Zephyr remembered something one of the Alpha sisters had said. That some higher force had reset a cosmic chess board — the leftovers the pawns of some grand strategy beyond understanding. Now here was a circumstance that seemed utterly outside of coincidence. Could the series of events that took him back to Jordan have been part of that design, set in motion by the same guiding power that had ripped so many billions of lives from the planet? Or, was he just another example of mankind’s preserving arrogance – an everlasting belief that there are no coincidences, and that the sun revolves around the Earth?
The answer, he found, was that he didn’t care.
So long as she was really real, so long as he could hug her and kiss her and take her away with him, it didn’t matter. And if he never understood what had changed the world forever, or why, he could live with that.
Patience, he learned, was not one of his virtues. When Jordan finally walked beyond his hiding spot, he rose — to hell with playing it safe — and sprinted to them. By the time the man finally heard his footsteps, he was on him, his rifle trained and ready to fire.
“Your hands up!” he shouted. “Put your fucking hands up!”
“Zephyr!” Jordan cried, and ran to him.
“I’m here, Jord,” he said, as she plunged into him with a thud that knocked him slightly off balance and then wrapped her arms around him.
Zephyr never looked away from the man, who had taken a step closer.
“Wouldn’t do that, if you want to live,” he said, and reasserted his weapon.
“Don’t hurt him. He’s nice,” Jordan said. “He’s been taking care of me. He’s nice.”
“What’s your name?” Zephyr asked.
“Brian,” the man said and rubbed his peppery beard.
“How’d you find Jordan?”
He stared back at Zephyr, but gave no reply.
“When the bad people blew up the—” Jordan began but the man shushed her.
“I’ve got this, Jordan,” he said.
Zephyr shook his head. “No,” he replied. “You don’t. Now let her talk.”
She let go of Zephyr and wiped her eyes. He wanted to pick her up and bear-hug her, but wouldn’t. Not yet.
“After the building blew up, some other people took me. Brian got me from the bad people and protected me.”
“Jord, how did you get out of there?”
“Where?”
“Alpha, kiddo,” Zephyr said. “How did you survive the explosion?”
“I was already outside. We were coming back home and I just ran down the street when all the people were shooting.”
The man took another step closer and Zephyr backed away with Jordan.
“I don’t know what you’re playing at, but rest assured I will shoot you,” he said.
Brian nodded and didn’t move, his hands still raised, the bat still clasped in one of them.
“Drop the bat,” Zephyr said. “And back away. Five steps. Then we’ll talk.”
The man nodded, started to lower the weapon, and then swung it at the rifle. It was a valiant effort, but Zephyr was ready for it, and he fired the gun just as the wood connected with it.
Three things happened simultaneously. First, Jordan screamed, and seemed to go right on screaming. Second, Zephyr’s gun flew from his hand and he scrambled in slow motion to retrieve it. Third, a hole opened up on the side of the man’s neck and blood spurted out from it as he slipped and then fell backward.
Zephyr dove and snatched up the weapon just as the bleeding man was coming for him, oblivious to his hemorrhaging wound. He squeezed off another shot that tore through man’s cheekbone and ripped off half of his face, but it might as well have been a mosquito bite for as much as it slowed him. Then the figure was on him, and cracking him in the face with blow after blow. Zephyr fought back, punching and kicking and thrashing and screaming while the battering rained down upon him. A gory face blocked the sun from view and snarled spit-drenched obscenities at him.
Jordan was wailing from some muffled, faraway place and Zephyr thought, I’m sorry. I tried. I almost did it, Jord.
When he looked into the man’s eyes, there was nothing in them except blank rage, and he knew this was finally the end. That there would be no relenting. He was going to be beaten to death in front of a damned Denny’s in a city with imported palm trees. In direct view of the little girl he’d tried to save.
He kneed his attacker’s balls with the last remnants of his energy. The man howled and the assault halted, but it wasn’t going to be enough and Zephyr had nothing left to give. He stared up into those terrible eyes once more and as he did, the man’s head detonated.
