The Distance

by Jeremy Robinson

  I fall to my knees beside the man, lost about what to do. The wound on his chest is a thumb-sized hole that I know reaches all the way through and out the other side. There is nothing I can do to save him.

  “Can you hear me?” I ask, voice wavering.

  His eyelids flutter.

  “You’re not alone,” I tell him. It’s not much, but from one last living man to another, they’re the words I would want to hear. I take his loose hand in mine, noting the stream of blood flowing down my right arm. “You’re not alone.”

  His eyes open. Blue and pale. They search the darkness and find my face, lit by the car’s interior light. “What...happened?” The words are a whisper, barely audible over the throaty, chugging V8 engine.

  I don’t really want to talk about that. If he can’t remember what left him in this condition, there’s a small chance his exit from this world to the next will be peaceful. “What’s your name?”

  He licks his lips, painting them red with blood. “Steve Manke...”

  “Steve,” I say. “I’m very happy to meet you. I’m August.”

  His eyes widen like he’s just realized he’s going to die. In fact, I think that’s exactly what has happened until he smiles and says. “August. Find August.” His smile broadens. “I found you.”

  He dies like that, the smile on his face, strange relief in his eyes. All because of my name. What did he mean? Technically, I found him, but my name seemed to mean something to him. Could he know me somehow? While August isn’t a common name, I don’t recognize the man, or his name. He’s a stranger, but the way he looked at me. The way he reacted to my name...

  I let go of his hand and step back.

  Who was this man?

  More than that, what the hell was the thing that killed him? I know the answer to that question, at least in part: it was one of them. The unknown them that somehow turned the human race to powder and is now seeking out and killing stragglers.

  Except for me. Why did it let me live? It can’t just be because I hurt it, if the stone hurt it at all. It flung me away like I was a toy. I suppose it’s possible the stone wounded it, but it doesn’t feel right. It let me live.

  Maybe it’s just saving me for later? Prolonging my death. Plotting out some horrible ending because I managed to catch it off guard. That alone surprises me. I’m not a fighter. If you’d asked me an hour ago, I would have told you flat out that I am a coward. In fact, I still am. But I felt a flicker of something stronger in me. Something that will take action sooner than later next time. If there is a next time. God, I hope not.

  “Should I bury you?” I ask the dead man. It’s what a noble person would do, right? The problem is that I don’t have a shovel, I’m wounded and can feel body parts starting to swell. The time it would take me to find a shovel and dig a proper grave could put me an entire day behind...probably more.

  My body tenses as I’m struck by a thought.

  Steve was moving through the dark night, bright and loud. Obvious to anyone, or anything, above. Was it his car that attracted the creature’s attention. Will mine?

  Staying in this desert without transportation, while wounded, will be a death sentence. I quickly make up my mind to finish the drive to Albuquerque, but after that...a car might be too obvious a calling card. The idea of traveling cross country without a vehicle is nearly as horrifying as being attacked by aliens, but I owe it to Poe to not get killed. I can’t leave her—and her child—alone.

  Feeling guilty about not burying Steve, I decide to check his car for a shovel. The front seat is a mess of junk food wrappers. It looks like he raided a snack machine. The back seat holds loose piles of clothing, food, water and a sleeping bag. I check the trunk last. Gas cans. No shovel. Still, I can’t just leave him here, exposed, food for the vultures.

  Steeling myself with a deep breath, I lift him up by his armpits. His dead weight is surprising and strains my fresh injuries, but I manage to slide him onto the seat and tuck his legs up under the steering wheel. He slumps over, head smacking the console between the seats. Avoiding the tacky blood covering his torso, I pull him back up and buckle him in place. The car is already running, so when I hit the radio’s Play button, Metallica booms from the speakers once more. I roll up the windows and close the door, muffling the noise. I didn’t know Steve, but I suspect this is the best mausoleum I can provide for him. “Thanks for making it this far,” I say. “You gave me hope that there might be others.”

  Two firm pats on the car’s roof and I start the long walk back to my SUV. Each step is harder than the last. By the time I’m behind the wheel and closing the door, I’m desperate for painkillers. But right now, I need to drive, reach someplace safe and try not to advertise my presence to the watchful eyes above. I shut off the SUV’s lights, wait for my eyes to adjust and then drive by the light of the cosmos and the moon, hoping that Poe will call soon, so I can tell her our meeting is going to be delayed, by weeks, if not months. As my sore muscles ache and turn rigid, I fear that reaching Poe will be as impossible as saving Steve Manke’s life.

  20

  POE

  Six hours since I talked with August, but it feels like much more time has passed. Tender, intellectual August, not at all what I imagined when I heard his passionate karaoke. I don’t know what he looks like. Never asked, but I picture him as being large in a stoic kind of way, but that might not be true. It’s his stalwart insistence that he can and will reach me that has me picturing some kind of modern Odysseus. But he’s also an astrophysicist, so he’s smart, and he spends a lot of time on his butt, in a chair. Maybe big, but not in shape. I definitely don’t see him as fat, though. I think I would have heard it in his voice. I see him in glasses, kind eyes shrunk to half their true size.

