“We got this.” Dodge said.
“Oh, yeah, we got this.” I said sarcastically and peered across what had become a mere grave yard of banged up, piled up cars. I had to lower myself down to about a six foot slope to the top of a black SUV, maneuver across the cars where the ramp used to be, then magically, somehow get on the bridge. Oh, yeah, I had this. Right.
Dodge left the suitcase and backpack with me, lowered down with ease, then reached up. “Hand me the suitcase first.”
Fearful, that it would clunk him unconscious; I slowly lowered the bag as far as I could. I felt him grab it, and then I did the same with the backpack.
“The rations bag.” He held up his hand. “Toss it down.”
“You’re not planning on leaving me at this point, are you?”
“What?” He lauded. “No! Would I make you coffee and pancakes? I’d have left before you woke up. Rations.”
I dropped the small sack.
“Now you. Belly down so you can see where you’re coming from and trust me that I got you.”
“I’d rather see where I am going.”
“Yes, well, I bet you do. But looking down, you are gonna slip. It’s easier to glide feet down to me.”
“My feet will be to you.”
“I mean, with your back side up.”
“I can do this. Didn’t you say we got this?”
Dodge stepped back a foot and held out his hand. “Be my guest.”
Really, how hard and tricky was it. He barreled down in a good couple steps, yeah the slope was steep but it was really only about six feet.
Six feet of concrete, to an unprepared person, was slippery. I made if half way, three steps and I slipped. My feet went from under me and while I made a half assed attempt to catch myself and my pride nonetheless, I still managed to tumble in a part roll, my right arm, running against the concrete.
Dodge reached up to grab me, but it was too late. He did secure me and help me the rest of the way down. “You okay?”
Like a child, I peeped out a ‘no’, that all too familiar stinging of a brush burn. The skin was torn and then with the slight delayed reaction, it started to bleed.
“That will hurt,” Dodge said, lifted the ration bag, and pulled out some water. “Does it feel broke?”
Again, another peep. “No.”
“You’re bleeding.” Dodge grabbed my arm.
I winced and pulled back. “Stop. Stop. That hurts.”
“Oh, you stop.” He uncapped the bottle with his teeth and slowly poured water over my wound. “Shake it off.”
“Shake it off?” I asked.
“Shake it off. I told you not to climb down that way, didn’t I? You probably got hurt a lot worse when you were a kid and fell of your bike.”
“I wasn’t allowed to ride a bike.”
“You didn’t ride a bike?”
I shook my head. “My mother wouldn’t let me she said I would get hurt.”
He nodded. “I can see why she would think that.”
“Dodge.”
“Don’t whine. Stay here. Don’t move.”
“Why?”
“Just … stay here.”
I didn’t move from my position on top of that black SUV. Dodge carried the suitcase and backpack across the cars and closer to the bridge. Then returned.
“Not that I don’t think you can do it, but I can’t have you getting hurt.”
“Are you always going to be like this?”
“No,” he said. “Because you won’t always be like this. Right now, you’re still recovering. You aren’t a hundred percent. Maybe you are and I’m just wrong.”
“You’re not wrong. I’m usually much stronger.”
“Then good. I’d like to see that without you breaking a bone first.” He held out his arm for me to latch onto for support.
I hated it. I absolutely hated the fact that he looked at me as weak. And I also hated the fact that I fell, looked sick, acted sick.
I actually debated on not taking his arm and doing it myself, but I saw how well that went.
Walking across the cars wasn’t as easy as it looked. The roofs weren’t strong, and twice the windows shattered just with the simple touch of my foot.
We made it across and Dodge, with the ration bag around his neck, climbed up to the bridge. He placed his chest flush with the ground and extended down his arm. “Hand me the suitcase first. Heaviest item out of the way.”
It was heavy. Before I lifted it, I made sure the handle was all the way out, and I was only able to raise the suitcase mid chest. Dodge grabbed it.
I knew his request for the backpack was next. It was on its side and as I reached for it, I passed the flipped up mirror of a car and in doing so, caught a glimpse of my reflection.
Frozen. I was absolutely frozen in a stare of myself.
Was it me? My fingers reached up to my face. I barely recognized my own reflection. No wonder Dodge looked at me the way he did. I was shocked he hadn’t tried to find a wheelchair. All I could think was how Dodge said earlier I looked much better. If I looked ‘better’, how bad did I look before that? Was that possible? My face had never been so white. If it was possible, I’d say it had surpassed being pale. I didn’t just have dark circles under my eyes; they surrounded my eyes, like a raccoon. My lips? Aside from the sores, that I knew I had, they were near colorless.
With my straggly hair, even though I had washed it, I looked like a walking corpse. “Hey.” Dodge whistled. “You gonna hand me that backpack?”
My head cocked in shock, I nodded and reached for the backpack then lifting it up enough for Dodge to grab it.
A few moments later, Dodge edged his way down and pulled me over to the highest car. The edge of the bridge was still above my head.
“Alright, here’s how it’s going to go. Raise your arms.” He said.
I did.
“See, you’re only about four inches short of touching that ledge. So … I want you to step on my knee, reach up, and I’ll hoist you. Get a grip, you’ll have to pull a lot of your own weight, okay?”