That was the only way to describe it. One second he was whole, about to mount another powerful offensive, and in the next, he was headless, his face and skull blown clean off his body, a fountain of red pulp an eruption from the savage wound.
Zephyr screamed, struggled to free himself from the corpse, and rolled over. He tried to stand and fell, so he rose again, and slipped. He had to get to Jordan. They needed to get off the street. To hide somewhere while he recovered.
Then he noticed them. Four new legs. When he looked up, Trey and Aurora stood behind him, smoke still billowing from his girlfriend’s shotgun.
“He’s dead,” she said almost to herself. “Really dead.”
“I’ll say,” Trey added.
Zephyr plopped back onto his back. He heard Aurora call his name.
She leaned over and kissed him, her beautiful face blocking the sun, her hair falling over him. It was his favorite thing.
“You didn’t actually think I’d leave you, did you?” she asked. “That was never on the table. I told you that.”
He smiled at her. “You bitch.”
In some remote place, another galaxy maybe, he thought he heard Trey singing Jordan’s name, and then the world faded from view.
46
Going Home
Fishing was a pain in the ass.
After Zephyr returned from the library with books that covered the subject and more, Trey told him he was wasting his time, but both Aurora and Jordan encouraged this newfound interest. So whenever he found a moment, he scoured the books for useful advice and techniques, and before too long, he thought he understood the concepts. He knew how to kill a fish in the most humane manner. How to gut and clean it. How to ignite a spark for a fire and then nurture the flames so that they didn’t burn out. How to design an enclosed space so that he could smoke and preserve his catches.
But first, he had to catch a damned fish, and that just wasn’t happening.
In truth, he didn’t think he had much chance of ever starting a friction fire, anyway. He admitted to himself that there was just no way he possessed the ability or patience to rub sticks together until they produced an ember. Thankfully, he had a lighter and it worked just fine for now.
Trey’s mouth also worked just fine, and it never closed. Even now, as Zephyr, Aurora and Jordan waited for anything to bite, he heckled them from his grassy perch thirty feet off.
“I think it’s gonna happen this time,” he called, ignoring Zephyr’s plea for peace and quiet. “Yep. Get ready, Jordan. Record-breaker incoming. I can feel it.”
Nearly two weeks had passed since the beating and Zephyr’s face still wore signs of it. His broken nose, now forever crooked, had given rise to blackened eyes that were only just fading. Meanwhile, his lower lip still held three stitches that had taken Aurora the better part of an hour to sew. He looked a little like a healthier version of Frankenstein.
He still didn’t have the slightest idea why the man hadn’t listened to him or why he’d attacked instead. Jordan hadn’t yielded any answers. She only reiterated that he was nice to her. Whatever his motives, they died with him, and that’s just how it was.
“I think I’m gonna call it for the day,” Aurora said as she spooled in her line. “Better luck tomorrow, right?”
Trey feigned excitement. “What’s happening �
� did you catch Jaws? Jordan, get away from the water. Aurora’s hooked Jaws!”
“You seriously have nothing better to do?” Zephyr asked.
“Nope.”
He didn’t think Trey was lying. His friend seemed to take great pleasure in antagonizing them. When he wasn’t doing exactly that, he was listening to the AM/FM radio he’d found while Zephyr had been solo-exploring Santa Monica. Or drinking. He might have been an engineering genius in his former life, but these days, he was just a dystopian hipster.
They’d had big plans for Palm Springs, but by the time they finally started a car and drove out there, they discovered that the city no longer hummed with electricity. Cold weather and, with no juice to heat it, a cold pool, too. The luxury resort no longer held its luxuries and the allure was gone, so it wasn’t long before the four of them moved on.
