The Distance

by Jeremy Robinson

  The night before, with the power still on, the automatic doors would have slid open for me. I stand before the doors, thinking. They’re not locked, but they don’t look light. And I’m not sure I can lift, heft or move anything beyond my own body. The standstill draws my attention back to the sharper pain points. Left leg. Right elbow. The leg is bruised, and there is nothing I can do about that now, but the elbow is gashed pretty good, and stings every time I bend the joint, cracking the fragile scab and adding more blood to the tacky coating covering my arm.

  With my fingers hooked around the side of the door, I pull. It resists and then slides for a half inch before catching and my fingers slip free. I stumble back and land against a large window.

  “Screw it,” I say, and look for an alternate mode of ingress. I find it lying beside two bundles of loose clothing. Without thinking, I head for the bat and bend down to take it. As my fingers wrap around the aluminum bat’s rubber-wrapped handle, I spot the flecks of dust clinging to the clothes—a dress, sweater and heels to the right, a pair of child-sized cargo pants and long sleeve shirt to the left. The bat rests between the mother and son’s remains.

  I pause for just a moment, silently apologizing to the pair for my desecration. Then I lift the bat away, keenly aware that the grit beneath my fingers is likely the remains of the boy’s hand.

  The door mocks me. I hear it laughing at the bat in my hands. It has a metal push bar in the middle, which will make hitting it close to center a difficult and potentially painful job. Just beyond it, a second pair of doors await. I don’t have the strength to do this more than once.

  I extend my middle finger toward the door and approach the window instead. It’s four feet off the ground, and huge, but I’m going to hit glass no matter where I swing, and there’s only one pane of glass—albeit, thick glass.

  The bat feels heavy in my weary hands, but its weight can only help. I consider swinging the thing baseball style, but the window is four feet off the ground and I haven’t swung a baseball bat since I was a kid. I’m as likely to strike the wall as I am the window, so I opt for lumberjack style and raise the bat over my head. A primal scream, like I’m a caveman out on a hunt, erupts from my mouth, and I bring the bat down.

  A painful vibration slams up my arms, explodes in my elbows and clutches my shoulders. When I open my eyes, I expect to see the window now mocking me, along with the door. Instead, it’s got a long, vertical gash where the bat punctured it, and cut a rough, downward path to the sill. The glass yielded to my strike, but the thin plastic safety coating has prevented the whole thing from shattering. I take a step to the side, brace myself for the zinging pain and swing again. Pins and needles rocket from my hands to my elbows, but I get the same result. Using the bat like a chisel, I pound out the lower window between the two gashes. Once I’ve knocked it all loose, I push. The already spider-webbed glass resists for just a moment before cracking at the seam and opening inward like a doggy door.

  After brushing the glass away, I slide through, noting that this is the second time in two days that I’ve climbed through a window I’ve broken. I don’t think it will be the last. The daylight filtering through the windows is diffused by a copious amount of tinting I couldn’t see well from the outside. It casts the inside in twilight-like gloom. But not pitch black.

  When my eyes adjust, I search the area around me. A line of checkouts stretches toward the far side of the store, most covered in not-yet paid for goods and white dust. Heaps of clothing, mingled with the powdered dead, fill the gaps between the counters. To the far right, just beyond the produce section of the massive store is a McDonalds. I haven’t eaten fast food in a long time, but the sign sets my stomach to grumbling. It’s been a while since I ate.

  Moving slowly, I head for an empty checkout lane and scour the impulse items. I find what I’m looking for hanging beside a box of Baby Ruth bars. After tearing open the mini-LED flashlight package, and doing the same to a Baby Ruth, I make my way into the depths of the store, led by a pitiful, light blue beam of light. But it guides me around the dead and toward the darker back wall, where most of what I’m looking for is on display.

