Tristan placed a square of toilet paper just above the waterline in each toilet. She walked out, leaving the door open, then yanked out one of her hairs and tied it from the inside deadbolt to the lockplate embedded in the frame.
She came back three days later. The door still stood ajar. Her hair was unbroken. The toilet paper remained inside the lids. No one had been back. Certainly no one was staying here. She cleaned up the shit in the kitchen, then went for Alden and Laura and brought them home.
Together, they swept up the glass, binned it, and tarped up the windows. They'd need to come up with something more permanent come winter, but even without running the heat, the days had grown warm enough to keep the house bearable through the cool mountain nights. With sprinklers running daily, the neighbors' garden continued to thrive, but so had the weeds. They stripped these from the ground and returned home with tomatoes and strawberries and cabbage. After so many days of eating out of boxes and bags, the crisp leaves and gushy fruit tasted like the wonders of another land.
One morning, Tristan woke to find her alarm was blank. The lights wouldn't click on. The bathroom faucet hissed, spat foam, and went silent. She went to the living room to think while the others slept.
An hour later, Laura emerged from bed. Her hair stuck up from the side of her head. "I think your house is broken."
"We're in trouble," Tristan said. "The power finally died."
"So what?"
"So how do we cook? Clean? Not die of thirst?"
"Fire, brooms, and wearing a rut between here and the river."
"We can't build fires," Tristan said. "The Skulls will see."
"Then I hope you like your spaghetti extra crunchy." Laura raked her fingers through her hair. "There has to be another way. We can cook in the fireplace in the middle of the night."
"How are we going to keep the leftovers cold?"
"I don't know, I'm not Bear fucking Grylls. Keep them in the basement in the dark? Eat a lot of raw veggies." She swept open the curtains and gazed at the silk-wrapped corn rising above the neighbor's fence. "Who knew the apocalypse would be so good for your health?"
For a while, it wasn't so hard. They ate from the garden, supplementing the raw bell peppers and squash with packaged granola bars, dry Corn Pops, and Asian-style trail mix. Every few days, they risked a fire in the fireplace, boiling up great pots of spaghetti and eating it for two days straight. With the automatic sprinklers dead, the abandoned gardens yellowed in the summer heat. The three of them roamed the neighborhoods by night for as many veggies as they could eat, stirring the smell of dew and damp soil, returning with backpacks full of tomatoes and cucumbers.
The house became a sweatlodge. They abandoned the stifling upstairs between dawn and dusk. At night, the soggy air sat limply, refusing to stir through the broken windows. As summer drew on, they spent more and more time in the half-finished basement playing cards, reading books, and practicing kung fu.
They went to the pine forests above town for firewood. Drove to the river for water. Dug a hole in the neighbor's yard for their waste. Laura unbolted the toilet and she and Tristan manhandled it from the bathroom, smearing its wax sealing ring over the marble floor. They set it atop the boards over the outdoor latrine and grinned.
Gunshots rang from town every few days, but they had no choice but to continue building fires a couple times a week. They had to boil their water. There could be bodies in the river. Feces. Dying of cholera was low on Tristan's bucket list. Dirt filled the crescents of her fingernails. Sweat and dust grayed the lines of her hands. She washed them as she could, but every quart she spent rinsing her hands was another quart they had to haul from the river.
And every trip from home exposed them to the Empty Skulls. The men screeched pickups across town, shirtless gangsters with rifles jouncing on the truck beds.
Doubt itched Tristan harder every day. What would they do when winter came, killing the gardens, enfolding the house in snow? What good were all their sacks of rice when the smoke from a boiling pot of water invited attack from a gang of men who killed without qualm?
One night in July, they drove to the river, empty bins and jugs bouncing in the trunk. She and Laura carried pistols. Alden sat in the back, scanning the back roads for movement. Tristan turned onto the dirt road beside the bridge and parked on the soft sod. She hauled jugs from the trunk and plodded downstream to where the banks flattened out enough to descend, leaving Alden with the car as a lookout.
