A Land of Ash

by David McAfee

  “Yes, Alyssa,” he replied, his heart soaring. “It seems the cavalry finally arrived.”

  *

  The cold outside was intense, the worst it’d been in weeks. Guido did his best to ignore it as he led them down the first of many miles toward the harbor. Alyssa trudged beside him through the wet, mulched ash as they turned down what had once been Main Street. He didn’t know what time it was, other than a vague sense of daylight. The dark clouds above, the ones that seemed to rush across the sky yet never get anywhere, were thick as ever. It cast an eerie gloom on the world. For a moment, Guido regretted their decision to leave. We were safe in the shelter, he thought. Nothing could touch us there. All he had to do was look down at his miniscule travel companion, see the expectant look in her eyes beneath her mask’s Plexiglas, and those doubts faded.

  Before long they reached the center of town. Most of the houses they passed had crumpled beneath the crushing weight of the ash. Windows were broken, leaf-barren trees felled, and cars overturned. Thankfully the ash covered all of these, hiding their atrocities, blanketing them into pale, gray lumps. That was okay by him.

  The road signs were long gone, but that didn’t matter. Guido knew where he was going. It was only three miles to the highway. From there, a straight shot on 95 until they hit the connectors that led to Groton. On foot, it might take a few days, but he’d packed plenty of food in the sled he pulled behind him. They could camp out at night, or at least whenever it grew too dark to see. They just had to make sure not to breathe too deeply with their masks off.

  They were almost out of the town boundary when they heard a loud whooping sound. Shadows darted in front of him, crossing from one wrecked house to another. More whoops. A rock skittered across the muck-covered pavement in front of them, scattering ash to the wind. Guido placed a hand on Alyssa’s shoulder and pulled her in close.

  Figures emerged from the shadows, five of them, hunched and swaying. They circled like a pack of wolves. Every once in a while one would screech, and he would feel Alyssa shiver against his leg.

  The figures drew closer, and even in the bleak light he knew they were male, and young. They wore blood-drenched scarves over their faces, the color shocking against the stained gray of their skin. Their eyes danced with madness as they wielded planks of wood with nails driven through them. Guido held Alyssa tight and reached into the cart behind him. He pulled out his trusty Louisville Slugger and held it with one hand, ready to make like Mickey Mantle should the need arise.

  “Don’t come any closer!” he warned. His voice echoed inside his mask.

  One of the men neared. He pulled the scarf from his face. Blood streamed from his nose and the corners of his mouth. His teeth were brown and rotting. He grinned, and it was sickening. He couldn’t have been anything more than a teenager.

  “We have no problems with you,” he said in a gravely voice. “We just want the girl.”

  “Step away,” Guido said. He held the bat high above his head like a lumberjack.

  “We said you can go, old man,” growled another before lunging forward. Guido lashed out with the bat, barely missing. His old muscles screamed on the backswing. The kid danced back and chortled.

  Something hit his leg from behind. It buckled as pain tore into his buttocks. He dropped to one knee. It took all his effort to grab Alyssa before he fell on her. He pulled her against his chest and swung the bat wildly. He felt the wooden shaft connect. Someone howled in pain.

  “Asshole!” one of the kids yelled.

  Guido held his ground. He rose on his pain-seared leg and twirled around, thrusting the bat forward as he did. He caught sight of the wounded assailant, hunched on the ground, holding his head. He coughed. The remaining four closed in, encircling them. He knew he couldn’t hold them off forever. At his age, it was just a matter of time.

  “Listen to me!” Guido shouted. “There was a radio broadcast! The French have arrived! They have ships waiting in Groton, and all we have to do is get there. You don’t have to fight me on this!”

  One of the attackers – still wearing his bloody scarf – swung his board. It missed, and that only seemed to make him angrier. “Fucking liar,” he grunted.

  “I’m not lying!” bellowed Guido. Alyssa’s head buried further into his chest. He felt her body quiver as she sobbed. Regret filled him. That light, that hope, he’d seen earlier was gone. Anger shook him to the bone.

