Todd

by Nicolai, Adam J

  But in the next twenty minutes, the flurry thickens. The grass and the blacktop disappear, melding into a single, still plane of white.

  Well, you fucked that up. He hasn't heard his father's voice in his head for weeks, but it's here now, louder than ever. Left too late. Could've stayed at the house, if you were just planning to freeze to death out here anyway.

  Fucking idiot.

  He flinches from the words, but he can't fight his dad this time, because he's right. God damn it all, he's right, Alan has screwed this up and now—

  A wreck looms suddenly ahead of them, bursting from the white landscape without warning. Alan hits the brakes, and the car starts to slide, drifting slowly clockwise.

  "Shit! Todd, get your leg down!"

  "What?"

  "Get your leg—!" he screams, and the world becomes screeching metal and shattering glass.

  78

  The roar of the heater. His son's scream. These noises echo in his ears like actors murmuring behind a stage curtain. The only sound now, though, is the wind: a kind of white noise that may as well be silence.

  "Todd!" The boy is sprawled across the center console, his head buried against Alan's side. "Todd!"

  "I'm okay." Todd's voice is hoarse from screaming.

  "Are you okay?"

  "I—I think so."

  The boy's leg hasn't been torn off, and Alan doesn't see any blood. "Can you move?"

  Slowly, Todd extracts himself from his father's seat.

  "Careful. There's—ah, fuck, there's glass everywhere. Be careful."

  "I can move." Todd winces. "My neck hurts." He sees Alan's face, and his voice spirals toward hysteria. "Is that blood on you?"

  Alan puts a hand to his face and it comes away sticky. "Looks like. I'm okay, though. It's okay. Did you get your leg down in time? Is your leg okay?"

  Todd feels his leg. His hand is visibly shaking. "Yeah. I got it down. Yeah."

  "Christ." Relief floods Alan like a drug. "Oh, Christ, I thought you were gonna lose your fucking leg." He wants to weep. He wants to laugh. His vision is swimming.

  Turning his head carefully to the left, he sees blood on the cracked glass of his window. "Looks like I broke it with my head," he says, and cackles.

  Todd laughs, too. They sound like lunatics. When Alan realizes this, he sobers quickly.

  "Okay," he says. "Okay. Hit in the head. That's not good. I could be concussed, or something."

  "What's 'concussed'?"

  "My head. Yeah." He needs to get the first aid kit. They talked about a concussion in there.

  Snow bites at his cheeks, gusting through the ruins of the windows. Already, the tips of his ears are freezing. "Shit. We need to go. It's cold, we need to go."

  He tries to open his door, but it's mangled beyond use. He glances toward Todd, sees his window is still in one piece. "Can you open your door? Careful—the glass."

  Todd turns—he is moving his head too slowly, too gently—and swings the door open. He climbs out, leaning against the car frame to support his ankle.

  The car spins quietly around Alan as he follows, trying to avoid all the broken glass. As soon as he gets out, he remembers their winter gear is in the trunk, and climbs back in to use the trunk release. He sprawls over the seats, reaching for the catch as the dashboard looms above him.

  I am fucked up, he realizes. Too dizzy. He needs to lie down, to rest. His fingers, not quite numb yet, find the release. Mercifully, it works.

  He and Todd put on hats, gloves, and scarves, then he dumps his old suitcase and refills it with a lantern, the siphon pump, a can opener, and their two blankets. Everything else has to stay.

  No, wait. The first aid kit. He tucks it in.

  "Where are we going?" Todd asks.

  Alan slams the trunk. No need to ruin their other supplies. Once the storm is over, maybe they can come back for them.

  He scans their surroundings, the horizon tilting like a teeter-totter as he fights for balance. The storm is everywhere, blinding him, but farther south he thinks he can make out an exit from the freeway. There may be a building at the bottom of it. They'll have to get there.

  Todd won't be able to climb the ditch, so if they can't skirt the wreck right in front of them, Alan will have to leave the suitcase and carry his boy. If he even can. He's not so sure, but the only other option is to freeze to death here. They have to move.

