by J. D. Palmer
Sheila grabs my arm, points to John. “What do you want to do with him? Want him dead?”
She says it loudly and casually. Everyone hears. Here, now, I don’t think any will judge me if I say yes. What has happened? How did I get here, now, facing a situation in which I lost one friend and desire to kill another?
“No. Let him be.”
It’s the worst thing I can think of to do to him.
We run outside and barely make it halfway to the arches before gunfire erupts. We scatter, falling behind statues and shrubs and park benches. Bullets flicker through leaves and ding off metal and make dull scratches and pops off cement. Men shout. I see Josey clutch his arm.
I don’t wish to die. Not here. Not doing something so pointless. I don’t want to be a part of this… needlessness. Not now, if this is the end.
In a lot of ways John is right. This is wrong, and it’s a broken world only growing more cracked as we fight each other.
Or it’s the dust settling.
Everyone is trying to survive. And as wonderful as it would be to see a world band together and help each other that is for a time more distant. Hardship lies ahead. The cold of winter or winds filled with radiation. Starvation and scorching heat. And I will do whatever it takes to shield those I consider precious.
John sees me as a monster. Maybe I am. And maybe that’s my role in this new life. So fucking be it.
Beryl is nearby. Theo hovers around her, pushing her farther back behind the small concrete barrier that separates them from the gunfire. Her gun is empty and she has a knife out. Her face is pale and eyes wide and beautiful. She deserves more. Just as Steven did.
“It’s not fair.” I say it aloud, as if John is right in front of me. That’s what I’d say to him, if I could. The world isn’t fair and you can’t try to make it so. I flash back to Camelot and ‘the greater good’ and then the man by the side of the road and now John… I want to fight against evil. But not death. Why can’t these people see that death is a final destination we all share, not something to deplore?
Then perhaps it’s time.
I raise my gun and send a prayer for Jessica and my child’s safety as I prepare to make a last stand.
Chinese soldiers are clustered around the entrance laying down suppression fire. Others have circled around and are coming at us through the doors we recently vacated. Bullets sprinkle the grass and a few buzz by my head. I shoot until there is nothing left in the M4 and then I shoot my pistol until that is out as well.
I’m going to die here today. We all are. There’s no way around it.
I have regrets. I would get Beryl and Theo and Josey free of all of this. Steven, too. Fuck, even Sheila.
Beryl looks over at me and I give her a smile. She gives me a little shrug and her lopsided grin which doesn’t meet her eyes. It’s like we are back in that room where we met, trapped again with no hope.
The sounds of the fight fade away. I don’t notice the bits of stone and dirt that fly into my face or the yells of friends and soldiers. I look into Beryl’s eyes. Green eyes that will serve as my gravestone, engraved upon which is the word “free.”
If we are doomed to repeat this cycle of capture and despair, forever, then the devil is a fool. He could not have gifted me with a stronger companion.
I belly crawl towards her. I’d like to be with my friends in my last minute. With Beryl. To somehow give them shelter. I don’t want to be the instrument of destruction that John accuses me of. I don’t want murder to be my last act.
I’m halfway across the sidewalk that divides us when the world explodes. I’m picked up by an invisible hand and tossed across the grass. The back of my mind figures the nuclear bomb went off. Makes me kind of bitter that I was robbed of thirty more seconds.
Dirt cascades down on top of me. And a gun. And pieces of brick. My ears ring, I can’t hear myself groan as I roll over onto my hands and knees. Ahead of me the arched entrance is gone. Nothing but rubble and dust, dirt and smoke and vaporized cement swirling into the morning sky.
A figure runs through the new gap. Short and bearded and not wearing a fucking shirt. Mickey is bleeding everywhere but he has a demonic grin on his face as he marches the Chinese commander through rubble and body parts. He puts him on his knees, yells something about country boys before he executes the man. He barely pauses to let the body drop before he lobs another grenade towards the entrance of the building.
“Get off your asses!”
We do.
Concussed and incoherent we run down the street. The sun is rising over the bay and everything is too bright. The sea, the sun, the sky. The panic etched on the faces of people who stand in line at piers for boats that don’t exist, and who simply do not know what is going on. They know they should leave, and that’s it.
