by Bryn Roar
All to no avail.
The world, it seemed, had passed on.
The radio was set aside until the day before their departure, but nothing had changed; it was still a vast wasteland. They briefly discussed the ramifications of what meager information they’d been able to learn, and decided they were better off not knowing the full extent of the damage. In any event, they weren’t going to leave the island. Josie told them what John Cutter had related to her and Bud that night in the wax museum, down in the cellar with the three other doomed men. She told them of the virus’s short life span, using Cutter’s comparison of ripples in a pond. If Cutter had been right about RS13, then the virus should never have been able to spread as far and wide as it had! And in so little time! What the missing ingredient was to the epidemic, they had no idea. If they had heard over the airwaves that rats and other rodents were the missing integer to the equation, they wouldn’t have believed it. It was inconceivable that rodents could bring down the human species in less than two months!
Rusty put forth that even though the virus had begun on their island they were safer than the vast majority of the world’s survivors. This was due to the fact that they were on an island, surrounded by water for miles around, and that all of Moon’s Rabids had presumably long since expired, their infectious body fluids dried up by now.
It was safe to go up. The question remained, however: To What were they going Up to?
They smiled sheepishly at one another. All three had on their army coats. Tubby’s was now too big for him, while Rusty’s fit him for the first time ever. The simple act of putting on their club jackets gave them a feeling of solidarity—that together they could face whatever the cruel world had in store for them.
Creeps go it together! Always and forever!
While Rusty and Josie waited by the vault door, Tubby armed himself with the Mossberg, filling his coat pockets with extra shells, making sure to keep them separate from the magic talisman he kept in his pants pocket. Rusty and Joe declined to bear arms this time around. Neither had the belly anymore for killing. “You think Peg Leg’s is open?” Tubby asked them, breaking the tension. “Jeepers, am I hungry!”
They laughed at the baggy clothes hanging on Tubby’s body. Rusty had once suggested that Ralph wear some of the clothes Bud had left behind, but one look from Josie told them that was a bad idea. Instead, she had taken-in Tubby’s pants as best she could. They still looked ridiculous. “You’re half the man you used to be, Opie,” Rusty said, with a straight face before laughing.
“Stop calling me Opie,” said Tubby, with an equally straight face. Then he burst out laughing, too, Josie joining in at last, until all three were on the floor, hysterical.
Like a boiler giving off steam, the combined laughter was just the thing needed, releasing some pent-up pressure that’d been building ever since Bud left them. Finally, it trailed off into three smiling faces, all nodding their heads at one another: Yes. It was time to go home.
Chapter Twenty-One:
Because Rabids Don’t hang their fucking
Wash…
Rusty’s hand hovered over the lock. Suddenly he wasn’t so anxious to leave. Suddenly it seemed a very bad idea to open that door. “What if it’s not over with up there? What if the virus is still kicking around? Maybe we should wait another week. We’ve got enough food! We could—”
“No, Rusty,” Josie said, cutting him off. “Over. Not over. I don’t give a shite anymore. You and Ralphie can wait down here till the food runs out. But me…I’ve had enough. Personally, I wish Bud had never found this feckin’ mausoleum. Now, if you don’t mind, love. Open Sesame, will ya?”
Rusty blinked owlishly behind his glasses. Josie was right, of course. Whether or not the virus was still spreading, enough was enough. The bunker might have saved their lives, but living under the earth wasn’t really living at all. Life was what you lived on top of the earth. The Deep Sleep was what awaited you below. It was what they had been playing at for the last eight weeks.
Yeah, it was time to start living again.
He dialed in the combination, pulled the chain free, and spun the wheel clockwise. Easy, peasy, kiss my teasy.
The locks disengaged and the door swung a quarter way open of its own accord.
Josie held her breath and squeezed past the door. She half-expected to see Bud’s body on the other side, still keeping guard, but there were no identifiable remains in the alcove. Only tidy ashes and bones.
She tentatively took a whiff of the air. No decay. Just the dry dusty smell of a sooty chimney. Josie let out a sigh of relief. She wasn’t ready to see her Bud’s last remains—or for that matter to smell them, either.
She stepped through the ashes as quickly as she could, and left the bunker, vowing in her heart never to set foot in it again. Not even if an army of Rabids were waiting up top with forks and knives and Heinz 57.
She crawled out into the cool sunshine of a mid-December morning, the fresh air hitting her like a jolt of caffeine. She took a deep breath of the clean, crisp air, and slowly turned in a circle, scanning the entire clearing, swamp, and surrounding woods. There were precious few leafy trees in the Pines, but those still standing were in full autumn bloom. The cool seasons were always late on Moon. She searched and found the area where they’d left the Pines that night in their race to the bunker. The fire they’d started marked the area precisely. The flames had petered out shortly thereafter without doing much damage. Probably due to the drenching rains Hurricane Jack had left behind, Josie thought to herself.