Jordan was back from the dead and everybody fawned over her. More compliments, kisses, hugs, and squeezes had befallen her than in all the months they’d lived together prior, and when she asked to sleep with them, Zephyr and Aurora always obliged her. He still couldn’t believe she was real and sometimes studied her face as she slept, too afraid to look away lest she disappear.
One night as they slept together, he caressed her hair and whispered, “Jord, I don’t think we’re going to find your mom.”
“I know,” she whispered back, and hugged him.
“I’m sorry.”
She cried into his chest and he cried with her.
When at last she pulled back, she said, “I’m glad we’re together.”
“Forever this time. Or until you get sick of me.”
“I never will.”
The lake was located about eighty miles east of the state border. They were somewhere in Arizona now. Good old Arizona, he thought. Where nobody had ever tried to murder them. Where no buildings had crumbled before their eyes. This was a state they’d driven through without incident. Of course, he reminded himself, they hadn’t ever voyaged to the bigger cities like Phoenix or Tucson and that’s probably how they’d sidestepped the localized dangers. Their good fortune would likely continue then because they didn’t intend to explore those cities now, either.
He was going home. Back to Firefly Valley. They all were.
Aurora first raised the idea. She said she wanted to see his hometown. He resisted the suggestion from the start for all the obvious reasons, Ross primary among them. How long had it been? Surely not just a year. Could it be two? Zephyr didn’t even think he’d be recognizable to the man now. He was much taller, stronger, weathered. No longer the boy Ross remembered.
“There’s really nothing left to see anyway. The bastard burned down the one thing I could’ve shown you.”
“I know,” she said and laid her pole on the ground. “It’s not like we’ve got any other pressing plans, though. Besides, I think it would be fun to see the city you grew up in.”
“Except, there’s a gun-toting maniac hanging out back there, and we didn’t exactly leave things on the best of terms.”
“You know what I think?” she asked.
“Do tell.”
“I think that’s the old you talking. The new you was born to this world. That’s the guy who killed a man to rescue me and who went out to die for Jordan’s honor when he didn’t have to. I don’t think Ross is prepared for that Zephyr. You’re probably a better shot than he is now.”
“Rory, what I realized out there is that I don’t care about anything else but us.” He looked to Jordan, Trey, and then back to her. “Our family, I mean, as dysfunctional as we sometimes are. I risked all of that for some pointless act of vengeance. It was dumb. I don’t want to do it again.”
“And if you hadn’t, Jordan would still be dead to all of us — we’d never have known to look for her, let alone have actually found her.” She rose, patted the dirt from her jeans, and added, “Listen, all I’m saying is, think about it. Every brave thing you’ve done has been good. It’s worked for you.”
She kissed her hand and then touched his cheek. “Whatever you want, we’ll all support you.”
“It could go badly.”
“Don’t worry, baby. I’ll rescue you,” she said and smiled. “Oh, that reminds me. We’re even on the rescuing front.”
He smiled at her. “What about New Mexico? I thought you wanted to go back.”
“Let’s stop in and check on Sarah. No rush, right?”
47
Firefly Valley. Population: Five.
The snow came down hard and fast as they crested the peak that glared down upon his hometown, itself covered in powder. They drove slow, cautious of the slushy roads and of the man Zephyr had told them all about. Trey was the worst shot among them, Jordan included, so he held the wheel, and he never stopped complaining about it.
“Make the guy from California drive into a snow storm. That’s what we’ll do. Because he’s been in the snow before. Once. When he was blasted nine years-old.”
“If you didn’t handle a gun like a little girl, you wouldn’t be driving right now,” Aurora said.
“Hey!” Jordan objected.
“I didn’t mean you, Jordie. Trey wishes he could shoot as well as you do.”
“I’m not above crashing this beautiful beast to make a point,” Trey said.
