Todd

by Nicolai, Adam J

  But THE GAME was coming along, or so he told his wife whenever she asked: mechanics falling into place, yes, playtesting going well. He'd have a prototype ready for a crowdfunding campaign soon, he said. This month, it was always this month, and the faith burning in her eyes, the same faith that had always buoyed him and given him strength, now made him flinch.

  Because THE GAME was supposed to be fun. When he started, he had trusted his instincts on what constituted fun, but he'd been in this damn hole for so long that those instincts were rusting. Or maybe, he realized, they'd never been there in the first place. Maybe he just wasn't smart enough or creative enough; maybe he was delusional to think he'd ever be able to do it. Maybe he had quit his job and cashed out his retirement savings for nothing. Maybe his empty hubris would crash his family; cost them their house; cost him his marriage.

  You're not some creative genius, his dad said. You're just a hack. You're a deadbeat, hiding in your basement instead of getting a real job. For Christ's sakes, grow up. Your family needs you.

  20

  "Dad," Todd murmured.

  Alan stirred, his muscles stiff from hours on the ground. There were two narrow windows set high up in the walls—he'd seen them igniting with lightning during the storm—and through them he could see it was still nighttime. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness a little, and he could make out the vague outlines of stacked junk now, not all that different from his own basement. But the roaring and creaking from outside, the sounds of shattering glass and uprooting trees, were finally over. Now he heard rain pattering, and nothing else.

  Alan absorbed this. "Are you okay?"

  "Yeah." A pause. "That was really scary." Todd's voice was shaking. "Was that a tornado?" There was a kind of awed reverence in his voice; he didn't have that casual midwestern bravado about storms yet.

  "I don't know. It might have been. It's hard to tell sometimes. Wind can be really strong without a tornado, too." Suddenly Alan wanted to inspect him for cuts or bruises, make sure he wasn't limping, but it was too dark. "Do you hurt at all?"

  "No. Well maybe a little bit. My leg kind of hurts, and my shoulder."

  Alan remembered hauling his son over the bridge, pulling him down the stairs. "But not a lot? Can you stand up?"

  A rustle; Todd's shadow moved in the darkness. "Yeah, I can stand up."

  "Okay." Alan heaved a sigh. "That's good." The storm was a mess of blurred impressions in his head. As they recurred to him, he wanted to kick himself. It was stupid decision after stupid decision. He had to start making the right calls.

  We both survived, he tried to remind himself. That counts for something.

  "The storm's over, I think."

  "Whew." Todd said it like a word, carefully pronouncing each sound, without a hint of irony. Then: "Are we gonna go home now?"

  "No. Not right now." They didn't have a car, and he wouldn't risk going back over that bridge in the dark. "But it might be safe to go upstairs." Alan shifted, wincing as blood burned its way back into his stiff legs. "I'm gonna go check, make sure it's safe."

  Todd grabbed his hand. "You can't leave me in the dark!"

  The words crackled with panic, taking Alan aback. For just a second, he was in his son's head: alone in a stranger's black basement, reeling from losing most of his family. The grip of Todd's hand sparked an incongruous memory of Alan offering the boy his thumb when Todd had been a baby, and the warm, fierce clutch of his gums.

  "No. Sorry. I wasn't thinking. We'll both go up. But I go first, all right? And you have to listen. Stay back until I say it's safe."

  "Okay." He was still holding Alan's hand.

  21

  It was no brighter in the living room than it had been in the basement. In one of the sporadic lightning flashes, Alan saw another tree had come down, this one bulging through the living room windows. It had claimed the TV—an old standard-definition—and one of the arm chairs, but the wall was bearing weight. When the flicker of lightning ended, Alan held onto the afterimage as long as he could, painting it over the darkness.

  "Okay. We're gonna go into the kitchen, try to find some light or some food. All right?"

  "Okay."

  "But there's broken glass all over the floor, and who knows what else, so you have to be careful. No running, no being crazy." Something occurred to him. "Do you still have both your shoes on?"