  The one who’d spoken first piped up again, this time in a softer, calmer tone.

  “Listen, man. No need to make shit up. We know we don’t got long to go. Just let us have some fun before then, ‘kay? C’mon, you’re a man. You understand. Right?”

  Guido couldn’t believe the words. He struggled with Alyssa’s weight, his breathing coarse and painful. “You won’t get her,” he whispered. He didn’t think they could hear him beneath his mask. He didn’t care.

  With a sudden fury, Guido charged. The surprised kid didn’t move fast enough. The bat struck his head, which snapped sideways, streaming blood like a morbid sprinkler. His body twisted and then lay still as it hit the ground

  Alyssa’s weight slowed Guido’s movements as the others attacked with a vengeance. One hit him in the shoulder. He hunched, protecting his precious girl with his own body. Another struck his thigh. He fell over, the pain horrendous. He rolled as to not crush the Alyssa, and then huddled over her. Someone ripped his mask off. Gasping, he inhaled handfuls of wet ash and began to choke. Another blow, this one on his back. He felt the nail punch through his clothes and pierce his flesh. It drove in so deep that when it retreated it felt like it dragged his insides with it.

  The world turned hazy. Everything shook.

  Keep her safe, his reeling mind insisted. Protect the girl, save the only one that matters.

  Blows landed all over his body. Rusty nails drove into him. He grew weaker and weaker by the second. Alyssa clung to him as he fell to the side. He felt his blood leak out through the numerous new holes in his body, soaking his clothes and dribbling down his chin. And still, the girl clutched him.

  A savage hovered above, tugging on Alyssa’s hand like a fairy-tale beast. The girl screamed and kicked, not letting go. He tried harder, and that made her kick all the more. Finally he reared back and lifted the board above his head. The nail glinted in the faint light. Guido pulled Alyssa below him and closed his eyes.

  A shot cracked the air. Another. Then shouting. They surrounded him, a chorus of chaotic voices. Guido held the girl, wishing he had a womb into which he could stuff her for protection. He was about to die, and even worse, so was she. In the only thing he’d cared about in a long, long time, he’d failed.

  But there were no more blows. The shouts ceased, as well as the gunshots. Guido lay still, afraid to move. Alyssa squirmed in his arms. He could hear her breathing inside her mask. It sounded like a freight train.

  Hands grabbed his mangled body. They rolled him over. He felt weak, and with blurred vision he watched a man lift Alyssa up. He held her out as if inspecting a sensitive work of art. Beside him was another human form, this one was smaller and holding a rifle. It kicked the motionless body at its feet. Several others walked by, just ghosts in his foggy eyesight. Their voices chattered on.

  A shadow blocked out his vision. A man’s face. He wore a bandana over his nose and mouth, blood soaked like the others. The eyes though…blue, kind, and concerned.

  “My name’s Jason,” the man said. “We’re friendly. Who were those kids?”

  “Gone wild,” Guido said, his voice rough and weak. “And hungry…hungry for things they shouldn’t, they shouldn’t…”

  Jason glanced over at Alyssa and then nodded to show he understood.

  “She’s all right now?” he asked, unable to look for himself.

  “She is,” Jason said. “She’s with my daughter, Melissa.”

  Guido tried to nod, but didn’t have the energy.

  “Did you hear the announcement?” he heard a young girl ask, mos
t likely Melissa.

  Alyssa responded, still quivering but on the edge of excitement. “We did.”

  “They’ve come!” said the girl between coughs. “We’ll be safe and warm!”

  Guido felt a bit of gratitude as Jason lifted his head so he could see her better.

  “We’ll take care of her for you,” he whispered. “What’s her name?”

  “Alyssa,” Guido coughed. “My granddaughter.”

  Contented, he leaned his head back, smiled, and let the darkness take him.

  Let It Continue

  by David Dalglish

  “Just a few more steps,” John told his wife. “We’re almost there.”

  Susan took his outstretched hand into her own.

