Dead Weight

by Casamassina, Matt

  “The word dorky comes to mind,” she joked. “OK, cute, too, I admit.” Then she bit her lip, as she always did when she wrestled with something. “It’s just that I’ve seen the way you are with Jordan and you’re… great. You’re so great with her. And you don’t even talk to me. I just… did I do something?”

  “No,” he nearly shouted. Absolutely not. I can’t get you out of my mind is the real problem here, he thought. I should be figuring out our next move but instead I’m daydreaming about you, and I’m powerless. Instead, he said, “Jordan is like my little sister. I take care of her now. That’s all.”

  “OK. You don’t want to talk about it, that’s cool.”

  “That’s not what I said,” he began and shifted in his chair. “I’m just— I mean, I get embarrassed around you sometimes.” There. Finally! It was a microscopic revelation compared to the grand scope of his feelings, but it was something, and he was glad it was out there.

  “I embarrass you?” she asked, feigning surprise as if to say, little old me? And she was smiling again.

  He moved some of the food on his plate around with his fork and admitted, “Yes. Sometimes.”

  She was about to say something in response when Jordan walked in the room, and Zephyr found himself relieved and disappointed.

  “What’s for lunch?” the little girl asked.

  “Delicious microwave pizza. Pepperoni, cheese and cardboard,” Aurora said.

  “You want one?” Zephyr asked.

  She did.

  The sun rose and fell, the moon shone and then faded into the morning blue, and the process repeated. Days. A week or more. The boy wasn’t sure anymore. Some afternoons, they did nothing. Just lazed about the living spaces and watched the last remnants of television or played the video games they’d looted. With a little help from Jordan, Zephyr completed all four Uncharted titles for PlayStation 4 in just as many days, a feat he was proud of but seemed inconsequential to Aurora, who called the series a waste of time. One morning he singlehandedly transported an electric oven to the mansion and their damned generators wouldn’t power it for reasons he didn’t understand.

  Other days were more fruitful. They scavenged a gun store— Zephyr already had some experience here— and came away armed with an assortment of rifles and handguns. After that, the three of them discovered a secluded ranch on the periphery of the city and wedged shooting practice into their daily routines.

  Jordan’s weapon was a Smith & Wesson .22 handgun and she was a capable shot. The little girl didn’t look like much, but within a few days, she could knock a half dozen cans off their perch atop a wooden fence from fifty feet away. In contrast, Aurora’s aim was of little importance to her. She much preferred the power of a shotgun despite the fact that she suffered for it. Her right shoulder was bruised and sore for days after their first practice, but this didn’t seem to faze her and as more time passed, she adjusted her hold on the gun so that its recoil no longer battered her. Zephyr, meanwhile, trusted in his 30-30 rifle. Not nearly as destructive as Aurora’s boomstick, it was nevertheless lethal and also more suited to long-range kills, as he proved time and again by nailing targets from nearly one-hundred and fifty yards away. He was, much to his surprise, a natural.

  “OK, fine, you’re the best shot among us,” Aurora conceded one afternoon as she rolled her eyes.

  “Don’t sell yourself short. If we ever need to shoot an elephant, you’re gonna be the one we turn to.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him. “You’re hilarious. What’s really gonna happen is that you’re gonna be fumbling for your fancy scope when we’re surrounded by three dudes and I’m gonna blast them to smithereens and save your little ass.”

  Zephyr waved this comment off. “Lucky for you, I’ll have seen them coming and taken them out before they can draw their weapons,” he said. “All you’ll be doing is blasting the men I already shot. But whatever makes you happy.”

  “OK, smart ass.” She called Jordan over and whispered something into her ear. A moment later, the little girl sped off into the distance with three beer bottles in her arms.

  “Really? We’re doing this?”

  Aurora ignored him. After all the bottles were placed and Jordan returned, she asked, “You ready, sniper?”

  “I think we both know the answer is a resounding yes.”

