“I know.” She touched my arm.
I looked away as a low electric sensation went through me.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
I turned and looked up the ridge to where Uncle Ray crouched in the shade of a stand of white birch trees, a rifle slung over his shoulder. He stood watch, and three other people did the same at difference places around the valley.
“He’s on watch until five o’clock, isn’t he?” Sara asked.
“Yeah, Mr. Hansel takes over then. He’s on until eleven tonight.”
Sara and I met Dan Hansel while we were clearing the valley for planting. He was a quiet man, and divorced, and I thought, maybe, that was why he was quiet, still mourning. He didn’t know where his two kids were. They had been visiting their mother in Maine, but like a lot of other people’s relatives, his son and daughter disappeared along with his ex-wife as the world broke down. He used to run a local garage near his home, which was up the valley. But no gasoline meant no cars, so he tinkered a lot, just like Uncle Ray did.
“Well, we can head over to your house and work on your garden.” I said.
“Lunch first,” Sara said. “The turkey you got is in a pot right now.”
“Great!” I smiled and I meant it. The previous day the turkey had trotted out of the woods and into range of my bow.
“I also want to spend some time with my Mom.”
I nodded. Mrs. Marcus was hanging on, one breath at a time.
“I’ll just let Uncle Ray know that we’re going.” I turned to head up.
My uncle slowly stood, looking down the other side of the ridge. He held the rifle in both hands, so it could easily be aimed.
“Something’s up,” I said.
Sara nodded.
I wasn’t sure what to do, but I didn’t want to wait, so I started a slow walk up. I didn’t want to be running up there and suddenly find I needed my bow.
A moment later a man appeared, walking up the opposite slope, looking like he was slowly rising out of the ground.
“It’s Mr. Wheeler,” Sara said.
“Let’s see what’s going on.” I jogged up the ridge.
Uncle Ray set the butt-end of the rifle on the ground and leaned on the muzzle. Mr. Wheeler, an older man, near sixty, talked and gestured with his hands.
“I wish I could hear him,” Sara said, moving with me.
“Yeah, he looks pretty excited,” I said.
Mr. Wheeler pointed back over his shoulder, southward. His home was beyond a narrow two-lane road that cut straight across his property which was the southernmost point of the valley.
We neared the top of the slope and the murmur of conversation grew louder. Mr. Wheeler was upset and talked very fast, stumbling over his words.
“Ken, slow down. Take your time,” my uncle said, holding out a hand.
Mr. Wheeler stopped and took a breath.
Uncle Ray nodded to Sara and me when we reached them.
“Ray, you need to take a look—” Mr. Wheeler stopped speaking when he saw us out of the corner of his eye.
Uncle Ray noticed and grinned a little at first; then the grin went away. His eyebrows bunched together, and his lips pressed into a thin line.
Mr. Wheeler put a hand on Uncle Ray’s shoulder to turn him away from us, but my uncle stopped him.
“They can hear what you have to say. It’s okay,” Uncle Ray said.
“You sure?” Mr. Wheeler said.
“Yes, I’m sure. Stan will be the one going with you anyway. So, he’ll have to know what’s going on.”
“Him?”
The doubt in Mr. Wheeler’s voice annoyed me for a second.
“Ken, I’m on watch here. I can’t go. You know that. That’s how it works.”
That made me feel better, because I didn’t care for the doubt in Mr. Wheeler’s voice or his eyes. Uncle Ray had a deep, firm confidence in me, even though Mr. Wheeler still seemed unsure.
“But what’s happened?” Sara asked Mr. Wheeler, but he didn’t say anything.
“Uncle Ray?” She’d taken to calling him that out of nowhere, a few weeks back, which brought a faint smile to his lips for an instant.
“Well, Sara, sometime in the last day or so—or last night you think, Ken?”
“Yeah. It couldn’t have been long. Probably happened last night,” Mr. Wheeler said.
