Todd

by Nicolai, Adam J

  Is he okay? Is he eating? Alan is hungry, too, but it doesn't matter. It's Todd he's worried about.

  He sits up and says his son's name to the empty room: an invocation that manifests nothing. He repeats it, nothing changes.

  Todd could be sleeping. He could have run away.

  He could be dead.

  A sudden fist squeezes Alan's heart: something resembling panic. He bolts upright, sweating, on the verge of hysteria. "Todd?" The call echoes twice in the empty room.

  He scrambles to the boy's room, just off the living room. It's a shattered mosaic of dirty clothes, rotting food, and broken toys. It looks like a squatter lives there. He's about to lurch away, driven by the need to find his son, but his eyes snag on the words, Jokes For Dad.

  It's a collection of ragged pages from a spiral notebook, torn out and stapled together into a makeshift book. Below the title are the words, To Make Him Feel Better.

  Moving as if caught in a dream, Alan picks it up. The first page reads:

  How do Signs communkate?

  He stares at it and remembers things like pride in his son's vocabulary, concern over his misspellings, and the basic thrill of seeing him create something. Still in the dream, he turns the page.

  With Sign Langague

  Alan exhales through his nose. Not a laugh; not even a chuckle, exactly. More of an acknowledgement. The next page says:

  What store has the most Money?

  Which, he thinks reflexively. Not what. The scholar corrects while the father turns the page, eager.

  Dollar Store

  He does laugh this time. He should've seen it coming, of course, but something about its absurdity, its sheer earnestness, reaches him. He doesn't know why he laughs—it's not really that funny—but he does.

  The darkness in his head watches and shakes its head. It knows there's nothing in the world worth laughing about. It knows—it tries to remind him—that everyone is gone, that the world is a rock in a sea of nothingness, that the eternal cold of space is coming to claim them, and that the Blurs are its heralds. It knows he is an alien on his own planet, treading water as the flood rises.

  The book in his hands barely earns the descriptor. It's ten thin pieces of paper. Against the weight of their doom, it is frail and meaningless: matter making a quick pit stop between dust and ashes.

  But it made him laugh.

  When he realizes this, he starts sobbing.

  Meds are working, the scholar notes wryly, but the words vanish under a tidal wave of grief. This little, pathetic book. Todd made this. He made this, while his father lay on the couch waiting to die. In the face of cataclysmic, impossible despair, he chose joy. This feeble thing, this tiny, irrelevant bunch of papers. He chose this.

  "Daddy?"

  Alan snaps his head up. He doesn't want his son to see him like this, but there's no escaping it.

  "Are you okay?" Todd says.

  It's the question Alan should be asking him. He don't deserve it, he hasn't earned his son's concern. He's failed him in every way a father can fail a son. He wants to flinch from him, to hide, and so he forces himself toward him and pulls him into a hug.

  "I'm sorry," he whispers. "Todd, I'm so, so sorry."

  60

  "I'm really sick." They sit on the living room floor, Alan steadfastly ignoring the couch. "I don't know if you remember, you were pretty small still at the time, but a few years ago I got sick like this. I had to take some special medicine before I was able to get better."

  "Is it like a cold?"

  "No." Alan taps his temple. "It's in here. It's like being really, really sad all the time, and not being able to feel anything else." That's not exactly right. It's more like endless darkness, like the vacuum of deep space. Compared to that, even the sadness he feels now is a welcome change. But he doesn't clarify. "It's called depression. When you feel this way it's hard to do anything. And you..." He braces himself, forces his eyes to seek his son's. "You can be really mean, sometimes, especially to people you care about, and I'm sorry about that."

  Todd won't meet his eyes.

  "I said some really mean things to you. I didn't mean them. I never would've said them if I wasn't sick. And that doesn't excuse—"

  "But they were true, though."

  The words trip him. He cycles back, trying to remember what he actually said that day, but all he can remember is the rage. "I—"

  "We're gonna die here. Right?"

