by Hamill, Ike
Brad pulled up an austere chair, and snacked on food from his pack as the light faded from the winter sky. The throw blankets from the living offered little warmth, so Brad fetched a down comforter from the non-smelly girl’s room. He wrapped his legs and stayed awake for as long as he could. The clouds glowed from a moon which Brad couldn’t see. Every now and then, he spotted a break where he could see the stars. While he stared at the night sky, his eyes drifted close and Brad fell asleep.
He woke once in the middle of the night and found his way to the back porch to relieve himself. He didn’t use a light—he didn’t want to be spotted or to ruin his night-vision. When Brad returned to his seat, he thought he saw a glimpse of brake lights on the other side of the cove. He stayed up for hours, staring at the spot and hoping to see more, but he saw nothing. He eventually slipped back to an uneasy sleep and didn’t wake up again until the boy broke into his hideout at dawn.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Portland, Maine - WINTER
ROBBY PUSHED OPEN the door and shined his flashlight into Brad’s eyes. Outside, the clouds on the horizon glowed with the dawn.
“What do you want?” Robby asked. His tone was flat, rather than inquisitive.
Brad jerked awake and held up his hand in front of the light. A package of cookies slipped from his lap and landed on the floor.
“I’m sorry,” Brad said. “Is this your house? I didn’t think anyone was home.”
“What do you want?” Robby asked again.
“What do you mean?” Brad asked. Even without being able to see Robby completely, he got enough of an impression from Robby’s stature, frame, and voice to guess that he was young. “Hey, kid, do you mind not shining that thing in my face?”
Robby lowered the beam to Brad’s feet and then swept it quickly around the living room. Robby returned the beam to Brad’s chest. Brad saw Robby’s silhouette, but not his face.
“Why are you watching the grocery store?” Robby asked.
“I saw tracks there. I wanted to see if anyone would come back,” Brad said. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen another person? Since before Thanksgiving.”
“Where were you living?” Robby asked.
“Kingston,” Brad said. “Where were you living?”
Robby ignored Brad’s question—“How much snow did you get there?”
“What’s with the questions anyway?” Brad asked. “How about we go back and forth? You know, with me answering one question, and then you answering one question? Like a real conversation?”
“I’m from an island off the coast. You don’t know it,” Robby said. “How deep was the snow in Kingston?”
“I didn’t exactly get a chance to measure it, but it was pretty fucking deep. Pardon my French,” Brad said. “Not as deep as Freeport though. Maybe about twenty feet?”
“And Freeport?” Robby asked.
“No, no,” Brad said. “My turn. Where did everyone go?”
“I have no idea,” Robby said. “Why did you come from Kingston down to here?”
“I couldn’t keep living up there under twenty feet of snow, could I? As soon as the snow stopped I came south to find out where everyone went. Were they evacuated or something?”
“No, they weren’t evacuated,” Robby said. “So, as you said, you haven’t seen anyone since Thanksgiving, correct?”
“As I said,” Brad confirmed.
“If you decide to stay here, you can have that grocery store,” Robby said, pointing. “If you decide to leave, there’s a parking lot up on Forest Ave. If you see a car with the windshield wipers up, it’s driveable and the keys are in it. There will be a syphon in the back seat. If you see a parked car with the gas door open, you can assume there’s no more gas in it. You’ll have to syphon from another to fill your tank.”
“Wait, son, wait,” Brad said, sensing the conversation was coming to an end, “how long have you been alone?”
“What makes you think I’m alone?” Robby asked.
“Well, then how many people are there?” Brad asked.
“I have no idea,” Robby said. “Some people are living here where the snow is only a couple inches deep, but most people live alone. If you go south or west, you’ll find dead bodies. Go too far away from the snow and you’ll find worse. Watch out for any standing water or even and wet spots. They’re dangerous.”
Robby started to back out of the door, pull it shut behind him.
“Wait, wait,” Brad begged, “where will you be?”
