“I live there with my dad,” Sara said.
Jill nodded.
“Me,” I said, “I live with my uncle. In a cabin. Over there,” waving a pointed finger to the east, beyond the Marcus house and the ridge, “on the other side of the valley.”
“I see,” she said, though she really wasn’t interested, not now. She brushed at her hair, shooing away a bottle fly. “Is it okay here?”
“Okay?” Sara straightened her legs, setting her hands on her knees. The deep tan of her skin made the fine hairs on her arms look like gold threads.
“You’re still scared,” I said, tossing the gnawed grass stem into the ground.
Her head tilted to the side. “Maybe a little, just a little,” she answered. “I wonder what’s going to happen next.”
“Wonder? Wonder about what?”
“It’s beautiful here.” Jill looked at the sky and plucked a long leaf of grass, holding it in the thumb and index fingers of both hands.
“It’s good here.” Sara said. “I’m happy—we’re happy.”
So much convincing, I thought. Life was more than scary now. But Jill was here and still she needed so much assurance.
“You must be happy.” She smiled, a small thin one, but her eyes glistened at the inside corners. For a second it looked like she might cry.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I’m okay.”
“You sure?” Sara gently touched Jill’s shoulder.
Jill nodded, but there was something in her voice, an urgency, when she asked, “Do you see new people coming here much?”
“No,” I said. “Not much. We’re careful. A few months ago, people—cars, trucks, everything was going up and down the roads. East and west, but now, there aren’t many people at all.”
Jill, we take care of our problems. I’ve done it myself, I thought. But to say that aloud? No. Nodding my head confidently, even as my insides quivered with cold memories, I said, “There’s no reason to worry about that.”
“Good.” Jill sighed. “Good, I’m glad.”
“Something on your mind?” Sara shook her head, her yellow hair flowing left and right like bending light.
“I don’t want to be . . . I don’t want my family hurt again.” Jill drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs.
“How did you know to come here?” I asked.
She looked away and said, “A man told my dad.”
“A man?”
“Yes.” Jill tightened the hug she had around her knees. “A man . . . he broke into our house . . .”
“Oh, no.” Sara said, crossing her arms.
Jill straightened up, almost ridged and looked out over the tall grass, seeing something faraway. Her eyes grew wide. “Dad wasn’t home.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth, and then took a long breath and let it out slowly. “Oh, those were long, long hours.”
Jill didn’t give details. I didn’t want them. A sick feeling froze me, and my hands grew cold. I thought I saw Sara shiver.
“The man rolled my little brother Kiel up in a carpet and left him the basement. He thought it very funny. Then he came . . . for Mom and me.” Jill’s hand shook as she brushed tears from her face. “Then Dad got home.” She rested her clasped hands on her knees. “Kiel had us worried. But he’s doing better. Not too many nightmares anymore.”
“And you and your mom,” Sara asked, “how about you two?”
Jill shrugged and looked at us “We’re here now. That’s what’s important.”
“But how did you know to get here,” I asked, again.
“The man,” she said, “he had something to tell my dad—once Dad caught him trying to get out the bedroom window. The man said he knew where things were better. Dad didn’t understand. I didn’t either. I just looked at Dad talking to this—”
Jill looked off into the sky.
“The man said I’ll make you a deal,” she went on, “and he said, I’ll tell you, but first—but first, he said . . . .” She shook her head, and then, “My Dad hit him with his gun. And hit him and hit him.”
She gazed at Sara and me with calm eyes. Like things were right.
“After Dad beat him, the man said he was here in the early spring, but people ran him off, and killed his friends, he said,” She suddenly looked hurt. “He was one that got away, but if he didn’t, if he hadn’t got away . . .” She seemed to let it all go now. “But we’re here now. That’s good.”
“Yes.” I said. And it’s a small grim world isn’t it, Jill? That day in the valley, fighting, killing to save my uncle’s life, it still wasn’t enough? I reach over and touched Jill’s arm. “I’m glad you’re here.”
We traded smiles, little smiles like the kind people use to hide some unhappiness.
