The Unit

by Terry DeHart

  I give the meal package back to Scott. He takes it this time. He opens it and dips his finger into the tuna and puts it in his mouth and immediately retches. When he’s finished, I stretch my coat over us and reposition our nest. We’re back to back, and there’s enough heat to allow us to sleep. The bus is our submarine, our snow cave, our irradiated time capsule, and I hope there’s enough oxygen to keep us alive until the storm passes. Lord bless this oxygen to our bodies. I hope He will, because the sleep is on us now. Scott falls asleep. I listen to him breathe in and out. He’s had something to eat and he’s warm and safe and sleeping, so I close my eyes and go in search of my dead mother’s kitchen.

  Melanie

  It gets warm in the RV. We smell bad, but for a while the warmth outweighs the bad things in the world. We dry our clothes. We’re sick for most of the night, but the nausea finally passes. I’m very weak now. Dad looks like hell. We don’t want to leave the RV, but the boys will be after us soon, and the crazy idea of leaving is our only sane choice.

  We go back outside just as it’s starting to get light. The snow is only dribbling from the clouds, and the new snow doesn’t smell so bad. When my eyes adjust to the light, I can see that most of the new flakes are white, and the new stuff is burying the dirty stuff. I can finally admit to myself that the dirty snow is fallout. I might as well call it by its true name.

  The wind is dying down, but it still cuts right through my coat and into the core of me. Dad says we have to walk a few miles while it’s still snowing, so we won’t be as easy to track. He’s carrying the silly little gun he found, but he’s wearing socks on his hands instead of gloves, and I don’t think he can pull a trigger that way. Anyhow, it won’t be long until his fingers are frozen again, and then he won’t be able to shoot anyone, even if it’s the thing he wants most to do in all the world. Maybe when the boys find us, their hands will be frozen, too, and nobody will be able to shoot their guns. And if that happened we’d have a footrace, maybe. I would pull ahead, and Dad would fall behind, and the boys would get him. Yeah, that’s exactly what would happen, so never mind.

  He’s in bad shape. He’s running on the invisible energy of love and hate. I walk behind him and I catch whiffs of sweat and smoke and puke and blood. His scalp wound opened up again. When the morning sun makes the overcast glow, I see that his coat is spattered with blood. His head is leaking again and it’s leaving pinkish marks in the snow. We’re leaving a trail that even a blind person could follow. We have to stop to rest every few minutes. The boys will be on us soon, but I won’t run away from my dad.

  It isn’t long before I feel their eyes on us. I can’t see them yet, but I know they’re coming. Dad must feel it, too, because he picks up the pace. We’re not moving very fast, and we’re out on the open plain. I feel naked. We’re fighting through snow that’s up past our thighs. It’s like one of those nightmares where your legs and feet don’t work very well, and there’s something big and fast coming after you. It’s like we’re about to be lynched, which probably isn’t far from the truth. But there’s an upside to all this snow, too. It’s too deep for the boys to use their trucks to run us down.

  I’m starting to freak out, so I push my thoughts somewhere else. If it hadn’t snowed, we probably couldn’t have gotten away. But if we had escaped on a clear night, we’d either be in the woods, where Dad could maybe lose the boys, or we’d be shot dead. Dad might say that the snow was a gift from heaven, but he’d only say it to get my mind away from the fear of what it contains.

  Mom would most definitely say that God sent the snow, radiation and all, and that it’s His will, so there isn’t anything to be afraid of, because no matter what our fears might be, God’s will is the thing that matters. It used to drive me crazy to see the way she gives her life and her freedom over to her imaginary friend. But now I’m almost jealous of the way she can stay so calm when shitty things happen. I know she’s not naturally a brave woman, and sometimes I’m jealous of her ability to accept whatever happens, the good with the bad, because she thinks it’s part of some great and mysterious plan, so there’s no point in being afraid of what is Meant To Be.

  We hear the boys behind us. They give a little whoop when they come out onto the plain. There’s a house in the distance. It’s a white house with green trim. We’re breathing hard. Dad’s eyes look kind of wild. He glances at the abandoned cars and trucks all snow-covered in the freeway, and I think he’s trying to figure out a way to use them to keep us alive, but he shakes his head and keeps up the pace. We walk toward the house. It doesn’t seem to be too far away, but it takes us half an hour to get there.

