Todd

by Nicolai, Adam J

  Four and a half billion years old, the product of a grand melee of smashing dust, gas, and boulders, it was bombarded on all sides by lethal radiation and surrounded by an infinite expanse of lethal, frozen vacuum. A fragile sheen of gas and some lucky magnetism were the only things that kept it from succumbing to the black.

  Its core was as hot as the surface of the sun. Its crust, nearly 4,000 miles removed, was where his entire species lived: ants swarming on a chunk of decaying bread. Every nation, every religion, every story and every life had happened there, suspended precariously between the lethal darkness of space and the crushing heat of the Earth's interior.

  It was a delicate balance, and it wouldn't last forever.

  Eventually the sun would get too large, or the Earth's core would cool and die. A striking asteroid would turn the planet into an instant hell. A shift in the biosphere would create a system that absorbed oxygen without returning it, transforming the atmosphere into poison, or stupidity and arrogance would roast everyone in an oven of their own creation. At any minute, a gamma ray explosion from a nearby star could annihilate all life on Earth with casual brutality. And those were only the threats he knew; the universe had trillions of deadly mysteries.

  The Earth had had five mass extinction events, each wiping out more than 50% of the planet's species.

  Such events, he realized with the clarity of dreams, were actually routine.

  11

  He woke to dead silence.

  No hum of the refrigerator or air conditioning, no background chatter from the TV or his children. No birdsong; no whine of car engines. Todd was still asleep, but even he was breathing so quietly Alan could barely hear it. The silence was so deep, so profound, it may actually have been what woke him.

  Power's out. He got up, neck stiff from a night spent on the couch, and crossed to the kitchen. His first instinct was to check the faucet and make sure the water was still running. It was. Then he went to the fridge and made sure the food was still cold. It also was, for now. Without power, it wouldn't be for long.

  Suddenly, there was no more time to dwell on what had happened. The power would not be coming back on. That meant it was only a matter of time until this food rotted, and Alan had no idea how far the catastrophe extended. With the highways clogged, travel would be difficult, if not impossible. They had to salvage what they could in their neighborhood, and they had to do it fast.

  "Todd." Alan shook his son's shoulders. "Hey. Morning time."

  Todd's eyes slipped open. He gave his dad a sleepy glare. Then he bolted upright.

  "I forgot." He craned around to look out the window, where a shirt blew down the empty street like a tumbleweed. "I thought I dreamed it."

  "I know." Alan searched for something else to say, some word of encouragement or promise that he hadn't said yet, and found nothing. "Come on. We're going to the grocery store."

  When they opened the front door, the silence gave way to the distant roar of fire.

  It wasn't on 115th, though. At 115th they saw the blackened remains of the car that had burned last night. The fire had guttered out in the middle of the street, ten feet or more from the nearest lawn, but if it had reached the grass—

  Alan looked back, took in the long line of adjacent yards with their towering trees. His mind filled in the flames, rushing up the trunks and into the branches, chasing the boughs over the shadow-dappled street and jumping easily to the trees on the other side.

  "What's that weird noise?" Todd said.

  Alan forced himself back to reality. "I think it's fire." The sound was coming from behind them, and he could just make out a column of oily black above one of the houses. The fire must have been deeper in the city, maybe at Northview junior high or even in Crystal. He had no idea how quickly it would spread without anyone to fight it.

  Were they safe in Brooklyn Park? He knew wildfires could engulf hundreds or even thousands of square miles, but those were usually forest fires, weren't they? The car fire had died in the middle of the street. All the concrete in the city would make a natural barrier to spreading flames.

  Wouldn't it?

  He felt a nearly physical longing for his smartphone. He should have been able to get the answer to this question in a matter of minutes. An old episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation flared in his head, in which a Borg—an alien who was part of a collective mind—had been severed from his people. He'd had no name, no identity; he felt divorced from reality, unable to make even the most basic decisions. The viewer was supposed to empathize with the crew of the Enterprise, of course, who were trying to help the alien rediscover his individuality, but at that instant, Alan identified more with the Borg.

  "Where is it?" Todd craned his head back, trying to find some sign of the fire.

  "Back there. It's all right," Alan lied, and pointed at 115th. "Look, what did I tell you? All the cars have stopped."

  "That one's still on." Todd pointed.

  "Yeah. Bet it'll be dead by tonight."

  The words chased them up the street, echoing like prophecy.

  12

  His car remained where he'd left it. As they got in, Todd asked, "Why are we going to the grocery store?"

  "I want to get the food while it's still cold."

  "Can't they keep it cold at the grocery store?"

  Alan pulled around in a wide U-turn and angled north, toward a bridge that crossed Highway 610. 610 was no interstate, but it was busy for a state highway. His stomach clenched as they approached it, bracing for the worst.

  "The power's out. Did you notice, at Grandma's?"

  "No. Are we going to look for Mommy and Allie after that?"

  The question was a pointed reminder of how powerless they were. Look where? What the hell was he talking about?

  "You said we'd look today," Todd said.

  Right. Alan sighed. I did say that. "Well, I don't know where to look, so we're going to just do what we need to do, and keep our eyes open for clues while we do it. All right?"