  But how kind is he? Despite being drunk, we had a deep conversation. But what’s he like sober? He’s a good man, I tell myself, the kind of man who, at the world’s end, risks being burned alive in search of his daughter. The kind of man who then gets drunk to dull the pain. I don’t see the alcohol as a weakness, though. Were it not for Squirt, I would have gotten plastered, too. Instead, I see his drunken state as a testament to how bad it hurt. I heard it in his voice, too, when he spoke of Claire. His pain mirrors my own.

  August said he was coming, and I believe him. I don’t have any other choice. Right now, the no-expectations-hope-in-a-stranger feels like the most beautiful of prospects. It’ll take him awhile, once he nears the East Coast and its three feet of unplowed snow. What does the Midwest look like right now? How far will he actually be able to drive? Will he be able to access gas stations? I shake my head. There are too many potential variables and roadblocks to consider. I won’t sleep until he arrives if I think about them all.

  I’ve decided to ignore my fear and venture out in search of a satellite phone. After a quick breakfast of fresh eggs from the chickens, of which there will always be too many, I stretch out my joints. My ankle is feeling better, just a slight stiffness now, an uncomfortable twinge.

  Part of me wishes it was worse. That the pain was horrible enough to justify putting off this errand. I’m terrified of going out again. I can wait, I tell myself. He could be here in a few days.

  Or he could get lost.

  Or hurt.

  Or worse. What if there are other shadowy shimmers in the world?

  I should have told him, I think. I’m not alone. Not really. There’s a shadow in the woods and a...shimmering thing, that feels like a figment of my imagination, in the grocery store. But how do you tell someone that and not sound like a loony, to be avoided at all costs? If I was crazy, would he still come? Is he that good of a person? Am I?

  But I didn’t tell him, so the answer doesn’t matter. He doesn’t know about the shimmer, or the shadow, or my parents’ advanced knowledge or the fact that I was thrown into a God-damned apocalypse-protection pod. And I didn’t tell him about the two-word note, though Squirt and the weather made that omission the most natural of them.

>   I’m glad I didn’t tell him, I decide. Because he’s coming. A living, breathing human being is on his way to find me, and if I’d told him everything, maybe he wouldn’t be.

  My lifelong desire to be alone has been fulfilled, and all I want is for him to get here. To end this aloneness. The childlike, probably childish, fantasy looked like painting and dreaming and wonderment about the world around me. Now it looks just the opposite. My expressive self has been shocked mute. The world is frightening. But not all of it. Not now. Not with August. I feel so grateful that out of all the possible connections the radio could have made, I was given someone who sounds halfway normal.

  But is he still okay? Is he on his way? I have no way to know.

  I stand, dressed for winter, at the back door. The cold morning air swirls around me, stiffening my nostrils and seeking out the pores in my clothing, exposing the weak points. I close my eyes, picturing the small town. There’s a walk-in clinic on the far side of town. A police station a little closer. But the fire station is the nearest of the public services that might have a satellite phone. It’s a little further than the grocery store, but I’ve got the snowmobile with a full tank. I’m not too keen on going anywhere near the grocery store, but I made it out of there with a dog, and a limp, so zooming past on a snowmobile should be doable.

  A long list of doubts slips into my thoughts, but I ignore them as staunchly as I did Todd’s litany of relationship complaints. Bossy. Inflexible. Emotionally unavailable. The truth I never admitted is that he was right. I’d give anything to have Todd with me now. He wasn’t a bad guy. It was me. I was...unkind. Another secret to keep from August.

  “Luke, be a good boy. I’ll be right back.” I lean over in my puffy parka and snowpants and hug his heavy body, burrowing my face in his neck fluff. He lays down and turns over on his back, wanting a belly rub, which I grant. “Wish me luck,” I say, and before he realizes I’m leaving him behind, I close the door.

  Stepping from the doorway, course plotted and self-deprecation completed, I take a moment to service the animals—feed for the chickens, fresh hay for the cows—and head for the snowmobile. I think about going back and locking the door, but then remember that my parents haven’t locked their door in over fifteen years. This neighborhood, along with most of the state, is safe enough to—

  My feet crunch to a stop in the deep snow. New Hampshire, and the larger world as a whole, is no longer the same place. The rules, if there are any, are different now. With a shadow and a shimmer on the loose, I’d prefer not to come home and find something waiting for me inside the house. I head back inside, take my father’s overflowing key ring from the hook beside the door, say a second goodbye to Luke and twist the deadbolt home with a snap. The sound drives me back with a gasp, my imagination launched back into the pod, its deadbolt popping open.

  But I’m on the outside now. In control. Or, at least, pretending to be. And I’m free to walk away. Which I do. Quickly.

  The snowmobile starts without a fuss, and I putter out of the yard. I feel both like I don’t want to draw attention to myself by zooming, but that if I move too slow, something might catch me. The specter in the grocery store didn’t seem fast, but that’s like seeing a car roll for the first time and assuming there isn’t an engine hidden beneath the hood. Who knows what the unknown is capable of. Isn’t that why people always fear it? Unlimited potential includes an infinite number of horrible outcomes. So I compromise and drive the speed limit.