  Zephyr arranged a few heavy rocks on the ground, laid on his belly and positioned his weapon so that the long barrel rested on the stones. Then he assumed the familiar form— the butt of the rifle firm against his shoulder, his right eye focused on the scope, his breath held. He sighted on them almost immediately: three beer bottles placed about a foot apart, all atop a fallen tree in the distance. Even with the magnified lens, they were barely discernible. He exhaled, repositioned the scope against the socket of his eye and looked again. They gotta be a hundred and seventy yards out, he thought. And then, So what? I can do this. He sucked in air and held it. The crosshairs seemed to slide over the first bottle and then beyond it. The regular rhythm of his heart. Steady now. The world around him faded as he concentrated on the single point. He exhaled, his finger squeezed the trigger and—

  “Boo!” the girls screamed in unison.

  The crash of the gun. And the bottle exploded.

  Zephyr grinned from ear to ear as the girls grumbled and groaned. Aurora shook her head and stared at him in what he thought must be exasperation and maybe even awe. He soaked it up, particularly because he wasn’t sure he could ever replicate the shot.

  “Are we done here?” he asked, hoping they were.

  “No, we are not,” the teenage girl said. “Do it again, and this time I’m going to be right in your face.”

  “This gets fairer by the minute.”

  “Life isn’t fair,” she countered.

  “I’ll give you that. For instance, some of us are naturally gifted with guns and others aren’t.”

  Her eyes narrowed in mock contempt. “Try shooting your gun, not your mouth.”

  So he resumed his position and attempted to reestablish the laser focus responsible for the previous shot. However, this was a much more difficult undertaking with Aurora’s face hovering just a foot away from his own, her eyes once more penetrating him. It shouldn’t have been much of a distraction, but it was, and he found that as hard as he tried and for all the methodology he employed, he couldn’t align the crosshairs over the second bottle as it waited in the distance.

  “Having some trouble?” Aurora asked and Jordan giggled off to one side of him. He could feel strands of her hair blowing against him.

  “Just…” He sighted in, the crosshairs finally responding to his subtle direction. “Aiming.”

  He held his breath. The shot was good. The bullet would destroy the target, he knew. His finger touched the trigger and then he felt something wet and hot in his ear. He had just enough time to think, it’s her tongue! Then the gun crashed again, but this time no bottle exploded. In fact, as far as he could tell, his barrel pulled high and the projectile soared skyward.

  He looked up, his cheeks burning red, and could barely meet her gaze. Of course, she was laughing, scarcely able to keep herself from doubling over, even, but her eyes met his all the same and there was no shame in them.

  “Well, that’s too bad. I guess you’re just not much under pressure.”

  Zephyr wiped out his ear and then stood, hoping he didn’t look as silly as he felt. “Yeah, that was fair,” he returned. “Let me stick my tongue down your ear while you try to shoot something from two-hundred yards out, and we’ll see how you do.”

  “You can stick your tongue in my ear any time, baby,” she joked, and blew him a kiss.

  The weather took a turn for the worse three days later. Not just cold, but freezing, and with the fiercest of winds. Zephyr struggled to ignite a flame in the fireplace and eventually triggered it. By this time, Sarah had already picked at her dinner and gone upstairs to bed, as she often did. In her absence, the three of them made m
icrowave popcorn, bathed themselves in heavy blankets and watched a movie as they stretched across enormous leather couches. In typical form, Aurora did not appear to care for Zephyr’s selection for the evening, and her attention cycled between the ginormous television and the tablet in her lap.

  “Dude. Candy Crush can wait. This is basically the greatest movie ever made here,” Zephyr said. On the big screen, a teary-eyed Jodie Foster floated in space and declared that they should have sent a poet.

  “No, wait—pause it. Something’s up. You need to see this.”

  “What is it?” he asked and froze the movie.

  She handed him the device, her eyes wide. “Check it out. I tried to load Yahoo and this is what I got instead.”