We melt into the maelstrom that is the crowd. We push and shove and bounce off families. Some see us and are fearful. Most don’t pay attention to people, they look to the sky and to the military vessel floating in the bay. A vessel that is slowly turning and heading out to sea.
We are right next to the freeway that leads across the bay. Across the bridge that almost killed us. Full circle. But to get on the freeway we have to backtrack a quarter of a mile up the road. Through panic.
Ah hell.
Mickey works as our rearguard. He darts back and forth and occasionally stays behind to waylay a group of soldiers. He’s in his element. Now, more than ever he is doing what he was meant to do. It’s an art form. One you cannot celebrate but can appreciate. He anticipates and moves and pushes us on, exhorting us to find a level in ourselves we didn’t believe we had. And we do, because whatever he has in his eyes and his voice will not acknowledge defeat. If you asked him to run through a brick wall he would find a way.
And then we are on the bridge and we are running. Then stumbling. The sounds fade away as we enter the tunnel and we weave our way through cars until we get to the island that lurks in the middle. There we draw breath. Mickey draws me aside.
“Y’all got a car up ahead?”
I nod. He drops his voice. “Take Sheila with you, however you need to.”
The words stand between us, the ramifications quaking my already shaken soul. He’s not coming.
“Promise me. Promise me now you’ll look after that crazy bitch.”
His eyes stare into mine and once again I admire the calm, the peace that rests behind the blue.
“Why aren’t you coming?”
He pulls at his beard and pulls out a small device, black with two grey buttons and a red. “Don’t have the range, so unless one of them volunteers to push it then I’m it.”
I want to say, “I’ll stay.” I try to. But it’s a lie. I won’t, and I wouldn’t. And I can’t ask him to leave with us. Can’t ask him to negate the sacrifices that went into this endeavor. Blood pays for blood.
“I promise.”
He reaches out a hand and we shake. I don’t move, I stand awkwardly in front of him because to leave now would be to leave a man to die alone.
“Your friend figured I’d just nuke a bunch of people and walk away. I knew it would end like this.” He stares out over the water, distant clouds gathering again to bombard the beaten coast with another storm. “I’m protecting the things I love. It’s not a bad way to die.”
With that he claps me on the arm and walks to Sheila. He kisses her, deeply and passionately, pulling her in close and hard and hungrily. At the last second she feels it, sees that he’s saying goodbye and she rebels, struggling in his arms as he brings the butt of his gun down on her temple. He cradles her a second, a half smile on his face as he looks down at her. A moment to trace a finger around her mouth before he lifts her up and gives her to me.
“I’ll wait as long as I can.”
Without another word he walks back the way we came and stands with his back to us, gun held at the ready.
Epilogue
We find our car and pile in, Theo and Josey and the unconsci
ous form of Sheila in back and Beryl up front with me. We are quiet, every movement measured, anticipated, aiming to be as dexterous as possible so as not to delay a millisecond.
I drive backwards as fast as I can, Theo and Josey crouching so as not to impede my vision. I find a spot in which I can turn around and I hit three cars doing it. I speed forward down the bridge and pass the spot in which we leapt. In which Steven leapt. How he survived that and fell to a stray bullet is beyond me. Fuck, the gods are capricious.
The air is thick with tension. Will he do it? Will he blow them up? I feel like everyone wants to say something. Anything. But this is a moment in time that hangs momentous in the air. Like a wedding. Or a funeral. A time only to be remarked upon by words equally momentous. So we stay quiet, praying that we get far enough away.
A mile. Two. Five. I stop counting. It’s not going to happen. John will get his wish. Lives will be saved. Had I not seen the death they caused first hand, had I not seen my friend die before me I might be happy.
Can that be true? Can I judge a group by the actions of a few?
In this world, yes. Goddammit yes.
Is this what generals deal with in war? A petty squabble over emptiness culminating in the deaths of the young and the innocent? Maybe this is shocking because I grew up in America, where death is considered a rarity. Something that happens to unfortunate people in traffic accidents or burglaries gone wrong. Not something that is truly a part of the world.
How thin the divide between order and chaos.
There is a flash, like a gigantic camera going off. A final picture of a city that will never exist again. The mushroom is lost as buildings explode, smoke pushed out in odd trajectories as skyscrapers collapse into each other. Thunder that is not thunder rolls out and I sense, if not feel a pulse push us forward.
