He picked at this information for a week or so, trying to find a way that it might matter, that it might impact them. Bugs were eaten by nearly everything, so the entire food chain would probably collapse. That might've mattered if the food chain had had any links left. As it was, he and Todd had their own personal food chain: it was called Crown Foods.
No bugs would mean no pollination, which might mean a lot of plants would die. Alan tried to remember what he'd heard about the bees that were dying worldwide, and what the impacts to plants were from that, but came up blank. For the most part he suspected many plants would do just fine, even without pollination. The world still had sunlight and water. Hell, they'd probably do better than before, now that there were no humans to cut them down.
Plants exhale oxygen, though, and everything that breathed oxygen is gone. Too much oxygen was bad, he remembered that, but why? What would it do to them? How long would it take?
This happened every time he tried to figure something out about their circumstances. Too much oxygen, not enough food, no shelter for the winter, eventual madness. All roads led to death.
46
After the fresh food ran out, other modern conveniences fell one by one. The running water stopped the following week. The natural gas went two days later. Each loss was a support pillar getting kicked out from underneath them by a giant. Each left Alan reeling, fighting against a growing sense of horror.
The toilets couldn't flush without running water, which made it hard to keep the house livable. They started using other homes to relieve themselves, filling first the toilets and then the bathtubs. When those were full, they shut the doors and started on the next house. In a final act of recognition of their old life, Alan shit in the Davises' living room before moving on to their neighbors' place.
Todd stopped checking the roof every morning. His game time expanded into every waking hour. If the machine was charged, he was playing games; if it wasn't, he was talking about them. Brenda had always said too much gaming was unhealthy. Alan even wondered if the boy was losing touch with reality, but so what if he was? Wasn't it a mercy to let him drift away, to let him find something he could hang on to and obsess over?
If anything, Alan was jealous. He tried losing himself in his own games or books or movies, but they couldn't distract him, so he threw himself into preparing the house for winter instead. It didn't work.
One day, his fevered preparations in the house just ceased. He laid down on the couch and stared at nothing. It's bad this time, he thought. Worse than before. He knew, intellectually, that his depression was taking no prisoners, that he wasn't thinking clearly—but at the same time, he thought maybe he was thinking more clearly than ever.
They were alone. They still had plenty of food and water, but nothing else. No one had seen their sign, and no one would; even Todd had stopped watching. When winter came they would probably freeze to death, and if they somehow survived until spring, it was only a matter of time until malnutrition or Blurs or any of the other thousand horrors Alan had imagined killed them.
Of course I'm fucking depressed. It would be abnormal not to be depressed.
But that was a dangerous thought. It opened the floodgates. That night, Alan couldn't rouse himself enough to eat, let alone feed his son. Todd woke him when it started getting dark, and they went up to the bedroom.
The next morning, Todd fed himself.
The next evening, he started feeding Alan.
47
Everyone dies, Brenda told him in a dream. Nothing lasts. You'll die, Todd will die, the planet will die, eventually the whole galaxy will die. Everything in the universe is spinning away from everything else; everything growing colder and more still as the eons pass. Death is the universal constant.
Everyone dies, and nothing matters.
(2)
Distort
48
It might be late August.
He doesn't know for sure, because he's stopped tracking the days on the calendar. Even after all that chest-thumping about how important it was, after all the bravado about controlling time so it didn't control him, he couldn't do it. He couldn't convince himself that it mattered. Eventually, Todd started marking the days instead. Alan noted this fact with no small shame, but it was insufficient to get him off the couch. He knows his son deserves better, but he didn't choose this. He didn't choose any of it.
They are at the park. The air is hot and heavy, broken only by the groan and squeak of the chains as he pushes Todd on a swing. The boy's old enough to swing on his own, but he asked to be pushed. It doesn't matter—nothing does—but Alan obliges him. If someone were to ask, he wouldn't be able to explain why.
The boy's t-shirt is damp with sweat at the hips. The swing shoves away with a long protest—squeeeak—and then comes back with a squawk. Squeeeak, squawk. Squeeeak, squawk. The world's saddest donkey.
Alan has completely collapsed. He recognizes that, as if he's staring at himself from the outside. He's a slug. A waste of flesh. He's not drowning; he's already drowned.
Suicide is not an abstract concept anymore. It's a black car in the distance, coming down a long, empty highway at midnight. He can see its lights, growing brighter and closer every minute. He was running away from it, then he was walking. Now he's stopped, and he's just waiting.
Every night he falls asleep thinking about those headlights. He wakes up thinking about them. They wash over everything he sees during the day and soak into every thought. When the frozen vegetables ran out last week, they grew brighter than ever.
But he still has to make a decision about Todd. It is the only thing holding him back. Once he does, that black car will reach him, and it'll be time.
God, I'm sorry! A burst of passion, erupting from the depths like a geyser. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Everything was supposed to be better for you! But even this feels false. He is, fundamentally, an emotional fraud. I love you! You're my son! I wanted everything for you, I wanted friends and young love and a happy life and money and success and now you'll have nothing and I'm sorry, gods, I'm so sorry. The words scream in his skull, pounding mutely at the windows of his eyes, but they don't make it out. His face doesn't so much as twitch. Everything—every emotion, every desire—runs into this wall and dies before it can reach expression.
