What Tomorrow May Bring

by Tony Bertauski

  I turn around and race back up the mud, careless, forgetting to watch my step so I don’t tumble down into the water myself. It’s getting really dark. But I see Russell. His eyes are closed. He’s lying on his back. And his chest isn’t rising up and down. No, I think I scream, but nothing comes out. I just go to him and fall on top of him. Rain falls on us.

  Part 2

  Chapter 3

  The rain is freezing cold. I talk to Russell, quietly at first, pretending I don’t notice that he’s not breathing, then I start shouting at him. I start slapping his chest. Then I stop everything because it’s all useless. He isn’t responding. But I see up close that he still is breathing. Really softly, but he’s alive. I’m shivering, and I look around, as if someone will spring out of the gloom and help me. Help me carry him to the tent. But no one comes.

  When I was eight or nine, there were two people who lived with us. We moved together from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, across the flooding farmlands, where by the end, we navigated by the sight of the grain silos that rose from the water. But when we reached Pittsburg, we found a high rise building. We were safe from the rain.

  Delly and Jennifer were their names. They came with us and settled next door in the high rise. Russell really trusted them, and so I did too. It was the first time I learned you could still trust an outsider—that not everyone was out to get you or what you had. Their two kids, I can’t remember their names, tagged along with us everywhere we went. We’d go out into the rain together sometimes—supermarkets, abandoned warehouses, militia hospitals, radio towers to check for transmissions. There were never any transmissions, but it was enjoyable then to go out, running through the rain, like it made everything an adventure, and not the cold advance of death that it really was. When Russell got sick back then, with a cold, or a headache, or his leg infection, Delly and Jennifer helped out. I tried my best to contribute—make him soup, find some extra cookies somewhere, trade for ice, anything I thought might cheer him up or make him better faster. Sometimes I found Tylenol that was still dry and edible. But Delly and Jennifer were really the ones taking care of him, as much as I thought I was helping. Most of the time they left us alone, and they worried about their own small space in the high rise, keeping anyone from getting too close to their family in case things became too desperate. That’s how things became in Philadelphia, Russell says—too desperate. But I remember feeling a sense of comfort knowing they were around, within shouting distance, neighbors even. Getting the Tylenol for Russell was really going to Delly and asking him for some. Or maybe running down into the gutted supermarkets by myself, climbing through the ransacked pharmacies, though Russell didn’t like me doing that. He said it was too risky. Despite the distance they kept from us, I felt like Delly and Jennifer actually cared about us. After Pittsburg, we left Delly and Jennifer behind because they refused to travel through the open rain again. They’d had enough moving from place to place like nomads without a home, even though all the streets were flooded by then, and the militia hospitals were falling apart from disease, and the rampant mindset about heading west was in full fever. We didn’t have anyone else that cared about us for a long time after that. Not until the Sea Queen Marie. In Indianapolis, Russell did the work: he traded for food, weapons, clothing, and medicine. That’s when we had a gun. I’d help scavenge, and we’d have extra to trade sometimes. He’d always trade for books with the extra, or let me pick out board games to play with him. But there, in Indianapolis, when I was twelve, I realized no one gave a shit anymore. No one actually cared about us. It was every man for himself. No one would help you there unless you helped them in what they considered an equal way. And that was the best case scenario. If it wasn’t that, it was more often someone who would just try to take what you had. Russell used his gun sometimes, but he didn’t talk to me about it when he did. I could tell he didn’t like that he had to use it. Still, he did use it, and he thought it was important I know how to use it too. He taught me how to shoot then.

  If something had happened to Russell then, I don’t know what I would have done. Probably went and asked someone to help me move him, get him medicine, and I would give whatever we had in our tarp house. I would give them anything they wanted. We lived in a ratty tarp house then, in a tarp city, on a rooftop. But I could have traded something there at least, and someone would probably have helped us, even if they didn’t give a shit about us. People at least gave a shit about your supplies. Only Russell stopped getting sick for a long time, so I never had to look for help. And when we got to the Sea Queen Marie, I started to feel like I used to around Delly and Jennifer again. On that ship, people even helped when you didn’t have anything to trade. They’d let you owe them, and they trusted you to repay them. That’s how close we all became on the Marie.

  But after the storm, after the ship capsized, and we passed through Sioux Falls on our way to Wyoming, there was no one to ask for anything. Just salvage what you can and keep your distance from people. There was a selfish, dangerous hunger in everyone we met after the sinking, and I started to feel like the West was the opposite of what Russell said it would be—instead of the veneer, it was the absence of the veneer. I held onto Russell’s hope though, like things would eventually turn around. We never brought it up that everything was getting worse. Just keep moving. Leadville.

  I look at the great expanse of brown water surrounding our crust of raised mud. Here, there’s no one in every direction forever. Because the face eaters don’t count, they’re not people. No one cares out here. Not the rain, the cold, or the wet. It’s just us.