  "We can't use your crutches in this. Here." Alan takes the suitcase in his left hand and keeps Todd on his right, favoring the boy's wounded foot. "Just use me to balance." The ground spins beneath him, packing the words with irony. "All right?"

  Todd nods and leans into him.

  "Can you walk this way? Do you need me to carry you?"

  Todd takes a few tentative steps. "I think I can do it."

  They're able to skirt the wreck, so there's no need to chance the ditch, and they reach the exit in good time. Alan thanks the universe for these small reprieves, but his luck runs out there.

  The exit slopes gently downward, to a rural underpass. The building he hoped for isn't there, and the storm has thickened so much that he can't scan their surroundings.

  "Feet are cold," Todd says. Alan's feet are cold, too. When they left their house, he packed gloves, scarves, and hats. He didn't pack boots, because he is a fucking idiot.

  In a normal winter, they'd be able to stick to the car tracks or the plowed streets, but of course there are no such things now. The snow is already an inch deep—not much, by the old standards, but they have to walk through it, and it's enough to start soaking through their shoes. His feet are already wet.

  Just watch for the numbness. After that comes frostbite. After that—

  Bad. No need to review it. Just bad.

  At the bottom of the exit, Alan picks a direction, and they limp into the blizzard.

  79

  One foot in front of the other. The whining crunch of snow beneath their shoes. Constant, gnawing fear.

  The world is a vast, white cold. There is nothing else.

  He imagines the surface of Europa, one of Jupiter's moons: an endless expanse of frozen ice. Humans have always thought of snow as a part of the weather, a natural consequence of the varying temperatures, but he suddenly realizes this is a completely inaccurate way of looking at it. Snow is the planet's water exposed to the deadly, infinite cold of space. Nothing more or less. It's not some weird, alternate state; it's the way water would be all the time if Earth weren't warm enough to prevent it. Beaches and sunlight—these things are the exception. Winter is a glimpse of how the world actually is, and one day will be again, when the vastness of space gets its way.

  Dangerous thoughts. The last time thoughts like these started running through his head, he ended up on the couch for months. But he can no sooner turn them off than he can turn the sun back on.

  Todd stumbles; Alan grabs him, props him up. They don't speak.

  You'd be faster without him, Alan's dad says, and Alan imagines leaving his son behind as the boy cries for him. He imagines reaching shelter alone. He imagines life without the boy's constant curiosity, his guileless grin. It is a thought of such bleak, unrelenting horror that he speaks just to drive it away.

  "I love you, kiddo." He has to raise his voice above the wind. "I really do." I'm sorry I was a dick all those years, and I know I don't always show it, and Please, please believe me fight for purchase on his tongue, but he's said what he needed to say. If we die here, I want you to know that, surges forward and almost wins a vocalization, but he kills it. Instead, he says: "Everything's gonna be okay."

  "Love you t-t-too." Todd's teeth are chattering. Actually chattering, like in a cartoon. Alan puts his arm around him to share a little warmth, but they're both coated in snow, and leaning to the side while he's still dizzy could easily cost him his balance. If they fall, they might not get back up.

  So he straightens out, and they go on. Step after trudging step into the endless white, the drifting flakes growing
ever fatter. When they stumble, the snow will cover them. In minutes they'll be just two more indistinguishable mounds, unmarked graves in a silent sea of snow.

  Will the cold slow the Blurs down? Will it slow the sky worms? Maybe the snow will at least keep the moss from taking hold.

  He forces his head up and looks around. The blue glimpses are there, so many they are practically a permanent smear at the edges of his vision now. No, winter won't deter them.

  Of course it won't, he realizes. They come from space. They drift around an asteroid, exposed to absolute cold and deadly cosmic rays. A Midwestern winter? Please. They probably don't even notice it.

  When he and Todd drop, when the snow covers them, the work of the Blurs will continue. Whatever end they're seeking, they'll reach, and Alan won't be there to see it. Maybe that's for the best.

