5 Years After (Book 2.5): Smoke & Mirrors

by Correll, Richard

  “I’m not going to kill you.” Brett felt the edge leave his voice. “Just be gone, get out of here.”

  “My gun,” the man looked up with tears in his eyes. “I need my gun.”

  “You ain’t shooting me in the back.” Brett shook his head ever so slightly. “Just go.”

  “I can’t protect myself.” The man was still on his knees and clasped his hands together. “I need ……”

  “Here, take a knife.“ Brett’s right hand found his belt and tossed it at his feet. He paused and saw how pathetic this man looked, it was almost sad. Brett rummaged around for a couple of cans and tossed them in argyle sweaters’ direction. “Hurry off now.”

  Argyle sweater collected the offerings without making eye contact and hurried off into the flurries. Brett picked up his pack, slipped it over his shoulder and then let his M16A3 traverse the area around him for any sign of threat. There were a few figures coming out of the fog, it was time to go.

  “Watch your back, soldier boy!” Brett heard argyle sweater call to him in the distance. “You should have killed me while you could.”

  “Fuuuuuucck yooooooooooooo.” The sweater man was laughing now. Why didn’t you kill him? Brett began to back into the forest and pick his way among the trees. The flurries were lessening. At least he could see his way further.

  “Fuuuuuuuck yoooooooooooo!” Argyle sweater called out again, farther away this time. There you go, out a good knife and food. Brett stopped himself from spraying the trees with his M16A3. Just get a move on, what’s done is done.

  *

  “You can be a real sucker sometimes,” the voice was from a few years before the world went to hell. It was Maggie.

  “Is that so?” Brett kept his tone light. She was probably right. He had a trusting nature about him.

  “You bet.” Maggie had that twisted smile on her face that he found so sexy. She was leaning on his truck and sipping water that was ice cold. She was watching him toss bales of hay into the truck, “You just have a good heart, I guess.”

  “Don’t you have a good heart?” Brett paused before picking up the next bale. “Don’t you try and see the good in folks.”

  “Naw, I’m a bad girl.” Maggie bit her lip. “We look for bad things.”

  “Like what?” He took his shirt off and then picked up another bale and tossed it on to the flatbed. Maggie’s eyes wandered around the tapestry of the muscles on his chest.

  “We lure country boys behind barns….” It sounded like an invitation.

  There was a fever about Maggie that made him literally forget the time of day. Holding her close and feeling her sweat in the middle of the night while they made love. It was all intoxicating to the point of overwhelming. There was just an almost chemical connection between them. He knew she could feel it as well. The way her eyes widened when he walked in the room. How she would listen to him and how he would listen back.

  Is that why it keeps ending? It was a hard question, one he had no answer for. Maybe it was like looking at the sun too long, you became blinded by the intensity of passion. You became afraid of losing yourself completely in another person’s shadow. Was it really that bad to just to be a part of someone?

  “I need to get my shit together,” Maggie was sitting in the flatbed of his truck watching shooting stars at Hollofield as they shared a beer. It was secluded and close to Maggie’s mom and dad’s house in Baltimore. He could feel her now. It was like she was pushing hard against something on her insides, trying to break through into the rest of her life.

  There was something happening here. The party all night badass that slept to noon girl was transforming, suddenly, she was up before dawn on long runs and a hundred pushups before breakfast. The energy that fueled her party life became more focused, intense.

  “It’s like I’m looking for a good swift kick in the ass.” Maggie tried to articulate emotions that she herself could only begin to grasp at. “I dunno, I just, like …………” Maggie’s thoughts trailed off as her hand crept over and ran itself through his hair.

  “What do you want to do?” Brett asked slowly as the planets and stars danced through the dark.

  “I don’t know….” Maggie was searching for the right words. Her emotions were suddenly deep, like wading through water and then stepping off the shallow end of a pool. “I wish I knew.”