  When we get close, Dad is breathing like a woman in labor. His face is bright red and he’s not sweating as much as he should be. I’m getting pretty close to the first level of exhaustion I used to reach during a gymnastics workout. There’s a tickle in my lungs from the cold and I’m not getting quite enough air, but I know I can get past this first level and push hard for a good while more.

  We make it to the house. There aren’t any trees or shrubs around it. Dead birds are scattered on the snow in the front yard. Most of them are crows. The breeze lifts their blue-black feathers up and then puts them down again. The windows of the house are dark and they have a layer of dust that’s turned to grime. The house looks like someone wants it to look abandoned. There’s a picket fence, but the snow is deep enough to allow us to step right over it. We stagger to the front door. We don’t have time to knock. The boys are running now. They’re only about a quarter mile back, and they’re howling like wolves, but they aren’t shooting yet. They’re running on top of the snow, so they must be wearing snowshoes. The farmhouse is dark and there’s no smoke coming from the chimney and none of the snow at the door has been shoveled.

  The door is half buried. Dad digs down to the doorknob. He tries to turn it, but it’s locked. He puts his shoulder into it, but it’s a strong door and he’s too weak to break it down. He goes to a window. It’s the front window of a breakfast nook. I get a flashy kind of fantasy of us sitting in the breakfast nook on a sunny morning. We’re all there, Mom and Scotty, too, and we’re eating scrambled eggs and drinking coffee and sharing sections of the newspaper, but the vision pops, and I’m looking at the sorry reflection of us in the window.

  The snow is so deep that Dad has to bend down to look inside. He reaches out with his stupid little gun and he’s about to break the glass when a man appears in the window. Dad takes a shooting grip on the gun. He points it at the man and looks into his eyes. I can’t see Dad’s expression, but there’s probably enough desperation in it to tell our story. The other man’s face is pale, but his eyes are steady. His hands are empty and he keeps them in plain sight. He shakes his head at Dad. He says, “Go around to the back,” and his voice is muffled. I get the idea that he’s more offended that Dad was about to break one of his windows than he is from having a gun pointed at his face. It’s more like an annoyance. He motions and says it again, “Go around to the back,” and his voice is strong, and it doesn’t sound like the voice of an enemy.

  He could be a serial killer and it wouldn’t matter; we’d still do what he said. We push through the snow. The patio at the back of the house is shoveled and sprinkled with rock salt. The man opens the door for us. He’s fifty or sixty, a big man, more muscular than Dad, but he’s clean-shaven and dressed in clean Levi’s and a tucked-in button-down shirt, and his dark hair is slicked back.

  He holds up his right hand, and we stop. His left hand comes up. It’s holding something long and thin, and Dad almost shoots him, but he’s only holding a broom.

  “Gotta get that contaminated snow off you before you come inside.”

  Dad puts the revolver in his waistband, grabs the broom, and brushes me down. He’s coughing and bleeding and weaving on his feet, and the boys are coming fast, but he does his usual thorough work. My brain is screaming for him to hurry, to not be such a perfectionist for just once in his life.

  Whe
n I can’t stand it anymore, I grab the broom and give Dad a quick cleaning. I move toward the door, but the man shakes his head. I brush more snow from Dad, but apparently I don’t do a good enough job, because the man comes outside and grabs the broom and finishes up.

  When we go inside I have to pass very close to him. He smells like old-time grooming products. He smells like my maternal grandfather used to smell, like Brylcreem and Old Spice, and I hope he’s half the man my grandfather was. I hope he’s half as wholesome and kind and generous and regretful as my Vietnam War–surviving granddad.

  The man leads us through a laundry room and into the living room. Sandbags are stacked against the walls and around the living room windows. There’s a pile of sandbags in the middle of the living room floor. The man lights a kerosene lantern, and lifts it like a ghost who wants us to follow it. He leads us through a door and down a narrow staircase and into the cellar. He holds the lantern close so it lights our faces. I remember the exaggerated way my grandfather used to talk. You look a sight, he would’ve said.