  Everyone dies. He swallows the words, but he's too weak to deny them outright. "I don't know. I shouldn't have said that."

  "But the Blurs..." Todd trails off, blinks rapidly, and tries again. "The Blurs—"

  "The Blurs can't hurt us." This much is true. He's no cheerleader, but he can hold to this, at least. "I shouldn't have said that. Just think about it. They've never hurt us. They've never even touched us. I don't know what they're doing"—Changing the planet. Growing the moss.—"but whatever it is, if they could hurt us they would have by now."

  Todd stares at the floor. His hands have found a pile of markers and are idly forming geometric shapes with them: a triangle, then a square, then a rectangle. He is constantly creating. He can stop no sooner than Alan could fly to the moon.

  "Are you going to kill yourself?" he says.

  Alan answers immediately. "No."

  Todd's bottom lip quivers. His voice is writhing. "That scared me really bad when you said that."

  "I know. I know. It was just the depression, Todd. I promise."

  "Because if you died I would be all... all by my..."

  He grabs his son, pulls him in. "Listen. Not gonna happen."

  "I wish you never would've said that."

  "I know." Todd's body is a live wire in his arms. "I wish that, too."

  "I hate that depression!"

  "Me too."

  "I want to just... vaporize it!"

  The admonitions are like whip cracks. Alan wants to burrow into the couch until they stop. He hates himself.

  He should've gotten the meds sooner. He should've known how bad it would get.

  And even now, the voice in his head says, This is all pointless.

  "I'm sorry," he says again. "I'm here now. I'm here." He draws a breath and forces those damn words out, the ones that Alan's son needs to hear but Alan's father poisoned. "I love you."

  You're lying, his dad's voice sneers. You're putting on a show, but you're as pathetic as you were yesterday.

  Maybe. But if putting on a show is what he has to do, then he'll do it.

  61

  Todd holds his hand as they walk next door to use the facilities, and hugs him every time they stop or slow down. He hasn't been this clingy with Alan since he was an infant. Again, Alan wonders briefly if the trauma is making his son regress, and decides it doesn't matter. The constant hugs are desperate with need; they're impossible not to return.

  He watches for the moss as they go, but he doesn't see it in their cul-de-sac. Then again, if it were growing under the sea of waving grass that used to be their front yard, he's not sure he'd notice it. What he does notice is a nip in the air: the first taste of fall.

  "Do you know what month it is?" he asks.

  Todd shakes his head. "I stopped keeping track." He gives another hug. Alan can feel the fear in his grip. One of these times, it says, you'll be gone again when I hug you. Todd doesn't trust this new, comforting Dad. Why should he?

  Alan squeezes his hand, answering the fear with a message of his own: I'm here. "It's getting cold," he says. "Must be September, or October even."

  Todd's jaw drops. "We missed your birthday!"

  Alan summons a weak smile. "Yeah, probably. It's okay."

  Todd doesn't get this. "You can't just skip a birthday!"

  "It's all right, Todd. It's not a big deal."

  "I'm going to get you a present."

  Alan opens his mouth to shut him down, then stops. When he looks at his son from outside, he sees a trapped child. He sees delusion and naivet�
� and the teenager he'll be in five years, who will realize how hopeless the world is.

  But Todd sees none of this. For him, there is meaning everywhere: in his markers, in his notebooks, in the defunct idea of a birthday celebration. All he sees are possibilities.

  It's an unstoppable force. Eventually, it will burn out on its own, but it's no use fighting it today. "All right."

  They reach the neighbor's driveway and start toward the door.

  "Are we still gonna go trick or treating?" Todd asks.

  Alan's annoyance slips past before he can stop it. "Todd," he snaps. "There's no people."

  He flinches, and Alan instantly regrets his tone—but for fuck's sake, there are limits to how much denial he can handle.