“Alright then.” Uncle Ray turned to me. “Ken found a vehicle, an SUV, in the stream and a man’s body floating in the stream. It looks like the car he was driving ran off the Yostville Road Bridge, that narrow bridge on the south road. So, I want you to go with him and take a look. Ultimately, we’re going to have to get the body and the car out of stream because we might have to drink that water someday. Now, Sara, you go tell your dad. I think Jay Harper is with him, right?”
“Yes,” she said.
Uncle Ray pointed at me, “You go get your bow.”
“Sure will,” I said, not that he had to tell me, but my thoughts were already on the body. And the possibility of danger.
“Is that necessary?” Mr. Wheeler asked.
“What?” Uncle Ray asked
“The bow.”
“That I don’t know.” Uncle Ray waved a hand down the slope. “You two, get going.”
Down the slope we went. At the bottom, Sara took my arm with a warm, firm hold.
“You be careful,” she said.
“I will.” I smiled
Sara took off in a flat-out run across the valley, taking wide steps over the furrows like a deer.
***
I grabbed my bow and quiver, from the corner by the fireplace, and went back to the top of the ridge.
“You ready?” Uncle Ray asked.
“You sure about him going, Ray?” Mr. Wheeler crossed his arms.
“Trust me, Ken. He can take better care of himself than you can.” Uncle Ray grinned. “Now you,” he tapped my shoulder, “keep your eyes open. I don’t expect anything, but you should just the same.”
Mr. Wheeler grimaced and said, “So what are you going to do?”
“Stand watch. Sara will get to her dad and the others will get there as soon as they can. So take off.”
“Fine. Let’s go.” Mr. Wheeler gestured with a toss of his head.
I followed him down the opposite slope to the road. In the heat of the day, the strong oily odor of the blacktop filled the air. About a hundred feet or so on the side of the road, a dark-blue sedan sat in the shade of maples trees.
“You drove?” I asked.
“Why not?” Mr. Wheeler looked at me, annoyed.
“Gas. It’s so hard to come by.”
“I thought the accident was important, so I drove.” Mr. Wheeler gazed at me a little longer, and then turned away.
Something about the apologetic sound in his voice made me uncomfortable. I shifted the quiver on my shoulder, and said, “Makes sense.”
Mr. Wheeler looked at me again, and nodded, as if it mattered that I thought his decision was right.
We reached the car. I opened the front door, dropped into the passenger seat. I propped my bow and quiver on the floor next to the door. When Mr. Wheeler sat behind the steering wheel, he sighed in a way that still gave me the impression that I shouldn’t be going.
“Okay,” I said.
He sat quietly a moment then said, “Okay.” He started the car, which gave off a low moaning rumble. After a big sweeping turn, the car moved down the road.
I rested my arm on the frame of the open car window. A cool breeze rushed in, and the purr of the engine felt friendly and familiar in my ears. Being in a moving car again offered up sensations of the past, a faint whiff of exhaust brought back memories the same way smelling homemade cookies did, along with the almost imperceptible vibration of the engine through the seat cushions.
“You’re smiling,” Mr. Wheeler said.
I shrugged. “Yeah.”
“About what?”
“Cars. Being in a car. It’s seems like it’s been forever.”
“I know what you mean.” He nodded slowly. Until then, he’d held the steering wheel with both hands, but one slipped off into his lap, and he drove on, relaxed, one hand easing the wheel with small adjustments.
The ride shouldn’t have taken long, but in some spots large branches were scattered over the pavement. With the lack of traffic and maintenance, tree branches hung low, wild grass and weeds began to creep in on the road. Damp patches from the previous two days of rain still stained the asphalt a darker black.
Mr. Wheeler slowed the car, put both hands on the steering wheel, and drove onto the shoulder to avoid a fallen maple tree. The car tires sloshed in the muddy water in the rut along the side of the road. The rotten tree trunk lay more than halfway across the blacktop, with wood splinters scattered about as if the tree had exploded. Small branches crackled under the car tires. Under the shadows of overhanging branches, moist cool air drifted in through the open window.