The porch door opened and Lt. Brent, Mr. Marcus and Uncle Ray stepped out.
“Hey, Jill,” her father called. “Come here.” He smiled.
We stood, brushing dirt and bits of grass from our pants, and walked to the house. Mrs. Brant got out of the car and Kiel charged up the porch steps into his father’s arms.
As we neared the house, Sara asked Jill, “What happened to the . . .”
“The man?”
“Yes.”
“Dad killed him.” A cool satisfaction filled her words.
“Good.” I nodded. “Good, so he won’t be coming back.”
Jill shook her head.
Tad Brant opened the trunk of the sedan and brought out a 12-Gauge pump shotgun. “I think we can find a use for this.”
“Oh, yes,” Uncle Ray said. Taking the shotgun, he turned it in his hands, sunlight shimmering over the metal. “It’s good to have it, and you, here.”
Chapter 12
The walkie-talkies Lt. Brant brought worked out well. Using them even became a game at first, everybody calling to everybody else. Until Uncle Ray, listening in on the short wave radio from the cabin, broke in one day, and told everyone to, “Shut the hell up!” And then the lieutenant set out some ‘official’ guidelines, the big one being emergencies only.
The fun was gone, but the patrolling was easier, safer. All the patrols were still done in pairs, and each pair carried one walkie-talkie, but now, day or night, everyone on watch was no further than the press of the transmitting key.
One evening, Uncle Ray said, I couldn’t do the night watch.
I found his decision inexplicable. It was like being told you couldn’t stay up late or drive the car or anything else for that matter. I couldn’t get my mind around it. Sara’s explanation was about how a night watch was more dangerous. I could figure that out on my own, I told her.
I’d seen more than my share of danger. I didn’t bother to argue with my uncle. No night patrolling was okay with me. I preferred sleep. Who wouldn’t?
“Morning comes soon enough,” Uncle Ray said.
Of course, he was right.
With a pale-yellow light seeping in around the curtains, I awoke, rolled off the couch and watched the red glow of embers in the fireplace while I dressed.
The low burning embers made the living room warmer. Perspiration rose on my brow and arms, but without fire, there were no cooked meals. So, I could live with the discomfort of the extra heat from the fireplace, because a turkey, skewered by a spit, slowly roasted above the glowing coals. The heavy aroma of roasted fowl filled the room. With a black plastic handled knife I’d taken from the stone mantelpiece, I trimmed a piece of flesh from the carcass. Switching the hot turkey meat from hand to hand, I ate.
Uncle Ray slept, stretched out on the other couch. He wore only shorts and a t-shirt. His forearm lay across his face. He let out a low grumble of a snore with every exhale.
I ate some more turkey; then I cut slices from the bird, wrapped them in plastic, and stuffed the packet into a green book bag, along with two cucumbers and a plastic bottle filled with water. I belted on my revolver and the walkie-talkie, which hung in its own leather holster.
With the book bag in h
and, I stepped over to the fireplace one more time, and picked up two ears of corn I had roasting in the embers. The outer leaves of the corn husks were burned black in patches, but the roasted corn would be juicy sweet. I held the ears by stubby ends, where they’d grown from the corn stocks. I shook off the wood ash and put the ears in the bag which I shouldered. I walked carefully to the door, letting my uncle have another half-hour or so undisturbed before he rose and began on his long list of chores.
Outside I stood in the shadow of the cabin. The heat from the low fire we kept burning couldn’t compare with the heat of the August morning, which already bore down. With a breath, the dry air drove deep into my lungs.
As the sun rose, the sky would turn a pale-blue, almost white, with the growing heat of the day.
The cornfield, those rows of tall, leafy stocks were gone. All that remained was the furrows and the stumps where the cornstalks had grown, and dried leaves scattered over the ground.
The harvest had come and gone well. Mr. Harper announced that it was a bumper crop. After his combine broke down halfway through the harvesting, everyone around the valley came and continued the work by hand.
