by North, Geoff
Nicholas cringed away from the raw-looking fingers. “I want my Mom! I don’t want to be here with you! You’re not my Dad!”
“I know I’ve changed... I know I don’t look like Dad, but you’ve got to trust me... it’s just the two of us now. Mom’s not coming back.” He rested his hand on Nicholas’s arm and felt the boy flinch away even further. “We’re going to get through this together.”
Nicholas screamed and dove under his arm. He scrambled for the opening, kicking his way forward against Jake’s ribs. Jake grabbed at one of his ankles, and the boy’s other foot kicked dirt up into his face. Dry grit stung into Jake’s eyes, and he let go.
Nicholas made it out of the drainage ditch and fled into an open field. Jake yelled after him, spitting dirt up from the back of his mouth, and blinking it out of his eyes. He climbed out from the pipe and watched his son run into the storm. Lightening forked throughout the clouds, and thunder shook the ground. Nicholas was a speck in the midst of it.
Jake started running after him, and the wind knocked him to all fours. He tried standing again, but the wind kept pushing at his back, as if the hand of an enraged God was forcing him to his knees. Jake fought back, he pushed harder, and the wind won. He collapsed forward into the dirt; his face pushed into grey soil. It isn’t just the wind, he thought. My legs are dead. All of me is done. Only his mind had the strength to fight back, and his mind was useless to him. He couldn’t will his son to return. All he could do was watch the small form shrink further away. “Come back,” he croaked. There was another flash of blinding green lightening, a boom of thunder rattled though his bones, and Nicholas was gone.
Jake rolled onto his back, resigned to the fact he would never see his son again. He would never see his wife again. His family, his world... all lost. He shouldn’t have fought it for so long. There had been dozens of opportunities to end his life before now. I could’ve let myself drown in that slough runoff. I could’ve let my body drop into the well. I could’ve stopped walking and starved to death... I could’ve just stopped.
The clouds above were a maelstrom—a gigantic swirling vortex so thick it looked almost liquid in formation, like a pot of melted grey plastic being stirred counter clockwise. Jake stared into the dull green eye of it, now directly above him. There was a moment of calm; the wind stopped howling in his ears, and the dust settled. It was a beautiful sight to behold—almost as beautiful as the awe-inspiring yellow and orange mushroom cloud that helped spawn it days earlier. Jake would be pulled up into it, and become part of the sky. This would be a good way to die, to be carried up into the heavens and reunited with wife and son.
I forgive you, Mandy. I’m sorry I wasn’t a better friend... I’m sorry I lost Nicholas.
The center of it passed on, and the wind resumed screaming in his ears. Jake sat up, and gravel pelted his face. The pieces became larger, hitting his battered body with greater speed and force. Something black erupted from the earth less than a hundred yards away. It reached up, twisting into the clouds, puncturing the great green eye half a mile over Jake’s head.
The massive tornado shaft began its slow dance, shifting to the left, and churning to the right. A second column appeared next to it, a partner to share the floor of clouds with. Jake had seen far too much in the last few days. He closed his eyes, blinding himself from the unimaginable power, and waited for his limbs to be torn apart.
The sound was too much to bear; he clamped his hands over his ears, and the noise worked its way in, scraping at his brain, shaking his body. Something smacked into his arm with enough force to throw him back over onto his hands and knees. Jake opened his eyes a crack and saw a black foot scratching the ground. Not a foot... a hoof.
Hayden was yelling something up on Trixie’s back, but Jake couldn’t hear what it was over the roar. Against all better judgement, Jake reached up and took the man’s hand. Hayden was strong; he pulled Jake up in one fast motion, and the horse was away.
A third twister had materialized behind them; Jake was lying on his stomach across Trixie’s neck, bouncing uncomfortably and wheezing for breath, but his sight hadn’t been impaired. The tornadoes were spreading out, picking up more debris, and thickening at their bases. They were whipping up the remains of an already destroyed world, rearranging the ruin into an even more unrecognizable nightmare. Jake saw the thirty-foot drainage pipe they’d taken cover in rip up from the ground. It twisted in the main column like a piece of liquorice, and then it was spat out into the churning wall of another. I made Nicholas crawl into that thing with me... I thought he would be safe in there.
