The Distance

by Jeremy Robinson

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks again, and I can’t blame him.

  “Fine,” I say, doing my best to sound composed. “Really. I’m just...a little numb. Emotionally. But I’m alive. Squirt’s alive. That’s what matters, right?”

  “Right,” he says, sounding relieved, but apprehensive. “Listen...I had a similar experience.”

  My hand freezes on the wooden door handle.

  “I met a survivor, too,” he says. “He wasn’t like Leila. Wasn’t dangerous. But...they killed him.”

  “And let you live?”

  “No,” he says. “I mean, yes. But they didn’t turn him to dust. They stabbed him. Murdered him in a very human way. I tried to fight it, but—”

  “You saw one? The shimmering things?”

  He’s quiet for a moment.

  “You didn’t tell me you had seen one,” he says.

  “I didn’t want you to think I was crazy.” I look at my hand, still on the handle, refusing to pull. “I didn’t want you to not come.”

  “I’m coming,” he says. “But we have a lot to talk about. And I’m sorry.”

  “For what.”

  “That the survivor you found is dead.”

  I open the barn. The chickens cover the walls, heads lopped off and thrashed about the room. I can see their bodies still kicking and flailing as she spun them in circles, coating the walls and ceiling in blood, a brown and red Jackson Pollock painting. James lays at my feet, just inside the door. His body has been stabbed multiple times, his tongue hangs out the side, his eyes open wide in odd animal disbelief. And then there is Sylvia, the only one of them who really stood a chance. Leila must have started with her, slitting the big cow’s throat, letting her bleed out, while she unleashed her insanity on the other animals before coming for me.

  “She deserved it,” I say, and close the door.

  27

  AUGUST

  The bike’s brakes squeal as I slow to a stop, the rubber having worn away to metal. I’ve been riding the thing daily for a month now, slowly traversing New Mexico, the Texas panhandle—which still smells of cow urine—and into Oklahoma. The first two weeks were torturous, and I made very little ground. Never mind that my body ached from head to toe, and that my fitness level rivaled that of Grimace, the McDonald’s mascot, the bicycle seat caused me intense pain in my backside the likes of which I’d never before experienced.

  I’ve grown accustomed to it, though. I’m not sure if there is scar tissue, or the nerves have gone numb, but after a day’s ride, I’m only mildly sore. My legs and lungs are another issue. They burn in unison, collaborating against my efforts. I’ve lost at least thirty pounds and am surprisingly toned, but I still struggle with hills, which have been few and far between thankfully. I take frequent breaks for food and water. Despite the relatively cool weather, I seem to seep sweat with each pedal forward.

  Most nights, I’ve been lucky enough to find shelter. Homes. A gas station. Even a mattress store. But there were nights in New Mexico, stuck in the endless desert, where I camped beneath the stars, protected by a small tent and wrapped in a sleeping bag that barely kept out the frigid night air. Those were the longest nights, waiting for a bright light to shine through the tent’s thin gray fabric, or a coyote to tug on the zipped up entrance. But I was left alone. Aside from the pain wrought by endless travel, the continual hunt for supplies and the one time I fired the rifle, the journey has been uneventful.

  That single rifle shot came two days after my encounter with the strange creature and Steve Manke. I spent an early morning hour reading the manual and loading the rifle. Its operation was fairly simple, once I figured out how to load the six bullets it can hold. Pull the lever to eject a spent round and chamber a new one, aim and shoot. I used a high-powered BB gun once, when my parents shipped a far younger me off to summer camp. I’d had to pump that thing twenty times, and when I pulled that trigger, the surprising kick sent the scope into the skin between my eyes. The crescent-shaped scar is still there. Maybe it’s just because I’m bigger and stronger, but the rifle felt easier.

  And louder.

  That rifle’s report rolled across the flat, packed desert, bounced off a distant mesa and rolled right on back past me. Anything human, animal or alien within miles could have heard it. So I haven’t fired another shot. But if I have to, I’ll know how, though my aim might not be the best.