  "All right." Todd gazed out the window. "I wish I had my 3DS. Can we stop at the house—at our house—to get it?"

  And there it was, his son's constant urge to check out of reality, reasserting itself. How are you going to look for Mommy and Allie with your face in a video game? Asshole Alan said, but Alan ignored it. It was a mean, pointless thing to say, and the truth was that they weren't going to find Brenda and Allie at the grocery store. Besides, if Todd was playing video games, maybe Alan could finally take stock of what was going on without having to constantly play Twenty Questions.

  Sure, he almost said, but his heart gave a sudden jump. The text! he remembered. Christ, I almost forgot about the text!

  They'd left yesterday in case of some kind of attack, but now they'd been away for over 12 hours. Was it safe to duck back? Was it worth it, just for Todd's video games?

  Probably not, but then again, how did he know he'd been interpreting the text correctly to start with? Wasn't the most likely possibility that the message had originated with a human, somehow?

  After 24 hours of near-total isolation, of seeing the world empty, he was coming around to the idea of at least finding out who had sent the message. Every other attempt to find another survivor—phone calls, internet, television, radio—had failed, but the text was a lock. Someone had sent it.

  Hell, maybe he'd overreacted yesterday. Maybe it really had been some kind of rescue message. He tried to remember exactly what it had said, but his memories of the day before were draped in panic. The message had been phrased weirdly; that was all he remembered.

  "Can we stop at our house—?" Todd started. Any question not answered within three seconds warranted repetition.

  "I don't know," Alan interrupted, then used that most reliable of time-honored put-offs: "We'll see."

  Heading to the grocery store took them right past their neighborhood anyway. Part of him was curious to see if the house was even still there. Maybe it had been vaporized, or something.
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  "How long will the power be out?"

  "I don't know, Todd. Maybe for a long time. That's why I want to get some food while we can."

  "But where will we put the food if the fridge doesn't work?"

  He opened his mouth to answer, and realized his son had a point. Their fridge would be just as dead as the grocery store's.

  Shit. Who was he kidding? He wasn't made for this. He had never been into any of that survival crap. He'd never even been a Boy Scout, for gods' sakes.

  While his mind panicked, his mouth said: "We're going to get a generator."

  "What's that?"

  "It's—" How did kids always come up with such difficult questions? "It's a thing that you plug other things into. It has outlets, just like we have at home, but it makes the power itself instead of getting it from the wall."

  Todd chewed on this, staring out the window as they approached the bridge. Then he breathed a long, "Whoa."

  The bridge was fine, but the highway beneath was a nightmare. Cars were thrown sideways or upside down, some piled against the concrete of the underpass like bodies clawing for safety. A semi truck had jackknifed and flipped, forming a de facto dam against a river of tangled rubber and broken steel.

  Alan eased the car to a stop so they could get out and look. A number of cars had scorched overnight; smoldering fires still dotted the whole stretch. Looking west he saw another column of black smoke, probably from the highway. It had to be a fire. He wondered how long before it spread to them.

  "That's just crazy," Todd said.

  "Yeah." Alan let out a long breath, appreciating how lucky they'd been. "Good thing we weren't down there."

  "Yeah. Really good."

  We have to get out of here, something told him. It's not safe. All these fires. We need to get out, maybe go north, find a farmhouse or a cabin on the north shore.

  It was a romantic idea, something he could imagine reading about in a zombie apocalypse novel, but it wasn't right. He didn't know anything about farming or living off the land. They needed to be near civilization, or what was left of it. They'd need the food.

  Come winter, he suddenly realized, we'll need the shelter.

  So, no, it wasn't safe here. The problem was, it probably wasn't safe anywhere.

  13

  They dodged dead cars as they headed north toward the hardware store, hoping to find a generator. Most of the vehicles had veered off the main drag before crashing, but there were plenty of nasty pileups, too. When they came across these, Alan drove around through the grass or a nearby parking lot.

  None of this was too bad. What scared him most were the standing fires.

  "We should put those fires out," Todd said.

  "We can't put them all out."

  "Why not?"

  "There's too many. We'd need a fire truck."

  The tires crunched through the gravel as he brought the car over the shoulder, rejoining the road after a particularly nasty tangle of vehicles. Intersections were the worst.

  "But we can use the fire truck," Todd pressed. "There's no one using it now."

  "I don't know how to use a fire truck. Do you?"

  "Maybe we could figure it out."

  Hell, maybe they could. Alan had yet to see a destroyed fire hydrant. He imagined going to the fire station, finding the keys, and starting up a truck. Maybe they'd have a training manual somewhere. He and Todd could go gallivanting around Brooklyn Park, putting out fires.

  He snorted. "There's too many fires, Todd. Look, most of 'em have been pretty small. They'll burn out on their own."

  This finally quieted him. Alan just hoped it was true.

  There was a little hardware store a mile up from 610. It took them 20 minutes to get there. A pickup truck had crashed through the glass storefront and into the registers. The sun was behind the building and the power was out, leaving the interior black as a cave.

  They got out of the car. The day was growing heavy and humid, a nasty piece of summer work. Tornado weather, Alan thought, and realized there would be no sirens, no warnings. "Be careful, here. See all the broken glass?"