  "I know," the boy says, abashed. His hand tightens on Alan's: I'm sorry. Don't throw me away. "But I just thought we could maybe dress up still or maybe go get some candy or something like that." He won't meet his dad's eyes. "Or Christmas? Are we still going to do Christmas?"

  Alan takes a deep breath. These questions are poking the bear. "I don't know, okay? Let's take one thing at a time." Hell, they might not even be alive by then.

  This thought sobers him. If it's really October, it could start snowing any time. His mind paints everything white: the street filling with snow, the grass drowning beneath it, the houses fading into vague, white lumps.

  How will they keep warm? They have a gas fireplace, but the gas line went dead months ago. If they take off the glass, maybe they can use the flue for burning wood, but is that safe? Will the generator run out in the cold? Could they use a space heater, or would it overload the generator?

  Winter is coming at him like a freight train, and he's bewildered, stuck staring at the oncoming light.

  Don't pretend you know what to do, the scholar says. That'll get you killed. You need to drive south. Go as far as you can. If you leave now, you should still have time.

  But there's no guarantee the streets are passable: the highways, for certain, will not be. What if they get trapped in a snowstorm on the road? It'll bury them.

  The couch is calling now. Oh, is it calling. Shut down, it whispers. Close your eyes. Wait. You can't do this.

  Todd opens the neighbor's door, then draws up short. "What is that?"

  The foyer wall is covered in blue moss.

  62

  Alan snatches his reaching hand. "Don't touch it."

  "What is it?"

  "It's just moss." Yesterday, this wall was empty. Today, it's almost completely covered. He wonders about spores and air quality in the contained space; imagines some alien organism floating into their lungs as they speak. "Come on. Let's use the next house."

  Todd wants to argue—Alan can see it in his eyes—but he's still too grateful to have his dad back. As Alan closes the door, he thinks: If it can appear overnight in this house, it can appear overnight in ours.

  "That was weird."

  "Yeah. I saw—" Alan hesitates, then plows ahead. "I saw a ton of it at Crown, last time I went. All along the wall, in the sidewalk cracks, hanging off the carts... I don't know what it is."

  "Do you think the Blurs made it?"

  Alan looks at him. "Why do you say that?"

  "It looks just like them. And I've never seen anything like that before."

  He's had the same thought, of course, but the truth is it could be anything. Just because it's blue doesn't mean—

  "Is it dangerous?"

  "I don't know."

  "Then why did you grab my hand?"

  "Because, better safe than sorry."

  They're at the next house. The front door is locked, so Alan breaks out a window and carefully clears out the glass.

  "Wait here. I'll climb in and open the front door." And check for moss.

  Todd grabs his hand. "I want to go with you!"

  "I don't want you cutting yourself on the glass, Todd. Go wait at the front, I'll be right there."

  "I won't cut myself! I'll be extra careful!"

  "Todd." Alan takes his shoulders. "It'll be okay. I promise."

  When the boy finally turns away, Alan climbs through the window frame and opens the curtains behind him, letting some light into the living room. There's no moss there, but he keeps his eyes peeled as he circles to the front door.

  All clear.

  Today.

  63

  Brenda—

  I know it's stupid to write you. I know you can't read it. Maybe it's a sign that I'm losing my mind, writing notes to my dead wife. But I have to talk to someone or go crazy, so I guess I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

  I had another episode. A bad one. I'll tell you about it later, but basically, it freaked Todd out bad. He's really clingy now, following me everywhere. I'm trying to reassure him, but I suck at it. It's never been easy for me. You know. I do love him, you know that, but it's just really hard. He deserves to have you here. I feel terrible for him.

  I miss you too. I need you really bad right now.

  I checked our freezer today and Todd was right—the food has turned. The moss is in there. I don't know how it got in there, but it's on our food. I don't know if it will hurt us to eat it. I wish there was a way to test, like an animal or something we could feed it to. I suppose if there was an animal, we could just eat that. We still have a bunch of canned vegetables and stuff, Spam, and I haven't found any moss in that yet. Hopefully it can't get in there. I was hoping the winter would kill the stuff that's grown so far around here, but if it grew in the freezer, I suppose it won't.

