I can’t help but realize in some distant part of my head that it’s all very pretty. Beautiful actually, and we’re the only ones to notice. Some ironic jest of nature. She produces from its cruelty and its cold things that can admire it for a time, before she destroys them. Takes them again for her own. And it’s all
gentle and misleading, more so because I haven’t even started to freeze again yet. I’m wearing as much as I could fit on, nearly three layers. All of it Ernest’s idea, to survive the cold, he’d said. And now, with each warming struggle for another step, it’s buying me extra time in the freezer. My eyes shift to the roofs and then back to the center of the road. I go slowly and watch and listen, patient, waiting for a face to appear from above, or a shape to step out into the crossroad ahead where the street turns left toward Nuke Town headquarters. Nothing happens and no one comes. I make swift and even movements with my legs—dig in, press hard, grind my weight down into sinking softness, listen to the soft crunching, and kick forward. I fall into the machine rhythm of the mountain walk again and pound against the snow for another hundred steps. The soft powder has been working hard overnight, putting more inches between the sky and the asphalt that must be somewhere underneath all of this. Even though it’s freezing, and my breath might give me away because it’s coming out in dense clumps, I’m sweating already. With all the motion, and the crisp air, and the white-out sky above, I feel full of life. Purpose and action and motion. Thoughtless mover. Every piece of my body and mind on fire with the steps, like this is the last effort. I know it is too. The all in, like the cards Russell and I used to play in Indianapolis. Everything is on the table. And I just want to shoot something.
The Snow (A Post-Apocalyptic Story) Page 10