by Mike Mullin
“Alex,” Aunt Caroline said, “go get Anna.”
I stood there dumbly too overwhelmed to move.
“Now, please. I don’t have forever.”
I ran for the living room.
Darla insisted on coming with Anna. I put an arm around Darla’s waist to support her. She held Anna’s hand. When we stepped into the foyer, I saw Mom standing at the top of the stairs.
“Alex, you’re—”
“It’s not my blood, Mom. Aunt Caroline’s hurt. We’ve got to go.”
“I’ll come with you. Maybe I can help.”
When we got outside, another patient was on the table where Aunt Caroline had lain. I looked around in panic— could she have died in the moment or two I was gone? Then I saw her not far from the fire, wrapped in a blanket. Max and Uncle Paul knelt by her side. Anna wrenched free of Darla’s hand and ran to her mother. Mom went to stand behind Uncle Paul, extending her hand halfway as if she wasn’t sure whether she should touch her brother-in-law or not.
How would Mom even survive this? Losing my dad, her husband, only two days ago and now her sister-in law? Then I thought of Uncle Paul. He’d lost his brother and now his wife was dying. Would he go crazy like Mom had? I swallowed hard, as if to eat my fear.
Anna threw herself into Aunt Caroline’s arms before any of us could stop her. A shadow passed over Aunt Caroline’s face, and she cried out in pain, but she held on when Anna tried to pull away, clutching her daughter even more tightly. “Oh, Anna,” Aunt Caroline breathed.
I clung to Darla. I wasn’t sure if I should stay or go. I wanted to be anywhere else—another place, another world, one where mothers didn’t die. But I knew I couldn’t run fast enough to escape the weight in my chest.
“He . . .” Anna said to her mother, her voice tremulous, “Alex said you were hurt.”
Aunt Caroline smoothed her hand slowly along Anna’s back. “Dr. McCarthy says I’m dying.”
Anna yelped, holding her mother tighter, and Aunt Caroline moaned, her eyes squeezing shut.
“Anna . . .” Uncle Paul laid a hand on Anna’s shoulder, and she relaxed her desperate grasp.
Anna was sobbing now. Max was biting his lower lip, trembling like a flag caught in an uncertain wind. Tears flowed freely from Uncle Paul’s eyes. Aunt Caroline was the only one who wasn’t crying.
Anna choked out a few words, “You can’t . . . I need . . .” “Anna,” Aunt Caroline whispered. “When I’m dead, will you still love me?”
“Y-yes.”
“Then I’ll still be with you. And love you.” Aunt Caroline lifted a hand toward Max. Her hand wavered, and Max caught it.
“I’m proud of you, Max. You’re becoming a good man.” Max crumpled over her hand, bawling.
“Don’t go,” Uncle Paul pleaded. “I love you.”
“I’ll never leave you,” Aunt Caroline said. “I love you too.” Three hours later, she was dead.
Chapter 7
My dreams that night were bizarrely vivid: staccato flashes of perfect memory, like images captured in the hyper-saturated flash and pop of a dying light bulb. Cyndi’s skull flying apart—pop. The gunners on the pickup, crumpling as I shot them—pop. The sharp end of Ed’s broomstick, protruding from a man’s chest—pop. The ragged wounds on Aunt Caroline’s stomach—pop.
I woke screaming.
Ben moaned and Max sobbed. The darkness hid our faces but not our pain. A few moments later, the covers lifted, and Darla slid in beside me. Even though we were both fully clothed against the cold, I felt the edge of her ribcage digging into my side. “Shh,” she whispered, “go back to sleep.” Tangled in her arms and legs, I found I could.
Later that night I dreamed of the uncertain rhythm of gunfire. It emanated from the darkness all around me. Some gunners played frenzied sixty-fourth notes on their automatic weapons. Others, a steady four-four time of careful pistol shots. Sometimes multiple guns fired together in a thunderous roar; other times they all lapsed into brief, fearful silences during which the only sounds were the bleating complaints of the goats stabled in the downstairs guest room.
Darla shook me awake. “Someone’s shooting.”