  “Name’s Bob Wickersham,” says the man.

  Dad’s still whooping in big breaths of air, but he manages to say our names. Wickersham nods at us.

  “Your radiation sickness, how bad is it?”

  Dad doesn’t have the breath to answer.

  “We were sick last night, but I think we’re getting better,” I say.

  Wickersham opens his mouth to say something more, but the boys start shooting. They shoot out some of the upstairs windows. Mr. Wickersham winces, then calms his face.

  “Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later,” he says. “Don’t feel guilty about gettin’ me involved. Those boys knew I was in here, sure enough. This fight’s been comin’ for a long time now.”

  Mr. Wickersham’s voice is kind of high for such a big man. He has the local country accent I recognize from the other times we passed through Weed and Yreka.

  “To tell the truth, I’m glad it’s finally comin’ to a head.”

  He pulls back a black curtain that stretches across one wall of the cellar. He does it like he’s on the stage of an old game show, showing us what we’ve just won. He reveals a big gun safe. He works the combination and opens it. He takes out something heavy. It’s a machine gun, I think. Dad gives a low whistle and it surprises me because I don’t have any control over my lips, so how could he?

  Mr. Wickersham asks Dad if he knows anything about M-60s, and Dad tells him he was a Marine and he knows plenty about M-60s. Mr. Wickersham smiles in a mean way that probably doesn’t look like his usual smile. He pulls another machine gun from the safe.

  “I had me a gun shop, once. Got me a Class Three license from the Feds, and all. When it seemed like the world was goin’ to hell, I collected a few things I thought might come in handy.”

  He pops open a green metal can and pulls out belts of ammunition. He gives a belt to Dad, and Dad wraps it around himself. Mr. Wickersham takes a belt for himself and they stand all clattering and clinking in their new bullet shirts. Dad’s still weaving back and forth. Mr. Wickersham says, “Let’s get this show on the road, huh?” His voice sounds almost happy. He’s either a psychopath or he’s scared shitless and tired of waiting for the boys to attack, and so he’s showing off his manly, dark humor.

  “I’ll take the front; you take the back.”

  “Sure thing,” Dad says. His voice is rough, and it tells me that he’s holding back a ton of pain.

  “They’ll surely try to burn us out,” says Wickersham.

  He lifts a big fire extinguisher and puts it down at my feet. He pulls out the safety pin.

  “Can you handle this, sweetheart?”

  I’m about to tell him to stick that “sweetheart” crap up his ass, but the boys shoot at the house again and their bullets break lots of stuff upstairs. We wait until they stop shooting and Dad tells Mr. Wickersham that the boys probably have dynamite, too.

  I don’t want to, but I follow them up the stairs. I take the fire extinguisher with me. The living room windows are shot out. The sandbags are piled two deep in front of the windows. Mr. Wickersham grabs some sandbags and tosses them over the glass near the breakfast nook windows. He kneels down behind the window, and it’s a bunker, a pillbox, a machine-gun nest. Dad puts down his gun and sets up a sandbag semicircle in front of the brick fireplace. He tells me to get behind it. I don’t want to, but I do. He kind of grimaces and blinks, and I think he was trying to smile and wink. He pulls out the stupid little gun he found in the RV and puts it on a sandbag beside me. I shake my head and he manages to really smile, but he leaves the gun on the sandbag. He stacks more bags near the base of the back window and opens the top of his machine gun and feeds it with a belt of ammunition.

  There are two other windows, but they have shutters and the shutters are closed. I hear running footsteps and orders and shouts. I recognize the voices of Bill Junior and Luscious and a few of the others. They’re not talking to us. They’re getting themselves set up for their attack. I know it must burn Bill Junior’s ass that we were able to just walk away from him. He won’t want to let it happen again.

  And then all in one motion, Mr. Wickersham pushes the barrel of his gun up onto the sandbags and into the light of day and pulls the trigger. It’s the loudest thing I’ve ever heard. The sound of killing rips into my ears. Lines of red reach for the boys and hot brass streams against the wall and bounces across the floor and hits my legs. Dad starts shooting from the back window. It’s loud enough to make me start to lose my mind.