“I’ll see you again,” Robby said.
“Hey, get back here! What day is it?” Brad yelled as Robby clicked the door shut.
From beyond the closed door he heard Robby’s yell—“Friday, January sixth.”
Brad threw off the comforter and bolted over to the door. He pulled it open and followed the boy’s footprints across the neighbor’s yard and over to a side street. A couple of stop signs away, he saw a red car taking a right turn.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
BRAD SPENT A week in the Dead Ferret house before he saw the boy again. He intended to grab one of the cars from the Forest Avenue lot and head south. He found the cars just as the boy said he would—two near the corner of the lot had the windshield wipers raised, keys in the ignition, and syphons in the back seat. Brad took the nicer of the two vehicles and started out for the highway.
Lots of tracks led down Forest Avenue, but none veered onto the entrance ramp for the highway. Brad puzzled about that as he too continued past without using the ramp. He continued on Forest until he saw a set of tracks turn off onto a side street. His curiosity got the better of him and he followed. The tracks led up the side street, and down another, zig-zagging through the streets past businesses and houses. At the next major road he found so many tracks leading to the bridge to South Portland that it almost looked like the road had been plowed.
In South Portland, Brad saw a wrecked vehicle for the first time. He got out to investigate.
A woman’s curly hair pooled over the steering wheel of the compact car. The car sat with two wheels up on the curb, but had little damage where it rested against a utility pole. Brad knocked on the window even though the hood of the car was cold when he took off his glove and touched it. The curly hair still didn’t move when he knocked again.
He tugged at the handle, but the door was locked.
Farther south, Brad found a big truck in a ditch with unlocked doors. When he pulled the door open, a man in a flannel suit slumped to the side, held in place by his seat belt. The air from the truck smelled bad. The man behind the wheel had an open mouth and black, crusty holes where his eyes should have been. His tongue looked gray and swollen. Brad shut the door to the truck and walked slowly back to his own vehicle. As he drove around South Portland, he saw several more wrecked cars and although he slowed for each one, he didn’t bother to check out the people inside. From what he could see from a distance, they’d all shared the same eye-bursting fate.
Brad made his way back to the ferret house that night.
He explored his local neighborhood. Although he found no corpses—eyes burst or not—he did make several other discoveries. Right next door he liberated a round heater from a sewing room over a garage. This house also yielded two big blue cans of kerosene. The round heater drove the living room temperature of the ferret house up to eighty degrees one evening. Brad slept in his underwear that night for the first time in months.
The one thing Brad didn’t find was any other real live people. He followed tire tracks through the snow, but never found any footprints leading to a house, or saw any cars driving around. He got good at rolling up on parked cars and siphoning off their gas when he got low. Brad always remembered to leave the gas doors open on cars he drained.
Then, finally, a week after he’d moved into the ferret house, Brad walked up to the parking lot to find the boy standing next to one of the parked cars.
“Hi,” Brad said, raising a hand to the boy when he
was still a few dozen yards away.
Robby lifted a hand back, but waited until Brad drew closer before he spoke.
“Do you want to come have dinner with us tonight?” Robby asked.
“Sure,” Brad said quickly. “Where?”
“You know where the Denny’s is?” Robby asked.
“The one right up there?” Brad asked. “There’s not another one, is there?”
“That’s the one,” Robby said. “We’ll be there at four.”
“Great,” Brad said. “Can I bring anything? How many people?”
“The clocks in these cars are both right,” Robby said. “You don’t need to bring anything. See you at four.”
“Excellent,” Brad said. “See you then.”
Robby turned and snaked between some parked cars, heading towards the back of the lot.
“Wait,” yelled Brad, “what’s your name?”
“I’m Rob,” he called back.
“See you tonight, Rob,” Brad said. “My name is Brad.”
