by Godwin, Pam
“He’s…he’s with…oh God Evie…” He buried his face in his hands and slid down the wall.
I dropped to my knees and held on to him. Pressed into the curve of his shoulder, I absorbed the vibrations of his sobs. Heartache slammed into me like a fighting bull.
I didn’t know how long we clung to the shadows that darkened that room. “I’m glad Booey is with Aaron. He loved that bear.”
“I know, Evie. Christ, I know.”
We stood, helping each other find footing. Then we made our final descent from the top floor and never looked back.
In the garage, Joel and I stared at the Rubicon. Annie and Aaron called it the jumper jeep. With a five inch lift kit and mud terrain radials, the kids rode in it like a ride in an amusement park, bouncing and giggling.
With the packing complete and the house locked up, I looked to Joel.
He lifted the two A.L.I.C.E. packs in front of him, shoved one of them at me. “Whatever you do, don’t lose this.”
Expecting about thirty pounds of weight, I accepted the pack and wasn’t surprised.
He locked his eyes with mine. “It contains all your basic survival stuff. If anything happens to me, if we get separated…or worse, you grab it. Okay?”
I threw it over my back. My five-foot six frame held it ineptly, so I straightened. “Okay, I get it. Just like your life insurance policy.”
He smiled. “Exactly.”
After loading the packs, we donned our armored vests and raised the garage doors. In the jeep, I plugged my MP3 player into the stereo’s aux jack and set up my punk rock playlist.
He backed out of the garage and locked up. When he jumped back in, Theme From a NOFX Album thumped through the speakers. The song’s catchy beat had a way of pounding away my fraying nerves. I needed its cheer.
He rolled the jeep to the end of the driveway and stopped. I hadn’t left the house since I brought my A’s home. Their last day of school.
Two months of isolation. I didn’t know what to expect. Twice, I fought an aphid and won. What if I’d burned through my luck?
He chewed his bottom lip, his eyelids half closed as he slid on his driving gloves. He taught me everything I knew about self-defense. Yet he fouled up his first close-encounter against a bug. Would his luck be better next time? And the time after that? I concealed my trembling fingers under my thighs and looked back at the boarded up house. The house we raised our babies in.
“Stay alive. Seek truth.” I forced the mantra passed my lips.
“And do not look back.”
We were doing this. We’d be fine. Yeah, we were fine. Just fine.
The chorus clapped in. He blinked then joined the vocals. With a seemingly forced smile, he raised his voice, singing.
I wanted to share in the optimism that peeked around the shadows on his face. But to be honest, it gave me the creeps. As he backed into the street and coasted down the hill, my gut rolled with dread.
Death is as sure for that which is born, as birth is for that which is dead.
Therefore grieve not for what is inevitable.
Bhagavad-Gita
CHAPTER SIX: GLOW OF THE ETERNAL PRESENT
I nudged up the bill of my baseball cap and dropped my chin to let the sunglasses slide down my nose.
Overgrown landscapes swallowed the monotony of patios and sidewalks. Porches offered withered flower pots and morning newspapers that decried the end of news. Other homes crumbled, burned from pillage and rioting.
Choking sewers and decaying crops replaced the usual summer perfume of cut grass and burgers on the barbecues. And beneath the miasma of abandonment, lurked the rot of the dead.
Nothing stirred beyond a tattered flag, a waving screen door, and the drift of a child’s swing. Nothing lived.
Joel slowed under a darkened stop light and dodged a large furry lump baking into the asphalt.
“A dog?” I asked.
“Or coyote. There used to be a lot strays. Now, it’s a rare thing to see something walking around on four legs.”
Because aphids fed on all mammals. But only the lucky human genome was susceptible to mutation.
A crow perched on the exposed rib cage, beak buried in the bowels. An overturned skateboard teetered on the curb beside it.
Wreckage barricaded the road ahead. He rolled over the curb, cut through a yard. From within the warped metal, protruded a disembodied arm, a booted leg. A shredded torso folded over a car door. I shuddered, tensing more when his hand squeezed my knee.
