by Kody Boye
“You.”
“What about me?”
“You’re just so good-natured and funny.”
“I’m gonna be good-natured and funny all over you if you don’t quit grinning at me like that.”
“Try the concrete bags,” Jamie laughed, opening the door wider when Steve stepped out. “Seriously, Dakota, don’t kill yourself trying to carry the plywood.”
“Let us handle it,” Steve said. “Besides, I know you can lift that concrete. It’s all light weight.”
“So you say,” Dakota grumbled, making his way back into the store.
He laughed out loud when he heard Steve and Jamie start joking back and forth to each other.
Most of the afternoon was spent moving concrete mix and plywood out to the truck. Once they had a full load—complete with nails, nail guns, staples and anything else that could be of use—they headed deeper into the heart of town, where Jamie said most of the businesses were located. It took little to realize how much the small town had been affected in the last two months. Buildings were destroyed, display ribbons in tatters, glass lay scattered along the sidewalks and cars were charbroiled like burnt meat at a shitty restaurant. It looked like a bomb had gone off, but had failed to destroy everything it was supposed to.
It didn’t end the world, Dakota thought. Only inhibited it.
Upon arriving at the town center, Jamie sighed, closed his eyes, then stopped in the middle of the road.
Steve started to speak.
Dakota pressed a hand to his side.
No, that touch said, as though silencing the world with one push of a button.
Once sure his friend would not speak, Dakota looked up.
Directly across from them, poised in the center of a ring of wrought-iron fence, was the city hall. Half of its roof had caved in and most of its grand architecture bore cracks or another scars. A sick memory from a lick of flame snaked down one side, then slithered across the parking lot until it came to a car depot. Here, it appeared, one car had been set on fire, only to explode and set its fellow machines ablaze. Twisted hunks of metal lay dozens of feet away, while the fence that had once kept people in now lay flat on the ground, useless.
“I didn’t expect it to be this bad,” Jamie said, raising his head after several long moments of silence. “It’s just a small town.”
“So was ours,” Steve said, reaching across Dakota’s shoulders to grip Jamie’s arm.
“We shouldn’t stay here,” Dakota said. “It’s getting dark.”
Jamie shifted the truck in gear and braced his hand against the wheel. “Let’s get what we need and get back home.”
Dakota took one last look at the remnants of city hall before Jamie turned and drove away from the broken heart of the small city.
“How’d it go?” Desmond asked, opening the door for them as they walked up the driveway.
“Went fine,” Jamie said, looking back at Steve. “Everything go ok for you?”
“I can drive that,” Steve laughed, looking back at the red truck behind them. “That big rig, on the other hand, not so much.”
“It’s not the easiest thing to drive, that’s for sure.” Jamie stepped inside the house. “I was talking about the trip back more than anything though.”
“Oh. That? It went fine.”
“Just making sure.”
Dakota caught sight of Erik lying on the couch, a rag pressed to his head, and threw a cautionary glance at Jamie before he stepped forward. “Hey, Erik,” he said, kneeling down beside the couch. “You feeling any better?”
“A little,” Erik said, cracking an eye open despite the faint light coming off the electric lantern on the end table.
“Really? You’ve been laying here for the past day.”
“It’s just a headache, Dakota, that’s all.”
“You need to sleep in our room tonight, Erik.”
“I’ll go fix it up right now,” Jamie said, heading toward the hallway. “Besides, me and Dakota can sleep in the master room.”
“Yours parents’ room?”
“Yes.”
Jamie didn’t bother to elaborate any further. He simply disappeared down the hall and into the bedroom.
“I didn’t want to say anything,” Erik said.
Dakota set a hand on the man’s arm. “You need to sleep somewhere dark anyway.”
“I’ll take the couch,” Ian said, speaking up for the first time since they’d returned. “Jamie and Dakota can stay in the master room, you can sleep in Jamie’s room and the kid and Steve can sleep in the guest room. It’s no big deal.”
“I just didn’t want to bring up any bad memories.”
“He’ll have to face them eventually,” Dakota whispered, patting Erik’s arm. “Besides, I’ll talk him down if anything happens.”
“I know you will, Dakota.”
Dakota stood and made his way toward Jamie’s old room. He didn’t know what he’d say if anything happened tonight, but regardless, he would still be there for him.
“I haven’t been in here for years,” Jamie said, settling down on the bed before them. He pressed his hand into the foam mattress and smiled as the imprint remained for a moment afterward. “I remember when Dad got this bed for Mom after her back started acting up.”
“Your mom had a bad back?”
“I think it was mostly because of all the stress she was going through. Dad was active military and all. She used to get stress spots on the back of her head. I could barely touch her shoulder without the muscles tensing up.”
“That’s a lot for a five-year-old to deal with,” Dakota said, setting the picture of Jamie’s mother and father back on the cabinet before them. He looked at their smiling faces for a moment longer before turning back to look at his boyfriend. “Are you ok with sleeping here?”
“I’ll have to deal with it eventually. Why not now?”
