Dark Land: An Apocalyptic Novel

by William Zeranski

  “Dan, you obligated yourself to stay with the Fieldings for the night. We all know Kevin is going to be okay, but they still need that assurance. And let’s just assume those raiders are still lurking around. Hey, be grateful Mary can handle that shotgun.” Uncle Ray grinned as he adjusted the volume knob on the cabin’s radio set. “Amazing how she caught that SOB off guard!” He leaned back in the wood chair at the table. “The answer to you is still, no, we’ll be fine. Anyway, Ken Wheeler’s going to be riding shotgun for me.”

  “Ray . . .” Mr. Hansel’s voice crackled back, followed by a spat of static.

  “Dan, I do believe everything is going to be fine.” Uncle Ray gave me a wink.

  Joey, who sat on the arm of the nearest couch, nodded and said, “It is going to be.”

  The knob of the front door gave a metallic rattle and Mr. Marcus pushed open the door with the rubber tip of his cane. He hopped in a step on his good leg and leaned against the doorway. The excursion from crossing the valley showed in the tightened jaw and deep lines around his mouth.

  “Hey, Dan, I’ve got to get going here, so over and out.” My uncle waited for Mr. Hansel’s confirmation then flipped the power off.

  “You going to be okay, Mr. Marcus?” I asked.

  “I’ll be fine, Stan. I just want to know how soon you guys were going to head out.”

  “Soon. We’re only waiting on a few more people.” Uncle Ray stood, took his cap from the radio table, and tugged it on. He helped Mr. Marcus to a bench outside underneath the front window.

  I passed by Mr. Marcus and tapped him on the shoulder with a fist.

  He nodded and stretched out his leg. Large circles of sweat stained the underarms of the blue t-shirt he wore. For a moment he closed his eyes and rested his chin on the hand gripping the cane, trying to compose himself as he dealt with one of his ‘bad knee’ days.

  Earlier Uncle Ray had parked the truck in front, to save fuel; he’d coasted the pick-up out from under the carport. Joey and I helped push. We’d been waiting for people to bring what produce they thought they could spare.

  “How’s the peace offering looking?” Mr. Marcus set his back against the wall.

  “I didn’t know we were at war,” my uncle said, looking at the bags and baskets arranged in the truck bed.

  “Ray, you’re annoying me.” Mr. Marcus turned to Joey, and said, “He’s kidding, you know that, Joey.”

  Joey chuckled. “Yes, I know,” his voice reassuring, “You’ll get help from us, don’t worry.”

  Arms crossed, I leaned against the truck, the heat from the metal warm on my back. With the sun sinking down behind me, a clear, deep blue sky filled my vision; cool like a great ocean, washing over the countryside. In that calm, I realized how frightening the day was, how the raider, that thief wanted to kill me. I wondered when I stopped being a kid.

  “Sara’s coming,” I said, spotting her coming out of the woods on the other side of the valley. In the late afternoon sunlight, her white t-shirt was a faint yellow in color while her jeans appeared a dusty blue. She carried a plastic basket filled with produce. The weight of the basket pulled her arms straight.

  “Help her out,” Uncle Ray said.

  “Come on, Joey,” I said.

  “Okay.”

  We started out in a jog that turned into a run, leaving a trail of dry earth floating along the ground like gray smoke. So much time had passed since I ran with a friend. Air rushed over my face and roared in my ears. When we reached Sara our feet thumped in the dirt as we heaved in gulps of air, and we laughed.

  “Glad you’re having so much fun.” Sara grunted, setting the baby-blue plastic basket heavily to the ground.

  We laughed more.

  “Jerks.”

  “Stop,” I said, my lungs burning more from laughter than from the sprint.

  “Fine.”

  I glanced at Sara, her arms crossed, feet set apart and planted, her eyes fixed on us. “Okay, okay,” I said. “I’ll take the basket.”

  Sara winked with a glint in her blue eyes.

  “Nah,” Joey said. “I’ll take it.” He wiped the sweat from his face with the tail of his sleeveless plaid shirt; then hefted the basket filled with corn; potatoes and a couple bundles of carrots tied with twine, and lifted it without straining a muscle. “I’ll meet you at the truck.” Off he walked in long strides, swaying side to side, counterbalancing the weight of the basket. A light breeze drifted over the valley taking away the dust he kicked up.