“Take as much as you can,” was Mr. Harper’s order of the day. People used papers and plastics bags, laundry baskets, makeshift-wagons and wheelbarrows. Mr. Harper also said to leave most of the corn out in the sun for at least three or four days for the sun to dry it out. The dried corn would be the food staple for winter, for making bread and seed for the next year.
Still the acreage, the long narrow floor of the valley, looked barren and wasted, even ghostly. The August heat baked the earth, sucking the water from it. The wind blew a rolling dust cloud across the arid ground.
To the north, I spotted Mr. Hansel trudging along the edge of the field, a gray dust puffed up from under his boots. He held his rifle by the barrel so that the butt hung back over his shoulder.
“Tired?” I called.
“You kidding? I’m exhausted.” Coming up beside me, he nodded to the cabin. “Your uncle in?”
“In? He’s still asleep.”
“Oh, I’ve got to fix that.” He grinned.
“He’s gonna like that. You barging in.” I chuckled. “Now, how did the night watch go with Terry?”
Terry Keel was about eighteen and had a couple younger brothers and a sister. His parents had a house to the north, at the furthest end of the valley, just on the other side of the ridge road. The Keel’s also helped Lt. Brant and his family move into a neighboring house, which remained unoccupied since the couple living there never returned from New York City on a daytrip. The day of the Manhattan bomb.
“Terry’s fine. And the watch wasn’t bad,” Dan Hansel said. “Not bad at all, until I got the hell scared out of me.”
“By what?”
“Hell, I don’t know. In the dark, I couldn’t tell. A rabbit, maybe. Or a raccoon. But it was worse for Terry Keel. He did a kind of panic dance and almost ran home.”
“Where’s he now?”
“At home.”
I laughed, but not too loudly. Who was I kidding? Being on watch, even in the light of day was nerve-racking. Being unprepared and seeing Lt. Brant’s sedan coming down the road was still a fresh and unsettling memory.
“I let him take off a little early,” Mr. Hansel said. “His mother’s doing some canning and wanted him to help out.”
“Lucky guy,” I said, “getting off the night watch early just to do more work.”
Mr. Hansel shrugged and scratched the dark-brown beard he’d started to grow. “You’re patrolling with Wheeler today, right?”
“Yeah, I’m off to meet him.” I pointed a thumb southward.
“Sorry to keep you. You better get going. Keep your eyes open and take care.” He gave me a pat on the shoulder.
“Sure will.” I gave a nod and started down the valley.
Mr. Hansel banged a heavy fist on the cabin front door. “Hey, Ray! Wake up!”
I chuckled, because I could see Uncle Ray rolling over, not wanting to drag himself off the couch.
And who would? Not me. Early morning patrols, afternoon patrols and night patrols. No one wanted to do any of it. We all knew that. Mr. Hansel would rather fix cars and not wander around in the dark. And Uncle Ray, along with the watches he went on, also took on a collection of other worries. He wouldn’t admit to it. Being worried made him tired, and he was always working on some idea, some project with Mr. Marcus. With the corn having been harvested, they worked on stills for making corn liquor.
“And not just for drinking!” Uncle Ray grinned. “For fuel. We want to keep the vehicles going as long as possible.”
Still there was always the worrying.
Some real good did come from the arrival of Lt. Brant and his family. Uncle Ray’s concern for nuclear contamination ended completely, not that he’d checked for signs of contamination in the past months. The Geiger counter gathered dust with all the other equipment in the backroom. Lt. Brant confirmed the fact that fallout from the Manhattan and Philadelphia bombs was never a big concern out here.
“Not a problem,” the lieutenant said.
“Good.” Uncle Ray nodded and then found something else to worry about.
But for me, the thought of there being no radiation to worry about struck me as funny, not funny “Ha-ha,” funny in a strange sad way, deep down inside.
Because there was always plague. The biological attack had spread through the western and central part of the country. It hadn’t shown here, but who knew if it would? Who could’ve been sure? Most danger arrived on two legs, so we patrolled.