  “Then keep looking, it’s a big world.” Brett spoke softly but seriously. “Because when you find it, you’ll know what it is.”

  “You really know what you want, don’t you?” Her tone was almost envious. He didn’t have to see her in the dark to know that whiplash smile was back.

  “Yeah,” the whole night felt almost dreamlike. He’d talked about it many times. Find a piece of perfect land, make it your own. He had all his trade papers so a job shouldn’t be a problem. He would build a perfect house for a perfect family, watching the sun set from the porch that he had hewn with his own two hands. He would be the anchor for his wife and the father of his children. The roots he would lay down would be deep. He could almost feel the legacy of it. His son watching his kids run through the fields of green, standing on the very porch that he had built, it would go on and on. I love you, he wanted to say but Brett felt it wasn’t the right moment.

  “I envy you.” Maggie whispered and slid closer, her breath made the skin on his neck quiver with anticipation.

  Three weeks later she joined the army.

  *

  It loomed out of the forest. It was out of place but a part of the landscape. It was unlike the trees and the evergreens, sloping hills and meandering streams. It stood out from the natural fauna as something man made. The first thing Brett saw was the second story, then, as he topped the rise in the small valley that was gathering snow the rest of the home came into view. The porch seemed to beckon his attention. It wrapped itself around the entire outside of the house. Like a faithful protector caring for what lay within. The white picket fence had faded with the years but had weathered well.

  Brett had a memory of approaching his mom and dad’s cottage in Montana after a day of swimming or working on their land. There was warmth to the glowing lights. It felt like, he searched for another word but found none that was more perfect than “home”. There would be the smell of something from the kitchen. A ball game would be on the television in the background. Everything had its place. There were no loose ends or lingering doubts. This was where he should be.

  There was no light, no warmth from this forgotten part of the world. The windows had no beckoning amber glow. The darkness of the interior could only be measured in the impenetrable shadows. It was a dead husk, lifeless among the almost immortal trees nearby. The white paint still protected the frame of the structure as it fought on gamely against the elements. This had once been home to someone, it was a memory somewhere lost in the raging currents of this changing course of time.

  As he walked closer, the slight ripple of paint peeling back from wood was quickly identified by his handyman’s eye. The windows were perfect panes of glass, not broken or boarded up. They looked like expectant pets, guarding over the homestead in anticipation of a families return. The wood gave way under his boots. The passage of time had made a few floor boards begin to ease out of the nails that held them in place. Gravity, nature and the never sleeping rust of time were all enemies of a good household. The door eased open as Brett peered into the darkness of the hallway and a flight of stairs that disappeared to the top floor. He always waited at the front door. It was always good practice to let whatever was inside to make the first move.

  Dust hung thick in the air as it floated around like insects on a hot southern night. His eyes traversed the darkness one more time before checking his six. He saw his footsteps in the snow leading to the porch. Yes, they would see them and follow soon. He kept the door open for the feeble light it cast on his world. There was something in the air, a presence, an instinct. He walked slowly toward the stairs.

  Don’t……..
He didn’t say it. He could feel it.

  The third step he rested his army boots on creaked loudly. If anything was up there it knew it had company. Brett listened again for any movement. The house was silent except for the odd gust of wind testing the sturdiness of the siding. Again, his eyes turned to the open door. Nothing yet, but soon, he warned himself. Are you serious? What are you doing? You’ll be trapped……..

  There was a shuffle, something moved or skittered to the right in the hallway. Yes, he finished the sentence, what am I doing? He took another step up the stairs. At the top, he surveyed the hall way and clicked on his flashlight, the beam was dull. It was just enough to begin following the noises in the hallway. The paint was that off white almost brown color that everyone used on their house when they couldn’t make up their minds. There was a master bedroom door to his left that was closed, a bathroom door, also closed nearby the master bedroom. If they opened suddenly, Brett had a second to react now.