“I dunno. I just thought…” Dakota paused.
“You thought what, babe?”
“That you might not be ready.”
“I’ll never be ready to accept my parents’ deaths,” Jamie sighed, leaning back against the pillows arranged before the headrest. “I don’t think anyone ever really is.”
“So you think your mom is—“
“Gone? Somewhat, yes. I hope not, but I’ve accepted the fact that she’s never going to be in my life again.”
“I’ve kind of accepted it. It’s not the same though.”
“What? You accepting your family’s passing?”
“No. I…I don’t know how to explain it. My family was gone before this happened. I guess that makes it easier and takes less of the pain away.”
“Dakota, do you ever wonder what happened to your dad?”
“Sometimes, but I don’t really care. He killed my mother. I can never forgive him for that.”
Jamie nodded. He gestured Dakota forward and took his hand when he was only an arm’s length away. “I have a lot of respect for what you’ve gone through. I hope you know that.”
“I know.”
“And I hope you know that there’s no one else I’d rather go through this with than you.”
“Thank you.”
“Come on, let’s get some shut eye. We’ve had a long day.”
After stripping out of his clothes, Dakota crawled into bed, closed his eyes, and sank back against Jamie.
Beneath the covers of a past that should have been doubtful, Dakota felt nothing but warmth.
CHAPTER 11
“He’s dying,” Eagle said.
“I know,” Kevin replied.
Back against the wall and knees drawn to his chest, Kevin pressed his hand against his face and tried not to look at the Native American man before him. His heart felt like a thousand-pound weight and his head felt like it would explode at any moment, a bomb set to go off.
He bowed his head and closed his eyes.
This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t.
In the short mo
ments that followed, during which he felt as though small and poised before the greatest hurdle his life would ever really throw at him, Kevin sought out Eagle’s eyes in the light seeping from the candle in the corner. He found them in near darkness, where he would not have expected them to be—directly in the corner of the room, seated in an old, wooden chair.
He’s not some Shaman sage wonder-maker. You already know that.
Still, that didn’t stop him from giving in to clichéd superstition and imaging that Eagle was something more than he really was. He’d never been prone to racist ideals, to imagining men of different colors and backgrounds as things they obviously were not, but at that moment, the Native man in front of him looked like a diamond in the night, a glimmering moment of hope in his worst night of darkness.
“Eagle?” he whispered.
“Yes, Kevin?”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“I don’t believe any man should know what to do in times like these.”
“That doesn’t help me any.”
“I know.” Eagle rose. The wooden chair creaked as it rocked forward, then again when it bounced back against the wall. It took a moment for Kevin to realize that the man was walking toward him. When he did, Eagle was already at his side, seating himself atop the bed they shared and staring at him with dark eyes. “May I say something, Kevin?”
“Please.”
“Only you can decide what’s best for your son. No one else.”
But what if you can’t decide? he thought. What if you don’t know what to do? What if you’re afraid of knowing what to?
With no answers to the thoughts running amok in his head, he sighed, stood, and pushed himself toward the door, but stopped short before he could wrap his hand around the doorknob.
He isn’t going to get better.
The reality of the situation froze him in place. At first he thought he would start shaking, as his hand trembled in front of him as though frail and without stability, then his eyes began to burn. Somehow, though, he managed to retain his composure, despite the stark realization that ran through his head.
“Kevin?” Eagle asked.
“He isn’t going to get better,” Kevin said, dropping his hand at his side. “His fever’s been at 103 degrees for the past three days. I don’t know what to do.”
“Kevin…”
“Is there anything you can do?” he asked, turning to face the man. “Anything at all?”
“I’ve tried everything, Kevin.”
“He’s fuckin’ suffering!”
“Quiet!” Eagle growled, slapping his hand over his Kevin’s mouth. “Don’t wake your children! They don’t deserve to go through this.”
“Neither do I!” Kevin wailed.
“It’s up to you to decide what to do. Your son is dying. Every waking moment is wrought with pain and agony. I’ve barely been able to keep him asleep. At this rate, he’ll just waste away if we keep him in the state he’s in.”
“What do we do?”
Eagle pressed a finger to his lips.
“Your. Son. Is. Suffering. Would you want to suffer the pain he does?”
“No.”
“Would you want someone to keep you in that pain if you had any choice?”
“Of course not,” Kevin said.
Rethink your answer. Repeat his question.
The breath went out of Kevin’s lungs.
His heart stopped in his chest.
Every memory that he could have possibly had swam to the front of his vision and pushed at the base of his skull. Them at the park, eating dinner, laughing at something on TV, going to the first day of school, taking him to the hospital after he broke his ankle, running amongst autumn leaves so red and yellow that they looked as though they would crumble at any moment, having ‘the talk’ when he turned thirteen, meeting the first girlfriend, going to the first day at high school, encountering the first heartbreak of teenage love and talks of college—everything came forward, all at once, together, as one.
Tears broke from his eyes.
His heart throbbed one hard, painful time.
He fell against Eagle in tears.