  Todd reached down to feel his feet—it was the kind of quirky, disconnected behavior his teachers always commented on at conference time. "Yeah."

  "All right. Walk slow. Try not to lift your feet. Just kind of... shuffle, along the floor."

  "Like walking on ice?"

  "Yes!" Perfect. "Just like that."

  Alan led them shuffling into the dark, feeling along the wall with one hand. When the floor changed from the scruff of carpet to the squeak of linoleum, he knelt and felt carefully for broken glass. There was a lot less.

  "Okay. We need to find a flashlight. Try to feel for drawers or—"

  Click. A light flared on. Todd was holding a flashlight, his face split in a giant grin.

  "Where was that?" Alan said, boggling.

  "It was on the wall!" Todd squealed. "I just felt along the wall and there was a nail and it was hanging right there!"

  "Nice!" Alan cried, and Todd squealed again, bouncing up and down, eyes dancing: "Eeeeeeeeeeeee!"

  "All right," Alan laughed. "All right. Nice!" He held out his hand. "Can I hold it?"

  "Sure!"

  Alan took the flashlight, and suddenly everything felt possible. They'd lived through the storm. They'd made it to the other side of the river, hopefully leaving the fire behind. They were in the Twin Cities suburbs, surrounded by grocery stores and generators and food. They would survive this.

  "Great," he said. "Nice job, pal."

  "I just felt and it was right there, I couldn't believe it!"

  "That is fantastic. Here, come on, let's see if we can find you one."

  Turned out there was another one, hanging near the back door. In Todd's hands it became an instant counterpoint to the steady, searching beam from Alan's, lurching and leaping over the walls like a lemur in the trees.

  The kitchen was old—peeling laminate countertops and a single rusting sink—but the pantry was stocked, and the fridge was still cool. Todd grabbed some cheese sticks and crackers while Alan pulled out the cold lunch meat and some carrots, then hunted down some bread. There were grocery bags jammed in next to the fridge; Alan loaded up two of them.

  "All right. Let's go upstairs and look for a place to sit down and eat."

  They shuffled back through the living room—a little faster this time; it was easier with the flashlights—and made their way upstairs, the wooden stairs creaking. Alan had started thinking of the homeowners as an older couple, maybe retired. They'd been nice people, he thought, who would've appreciated their food not going to waste.

  Alan and Todd had a 1 AM dinner sitting on their bedroom floor, the light of one flashlight presiding from the bed. Alan made Todd eat some carrots, and wondered how much longer he'd be able to find them. They'd start rotting in a couple weeks, at the most—but then again, how hard could it be to grow some carrots for two people? I'm no Robinson Crusoe, but even I can probably manage that.

  "Dad."

  "Yeah."

  "I think I lost Vegatron when we were running. I had him but now he's just disappeared."

  You're worried about your stupid toy? You should be happy to be alive. Asshole Alan was always ready with a remark, but for once, Alan recognized that the voice wasn't really his. It was his dad's. "That's all right." He chewed, swallowed, tried to think of the opposite of what his own father might say. "Just think. All the toys in the city are basically yours now." He gave his son a conspiratorial wink.

  Todd smiled. "Oh, yeah!" This was one of his favorite exclamations. It always made him sound like he had just remembered something.

  "Did you get enough to eat?"

  "Yeah. Dad?"<
br />
  "What?"

  "Will you read to me tonight?"

  The question caught him off-guard; Todd hadn't asked it in years. "Well, sure, if we can find a book. We're not going back downstairs, though. It's dangerous in the dark."

  "There's a bookshelf right there." Todd pointed behind his dad. "Look."

  "Well..." The idea of escaping into a book was surprisingly enticing. "Okay, sure. Are there any books up there good for kids, though?"

  Todd vaulted over the bed, running his flashlight beam over the spines. "I think so."

  Alan joined him, and saw an entire shelf dedicated to the kids' classics. His mental picture of the couple that had lived here deepened: one was a schoolteacher, maybe, or they had grandkids that came to visit sometimes. He felt a sudden connection with them, a deep gratitude.