Despite how glorious it felt to be out of their cinder block coffin, and despite the fresh air, sunshine, and the rustling of the golden leaves, Josie felt something was strangely amiss. She almost had her finger on it when Tubby limped out of the rabbit hole behind her. She went over to help him to his feet. They would need to fashion some crutches for him before they could be on their way.
“Gee whiz, it’s good to get out of there,” he said, adjusting the shotgun he’d slung across his back. He studied the serene lake and surrounding woods and felt no danger in the air.
Josie nodded, catching his exact same thought. “Yeah. I feel it, too. So far, so good, huh?”
Rusty crawled out next and stood beside them, brushing off the dirt from his khakis, the hem of which hovered two inches above his shoes. If Buddy boy were here, he’d bust my balls for wearing high waters.
The world was quiet and still. No one said a word as they looked about, wondering what on earth they should do next. Rusty made the decision by kneeling and praying, as his parents had taught him to do in moments of gratitude or grief, both of which he was feeling now. Josie helped Tubby to his knees and the three of them gave thanks to God. Thanks for their survival—and for those who hadn’t. They prayed for the world. These three, who had been to hell and back. Now, more than ever, it was important to believe in the essence of something Good. Something Right. Something that in the end would claim victory over the Darkness. Something that would now allow them to live out the rest of their lives in relative peace.
Like the beleaguered Job, they’d had enough.
They were halfway through the Pines when Rusty stopped dead in his tracks. The revelation was so obvious they all wondered at not seeing it right from the start.
“Where’s all the stiffs?” he said.
Tubby, who was slowly taking up the rear, using his makeshift crutches to get along, wheezed, “How’s that?”
Josie turned and stared at Rusty. “Aye! You’re right! What happened to all the Rabids we killed that night? The woods should be littered with their feckin’ bones!”
Tubby pulled the shotgun from his back. He wondered if the corpses lie hidden in the green carpet of palmettos and ferns, all around them, waiting until some fresh new horror could awaken them.
“Come to think of it, doesn’t this trail look as if it’s been cleared of storm debris? Look!” Ralph shouted, pointing at the furrowed sand, right in front of them. “L
ook at all the dadgum rake marks! They’re everywhere!”
They were indeed furrows left by a rake, or more likely rakes. And like Tubby said, they were all over the trail! The kids huddled over the straight lines, as if an alien race had left them just for them, intent on communication.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Rusty spat on the ground, just like Bud used to do.
“We’re not alone here,” Tubby replied softly.
Josie shrugged apathetically. “Let’s just hope it isn’t the military then. Either way, I’m tired of hiding. Whoever it was, we have them to thank for disposing of the dead bodies. That wasn’t a chore I was looking forward to.”
“Josie, if it was the Army—”
“One step at a time, Ralphie. First, let’s find out who it is…then we’ll decide on what to do about it.”
They traveled slowly through the forest, listening for telltale sounds, allowing Tubby to go at his own pace. The curious thing was, despite the huge amount of work done (the disposing of the bodies and the clearing of the Old Oyster Trail), they couldn't hear anything resembling nearby humanity. At least the birds had returned.
The trees were alive with their cheerful song, the avian choir endeavoring to drown out the lesser chorus of crickets and tree frogs. It was wonderful to hear those happy harmonies again. If nothing else, it meant the old danger was no longer creeping about.
Their journey halfway done, Josie crouched behind a splintered stump, looking out at Main Street, Rusty and Tubby right behind her. Tubby leaned his homemade crutches on the stump and tried to catch his breath. Despite his weight loss, he was in his worse shape ever; his muscles atrophied, his wind all but gone. Panting, he wiped his forehead and looked out onto an empty street.
Well, not quite empty. There was still evidence of Hurricane Jack’s visit littering the roadway. Broken storefront windows, and the odd car or truck flipped over on its side. The Wilky’s sailboat was still in the middle of the street. The same storm debris from before.
Not everything was the same. Although he remained in the middle of the street, rusting away in the elements, someone had set Robbie back on his feet. The Tin Man, waiting for Dorothy to come along with an oilcan.
Now that was odd. If the military had taken the time to clear a path through the woods, then why not clear Main Street as well? It didn’t make much sense.
A cool wind blew down the lonely avenue, moaning balefully in the open windows. A multi-colored newspaper page drifted ghostily up the dirt lane. As it drew nigh, Josie snatched it out of the air and checked the date.