  Sara touched my arm. Her lips were slightly pursed and her eyebrows puckered together creating two thin lines on the bridge of her nose.

  “Yes?” I wiped away perspiration from under my chin.

  “You scared of going?” she asked.

  “Scared?”

  “Well, no,” I said, but I hadn’t thought about it.

  “Why not? Why not be afraid now?”

  “Meeting Joey, I considered him a friend and danger is the last thing on my mind. So, I hadn’t thought of that. Of being afraid. I guess that does sound strange.”

  Sara shook her head and absently brushed a lock of copper-tinted, yellow hair, back behind her ear. “No, it doesn’t. When you put it that way, Joey is nice, friendly . . . and honest. If anything, he seems honest.”

  Joey reached the truck and placed the basket on the tailgate. My uncle climbed into the back and moved the basket to the front of the bed, below the cab rear window.

  Sara gazed from me to the truck and back.

  “We’re not going far,” I said. “Only ten, twelve miles.” But I knew as well as she did that if something went wrong, by foot, ten miles might as well be a hundred. “Don’t worry.” I smiled and put a hand on her shoulder and her face tilted up slightly at me.

  I kissed her, and smiled again, but lopsided, a warm embarrassment ran through me.

  Sara smiled, and I felt the rough warmth of her hand as she took mine.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  I saw my uncle standing up in the truck bed looking at us across that distance of open field. Uncle Ray gestured to Mr. Marcus who turned to face us. Sara’s father crossed his arms, his cane gripped in a fist.

  Sara giggled.

  “Oh, brother . . .” I shook my head, and began chuckling, too, then stopped.

  People from other parts of the valley appeared from the woods north of the cabin, carrying bags and baskets.

  The grasp of Sara’s fingers tightened.

  Soon, it would be time to go.

  Chapter 15

  The truck ran smooth and quiet even on the homemade fuel mix Uncle Ray and Mr. Marcus had concocted. With the windows open, a cool rush of air streamed in causing the shoulder straps of safety belts to flap and snap. My uncle told us to belt ourselves in, even though the laws and people who enforced them were long gone.

  Uncle Ray knew the way to Sailsville. In the past, he had to drive through the town on the way to the cabin, and like a piece of trivia Joey described that town as nothing more than a main street and four corners.

  With the security of the valley behind us, the walkie-talkie Mr. Wheeler holstered on his belt was the only connection, and the trip took us to the limit of the radio’s range.

  Sara was on my mind. That moment when we kissed remained vivid, and I worried, for the first time, of not seeing her again. Even the possibility of such a loss burned so real, so painful like the thoughts of my parents. Their memory still haunted me the same as the intense glow of the nuclear blast, and kept pulling at me, making me think of my family’s home.

  “Oh, for crying out loud!” Uncle Ray hit the brake hard.

  Jerked against the shoulder strap, I dropped my hand to the butt of the revolver holstered on my belt. I sat in the rear seat of the extended cab with Joey, who leaned forward, trying to get a look over Mr. Wheeler’s shoulder.

  “What’s up?” I set a hand on the driver’s seat, trying for a better view.

  “Telephone pole’s in the middle of the road
,” my uncle said.

  “You think there’s enough room to go around it, Ray?” Mr. Wheeler pushed up the bill of his ball cap and adjusted his grip on the barrel of the shotgun propped against the passenger door, the muzzle pointed toward the ceiling.

  “Yeah, but I guess that’s the end of the joy riding. I’m just glad it’s not dark out. If we hit that thing . . .” Uncle Ray backed the truck up and then started forward, maneuvering around to the left side of the road onto the shoulder, around the fallen pole.

  It was just after six p.m. Sunlight glinted through the trees. Weeds and wild grass encroached on the road, and the branches of maples and birches stretched out, nearly blotting out the light. Fallen leaves and rotten boughs littered the road. Black insulated electrical wiring hung loose from telephone poles.