“I can’t do it,” Kevin whispered. “I can’t, Eagle.”
“He won’t feel a thing,” Eagle said, bracing his hands against Kevin’s back. “I have something that will just make him go to sleep.”
“What is it?”
“Peyote.”
Tears running down his face, Kevin reached up to wipe them away, only to find that the look he’d initially seen in Eagle’s eyes was not mistaken. “You’re kidding,” he said.
“No. I’m not.”
“You want to drug him to death?”
“It’s the simplest way.”
“I’m not gonna do that.”
“Would you rather put a gun against his head?”
“I—no.”
“As I said,” Eagle continued, “he won’t feel a thing.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s been used before. Mercy is perhaps the greatest thing you could ever offer to anyone suffering the pain he is.”
Kevin stilled the quiver in his lower lip by digging his teeth into it. “How would you do it?”
“In a soup. I’d just mix it in.”
“He won’t know?”
“Won’t feel a thing,” Eagle said. He reached down to touch Kevin’s now-trembling hand. “It’s up to you whether or not you want to do this. He is your son, after all.”
“I just want what’s best for him.”
“I know. I do too.”
Kevin bowed his head.
This is it, he thought. This is where you have to decide what to do.
Only one thought occurred to him when he lifted his head and looked into Eagle’s eyes.
How would his children feel?
“Boys,” Kevin said. “I need to talk to you about something.”
Both children looked up. Though Mark’s eyes were wide and innocent, Arnold’s eyes showed an awareness that nearly pushed Kevin to tears. His second-eldest who, until recently, had exhibited complete resilience to anything going on in the household, seemed startled, shaken by the tone in his father’s voice and the sense of finality in the air.
Can they feel it? Kevin thought. Do they know it’s the end?
“It’s about Jessiah,” Arnold said. “Isn’t it?”
Kevin nodded. “Yes,” he sighed. “It is.”
Mark’s eyes softened. Arnold simply continued to stare, eyes darkening by the second. It took Kevin a moment to consider his choice of words before he seated himself on the couch and gestured his sons up beside him.
It’ll be all right, he thought, swallowing a lump in his throat. You can do this.
How many times in a man’s life did he have to consider the possibility that, one day, he would have to tell his children that their sibling was going to die? Did this man see an infant dying in a nursery and think about his child, his Julia with her silk-blonde hair and her big blue eyes, or did he disregard it in a way that all people do when they see tragedy and suffering? It’s not every day that you see a car crash in the middle of the road, the driver’s head cut off and lying three feet away, but it never hurts you the way it should because that driver is just a stranger and a stranger he or she will always be, but what about when a man sees a child starving in Haiti, on the shores of destruction with his mother dead nearby? Does he think about his child—his Fernando, with his chocolate-brown eyes and his raven-black hair—or does he simply turn away, flip the channel so he doesn’t have to see them suffer? It’s not as though they will ever have an earthquake, a tsunami that will come to wash them away, so what good is it to think that his child could be on that shore, lying in that sand with the blood on his hands? With so many thoughts running through his head, Kevin found it hard to imagine just what he should say, what he should do, how he should present himself and his case. It seemed impossible to think of just what he would say, so when he loo
ked into his children’s eyes—when he saw both their Julia and his Fernando looking at him—he felt his heart sink and his mind turn to dust.
In the next few minutes, he would have to say the four most horrible words he would ever say in his life.
Your brother is dying.
“Dad?” Arnold asked. “Jessiah’s not going to get better, is he?”
“No,” Kevin said. “He isn’t.”
Mark positioned his hands on the floor and crawled forward like an infant until he sat at his brother’s side. There, he watched his father as though their world would end, burned asunder by the flames of judgment.
Kevin set his hands on his knees. “You both know that your brother has been really sick for the past few days. Now, before either of you ask, I don’t know what’s wrong with him. Neither does Eagle. The only thing we know is that he has a bite on his shoulder that hasn’t been healing.”
“A bite?” Arnold asked, puzzled.
“Why isn’t he a zombie?” Mark questioned.
“Jessiah told Eagle that he wasn’t bitten by a zombie before we started giving him sleeping pills,” Kevin sighed, already regretting the lie that laced his lips. “He’s not getting any better, guys…and we can’t do anything to help him.”
The children simply stared.
This is it. This is where I’m going to start crying.
The first tear slicked down his face.
Kevin blinked.
The second and third followed.
“Dad,” Arnold said.
“What, buddy?”
“Jessiah’s going to die, isn’t he?”
Mark let out a sob. “Yes, Arnold,” Kevin said. “He’s gonna die.”
When both of his children started crying, Kevin could only bow his head.
He’d failed. And there was nothing he could do about it.
“You did the right thing,” Eagle said, pressing his hand to Kevin’s back as he entered the room.
“I hope so.”
Kevin closed his eyes.
Tomorrow, he thought.
When he looked back at Eagle he saw the glimmer in his eyes that seemed to understand his each and every thought, and a part of his soul that yearned to be set free finally curled up and died.