  "Old Yeller," Todd said. "It's about a dog, I think. I heard about it in school."

  "How about something else?"

  Todd's fingers danced along the spines, his lips moving silently. "Little House in the Big Woods?" he said, sounding intrigued. "What is that?"

  Alan took it down. "It's a pioneer story."

  "What does that mean?"

  He could imagine the old couple watching. "It means it's perfect."

  22

  He woke to the sun's gentle heat, in a strange bed dappled with morning streaks and shadows. Todd lay sleeping next to him, his face serene.

  There was no urgency and nowhere to go. No one was late for work or school; THE GAME didn't leap immediately to his thoughts, forcing him to trudge downstairs with shame in his heart. There was only the stillness and the light and his son.

  He wanted nothing to change, so instead of moving, he watched.

  Todd's breaths were deep and even, nearly silent. Everything about his face was perfect: the rich brown of his eyebrows, the contours of his cheeks and eyes, even the perfect muss of his hair. This flawless creature, constantly fidgeting when awake, was still as a portrait in repose. When Todd had been a baby, Alan had sat and watched him like this, just observing the miracle of his existence. We can't have immortality, he'd thought, but we can have this.

  It had been fascinating to watch Todd become his own person: to take all the things Alan and Brenda had given him, and make them new. This phenomenon had only been heightened with Allie, who had seemed to take the reverse traits from her parents (Alan's nose and eyebrows; mom's cheeks and hair) and was bubbly where Todd was introspective, thoughtful where he was wild, and silly where he was serious.

  They both looked like their parents. They both came from their parents. But they were brand new human beings. It was one of life's most glorious mysteries, and he used to let himself meditate on it as long as he could.

  When had he stopped allowing himself the time to stop and watch his children? When had their miracle become so mundane that he was capable of ignoring it? Yes, Todd had taken more to Brenda than to him, but surely that had been partially Alan's own fault. He'd pushed the boy away, been too annoyed with his constant squirming and bustle. He'd committed the sin he'd sworn to never commit: he'd acted like his father.

  But even as they'd grown apart, even as the depression had slipped its tendrils into Alan's mind and dragged everything to darkness, he'd tried to keep a grasp on the things that were important—to remind himself how lucky he was to have such incredible children. The depression would tell him that everything ends, that death is inevitable. That the children would grow, and become different people; that eventually even their children and their children's children would grow, and forget, and die. He would fight these ideas in the only way he knew how, by telling himself: But I have them now.

  They are here right now.

  It was a tiny shelter in a hurricane the size of the universe—a rickety thing that could collapse at any moment—but sometimes, it was enough. He reached for the idea reflexively now, a child for an old blanket, and found it covered in barbs.

  It wasn't true. Allie wasn't here.

  He sucked in a breath and rolled on to his back, his heart suddenly hammering.

  His little girl was gone—the one who was always dancing, who loved pink and purple despite her parents' efforts not to pigeonhole her. He had held her empty clothes in his hands. He had watched them flaking into dust.

  The old mantra—they are here now—was suddenly poison.

  Anguish drove him to his feet, and they sent up a cry of protest. Rashes sizzled on his thighs; a dull ache crouched in his calves and shoulders. His whole body was a map of pain after last night's running. He winced and berated himself for being out of shape: an automated response that meant nothing.

  He limped to the bathroom down the hall and relieved himself. The water was still running—that was something—but outside the window trees were down everywhere, ripped up like weeds. Tangled power lines criss-crossed the streets, drowning in glittering pools of shattered glass.

  It had been a big one. Allie had always liked a good storm; she would've loved this.

  Memories of his daughter chased him into the hallway, to the other bedroom on the upper level, where he could make out the river. Dirty smoke curled from the wreckage across the bridge, but it was thin. The storm must have put the fire out.

  They'd made it, then. He felt like he should've been relieved.

  But the ghost of Allie's smile haunted him. What was the point of surviving in a world without it?