I nodded.
“Once I see you have the ledge, I’m going to try to push you up there, so be ready. Please don’t fall.”
“I promise.” I took a deep breath, when I stepped on his bent leg; I was already seeing the ledge. I reached up and Dodge lifted me. With his leverage, I grabbed hold of the concrete and pulled. I was fighting and struggling to do what was a glorified chin up. Just as I was about to give up, I’d love to say I found my inner fortitude, but the truth was, Dodge, gave a good hoist.
Once my chest hit that bridge, he maneuvered his hands down my legs and lifted me enough that I was able to get the rest of the way onto the bridge.
As if it would help or matter, I held down my hand.
Dodge just smiled, climbed up … then grabbed my hand.
“Good job.” He shook my hand. “What’s wrong?”
“Why didn’t you tell me how bad I looked?”
“I told you that you didn’t look well.”
“It’s beyond that. I saw my reflection.”
“Faye.”
“Yeah?”
He stared at me and said seriously, “Now’s not the time for vanity.”
I couldn’t help it. I actually laughed. I … laughed. For the first time, really, it wasn’t fake, it wasn’t forced, it was genuine. I told him he was right, and turned. It was breathtaking, the empty bridge.
“Dodge, this looks all clear.” I peered over my shoulder as he gathered the things.
“I’m betting it’s that way for a while. People were trying to get out of the city, not in.”
“I suppose you’re right.” I started to walk. “Maybe we’ll get to my house in no time. Find a car and …” A few steps into my walk, I didn’t hear Dodge and knew he wasn’t walking with me. Even without a squeaky wheel, the rolling suitcase made noise.
I stopped and Dodge wasn’t moving. He was staring at something in his hand.
“Dodge, what is it?”
He held out his palm and had a look of shock on his face. “An M&M.”
“Oh, don’t eat that. You don’t know where it’s been.”
“Do I look like I’m gonna eat this?”
“I don’t know. Why pick it up?”
“Why is it here?” he asked.
“Someone dropped it.”
“Faye, what were you eating a little bag of last night? You didn’t finish.”
“M&M’s. From the MRE. They were stale.”
Just then I saw Dodge bring that M&M to his teeth. “Dodge!” I scolded like a mother.
He bit down, cringed and spit it out.
“Why would you do that? You said you weren’t gonna eat it.”
“I wanted to see if it was stale like those ones from last night. It was.”
“Okay.” I tossed out my hands. “It was stale. The point?”
“The point is ... if traffic ended over there. What’s a piece of candy, stale nonetheless, doing over here?”
“Someone dropped it.”
“Exactly.”
It took me a moment and a second glance at the look on his face to see where he was going with it, what he was possibly thinking. “Dodge, anyone could have dropped that. Before the flu. A soldier would be eating an MRE.”
“But it doesn’t make sense. It looks like it was just dropped.”
“Do you think someone else was eating a bag of candy from an MRE and dropped it while making their way across this bridge?”
Dodge nodded. “I do. What do you think?”
“Honestly?” I paused and inhaled. “I believe you’re thinking too hard and looking too much into it.”
Dodge tossed the candy to the bridge. “You’re probably right.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No …. I am. I’m just looking for anything and everything.” Almost defeated, he swung the pack over his shoulder, and started walking, pulling the suitcase with him.
I didn’t want to say anything else. Dodge was hopeful. He truly did believe there were other people alive. Me, I believed, if there were people alive, they’d be a lot harder to find than that tiny piece of candy on the bridge.
19. Downing Park
The bridge was more than just a crossing over the river from one side of town to the next. It was a bridge to a different story.
The empty bridge led to a vacant south portion of town. A section of which was barren even before the flu. Run down businesses that once thrived decades earlier. Pizza shops and car repair places. Not a residential area by any means. And I knew, with one glance, we’d be at my house before it was even afternoon.
Just blocks after crossing, we saw our haven. Dazzling Dan’s Buy Here Pay Here Car Lot. A virtual smorgasbord for Dodge. He moved around that lot, looking in each car, almost as if searching for something particular.
Pick one, please, I thought.
Then he did.
He broke the window to the front door of the trailer office and emerged with keys.
“Half tank of gas, I can fix this one if it breaks. I gotta plan for gas later,” He said.
Later. Dodge always seemed to be thinking about later. We tossed the suitcase and backpack in the car, then after a few futile cranks, the engine turned over and we were off.
We were about ten miles from my home.
I asked Dodge again if he wanted to stop at his place or his ex-wife’s.
“Maybe.” He replied. “Not now. I’m just not ready to see it. I know how sick they were.”
“I understand.”
It wasn’t until a mile into our trip, when we drove through the first stretch of road with homes that something clicked in Dodge and I know what it was. It was the bodies on the sidewalk, the shoulder and verge of the road. Some in trash bags, some in official body bags, and others covered loosely in what looked like drapery and sheets.
Dodge turned and looked at me, then continued staring forward. “I think maybe I’ll have to go there. I’ll have to bury them. I owe them that.”
“I’ll help you if you want.”
“I’d like that but …. I’m gonna do it alone.”