I spotted crows, about four of them, winging around in the sky in narrow circles. No cawing, just silent and then diving straight to the ground in front of me about forty—fifty feet away. They strutted along the ground. Sunlight shimmered on their black feathers. Their black beaks stabbed at the earth, picking at loose kernels of corn.
Anger flared up in me, because somehow I saw more than crows eating. I saw more than corn. I saw death.
I snatched a flat stone from the dirt and flung it. The egg-shaped rock flew straight and struck the ground in the midst of the carrion birds. Dust and crows burst into the air as the stone skipped once more and rolled to a stop. The birds darted up and up, then hovered, fluttered and then continued in circles.
They’d be back, scavenging those last few kernels.
I watched them looking like black scars, and then I gazed around. The heat bore down on the dry earth, and the trees and bushes on both slopes of the valley stood yellow and parched in the hot still air.
I was alone, squinting against the sun glaring down on a new day. I’d lost so much, my home and my brother. My parents were shadows in my dreams. But I wasn’t going to lose anyone else, not my uncle, not Sara or her father—no one—I’d had enough of that as I studied the crows fluttering and gliding in the bright morning sky, waiting for me to move on. I dropped a hand to the walkie-talkie and turned the On/Volume knob, the black plastic already hot in the sunlight.
A short burst of static from the speaker, then silence. With one more look at the crows in arcing flight, I started down the valley, walking under their shadows drifting along the ground.
The walkie-talkie crackled. I adjusted the volume and double checking the channel switch, waiting for patrols to check in. Lt. Brant arranged the watches so they overlapped as they patrolled the valley, keeping to a time schedule, offering visual confirmation for the people on watch along with radio contact. My meeting point with Mr. Wheeler was on the south road near his home. Mr. Wheeler was a different man these days. After finding the wreck of the Knapp’s SUV in the stream, we started spending more time together. He’d lost a little weight like everyone else and walked more briskly. His beard had grown, giving him the look of ‘ol St. Nick. When he went fishing, I joined him. We stood watch together more often, too.
On today’s patrol route, we’d work our way up the eastern ridge past the cabin and meet an
other patrol at noon, near the Keel property. And maybe, if the chance arose, I’d ask Terry about how scary the previous night’s watch was. I grinned, considering some smartass remark about rabbits or raccoons.
Gunfire crackled in the hot morning silence. The boom of a shotgun followed, rolling up from the southern end of the valley.
A voice screeched from the walkie-talkie bouncing against my hip, sputtering out as jumbled electric squawks. I touched the butt of the revolver holstered on my belt.
Another series of high-pinging gunshots echoed. Again a shotgun barked.
A frantic babble squawked from the walkie-talkie, but Lt. Brant cut in bringing order to the furry of conversation. But every nerve in my body fired off, readying me to go.
Mr. Marcus came on the radio and then Maggie Waite.
Another cough of a shotgun blast rumbled through midmorning heat.
I thought about meeting Mr. Wheeler now, but I was unsure of what to do. I tore the walkie-talkie from the leather holster, but he didn’t have one available. I rubbed a hand over my mouth.
From the radio, the lieutenant continued with rapid-fire questions about location and those involved.
Again the shotgun roared, rumbling through midmorning heat.
I decided to make a move, first at a trot and then in a headlong run, down the valley in the direction of the gunfire, leaving a trail of swirling yellow dust.
Chapter 13
The baking sun boiled my sweat, which ran down my face and drenched the back of my shirt. Stinging perspiration rolled into my eyes and I swept it away with the back of a hand. The papery taste of hot air filled my mouth.
Up ahead, a low line of shrubs grew among young maples, beyond that was the south road cutting east-west across the lower end of the valley. My boots thumped on the dry earth. I dodged low tree branches and crashed through the barrier of weeds and bushes.
I skidded to a halt in the gray stones along the side of the road, scattering gravel over the blacktop, and dropped to one knee. I wiped the streaming sweat from my face. The scalding odor of tar rose from the asphalt. I raised the radio to my ear trying to learn something when a growing rhythmic thudding sounded from the woods across the road.
Dark Land: An Apocalyptic Novel Page 8