Mr. Wheeler guided the car back onto the road and picked up speed. He kept both hands on the wheel and his grip seemed to tighten a little.
“You sure you want to be going?” he asked.
“What?”
“I said are you sure you want to be going. You know, to see a . . . a dead person and all?”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, annoyed at being asked again.
He peered at me out of the corner of his eye.
I didn’t know Mr. Wheeler as well as others who lived around the valley. When the first community meeting was held at Mr. Marcus’s house, with so many people crammed into the downstairs TV room, I had trouble keeping track of all the new faces and names. When Mr. Wheeler was introduced, he was nervous, but friendly. He stood there like it was the first day of school, and he was telling everyone his name. His fingers trembled and his voice quavered as he said he was more than happy to offer up his land for plowing.
I watched Mr. Wheeler drive; his hands moved on the wheel as if he were wringing out a wet towel.
“It bothers you?” I asked.
“Bothers me?”
“Yeah, seeing the dead man, again.”
“Well, that bothers me and I thought it should bother you. Doesn’t it?”
I shrugged.
“You mean it doesn’t bother you? Really?” he said in a funny surprised way like he thought I was kidding.
“I’ve seen dead people before.”
“Oh?” Somehow he sounded as if I was kidding.
“Yes,” I said, trying to be firm.
He shook his head and he seemed uncomfortable in the way he watched the road, not looking back at me to continue the conversation.
Mr. Wheeler was quiet again, being the kind of man who kept things inside. At the community meeting, he told us he lived alone. His wife died a few years before things changed. Now, he was alone and getting older. He couldn’t farm. He didn’t hunt. But he fished. He fished a lot, and he’d told everyone, “I use to fish for fun; now I fish to eat.”
Although Mr. Wheeler sat next to me, his silence made him seem far away. So, I watched the trees and the grass pass in a deep-green blur, occasionally flashing in the bright sunshine which broke through the foliage.
“You miss your home?” he asked, breaking the quiet.
“Home?”
“Yeah. You’re not from here, so do you think about it?”
“I do.”
Mr. Wheeler glanced at me, expecting more.
I shrugged. “Most of the time I think about the way things used to be and how they’re not going to come back.”
His mouth twitched a little at one corner. He didn’t say any more.
We were quiet again. The ride seemed to grow longer and then I asked, “I lived outside Philly, in Springfield. Did you ever visit the city?”
“Let’s not talk about that,” Mr. Wheeler said.
I heard anger in his words, but I didn’t think he was angry at me. He just didn’t want to talk about it, now that I did.
Sunlight flashed and flickered between the trees like the projection of some old film. I was alone, squinting against the glaring sun. I wondered about the radiation and the bomb, and the last time that I saw my parents.
Chapter 6
That last evening Dad did his best to maneuver Mom toward the door, saying, “We want to get to the restaurant and eat so we can get to the show on time.”
“John, we have time,” Mom said.
“Yeah, until there’s a pile-up on the highway.” Dad finished pulling on a navy-blue overcoat, and handed Mom her long black winter coat.
“Okay, okay, so let’s get going.” She looked at me and rolled her eyes. The wave and curl of her short hair bounced when she shook her head. She smiled.
I chuckled.
Dad said, “You and your brother keep your noses clean.”
“We won’t burn the place down,” Johnny yelled from the living room. “Not today!”
“Not today, he says.” Dad shook his head and grinned. “Let’s get going, honey.” He took Mom by the arm.
They left through the connecting kitchen door into the garage. Dad pressed a wall switch and the garage door hummed open. The cold night air rushed in bringing with it a few fat snowflakes. My parents got into the sedan; the car doors shut with a thunk.
I waved and Mom wiggled her fingers, holding the collar of her coat shut with the other hand. The car eased out and down the driveway onto Thatcher Street, and the garage door grumbled shut. Car exhaust curled along the concrete floor.