In our bedroom community, everyone knew and trusted each other. Yet the neighbors who hadn’t perished in their homes or on their front lawns seemed to have slipped into the night. I thought about Jan, the Pump ’N Go brute, who sold me smokes with a grunt and a bothered glare. I bet she used an insectile mouth to take out her angst on an unsuspecting customer.
Then there was Ted, the baker at the Piggly Wiggly. His kind smile and crusty Italian loaves made listening to his tales about nineteen grandchildren worthwhile. He probably mutated then fed from the family he adored.
I smiled, remembering the kid at the corner McCoffee. He could barely keep his dick in his pants long enough to steam my espresso before skittering to the parking lot to steam his windows with the girl du jour. I didn’t have to do too much imagining to guess his demise.
“Evie, keep your face covered. Just because we haven’t seen anyone, doesn’t mean we won’t.”
His distraction wouldn’t work. The brick building, the playground, and the school buses filled my horizon. The “Home of the Grain Valley Eagles” sign swung on one end, a haunting reminder of what must have occurred there.
I traced a finger along the stitching on my forearm sheaths. It was the first time I’d worn them outside of training. Joel gave me six knives. I wore two on each arm. Each had a black six inch blade of 1050 high carbon steel with a paracord wrapped handle. When he gave them to me, I read The Art of Throwing. Then he drilled me in the same way he did all his training. Merciless repetition. But I looked forward to the drills and to the rush of power from every throw. Within a few months, I was flinging them with confidence. Each time the blade slipped from my grasp, down that horizontal plane, I felt invulnerable. My small size no longer significant.
I flexed my forearms to test the straps. They felt like they belonged there.
Joel hissed. I snapped my head up from the knives in time to see an aphid lurching into the road. He jerked the wheel to avoid hitting it and regained control of the jeep long enough to throw us into the path of three more. The brakes squealed as we bowled into them.
Given the height of our Rubicon, we bounced over two of the three, jarring my body against the seat belt. But the hard brake caused the jeep to take a slight nose dive and send the third one up the ramp of the hood. Just as quickly as it cracked our windshield, the aphid regained its bearing and glared at us through the crunched glass.
Black blood bubbled from its head wound, but it didn’t seem to notice. It crouched on the hood, its humped body vibrating in sync with its buzzing.
The aphid orbs fixed on me, unmoving. Its hunger dripped in shoestring spittle from the pointed mouth that writhed in its jowls. But under the hunger, something else lurked. Something trapped in its milky eyes that didn’t blink. There was a knowing.
For the first time, I felt the weight of the knives buckled to my arms. I didn’t care if the thing staring back had once been Jan or Ted or the horny coffee boy. It wanted to eat me. I rolled down the window and unsheathed a blade.
“What are you doing? Roll up the fucking window.” He thumped the gas pedal to the floor.
The jeep propelled forward and the back of my head hit the seat. The aphid lashed out a claw and smacked the brittle windshield. More spider webs crawled through the glass. It held on, its claw embedded in a splintering hole.
We raced down two blocks, building speed. The aphid reached through the open window. I swiped its forearm and amputated the claw. A spurt of blood filled
the car with a metallic rot.
The aphid yanked its maimed appendage tight to its body and hung on to the windshield with its good arm.
It took six blocks of unobstructed roadway to max out our speed. He released the gas and locked up the brakes. His forearm smacked my chest as inertia shot the aphid tumbling through the street before us. He stomped the gas again. The bug screamed as we rolled over it. I rubbernecked to watch it drag its mangled body into the gutter.
We arrived in Hermitage, Missouri three hours later with fewer bumps in the road. The sky opened between soggy clouds as daylight weakened under the segue of dusk. The jeep’s knobby tires stirred up dust laden with acidic moisture, scenting the air with the earthy aroma of rain.
Joel sped up when we neared an open pasture. Four aphids grazed on a bull, which was toppled over and turned inside out. The placidness of the feeding seemed unnatural. One of the aphids lifted its head from the carcass and watched us pass.