He feels a flicker of regret. Then the geyser ends.
Alan stops pushing. Todd glances back and says, "Daddy?" The boy was enjoying the physical contact, the connection between father and son. He believed it meant something.
Todd builds up speed, forcing Alan to back away or get hit in the face. When the swing starts going so high that it's trying to spin the pole, doing that weird little weightless flop at the top of each arc, he jumps.
An old, paternal instinct shouts a warning in Alan's head—Be careful!—but it hits the wall and dies. He watches his son sail through the air as if in slow motion. The boy lands on his feet but stumbles forward, arms flailing. Alan is sure he's gonna go down, but he doesn't. When he catches his balance, he throws his arms up and spins back, beaming like an Olympian. The father in Alan's head wants to smile, to feel pride. He is pounding on those windows, but Alan can't hear him. He can't manage a smile. The best he can do is a grudging half-nod.
It'll be dark soon. They have to go home.
49
The blue flickers are more common now. Alan sees them at least once an hour, whether indoors or out, even in the bedroom with all the lanterns blazing. He notices three of them just during the 20-minute walk home. He hasn't mentioned them to Todd, who is still pretending they're not there. Maybe Todd thinks if he ignores them, they'll go away.
"Get ready for bed," Alan says as they get back to the house. He restarted this old tradition, not because it matters, but because he got tired of Todd pestering him about it. He couldn't care less whether the kid brushes his teeth or puts pajamas on, but the boy's whining was driving him crazy. Daddy, you never tell me to get ready for bed anymore. Daddy, you
never read anymore. Daddy, I really liked it when we used to read those Ma and Pa books.
Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. If Alan had called his own father Daddy, the man would've kicked his ass.
The headlights draw closer.
"I'm hungry," Todd says when he comes back. He's buttoned his pajamas wrong; one side of the shirt is hanging longer than the other.
"Get something to eat."
He goes to the freezer, pulls out a bag of bread, and takes one of the frozen pieces. Alan used to tell him to let them thaw. He doesn't anymore.
"Do you want one?" Todd sounds hopeful. Amicable. Alan remembers that he was a nice kid, back when there were other people to be nice to. A good person. Alan used to be proud of that.
He manages a small shake of the head, and they go upstairs.
The boy still snuggles up at bedtime, still burrows into Alan's chest, trying to find comfort. Alan has none for him. The kid should know that by now, but he's just an organism, after all, acting on instinct like a bird flying south. The bird wouldn't know that the whole world is a wasteland now; it would fly south anyway. Alan watches the boy curl up next to him like it's a scene from a nature documentary, and hates himself.
If he thinks life is so worth living, if he thinks there's actually anything left here for him, maybe I should leave him here when I go. I'm probably just depressing him anyway. He can feed himself. He'd be better off without me.
It makes sense. The black car's lights grow brighter yet.
50
He needs you, Alan, Brenda says in a dream. He looks up to you. He can't do it alone.
But Alan can't see her. He has no idea where she is. He catches glimpses of her, but whenever he turns around, she's gone. Where are you? he asks.
He's so much like you. He's friendly like you are, he's inquisitive, he's withdrawn. He's got your darkness, too, you know that. It's starting to take him just like it's taken you.
You're going to criticize me? he demands. He still can't see her. You left us! You left me!
Whenever things got really bad, Brenda could always diffuse the situation: she would give someone a sudden hug, or crack a joke, or give his hand a special squeeze to keep him tethered. Remembering those moments makes him ache. He can see himself in them, can remember who he was: the best person it was possible for him to be. I need you! Where are you? How are you even talking?
But she is gone.
51
He wakes staring at the ceiling. Todd has rolled away, one arm hanging off the edge of the bed. The room is bathed in lantern light, and Alan is wondering why he's still here.
Something or someone decided humanity's time was over. He and Todd were leftovers, somehow missed in the big purge; they should be gone, but they're not, and instead they have to mark time until the end.
Fuck that, he thinks. If there is anything he has control over, it's that. He doesn't have to mark time. Nothing can make him.
He gets up, grabs a lantern, and opens the door. He has a vague notion of killing himself tonight, and maybe Todd, too. He hasn't decided. If he wants what's best for his son, does that mean he leaves him here or takes him with?
He closes the door and starts down the stairs. He makes first for the kitchen, thinking of the steak knives, but he doesn't want Todd to find him in a pool of blood. He changes course for the bathroom, his lantern light bobbing like the ferryman's torch on the Styx.
There's a bottle of sleeping pills, he notices with surprise. Brenda must've gotten sloppy, convinced that he was okay. And he is. He really is. It's different this time.
He dumps a pile of pills into his hand and stares at them; becomes Vincent Vega, mesmerized by the shining contents of the mysterious briefcase.
