by Jeff Carlson
Once upon a time I enjoyed solitude, the peace and clarity of my work, but even Wolsinger would be a happy sight now. Maybe he won’t be crazy this time. I’ve never been this alone before. I talk just to hear a voice.
Obviously I don’t fully understand yet what we may or may not be capable of during the interrupts. The memory was so vivid, I could almost smell her.
#
Your wife Janice grew up an inner-city black, poor, exposed to gangs and drugs, but she had more style than an egghead from Cal Tech could ever quantify. You made a great team. She was popular, graceful and pretty, sometimes even stunning in the right dress. You gave her structure, paid the bills on time, remembered anniversaries. For a while that was enough.
It wasn’t that you took her for granted—you were simply miserable at some of the things she needed, crowds, dancing, chitchat. And you were discovering new miracles every day that transported you twenty or fifty or a hundred and fifty light-years away. You made the safe choice, stuck with the things you understood, and eventually she left you for it.
Janice is probably dead. Things must be impossibly bad in urbanized areas.
Uncontrolled fires would barely be the beginning, entire cities roasting alive. Not enough food to go around. No water. And San Francisco already had its share of brutes and killers before people lost the ability to reason.
She might have been here with you and had some chance at survival if you’d been a better husband.
Survival. No one is going to live to a ripe old age if we’re taking as much radiation as I suspect. We might have fifteen, twenty years, then slow and ugly deaths—and that also matches the fossil record. As far as we can tell, nobody grew old in the distant past. Some of us will also surely develop cataracts before then, and what kind of life will it be, fighting for safety, scratching for food?
Why do I bother? Jan would say because I’m a control freak, won’t let even the sun tell me what to do. I had to laugh at that but my voice sounded like a tortured ghost, screeching and echoing all through the building.
Wolsinger hung himself in the stairwell, triple-cinched a tough extension cord and then jumped. Maybe Blair did something, too. Mom ate a bottle of pills and I hated her for it. The doctors said she had a good chance but she didn’t want to lose her hair, lose her dignity, suffer through the cure.
I hated Jan for quitting, too.
Hated my father. He also quit in his own way, quit before I was fifteen. It seemed like he put more energy into his stupid basketball games than he gave his own son, football, baseball. He could rattle off a million team statistics and scores but never remembered any of the things I cared about, things that were real and useful.
The EM cone will work, I’m sure of it. And if I do only have fifteen years, at least that’s an eternity compared to a life span of days. Life spans. Just thinking about it makes me feel schizophrenic. I’m so tired.
#
More interrupts, two weeks’ worth of beard but the moon’s in the same phase as when I last recorded it, still waxing full. Madness. Clearly it’s waxing again. It’s been twenty-eight days and this time I’m going to write before shaving.
Self-awareness came back in jolts and stabs, blurred vision, some dizziness, as if my brain were a rusty engine. The burst of fear-adrenaline squeezing through my heart and limbs probably helped clear my head. I was sitting with a woman in the nest of blankets by the water tanks, a tangy flavor in my mouth and tough, half-eaten roots in my hand.
It was the rancher’s daughter. I’ll call her Bonita. Apparently about a month ago I shot at her as she threatened me with some kind of gardening tool, but I didn’t know that as we sat there staring at each other. I recognized her from long-term memories but hadn’t had a chance to read these notes yet. Bonita couldn’t have remembered our confrontation either. Despite that and despite having no language in common, we immediately began to argue. She was understandably shocked, vulnerable. I was apologetic and kept my distance, kept my hands up, palms open, my voice low and comforting.
When she ran, I shouted after her like a puppy.
That desperation shouldn’t surprise me. It’s been several incarnations since I felt anything soft or good or sweet. Bonita was just as dirty as I was but her sweat smelled clean, like perfume synthesized from the pungent earth. She wore only a pair of shorts that were too big for her. I thought I recognized them as mine. It was an American brand. Her breasts were perfect, smooth and small, works of art. And there was the obvious evidence in our nest that we had made love, more than once.
I think we’ve been together before. I think that what I assumed was a dream of Jan after the previous interrupt was actually some trace of Bonita. Her or someone else. But why would any of the locals come to me? Because of my decorative coloring? I may be the only black man in a hundred miles.
It would be ironic if Bonita had been drawn to this hilltop by some vague memory of it being important, and that when we met we simply acted on our attraction. Enemies when able to think and speak, lovers when reduced to an animal state.
Enemies. Someone tore down the power line running from the cafeteria and sabotaged the generators. Number six is a total loss but I can salvage its auxiliary tank, though there may not be any point if I can’t find more fuel. They crawled under the fence, I think, at the saggy corner. More fucking work.
If I save Bonita she’ll love me. Jan did for that same reason. Anyone would.
#
Losing too much time to interrupts, my hair’s a great Afro cloud and the damn moon’s not making sense, still waxing. Still! I have to write this down to keep from running in circles when I am lucid. Half insane even then, not sleeping. So close to beating it.