  Stop number one, flashlights. The selection is surprisingly large, and I take two small, but crazy bright Maglites along with a headlamp. I pocket the two Maglites and strap the headlamp on over my head and Claire’s Red Sox hat, allowing my hands to be free. For a moment, I think about getting a cart, but then remember I can only take what I can carry in my pockets and Claire’s backpack. I stand still for a moment, realizing that Claire’s backpack, while sentimental, might not be the best choice.

  My next stop is the camping section. The backpacks here dwarf Claire’s and have sleeping bags attached, more pockets than you can count, and metal frames to help support it all. I tear open a box and slide the pack over my shoulder. Fits my body better, too. With a sigh, I head for the neighboring Sports & Outdoors display case, which I’ve kind of been dreading.

  An array of rifles lie just beneath the glass counter top. Behind the counter is a wall of glass-door shelves, lined with boxes of ammunition. I know nothing about guns, but a rifle quickly catches my eyes. It’s also the most expensive weapon in the case, so I take that as a good sign. The label says that it’s a Marlin Model 336SS, which means nothing to me, but the little pictures of a deer and a bear, both with crosshairs over them, tell me it’s powerful. Some of the other labels just show deer. Some show ducks. But this is the heavy hitter. I quickly scan the rest of the label and discover that it takes 30/30 Win. ammunition. Again, this means nothing, but at least now I know what to get. I break the glass with the baseball bat and lift the rifle up, revealing a manual tucked beneath it. I take the manual, too, and slip it into my pocket for later reading. Two more broken cases later, I have a strap for the rifle, which now hangs over my shoulder and six boxes of soft-tipped 30/30 ammo, twenty rounds to a box. I’m not planning to fight an army of those shimmering things, but I will need to learn how to shoot, and eventually, hunt. Canned food won’t last forever.

  I add portable food to my mental list of aisles to visit. My next stop will be first aid. I need to clean and patch up the elbow. Surviving the end of the world to die from infection would just be stupid. I also need traveling clothes, rugged with lots of pockets and some boxer briefs to cut down on the inner thigh chaffing I get every time I try a treadmill. Then food. High calorie stuff that doesn’t require cooking and won’t go bad. Traveling light means losing the camping stove, though I have several lighters for making fires. Last on my list, a bike. A car might attract too much attention, but I don’t think a bike will be any different than walking.

  The weight of the seven-pound rifle over my shoulder is annoying, but its presence and lever-style, cowboy feel gives me a boost of confidence. Once I figure out how to load and shoot it, I’ll be a regular John Wayne...riding on his faithful Huffy. I smile at the mental image, and then bark out a scream when the sat phone clipped to my belt sends a shrill chime echoing through the store. I tear the phone from my belt and answer it before the second ring finishes.

  Out of breath from surprise, I gasp once before saying, “Poe?”

  “It’s me,” she says, her pleasant voice tinged with tension. She’s speaking quietly, like someone might hear her. “Are you okay?”

  “The phone surprised me,” I explain. “I’m in the back of a dark Walmart.”

  “Walmart?” she asks.

  “Where else can you find a rifle and a bike in one trip? Granted, it’s all made in China, so I don’t think the bike will last the trip, and it weighs an ungodly amount, but it’s a start.” I ask, smiling as relief takes hold. Poe’s voice has a calming effect, but it doesn’t last long. When I remember that Poe doesn’t know about what happened last night, about the creature and Steve Manke’s death, I’m gripped by crushing seriousness. “Poe,” I say, “Listen to me. We’re not—”

  “Who are you talking to?” a new voice asks. I look around me, but realize the
voice came from the phone. Poe is not alone. Whatever hope this brings me is dashed a moment later, when the voice turns angry and shouts, “Who the fuck are you talking to?”

  “Poe!” I say, but I get no reply. “Poe!”

  If Poe heard me and responded, I can’t hear it over the screaming woman’s verbal assault. But one thing does come through, Poe’s frightened voice asking, “Why do you have a knife?”

  26

  POE

  I slowly stand up, my mouth open, the phone, still connected, in my hand, against my ear. White tufts cling to her shirt and pants. Chicken feathers.