  The familiar search engine was gone, the iconic logo departed. The page was altogether void of any graphics or color. Just a sparse white background interrupted only by two short paragraphs made in a large black font. A blue hyperlink accompanied the words as a signature might a letter. The message read:

  Why are we still here? How many of us are left? What do we do now? We don’t have all the answers, but we have some. We also have a few strange theories that you might just believe. More important, we are planning for the future and if you are good and able, we need your help. Mankind is not extinct. We are, however, fractured and endangered. If we are going to survive, we need to unite, to share knowledge and trade skills, to rethink our way of life, and make children. This is a message of peace. Please join our democracy and our fight to persevere in the New World.

  The collective citizens of Alpha, (formerly known as Santa Monica, California). December 11, Year 1, AD (After Disappearances).

  Click here for directions.

  Still wrapped in blankets, Jordan and Aurora situated themselves behind the sprawling kitchen bar while Zephyr doled out stale chocolate chip cookies and water— milk was no longer an option— and agonized over every detail of the posting. Those simple words had ripped any possibility of sleep away from him for the night, but that was all right, for within the electricity that hummed through his body and mind there also flowed the faint, steady pulse of something new. Something he hadn’t allowed himself to feel since the vanishings, and even now remained afraid to fully acknowledge. It was hope. The girls were already infected. He could see that in the way their eyes sparkled and their smiles came easier and faster. And yet, this was a big deal and he didn’t want to rush into anything. It was always better to consider every possibility, even the worst.

  “Stop overanalyzing this,” Aurora said as she bit into a cookie. “It’s simple. A bunch of people are starting a new city. What’s to discuss here?”

  “I wanna go,” Jordan said.

  “You,” Zephyr replied, “can go get Sarah. How’s that sound?” The little girl sighed, but ran upstairs anyway.

  When he was sure that she was safely out of sight, he turned back to Aurora and whispered, “I hate to be the pessimist in the group, but shouldn’t we consider whether or not this is some kind of trap before we go running blindly into it? This could all just be a big ruse— a smarter version of the men who kidnapped you— to lure in people.”

  “Yeah. I thought the same thing when I read the part about it being a message of peace.” She rolled her eyes to emphasize the point.

  Zephyr shrugged. “What? Nobody’s ever lied before?”

  “I believe it. And I also agree with Jordan.”

  “Of course you do,” he said, plunked his elbows on the counter and rubbed his eyes. “Listen, I’m not saying it isn’t legit. I hope it is. I even think it probably is. But let’s just be smart here, OK?”

  She smiled. “I’m always smart.”

  “You’re always a smart ass, is more like it.”

  Sarah appeared at the foot of the stairs in worn sweats, her eyes tired and puffy. He read her the website post as Aurora interjected with comments like, “Isn’t it amazing?” When he was finished, Sarah looked between them, nodded, and said, “So you want to go to California.”

  “Yes,” Aurora beamed. “I mean, for one, it’s California. I think it was just a matter of time before I wanted to go there, anyway. And two, they’re rebuilding. This could be the closest thing we get to normal now.”

  “It’s California, hon. Wouldn’t count on normal,” Sarah said.

  “Do you think they have hot showers?” asked Jordan.

  Aurora’s smile widened. “For sure. And milk, too, I bet.”

  The little girl grinned and hopped up and down with her hands clasped together.

  “I think that these guys have had similar run-ins with some bad people,” Zephyr said. “Here. Look here.” He pointed to the tablet’s screen. “If you are good and able. You see that? Not just able, but good and able. Why specifically call out character unless you have reason to? I bet they’re already guarding against messed up people.”

  “Maybe,” Aurora said. “Then again, who cares? Why do you have to dissect everything?”

  Now he was annoyed. “Maybe if you thought through things a little more, you wouldn’t find yourself handcuffed to ovens in department stores,” he said, and as soon as the words came out, he remembered that Sarah was right beside her. “I’m sorry—that was not cool,” he told her. “I didn’t mean you. Just…”

  “It’s OK,” she said.

  “No, it’s not. I shouldn—”

  “It’s OK, Zephyr. Really. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I don’t forgive you,” Aurora said.