I stop watching the rearview mirror and focus on the road. A road that will lead me home.
I hope.
I don’t fool myself. I know what most likely awaits me. Grief and more grief.
Maybe it’s grief that has caused all of this. Maybe everyone died and no one had something, or someone, to blame. So they lash out. They take land. They fight and kill indiscriminately. And I don’t know if I’m any better.
“What the fuck?”
Sheila has awoken in the back seat, her good hand clutching at her head, eyes slowly taking in the car and its occupants. And the one missing. Memory seeps in and she goes rigid, nostrils flaring as she starts to breathe heavily.
I pull to the side of the road and she forces herself out before I come to a halt. She stalks to the edge of the road and stares at the distant cloud that mars the horizon. She stares, unmoving for a long time. Then she turns and walks back to the car, eyes blank and face impassive.
“Anyone got a cigarette?” Her eyes don’t meet anyone’s, staring through us or over us or at the ground. Josey wanders down the row of cars and we stand in an awkward circle until he returns a few minutes later with a pack of American Spirits. Sheila takes them and Josey flicks a lighter. She cringes at the sudden flame but doesn’t say anything.
“Mickey’s last words to me were about you—”
“Fuck that guy.” She cuts me off, waves a dismissive hand. “Just cuz I was fuckin’ him didn’t mean I liked him.”
I don’t know what to do or what to say so I just stand there as she smokes.
“Fuck him. Had a fuckin’ martyr fuckin’ complex, always trying to find a way to get hurt. Get more attention.” She takes a heavy drag, eyes blinking heavily. “And he thinks he has to hit me or I would have stayed. Fuck that. I don’t want to die. Fuckin’ idiot.”
She takes another drag before turning away from the distant cloud of ash, red-rimmed eyes narrowing at me. “And it was your goddamn friend who ruined everything.” She takes a step towards me and her control starts to fail her. Voice cracking and tears beginning to run down sooty cheeks. “Your friend fucked it all up. The whole plan, he fucking told ‘em. He told them! Fuck!” She angrily wipes tears from her cheek. “Or else we would have snuck in and snuck out and all of us would be alive.”
She punches me in the face. Sharp knuckles catch the corner of my cheek below the eye and I reel back into the car. The others step in and I raise an arm to wave them off. It doesn’t matter, she’s already marching away, long strides as she burns off rage and finds a place to suffer alone.
We wait long enough that the others start casting me looks. No one wants to be the one to ask if we should leave. I don’t even know what the right answer is. I promised Mickey I’d look after her. Can’t do that if she wants nothing to do with us.
She comes striding back as small droplets of rain start to fall down around us. She walks past us and climbs into the car without a word.
So we drive.
We drive across dusky land that eschews the sun in favor of shadows. And we grieve. We all grieve, for friends lost and for meaningless death. I wish that John and I could have had time to reconcile. A decade to talk and debate and find a conclusion other than this.
I feel cursed. The last words he spoke to me were a lament for my character. He despaired for the state of my soul. Dying words that truly do carry more weight. He died thinking I was a bad person. I look around the car. I look at Beryl. I think of home.
If ill deeds protect these people then I’ll gladly be a monster.
I love them enough to become a monster.
The truth that beats in my calloused heart is that John would never have survived in this world. He created hope within himself by blinding himself to the nature of the universe.
But why did Steven have to die for his folly?
So we drive through the day and into the evening and still I don’t stop. We are exhausted, battered, in need of medical attention and sleep and time to sit and be alone to process pain in our own way. I know we need these things.
But we drive.
I’m trying to get home. Beryl is there to help me. Theo is there to protect her. Josey is there because he can’t afford to be alone. And Sheila… I don’t know why she’s there, maybe because she needs people to inflict pain upon.
Without this there is no purpose, and we are just stopped, alone with the death that surrounds us. So I don’t stop driving until we pass the sign marking Nevada’s border. Except there are no borders now, no need for demarcation between the two states. They are one, now. Nothing divides anything, we simply belong to the world. And there is no such thing as California. Not anymore.
But dammit, dammit, dammit… It feels good to be gone from that ill-fated land.