The boy’s face appeared at that moment from behind Hayden’s body. His blue eyes were terror-filled, his blonde hair whipped in the dust-filled air and struck his cheeks. Jake could see his arms wrapped around Hayden’s waist, the little fingers burrowed into the shirt of his rescuer.
“Thank you,” Jake gasped into the horse’s sweaty hide. “Thank you.”
***
The tornadoes were gone, headed southeast to merge with other monster twisters and blacker storm cells. This storm had passed, but Hayden knew there would be more; the grey sky was streaked with odd pinkish colors, as if the underside of the heavens had been scratched open and left to bleed. Hayden was lost. He couldn’t find his farm in the aftermath. The landscape had changed too much for him to recognize a single thing. There were no more forests, not a single tree left standing. The roads running between fields and towns had been torn up and flattened over. All that remained was ground... lifeless, grey earth.
Hayden let the reins droop in his hands. The horse moved off to the left on her own accord. There hadn’t even been time to put a saddle on Trixie. Jake was still slumped over on his stomach in front of him, unconscious, and possibly dead. Hayden hadn’t checked for at least a quarter of an hour. Nicholas’s grip on his shirt had weakened, but Hayden knew he was still awake. The boy was whimpering softly into his back. They carried on that way for another half hour until Hayden saw a dark rise off in the distance. A hill.
He should’ve let Trixie find the shelter without his assistance; she was far more capable of smelling her way home than he was. Home was an even a bigger disaster than when he’d left it. Both shelter doors were missing, the frame had torn away as well, taking great chunks of concrete foundation along with it. Smoke was trickling out from the yawning darkness inside.
Hayden wrapped a steadying arm around Nicholas and the two slipped silently off of Trixie’s back. Jake made a groaning noise, and Hayden pulled him down gently to the ground. He was mumbling something between his swollen, cracked lips. Hayden leaned in closer to hear. “You... You saved him. You saved my son.”
Hayden shook his head. “Saved him for what? There’s nothing left. The shelter’s been destroyed.”
Jake craned his head towards the opening. “Looks like... like a fucking tornado tore the place up.” He tried to laugh, and coughed something black up over his lips. A bit more leaked from the hole in his cheek and soaked the dirt. It must have hurt like hell to laugh like that, Hayden thought, but Jake continued snorting through his nostrils anyway.
His mind’s finally caught up with the rest of him... totally wrecked.
Hayden left him there and went towards the shelter. Nicholas grabbed his hand along the way and the two walked in together, waving away the smoke still clinging to the dirt ceiling. The fuel for the gas lanterns must have upset. It wouldn’t have taken much to create a spark—possibly a lightning strike— in all that wind and flying debris. Most of the supplies he’d gathered were gone or burned to a crisp. The boxes of food had been picked up and sucked out into the fields. Hayden found half of his comforter stuck underneath Trixie’s overturned water trough, the other half had burned away. He spread it out on the ground and started tossing what little left there was. Thirteen unbroken bottles of water, four tins of beans, two tins of Chef Boyardee’s Mini Ravioli, and a big can of Campbell’s mushroom soup. That was it for food and water—enough for five
or six days, maybe a full week if the cackling idiot outside died during the night.
Nicholas presented him with one half of the can opener. The plastic turning dial had melted away. “Thanks, bud.” Hayden took the metal piece and shoved it into his back pocket; at least it was the half with the can puncture part on the end.
“Are we gonna sleep in here again tonight?”
Hayden looked around them. There was no straw for them to curl up in, no water for his horse to drink. The doors were gone, and nothing stood between them and the radioactive elements. “Just one more night, Nicholas. We’ll stay one more night.”
“And then what? You gonna take me home tomorrow?”