  But he's come this far. He wants to know—he's earned the right to know.

  We just need to survive until the blue star gets here. As soon as he has the thought, he knows it's correct. Whatever the asteroid is, whatever load it's carrying, its arrival will be decisive. Maybe it will be the last thing Todd and Alan see.

  Following the thought to its conclusion suddenly makes him doubt the premise. Do they really want to witness that thing's arrival? Why? Why watch the end of the Blurs' grand design, when it is almost certain to be horrific?

  If they just lie down now, they can go in peace. Fall asleep together one last time. It would be better—

  Todd stumbles and pitches into the snow. His scarf has come loose. His eyebrows are caked with frost.

  "Todd?" The line of thought Alan was just entertaining vanishes. "Todd?"

  The boy doesn't respond. Already, the world is moving on. The snow is covering him.

  Alan drops the suitcase, scoops his son into his arms, and runs.

  80

  Hang on, he wants to say. It's gonna be okay. Hang on. He is on the stairs again, going bump up and down. The boy is a newborn, completely dependent on his father for survival.

  But Alan's not in his twenties, and the boy is not seven pounds. Between Alan's shoulders, his back creaks. Every frozen breath is a fight. There's nothing to spare for whispered words of encouragement.

  They flit through his mind anyway. Hang on. Hang on. He is talking to himself. He doesn't care.

  His dad does.

  You know, you did this, the old voice sneers. You knew the winter would be a problem for months, and did nothing. Too depressed. Too pathetic. Too many excuses. And then after screwing around that whole time, you fuck up one last time and leave too late. You saw a problem months in advance and decided to drive right into it.

  Fuck you! Alan screams. Fuck you!

  When he dies, it'll be your fault.

  SHUT THE FUCK UP! The rage drives him forward, loans him strength he doesn't have. I fucking hate you!

  For a second, it works. Then: My son, folks. Last hope of the human race.

  He is pushing with everything he has, but the snow slows his sprint to a sort of lazy, jogging trudge. He tries to lift his feet higher, to get more distance in each step by clearing the snow, but this only makes him slip and nearly fall.

  Hang on. The words are getting desperate, like a TV doctor who won't stop zapping her dead patient with the defib. Hang on. Oh, Christ.

  There is a car in the ditch, its front windshield shattered, its seats buried in snow. He pushes past it and shifts the burden, looping Todd's body over his shoulder. His left shoulder crackles with relief; his right groans beneath the doubled weight.

  Left foot. Right foot. Both numb. Snow in his face, his eyes; his moustache tickling his nose with ice. Left foot. Right foot. He can't feel his ears. His shoulder is screaming. A stitch in his gut is slowly tearing his abdomen open.

  He wants to cough, to vomit. Every breath is a frozen dagger scraping his throat. Left. Right. Left.

  Hang on.

  Hang on.

  It'll be okay.

  He slips, and goes down.

  (3)

  Devour

  81

  He huddles in the corner of a closet, terrified. Light leaks through the slats on the door, painting stripes on his face.

  "It knows you're here," Brenda tells him. She doesn't whisper. "It can come in any time it wants."

  The monster moves outside. Alan can hear it.

  "Why is it doing this?" He barely recognizes his own voice. It is decades younger, trembling with a deep, miserable fear.

  "Ask it." She nods at the phone in his hands. It's his—the one he smashed.

  "There's no signal." But when he looks, the connection is live. His last received text—

  help is coming

  stay

  —glares up at him, daring him to defy it. He glances at Brenda. Her face is like stone. "Go ahead."

  He thumbs in the question, the one that has haunted him for months.

  why are we still here

  The answering buzz is nearly instantaneous.

  because you don't matter

  Brenda's expression softens. She nods encouragement at him; reaches out to squeeze his knee. Todd is dying, he wants to tell her, but somehow he knows that this version of Brenda doesn't care about that. She wants him asking questions. She wants him to understand. He turns back to the phone, thumbs in the last question he cares about.

  why did you do this

  And again, the near-instant answer:

  hunger

  "It's time." Brenda gets to her feet, moves to open the closet door.

