The old man took the pistol and the box, and then looked Cooper square in the eye, “Thank you. Thank you, for this.” His eyes were misty.
Cooper’s heart tugged, “No need to thank me. We have this one to spare. You deserve better than to be defenseless at a time like this. You’ve done good, and I’m sure you’ll keep doing more good down the line.”
The man’s eyes grew distant and he paused for several seconds before responding, “I don’t think anyone is ‘good’. Especially these days. Darkness is always there and sometimes it’s what saves you. Problem is, too many forget their light side.” He paused, his free hand washing over the pistol as he thought. Then, his dark face turned bright once again, “But, I do thank you. I try to keep my ledger balanced out on the good side.”
Now, it was Cooper’s turn to contemplate for a few moments. He stroked his unshaven chin, fresh images of those he’d had to kill these last few weeks. He squinted to keep the emotions at bay as his thoughts drifted to what Jake had been forced to endure; some of which Cooper had ordered on him. “I think you’re right about that, old timer. Hell, I had to ready my boy to kill so he could defend himself when this all started. I don’t know if it gets darker than that.”
“True. Darker. But, what lightens it is what you readied him to defend himself against was surely darker still. Right?”
Cooper nodded gravely, “Yeah, certainly.”
“Then, forgive yourself! Those of us who are still holding our humanity in hand must survive. Otherwise, it isn’t just our electricity and cable TV that goes kaput. No, then everything would go to hell on earth.”
The corners of Cooper’s mouth turned up, once more astounded by the old man’s wisdom. Shaking his head, “I have to ask you. How did someone as wise as you end up like this?”
“Homeless you mean?”
“Yeah.”
The man’s eyes grew wistful, “I wasn’t wise enough to stay away from the bottle, plain and simple. Well, not ‘til I’d lost everything, anyway,” he said as his eyes grew wistful, thinking of days past.
“Oh, you’re sober now?”
“Yup. Proudly so. Do you want to know what’s funny as all get out?”
“What?”
“My anniversary of being sober for one year was the exact day when the Brushfire Plague broke out.”
“Really?”
“Ironic, ain’t it? And, you wanna know what’s funnier? I haven’t had a sip of liquor since this all started, either. I like to think God started this whole thing just to give me one more test to pass!” At that, he exploded in riotous laughter, doubling over and rocking back and forth on his heels.
Cooper couldn’t help but laugh, too, “That is funny…in a crazy way…it’s funny as hell.”
The old man kept laughing for a long time, tears rolling down his face. Finally, he regained himself, “Thank you. I needed that. It is lonely out here. Worse than it was.” He raised the pistol in his hand, being careful to keep the muzzle pointed downward, “And, thanks for this, too. I can’t even tell you.”
Cooper waved his hand, “Don’t mention it.”
“I should get going. I’ve bothered you enough and I see your friends are coming out now,” he said turning and stashing the pistol into his cart.
“Sure. What’s your name old timer? In case we meet again.”
The man looked flummoxed for a moment before he beamed, eyes glinting, “You know something? No one ever asks me that anymore! It’s Ed. Ed Sjowski.”
“Mine’s Cooper Adams,” he said extending this hand. Ed took his hand and shook.
“You take care of that boy. And, be easy on yourself for the things you’ll have to do to keep him alive.”
Cooper locked eyes with his, “I’ll try. You know I will.”
Ed grabbed his cart and ambled away, continuing south down 82nd Avenue.
Dranko, Angela, and Calvin approached with a large dolly cart in tow. The cart was piled high with hand tools of all sorts, rolls of wire, and a shiny generator.
Dranko called out, “Is that who I think it was?”
“Yes. Yes it was. And I gave him that .45 we took off of Mr. Porsche.”
Dranko shook his head, “While I’m sure you had a good reason. I wish you hadn’t.”
Cooper cocked an eyebrow, “I knew you wouldn’t. But, he needed it more than we did. And, charity can’t die. Even in times like this.”
Dranko only grunted derisively and began loading the new supplies into the pickup.