  23

  There was a drugstore just up the street. They ducked in to stock up on batteries and grab a couple extra flashlights. Alan took one of their little grocery carts, and they loaded it up with the bags of food they'd salvaged from the kitchen last night, along with some of the books they'd found. A case of bottled water for the bottom of the cart, and they were fully loaded.

  "Anything else you want to grab while we're here?" Alan asked. Todd ran back, flashlight bouncing over black shelves, and returned with a box of cookies. His eyes watched Alan's, expecting admonition. Alan shrugged. If the end of the world wasn't good for cookies, what the hell was it good for?

  Outside, the sun beat from a clear sky, baking the asphalt. Alan shielded his eyes, trying to get his bearings, to make a plan. There were trees and street signs down. The power cables draping the street were probably dead, but he didn't want to find out. Swarms of empty clothes fluttered from tree branches and traffic lights. A pair of white Capris blew like a flag from a broken lamp post: We surrender.

  "Are we going home now?" Somehow, in the two minutes he'd had the cookies, Todd had gotten a streak of chocolate on one cheek and a pants leg.

  Alan hadn't been planning to go home—the thought of setting foot on that bridge again terrified him—but he wasn't sure where else to go. "I don't know. We should probably get settled somewhere, get a generator running, maybe set up some kind of signal so that when people come, they can find us."

  "People are gonna come rescue us?"

  "Well, yeah. I mean, I don't know how far everyone disappeared, but it can't have been the whole world. Probably not even the whole country." Except I tried to call Washington and Florida, and got no answer. 911 didn't pick up. Websites were down. The news anchor desk was empty.

  He shook the thoughts away. He couldn't base their entire survival plan on ten minutes of half-assed internet searching. "Someone will come looking eventually."

  Todd sighed, obviously relieved. Alan felt a stab of guilt. Lying to himself was one thing. Lying to his son—

  "So are we going home to set up the generator?"

  They already had the generator at home. They knew the area there.

  "We'd have to go over the bridge again."

  Todd looked that way and made a noise of vague trepidation. "Yeah. But I really want my 3DS."

  Sure Todd wanted his video games. The kid was a junkie for them. Before he'd spent two years locked in a basement with one, Alan had been the same way.

  "And I just miss home."

  "Yeah. I miss home, too."

&n
bsp; Todd stared at the ground, biting his lip. A shock of hair was standing straight up at the back of his head, lending the vague impression of a bird's crest. His lips bristled with cookie crumbs.

  He's got nothing, for gods' sakes.

  "All right. Sure. Let's go home."

  24

  The bridge was easier to manage in the daylight. The wind, screaming up the river basin the night before, had thrown some of the cars into the river below. The rest it had piled into a long, jagged mess that choked the right lane but created just enough twisting space in the left lane for the shopping cart. As Alan tried to wrestle it through, Todd clambered along behind him, jumping on to bumpers and over hoods, leaping extravagantly onto asphalt glittering with broken glass.

  Alan glanced back, his shoulder throbbing from trying to wrench the cart between a torn bumper and a concrete rail. "Todd! What the hell?"

  "Sorry." He was already halfway up another hood.

  Alan left the cart and grabbed his son by the arm. "Are you trying to get yourself killed? Can't you see all the broken glass?"

  "I was being careful!"

  "Careful? You were jumping into a pile of broken glass! What the hell is wrong with you?" He grabbed Todd and swung him to the ground, setting him on his feet. "Stay on the ground," he snapped. "All right?"

  "All right!" Todd snapped back.

  Don't you fucking sass me! I'm trying to fucking keep you alive! Alan's mouth was open, the words ready to fire—but they weren't his words. They were his dad's.

  God dammit, they were his dad's.

  He'd been through that grindstone a million times as a kid: Dad snapped and berated, goading Alan into snapping back, then tore into him for sassing. It was a trap that left Alan with his back to the wall every time, fighting for his life and gasping for air. No right answer, no way out. He was supposed to just shut up and take it, whatever bullshit his dad dished out.