Another thing I understood. There was probably many reasons Dodge wanted to be alone to bury his family. The emotional aspect of it was private and personal. In a way, I was relieved he said he didn’t want my help. Seeing a child, would just be too much. I hadn’t seen a body of a child at all. It horrified me to even think about it, the torment that innocent had to endure. If I didn’t see one, then maybe, in my mind, I didn’t have to face the reality that children suffered.
As we drove farther, I realized the river certainly drew a line between the contrasts of the two areas.
In the city it was panic, chaos and fear. Signs of turmoil at every corner. In the suburbs it was quiet. There were little signs that people erupted in violence, they weren’t caged in. They were left to die without resources. They brought their dead to the edge of the road like Sunday garbage.
Somehow in my mind, I envisioned my housing plan to be unscathed, that we’d roll in and have to slow down on the speed bumps, or stop because a child’s ball would roll across the street.
The strict fifteen mile per hour speed limit was always adhered to. I lived in one of those housing plans, a step shy of a gated community. Where all the houses looked the same and the lawns were perfectly maintained. Where everyone pretended they had money and only a handful weren’t buried beneath monstrous mortgages.
The second we pulled in I knew my fantasy was blown. My neighborhood was no different than any other. We brought out our dead just the same as the inner city.
My head lowered. “Make the next right. That’s my street.”
“Doesn’t look like any looting took place here.”
“No.” I whispered. “Everyone was too busy being sick.”
I felt the car turn left and reluctantly I glanced up. “Fifth house on the right.” I told him. Then I saw and a lump formed in my throat. The Reese’s had bodies, the Merrimen’s, they suffered too. Mr. and Mrs. Doyle, my next door neighbors, who constantly brought me food after my family died … they were not immune. One body was outside, I could only deduce the other was still inside, in bed, dying alone.
The car turned and Dodge asked. “This it?”
Looking up I nodded.
Dodge turned off the car. “You ready?”
Actually, I was. I needed to get inside. My house, my home, was the only thing in the world that would be normal to me. Because it was the only home on the entire street, that didn’t suffer a loss to the flu.
It battled and lost long before the sickness took the world. It was empty long before the flu claimed its victims. I opened the car door, stepped out and stared at my front door. Like open arms saying ‘Come here, find comfort', my house called to me.
I was home.
20. Home
My house had that ‘been away on vacation' smell. Not old and musty, just unlived. The scent of dust and stale air, along with a hint of spoiling food from the fridge. There wasn’t much in there to go bad.
Dodge brought the bags inside. I informed him I had some bottled water but not a lot. Unlike the Doyles.
“What about the Doyles?” he asked.
“Well that Rush Spring Water truck arrived every month with bottles. You know the big ones.”
“Where do they live?”
“Next door.”
“I’ll be back.”
“You can’t go over and take their water.”
Dodge paused, turned and looked at me. “Really? Are you really saying that?”
“Is it right?”
“Ask yourself what your neighbors would want you to do. Would they mind?”
I thought about it and remembered it was the Doyles. They were sweet and caring and would be the first to volunteer their water. “They’d say take it. House to the right.”
Dodge left. He didn’t say much about my home. Then again, h
e had only stepped in the door. The first thing I did was empty the fridge. It was odd, because I had plenty of paper products. I shopped at the bulk stores, and while Rich and the kids were alive, I went through them fast. Since their passing, one roll of paper towels no longer lasted a day, it lasted a week.
By the time I emptied out the refrigerator, I remove some of the dust and I opened the windows to ‘air’ out the home. I had been lingering in the smell of death for days; I just wanted to smell something fresh. In my mind, we were going to be there a while, and when Dodge returned an hour later, I wondered if he were thinking the same thing.
He must have taken a few trips back and forth to the Doyles because he brought in three of those big bottles.
He also brought in other items, canned good, candles, box products that were still viable.
“You looted my neighbors.”
“Don’t say it. They aren’t using it and it’s guaranteed stock. We don’t know the status of the stores, yet. I plan on hitting the other houses as well. We can’t live off of MRE’s, they’re good in a pinch, but not for your digestive system.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“Okay … these…” He pointed to the full bottles. “Are for drinking and food. For cleaning, I brought some of their empty bottles, we’ll use what’s left in your water tank. That water can be used for washing up and if you use it sparingly to wash, we can get a good flush a day.”
“You’re thinking ahead.”
“I’m looking at a woman. I’m kind of thinking a flush is a big deal.” He winked.
“It is.”
“You have neighbors; they have water tanks, too. I just hit the Doyles for now. I found some flashlights and candles too.”
“I see that.”
“Do you mind putting the stuff somewhere? I’m …. I’m going to head over to my ex’s house.”
“Oh, Dodge,” I nearly whispered with words of compassion. “Are you sure you don’t want me there.”
“No.” He closed his eyes. “It’s something I have to do. I’ll be back.”
“Good luck, I’ll pray for you.”
He reached for the door, paused and turned. “Lock this please. I know things seem safe. But lock it and ...” He reached behind his back and handed me a revolver. It was small, almost toy like. “I got this from your neighbors.”
Last Woman Page 7