My violent dreams and the evidently real gunfire were too much. I felt as if I’d been sucked into the airless darkness under a huge wave, crushed by the weight, my life ripped by the shifting currents. I pulled the covers over my head, smothering the noise.
Darla ripped the covers off both of us so forcefully that the blanket tore. The freezing air was like a slap to the face. “Get up. Now,” she said, her words as much a slap as the air.
“I froze yesterday. When they shot at Aunt Caroline. I could have—”
“There’s no time. We’ll talk about it later. If whoever’s shooting out there makes it to the house, everyone will be in danger. Rebecca, Anna, Max . . .”
She was right. I took a deep, shuddering breath and hurled myself out of the bed.
“I’m going back to the other room for my boots,” she said.
“Just wait here,” I said as I jammed my feet into my boots and pulled a knit cap on my head. She was still debilitated from her ordeal with the Dirty White Boys and in no condition to be running around outside. I started to tell her so, but she was already gone.
When I got out to the hall, she was sitting on the top stair, wrenching on her boots.
By the time we got outside, the shooting had trailed off. A few distant pops echoed in the darkness enveloping the farm. One of the ramshackle lean-tos at the edge of the encampment was ablaze. Flames leapt from its canvas-and-stick roof,threatening to ignite neighboring shelters. People were running everywhere, frantic shadows silhouetted by the fire. But nobody seemed to be fighting the fire.
I ducked back into the house and grabbed a stack of water pails from the kitchen. Darla and I ran—not toward the fire but to the farm’s hand-pumped well.
“Fill buckets as fast as you can, okay?” I said to Darla. “I’ll organize a fire brigade.” I didn’t think she should be out there at all. Filling buckets would at least keep her away from the fire.
To my relief, Darla nodded and started working the pump handle. I put myself squarely in the path of the first person I saw—Lynn Manck—a guy I barely knew.
“You!” I yelled. “Grab buckets from Darla! We’re forming a line, got it?”
I was a bit shocked by his reply: “Got it!” he shouted and took his place next to Darla. I ran from person to person, chivvying them into a line. I ordered another guy to join the brigade, shouting at his back. I didn’t notice until he turned that I was shouting at Uncle Paul. I started to stammer an apology to him, but he was already halfway to the spot where he was needed.
Later I wondered why it had been so easy. Why did everyone leap to do what I told them to? Why hadn’t they organized a fire brigade before I got outside? I was sixteen— a kid in their eyes—and I certainly wasn’t used to anyone listening to me, let alone obeying my instructions. Everyone seemed to know that we needed a fire brigade, but they couldn’t start being a fire brigade until someone organized it. It reminded me of an experiment I did in fourth grade, dissolving massive amounts of sugar in boiling water to make crystals. Nothing happens until you dangle a string into the jar. I guess it was the same with the fire brigade—someone had to be the string.
The fire was fierce. The last person in the brigade had to rush in, hurl their water, and duck back from the billowing smoke and sizzling heat. Once the line was established, I started to help throw water. I concentrated on wetting down the neighboring shelters and putting out stray embers, stopping the fire from spreading.
Eventually the fire burned itself out, and we began the laborious process of dousing the coals.
The distant gunfire had ended completely I wasn’t sure when it happened—I’d been wholly absorbed in fighting the fire. Now that the fire was out, it was too dark to see well. I sent a couple of people to get torches.
As we finished stirring the ashes of the lean-to
, making sure all the embers were out, Ed loped out of the darkness. His face was sweaty despite the frozen night air, and he held a semi-automatic rifle.
“Thought we were out of ammo for those,” I said.
“We are. Still, it looks scary—and it makes a darn good club.” Ed slung the rifle across his back.
“You know what happened?”
“Just three or four attackers. Probably from the Stocktonites occupying Warren. Totally disorganized. Threw some torches and took some pot shots.”
“Anyone hurt you know of?”
“No.” Ed sidled closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. “It’ll get worse. If they come back in force, or better organized . . . we’re defenseless.”
The tired reek of wet ash filled my nose, making every breath feel like an effort. “Ben thinks we should attack Stockton. Go after their heart to force them to pull out of Warren.”