  Todd ignored him, already walking toward the ruin of the front door.

  "Todd, God damn it, hang on! Do you see the broken glass?"

  "Yes!"

  "Well, listen to me for a second. You've got to be careful."

  "I know. I will." He started to turn back to the window.

  Alan took his shoulder. "No." He turned him around. "Look. I need you to listen to me."

  Todd looked confused. "I am."

  "No, I mean right away. I need you to listen to me like you listen to Mom. I know you've never really cared what I say, but you need to start, because I'm the only grown up here now."

  Todd shrugged. "All right."

  He wasn't listening. He didn't care.

  Oh, he'd listen to Brenda all day. When she asked him to clean his room, he'd do it. When she worked with him on his homework, it would actually help.

  Not with Alan. Never with Alan.

  If Alan tried to help with the homework, his son would just dig in his heels and insist it was impossible. If Alan told him to clean his room, it became a days-long feud of escalating punishments every time.

  A couple years ago, Alan had just quit trying and turned the whole Todd Problem over to his wife, since she could handle it so much better. This had resulted in an uneasy truce, whereby any time Alan wanted Todd to do something, he'd talk to Brenda. There had been the occasional flare-up, but for the most part the truce had worked.

  The casual disregard Todd was throwing his way now was bringing it all back. It pushed every single one of his buttons. An old rage woke in his chest, snarling for meat. God dammit, he wanted to snap, do you even fucking understand the situation we're in?

  He took a breath, forcing himself to calm down. If they started fighting, everything would get worse than it already was.

  And maybe, he realized, that question isn't rhetorical. Maybe I should explain.

  "Look. If you fall, if you get a cut, we can't just go to the doctor. Okay? And I don't know how to do stitches. So that cut could get infected. That infection could spread. It could kill you, Todd. You get a cut on your foot right now, it could kill you."

  Dramatic, maybe, but straight from the gut. Todd looked sobered. "Oh. Okay."

  He'd gotten through to him. Wonder of fucking wonders. "Do your shoes have any holes in them?"

  "No."

  "All right. Let me go first. Stay right behind me."

  The truck had taken out most of the store's front door, and twisted the support beams in the storefront into spears. Alan went to the corner instead, where a single pane of glass was still in one piece. He broke it out, then cleared the jagged shards as best he could. His face was slick with sweat, the muggy air clinging like a second skin. "Careful."

  He ducked under the support and into the store. Todd ducked in behind him, forcing Alan to do a double take.

  When did he get so big? He made a mental note to tell Brenda, later, about how tall Todd was getting. It was a reflexive action, like a tongue probing the spot where the tooth used to be.

  The realization punched him in the gut, threatened to double him over: She's gone.

  He wouldn't get to tell her this story. She wouldn't joke that they had to quit feeding Todd because he was getting too big. There was no part at the end of this day where he would get to lie down in bed with her snuggled against his chest, when he could secretly admit to her how scared he'd been.

  In that instant he realized how badly he needed those quiet moments; how badly he needed her.

  Oh, gods, she's actually gone. It was like stumbling into an open elevator shaft.

  "It's really dark in here," Todd murmured.

  Alan leaned against a cash register, fighting for control. He couldn't break right now. There simply wasn't time.

  "Yeah." He coughed and turned away, slapping at the tears on his cheeks. "Well, at least we know there's no one
in here." The joke fell flat and died in the darkness. "Help me find some light."

  There was a stack of lanterns close to the front, right next to the batteries needed to run them. They opened two—one for each of them—and made their way into the back of the store, spelunkers delving the depths.

  14

  A pretty woman smiled at him from the side of the generator box, the shadows from Todd's bobbing lantern crawling over her like ants. Displacement 420cc, the box read. Bore: 90. Alan had no idea what it meant, and didn't much care. The price on the tag was nearly $800. It would probably work.

  He went searching for a loading cart, Todd in tow. Piles of desolate clothing pockmarked the floor like cairns. Each threw a shadow: long at first, then shorter as his lantern drew closer.

  All these people were in the store, he thought. This pile was khakis and a polo shirt; that one a Mountain Dew t-shirt and jeans. Next to the loading carts was a stroller with an empty one-piece inside. The one-piece was green, with a cartoon chimpanzee. It read: Silly Monkey.

  "You used to be small enough to fit in one of these," he said, pointing at the stroller. Todd didn't answer, but a familiar voice in his head did. It replayed his own words and put them in context, helping him understand exactly how pointless they were. So what if Todd used to ride in a stroller? He was too big now. Why say it? What was the point?

  What a dumb thing to say.

  He'd fought that voice for a long time. It had been hard, but Brenda had supported him, and eventually it grew quiet enough that he could usually ignore it.

  Of course, Brenda was gone now.

  Allie's gone, too. Everyone is gone. None of this matters.

  What's the generator for? To mark time until you die?

  "I know," Todd finally said. "Mommy told me."

  15

  Once the generator was loaded, they went back to the house.

  Ultimately, he couldn't resist the prospect of finding out who had sent him that text yesterday, even if it was a risk to go back. Those words—