He frowned and closed the blinds.
“Dada, what’s that?”
“It’s nothing, baby.” His voice cracked. “It’s nothing.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, love.” He took in a deep breath. “Here’s an idea, let’s go to bed. It’s so much better than the couch.” He flipped off the TV.
Emily followed him into the bedroom but kept glancing back over her shoulder. She knew something was amiss with Fork, but didn’t have the language skills to properly ask. Ryan couldn’t bear to tell her that their new family member, one they had invested their hearts into fully, was splayed open on the grass, her guts ripped out and fed upon by some larger, much more feral beast.
One more time he heard Fork’s desperate moan, knowing it for a death rattle. He swallowed a rock and went to bed, but found his rest as hard to come by as another living human being.
Chapter 47
They headed west on I-44, over The Hill and past Lindenwood Park. The Farty-Far, as it was often called, was a crush of abandoned cars and lush vegetation, even worse than Sixty-Far through downtown St. Louis. If by some miracle, Ryan had had the ability to get a car running without a push, it would have taken him three times as long and five times the gas just to get around all the gridlock. If then. The authorities couldn’t have made better roadblocks than long forgotten Father Time and his solar reaper.
Thus far into the press, the wagon cage had held up great. It was easy enough to wheel around the Detroit forged maze to find new, smaller paths into the west. For the first couple miles Emily rode inside, kicked back on her memory foam palanquin, drinking flavored water from a bright Finding Nemo cup. She watched the miles roll past without saying much, just as she had in a car. She was always quiet in her car seat, spaced out by the hypnotic passing of distance.
The morning was cool, thick with a palpable sense of unknown adventures and a deep desire to travel. Ryan felt the call to roll through McDonald’s just as the sun crested the trees, get a sack full of sausage biscuits and fresh coffee. It had been his ritual with Lawrence before camping. It had been his ritual with Lillian before the airport. It had been his ritual with Emily when he was too lazy to cook, which had become a common occurrence leading up to the Event. He didn’t care for cooking breakfast.
When he passed McDonald’s he found himself disappointed they were closed.
“No biscuits for us,” he mumbled.
Despite the fact that Ryan was growing more comfortable with not running into other humans, or having to be concerned with the dangers of traffic—i.e., teaching Emily to look both ways when crossing the road or stressing out over bad drivers while on their walks—the desolate interstate before them was something else altogether. The damp wind that whispered through the tall grass was sterile, like scorched earth after a forest fire. None of the sweet aromas of flowers or the musk of beasts. Nothing stirred beneath the protection of the green and brown stalks that parted around them but insects. Now and again, a furrow could be seen along the road where a game trail had formed from the passage of deer or other wild animals over time. They were trudging away from the safety zone, away from home base. This wagon was all they had to call home till they returned a month later, and already, their party was down by one traveler. That did not bode well.
“Dada?” Emily asked from her luxurious accommodations.
He spun his head around, looking down the length of his right arm that was pulling the wagon. His shoulder was already feeling a little sore. “Yeah, Emme?”
“Fork? No trip?”
“Umm, no Fork. She decided to stay home.” With his left hand, he gripped the steel pole resting upon his shoulder, tipped with a bowie knife fastened into place by Gorilla tape. His weapon. His spear. “She wasn’t feeling well.”
“Oh.” Emily considered that. “Sick?”
“Yeah. She was feeling sick.” A white lie wouldn’t hurt now. Sweat beaded on his forehead, recalling Fork’s split open body. A very large animal had hefted over the fence, ripped their goat wide, and then gotten scared, not finishing the job. Ryan knew he needed to keep his eyes open and his homemade spear close. The height of the grass did little to make him feel easy.
A distraction is what he needed. “Let’s sing a song. How about that?” +
“Da song?”
He approached the jukebox of his mind, inserted several coins. His synapse clicked and rattled, before dropping a forty-five beneath the needle of his brain stem. The music rose swiftly in a popping swell of dust on vinyl, making its way up the metallic horn of dry rot speakers onto is lips.