One of the guys who’d been helping put out the fire, Steve McCormick, interrupted us. “We’re done here. Fire’s out cold. What’d you want us to do now?”
Why was he asking me? I guess once you’ve volunteered to be the string in the sugar solution, to start creating crystals, you can’t stop. “You know who lived in the lean-to that burnt?” I asked.
“Yeah, Linda Greenburg and her twin boys, Roan and Mateo. They got out okay.”
“Check on them. Find someplace for them to stay and get them settled, would you?”
“Roger. I’ll squeeze them into our shack, at least for tonight.” Steve jogged away with his torch, carrying away half our light.
Ed said, “Ben’s right. All of Stockton’s troops must be in Warren. We should go now, take them by surprise.”
I groaned. “I don’t know if I can walk to bed, let alone all the way to Stockton.”
Ed seized my arm, whispering urgently into my ear. “Look, Alex, if you’re going to lead, you’ve got to put that away. The weakness, I mean. It’s okay to feel it, but you can’t show it. Not to anyone except maybe me or Darla. People want strong leaders.”
My head spun. I was getting leadership advice from an ex-cannibal? My world made less sense every day. “What if I don’t want to lead?”
“Too late for that, you already started.”
“I’m only sixteen.”
“It’s a different world, Alex. A lot of great leaders started as teenagers. Alexander the Great, Joan of Arc—” “Didn’t she get burned at the stake?”
“Yeah, and Alexander died young, thousands of miles from his home.”
“You’re not helping here.”
“I watched what happened in the Peckerwoods gang. The leaders who showed fear, who showed weakness— they moved from the top to the bottom of the food chain, if you get what I’m saying.”
“You’re really not helping now. Look, Ed, you saved my life in that fight. Twice, maybe. We’re even. You don’t—” “You’re wrong. We’re not even. We’ll never be even.
No matter what I do now, I’ll never atone for what I did. What I was. But I swore to try.”
“If you want to round up people to attack Stockton, go ahead. I’ll wish you luck. But I can’t, Ed, I just—”
“You’re the only one who can. Mayor Petty might not live, your Uncle Paul is in no condition to do anything, and Doc McCarthy’s way too busy. People follow you.”
“That’s not my problem.” I violently wrenched my arm out of his grasp and turned away, looking for Darla.
She was standing right behind me.
“Alex,” she said softly. “He’s right.”
Great. Now my girlfriend and the ex-cannibal were in cahoots. Leave it to the apocalypse to turn my world completely upside-down. I started to turn away, but she wrapped her arms around me and tucked her head below my chin. She smelled of smoke and sweat. “I can’t, Darla. . . . I just can’t.”
“Christ, Alex. You’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, but you’re wrong more often than a roomful of stopped clocks.”
“It’s just—”
“No. Listen. You’ve been leading since the day I met you. Who took me to Worthington when I was too wrecked by Mom’s death to even function? Who got us to his uncle’s farm through the middle of what was basically a war zone?” She lifted her head to look at me, the fierce light of the torch flickering in her eyes. “Who moved hell and earth, convinced his family, friends, and even a unit of freaking Black Lake to help find me? Those Black Lake mercenaries are out for no one but themselves, but you wrangled their help anyway. This is what you were born to do, Alex.”
“I’m sixteen!”
“So. Freaking. What.”
A hundred emotions waged war within me. Pride at the way Darla was looking at me, at her faith. Love for her, for her unwavering support. But mostly fear. I knew what I needed to say—but I didn’t want to say it. Didn’t want to admit my weakness, even to her.
“I . . . I froze out there. When they were shooting at Aunt Caroline. If I’d moved faster, maybe I could have saved her.”
“Alex, it’s—”
“What if it happens again?” People around us turned to look. I’d raised my voice far louder than I’d intended.
Darla held me tighter, waiting until everyone turned away. “Every time I made a mistake, my dad used to trot out this lame saying he had. He’d say, ‘I’m glad you’re not perfect, bunnykins. You see, the aliens carry off all the perfect people for study. And I’d like you to stick around.’” “Bunnykins?”