  While I still loathe physical activity of any kind, and have to battle against my relentless desire to stop, relax and never move again, every uncomfortable moment of this long trip has been worth it. I check in with Poe twice a day. Because of the time difference, I call her when I wake, and she calls me before bed, joking that it’s time for me to tuck her in. We’re slowly falling into the roles of adoptive father and daughter, despite having never met. But our conversations, long and without boundaries, have made our relationship one of the closest I’ve ever had. Battery life hasn’t been an issue for either of us, yet. Her propane generator still churns out power, and will for as long as the propane truck she found can refill the tank. And I have a solar charger.

  That said, I’ve encouraged her to not use the generator, or at least to use it sparingly. It’s loud and could attract attention. We’ve argued about the safety issues...about them...several times, but we have different views on that subject. While I spend my nights hoping to never see them, she believes they already know exactly where she is. And it doesn’t frighten her.

  While I saw one of the Blur—Poe’s name for them—kill a man, brutal and raw—she was saved from CL, short for ‘Crazy Lady,’ my term for the one-armed Leila. Whatever weapon they used to turn the human race to dust was used to kill CL, saving Poe, who was for some mysterious reason, spared. Just like me.

  We’ve compared stories multiple times, and the differences are stark. Steve Manke wasn’t crazy, at least as far as I could tell. He was killed in a physical, personal kind of way. And the Blur I encountered smelled strongly of ammonia, where Poe’s grocery store close encounter smelled of roses. But it’s the similarities of our accounts that really interest us, primarily that we were spared.

  Despite hours of conversation, we haven’t been able to find any real commonality between us for why we would be spared and the rest of humanity destroyed. There is nothing that links us other than the fact that she lost a father and I lost a daughter. We’ve begun to fill those roles for each other, but there is nothing else that connects us. Not taste in music, books, movies or TV. Not geography, schooling, family trees or distant heritage.

  Despite the possibility that we’ve been purposefully spared, I haven’t even considered using another vehicle. The memory of Steve’s violent death is still fresh and keeping the sandman at bay. I’m pretty sure the only reason I can sleep at all is because I’m so physically exhausted all the time. If there is even an ounce of energy left in me at the end of the day, my mind runs wild, imagining worst case scenarios. The morning after such nights, I’m tired, but I manage to pedal faster, spurred by fear.

  As the bike comes to a full stop, I slide off the seat and place my feet on the ground. For the first time since I set out on the bike, the road ahead is blocked. There have been times when I’ve been forced off the road, walking the bike around a car accident, but this... This is an obstacle the bike won’t make it past.

  To my right is a large green sign reading Lake Eufaula. I’ve never heard of the water body, but its flat surface stretches to the north and south of my location, for as far as I can see. Three miles to the horizon, meaning this lake is, bare minimum, six miles long. I’m on a long, narrow stretch of land, cutting into the water, no doubt put here by a work crew and fleet of dump trucks. The highway behind me is dense with cars, but passable. The road ahead is a wall of twisted metal. Cars, trucks and an assortment of eighteen wheelers have crashed violently, their occupants probably turned to dust before impact. Most of the vehicles are skeletal, charred heaps, like some mythological dragon swooped overhead a
nd laid waste to the highway.

  Off the bike, I step to the side, into the grass, where I would normally circumvent such an obstacle. But that’s not possible here. The swath of land on either side of the highway is just ten feet across and steeply sloped into the water. To make matters worse, a lot of the wreckage has either punched through the guardrail or rolled over it, fully blocking the way ahead. The source of the blazing fire is revealed, a ruptured gas tanker that somehow ignited and probably exploded, spewing fiery gasoline on the collection of cars.

  I look at the bike. “Looks like this is where we part ways.”

  The front reflector stares back at me, indifferent and unresponsive.

  “Yeah, I’m not really going to miss you either. You’ve been a literal pain in my ass.” I chuckle at the horrible joke, and then a bit more at the realization that I’m talking to my bike. I’m not really sad to see it go. I don’t know how to replace brake pads, so I knew I’d be getting a new bike sooner or later. But I would have preferred to not have to walk until I find a suitable replacement.