  I put my hands over my ears while they try to sweep the boys away. They start to shoot shorter bursts and I hear a boy screaming and then I can only hear our fire. Yes, it’s our fire, and I have to claim it, too. My brain runs around and I can’t control my thoughts and they bounce like hot brass against the walls of my skull. I hope the scream I heard wasn’t from Donnie Darko. I hope it was one of the mean ones, even though no one deserves to be machine-gunned in the snow. Maybe even Hitler wouldn’t deserve that. But I can still feel their dirty hands on my skin and their stinking bodies pushing into me. I know I should feel terrible about all the shooting, but my lips are trying to smile, and I feel guilty and helpless and powerful. I stay down in my sandbagged place. I push my lips flat and straight so I’m not grinning like a cold-blooded killer. I do my thing; I curl into a ball.

  It doesn’t take long for the boys to regroup. They manage to shoot more holes in our sandbags, and then I’m cursing. It seems to be the only thing I know how to do. I wish I could just accept things and do what comes naturally to other people in times like these, run or fight. I wish I could believe that I’m part of some god’s special plan, but all I can do is bang my head against the floor and curse the world of people and the shitty choices we have to make.

  Dad and Mr. Wickersham go after the boys’ fire. They’re not shy about shooting dozens of rounds in response to a single shot. They’re trying as hard as they can to kill.

  Dad says something to me, but I can’t hear him. He’s shouting and it takes me a while to understand that he’s telling me to go to the cellar for more ammunition. I don’t move fast enough, so he goes himself. It’s quieter with only one gun firing. I think it’s a good thing that it’s quieter, but the boys will think so, too.

  Dad comes back upstairs with two green cans. He falls at the top of the stairs, and he doesn’t get up. He’s coughing on the hardwood floor. Wickersham tells me to bring him a box of ammunition, but I don’t want to. I go to my Goggy and try to make him better. I take off my coat and wrap him in it, but he pushes me away and manages to stand up. He drags a can of ammunition to Wickersham, then he gets his own gun firing again. I bring him my canteen, but he’s too busy shooting to see me behind him. He’s still coughing. I want to pat him on the back or something, but I go back to my little sandbag nest.

  They keep shooting and I can’t hear anything except a single loud ringing. The boys were on us like dogs on rabbits, but now they aren’t
so sure of themselves. Now they’re targets, too, and they’ll have to be smart if they want to live. But they are smart.

  The boys stop shooting, and so do Dad and Wickersham. I bring Dad my canteen. As soon as he can, Dad turns to find me. He looks surprised to see me standing behind him, then he smiles and takes a drink.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. You?”

  “Never better. You know how it is with we Sharpes.”

  He has blood on his lips. I kneel beside him. I want to tell him I don’t hate him for shooting people, but I can’t shape the words. He tries to ruffle my hair, but I step back. It’s like we’re only camping or something, but then we hear something, and he turns back to his gun.

  Right now the boys are hiding and thinking. But they’ll come again soon. They’ll get their shit together and come from all directions. And that’s just what they do. They wait until twilight. They’re very quiet and I don’t trust them when they’re quiet, so I look out from behind Dad’s sandbags. It takes me a while to figure out what’s happening, but then I see them coming. At first I think I’m getting dizzy, and I start to feel sick to my stomach, because the snow is moving. Dad and Mr. Wickersham can’t see it. The boys are camouflaged with dirty sheets that make them almost invisible in the snow, and they’re almost right on top of us.

  Scott

  The air in the bus is ripe. I don’t know how long we slept but the air doesn’t seem to have enough oxygen to allow a fart to burn. I’m warm clear through, and the snaplight is almost used up. We’re soaked with sweat under our vinyl nest. The dead girl is getting rotten enough to gag a cockroach, but Mom is okay and we’re together.

  Mom might’ve been lying about dreaming she was in Gramma’s kitchen, but maybe she wasn’t. She doesn’t tell lies very often, now that she’s off the booze. But there’s no telling what she’ll do to try to put my mind at ease, and I want her to know that I’m okay. I know there’s a plan for me, and so whatever happens is cool with me, one way or the other, because either I’ll be God’s terrible vengeance on earth, or I’ll be sitting at His table in paradise. There’s no downside that I can see.