  Russell coughs, and it sounds really weak. He coughs again, stronger, and I realize he’s trying to talk to me. I lean down against him and listen, but nothing comes out. I get on my knees, rain pounding my back, and as I start to slide down the bank into the sea, I push against Russell, trying to roll him up toward the tent. I dig in and press hard but his body goes nowhere, and the force works in reverse, sending me sliding down to the edge of the water. I sink my heels into the mud hard enough to slow down and finally stop before spilling in. The canoe’s right next to me—it’s taken a beating from the rain and it’s sunken all the way under now. It looks up at me like a murky ghost, mocking the fact that we’ve considered it our best and only hope to make it to safety. And I know that even with all my might I can’t get Russell into the tent. Not if he’s not moving himself to help me. In all my years, I’ve never slept an entire night outside in the rain. It’s hard to believe, but we always find a roof. I wonder if Russell ever had to sleep in the rain all night before we teamed up. But tonight, I can’t see any other way for things to go. And it terrifies me because I know the rain’s too cold to spend the night outside. Hypothermia is guaranteed.

  I look out over the dark water and I feel overwhelmed and utterly useless. I want to jump in. Go down and find the whale. I can’t deal with Russell dying. My whole body starts to shake from the cold and the wet. Then I hear a moan, and the sound of movement. I turn around and see Russell try to get on his knees but he slips. He can’t get up. The rain drives in rivulets down my head, onto my arms, and my neck. I want to give up. Everything in me is telling me I can’t do this anymore. The warm, cozy days of the past are gone forever. I’ll never find a real home. I’ll never have love. Just the bleak gray, and the wet, and the cold, until I die. Which now looks like it will be shortly after Russell dies. And there’s nothing I can do. I don’t see a point in going on.

  And then it hits me as I stand up again. I’m an idiot. I was almost ready to curl up on the mud beside Russell and let myself fall asleep, leave this place, let the cold pull me gently into the permanent nothingness. It’s so obvious I could slap myself.

  Just move the tent, not him.

  The thought collapses my panic into a singular focus, and I tread back up the slippery bank. I pass Russell but I can’t bear to look at him. I think I hear him breathing, and that’s good enough. I go through the motions, pulling out the tent poles, coll
apsing the canvas, dragging it over to him, and setting it up all over again. I struggle at first because of the slope, but in just five minutes it’s up, and he’s underneath the canvas ceiling now. We’re perilously close to the water, and I think a mudslide could take the whole tent into the sea while we sleep. But I can’t resist sleep. It’s the only thing that makes sense now. I roll Russell over as best I can and pull myself into him. He is breathing regularly again, and without the groans that were coming before. I hug him and stare at the brown canvas wall, wondering what tomorrow will bring. I think about the canoe’s crack, and the fact that Russell doesn’t seem like he can bail or row. Without him, I don’t know how I’ll make it back to the bigger sections of the Bighorns where there is better shelter, where we still had a chance of finding fuel for a fire. I can’t even think of the sea voyage to Leadville. It seems out of the question now. We’ve pushed ourselves to a point where we can’t turn back, but we can’t go forward either. Every problem at once is too much for me to take, so I stop thinking about how messed up it all is. At least we’re in the tent again. I let my mind dissolve into the noise of the rain, its steady patter on the ocean just a few feet away from our heads, its soft patter on the mud all around us. The cold starts to slide away because the rain is no longer hitting me. I’m getting warm again, but Russell is taking most of it, it seems, faster than I can generate it. I close my eyes and think of the face eaters floating away, and wonder about what direction they’re drifting. Will they pass through Colorado? And what about the whale—what magical place will it visit?

  I have a really hard time sleeping. The morning comes after a long time. I can’t help but feel nervous about the new day, and what it will mean for me if Russell isn’t revived by his rest. It’s the only thing I can hope for—that the night of sleep will get him moving again.

  I disentangle from him and poke my head out of the tent. The smear of the sun is visible again in the gray sky, near to the floor of the flat brown horizon. It’s rising from the East, taking its time, filtering through the endless layers of clouds.

  I wrap my plastic suit around my body tight and step outside to survey the water. I don’t expect to see anything out there and I don’t. I’m glad I don’t see any waves, and it feels a little warmer. There is no sign of ice on the water. Something like hope floods my spirit for a moment, but it only lasts until I go back inside to wake Russell up. He doesn’t move. Russell, I say. He jerks at his name and sits up slowly, rubbing his head. I put my hand to his forehead. He’s hot, even I can tell.

  “You’ve got to take the antibiotics,” I say. He ignores me and starts to move toward the tent flap. He pulls his plastic hood down over his face and pokes his head out. Canoe’s still here, he says, and he sits back down and coughs. I ask if he thinks it’s his leg or just a cold. He doesn’t answer me, and he lays down, blocking the tent entrance, like he’s going to go back to sleep. He lies right under the leak and lets it drip on his shoulder.

  Russell used to have endless energy. After he started to grow thinner, and I wondered if he wasn’t sick with how thin he was, he started to run. It was his favorite thing to do. First thing in the morning, he’d go out running. Running through the rain, through the streams, hopping the puddles and the little torrents that laced the streets. He would always try to convince me to come, and he would say that it was the only thing that cleared his mind, brought him back to center. It does for me what God once did, he said. But he still seemed to believe in God when he said that, even though running was replacing his belief. I think he believed right up until the Marie sank.