  I follow the same path as before, down our unplowed snowy road that leads to the more recently plowed but still snowy Route 202. I can still see my deep footprints from before, despite the wind’s efforts to erase them, running alongside the snowmobile tracks from my return trip. The snowmobile’s path acts as a road, and I follow it dutifully, keeping the footprints to my left. Imaginary double yellow lines. I’ve always been a safe driver.

  My eyes tear up from the cold wind rushing past. As I blink them from my blurring eyes, I can feel the moisture evaporating from my face, leaving stiff paths of salt. I need ski goggles, I think, and I imagine myself scrawling a reminder on the back of my hand. Despite the urge to turn my head down, away from the wind, I keep my eyes on course, blurry, but less likely to run into a deer or moose. Through my bent vision, I see the path ahead, winding around now dead cars, following the same path as my footprints.

  But then not.

  A quarter mile ahead, cloaked in the shadow of an overhanging, leaf-barren oak, is an aberration. For a moment, I wonder if the line cutting through the snow is a shadow, distorted by my blurry vision, but quickly realize that’s not the case. The line is broken and even, Morse code dashes, transmitting a message that even I can read: you are not alone.

  I slow to a stop beside the line deep footprints, more than a little stunned. Ahead, there is one set of footprints, for as far as I can see. Then, a second set veers off across the road and into the woods. I know I didn’t make them, and the treads—rough, wavy lines around a L.L. Bean logo—don’t match my boots, though the size seems similar. A woman, I think. Or a short man. Either way, this person followed me, and rather than taking the path that led directly to my front door, he or she opted for the stealthy route through the woods that stretches all the way to the backside of my parent’s farmhouse.

  The hair on the back of my neck rises, a deep, mammalian instinct I am experiencing more and more often. The snowmobile idles as I take a few steps forward, part of me wanting to follow the stranger’s path. I shiver in the middle of the silent, white street.

  I scratch at my eyebrows with my mittens. Twist my lips. Bounce up and down. But I don’t move forward or backward.

  I recognize that I am not doing well, that a small psychological fissure has opened in my head, just a tiny cleft, but large enough to notice.

  Who is this person? What do they want? Unlike August, he or she is a stranger. Unknown and not trusted.

  I need a second brain. A consensus of the living. August is still new to me, but known and invited.

  I get back on the snowmobile, and my course set for the fire station. For August.

  As the engine revs louder and I start moving again, I’m relieved that someone doesn’t run out of the woods and attack me. Then I’m back at full speed, feeling safer, but only for a moment. Impending doom rears up and makes me nervous. I smile when I realize why. That stupid asshole dog is up ahead.

  But is he alive still? Would he have frozen overnight? I can’t believe I did that to a living thing...

  Guilt draws my eyes downward, and I don’t actually see the car until I’m nearly beside it. The first thing I notice are two sets of human footprints, mine and the stranger’s, along with the flattened snow where I fell. But it’s the third set of non-human footprints that seize my stomach, the muscles tightening to form a protective wall.

  The door is open.

  Someone let the dog out.

  The four-legged tracks head back toward town for fifty feet before turning off into the woods. It could be anywhere.

  My belly flips over and I twist the throttle, picturing those alligator jaws, the long snarling snout, the black eyes. I don’t stop the snowmobile again, driving the rest of the way to the fire station like a bat out of hell. I suddenly don’t care who or what hears me, the fissure in my brain making the bridge from panic to wisdom problematic. Does having the knowledge that this crack exists prevent any true losing of my mind? I certainly hope so. For now, I can watch over the space for signs of mental health decline, symptoms of crazy—a benevolent, nonpartisan gatekeeper.

  The fire station in sight, I realize I’ve been holding my breath, and I breathe with a shudder and a few hiccups. The snowmobile’s engine grows louder as the sound reflects off the station’s brick façade, announcing my arrival to anything with ears. I turn the vehicle off and listen for a reply. I’m alone with the wind, whispering its haunting tales through empty tree branches and shifting grains of snow.

  The door looms ahead, r
ed and solid. I prepare myself for what I know I’ll find inside—if I can get in, that is. Do firemen lock their doors at night? I imagine some Norman Rockwell scene: white t-shirts, cigarettes, poker. Dalmatian under the table. Apparently my knowledge of firefighter habits is stuck in the 1950s. I take it as a good sign that my artist mind, always speaking to me in images, is still in good functioning order. Although under the circumstances, it’s now relying on tired clichés. I imagine a checklist. Image production, check.

  As I crunch and sink through the snow to the door, I hear something and stop.

  A low growl.

  Behind me.

  The snowmobile’s loud cry has been answered.

  I pivot just my head, one shoulder, my eyes. The massive German shepherd that I sentenced to death stands colossal and angry, twenty feet away. Instead of him stalking me, I’ve delivered myself to the dog, still warm and ready to eat.

  21

  POE

  The black Shepherd’s growl rumbles, his throat clicking.

  He barks once, drool spiraling away.