  “We’ll be taking our time now.” Uncle Ray brought the truck back on the road, driving a course right down the middle. “Joey, I know the roads around here, but is this the best way now?”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure.” Joey nodded rapidly, looking from me to Uncle Ray. “I’m sorry about this. I was going through the woods. I never really had a chance to see the condition of the road. I didn’t—”

  “Joey, no problem. I’ll do the best I can.” Uncle Ray glanced back in the rearview mirror. “Like I said, we’ll be taking our time.”

  Joey rubbed his hands over his jeans. He took a deep breath, and sat back again.

  At a slow, grinding pace, the trip took forever. Along the sides of the road trees and more trees and a broad field of tall grass came into view, and then a lone house with an overgrown yard. Darkened windows, like those blind eyes you read about in books, faced the road, but from a distance nothing looked wrong, except a single slat of white vinyl siding slanting down out of place near the peak of the roof. In the backyard, a swing set stood. The plastic seats dangled from chains, gently swaying, vacant and forgotten.

  One house followed another and then they came in clusters of two or three among the overshadowing trees, and an overwhelming sense of loss and loneliness pervaded everything. No one was home. Birds flew; a squirrel raced across the road and up the trunk of a maple but no people lived here. The roadside looked as if someone had emptied out a dead man’s pockets. A few front doors stood open, broken windows revealed a clear view of vacant blackness. In the yards, furniture and metal things laid half buried in the grass, and papers clung to porch railing or a shrub growing wild.

  “There’s nothing, no one . . .” Mr. Wheeler said. “It’s like driving through a cemetery.”

  “Yeah,” Joey said and set a thumb nail against one of his front teeth.

  Uncle Ray steered and the truck snaked and dodged fallen debris as the houses, more like tombstones passed by.

  “We’re almost there,” Joey said and leaned to peer out the front.

  At the outskirts of the town, abandoned cars and trucks dotted the roadside. Dirt-crusted vehicles sat in lines at a mini-market’s gas pumps, some with doors open. Scraps of paper, cardboard, soda cans, and plastic bottles lay scattered over the parking lot, and the afternoon sun glinted on fragments of glass from the shattered windows of the gas station.

  At the corner, past the mini-market a sign proclaimed the road to be West Main Street, but gave the sense of being a canal, channeling us into the heart of the town.

  “When can we expect to see someone, Joey?” Uncle Ray asked.

  “They’re here.” Joey released the safety belt and slid to the middle of the set. “Just keep going, slow.”

  “I’m not going to start rushing now.”

  Joey gnawed his lower lip, arms crossed on the back of the front seat.

  Shadows cast by the row of houses flowed like ink over the truck. The sun, low in the west, glowed a deepening orange light.

  “Holy—” Mr. Wheeler set a hand on the dashboard.

  At the next street crossing, a man’s corpse hung from a lamp post, a stark silhouette.

  The truck jerked to a stop.

  “What is going on?” Uncle Ray asked.

  I set my hand on the butt of my revolver.

  “Looks like that raider,” Joey said. “The one we caught the other day.”

  The dead man hung still and flies like small inky blotches whirled around the puffy face and contorted neck, the head tilted at a sharp angle as the sunken eyes seemed to peer at the ground.

  Joey didn’t say anymore or appear concerned about the dead man hanging there, but why should he. Why should I care? What else was there to do with a person like that? Lock him in the cellar? Feed him food from my table, food that he was trying to steal, trying to kill for?

  Joey moved to the narrow passenger door. “Let me out.”

  Uncle Ray glanced back, then at Mr. Wheeler, and nodded.

  A warm wave of air rolled into the cab when Mr. Wheeler popped the door open.

  Joey pushed open the rear door of the extended cab and hopped out. Looking back, he said, “Come on. We’re here.”

  I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling sticky sweat.

  “Come on,” Joey said. He grinned and shook his head. “Really, come on.”

  We got out of the truck and Joey was already heading down the street at a jog.

  “Hey, I’m back,” he called out, his hands held to his mouth.

  “I wish he wouldn’t do that.” Mr. Wheeler said, meeting Uncle Ray and me in front of the truck. He held the shotgun with both hands.

  The houses loomed up on both sides of the street creating a shadowy chasm in the remaining daylight. Darkness slowly filled in the doorways and alleys erasing all details.

