Savages

by Christina Bergling

And we marched on.

  14

  As the city grew in front of us, the buildings crumbled before our eyes. The ragged line of skyscrapers and structures I had seen, that had enticed me so deeply, dissolved into twisted shambles and skeletons of the metropolis it once was. The city was an illusion, a mirage. Its smoking corpse was what we really found.

  We entered at a distance from the vacant multilane highway with its collapsed overpasses and fractured asphalt. Cars still littered the fragmented blacktop, broken backs dangling into the fissures, doors left ajar. The fading road snaked into the fallout. The suburbs were nothing but leveled, crumbled remnants. I could make out the formulaic American city standard and the vague grid structure where cookie-cutter houses used to sit lazily. It was a confetti of domestic destruction.

  “What city do you think this was?” I asked as we eased slowly over large chunks of displaced driveways and shattered siding.

  “Hard to tell. Seems like the welcome sign didn’t survive.”

  “It doesn’t look like anything survived.”

  “If we’re lucky. I think I found you in the desert east of the Rockies. New Mexico maybe? Since we crossed the pass, this could be Utah, Arizona maybe. Not like that means anything anymore.”

  “Surely this isn’t Vegas. Uriah said it was a crater, a bomb or something.”

  “Definitely not Vegas. No hooker flyers. Those things would be everywhere. Plus, that would be more south. Pretty sure we would have scaled a lot more mountains.”

  “Fuck. Those nearly killed me. We’ve never been in one of the cities that got bombed before.”

  “There was never anything for us in them. No viable supplies, nowhere to shelter. Only the risk of attack.”

  “Your objections are duly fucking noted.”

  “As long as they’re noted.”

  The highway led us up weathered, questionable overpasses as it slithered through what used to be. We had never followed an interstate before. We had never gone into a true city before. Dead civilization on the largest scale, miles upon miles of graveyard. I marched us toward the phantom downtown. I plainly saw it was not my glistening city, but I still had to see; I had to set my boots there.

  Each step was deliberate to navigate the chaos and to keep guarded. Each time I looked over at him, he was rigid. He bounced his blade in his hand so that its shadow danced on the ground beside him. He clenched his jaw; I saw it flex in his cheek. I heard his deep and purposeful breaths. I read his body language, but I was inclined to ignore it. I was transfixed by what remained of the skyline.

  My survivalist began to whisper to me as our safe isolation disappeared out of reach, as my nerves began to tense. What was I doing? What in the holy fuck was I doing? I always listened to him; I always followed him. And it had kept me alive. He knew how to survive while I only knew how to tempt death. Maybe that was what I was doing. Maybe I was committing the indirect suicide he accused. Taking him with me. Eradicating the last two remaining humans. Like a good savage.

  Gradually, buildings and structures began to sprout out from the desolation. First, a lone standing wall in a parking lot blown empty. Then a house with a collapsed roof. A shopping center boasting at least half its stores. Ruins emerged from rubble.

  Finally, we reached what might have once been an office building. It was the tallest standing structure we had approached. From one side, it looked stable and relatively untouched. The gray concrete intersected with large lobby windows. The side of the building acted as a mirror, reflecting the nothingness behind us. Yet the other side of the building had collapsed into rubble. The entire side, all five floors, lay fragmented and crumbled in a twisted pile.

  Again, we witnessed random sparing in chaotic destruction—as usual.

  “I want to get a better look,” I said.

  “Now we’re going into a half-collapsed, completely unstable structure for a better look.”

  “You know, when I thought you were leading us to do something stupid, I at least kept that shit to myself.”

  I moved toward the building. He audibly rolled his eyes as he clomped after me. Cracks snaked over the glass of the doors and windows on the more preserved side, giving the ghastly appearance of giant spider webs, ignited by the light pouring in from the missing half of the structure. As I cautiously peeled the door back, it creaked and snapped, echoing in the empty rooms.