A breeze brought the smell of pines and flowing water. Stars winked on the river. Tristan dipped her plastic bottle into the river, cold mountain-water flowing over her fingers. They filled the wheelbarrow with jugs and turned back for the car.
A small orange light flared from beside the car. Tristan pulled Laura down into the brush. At the car, smoke snaked from a man's cigarette, its tendrils pulled apart by the weak breeze. Tristan smelled ashy tobacco and old sweat. Her heart hammered. She saw no sign of Alden.
The man circled the car, prodded the tires. He touched the hood. Tristan knew it would still be hot. The man blew a long drag through his nostrils, dragon-like, and glanced downstream. Moonlight touched the black barrel of his rifle. His chest was bare. A red bandanna wrapped his head.
Branches crackled upstream. The man unshouldered his rifle and jogged forward in a crouch. A silhouette slid from the trees beside the car, a short, thin-limbed figure. Alden.
Tristan ran to the car, gesturing Alden to follow. They piled inside, closing the doors as quietly as they could, leaving the jugged water behind on the banks. Tristan reversed down the path with her lights off, then spun around and ripped onto the road. She watched her rearview mirror all the way home.
In the garage, she lit a candle and led Alden and Laura into the kitchen. It was hotter inside than out. Sweat clung to her shirt.
"It's time to move," she said.
"But this neighborhood's as safe as it gets," Laura said. "We just need to drive further upstream. The Skulls can't control the whole damn river."
"Not to a new house," Tristan said. "To a new city. A new state. A new world. If we stay here, we're going to die."
11
Ness' blood froze. His mind went as still as a glacier. As the troops ran across the road, he could see the branches of their future as clearly as the moonlight glinting from the soldiers' long rifles. If he and Shawn got out and ran, they would be shot. If Shawn turned on the truck and tried to flip a U-turn back to the mountains, they would be shot, or chased down in the jeep and then shot. If they got out and surrendered, they would be taken to the killing grounds and shot.
He had about three seconds, maybe less. He made himself move.
"We're getting out!" Ness shouted from the truck window. "Don't shoot!"
"What are you doing?" Shawn said.
"Get out. Get ready to push."
"Great thinking. We can surely outrun them with our shoulders bent to a ton of Ford steel."
Ness turned on him. "You have three seconds to get out and push. Then we die."
A pair of soldiers edged closer. "Out of the fucking car! Hands up!"
Shawn's lips curled from his teeth. "Fuck!"
He shouldered the door open and hopped onto the road. Ness followed him out his door, putting the truck between them and the soldiers.
"Push," Ness said. "Push with all you've got."
Shawn laughed madly and leaned against the door, palms splayed.
"Stop right there!" The nearest soldier stepped sidelong, moving to intercept the truck. He wore a gas mask and rubber gloves. Ness pushed the truck's frame with one hand, using the other to pull the wheel left. His shoes gripped the pavement. The truck glided down the shallow slope and angled toward the jeep. Ness reached for the shotgun. The soldier regripped his rifle. "Stop that car or we will open fire!"
"Duck," Ness murmured. He jammed the shotgun into the gap between the door and the hood and pulled the trigger. The bang bounced from the walls of the dark houses. The sol
dier spun to the pavement.
A dozen rifles roared, battering the truck. Glass shattered. Bullets chunked into the sides. Ness hunkered down beside the rolling truck. Shawn screamed, covering his head with one hand, firing blind over the hood. The truck bounced into the jeep and jarred back.
"The machine gun!" Ness said. "Come on!"
Shawn gaped at him, then rolled to the back of the jeep. It was open-topped, the .50 caliber machine gun mounted on a metal frame, but the gun was protected by a peaked metal shield. Ness dropped prone beside the truck and ejected his spent shell. Boots thumped nearer as the soldiers closed. Bullets cranked into the truck, spraying sparks onto the road. Ness fired, pumped, and fired again.
Light and thunder blazed from the machine gun. Shawn gripped its handles, sawing it across the incoming troops. Bodies fell to the pavement. Men screamed. Ness fired at a retreating pair of boots. Brass shells clinked over the truck, the road. The weapon roared and roared.