  "Don't," Alan starts, but he can't stop her. The door slides open, revealing empty air: a drop of a hundred miles into clouds flickering blue.

  "I'm sorry," she says. He reaches for her, but his hand passes through hers. Then she is falling as he screams her name.

  The light dims as he watches her plummet. When the clouds swallow her, the world has nearly gone dark.

  Something is eclipsing the sun.

  82

  His heart gives a jolt, starting him awake. He struggles to his knees. Through the dwindling curtain of snow, he now sees a building. It is less than half a mile away.

  Todd, he tries to say, but his tongue fails him. The boy has curled into a ball on the ground. Snow coats his face. His lips are blue.

  The building could be anything. It doesn't really matter. Any shelter will be warmer than this.

  They don't have to die here.

  He grabs his son, forces himself to his feet—and staggers, falling hard to one knee. A wild scream of pain shoots up his leg. He tries again, but he's too weak, and Todd... ah, God, Todd is too heavy to lift.

  So he grabs him by the arms, and drags him.

  Left. Right. Left. The cadence starts again. There is no internal monologue this time, no silent cheering section. No goal, even. Just empty repetition. Right. Left. He will stop, eventually. When he does, he'll be in either the building or the storm.

  The last living being on Earth, dragging his son's body through the peril of a raging planet. An analogy for the entire human species—for life itself. A cosmic accident that will nevertheless rage until the final, bitter moment. Survive. Keep going. Save the bloodline.

  He wonders if he is dragging a corpse behind him.

  Left. Right. Left. Right.

  The sign says:

  Jericho Diner

  Fine Dining

  Pasta, Steak, Seafood

  He drags his son inside.

  83

  The wind stops. Oh, Christ, the wind stops, and the snow is gone.

  "Todd." The word is sludge in his mouth, mumbled past numb cheeks and the dead worm that used to be his tongue. "Todd."

  The boy doesn't respond. Alan leaves him and stumbles deeper into the shelter. It's done up in a log cabin motif. Wooden walls, wooden tables. Heavy white tablecloths. He tears one of these away—table settings clatter to the floor—and lays it out flat by his son. Carefully, he pulls Todd's sodden hat off, then starts working at the neck of his coat so h
e can check for a pulse.

  The seconds tick by. He feels nothing, and the boy's lips are still blue. Alan took one CPR class nine years ago. He will fake it if he has to.

  He changes position, skirts around the neck, and tries again. He is about to start chest compressions when he feels it. The boy is alive.

  A savage, choked sound bursts from Alan's throat, like a drowning man gasping at air.

  "Okay." He unzips his son's coat. "Get you out of this." He works his son's arms out, trying not to jostle the boy's neck, but it's hard. His fingers have all the utility of frozen sausages. When he finally pulls the coat loose, he tosses it aside. The boy's boots are next.

  "This is all soaked," he says to the empty room. "All right. Gonna get you dry. Then we're gonna get you warm."

  Once the boy is stripped, he rolls him onto the tablecloth and wraps him up, then he sweeps through the dining room and pulls several more tablecloths. He covers him with three or four of these, then stalks into the kitchen and grabs the biggest roasting pan he can find. Back in the dining room, he snaps the legs off a chair.

  He doesn't care about smoke anymore. He doesn't care about risks. He finds a book of matches and a couple old newspapers, puts it all in the pan, and starts a fire. The wood is slow to catch, but the newspapers help. When the heat hits him, he nearly weeps.

  His own body is nearly as ruined as Todd's. As he strips, he sees the smoke from the fire drifting up and out through two open windows set high on the walls. A little luck, finally. He wraps himself in tablecloths, then lies down behind his son.

  The fire sears the backs of Alan's closed eyelids, painting them in smears of red and yellow. Its unrelenting heat accosts his face like dragon's breath. Beneath the onslaught, his frozen flesh starts to thaw. In the wake of this glorious pain comes the deepest drowsiness he's ever known.