Robby didn’t turn around, but lifted a hand to wave and acknowledge Brad.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
BRAD CLEANED HIMSELF up the best he could. He used an outdoor turkey frying rig to heat up several gallons of water and then dragged the water inside to the bathtub. He found fresh clothes in a house behind his Dead Ferret house. The men’s clothes in the Dead Ferret house hung comically large on Brad. But, the guy who’d lived in the house behind the Dead Ferret house must have been just Brad’s size.
He bathed and shaved, amazed at how much better he felt about himself when he finished. His hair hung down over his forehead, but he managed to sweep it back with some mousse from the bathroom cabinet. Brad changed twice. He settled on a red golf shirt. It had a collar, but didn’t look too fancy. Over the shirt he wore a thin grey sweater to match his thick grey socks. He wore flannel-lined chinos which fit okay in the waist. He rolled up the cuffs so they didn’t drag when he walked. Brad finished the ensemble with a nice black jacket—zippered, but nice enough to wear indoors if it was cold.
He went upstairs to look himself over in the master bedroom’s full-length mirror. Before, he’d looked like a homeless person. Just what you’d expect in a post-apocalyptic hellscape, but not the best way to make a first impression. He preferred to look capable, together, but not too prosperous. He wanted to look able to take care of himself, but not somebody you’d envy. He’d lost a lot of weight—he saw it in his face now that he was clean-shaven. His cheeks didn’t have grooves in them, but they showed noticeable shadows where the grooves were staking out their claim. Brad reminded himself to smile a lot—smiling hid the shadows.
Brad walked up to the Denny’s. Taking a car from the lot felt cumbersome, and Brad wanted to feel unencumbered in case he wanted to get away quickly. He took his pack, loaded with survival supplies, and tucked it behind a bush about a block away from the restaurant. He got there too early—almost thirty minutes too early—so he walked around the side streets for a while. He found the local jail. It sat in a tidy brick building near the train tracks. His watch read three-fifty we he got back to the Denny’s. Brad went inside.
Two kerosene heaters—not the same as Brad’s, but the same idea—warmed the place up to about sixty. Brad took off his outer jacket and kept on the black one. It wasn’t toasty, but it was comfortable.
“Hello?” he asked the room. The only light inside came from the flames of the heaters and the late afternoon light through the windows. The door was unlocked, but someone had drilled out the lock, so it would remain forever open. One table with four chairs had a tablecloth and candles. Brad sat down and lit the candles with a book of matches he found on the table.
The swinging door from the kitchen opened and a young woman stepped into the dining room. She looked like a schoolteacher to Brad. More accurately, she looked like one of Karen’s friends—Brad couldn’t remember her name—who had taught fifth grade. Brad immediately thought of this woman as a teacher, just because of her resemblance to a woman whose name he couldn’t remember. She wore shoulder-length brown hair and a windbreaker over a bulky sweater. Both the windbreaker and the sweater hung down over her black corduroys. When she pushed through the door she looked down at her feet, and her eyes seemed buried in dark hollows. She brightened considerably when she looked up and spotted Brad at the table.
“Are you Brad?” she asked.
“Yes,” Brad said. He half rose from his seat—wanting to seem polite, but unthreatening.
She approached quickly with her hand outstretched.
“I’m Judy,” she said as she shook Brad’s hand. “Robby will be here in a bit.”
Robby entered through the front door a few seconds later. An older man followed Robby. Brad figured this guy to be in his sixties. Brad was forty-two, and hoped he could move as gracefully as this guy did when he reached that age.
“I see you’ve met Judy,” Robby said. “This is Ted,” Robby gestured at the older man. “Ted and Judy, this is Brad.”
Brad shook the older man’s hand as they all moved into position around the table.
“Judy called you ‘Robby’ just now,” Brad said to Robby. “You said your name was Rob earlier. Are you a Rob or really a Robby?”
“He prefers Rob,” Judy said. “But he only seems to answer to Robby.”
Robby smiled and blushed a little. Brad liked him more in that moment than in their previous two encounters combined. The kid had seemed too serious before, like he was trying to act like he thought an adult should.