  “Who the fuck are you talking to?” She towers above me, filling the doorway. The smells of blood and chicken shit and something else, something meaty, like raw steak, fresh from the cellophane wrapper, fill me with nausea. I gag and stagger back to the far wall.

  Leila raises her hand. She’s holding a large knife, slick with blood. I recognize the large, rusty blade, kept in the barn for cutting rope or twine, or tape. She holds the blade in her only hand, like she’s fresh from chopping vegetables, just pausing. Casual. She wipes her forehead with her sleeve, the knife close to her face. Her arm leaves a red smear.

  She’s standing in the doorway. I can’t get by.

  August is saying my name, his voice close in my ear. He’s an angel on my shoulder, keeping the crack in my brain from opening up again and embracing the insanity.

  I ask the only question I can think of. “Why do you have a knife?”

  She holds it across her mid-section, and smiles at me. I think it’s the first time I’ve seen her smile. She has beautiful teeth, white and clean. I’m trapped in a horror movie, but this is real. I can smell the blood. Films and nightmares smell like nothing.

  The phone remains at my ear. Leila steps into the office and closes the door behind her. I walk behind the desk, and then regret it. Now I’m trapped. Still smiling, she asks again, “Who are you talking to, Poe?”

  Without disconnecting, I gently put the phone down on my dad’s desk, next to the radio equipment. My desire to protect August and his identity overwhelm me. I try to exude the old calm confidence, that manipulation of emotions, working the room. The coppery smell makes me gag, and my voice shakes. I need to get out of this tiny office, now. But there’s no way I can overpower her.

  “Let’s go back downstairs, okay?” I stand still, a stone, hating being unsure of what to do. Squirt appears in my mind, a little spiral, tiny limbs. I wrap my arms around my torso and glance at the window to my right. Could I jump?

  “Not going to tell me,” she says. “Keeping secrets.” She waggles the knife back and forth in time with her next words. “Dirty little secrets. Daddy kept secrets too, but mommy knew. The metronome drowned them out. Tick, Tick, Tick.”

  She looks at me, eyes large. “Isn’t that right? You knew. You still know. About them. About the owls. They took me, you know. And brought me here. Here! I’m from Seattle!”

  Leila calms in a sinister way and glances down at her missing arm. “The black desires your baby. You know that, too, don’t you? Such a know it all. Such a fucking know it all.”

  With two large steps she lunges across the desk, knife swinging sideways. She screams and cries. “What did you do to my arm, Poe?”

  I lean back, dodging the knife, and bash my head on the bookcase behind me. A swirl of stars fills my vision. I’m dizzy with nausea. There’s no space to move. In a flash of recognition, a surge of awareness, I understand where the blood is from. The animals, in the barn, where I sent her.

  Luke.

  She steps around the desk and in that millisecond I see my chance. My tininess might save me. I dive under the desk and through it to the other side, shoving the desk chair out and into Leila’s gut. She tries to stop it, but reaches with her missing arm and the chair knocks her off balance. I stand and launch for the door.

  The doorknob starts to turn in my hand. Each asymmetrical wood grain line on the door materializes in my vision as solid hope. I could count the lines, find imaginary facial features; the door is taking that long to open.

  I’m too slow. Leila smashes into me, crushing my body between hers and the door, which closes with a bang. My cheek flattens against the wood.

  I scream and flail, punching the sides of her head, out of control, unsteady. She backs up just enough for me to fall over sideways. My fingers curl as I fall, grasping her blouse, tearing it open. I land on my back and look up. Her braless chest is laid bare, the black skin exposed. There are two dark rings of skin emanating from what looks like a fresh puncture wound over her heart. It’s the size of a nickel, thick with rumpled scar tissue. The unbuttoned shirt slips off her nubby arm, also covered in boils of scar tissue and loose, dangling skin that flaps with each twist of the non-existent limb.

  I kick at her legs. The third strike finds her kneecap, knocking it straight, nearly inverting it.