  “Thank God,” she said, forcing a weary smile. “My feet feel ready to fall off.”

  John pulled her up the final flight of stairs to the third floor of what had once been an apartment complex in the northern stretches of Maine. The ash had fallen light there, so far to the east, and the building remained structurally sound. Rows of doors remained opened, broken by looters or left unlocked by former inhabitants as they’d fled. John couldn’t imagine why they hadn’t stayed. Of all the United States, Maine was the one state that had gone almost completely unscathed.

  A bit of smoke trailed out from the second door to their right, and John led them just to the side. He let go of Susan’s hand so he could grip his gun in both. His bullets were few, but he had enough to kill a man. He’d never been a good shot, not until the ash fell. Over the months since the ash fell, he’d learned quick.

  “Hello?” John called, knocking on the wall beside the door. “My name’s John Crawford, and I’m with my wife, Susan. We’re looking for Faye.”

  He held his breath and listened for the telltale sounds of ammo clips and shotgun pumps. Nothing, only labored footsteps toward the door. He dared a glance around the corner.

  “Julie send you?” a rail-thin black woman asked, her eyes large walnuts, her hair tied back in a ponytail. She stood in the center of the room, bundled in a multitude of coats and hats. In one corner was a pile of wood, broken and ready for burning. Where the stove used to be was a fire, its smoke billowing out a small hole in the roof. In the kitchen was a mini-fridge, its handle gray and smeared with dirt and ash.

  “She did,” John said, stepping full before the doorway. The woman’s eyes flared at the sight of his gun, and with a subtle shift, she revealed a similar pistol clipped to her belt.

  “I have no food to spare,” the woman insisted. “Julie should have told you that. I help out when I can, but this ain’t one of those…”

  Faye stopped when Susan joined her husband’s side. Her walnut eyes looked to Susan’s swollen belly.

  “Jesus,” she said. “No wonder Julie sent you. Come on in, girl. The cold’s no place for a pregnant woman.”

  “Thanks,” Susan said. Because of her weight and the thick coats she wore, she waddled toward the small fire. Grunting with pleasure, she sat down before it and removed one of her coats.

  “Benefits of being pregnant,” Faye said as she hurried into her kitchen and started scrounging for food. “It’s like having a little furnace in your belly. Keeps you nice and warm. Me, however…”

  She laughed as she gestured to her thin frame, her eyes sunken into her face, her cheeks stretched, and her neck a thin piece of bone and veins.

  “I take it you sleep close to the fire at night,” John said, trying to make light of things.

  “In the damn fire, and still not always warm,” Faye said, laughing.

  John sat beside his wife and removed two of his coats. The fire had a musty smell to it, but it was warm. He held his hands over it, closing his eyes and trying to relax. He clicked on the safety to his pistol as Faye sat a small plate of mixed vegetables from a can beside each of them.

  “Heat it over the fire if you must,” Faye said as she ate directly from the can with a spoon. “I’ve gotten used to it cold, though. Winter in Maine was never easy, but lately…I swear, it’s like the ash blocked out the sun. What I’d give to be in South America right now, hell even Africa. Some days I think I’m hungry enough to wrestle a meal away from a lion.”

  She watched the couple eat while she sucked on the spoon.

  “I know Julie sent you,” she finally said. “But did she tell you why she was sending you my way?”

  John removed his wife’s second coat, pushed her long blond hair to the side of her neck, and then began massaging her shoulders.

  “You’re a nurse,” he said.

  “I was,” Faye said. “Damn good one, too. Don’t you have any worry, Mrs. Crawford. I’ve performed hundreds of these procedures, and I’ll make sure nothing happens to you while I’m removing the fetus.”

  “Removing the…?” Susan pulled away from her husband.

  “You said we were coming here for my labor,” she said.

  “I said we should be here before your labor starts,” John said, but his words sounded like the words of a lawyer, not a husband.

  “Is that what Julie said? That why she sent us here?”