His mind fast-forwards to the morning. Todd finds him on the bathroom floor. The boy screams and tries to wake Alan up. He runs to the phone and calls 911, even though he knows full well it won't work. He's mad with panic. Alan fast-forwards some more, but the recording ends; he can't see what Todd does when he calms down.
Alan recognizes how futile their situation is, but Todd doesn't, and Alan's too pathetic, too cowardly, to do what should really be done.
The pills spill into the sink. He watches them from a hot-air balloon, floating hundreds of feet above, and a thought occurs to him. If he's too chicken to do it himself, maybe he can find a Blur to do it for him.
He reaches for the lantern but hesitates, surprising himself. A moment ago he was on the verge of suicide. If he's not scared of that, how could he possibly be scared of whatever waits in the dark?
The logic doesn't matter. His fingers pinch the knob but won't turn it. He wrestles with them, assaults himself with reasoning. Maybe I can see what they're up to. Maybe I can communicate with them if Todd's not here to throw a shoe. If they can send text messages, maybe they can talk too. When that fails, the assault turns to insults: Listen, you fucking coward, turn off the goddamn light.
He twists the knob and plunges into darkness. The lantern clatters from his hand, echoing like thunder.
They're everywhere.
52
The darkness is not black, but blue: comprised of hundreds or thousands of morphing impressions that glimmer azure like the rainbow in a puddle of gas. He can't tell what they're doing, but they're busy. They remind him of a cloud of minnows, furious and intent, no single entity distinguishable for more than an instant. He feels he should be terrified, but if there's any emotion cutting through the blackness in his head, it's annoyance.
"Hey." The cloud of Blurs gives no sign it heard him or even knows he's there. "Hey!"
He feels his way along the doorframe and steps into the hall. "You said help was coming. Right? In the text, that was you?" They flow around and over him, a swirling, infinite mass of blue darkness, unwitting. "I just want to know what's going on." He shoots out a hand, trying to grab one, and manages to knock over a lamp.
"Listen to me! You killed half my family, you can fucking listen to me!"
But they don't. He falls silent and starts watching, back in documentary mode, but he can't make any sense of their churning. He should be screaming, should feel his mind breaking apart—Oh God, what are they? Where did they come from? What do they want?—but even his brief flicker of annoyance has faded now, and he's left with only bland curiosity: same questions, different tone.
He slices through the swarm to the window and peers outside. It's the same there—Blurs everywhere—with one difference. They are thickest at the ground, coagulating on it like a layer of writhing blue snow. There is a constant stream of them coming from that layer, and an equally constant influx of them returning.
They're moving through the ground? The sight is so unexpected, it actually tricks him into caring. For a heartbeat, he almost gets scared. Is there anywhere they can't go? They're in the air, too, drifting and blowing and flying, and above them, that bizarre blue star gleams larger than ever. A harbinger, maybe. Maybe a progenitor.
Coming closer, he thinks sickly. Coming here.
Suddenly he feels repulsed, like he's just discovered a carpet of cockroaches beneath a couch cushion. He lurches back to the bathroom, stumbling through the blue. He can't feel the Blurs but he suddenly imagines he can: wisping over the hair on his arms, snaking into his nose and ears and throat. He is batting at his face when he finally rounds the corner back to the bathroom, sinks to the floor, and switches on the lantern.
The darkness vanishes, and the blue with it. He is alone again, shuddering on the bathroom floor, wishing he had the courage to kill himself.
53
More weeks pass. The summer heat breaks. The leaves start changing color.
The black car has caught up to him and is idling at the side of the road, its passenger door gaping with darkness. Todd and simple cowardice are the only things keeping him from climbing inside.
"We're out of bread," Todd announces one morning. Alan is on the couch, reeking to high heaven, staring at the wall: his standard MO.
; "We're not out of bread," he says.
"We are. All that stuff melted."
"Did the generator stop?" He doesn't think it has; its drone has been unceasing for months. He told Todd how to fill it just before he stopped caring.
"No. I keep it gassed up."
Alan hunts briefly for a reason to respond, and fails. He stops talking.
"But it's like everything in the freezer just melted. The bread is getting all blue."
How can he make him go away? Is there any way to make him stop talking?
How can he care enough that he doesn't want to leave his son here alone, but he can't stand talking to him? How could it possibly be worse for Todd if Alan weren't there?
He's been stupid. He should kill himself tonight.
"The bread is getting all blue," Todd says again, as if Alan didn't hear him.
"So eat something else," Alan snaps. Leave me the fuck alone.
"There is nothing else!"
"Yes, there is. There's tons of food."
"There's not! There's no food!"
He knows there's food, they brought home trunkloads of food. There is canned soup and powdered milk and trail mix and potted meat and canned vegetables and every variety of jerky, not to mention all the candy. There is so much food, it turns his stomach just to think about it. When Todd gets hungry enough, he'll eat it.
"Daddy?"
There's enough food to last until winter, at least. After that, it won't matter.
"Dad?"
"What?" he snarls.
"Are you just going to lay there?"
This is such a stupid question, it strikes him mute. He answers by looking away from his son, back at the wall.
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