At the end of the field, a cow pressed against the fence. Its big brown eyes stared at nothing as it bellowed, nudging the post with its head.
My heart flipped over. “Joel, we have to—”
“Where was the cow destined before the virus? In the hands of humans, in the claws of aphids, the food chain hasn’t changed.”
Except our species lost its position as the top consumer. My heart landed somewhere in the vicinity of my stomach.
“We should stop there and see if there’s anything we need.” He coasted the jeep into the parking lot of a small grocer station. Pristine panes of glass veneered the exterior. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s looted this one yet.”
I let out a choked laugh. “Yeah, bet we just passed the town looters in that pasture. They’re looting other things now.”
He frowned as he angled the jeep with the driver side door inches from the entrance. Bent over the steering wheel, he scrutinized the store’s small interior. “I’ll keep the engine running while I check it out. Ready your—” He glanced at the pistol in my hand. “Good girl. Five minutes, okay?”
I nodded, scanned the bleak horizon through the cracks in the windshield.
The car door latched shut and the wait began. I chewed a nail. Checked the mag. Chambered a round. Back to nail chewing. Come on, Joel.
A motor rent the air, grew louder. Then a lone figure rolled over the hill on a motorcycle. The gun shook in my hand as the bike turned into the parking lot.
Inside the store, a dusty dark clouded the depths. Where was he?
The biker stopped beside me, his eyes bugging under his helmet. Should I point the gun? Would that scare him away?
The features on his weathered face rearranged themselves from strained shock to soft elation. Then his mouth and eyes hardened. Determination.
I raised the gun, trained it on his chest.
He shook his head. “Open the door.” His voice muffled through the window.
My other hand joined the one on the gun, cupping the grip, stabilizing the aim.
He showed his empty hands, his smile. “You’re…aw, Christ, you’re a looker. I haven’t seen woman since…” His eyes made hungry promises. “I just want to look. What do want? I’ll give you anything. Just let me touch.”
I stopped breathing.
Then his arm snapped out and grabbed the door handle.
In a flash of movement, Joel was behind him, swinging the butt of his shotgun. The stock collided with the back of the man’s head. His body dropped, eyes rolled to the sky.
Joel jumped behind the wheel and dumped a box of bottled water and packaged junk food in the backseat.
Blood pounded through my veins. “Is he dead?”
He shoved the gear into first and rolled to the edge of the lot, gaze locked on his side mirror.
I holstered the pistol on my thigh. “It’s okay, Joel.”
“No.” A heavy rasp pushed past his teeth. “No, it’s fucking not okay.”
We faced the road, unmoving. He remained fixated on the mirror. I looked in my own, which reflected the unconscious man sprawled on the gravel.
Thirty seconds passed. I tapped a finger on the carbine. “What are we waiting for?”
As if on cue, the prone man raised his head, rubbed the back of it.
Joel hit the gas, spitting rock in our wake.
“You didn’t want to leave him vulnerable,” I said, a few minutes later.
“No, though make no mistake. If killing him would’ve been the only way to neutralize him, I would’ve done it without hesitation.”
The fact that he hadn’t just killed him gave me renewed appreciation for the kind of man he was.
A few miles later, we skidded onto a gravel road and made our descent to my father’s lake house. Joel had told me my dad stopped answering his phone two days after the outbreak. And I knew if he survived, he would have found a way to contact me. A shiver licked my spine. Was he prowling his property in a mutated form? Could I shoot him like I shot the aphid in our basement?
Joel eyed my fingers plucking a frayed hole in my jeans. “You’re worrying.”
“Yes.”
“Want a hug?” His eyes crinkled.
A laugh bubbled up, came out as a snort.
His hand squeezed my thigh. “There’s a pack of smokes in the glove box.”
I let him see my face and he returned the smile. Then I exhaled a little of my tension.
A mile north of my father’s property, we passed the arched entrance of the Hurlin family’s eight hundred acre ranch. I wondered if the infected ranchers were dining on their prize winning stallions.