  “Burnt out jungle gym or take a swim,” I say, holding my thumb up to gauge the distance between me and the far side of the wreckage. I’m not the best swimmer, and the idea of finishing the day’s journey sopping wet, and cold, holds no appeal. But the sharp metal and glass remains littering the road look like a death trap.

  To better calculate the distance, I climb atop a nearby, not burned truck. I have a better view from here and start drawing out the math, whispering the equation to myself. With little in the way of scientific thinking, I’ve begun calculating everything, even when it doesn’t matter. Like now, the distance doesn’t really matter. My course is already set.

  With an open palm, I erase the finger scrawled numbers from the imaginary white board. As I watch my open fingers slide back and forth, something strange catches my attention. At first, I think it’s just the movement of my hand, creating an optical illusion. But when I lower the hand and still see the aberration far in the distance, I know it’s real. But what is it?

  I shrug the heavy backpack off my shoulders and suddenly feel like gravity has let go of me. The funny thing is, with the twenty-five pound pack over my shoulders, I’m still five pounds lighter than I was a month ago. The rifle balances things out, though. I lay the weapon down next to the bag and retrieve a pair of binoculars taken from Walmart, but rarely used thus far.

  I find the object again, dark and shifting slightly, in the road far ahead. It’s close to sliding over the horizon line. Three miles away, I think, and then I calculate. 15840 feet. 406 feet per minute at a quick, sustained walk. 39 minutes to get from here to there...but that’s if the road were clear.

  I raise the binoculars to my eyes, find the road and then scan upward to the horizon. The binoculars are powerful, but not quite strong enough for me to clearly see the object. Though I now know it’s definitely moving, warbling back and forth. Or is that heat rising from the sun soaked pavement?

  Then the thing pauses, and I know it’s not just the rising heat. The color and size remind me of a bear, but it would have to be walking on its hind legs, and bears don’t do that often. Do they? My knowledge of bears doesn’t extend much beyond Yogi.

  An arm reaches up and wipes across the head. In my mind’s eye, I see a man, wiping sweat away from his eyes. Definitely human.

  A shout bursts from my mouth. “Hey! Hey! Over here!”

  I watch the figure through the binoculars. There’s no change. He can’t hear me. I look down at the rifle. He’d hear that...but he might not be the only one who hears it, and I don’t want to risk this man sharing the same fate as Steve Manke.

  I’m going to have to catch him.

  Twenty-five pound backpack over my shoulders, seven pound rifle in my hands, I charge down the grassy slope and slide into the chilling waters of Lake Eufaula, never once considering that the phone might get wet, that my photo of Claire might be ruined or that I might sink like a stone.

  28

  AUGUST

  The cold water reaches my crotch, seeps through the fabric of my worn jeans and paralyzes my body, so that all I can do is gasp and croak. “Holy...holy...” The sharp temperature shift retrieves my intellect from the emotional prison created by the discovery of another living person, just out of reach. I twist my head around and see the bottom of the backpack dipping into the water.

  I step closer to land, pulling the pack out of the water. This works for the moment, but the front end of an eighteen wheeler blocks the path ahead.

  Soft, lake-sodden earth wraps around my feet with each step. I think I probably should have removed my sneakers before entering the water—I’m going to get blisters once I’m free of the lake—but walking through this sludge barefoot... My body shudders at the thought, shoulders bouncing back and forth like a shimmying stripper.

  I stop in front of the eighteen wheeler. The front end is submerged. The long trailer is a burned out husk of sharp metal. Holding the backpack and rifle over my head, I slip into deeper water, planning to circumvent the obstacle. The water reaches my shoulders when I’ve still got several feet to go, but if I take one more step, I’ll be swimming. The only path left is up and over. Still holding everything over my head, I step up onto the truck’s submerged rail, find my balance and then stretch my right foot up onto the wheel well. After bouncing twice, I spring up. My newly toned legs lift me up onto the water-covered hood.