Darla’s face flared so red, I could see the color in her cheeks even by torchlight. “I swear to God, Alex, if you tell anyone that nickname, I’ll twist your balls so hard that your new locker-room nickname will be Slinky.”
My knees came together instinctively. “Maybe I’ll call you Bunnykins in private?”
“No. You won’t.”
I gave her my best evil grin but felt it fade from my face as I remembered the point of the conversation.
“It’s not your fault, Alex. Aunt Caroline is dead because Stockton decided to steal our food. Not because you hesitated for a split second in the middle of a battle that would have made most guys shit their pants and hide. You can do this. We can do it.”
“You’re not coming. You need to rest. It’s seven miles. At night.”
“Can we take the trucks?”
“I need to check whether they have enough gas.” Somehow, I’d decided to go without even realizing it. Darla was tricky like that.
“Well, if they do, I’m going too.”
I didn’t respond right away. I was thinking—hoping to hit upon something, anything that would convince Darla to stay behind. It wasn’t that I didn’t want her around; I was terrified she’d get hurt. Normally, she was at least as capable as I was—stronger, in fact. But not now. “I need someone to organize a defense here. Someone I can trust.” “Ask Uncle Paul.”
“His wife just died. I’m not asking him to do anything but mourn. Which is all I want to do.”
“I’ll ask him. I’m going with you. I’ll drive and guard the trucks.”
I didn’t like it. But arguing with Darla was usually pointless. “Round up some people to come with us. I’ll do the same. We’ll meet at the trucks in half an hour.”
“Got it.”
One of the beauties of Darla was that when it was a serious matter, she didn’t rub it in—winning, that is. I reached out and gently turned her face back toward me. She launched herself at me, wrapping her arms around me and kissing me like she meant to imprint her taste on my lips forever. When the kiss broke, neither of us said anything. We turned to walk our separate paths out into the uncaring night.
Chapter 8
I checked the trucks first—all three of them had between a quarter and a half tank of gas. Plenty to get to Stockton. Then I started running around trying to convince people to join us.
The first guy I talked to, Lynn Manck, agreed right away. I’d barely gotten the words “attack Stockton” out of my mouth when he said, “I’m in.
” While we were talking, Nylce Myers stopped to listen and volunteered without being asked.
They couldn’t have been more different. Lynn was a huge bear of a man, a farmer in his fifties who sported a beard so long, he must have been growing it out for years. Most guys had beards now—razors were hard to come by—but Lynn’s was magnificent. By contrast, all I could grow were stupid-looking wisps of facial hair. He’d lived on a small farm on the outskirts of Warren all his life. His kids were grown and gone—he hadn’t heard from any of them since the volcano had erupted. But he and his wife still lived on their farm—or had, until the invaders from Stockton had driven them out.
Nylce probably massed less than half of what Lynn did. She was short and slight, in her early twenties. I’d heard from Uncle Paul that her fiance was a salesman for Kussmaul Seeds—he’d been on his route in Nebraska when the volcano blew. Which meant he was almost certainly dead. I had no idea how she’d be in a fight, but she seemed determined enough.
The next guy I collared, Kyle Henthorn, was more skeptical.
“Shouldn’t the mayor have a say-so?” he asked.
“He’s unconscious. Dr. McCarthy had to amputate both his legs. Might not survive.”
“Hmm, and what’d you say the plan was again?”
That stumped me. Ben hadn’t mentioned a specific plan. Just the general idea of attacking Stockton, now, while they were still recovering from yesterday’s fight. “I need to talk to Ben. If you decide to help, meet us at the trucks.”
“You’re going to get military advice from a teenager?” “Yep. Look, I realize you don’t know him, so you’re just going to have to take my word for it. Ben’s probably the smartest person I’ve ever met, and he’s spent basically his whole life studying all things military”
Kyle shrugged skeptically, and I turned away to look for Ben.
I found him in the upstairs bedroom of Uncle Paul’s house, asleep. I reached out to shake him awake, stopping when I remembered how much he hated to be touched. Instead, I said his name—over and over, until I was yelling it.