He pulled the jeep into my father’s circle drive. The motion activated light came to life. I grabbed the door handle and remembered what Joel had said, “Side-arm, carbine, shotgun, vest,” like a fucking nursery rhyme.
Already snug in the bullet proof vest, I wrestled out of the seat belt and hooked the carbine over my shoulder by its single point sling. I loved the look of my M4. With a collapsible stock and 14.5 inch barrel, its black metal frame and plastic hand grip made it an easy weapon to use. It was my weapon of choice.
When I secured the USP .40 in my thigh holster, he flashed his white teeth in the flood light’s reflection. “Ready?”
Under the weight of my artillery, I puffed out my chest. “You bet.”
He clicked his tongue. “No heroics, Evie.”
We didn’t enter the house. The best way to identify a threat inside was to check for compromised entry points. As we crossed the yard, I remembered the day Joel gave me my first carbine. Before he took me to the range, he ensured that I knew how to handle it tactically. He showed me low ready, muzzle down when not ready to shoot. And high ready, barrel up while looking for or locking on a target and expecting a fire fight.
Carbines in high ready, we crept around the house. I approached the bends and sliced off each piece of the corner as I went. Like slicing a pie. It enabled me to visually clear most of the new view while still remaining covered.
At the second corner, I asked, “Why do I need the side-arm and shotgun, in addition to the carbine?”
He trolled the dense trees through his scope. “Everyone prefers to shoot with a carbine, because you can plow through your ammo and your threat with a more accurate, longer reaching and heavier hitting round. However, let’s say you are going along”—he aimed his carbine at the shed and mimed shooting—“Pop, pop, pop, click. Your carbine goes dry. Instead of dropping mag and reloading, to continue to get bullets down range it’s easier to immediately draw your side arm.”
Made sense.
He looked at me from the corner of his eye. “Your pistol’s only good as a last resort concealable close range weapon. Got it?”
“Got it. And the shotgun?”
Duh was written across his face. “Because you can blow a huge ass hole in almost anything at close range.”
Duh indeed. We continued to the next corner. The property appeared secure until we rounded the final side.
Squatting along the tree line about fifty yards away waited seven…eight…nine aphids. Under the twilight, they glowed neon green as if they’d developed radioactive herpes. I pressed the butt of the carbine into my shoulder and held its eight pound weight steady. A deep inhale filled my nostrils with the scent of gun oil.
Thirty rounds. Nine targets. If I fired accurately, I could go with the three shot rule. Two in the chest, one in the head.
I looked through the reflex sight of the carbine, exhaled and squeezed the trigger. The first bug squealed and rolled. Twenty-seven rounds. I took down three more aphids. Why wasn’t Joel’s carbine firing next to me? I squeezed again with a trained exhale.
Despite the queer buzzing in my ears, I slipped into a zone. Five aphids remained and how many rounds? Shit, I lost count. But I didn’t let it distract me. The damn things dropped like flies. As if they couldn’t see where the gun fire came from.
One mutant remained, hunkered next to its fallen comrades. I wanted a closer look and decided to take it. I swiveled my head to look at Joel behind me.
“Evie. Evie. What the fuck are you shooting at? Give me the gun.”
I returned his puzzled expression with one of my own. “There’s still one left.”
“One what?” He reached for my carbine.
Then it dawned on me. He couldn’t see them. I angled the gun out of his reach and took off toward the trees.
Ten feet from the lone survivor, I dropped to low ready and freed the Maglite. When I clicked it on, the bug straightened and looked in my direction. Aggression sprayed in a mist of drool. Its porcelain eyes reflected against my light. That drooling atrocity didn’t have night vision. Pupils dilated in the dark to let in light and the tiny aphid pupil didn’t dilate.
It ramped to spring and spat more snot. I killed the light. I wanted to knife that one.
I reached for the dagger in my forearm sheath and startled when Joel’s pistol popped on my left. The aphid crumpled to the ground. Its neon glow dulled. Without lowering his pistol, Joel released his Maglite. I could see his profile in the light’s halo, his eyes searching the nine bodies that lay at our feet. “How did you…I didn’t see them—”