  The destroyed office looked unnatural with sunlight pouring in, with its uniformed furniture and cubicle walls flung against the enduring structure. The tangled wreckage hunched in the shadows, hiding between what remained of the floors, partitions, and ceilings. As we eased into the daylight, it was nothing but the ragged edge where the floor simply fell away. We both stepped to the brink.

  “Wow,” I breathed.

  “Whoa,” he echoed.

  Our simple one floor in elevation unfolded the devastation, the utter and complete loss of the city. My hope lay slaughtered and collapsed at my feet; my false mirage was shoved in my face. The majority of the buildings were reduced to perverse structures with warped steel beams. They had been gutted, and their innards smothered the ground around them. Rubble, the entire goddamn city was nothing but wreckage and debris. How could I have seen a pardoned city here? How could I have imagined anything here?

  We stood with our mouths agape, just staring out at a scene people never lived to see.

  The wake of utter destruction left my heart knocking hard on my ribcage. It was something my brain could barely interpret. A torrent of emotions began to swell through my extremities.

  “Marcus,” I said quietly.

  He stopped cold and turned to stare at me. His expression was blank, stunned.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  I had never said it. Not in all our time together. Not after the many times he had saved me.

  He pushed his sunglasses up onto his forehead to look at me. I could see something brewing in the edge of his expression. I could see something pressing against his eyes. He stepped forward. His hand found its way into my hair; then he pulled me to him by the back of my neck. I allowed him drag me as he wanted.

  His lips met my own aggressively, his face pressing hard into mine. My heart was pounding already, limbs tingling, mind racing. The stubble on his face grated against my cheeks, but I didn’t feel it. I opened my mouth hungrily as he started to devour me. I heard him inhale deeply as he leaned into me harder.

  Finally.

  I opened my mouth and felt his breath fill my lungs as his tongue slid past my teeth. My body throbbed. He wrapped around me tightly, sword bumping into my calves. I tugged him closer, arms groping at his shoulders and neck. His fingers sank in to what was left of the back of my thighs and lifted me up. I clung to his neck, pressed my chest into his, dove into his mouth. He heaved me up and slammed me against the crumbling wall as weapons clanged to the floor. His pelvis pressed into mine; I could feel his hips through our clothes.

  Our breathing collided; I could hear it ravenous and desperate. When I let my tongue tease at his earlobe, I heard him moan and felt my body flush. Our bodies were falling into rhythm, begging for consummation, moving instinctually in a language our cells spoke fluently. I couldn't keep my eyes open; my body did not want the sensations spreading through it competing with sight. I didn’t want to see anything; I wanted to feel every second of it.

  He slid his hands up the back of my shirt. I felt his fingers on my skin, his flesh on my flesh. The warmth sent waves vibrating through me. I could feel my nerves climbing, standing on edge, stiffening and arching my body.

  As I let my head fall back, as his teeth dragged slowly along my neck, I saw a figure out of the corner of my eye.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I breathed.

  They were on him first, before either of us really knew what was coming, lost in each other. They ripped him back, and I fell hard onto the concrete floor. I saw his body topple off the edge of the floor and vanish from view as I struggled to colle
ct myself.

  They watched him fall then turned to me, circling and panting, as I slid back up the wall. That wretched, primal sound. Pain radiated up my back as impact echoed in my cells. I gathered his sword in one hand and my cutlass in the other as they eased toward me, eyes wide, mouths wagging, fingers wriggling.

  They all looked the same anymore. These two had the same filthy skin, the same bulging eyes and disgusting murderous look on their faces. It had once been terrifying and unnerving to see what I knew to have once been people so lowered and living decayed; yet now, even in the peril of this moment, I just wanted to roll my eyes at the monotony of them all. They had devolved out of individuality, out of personality, which I had never realized were hallmarks of humanity. Animals were fucking boring.