  “This is no world for a child,” Faye said, her voice calm in the face of their anger. She’d seen a thousand arguments so very similar, and she knew how to let them roll over her without upsetting her. “You know this as well as I. There’s no food, not for a baby.”

  “I’ll have milk,” said Susan.

  “Milk ain’t free,” Faye said, shaking her head. “It’s coming from you, and my old jackass of a boss wouldn’t have been happy with how little weight you’ve gained during your pregnancy.”

  Susan stood. When she waivered unsteadily on her feet, John was there to help her. She pushed him away with a choked sob.

  “Let go of me,” she said. “I didn’t carry this child for nine months just to give up.”

  She put on one of her coats and stormed out the door. John watched her go, a mixture of anger and helplessness on his face.

  “She’ll come around,” he said, trying to force a smile. He did a poor job of it.

  Faye shook her head and finished the last of her meal.

  “Don’t force her,” she said. “You do, she’ll hate you until she dies. I want you to remember something, John. I’ve done plenty of procedures, but I’ve helped deliver as well. I won’t tell you what to do. You both have a decision to make. I won’t say it’s just hers, because she’s got to rely on you for everything afterward in a world like this. Keep or not. Up to you. But if you do decide to keep it, you better be damn sure you know why.”

  John put on his coat and turned away.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.

  He went to his wife.

  *

  They slept beside the fire, doing their best to pretend Faye wasn’t there. Susan lay curled into her husband’s arms, his hands resting comfortable atop her breasts. His forehead pressed against her hair, and when he whispered, his breath warmed her ear.

  “It wouldn’t be right,” he said.

  “Like hell it wouldn’t.”

  He kissed her neck.

  “I don’t want to,” he said. “But what choice do we have? How many times have we nearly starved? Think of how bleak a future we’d give him. Or her. You remember the rapes? The riots?”

  He quieted.

  “I’ve forgiven you,” she whispered.

  “I haven’t,” he said. “Nine men, and one woman. That’s how many I’ve killed to keep us together. To keep us alive. To bring a child into this godforsaken world would be cruel. Damn it all, there’s sick fucks out there that would eat our baby if they had the chance.”

  She shivered in his arms, and he quieted when he realized she was crying. Feeling like an ass, he held her tight and kissed her neck.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  For many long moments they lay silent, him grinding his teeth because he was upset and nervous, her sniffling and struggling to get her wild emotions under control. Susan had
always considered herself a tough, logical woman. Being pregnant had taken that part of her and flung it into a blender, then pounded it with a thousand tons of ash.

  “Is that what you really want?” she asked.

  He bit down his initial response and gave it a moment of honest thought.

  “No,” he finally said. “I don’t. But I’m scared to death of what could happen to our child. I don’t see any reason for hope. None. How do I give life up to that?”

  “But I can feel it move,” she whispered. “You have, too. You’ve felt it kick.”

  This time it was his turn to fight the sniffles.

  “I hate this,” he said. “I fucking hate this.”

  It took several hours before they fell asleep, light and restless and without dreams.

  *

  When John awoke, his wife was gone. He bolted to his feet, staggering about the room collecting his coat and hat. Faye stirred, then covered her face as a slice of light met her eye from him opening the door.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Susan,” he said, as if that explained everything.

  “She’s probably out taking a piss,” Faye said.

  John shook his head and left the warmth for the frozen outside. He had a feeling in his gut, too strong to ignore. Something was wrong. Susan had left him, but why? As he climbed down the stairs, he shook his head. No, that was a dumb question to ask himself. He knew why. Of course he knew why. The better question now was where?

  Out from the cover of the building he felt the first touches of a snow falling lightly against his cheek. The touch immediately sent shivers up his shoulders and across his neck. He hated snow, had for months now. It reminded him too much of that first blizzard of ash. They’d piled into their car, just him and Susan, and fled their Kentucky home. He thought of all the horrors he’d seen, driven through, even driver over…

  “Susan?” he called out, trying to break himself free of his own thoughts. “Susan, where are you babe?”