Angela shifted her feet, “I don’t even know the guy, but I agree with Cooper. We cannot abandon kindness. Otherwise, what are we surviving for?”
Calvin nodded his agreement, “My grandmother always said charity doesn’t even count unless it hurts some.”
Dranko just grunted even louder, “Speaking of charity, why don’t you guys help me load this stuff up. We’ll have room now, given that we’re lighter by a pistol.”
Cooper rolled his eyes in mockery at him, “Whenever you’re being sarcastic, I know you aren’t too pissed off.”
“That’s been the key to our success, darling. You just know me so well!”
They all laughed and then set to loading the supplies in earnest.
**********
Minutes later, they resumed their path south down 82nd Avenue. He honked his horn playfully as they passed Ed, pushing his cart. Ed waved enthusiastically as they drove by. For a moment, Cooper’s heart felt light as he recalled friendlier times before. The bleak road they travelled quickly tore that from him.
The road became successively more clogged the further south they went. Abandoned and destroyed vehicles blocked their path. Once more, Cooper ordered Jake onto the floor. If this keeps up, he’ll be living down there. A Ford pickup was riddled with bullets, the driver dead and slumped halfway out of the shattered driver’s side window. A Toyota minivan had been burned down to its metal frame and its occupants were entombed as grotesque charred husks. A Buick sedan had somehow flipped onto its side, a red splash across the pavement and a crimson trail leading away from it telling an unfinished story of injury, death, or survival. Was the person dragged away or did they crawl away? The litany of vehicles and the destruction to them and their passengers was unending.
Debris clogged the road, as well. Bodies. All manner of bodies. Young. Old. White. Black. Impoverished. The well off. Unless you owned a helicopter, I guess an apocalyptic plague proved a great equalizer, Cooper thought. Some were strewn about the streets, sidewalks, and parking lots. Others lay entombed in their cars. Some bodies had been subjected to such horrible violence; he could barely recognize them as a person. Others lacked any kind of visible mark. Cooper speculated these had died from heart attacks or some trauma that he simply could not identify. Some had clearly died from the Brushfire Plague itself, phlegm, blood, and spittle staining their clothes and mouths.
“Poor bastards, sick and stumbling down a roadway, for God knows what purpose,” Cooper involuntarily mumbled.
One vehicle forced itself into Cooper’s attention. A white car had slammed into another car. The ground all around the vehicle glittered in the late afternoon sun and every window in the car had been shattered. Bullet holes ripped the car from stem to stern and all along the side facing Cooper. Those holes told him the car had been hit with a mixture of shotgun shells, pistol bullets, and at least one high- powered rifle. It wasn’t the three bodies inside the vehicle that drew his eye—he’d already seen far too much of that.
It was the moppy brown hair and the small forlorn arm that hung just below the rear passenger door. Cooper shuddered, knowing what he could not see. A thin object was clasped in the hand. Cooper flashed his lights, to tell Dranko he was stopping, and abruptly braked.
“Stay here,” he ordered, his voice heavy with grim sadness. Julianne simply nodded and Jake didn’t move at all.
Cooper’s steps were leaden as he approached the car. He knew what he was going to find. He knew it was going to break his hear
t. Still, he trudged onward, drawn to the grasped object like a suspecting husband coming home early from work one day. Glass crunched underfoot as he came closer to the car. His stomach tightened as he reached out and slowly pulled the door fully open.
A boy’s body slumped further out of the car, the head bumping itself against the asphalt. Cooper reached out to stop the boy from hitting the ground, but failed. The boy was stiff and he landed with a thud. Cooper cringed, his eyes narrowing and his lips curling. The boy’s face was serene and unmarked. His chest had a single neat hole. Right where the boy’s heart was. A small hole. A circle of red. And, a dead little boy. Cooper’s thoughts ravaged his mind and a vise closed upon his chest. Is that all it takes?
Cooper’s eyes drifted down to the object in the boy’s hand. The hand was smeared in blood. He couldn’t tell if it was his own, or someone else’s. Cooper saw a rectangular cylinder of blue peeking out from between the boy’s fingers. He knelt down to get a closer look. He grabbed a rag from his pocket and pulled it from the boy’s unyielding fingers.