  The thrill of victory lasts just a moment. The heavy pack still over my head carries me forward. My feet squeak and slip out from under me.

  I’ve heard about people getting in accidents, or being in dangerous situations and sensing time moving slowly. That’s not true, obviously. Time is inexorable. But I think it’s possible, in those moments of adrenaline focus, for the mind to move quicker. And for a moment, mine does. I see myself falling forward, my arms instinctively shifting down to brace the fall, bringing the pack and rifle toward the water. Without conscious thought, my mind assesses the situation and deems physical pain more advantageous than losing the contents of my backpack. My muscles move in unison, propelling me around so that I land, flat on my back atop the truck’s hood, knocking the air from my lungs and sparing my gear, and the things most precious to me—the Sat phone and Claire’s photo—from a watery fate.

  My body on the other hand...

  I lay there atop the slanted hood, in three inches of water, gasping for air, wondering if I’ve broken my back, if I should call Poe and tell her I’ll be making the rest of the trip on my elbows, or a wheelchair if I can find one. Relief comes from the oxygen reaching my lungs and filtering out through my body. When I sit up two minutes later, I’m sore, but unscathed.

  Having wasted enough time with this single obstacle, I roll to the side of the hood, lift my gear up over my head and hop down into the three foot deep water on the other side. My feet plunge through the water and continue moving through the foot of muck below. I feel the suction of it wrap around my legs. Thinking speed will set me free, I lift my right leg and feel a tug on my knee cap.

  Impatience blooms like a nuclear blast. “Shit!” I shout, and then knowing no one will hear me, scream as loud as I can. “Shhhit!” I heave the backpack and rifle to the shore and twist back and forth. When that doesn’t work, I scream, “Shit!” again, and drive my elbows into the truck cab behind me. “Shit, shit, shit!”

  Still clutched in a rapturous rage, I reach up, take hold of the large side mirror and yank on it. But instead of pulling it down, or reaching a stalemate, I shift upward. Clarity snaps into my mind like I’ve just been awakened by smelling salts. I pull harder on the mirror, wiggling my feet and sliding upward, freeing one foot and then, with a gurgling slurp, the other. I stand on the truck’s rail, clinging to the mirror, and vent the last of my anger at the lake. I point toward the mud swirled water and shout, “Fuck you!”

  Back on solid ground and ten minutes behind schedule, I recover my gear and jog to where the grassy slope
ends and the land bridge gives way to an actual bridge, stretching over a narrow passage connecting one side of the lake to the other. It’s a hundred and fifty feet across. A simple enough swim, without the backpack and rifle to keep dry. But there is no other way across.

  He’s getting away, I tell myself, and I step into the water, the chill of it not bothering me as much now that I know what to expect. I’m fifteen feet out when the water reaches my shoulders. If the grade on the far side is similar, I won’t actually have to swim far. Gear hefted over my head, I turn around and lean back into the water and push off. With my legs dangling and the weight in my arms pushing down, I sink. When my feet touch bottom, the surface water wrapping around my elbows, I push off, bobbing up. Ancient swim lessons return and I kick like hell, pumping at the water with my legs. One of my sneakers slides off. Then the other. But I don’t stop kicking, and now shoeless, do an even better job. Moving at the speed of an old dog, coughing and sputtering, I move across the water, kicking and grunting until my toes strike mud.

  I put my legs under me and nearly fall. My legs have become Twizzlers, wobbling back and forth, the muscles beyond spent. I make it to shore on the far side and collapse to my knees. My sopping wet socks quickly annoy me and I peel them off, wringing them out as my energy slowly returns.

  Elation that I’ve beaten this impassable challenge obscures the pain in my legs and draws a laugh. Without thought, I reach into the backpack, take out the phone and speed dial the only programmed number. I’m still a little giggly when Poe answers the phone.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks, worried. “What happened? Are you laughing? Oh my God, you scared me.”

  I quickly realize my mistake. Calls outside the designated times are for emergencies only. “Sorry,” I say. “Sorry. I just...I swam across this lake.”

  “You swam across a lake?”