“If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands.”
Emily clapped.
“If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands!”
She clapped again.
“If you’re happy and you know it, then your Daddy wants to show it, if you’re happy and you know it clap your hands!”
She clapped, then stared at her hands and tried to work out a better way to clap. “More song, Dada. More song.” The cage rocked.
The jukebox’s selection arm came down, took away the forty-five and made another choice, carefully replacing it with a worn, black vinyl from the deep storage racks in back of Ryan’s head.
“Old MacDonald had a farm, e-i-e-i-o. And on that farm he had a cow, e-i-e-i-o. With a moo moo here and a moo moo there, here a moo there a moo, everywhere a—”
“Moot moot!”
He chuckled, “Close enough. Old MacDonald had a farm, e-i-e-i-o.”
They weaved between a series of sedans and an eighteen wheeler now a horrible, twisted wreck. One of the skeletal drivers was lying on the pavement, its supposed vehicle flipped over with a hole in the windshield wherein they had been ejected upon impact.
Ryan kept singing, adding animals to the song each new verse, and leaned inside the car. The driver’s seat belt had not been clicked into place.
“With a stupid driver here, and a stupid driver there. Here a mook, there a mook, everywhere a—”
“Moot moot!”
“Old MacDonald had a farm, e-i-e-i-o.” The words bellowed out of him. He was really starting to get into it. Singing was a welcome distraction from the growing discomfort in his right arm. At this rate, it might be hard to lift more than a mason jar of pickles by tomorrow.
The song came to a close.
“It’s, eh, too freakin’ quiet out here,” he commented, catching sight of two birds circling in the distance. “What do you think, Emme?”
She responded in a low murmur with no specific words. Her Barbies and plastic animals were neatly arranged in a circle upon her pad.
His arm was going stiff.
As they approached the southwest end of St. Louis, with nothing but flat roads and boring views from the interstate, a strange, intangible quality clung to the wind. It wasn’t as if there was something that could be heard, nor was it silent. It wasn’t as if it was something that could be smelled, nor was it scentless. Unlike the road so far, here, there was a sense of earth and grass and scrubby trees, of wet seasons and predators stalking prey.
A flash of movement caught Ryan’s attention. He came to a stop and spun to face a tree planted upon the slope of an off ramp. What he saw in its branches took his breath away.
“Dada! Look, Dada! Look! It’s a—It’s—” She tried to find the word but it had not been part of the lyrics of Old MacDonald. Farmers didn’t keep creatures like this, except maybe in India.
Ryan supplied the answer.
“A monkey.”
“Monkey!”
A half-dozen large, black primates shimmied up and down a bare oak tree. Chimpanzees. The smallest of them leapt to the ground, dragging a skeleton through the tall grass. He howled and chattered at his companions who came to help. They took the skeleton over a hill and vanished from sight.
Emily gasped, hands over her mouth. “No. The monkey, it’s gone. More monkey. Pweeese, Dada. More monkey!”
He
pulled the wagon onto the emergency lane, set the brake and got out with Emily. They walked to the top of the hill just past the tree. About two hundred feet ahead of them, the gang of monkeys were propping up the fused skeleton by its heels on a convenience store wall. They were laughing and slapping the ground, shoving one another and throwing bricks at it. One of the windows to the store shattered, glass showering inward.
“Super,” Ryan growled, catching sight of a splatter of blood where one of the simians had injured his companion. They started to shove one another and the skeleton fell over.
Ryan snatched Emily up in his arms and sprinted back to the wagon, setting her inside the cage.
“More monkey, Dada.”
“I’m not having one of them throw a brick at us.” He hurried off down the interstate. “Cool as it is to see them running free in St. Louis, outside the zoo, that would be a shitty way to go. Death by monkey brick.”
“Monkey?”
“You’re missing the most important part of that sentence, Emme.”