The beautiful beast was a Mercedes-Benz G-Class SUV, silver, with a twin turbo-charged V8 engine, seven-speed automatic transmission and full-time all-wheel drive. Zephyr had no idea what any of that shit meant, but it was Trey’s dream car, and he never shut up about it. The vehicle was another gift from Arizona, which was rapidly becoming Zephyr’s favorite vacation destination in the new world. Arizona: No murdering and dream cars aplenty, folks, he thought. There’s a campaign that just about any leftover would find appealing.
They passed through New Mexico almost a week ago and it was both depressing and wonderful. Main Street reminded him of Ben, so lovable and funny, decomposing in a forgotten department store. He thought of Merrick and Brad in their final resting place beside an incinerated death bus and all of the old guilt came crashing back. He and Aurora prepared Jordan for the bleak possibility that they might find Sarah in a similar state. But when they finally entered the old mansion, not only was she still alive, she was plump, with good color, and she was smiling.
She also had company. Shortly after the three of them made off for California, Sarah was scavenging for supplies when she met Paula, a stocky, short-haired fifty-something, and the two of them became fast friends. Zephyr wondered if they might be more than friends, but didn’t say anything. They’d been living together ever since, which was, as the group discovered, not at all the happiest surprise.
Sarah had given birth to a baby boy. Robert Weskler Jr was tiny, pink, with a tuft of deep black hair. When Paula carried him downstairs, his impossibly small balled fists opened, his arms stretched out, and he yawned, which elicited oohs and ahhs from everyone. He was only six months-old.
“What? How?” Zephyr asked, still unable to believe what they presented him.
“Oh my God, Sarah! Congratulations!” Aurora threw her arms around the older woman and the two embraced. Afterward, she wiped tears away and surveyed the new mother. “This is happy news, isn’t it?”
“Yes, dear, very happy,” she said, and smiled. “Early on, I might’ve had a different answer, but look at his face.” She caressed her baby’s scalp and nodded. “It’s happy news.”
Zephyr finally understood. He thought of all the days Sarah didn’t feel like eating, all the days she had retreated to her room, and realized that, even then, she knew. He couldn’t begin to imagine the struggle she’d endured and wondered if the outcome would be the same if not for Paula, who had obviously served as a coach through it all. A baby conceived in hate and born into love. He liked the sound of it. Ironic, he thought, that they had gone to Alpha in chase of hope and purpose and found only despair, while Sarah’s despair had ultimately delivered both.
They stayed for
several days, savoring the smell of home-cooked food and doting on the infant boy. Zephyr liked Paula, who was a brash, blunt woman with a good heart. Whether in the yard watching little Robert on the grass or sharing snacks table-side, they focused on the present, or recounted great stories from the distant past. The future, and what it carried for Zephyr, Aurora, Jordan and Trey, seemed off limits. Maybe Sarah knew that they were headed off somewhere to settle scores, or perhaps she didn’t want to know, but she never asked them where they were going next, not even when they bid her and hers farewell.
Zephyr could only imagine two possible outcomes for today’s encounter. Either he, Aurora, Jordan and Trey were going to die, or Ross was. He hoped it was the latter and figured they at least had numbers going for them, although he had no intention of putting Jordan in harm’s way. She was going to stay behind, even if he had to tie her up himself. She wouldn’t like it and it didn’t matter.
Darkness was integral to the original plan. They would sneak into Firefly Valley, just as he had crept out of it. But then the storm had come along and presented a new opportunity. Surely, nobody would be out in this freezing mess, especially Ross, who was probably already bundled up and asleep in his shabby little house. Or, more likely, passed out. So now they could drive in broad daylight, park a half mile from the man’s residence, and spring upon him.
The springing upon him part was what he still needed to work out. That might prove tricky, even in a snowstorm. If the old man so much as glanced out his window at the right time, they might have a battle on their hands, and that’s exactly what Zephyr didn’t want. The advantage of surprise was integral.
“Last chance to back out, people,” he said. “If anybody in this car isn’t feeling it, speak now or forever hold your peace. No hard feelings whatsoever.”
Snowfall and the steady rhythm of the windshield wipers; nothing else.
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