“October thirty first,” she said, reading it aloud. “Halloween.” It was the front page of a U.S.A Today.
MUTANT RABIES VIRUS SPREADING OUT OF CONTROL!
NO CURE IN SIGHT! TIME RUNNING OUT!
Underneath the blaring headline, a color-coded map of the world showed the disease’s expansion, an angry red tide spreading across the entire globe. The elements had faded most of the crimson ink into a pink blush. Josie didn’t bother reading any further details. They’d lived with the virus for way too long as it was. She didn’t stop to wonder how the newspaper had made its way to the island, either, but let it drop to the ground, where an updraft picked it up and carried it on its haunted journey.
“Maybe they’ve left the island,” Tubby said, rubbing his aching leg.
“My guess is it was the Army cleaning up their mess,” Rusty said. “Getting rid of all the stiffs and evidence, making sure that Ground Zero was Rabid free. And once they were done, they left Moon Island for the lizards to reclaim.”
“Yeah!” Tubby said, snapping his fingers. “And they cleared the Old Oyster Trail of storm debris so they could more easily cart away the corpses!” He grabbed a hold of this comforting theory like a security blanket. He didn’t want wish to contemplate otherwise.
“Maybe,” Josie said, not really caring at this point. She got up from behind the stump and left the Pines, stepping boldly onto Main Street. Tubby and Rusty followed close behind. She sniffed the air. “But if nobody’s here…then why do I smell something burning?”
They followed the acrid scent, passing the fire-scarred storefronts along the way. The wind funneled through the shattered windows, sounding a mournful dirge. They journeyed past the skeletal remains of the Town Hall Building, the Firehouse burned to its bloodstained concrete pad, to the very edge of the Town Hall Lane hardtop, where it ran into the sands of the South Side Beach.
As they drew closer to the ocean, the smell became thicker. More noxious.
The first to set foot on the beach, Josie turned and exchanged knowing looks with her friends. No one said a word. They all recognized the aroma simmering beneath the smoke: the smell of roasting human flesh. “So that’s what happened to all the dead bodies,” Josie said.
Tubby’s leg was paining him something awful now. The soft sand wasn’t making it any easier on him, either. His crutches couldn’t find any solid purchase.
“Let’s make for firm wet sand,” Rusty said, lending Tubby a helping hand. “Below the high tide mark over there. Opie ain’t gonna get very far on this soft sugar sand.”
They found firmer footing and continued slowly towards the thick gray column of smoke, further north. The seagulls had returned to Moon and had reclaimed the beach. They squawked and hopped about in annoyance, as the three kids waded through their blustery midst.
Rusty was glad to see them back. Their salty shrieks reminded him of his dad, out on the shrimp boat, sailing into the setting sun. The seagulls surrounding the Betty Anne, like a halo made of wings.
Rusty toed off his sneakers and let the gentle tide lap over his hot, sore feet. The gentle tumble of the surf made him feel as if everything was going to be all right now. That like the predictable tides, their lives might once again know a peaceful, if yet monotonous routine.
Looking out at the water, he rubbed the silver porpoise between his fingers and made a wish. Nothing stirred on the shimmering sea. No sails or working masts, even though it was a good day for shrimpin’.
A dolphin broke the surface several yards out, and Rusty’s breath caught in his throat. The smiling dolphin seemed to stare right at him. Another dolphin joined the first, their sleek wet heads side-by-side above the water, both of them staring back at the slim boy on the beach.
Then they were gone, with nary a splash or sound.
Rusty Huggins nodded his head.
Further up the beach, Josie pointed at the horizon. “Look! The Coast Guard’s gone.”
“Probably took off weeks ago. Especially if they thought there weren’t any survivors left here.” Ralph looked over his shoulder, wondering why Rusty had fallen so far behind. Rusty had the most peaceful look on his face over there, staring out at the open sea, a beautiful smile upon his lips. Tubby opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it with a snap. Disturbing that kind of reverie would’ve been like interrupting a child’s prayer.
Rusty wiped his eyes and rejoined his two friends.
The closer they got to the smoke, the closer their suspicions became fact. It was the old Circle Jerk fire-pit, enlarged to encompass the approximate length and width of a football field. A sprawling mound of ashes and bones began at the top of the beach, where the sand dunes flattened out, and continued all the way down to the high-tide mark, where the ocean pulled away at the burning bodies. Foraging crabs and crows were in the midst of a great feast. The sea and its denizens had nothing to fear of rabies. And yet the seagulls, carrions of the first order, kept their distance from the infected corpses. Curious.
Tire tracks ran from the mound of ashes and into the thin strip of scrub pines and palmetto trees, which shielded the back end of Main Street and Huggins Way.