The banging stopped. The last brass rattled across the asphalt. Shawn stood and whooped. Ness' ears rang. His elbow stung, scraped. He stood. Soldiers littered the intersection. Shawn vaulted from the framework and ran to a writhing man.
"Where's the cure, buddy?" He yanked the soldier's mask away. The man was pale, eyes rolling. "Where's the cure?"
"Don't shoot me!"
"Little late for that. Tell me where the cure is and I won't subject you to round two."
The man struggled to wrench his collar from Shawn's grasp. "There's no cure, you crazy asshole. They're all dead. We all are. We just don't know it yet."
Shawn straightened, blinking. "Then how are you all still alive?"
"We're not." The man coughed, spraying blood onto the asphalt. "85% casualties. The rest of us don't drop mask except to eat. It's just a matter of time until we get Panhandled, too."
"It's time to leave," Ness said.
Shawn glanced toward the black hills. "Mom's still up there. She's still sick."
"And we just had a shootout with the army." Panic clogged Ness' throat. "What do you think happens from here?"
Shawn pushed his fist against his forehead. "Truck's shot to shit. Get in the jeep."
Ness climbed in. His body felt like it was moving on its own. His heart was beating far too fast. Shawn swung the jeep around, sped toward the hills.
"Slow down," Ness said.
"Dude, I hear a chopper. We ain't slowing down until we're back in the mountains."
Ness' veins felt ready to burst from his skin and wriggle in the street like cut worms. He leaned over the side of the jeep, seatbelt pressing into his chest, and vomited into the wind.
"Knock that off," Shawn laughed. "Heroes don't puke. What the fuck, man! Where'd you come up with that?"
Ness retched again. Sour mucus dribbled from his nose. His eyes watered in the wind of the jeep. He couldn't catch his breath. The thump of a helicopter rolled between the houses of the dead. His heart hammered. His vision went black and white.
"Hey Ness." Shawn shook his shoulder. "Nestor!"
"What."
"How'd you know that was gonna work?"
"I didn't." He belched, gagged.
"Come on."
"Every other option would have left us dead. I chose the one that had the chance of a different outcome."
Shawn swung the car sharp right. The ground tilted as they climbed the hill to the trailers. "All that in about three seconds."
Color returned to Ness' eyes. The smell of a cool late spring night flooded his nose—pollen, wet weeds, the gunpowder on his hands. His left arm stung where hot brass had landed on it. Beyond that, he was unharmed.
Shawn parked the jeep in a neighbor's trailer. He gazed down at the dark valley. A set of lights drifted across the sky, the chuff of the helicopter's blades cutting over the quiet.
"Well, come on. Time to run."
Ness obeyed numbly, glad to have orders. They didn't slow down until they were in sight of the camp. Their mom stood in silhouette, painting a flashlight across the trees. "Shawn? Nestor?"
"We're here," Shawn grinned.
"Sweet quarterbacking Christ!" She swept them into her arms. She smelled of potpourri and blood and the cave-like odor of illness. "I heard all that shooting and I thought I'd lost you both."
"With Ness on my side, they never stood a chance," Shawn grinned. He pulled back and his smile faded like something left too long in the sun. "Mom."
"Shawn."
"How you feeling?"
She shrugged her burly shoulders. "Been better. But God's got a plan for us all, doesn't he? It'll be all right."
It wasn't, of course. Ness hadn't seen someone progress from up close. The change was startling in its speed. The next day she coughed without stop, shoulders jiggling. She dabbed blood from her lips with an old cloth. Bruise-like circles ringed her eyes, a sharp contrast to the white of her face. The day after that she could barely lift herself from the floor of the tent. She called Shawn inside that afternoon. He went out, rummaged through his bags of gear, returned inside, and reemerged a couple minutes later bearing a cup. He held it at arm's length and walked into the woods.