Hayden listened as Jake’s snorts turned to mournful cries. “No, I won’t be taking you home. That place is gone. We’re going to try and find a new place to live.”
“Will my Mom and Dad be there?”
Hayden ran his big hand through the boy’s hair without answering. He smiled at him, kissed his forehead, and then went about the rest of his work; gathering up the meagre remains of their supplies for what would likely be a very long journey.
***
“I want to have a fire.”
Hayden looked over at Jake as if the man had lost his mind, and then remembered that he already had. “There’s been enough fires.”
They were sitting outside the shelter remains, both propped up against the dirt edges of hill where the door frames used to be. The sky was growing dark, not from storm clouds, but the natural progression of day into night. If there wasn’t so much dirt and ash in the sky, they might’ve been able to watch the sun set.
Jake leaned forward and started pulling the shirt off of his back. What was left, peeled away sickeningly from his flesh. Jake didn’t seem discomforted by it; he was far removed from physical pain anymore. He balled the cloth up and threw it between them. “I want to have a fire... nothing huge, just a few little flames to watch. You know, just like when we were growing up as kids, sitting around a little campfire with our friends.”
“We didn’t grow up together, Jake. I graduated from school before you entered junior high.” He wanted to add that they had never been friends either, but decided against it.
“So you’re seven or eight years older than me. Doesn’t mean you never sat around a campfire.”
Hayden looked over his shoulder to see if Nicholas was still sleeping. The little form was only a few feet away, silent and unmoving, but it was impossible to tell in the gathering shadows if he was sleeping or not. Trixie wasn’t in there with him. Hayden had let her wander off into dusk. If she was going to die from radiation sickness, there was no stopping it now. Better to let her go off on her own. Maybe that nose of hers would sniff out the river; the poor animal deserved a drink of water as much as any of them, possibly more.
“Fire’s a bad idea, Jake. We have to save what’s left.”
“What, like this?” He threw a chunk of torn two-by-four onto his shirt. “I found about six more pieces just like it while you and my son were eating beans. Come on, Hayden... quit being such an asshole, and start a fire. I got nothing left, no fight in me... you won. Give me this.”
“This isn’t some kind of competition. And even if it was, there sure as hell weren’t any winners. We all lost.”
“Mandy,” Jake rasped. “We lost Mandy. Both of us. Light the fucking fire.”
Ready flame was one supply Hayden always carried on him. He pulled a lighter from his front pocket, shoving the other two deeper down with his fingers so they wouldn’t fall out. Hayden hadn’t smoked a cigarette since the bomb hit; he had forgotten the open pack on his kitchen table and the full carton in his garage. Like his pillow, cigarettes were a comfort he’d have to do without for the time being. Jake was trying to strip smaller slivers away from the larger pieces of wood with his nails. His fingers cracked open and started to bleed.
“Let me,” Hayden offered. The wood was jagged on one end, and it didn’t require much strength to pull some smaller pieces away for kindling. Jake crawled off into the dark while Hayden arranged the shavings into a pyramid shape over the shirt. Jake returned a few moments later dragging eight feet of splintered two-by-six under one arm.
Hayden took it from him. “This was the faceplate on the upper part of the door frame. Where did you find it?”
“Tried to take a leak a few minutes ago and tripped over the corner of it. The rest was buried under dirt.”
“Good thing you’re clumsy.” It was easy for Hayden to break the board into smaller pieces. Those left too thick to break over his knee were set one end on the ground, the other end against a rock. His heel slamming in the middle did the rest. Hayden lit his little pile and within minutes it was crackling and sparking with flames.
“Aaahhhh... that’s nice,” Jake said, pulling himself in and crossing his legs. He raised his hands and spread his bloodied fingers close to the fire. “Smells just like the fires my Dad used to build in the back yard.”
“Can you even feel the heat?” Hayden asked with concern. “You’re sitting awfully close.”
“Nah, can’t feel a goddamn thing anymore.”