Cooper wiped the object and then opened the rag. Captain America. The head of Captain America was staring him straight in the eye. A Pez dispenser. Cooper remembered them from his childhood, unaware that they were still made. Cooper stumbled backward, sitting down hard and awkwardly onto the cold asphalt. He tightened his grip on the bloodied Pez dispenser. His eyes raced all around him, as if looking for something. His eyes stung and big fat teardrops began falling, dotting his shirt with dark spots. His left hand smashed into the side of his head. His right grasped the Pez dispenser. He wanted to crush it into dust in a vain hope to make it all just go away. He began rocking back and forth. Then, he exploded.
“Why!” He wailed futilely. He stretched that one word for what seemed like an eternity to those who were either standing next to their vehicles or who’d remained inside. By the time he finished, he was sobbing. Cooper felt like a broken man. The dead boy reminded him far too much of Jake. The tragedy of a boy dying while holding onto a cheap plastic toy was a brutal talisman of the death of their old world and the painful, bloody birth of the new. A new world, still unformed, but already scarred by blood and death. Too much death, Cooper lamented.
“You know how I’m different than him?” Jake’s voice right next to him made Cooper’s body jerk in surprise.
He could only stare upward. His boy towered over him, the emotional gulf between them having a dramatic effect. Cooper furiously wiped away the tears from his eyes. His voice fled him and he could not respond.
“Two ways.” Jake’s voice was distant. He sounded like an old man. “One. I ain’t dead,” he paused. His lips curled into a wry smile that made Cooper cringe. Then he added, “Yet.”
Cooper frantically rustled himself onto his knees. Instinctively, he sought to comfort his son. Hearing such cold, calculated words from his eleven-year-old’s mouth left his own agape and unmoving.
Jake continued, as if unaware of his father’s desperate movements. “Two. When I die, I’ll have a gun in my hand, not some stupid ass toy.” His cold words had turned to ice. Jake diffidently shrugged off his father’s seeking hands. He walked slowly back to the truck. His steps plodded, crushing glass and debris that lay in his path. Cooper stared after him impotently.
Jake ignored Julianne who was staring at him in shock and sought to catch his eye. Her arms reached out halfway to offer a comforting hug, but fell back to her side when she saw the stern features that now owned his face. The door shut quietly. He never turned around, so he couldn’t see the look of disbelief and sadness that crested across Cooper’s face. Cooper knew a door had just closed on his son’s life. He’s a child no more. Cooper’s heart ached at the fact. He stifled the emotions welling up from deep inside.
He stumbled to his feet, dazed. His eyes met Julianne’s, looking expectantly from the car. All she could see was hatred. Cooper saw her shudder, as if a cold wind had just blown through the truck. He didn’t care.
He wanted to know when the butcher’s bill for the Brushfire Plague would ever be fully paid. My wife, dead. Rotting in the ground. My boy, becoming hard at age eleven. Me, driven from my home and on the run. What else am I expected to pay? If Cooper could have seen into the future to answer that question, he might never have arisen from the pavement he had settled upon.
**********
They resumed their slog southward. Cooper’s truck was ruled by silence. He didn’t know what to say to his son. He doubted words would matter now. Now, more than ever, he wanted to be away from everything. He hoped that getting into the country and away from so much death might be the tonic that could cure what ailed Jake.
As they drove, Julianne fidgeted. Her eyes would furtively try to connect with Cooper’s in the rearview mirror. Each time, she shrank before the fury she saw in his eyes. She broke the silence first, “I’m sorry, Cooper. I’m so sorry…”
“Don’t,” he spat through gritted teeth. Rage owned his heart now. Julianne’s role in this disaster and his son’s lost childhood made his mind whirl and his gut wrench. But, try as he might, he could not hate her. And, he wanted to hate her. It would make everything else so much easier. I’d like to dump her on the side of the road and let her fend for herself in this world that she helped create. That would be justice. But, he could not. Mercy tugged at him, too. The bond he felt toward her was powerful. Involuntary. Messy. A tenderness she had no right to had wormed its way into his heart and wouldn’t let go. It mocked Cooper, as if to say, your rage will pass, but this will remain. Its truth enraged him further and he managed a harsher glare at Julianne.