Her breathing rattled from the tent with the sound of leaves scratched over old concrete. That night, Shawn stayed with her inside the tent. Ness laid under the stars and listened to her breathe. Shawn murmured too softly for Ness to hear. His brother's voice stopped some time after midnight, replaced by snoring. Her breathing stopped two hours after that. Ness didn't rise. He watched the stars track slowly across the sky.
In the morning, Shawn cried, then made Ness help wrap her in a tarp and drag her far down the hill, where they buried her in a natural clearing in the pines. Shawn nailed two sticks together in a cross and jammed it in the earth. He stepped back and brushed his hands on his pants.
"I don't know what to say."
"Do you think she can hear you?" Ness said.
Shawn turned on him, face drawn into a hatchet of anger. "Are you making fun of me?"
"I'm asking you, very literally, if you think she can hear you."
Crease by crease, Shawn's face turned pensive. "No. She's just dead."
Ness nodded. After a minute, he turned and walked away.
* * *
The bear pawed at the log upstream, impatient, splinters of bark chipping from its claws. Ness watched for some time before hiking back to the roofless cabin they'd built two miles above the Shoremans' old farm. Shawn sat on the chair in the pine-cast shade reading a university textbook on the chemical composition of gunpowder.
"There's a bear down by the stream."
Shawn put his thumb in his book. "You want me to go get rid of it?"
"No. Just don't get eaten."
"Oh." He frowned. "Well, thanks for the heads up."
Shawn still hadn't adjusted to him. He was still trying to play older brother/dad. In truth, Ness hadn't entirely adapted to himself, either. He still caught himself worrying about the smallest things: whether they'd baked the trout long enough to kill the worms, what they'd do if they couldn't find more tabs of vitamin C. But he brushed these anxieties away as lightly as the spider-silk glimmering between the trees every morning when he rose to pee. The itch on his neck was gone.
They'd moved to the other side of the mountains two days after the death of their mother. Shawn had said it was to be closer to fresh water. Ness dug a new latrine. Removed from soldiers' earshot, they hacked down trees and built the cabin. It would have been easier to move into the Shoremans' homestead, but Shawn declared it would be better for them to learn to build their own home, and Ness surprised him by agreeing. They still hadn't decided on the best form of roof, but they had months before the high cold of autumn mountains made that a necessity.
They fished, foraged the abandoned farms, dug a cellar to store food, reinforcing the earthen walls with planks. The simplicity of their needs clarified things. Where once Ness had been frozen by indecision—there had been too many choices, too many possibilitie
s to know which one was right; easier to watch The Matrix again, to spend all night raiding enemy guilds with his friends—he found each day's decisions simple and immediate. If they needed wood for a fire to cook their food, he gathered it. If they needed nails to hammer their walls together, he raided one of the farms.
There was a logic to everything. That meant it could be attacked, broken down to its component pieces and overcome bit by bit. If winter was cold, then they needed to find a way to generate heat. If they were hungry, then they could hunt, fish, forage, scavenge, or grow their food. It was basic math.
Shawn no longer baited, insulted, or tormented him, either. Not unless he got to thinking about their mom. At those times, Ness wandered the mountain, mapping the creek, the stand of wild walnuts he'd found upstream, the rotting, long-lost farmhouse deep into the northern woods.
A month after their encounter with the jeep, they crept into town on foot to go to the Ace for screws and something to mortar the cabin's log walls. The streets were dark. Utterly silent. The roadblock on the northern highway was abandoned. They jogged through the dark bars and grimy patios where girls in tank tops should have been drinking beer in the neutral night surrounded by frat boys Ness had once envied. The dorms were dark, too. No smoke rose from the quads. No engines or generators thrummed. In the alley between the two-floor apartments fringing the campus, a man in camo lay motionless. His decaying skin was as blackened as the asphalt.
The rest were dead, too. Their jeeps and Humvees left behind. Few bodies rested in the grass. When taken by the Panhandler, most victims had just enough strength to crawl to a bed to cough away the last of their lives.
Shawn kicked one of the fallen troops. "Cocksuckers."
"You've got one of their yellow stickers right on the back of your truck."
The Breakers Series: Books 1-3 Page 44