They weaved through several more automotive accidents, were forced to go off-road into grass, then came upon small bits of twisted aluminum. As they pressed on, the frequency of wreckage increased, making it difficult to pull the heavy wagon. Ryan’s eyes soon focused on several silver with green lumps lying half-way in the road. It didn’t take but a moment to figure out what they were.
The fuselage of a Boeing 777, lay cracked open before them, wings and bolts and seats and glass scattered for a mile up and down the interstate. Finding a path through the labyrinth of debris was a challenge, even with the relatively small width of the wagon. In the weed-choked, overgrown hulk beyond its tattered left wing, was a herd of gazelle grazing silently, half their bodies hidden among the scrub. Emily took in a quick breath and pointed, unable to find the words to express her exclamation.
Never before had Ryan thought to see wild gazelle in his home town. They were beautiful and healthy, their short hair tan and black and white, spiral horns long and pointed. From the twitching of their ears it was clear that they’d long known of Emily and his arrival, and weren’t alarmed in the least. He counted them out loud.
“One. Two. Three. Five. Seven.”
“Wow,” Emily hissed, her face pressed up against the cage. “So pretty.”
“You got that right.”
Lost in the moment, Ryan hadn’t noticed the roaring drone of noise that was rushing up behind them. He spun around to look, and saw the heads of yellow and black-skinned mammals climbing into view. Their necks were thin by comparison to their bodies, and just kept going and going, heads reaching higher, noses and mouths and eyes growing larger.
The approaching mass of animal flesh was heading right for them.
He tossed the spear onto the ground and pulled as hard as he could, attempting to get the wagon out of what was now as obvious as the sunrise. They were standing in the middle of a well-used game trail, and if they stayed here, the herd making use of it would pound them into a bloody pulp.
One of the wagon’s wheels stuck on a sheet of aircraft aluminum.
“Look, Dada! More animals.” Emily held up her plastic giraffe, and in the process, accidentally knocked the mama horse out of the caged wagon onto the ground. “No. I drop. Pweese, Dada. Help. I can’t reach.”
He groaned and pulled, but without the help of the wheels he couldn’t drag the wagon to safety heavy as it was. The giraffes drew closer, their long legs and hoofed feet kicking up a storm of dust.
“Shit. Shit.” He strained, but the wagon wouldn’t budge. He let go of the handle, climbed underneath and tried shaking the wheel loose by lifting the entire thing with his back.
No luck. No time.
After all their hard work, he didn’t want to abandon the wagon. If it were destroyed, they’d be forced to go home and he wasn’t sure if he could find the courage to attempt this journey twice. Fork’s body was decomposing in the back yard. Memories of Lillian were all around. His couch, with its soft cushions, were just waiting to ease his pains. A drink in his hand, another day lost. If they went back now he might just never leave.
He jammed the spear between the debris and wagon, attempting to leverage it free.
One tire hissed and went flat.
The giraffes pounded closer, fast.
The wagon rocked, metal banging on metal, saddle bags shaking, flag blowing taut in the wind. He shoved against the haft, using his shoulder and both hands, extending his legs and throwing all his weight into it, jerking, pushing.
“My horsey! Dada, help! My horsey!” Emily’s arm was shooting out of the cage, reaching for the ground. Her fingers were no more than two inches away from their target.
The giraffes were now close enough that Ryan could make out their majestic features in detail, count each sinew of their pumping muscles, feel the thunder of their pounding feet. They were breaking upon the game trail like a tsunami.
“We have to go. Come on, Emme.” He swung the cage door open. She resisted, arm stretching for her toy. “Come on! Leave it!”
“My horsey. I no want to leave it.”
He dove into the cage, wrenched her arm from between the bars, and stole her away, kicking and screaming. She strained for the missing toy over his shoulder.
“My horsey. No. Dada. No!” She began to sob.