His confused and angry thoughts were periodically interrupted as they had to stop their vehicles and push one out of the way to make passage. Calvin had his rifle at the ready, riding true ‘shotgun’. His eyes were alert and scanning. He was always the first out when they stopped so he could take a look in all directions to ensure their safety. In between, he knew Cooper was not in the mood for conversation and left him be.
After another hour, they were reaching the junction of the road they wanted to take east. Dranko radioed for him to stop and they gathered.
“Jake and Lily can you guys keep an eye out and let us know if you see anything?”
“Yes, darling,” Lily responded while Jake simply shuffled off a few paces to take up watch.
The others huddled in a semi-circle.
Dranko motioned into the distance, “Just around that bend, about a mile down the road, is the crossing over I-5 that we need to get on to head east. It’s a dangerously exposed position and we need to think about our approach.”
“Shouldn’t we scout it first?” Calvin asked.
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Dranko agreed. “It’s the most prudent approach.”
Cooper exploded, “We don’t have time for that! On foot, it will cost us at least an hour to scout it. By then, the sun will be setting and we won’t have time to get across and set up camp.”
Angela raised her hands to try and calm Cooper, “That’s a good point. Why don’t we just camp on this side, scout and cross in the morning.”
“Because staying on 82nd is a mistake. Who knows what will come down this road overnight. We need to get across and get some distance off the road. There is cover on that side of I-5. We don’t have it here.”
“But, rushing across a vulnerable position without scouting it is a mistake, brother, you know that,” Dranko pleaded, his eyebrows knitted in confusion.
Cooper turned on him and looked as if he was about to pounce, “I’ll tell you what is a mistake. It’s a mistake to see a disaster around every corner and a two-headed monster behind every bush. I…we need to get out of the city and into cover and away from all of this,” Cooper said, waving his arms about to indicate the death and destruction that surrounded them. Deep down, he knew he had slipped into an emotional and irrational state and he hated himself for it.
“Can’t we clear out on these empty businesses and
bunker down there tonight?” Calvin asked.
“There are certainly a lot to choose from,” Angela added.
Cooper surveyed the group gathered around and saw the nodding heads, the arms folded, and the expectant eyes looking at him. His mind turned and thought of one unfinished piece of business that had clawed at the back of his mind since the other night when they’d been attacked. “Fine, you guys clear a building, I’ve got something else I need to get ready for,” he grunted and strode back to his truck and began absentmindedly checking their supplies. The others let him go without intervening.
***********
An hour later, they had settled into an auto parts store that was set back from the road and gave them a good vantage point over the road in front of them. They barricaded the back door with boxes of heavy parts. They left a side door locked from the inside with a heavy chain, but which could become an escape route if they needed it. They decided to park their vehicles in front where they could keep an eye on them. The group unloaded the supplies so that they wouldn’t invite prying eyes of anyone that might come along. As added camouflage, they parked Cooper’s truck over the curb and popped the hood, feigning a breakdown. They left Dranko’s Jeep angled in the middle of the parking lot and dumped a few gallons of anti-freeze underneath it to make it look like its radiator had blown out. They carefully made sure the coolant made a sloppy trail toward the street.
When their preparations were complete, Cooper pulled Dranko aside.
“I’m going to take the motorcycle and head back to our neighborhood tonight.”
“That your unfinished business? Gus?”
“Yeah, that’s right. I owe him a visit. I don’t want to waste my time sitting on this side of the 205 tonight,” Cooper’s eyes flamed, anger flashing from his lost argument earlier.
“I think that’s a stupid risk, but I know you well enough to try and talk you out of it,” Dranko replied, folding his arms.
Brushfire Plague: Reckoning Page 8