“Does everyone like pancakes and sausage?” Robby asked.
Judy nodded. She took a seat next to Brad.
Ted stood behind a chair and held the back of it as he spoke—“I’m just here for introductions. I’ll leave you to dinner. Brad,” he extended his hand again, “I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.”
“Okay?” Brad said, shaking the man’s hand.
Without further explanation, Ted waved and then left by the front door.
“Pancakes?” Robby asked Brad again.
“Yeah, sure, absolutely,” Brad said.
Robby turned towards the kitchen.
“How can I help?” Brad called after Robby.
“Just have a seat and I’ll be right back,” Robby said as he propped open the swinging door with a high chair.
Brad sat down reluctantly and smiled at Judy.
“I wish I could help with something,” Brad said. “We can’t just let the kid do all the work, can we?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Judy said, smiling. “Robby likes to cook for people every now and again. He prefers not to have an audience though.”
“Oh,” Brad said. “So you’ve known Robby for a while then? Are you related?”
“No,” she said, smiling. “I’ve only known him for a month or so. We met at the grocery store.”
“Oh,” Brad said. “So where were you living when everything happened? Were you in Portland.”
Judy put her hand on the table between them, as if she could pin the conversation right there, on the tablecloth. “Do you mind if we wait until Robby comes back before we talk about how we all got here? He’s heard it all before, but we always like to make sure everyone is present when we talk about recent history. ‘More ears pick up more details,’ he says.”
“Sure, sure. That makes sense,” Brad said. “How about farther back? Can we talk about what we did before?”
“Of course,” Judy said. She smiled and looked down at her hand as she withdrew it to her lap. She touched her ear before she began to speak. “I used to work in marketing for a little company downtown. We did things like direct mail, emails, magazine ads, you know—increasing brand awareness and stuff.”
“Cool,” Brad said. “What was the product?”
“I don’t know,” she said, smiling a tight, close-lipped smile. “I mean I do, but I don’t really. I’d only worked there a couple of months, and it seemed like we were just selling air.”<
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Brad smiled and nodded. “I think I’ve worked for that company too,” he said.
“What do you do?” she asked.
“I was a contractor,” he said.
“Like construction?” she asked.
“No, nothing so practical. I did computer stuff—web stuff and programming,” he said.
“Sure, okay,” she said. “Good work?”
“Not really,” he said. “But it paid the bills.”
Judy nodded and pushed a wrinkle out of the tablecloth with her finger. Brad was careful to keep his hands on his lap, one on each thigh. It was a trick he used whenever he spoke in public. With his hands on his thighs he would keep his feet flat on the floor and sit up straight. If he slouched, he tended to stammer. Good posture brought clear speaking.
“I’m just wrapping up,” Robby yelled from the kitchen.
“Is everything okay with the other guy? Ted?” Brad asked.
“I think so,” Judy said. “He doesn’t like gatherings. Or, I mean, he likes them, but he doesn’t like to stay. He just wants to be introduced and then he usually heads on his way.”
Robby came in holding a serving tray with both hands. He brought plates, utensils, and a big stack of pancakes.
“They’ve got a great gas grill out back, so we like to do gatherings here,” Robby said as Brad stared at the pancakes. To Brad, the pancakes looked like civilization, and smelled like heaven. He kept his hands in his lap as Robby and Judy passed around the plates, silver, and food. Robby doled out equal portions to everyone, and Judy used her fork to put two of the pancakes back on the center stack.
Brad wanted to dive into the food, but waited as everyone fixed their plates just so.
“You wouldn’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve eaten any decent food,” Brad said.
“It shows on your face,” Judy said. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Brad said.
As soon as Robby lifted his fork, Brad tore into his stack of pancakes and savored the authentic maple syrup. That syrup hadn’t come from a Denny’s. Brad would have bet a thousand dollars on it if money still meant anything. That syrup came from someone’s backyard maple tree.