Hayden took a piece of splintered wood from their small supply and stirred the fire down until the flames weren’t jumping so high. “Better if we burn it slowly, make it last.”
“So now you think the fire was a good idea?”
“I never said it was a bad idea.”
“Yeah, you did.”
“It might get cold sitting outside like this. We have to make it last.”
Jake started laughing again. Hayden could see the side of his tongue wiggling against his teeth. The dim orange light flickered off his mottled forehead and blackened nose. “What’s so funny?”
“I’m pretty sure... you wanted me... dead a few hours ago,” Jake said between hitching gasps. “Now here you are... wanting to spend the night together.”
Hayden had to look away from the ruined face, but he started giggling as well. “This is crazy. The bomb, losing everything and everyone. And then the last man on earth shows up, and it’s the man whose wife I was having an affair with.”
“I think it’s called karma.”
They both burst out at the same time. Hayden laughed so hard he started to cry. After they’d settled down, he threw more wood into the fire, and they shuffled back on their rear ends until they were resting against the shelter opening walls again. “I’m sorry, Jake... I’m really sorry about Mandy.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think we’re going to get any crops planted this spring.”
Jake was too tired and weak to laugh. “Good. I never liked... farming all that much anyway.”
“So why’d you do it?”
His shoulders hitched up half an inch. Hayden took it for a shrug. “My Dad was a farmer... so was my Grampa... it’s one of those... things you’re born into.”
“Well I’ll miss it,” Hayden answered after a long pause. “I’ll miss getting up early and watching the sun rise. I’ll miss walking along the edge of a healthy crop of wheat, and I’ll miss the smell of cow shit. I’ll miss it all.”
There was a longer pause. Much longer. The flames winked out and the embers left smouldered a comforting orange. Hayden went to throw another piece on, and Jake stopped him.
“No more... looks nice like it is.” Jake settled down further into the ground. “You’ll take good care of him? You promise?”
“Yes. I promise.” Jake’s breathing sounded more laboured than it did before the fire. “Can I get you some water now?”
“Maybe just a bit.”
When Hayden returned with the bottle, Jake was dead.
***
“Are you ready?”
“I guess so,” Nicholas answered. Hayden lifted him onto the horse’s back. “Where we going?”
He climbed up after him, settling in behind the boy. “Trixie knows where the river is. She’ll take us there now, and we’ll follow it southeast
. There should be cities that way... or whatever’s left of them. We’ll find somebody to help us, I’m sure of it.”
There had been no sunrise to speak of, but it wasn’t quite as dark as the morning before. The air didn’t seem so dirty. Maybe the wind and twisters had sucked most of the ash and crud along with them. It wasn’t a beautiful morning, and it wasn’t the worst Hayden had seen. The truly ugly mornings were yet to come. They set out away from the hole in the hill.
“What happened to the scary man that sounded like my Dad? Isn’t he coming with us?”
Trixie trotted by a mound of loosely packed dirt and rocks. Hayden looked down at it and grimaced. He should have told Jake the entire truth—that the affair had resulted in so much more. A part of Hayden figured Jake already knew. Maybe it wasn’t worth mentioning at the end. He kissed Nicholas’s head and whispered. “No, he isn’t. And I’ll be your dad... now.”
Michael & Amanda
“I had a dream about the dead babies again.”
“All the babies are dead now. They can’t hurt you. They’re inside your head.”
Amanda crawled out of the cardboard box so she could hear her brother better. “What did you say?”
“I said all the babies are dead, and even if there are any left, they’ll be dead soon enough.” Michael didn’t take any pleasure frightening his twin sister, but he knew the days of pampering her were over. “You should start having dreams about how to get out of this place.”
Amanda reached back into the overturned box and pulled her stuffed animals out. “I’m not leaving this room, no way, not for a kajillion dollars.”
“What would you need money for? We can just take whatever we want now.”
“You know what I mean. I’m not leaving this room until he’s gone.” Amanda Fulger stared at her brother with intense brown eyes until the boy looked away.”