  “Ken,” Uncle Ray said, “I think if the people wanted us dead I wouldn’t be talking to you right now.”

  Joey yelled again

  Mr. Wheeler nodded. “Sure.” But he didn’t sound convinced.

  “There,” I said, and pointed down the street past the dangling corpse.

  A man stepped from a doorway and then sprinted to Joey. He picked him off the ground, whirling him around in a bear hug.

  Other people soon moved into the street, and a frantic cry went up as a woman, dressed in khaki work pants and green shirt, dashed over to Joey and clutched at him, gazing into his face; then pulled him into a deep embrace.

  “A happy ending?” Uncle Ray set a hand on the hood of the truck.

  “We’re not there yet,” Mr. Wheeler said, but he lowered the muzzle of his shotgun.

  The man who’d first hugged Joey started toward us, walking in a long, rapid stride. A large, long barreled piston holstered to his right hip. When he reached us he held out a hand, a broad smile showed through a bushy mustache and short beard. “I’m Neil Sample, and thanks for bringing my son back.”

  After that, the town’s people moved in around us and introduced themselves and asked questions about what was going on. I had nothing to say. Uncle Ray and Mr. Wheeler did the talking. All those people had so many questions. Questions we couldn’t answer.

  Uncle Ray even said, “We know as much as you do.”

  A few people found something funny in that and chuckled. But one man, by the name of Phil Carver kept asking how we were making it, living day to day, and surviving. Mr. Wheeler waved him over to the truck and pulled back the blue tarp, uncovering everything stored in the back of the truck. A gasp rose from a half-dozen people surrounding the truck.

  Mr. Sample had the men and women, kids and older teenagers move the corn and other vegetables into a building down the street, which used to be the Sample Hardware Store. But now, only empty shelves and cabinets, remained in the one floor shop. Before looters took everything, Mr. Sample had hidden all the goods from nails and hand tools to electrical wiring to ammunition. Everyone who stayed in town did the same, and if they didn’t own a shop they scoured every store, every business and house.

  The bags and baskets containing the vegetables were set on the counters and freestanding shelves in the middle of the shop. People eyed the bags, waiting expectantly even
as Uncle Ray apologized for not having more. Joey’s mom told him he was being foolish.

  Running a hand over Joey’s shoulder, she said, “What more could I ask for?”

  Uncle Ray nodded.

  The fiery red of the setting sun reflected off the store front windows.

  “Uncle Ray,” I said. “It’s gonna be dark soon.”

  “Well,” he said, reaching out a hand to Mr. Sample.

  “Well, nothing, Ray, you stay tonight. Tomorrow will get here.” He shook my uncle’s hand just the same. “We’ve got talking to do.”

  ***

  With the help of Mr. Sample, Uncle Ray was able to make radio contact from the roof of the municipal building, a red brick building, on the town square. The door to the stairs was past the elevator, which was used for storage. We headed up the four flights. The kerosene odor drifted through the stairwell. Our footsteps echoed on the metal staircase. The roof access opened out onto a flat space where the square metal structures of the cooling tower and heating system occupied a quarter of the roof.

  Mr. Sample lowered the lantern flame and directed Uncle Ray to a makeshift table constructed of two sawhorses and a four by four wood sheet.

  A cool breeze drifted over the neighboring roofs and the darkened town square. On a roof top to the east, a man stood watch, silhouetted against the deep cobalt of the night sky, and then disappeared from view as he crouched.

  Mr. Sample and Mr. Wheeler stood with Uncle Ray while he worked the walkie-talkie and between the crackles of static, he made contact with Mr. Marcus who manned the shortwave radio at the cabin, and acknowledged the simple message that the trip was successful.

  “Hey, Ray,” Mr. Sample said.

  “Yeah?”

  “You, me and Ken,” he patted Mr. Wheeler on the arm. “We’ll meet with my brother Glenn and some of the others downstairs, and talk.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “You drink?”

  “Sounds better.”

  A chuckle from Mr. Wheeler rolled out of the dark.

  Mr. Sample adjusted the knob on the kerosene lantern and the yellow glow flared up again, and we filed back through the roof access. On the way down, Joey walked beside me on the stairs.