  But he was never tired. His leg injury happened when I was too little to remember. He’d been out on a run, like normal, when a flash flood hit. It was just outside of the tarp city we were living in outside Pittsburg. Tarp cities are the places where people gather up together and try to build a giant network of roof, to keep the rain out, and where, in those times, people helped each other by trading supplies. Getting new clothes, restocking food, keeping weapons on hand more and more as the bandits grew in number. Group after group of bandits started popping up then for the first time. Organized, and always after the innocent tarp city dwellers. The flash flood took Russell under an old bridge and then sucked him right out into a giant lake. The lake stretched way to the middle of Ohio the ones who found him said. Russell was gone for three days, floating in the water, clinging to jetsam. Exposure gave him the rubber skin. Eventually a motor boat saw him. They moved in close and talked to him, taking his word that he’d repay their favor if they saved him. They took off his skin when they hauled him out of the water. Then they took him back to the edge of Pittsburg. He paid them in gasoline. I remember that he wore gauze for a long time after that, but then he just wrapped it in plastic and started running again. It’s like he knew he’d have to be in shape for what was to come. And the nagging pain of the disintegrating, infected leg didn’t matter. He could run through the pain forever. But it hasn’t really worked out. He’s withered away to nothing now. Skin and bones. His legs are of no use anymore. In my head, I picture him when he looked best, and that’s still how I see him now, when I stare long enough. But he’s going back to sleep and it’s blocking us from leaving.

  I don’t argue, I lay down next to him. I’ve barely had any sleep myself. I wonder if there could be more face eaters following the three. But no, they were the only ones we’d seen for days. They must have thought we were crazy for heading to Leadville, those families that stayed behind in Rapid City. But the water was getting too high there. It was one place I was glad to leave. I’ll forever question our first few departures, but nothing we left behind after the Marie. The West, I am convinced, has it worse than the East. And the rain is higher and higher out here. I close my eyes and finally get some rest.

  When I get up, Russell’s already awake and the sun’s directly over the canvas at the center of the tent. He’s sitting up and reading his soggy, barely legible map. On it, he’s tracing with his mind the route he’s envisioned for us, the 520 mile trip to the south, on which we don’t count on seeing any land above the water. But there might be, he says. He tells me about the theory of some of the men on the Sea Queen Marie, the one where the rain sea is uneven. It has to do with the composition of the ground he says, the soil, the layers underneath everything. I ask him to go on and tell me more, because I feel hope in the idea. Maybe there will be land along the way. He says certain kinds of sediment absorb the water and send it way down into the Earth’s core, where it evaporates, and so the water level is lower in some spots. He says the mountains keep the water together in certain areas, making it higher, and that the former world is a bad model now because the plates of the Earth are shifted. Some of them are raised way up. It used to be that the Bighorns were 13,000 feet above sea level, he says. Now, we have no idea how high they are. Then he tells me there’s probably no such thing as sea level anymore, not like the old map says. It’s all rearranged. I ask him how the solar flare could have done all that. He says it’s more than just the solar flare. Much more. But it doesn’t matter. I wonder if he’s delusional with sickness, because he sounds like he’s started buying into the conspiracy theories he hates. He reminds me that we’re focused on getting to Colorado, and it doesn’t really matter much how the rain started. I ask him if the veneer is in Leadville. He doesn’t say anything. I want to ask him about his family, his daughter, his old girlfriend. Love and forever. Ideas that humans create, that mean so much to them, but are invisible, and as useless in the rain as the thought of a fire, or the idea of being dry. Impractical and useless leftover pieces of the veneer. But I can’t bring myself to bring any of it up, maybe because he’s finally acting okay again. But then he coughs, doubles over, and coughs again. He grabs his head, like he has a tremendous splitting pain inside it, and that’s when I decide I will sneak him the antibiotics. I’ll do it the next time he’s asleep. I remember his fear, that they’re spoiled, and I think about the bad antibiotics that killed his li
ttle girl. Maybe that will happen to him—what if you kill him? I push away the thought.

  I start to imagine how old he must have been when he had his baby. How old he is now. It’s a mystery. And then he lies back down again and I ask him what we’re going to do. He closes his eyes and turns his head away from me.

  “We have to get going,” he says softly. But his action is the opposite of the remark. He shows no sign of moving or going anywhere.

  “Do you think we can really make it there now?” I say, unable to voice my real concern, and say that he is too sick to bail and row.

  “Come on,” he says, and he tries to move out of the tent. I have to help him. We crawl out together. He half leans on me and then finally stands up outside in the rain. I start breaking down the tent because there’s nothing else to do on this barren rock of slime. I want to yell at him for lying about our chances of making a fire. He’d said he’d find something to make a fire today. But there’s nothing. Just the endless sea and a week’s worth of hardtack. For a second I remember that sleeping in the rain for seven days will kill us both. He’s weaker than me now, and he’ll die first. Just me alone, the last to die, only the canvas of brown to see it. And the rain. I’ve never thought of suicide, and I can’t bring myself to think of it now. But I can’t imagine staying on the boat without him.