He took a step, stumbled, boot tip hooked on wiring, and tumbled off the trail. The group of sixteen-foot-tall mammals blurred past his heels, accompanied first by a vanguard of brown buffalo. Their combined passing kicked up thick clouds of dust and razor-sharp aeronautical debris. Barely out from under the giraffes, one of their errant appendages caught Ryan in the shin, throwing him onto his side with a concussion of searing pain. Emily clung to his chest as he scrambled back onto his knees and crawled away, putting distance between them and the artiodactylan flood. His body shielded her from the dust and metallic rain. His back stung from the assault.
Now that they were safe, he watched in horror as the herd rushed over their wagon. They seem as if they’d ever cease. They just kept coming. The dust cloud was so thick it was impossible to see the damage their passing had made. Finally, a single buffalo followed up the rear and no more animals came.
Ryan choked and held Emily out. Her damp cheeks were now black where dust had turned to mud from the moisture of her tears.
Screeching sounds came from down the trail on a gentle hillside. One of the giraffes, a pale runt who was missing one of the knobs on its head, was stamping at the ground. A baboon leapt from cover, screaming at the giraffe, and swung its arms in retaliation. Light glinted off its massive, white teeth. The giraffe hopped back, far more nimble than Ryan ever thought possible for an animal that size, and threw its right front leg out. A hoof shot out into the face of the baboon, crushing its skull and spraying blood into the air. Another one of the baboon’s companions appeared, leaping onto the giraffe’s flank and biting. The giraffe moaned, but its voice wasn’t desperate, only angry. It spun around in circles, tapping the ground, and threw the baboon free. Then, before the companion had a chance to counter, started stomping down hard, blinding violence hidden by grass.
Ryan forgot all about the wagon. Emily and he sat stock still in rapt attention.
The giraffe took several steps, falling under attack by two more baboons. None of the giraffe’s herd came to its aid. With a fury only fatalistic survival can summon, the giraffe fought them two and three at a time, taking bites from the baboons’, raining blows to joints, dishing back violence in equal measure to what it received. Crimson liquid trickled down the giraffe’s hind leg. Several of the baboons cut their losses and fled. Several more fell under the strength and power of its hooves. The last of the baboons, who was massive in both the scale of his arms and chest, as well as his fire-engine red ass, took off up the grade in favor of living another day. The giraffe wasn’t having it. It took several loping strides and shot out its right hoof, catching the fleeing baboon in the back of the neck with
a crunch. As the baboon bled out, the giraffe strolled around its crippled body in triumph.
“Lesson one,” Ryan murmured in shock, “throw away all previous lessons. Giraffes are not weak, or cowardly.” He wasn’t really sure what they’d stumbled upon. Somehow, just outside a Midwest City, was a microcosm of an African Pride, just as dangerous as the savannah. If this was what they had to look forward to on their journey, he was sorely underprepared.
He needed a guide. If other humans were surviving out here, they’d become tough indeed.
“How did these animals survived winter?” He shook his head and came up with nothing.
A gust of wind blew over the verge and stole with it the cloud of dust clinging to the game trail. Miraculously, the wagon was still upright, herd having flowed around it like a river rock. Relief was undeniable. He carried Emily back to it, keeping a wary glance over his shoulder. A few of the hooved creatures were meandering just past the plane’s wreckage, but showed little or no interest in heading back their direction. Even the runtish giraffe had moved on. A tiny, important question caressed Ryan’s senses.
What sort of animal had driven them to stampede?
“Doesn’t look too bad,” he said, setting his daughter down before checking beneath the wagon. “Well, hell, it was hooked on a twisted bolt all along. That’s all. One of these PVC pipes were cut by a hunk of aluminum, water’s leaking out. I think we lost a backpack of extra clothes. But hey, all in all, we made it out okay, Emme.”
“‘Kay?”
“Yup, A-OK. Things are just super.”
He reached for the remains of the plastic horsey. While Emily was turned the other way, watching gazelle leap above the grass, he tossed the wreckage as far as he could. Best to handle it that way.
“Well, baby, let’s swap out this busted tire and get moving. I want to get off this trail and find a place to rest before more of their friends show up.”
He peered back along the trail, question coming again: What sort of animal had started this stampede?
The Two That Remained Page 28