You’ve already patched together a computer, it’s under the armor, stop tinkering with it.
You need to fine-tune your transmitter. The EM hitting us is bizarre, too short, 170 down to 25nm. Maybe Wolsinger was right.
#
The cone works. I’m under it now. Day Three. I’ve been trying to build a portable version with the few scraps available. It will be very heavy. The generators sound like they’re running OK but there’s no way to walk out there and check. My biggest fear is that someone will get through the fence again and damage them, turn them off. The noise they make is a liability. I know we still possess curiosity in the animal state.
When the last interrupt stopped I was with Bonita again, making love, close to peaking. She shut her eyes as if to escape me and I paused, but her rhythm increased, maybe involuntarily. Then I slowed again to tease her. She turned to face me and murmured and groaned. We kissed like teenagers. It was wild and raw, far better than with Jan or anyone else ever. But climax was anticlimactic. Desire faded and awkwardness came over us. I tried to make her stay with words and gestures, tried to show her what I was working on, but she kept shaking her head. She ran.
#
Day Five. I just don’t have the gear necessary to build a smaller model, and I never had another power source anyway. I’m going to lower the strength of the broadcast, shrinking the safe area to conserve fuel. I think I can push most of my supplies outside the cone and hook them in as needed.
#
Day Nine. I’m not alone. I can see a clearing and the edge of the lake from here and sometimes the locals come up the hill, but they won’t enter the building even if I yell, or pretend to be hurt, or sing…
Bonita smiled at that, staring through the fence at my window and moving as close as possible, but she didn’t seem to recognize the doors for what they were. Why not?
Our nest was here in this same room.
Maybe it was me she didn’t recognize.
I’ve been studying them. No one talks but there is simple communication, hand gestures, squawks and grunts of impatience, pleasure, agreement. They cooperate. Fortunately, the previous civilization wiped out most of the predators, it’s always warm here and the jungle seems to provide enough nourishment for all—and the trees and brush are also
shelter from the worst of the ultraviolet.
I didn’t mention that I’d lost weight. The desk belly is long gone, but I wasn’t starved during the interrupts. In fact there’s some evidence that I gorged myself. Obviously I was getting plenty of exercise. Hunting and gathering? And making love. Physically I may be at my best in ten years.
I’m so restless now.
Yesterday I saw Alex Blair playing a fetch-and-chase game with three others. They laughed like kids.
#
Day Seventeen. It’s not ever going to end. Even if I had unlimited food and fuel, I can’t stay in here forever. Now that I’ve finally had a chance to breathe, to think it though, I wonder what I’d hoped to accomplish. Escape to a cave and slowly starve there? Study the interrupt phenomenon and create a set of charts and graphs that nobody will ever see?
My biggest fear isn’t that the generators will fail. It’s that I’ll improve my shelter, jury-rig a more permanent protected area, and sit alone in it as the sun flares forever.
I’d have my memories, but would there be any worth keeping?
If I quit now, I win as much as I lose. Bonita. Friends. I want to be a part of their Eden for as long as we have left.
I’ll scar my forearm with a short message, in case there are moments of waking confusion and fear. Then I’m going to unchain this journal from my wrist and destroy the generators. I think Dad would be proud to see me pitch a Coke bottle full of gasoline all the way from here.
END
About The Artist
Jacob Charles Dietz is an art director, illustrator, and matte painter who specializes in science fiction and fantasy work for digital, film, and print. Working in both traditional and digital mediums, Jacob’s work encompasses everything from future noir and science fiction to technology and the plight of man, making it very accessible to a broad audience. Bridging the gap between the now and the then, Jacob’s work is constructed with layers upon layers of intricate detail and almost always includes elements of the 21st century in whatever time and place he is depicting, making the foreign seem strangely familiar.His work has been published internationally on numerous book covers and magazines including Ballistic Publishing titles and MacWorld. Jacob’s work can also be seen on limited edition tee’s at Barney’s New York and Fred Segal Los Angeles and can be counted as part of Steve Wozniak’s personal art collection. He’s done work for Virgin, Penguin Publishing, USAToday, Discovery Channel and more.
Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, Jacob now makes his home in the Sonoran desert with his wife, son, and two cats, far away from the gray skies and soggy ground of Seattle. Jacob studied visual communications at the University of Washington and has a ridiculous collection of Star Trek toys that he still manages to store at his parents’ house. He dreads the day they send him a bill for years of back storage fees.
You can find his portfolios, free wallpaper, and more at jacobcharlesdietz.com
About The Author
Jeff Carlson is the international bestselling author of Interrupt, Plague Year, and The Frozen Sky. To date, his work has been translated into sixteen languages worldwide. He is currently at work on a new thriller novel.
Readers can find free fiction, videos, contests and more on his website at www.jverse.com including a special Europa-themed photo gallery featuring images from the Voyager 1, Galileo, and Cassini probes.
Jeff welcomes email at [email protected].
He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter at www.Facebook.com/PlagueYear and @authorjcarlson.
Reader reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and elsewhere are always appreciated.