  I recognized the black utility belt clinging to the melted waist of one. He had been a cop. The cuffs, the gun, the pepper spray all long ago stripped, leaving the pockets unsnapped and flapping. His tattered clothes were the right dark blue to have been a uniform once upon a past lifetime. He let his mouth hang open as saliva streamed from one corner and pooled down his chest. My heart sank a little lower as I pictured Dante donning his uniform for his graduation, how he puffed up a little straighter and strutted across the bedroom to the door, how he couldn't stop smiling under that ridiculous hat.

  The other was a skeleton with only a thin layer of stretched flesh enveloping her. I could barely make out her deflated breasts from her protruding ribs. When she stretched her fingers toward me, I saw the tendons shift up her forearm; I saw her bicep ripple sickly. Her gray skin was covered with open sores, red and brown craters in what remained of her, windows practically to her bones. I wondered if these two had been married, if they had managed to fall together. I wondered if they would even remember what they had been to each other.

  In that moment, I saw my boys—Dante, Jordi, Eli—waiting for me. Dante was wearing his faded Bears shirt, hair and goatee clipped short and clean. Jordi stood beside him, standing on his toes, reaching as high as he could to wave to me. His smile was wide, so excited it might spill off his cheeks. Dante had one hand on Jordi’s bouncing shoulder and had Eli wrapped up in the other arm. Eli was his perfect shade of caramel, not green. He grinned a broad, childish grin that exposed his lone two teeth jutting out from his lower gums. They all smiled at me; they were all welcoming me. I knew this was the moment. I could lay down the fight and finally join them; I could give the fuck up, and it could finally just be over. For both of us.

  Free. Forgiven.

  I knew he was alive below where I stood, on the other side of these two hollow savages.

  His shadow against the sky as I looked over the three dead bodies, sword outstretched, gun at his thigh.

  His breath on my neck as he restrained me in the desert.

  The smile spread across his face as he itemized the bug out bags in the prepper house and packed his bag heavier.

  Xavier sleeping on his thigh by the firelight.

  The sword in his hand draped over the two of us as we slept huddled together on the ground.

  His hands in the dirt and his lips lingering on Xavier's cold skin.

  His hand laced in mine as we co-slept with a grave.

  The smell of his dirty skin as I pressed my face against him for warmth.

  The sound of his footsteps following me into this death trap.

  They stepped closer still. My heart pounded as my survivalist seized back control of my cognitive functions.

  I tightened my grip on our worn weapons and lifted them high.

  15

  I dismembered them together, mingling their bloody pieces in an indistinguishable pile. If they had once been a couple, they would not be able to be separated now. Death could reunite their parts. With the echoes of their panting and shrieks fading from the building, my survivalist abandoned me, and my mind fell back into my head.

  "Marcus," I breathed.

  I found him crawling where the collapsed floor met the dirt. He leaned to the side, bracing himself along the rubble with a twisted piece of rebar clutched in his fist. Another couple of bodies lay crumpled behind him. Blood painted the dusty chunks as I counted the two bludgeoned heads. He cradled his ribs and stepped cautiously until he heard me jumping and sliding to him.

  “Neutralized?” he panted.

  I nodded. “In pieces. No sign of others. Yet.”

  He stopped and pressed his back into a large piece of concrete with rebar snaking out of the edges like industrial weeds. I scuffled down a long angle of misplaced floor and landed beside him. The impact of my boots kicked up tiny clouds of dirt. I stood in front of him and leaned forward, running my hands along his neck and opening his coat to inspect him. A wound on his forehead spewed a trail of blood down the side of his face, mingling and converging with sweat. Yet no protruding bones, no gaping holes. He looked good enough to move. Without additional thought, without question, I swooped under his wounded side and propped him up against me.

  I felt the weight of his side against my shoulder as I forced my steps to guide us straight, the most direct path out of this mistake. I could hear him wincing and tightening his breathing in my ear. I didn't care if it was exposed; I didn't care if we had just killed four savages—the highway was the quickest route back to safety. I dragged him back onto the fractured and faded asphalt, back over the questionable overpasses, back through the sheared lack of suburbia until we could see the desert spreading out in front of us again.