  He carefully shone the flashlight down the long hallway, the shuffling arose again. They slowly turned and faced the light invading their private domain. They were rats, packs of rats that had grown fat and well fed as they always do when humanity is in retreat. They moved about a body leaning against the foot of a bed with its face bent forward. He looked about fifty with bald patches slowly erasing his hairline. His legs had long been chewed away above the knee. Big clods of black marked the stumps. Dried blood was a stain across the floor as if he moved about, struggled before dying. Brett took a look back over his shoulder before taking one more footfall forward. The idea of spending the night here was becoming less and less of a reality. The rats had already claimed this territory. As they sniffed about the carcass, their tails seemed to work in the air like cobras, twisting carefully as a sign they were thinking, deciding…..

  The hand simply appeared as if by a magicians’ conjuring as the trap was sprung. The rat that the left hand had captured was stunned at first in the grip of the man’s only remaining appendage. The dead man’s head rose slowly and regarded the catch, the rat twisted its’ body and gnashed its’ teeth from left to right. The rest of the pack scattered to a safe distance. In a slow motion muscle move the man bit the head from the rats’ body and began chewing hard through the cartilage, bones and meat. The body of the rat, tensed upon being beheaded, the four legs splayed out to their farthest extension. The tail was completely vertical as if it had been drawn by an artist. Brett swore the creature was somehow still alive for a few excruciating seconds. The man swallowed hard and then stuffed the rest of the body into his mouth, the tail protruded from his lips like the tongue of a snake. The hard, hungry chewing continued. Brett tasted something vile and acidic in the back of his throat. The man was chewing faster, eyeing Brett carefully.

  The room seemed to be invaded with the stench of vile, cold logic. It was like he was watching the new world order play itself out as the puss yellow eyes of the man sized him up. The tail of the rat twisted slowly out of sight between his lips. Brett waited for a moment or two as the shock began to flow like a ribbon of ice through his bloodstream. He didn’t know whether he was going to be sick, violent or run away from this house into the bleakness of the sleet.

  BAM! The front door made contact with the wall on the main level.

  Brett turned away from his nightmare to face the trap that had just been snapped shut. There was a shadow at the door. It was leaning on its left leg with shoulders hunched like a wolf preparing to fight. He had been dead for a very long time. The gray skin had meshed against his skull, leaving no room for muscle or fatty tissue. It was like a death mask. The hollow cheekbones accentuated his teeth, making them look like unnatural protrusions. The specter in the door didn’t have to sniff the air for his victim. Brett was already halfway down the stairs. He’d been a tradesman all his life. This house was a common layout.

  He landed on the main floor and took quick and careful aim, at this distance the only way to miss was panic or to have an unsteady hand. He squeezed the trigger while inhaling slowly.

  The rifle sounded like it could be heard all over the world. They knew he was here now. There would be a pack investigating this man-made report in their neighborhood. He turned away toward the kitchen as his peripheral vision watched the body fall back through the front door. He swore other faces were coming through the sleet. It was flying about like fat wisps’ of white in a snow globe. The eyes in the fog followed him, fixated on him.

  There it was, just like he’d seen it a hundred times. Brett lowered his shoulder and made hard contact with the full length glass patio doors. A shattering sound that made the rifle shot sound like a whisper punctured the silence. He was standing on a deck, glittering with glass. The deck creaked underneath his boots. Brett took a deep breath and made the chain link fence in one leap and crashed into the rocks and scrub brush of a field that was just a space and boundary between two neighbors who may not have known each other’s name before the end of things.

  Brett quickly did a 360 of his position. The field before him was flat with pathways and small, young saplings. The bushes were still alive in the cold. A few yards after that it had flattened out, like it was to be cleared for a new park or field. As Brett turned back toward the house he could see the faces appear at the shattered patio door to follow him. Were they the same ones from the highway?