  “Didn’t ask for your forgiveness.” He didn’t give her a chance to reply. “The message also indicates that they are looking for people to share knowledge and skills. They’re basically saying they want to put us to work. And on top of that, make babies. Maybe you caught that part, Aurora.”

  “They’re speaking generally. For the survival of the race,” she said. “It’s not like I’m going to be a baby farm for them. They’re just saying that we— as in all of us, as in the human race—need to have children.”

  “That’s presumptuous,” Zephyr said, knowing full well that she was probably right but unwilling to back down.

  “Are you actually trying to be an ass or does it come naturally?”

  “Trying. Not all of us have your natural ability.”

  “OK, children,” Sarah said.

  “Yeah, Aurora,” Zephyr agreed. “So we also know they’re running a democracy, which is a good thing. No dictatorship, communism, or craziness like that. This might also suggest that their new city is far enough along that they already have some form of government. Which, you know, would be pretty amazing.”

  “Yeah, tell me something I don’t know. You’re forgetting the biggest and most important detail in the entire post,” Aurora said.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s December 11. That means it’s almost Christmas. Have you gotten my presents yet?”

  The conversation continued, derailed, unraveled, and all the while Jordan’s eyes grew heavier and heavier. After a while, Zephyr picked her up, carried her to the couch, covered her in blankets and kissed her goodnight. When he returned to the kitchen, Aurora and Sarah were quietly locked in argument.

  “What’s happening?” he asked.

  Aurora turned to him, tears in her eyes. “She says she’s not coming.”

  Sarah stared at the floor, her arms crossed. “Yeah, hon, I’ll be staying. But you should go.”

  “Why do you want to stay?”

  “My life…” she began. “What’s left of my life, anyway—is here. I don’t belong in California. This city is where I belong.”

  “No offense, Sarah, but Las Cruces doesn’t exactly hold the best of memories for you anymore,” Aurora said. “You can start over in California, at least. And you’ll have us. We want you to go.” She turned to Zephyr. “Tell her I’m right.”

  The older woman raised a palmed hand to the boy and with the other, she brushed Aurora’s hair out of her face. “I know, sweetie,” she said. “I kn
ow you do, and I’m thankful that I’ve been fortunate enough to have all of you in my life. But I don’t want to go. It’s not what I want to do. Everything out there—I don’t want any part of it. I just want…” She broke off, searching for the right words. “I just want to stay, that’s all.”

  “OK, well, I think we should stick together,” Zephyr said. “If that means we should stay, too, we can do that. We’ve been fine here so far.”

  “Absolutely not. You kids have always been passing through. Even if you didn’t know it, I did.” She smiled. It was a warm, pleasant smile and for the first time since they met, Zephyr caught a glimpse of the woman as she had existed before the disappearances, before pain and despair had marked and aged her. “Look at you. You’re excited. You’re happy. It’s crazy, but it’s impossible to miss. This is the right thing for you. For all of you. And I wouldn’t have it—

  wouldn’t want it – any other way. No, you go. And don’t worry about me. I’ll be OK.”

  Aurora started to say something when Sarah cut her off. “No—this is the end of the conversation. The end. I’m going back to bed now and I’m sleeping in late. When I come downstairs to make something to eat, I don’t want to see any of you. I want to know that you’re on your way to a better place and that you’re giving that sweet little girl a chance in this life. Now give me a hug. Both of you.”

  Zephyr choked the lump in his throat back down as he watched the two girls embrace and he held his composure even when Aurora shook in silence. It wasn’t until Sarah bent down and kissed the sleeping child on the cheek, her eyes watery and tired, that he turned away.

  33

  When the sun rose, they ate dry cereal and drank canned juice. Then they tiptoed around as they stuffed bags full of food and spare clothes, assembled rifles and handguns, hauled a spare tank of gas to the car, and more. After they crammed the Flex’s rear space with all manners of supplies and the car purred its readiness, the three of them did a final sweep of the house, and Jordan said she wanted to say goodbye to the older lady.