When I closed the connecting door I smelled the lingering odor of Dad’s Old Spice and the faint lilac scent of Mom’s perfume, something I bought her for Christmas. I couldn’t recall the name, but I bought the perfume because I’d liked the looked of the thick glass of the blue bottle, textured by moons and stars.
The preheating alarm for the oven buzzed.
“You want to throw the pizza in?” Johnny called.
“Sure.” The frozen eight inch pizza was de-boxed and lying on a cookie sheet on the kitchen counter, so I popped it into the oven, set the timer and went into the living room.
Pizza was Mom’s idea. “You won’t have much to clean up,” she’d said.
Who could argue with that? Between me and my brother, there wouldn’t be any leftovers.
Johnny slouched on the sofa with his feet propped up on the ottoman, toes wiggling inside white athletic socks. In his hands he cradled a tall glass of soda on his stomach.
“What’s on now?” I nodded at the television.
“Nothing. That’s what’s on.”
“Oh . . . well, how about a video game?”
“Fine with me,” he said.
That Friday night was a strange one. Johnny stayed home. No friends were over. Not that our parents would’ve minded. Dad said once, “Neither of you are dirt bags so you don’t have dirt bag friends.”
Mom had given him a look, the one with the arched eyebrow.
“Am I wrong?” Dad shrugged as an amused smile sparked in his hazel eyes.
That night was a night you knew nothing should go wrong. Pizza, soda, video games, yelling, a few curses, too. Just plain fun.
But like in the movies, night became day for a long drawn out second.
Next to my brother, I sat cross-legged in front of the television a game controller in my hands.
“What the . . . ,” was all Johnny said.
A white light pulsed and rose, swirling up rapidly into the night sky. An electrical snap pierced the air, and the house lights, the television, the appliances died. An instant later the air seemed to cough long and loud, and then sigh. The windows rattled in their frames sounding the way a box of wood matches did when shook. The intense burst of light that filled the house receded, flowing back through the living room and passing out of the windows.
A silent blackness dominated everything: the room, the house and the street.
We stood and walked, in a stumb
ling way, to the living room windows. The blast of light had fallen back to become a fake sunset above the city skyline to the southeast, flexing red and orange in the night. Currents of surging, curling light still rose up higher and higher above the city.
“Oh, Johnny . . .,” I murmured and stared at the glow.
He put a hand on my shoulder.
In the deep, stunning false dawn, I knew what had happened.
The electricity didn’t come back on, and the red blaze over the city stayed. The portable radio in the kitchen hissed static, and our neighbors gathered in the cold night on the street. Some didn’t even bother to put on coats, most talked in low voices, misty puffs came out of their mouths. Snowflakes drifted out of the dark. Everybody had an idea of what happened. The wail of a few far-off sirens became hundreds.
“Maybe we should all go inside,” someone said.
Some people agreed, but the crowd on the street didn’t thin out.
“Should we go in?” I looked at Johnny, sliding my hands into my jacket pockets.
“I don’t know, maybe . . . I don’t know.” His hands were stuffed into the front pockets of his jeans.
One of our neighbors, Mrs. McKee was scared. Her husband was out, and she was alone with a baby. She held the child wrapped in a blue blanket that appeared gray in the darkness.
None of us knew what to do. What was there to do?
“What about Mom and Dad?” I crossed arms, stuffing my fingers into the armpits of my jacket
My brother gazed at me. “I don’t know.”
I nodded and realized he was as unsure and as scared as I was. “I’ll shut up, now,” I said.
“No . . . no you don’t,” He wrapped an arm around my neck. “No, you talk as much as you want. Okay?”
I nodded, again.
“Good,” he said and took a big breath, letting it out slow.
Mr. Haley, who lived two houses down, brought a metal trash can out of his garage, filled with scrap wood. He set the wood alight with a little gasoline and a rag. The flame leaped with a whoosh. Other people began trash can fires, too. A nervous laughter rolled out from the crowd as people warmed their hands, but everyone watched the red glowing city skyline pulse against a stark darkness.
Dark Land: An Apocalyptic Novel Page 4