  How far would they follow? Brett shouldered his pack and made as much speed as he could towards the open field. Slow, swirling snowflakes begged him closer. The flurry might hide you but they’ll just follow their scent. Could you see them in the dense fog like snow? He felt like a prey that was running out of options. A quick glance over his shoulder betrayed ghost like figures following his scent like bloodhounds to a fox. Would he lose them tonight? Impossible, you are now doomed to a walk of twenty four hours or more before the next chance to rest. They will still be on your tail then and don’t even think about an ankle sprain, that was a death sentence. One bad step, just one bad step was all it took to kill you. So walk like Jesus on water, he tried to remember how to do it.

  *

  “Well that was pretty stupid.”

  His dad was sitting in that lime colored Laz-e-boy that he seemed to live in at the end of the day. Brett could only stare in astonishment. Maybe his dad was frustrated, disappointed or whatever. But Brett couldn’t help but take the comment personally.

  Layoffs were a common thing now, so was the company bringing you back to work with a cut in pay. These were the same guys who always said that their employees were the company’s most important asset.

  Good, then pay us that way, Brett thought acidly as he tossed the layoff notice on the coffee table and went to put his tools up in his bedroom. There was nothing to say. No way he could relate how he felt. He had graduated with great grades, had been an excellent apprentice and had invested in the right tools. Brett felt his shoulders grow weak.

  The first plant he went to work for just closed up one day, he never saw his last paycheck. According to people at the labor office that happens all the time, nothing they could do about it. The second moved in three months just a few hundred miles south into Mexico for cheaper labor. He took some bitter solace in knowing it just wasn’t him. His friends were having the same run of luck.

  Brett had a chance to see people he had gone to high school with at a barbecue. Back then, they were happier, rowdier and the smiles were real. A few years later, the light in their eyes was starting to dim. The weight of life had started to grind on dreams. The laughs weren’t quite as loud, tinged now with a cynical, sad ring. Do you still believe in yourself? Life was slowly pulling him down an abyss. He sat on the bed, a grown man of 22. He felt like a child who had just failed a test. His insides were hollow. He thought of his friends, they had all done the math but never talked about it. At this amount of money an hour, working this many hours, for this many years………..

  How they hell were you going to make it in life?

  The trouble was i
t was starting to feel all too real. This wasn’t just a setback, a temporary issue. This was life. It felt like hour after hour, day after day there was a force holding him back. You can’t make enough to even think about anything. One step forward, two steps back. He ran a hand along the back of his neck and let his eyes look up at the four white walls that closed in. This is all you have after a few years. The room in your parents’ house, tools you won’t be using tomorrow and work boots that will just sit by the door. The walls seemed to move closer, suffocating him.

  It was hard to explain to his dad that the world was different today. Jobs didn’t fall off of trees anymore. Wages didn’t keep up with the cost of things. Yeah dad, I know you were on your own at age 17. Brett replied to his memories. You bought your first house at 21. But that was when you worked forever at one job. Your boss saw you as a benefit, not a thing to be used and tossed casually away. Brett could not find the words to explain to his father, in your time companies did not get bailout packages from the government and then leave for lands of cheaper labor. CEO’s never looted the retirement fund to pay off shareholders. Dad, you grew up in a time when dreams came true.

  But dreams don’t come true anymore.....

  “Brett,” his mother tapped lightly at his door. Her voice was almost an apology to what his father had said. “Supper’s ready. Wash up, okay?”

  “Okay, mom,” He answered with a throat that had a hard time forming words.

  He avoided his father’s eyes throughout dinner, took his dishes to the sink and cleaned them just like he always did. As he was washing up it occurred to him that his dad had not even looked at him in the entire meal. He tried to find a place of orientation, a spot where he had made a mistake that he had to pay for. What have I done? The dishes were stacked up to the left to dry and he still drew a blank. Are you too proud? The self examination became almost surgical. No, I don’t think so.

  Are you lazy? Brett looked out the kitchen window and saw the half-moon rise above the trees. Of course not, nothing pleased him more than dirt under his nails and dried sweat on his shirt after a long day.