  I'm thinking about leaving before winter comes. It seems stupid to risk staying when I know for sure there are warmer places to go. I don't know what to do. Traveling won't be easy and I think Todd takes some comfort from being in our house. But I won't lie. It is gross here. When the wind is right you can smell all the shit from the other houses. And we have no running water, no nothing here. If it wasn't the wrong direction I'd take Todd up to your mom's cabin. At least they have well water and a propane tank. But I don't think going north is a good idea.

  We are going to the library tomorrow. I feel like an idiot for not thinking of it earlier. But I want some survival books before I make my final decision about what to do. Looks like you were right about relying on the internet too much :)

  I miss you. If you come to me tonight, please hold me.

  64

  "We're leaving?"

  Alan is throwing supplies into a suitcase: clothes, food, batteries. Todd watches, disbelieving.

  "We can't stay. It's getting too cold. I told you." This morning dawned brisk; Alan's breath plumes as he talks, even in the house. He's put this off too long.

  "I thought you said we were gonna tough it out."

  "I said we might. If I could find some good books." Yesterday's trip to the library did uncover a few useful titles on winter survival, but all they did was drive home the dangers while convincing Alan he wasn't up to handling them.

  "I thought you did find some books."

  "Yeah." He considers a ratty pair of socks, then tosses them aside. "They weren't good enough. Listen." He stops, takes a breath. "You need to get packed, too. Go down and pretend you're going to Grandma's, but instead of just for the weekend, it's for a whole month. All right? Pack lots of clothes. All your clothes."

  "But why? Just 'cause of winter?"

  "Yes, Todd, because of winter."

  "We've had winter tons of times! We never had to move."

  Alan opens his mouth to retort, but bites it back. "When it snows, Todd, what normally happens?"

  Todd thinks. "They close school?"

  That pulls a reluctant chuckle out of Alan. Ever the optimist. "No, actually, they usually don't. Usually didn't. Because the snow was no big deal. We had snowplows that would come through and push it all away so we could drive on the roads, but if that didn't happen, if the snow just piled up all winter..." A visual comes to him. "You know the 'snow mountains' that you and Allie climb? On the side of the drivew
ay?"

  "Yeah."

  "Do you think we could drive our car through that?"

  "No way."

  "Okay, so now imagine that everywhere, on all the streets and all the driveways. That's what happens without the snowplows. And there are no snowplows now, because there are no people."

  Todd shrugs. "So we stay home."

  "Sure. Okay. And eat what? We can't get to the grocery store. The food we have here is already growing moss."

  "We go to the grocery store and get more."

  "And if moss grows on that?"

  His brows furrow.

  "We're trapped here. If we run out of food, if the snow grows up over the house, if the generator dies—we're trapped. And on top of that, we'll need the generator for heat. We can't burn wood in the house—it'll suffocate us. If we run out of gas, we can't get more. It's too dangerous to stay here." Talking through it burns away the lingering doubts. Alan turn back to the suitcase. "We can't."

  "But what if it doesn't snow? Last year it barely even snowed."

  Alan throws in a calendar, then a tube of toothpaste. His last clean t-shirt from the dresser. "Then we'll get lucky. But I'm not trusting our lives to climate change."

  "But this is our home! We've always lived here!"

  "I know, Todd, but we can't stay." Underwear. Socks.

  "But what if Mommy and Allie come back?"

  That trips him up. Todd flinches away from his sudden glare. "They're gone, Todd."

  "I know, but what if they somehow—"

  "We had a funeral. Remember?"

  "I know, but what if?"

  He closes his eyes, trying to catch his temper. He doesn't want to yell again.

  "Todd, this is my decision, and I've made it. Now go pack."

  65

  On his last trip back in, just before they leave, Alan sees a note on the kitchen counter.

  Dear Mommy and Allie,