  With a cry of pain, Leila falls to her knees, the knife still in her hand. I back away toward another book-cased wall, when she slashes through my pants and strikes my shin, slicing through the many layers of gauze already there and the skin beneath.

  I scream, the pain rolling over my body like a hundred bee stings. I inch backward on my elbows, across the ancient rug, my dad’s books above my head. Leila scoots forward on her knees. I grab her arm with both hands, trying to pry the knife away from her. She slashes again and again, my grabbing making her movements erratic. Vague pain radiates from my core. Luke paws at the door, barking and barking.

  As I think, Oh, thank God, he’s safe, Leila and I both look down. My lower abdomen was exposed from the thrashing, my turtleneck untucked and rumpled up. A thin, long, red liquid line burbles against my pale, convex belly skin.

  Some sort of strange animal moan escapes my lips. Pain, emotional as much as physical, blinds me. Rage tightens my grip on her arm. If she had two, I would be dead already. But I’m still unable to overpower her.

  We’re wrestling like this, the knife huge between us, filling the air, filling the whole room, when I notice something subtle. Like a shift in the atmosphere. The sound propels my memory back to the living room. The reporter on TV, talking about the grinding sound a moment before I heard it myself. That night. It’s happening again!

  “Stop!” I scream, at Leila and whatever strange power might control the grind. “My baby!”

  “The baby!” Leila shouts. Mocking. “The baby! Everyone wants the—”

  The grinding slams into us, a physical force, the revolutions faster and faster. Leila drops the knife next to me and we both cover our ears. This is it. The moment of my death, and like my parents, I know it’s coming. But there is nothing I can do to save my baby.

  I’m sorry, Squirt.

  In seconds, like a time-lapse melting snowman, Leila’s body turns to powder. The particles of her being cling to one another, a loose network of dust still in the form of her body. But the weight of her clothing becomes too much, and the whole thing collapses down. I close my eyes and mouth, afraid of the flaky powder, despite the knowledge that I’m next. I turn my cheek to the braided rug, as the dusty white lands on me, a huge flour sack suddenly split open and dropped from above.

  Flat on my back, I scream through closed lips, and keep screaming until the sound of my voice is the only thing I can hear.

  My scream fades.

  And then, silence.

  I’ve been spared. Again.

  “Poe!” The small voice makes me jump. “Poe! Can you hear me!”

  August.

  He’s still on the line. Probably freaking out, which isn’t unjustified.

  His voice draws me up into a sitting position. I’m surrounded by, and covered in, Leila’s remains. I’m numb to it, but not August’s voice. I find the phone on the floor, a few feet away. The powder covering the screen blows cleanly away.

  “I’m here,” I say, breathless. “I’m okay.” The words come out before I’m really sure. I look down at my belly, half exp
ecting to see the womb sliding out of me. But it’s still just a thin red line. I press it with my finger, eliciting a sharp sting, but nothing more. The wound is superficial, like a long paper cut. But nearly more.

  I want to cry, to scream about the powder covering me, but I’ve done enough of that. So I tamp down my panic and shock and try to sound composed, for myself as much as August. “I met a survivor,” I tell him. “Leila.”

  “I heard her,” he says, “but...”

  “She tried to kill me.” I think of the animals and stand.

  “Oh, god. Are you sure you’re okay? Is she—”

  “Dead,” I say, opening the door to a very relieved and happy Luke, bounding around in circles. I lower a hand to him while heading downstairs. “Yes. But it wasn’t me. I didn’t kill her.”

  “Is there someone else?” His voice is barely contained panic.

  “No,” I say, slipping my feet into my boots and unlocking the back door. Like Leila, I step out into the cold without a jacket, the frigid air mercifully numbing me. “It was them.”

  He’s quiet for a moment, and all I can hear are my boots in the snow, tracing previous footprints down a now worn path, polka dotted red.

  “Them...who?”

  “The ones that did this. Killed everyone. Just like the first time, they turned her to powder. But not me.” I stand before the barn door.