  The outside of my calf and the depths of my thigh began to whine and burn in the exertion of walking for both of us, but his breathing began to calm the farther we hobbled. I felt him reclaim more and more of his own weight. Finally, he wobbled upright and let his arm slip from around my shoulders. He stopped for a moment and attempted to straighten his torso, only to collapse back into a hunched and protected position. He adjusted his pack, shifting the weight to the undamaged side, and started moving.

  As the city dissolved behind us, he stood on his own again. He hobbled awkwardly, limped with a wide stance.

  “Are you hit?” I asked, turning my head at him. “More than your side?”

  “No.” He sort of laughed. “First time I’ve ever had to fight with blue balls. Yep, pretty awful. Walking it off, just walking it off. Let’s get the fuck out of here.” He adjusted himself. Then readjusted himself again, protectively clutching his ribs as he did. I probably shouldn’t have smiled, but I did. A genuine smile that I felt in my chest. In another life, I would have blushed.

  “I think I’ll go back to letting you lead,” I said when it was far enough away to be safe to laugh.

  “You’re goddamn right you will. You suck at it. You are an awful battle buddy.”

  “What is a battle buddy?”

  “The guy to your right, the guy watching your back when you’re in the shit.”

  “One horrible decision and I’m an awful battle buddy?”

  “Today, yes. Redo tomorrow. Maybe.” He was slowly starting to walk normally, only hunched toward his wounded side. “Everyone knows there’s a special bond between brothers in arms. Smitty was my battle buddy. And yes, we had the ridiculous call signs like Razor.”

  “What was yours?”

  “Razor.”

  I laughed out loud at him. We could have been mistaken for a couple leaving a movie. If we weren’t covered in blood. This could have been mistaken for a date. If we weren’t combat drunk.

  “I saved his ass; he saved my ass,” he continued. “But Smitty and I were close. Closer than we should have been. Don’t look at me like that. Not any Brokeback Mountain shit, though that was known to happen. Don’t ask; don’t tell. We swore if we made it out, every year we would go fishing or camping or whatever the fuck. He kept me alive in the darkest, and I don’t even know how he died when all this happened.”

  We didn't know what had happened to most of them. My parents in Indiana. The two women I ate lunch with every day at work. Jordi and Eli's teachers. Our ne
xt-door neighbor with the yapping dog that never shut up. The high school boy who bagged my groceries. The mindless drones on the treadmills after work. The boys in Dante's precinct. It was inconceivable just how many people, how many strings and connections tangled up in our lives, were instantly severed. They were all dead; this was something we knew without needing proof, but how they died was both a mystery and irrelevant. Tragic explanations would only lay more wounds upon the already scarred backs of the survivors. It was better not to know; it was better to forget they ever existed at all.

  He winced and forced hard breaths through strained lips as I helped him ease down to the ground.

  “I think it’s just some cracked ribs,” he said. “Nothing to really worry about.”

  “Take off your shirt.”

  “Hey now. I’m not that easy.”

  “Obviously. I let you do the killing and train me. Let me do what I do.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I was a nurse,” I paused. “Let me rephrase. I started nursing school. Then sold out.”

  “How did I not know this?”

  “Never came up.”

  I let my fingers wander over the ripple of his ribs. His breathing stumbled and his side tightened. When my fingers landed on a soft pocket of blooming fluid, he visibly flinched and cried out through his teeth. I pressed my ear to his warm chest and listened to the steady thump of his heartbeat and the air moving in his lungs. I let my hand linger at his side, savoring the simple feeling of his skin as I leaned back up.

  “Yeah, I think it’s just broken ribs. Nothing sounds punctured. You are lucky as fuck.”

  He smiled. “I told you we were the lucky ones.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Now shut it. You need to rest. I’ll deal with the fire, the food. You just fucking lay there. And shut it.”

  “So this nurse business…”

  “That’s not shutting it.”

  “What do you mean you sold out?”

  I gathered the few sticks and shrubs nearby as he refused to shut it. I dug through our sacks for the flint and more cans of prepper food.