Kill Town, USA

by Joseph N. Love

  “Don’t touch it!” I snarled. “Not with your arm like that.”

  “If it’s torn, I’ll have to re-stitch it,” she said.

  “Hell you will. I’ll do it.”

  “What’s your problem?”

  I stared up at the ceiling. At the gray clouds. The swirls of snow flew into the barn. “Just don’t touch it,” I said. “Just don’t.”

  “Fine. Will you please get up so we can go?”

  “Give me a minute. One damn minute.”

  “I’m trying to help.”

  My head pulsed. It was hard to breathe. “You could have stayed in the loft. That would have helped.”

  She covered her arm with the opposite hand. “A lot of things could have happened.”

  “I’m sorry I stepped in a goddamn bear trap. I’m sorry you wandered off and got bit.” My head hit the dirt.

  “I could have taken you to the compound. They would have taken you, and I would have been fine.”

  “I could have shot you in the face the second you showed me that bite.” I sat up and tightly re-wrapped the splint. I struggled to my feet and dragged the Winchester behind me.

  Audrey was silent but followed behind, weaving through the mess of bodies. It was a relief not to carry the pack, but I could barely walk because of the nothing leg. And those soulless animals hadn’t disappeared. They appeared on fencerows and tree lines, five or six together, and began their slow, deliberate march toward us. Occasionally, I’d look back at Audrey, the pack mounted awkwardly on her shoulders, her arms crossed.

  I realized being shunned was worse than death for her. She couldn’t tell her body to shut up. And I couldn’t make the infection go away. I stopped. I raised the rifle and waited for Audrey to catch up. She approached slowly.

  “This is the best time,” I said.

  “Don’t make me beg for my life.”

  “Just come here and take the rifle.”

  “Take it?”

  I handed it to her. “You should practice.”

  Slowly, she took the Winchester from my hands. I pointed at a nearby pile of stones where a group of eight closed in on us.

  I stood behind her, my arms cradling hers. “The safety,” I pushed the button over, slid my index finger on top of hers. “Squeeze, don’t pull.”

  She felt the hand of God.

  The thunder echoed across the plain.

  Two bodies fell in the mud.

  Click. Slide. Click.

  The casing flew into the dead grass.

  Her body jarred with each shot, pressing into mine. I resented the wound on her arm. I hid the lust I’d felt since first looking at her picture. I pushed it out of my head.

  “I wish I could take it away,” I told her as we continued across the field.

  “Me, too.”

  I shouldered the rifle and dropped my hand. It brushed hers and I grabbed it.

  We walked across forgotten farmland, hopelessly looking for the main house. But there were only hills. Gray, bare hills with monsters dotting their tops.

  On the farthest hill, I spotted a red building. “We’re going up that way,” I said. But she already knew it. There was nowhere else to go.

  The red building was a newer barn with a collapsed grain silo behind it. The silo was in the middle of being sectioned. The cut-off saw was still plugged in. It was left in a hurry. A thermos sat open on a tool chest, a frozen foam cup next to it. Everything was covered in a slight layer of snow.

  There was a gravel road next to the barn, and across the road a yard and a white house. The house looked like a good shelter. Nicer than the one-person tent.

  “Do you think they left anything behind?”

  I shook my head. “There’s no telling. But the garage is untouched.”

  The front door was wide open. Snow dusted the foyer and the first few stairs. Abandoned in a hurry. Little was touched in the foyer, two drawers in a curio cabinet were open and empty. The bathroom neat and tidy, toiletries gone. Perfume bottles were aligned squarely against the backsplash. Clear, amber, one like obsidian. The bedrooms were stripped of photographs, their nails and hangers still buried in the walls. Dressers were opened and cleared out. Closets, too. On a girl’s dresser, a math textbook was open to the Pythagorean theorem.

  The kitchen was the last room we explored because that was where we kept all hope. It was the most barren of all the rooms. Drawers and cabinets opened, the refrigerator empty save for a pitcher of tea and some mustard and ketchup. The pantry was a little better. Half a bag of rice and some small boxes of raisins, cake mixes and cans of frosting, soy sauce, a can of refried beans. Then, Audrey laughed, holding up a box of instant macaroni and cheese and several packages of oriental noodles. Reaching far back on a shelf behind the water heater, she pulled out a plastic-wrapped sausage.

  “Major Meat Holiday Pork Log,” she read the label aloud.

  “How old is that?”

  She searched the package but couldn’t find a date. I checked for myself. It was the old logo. Before re-branding three years ago.

  “It’s still good,” I said.

  “How’s that for some shit?”

  I tore open the sausage with my teeth. “What do you mean?”

  “Major Meat got us into this shit, and now they’re saving us.”

  The propane tank was still full, and I cooked dinner on the kitchen stove. We melted more snow to cook our macaroni. I didn’t bother straining it, just added the cheese and half the sausage log torn into small pieces.

  We ate in the formal dining room, the pack resting on the marble-top buffet. We used Occupied Japan dishware and generations-old silverware. Things the family couldn’t take. Things they’d never see again.

  Neither of us could eat very much. The cold. The exhaustion. The dread of another day in the Unknown. All of it curbed our appetites.

  We left the dishes on the table and the chairs pulled out. After pushing the couch in front of the fireplace, we sat in the living room. A pile of logs collected dust in an open cabinet. I dropped to the floor to keep the weight off my leg and leaned into the fireplace. I started the kindling and slowly fed logs into it. Audrey and I sat together on the couch, her legs tucked between mine and our heads together. The logs popped and tiny embers soared up the flue.

  “I will stay in this house,” she said.

  “I will, too.”

  “You need to go on.”

  “And you need to come with me.”

  “I can’t. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It makes less sense to split up.”

  “We’re already split up.”

  “No.”

  She held up her arm. “You know we’re split. Now or later.”

  “As long as possible.”

  “What’ll you do when I…”

  “You know what I’ll do.”

  “You’ll do what’s right.”

  I kissed her forehead.

  “We need to find more food.”

  “I have a feeling all the houses we find will be the same.”

  “If we find any more.”

  “Maybe they left a truck or something here.”

  “That’d be something.”

  “We’ll look tomorrow.”

  We stared into the fire. I put my head back on the sofa. My neck cracked and I closed my eyes. I fell asleep for about twenty minutes, but Audrey was still awake. The fire was almost dead.

  “You shouldn’t worry.”

  “I don’t want to turn into that thing Sewell’s wife was.”

  “You won’t.”

  “It wasn’t human.”

  “You should stop worrying. You’re born and you die.”

  “And you ignore it?”

  “Every day like I’ll live forever.”

  There was little to do for her except sit and hold and caress.

  As I fell asleep the second time, the front door rattled.

  Audrey stirred and leapt from the couch. She grabbed the Winchester.
The front door clattered. The walls shook. Audrey stood frozen over the couch. She steadied the rifle.

  The room was the orange of embers from the fireplace.

  The door swung open against the chain.

  “What do you want?” She yelled.

  “Shoot,” I demanded. “Don’t talk, shoot.”

  A bright blue light flooded the doorway.

  “Undo the chain, ma’am.”

  “Who are you?”

  “A spotter saw smoke from this house. You’re inside a cleared area.”

  “I don’t know what the hell a cleared area is.”

  The flashlight bounced nervously. She could have shot straight through the door, but she danced from foot to foot. She kept the rifle still, an inch away from the door.

  “We cleared this area the day before yesterday. Everyone’s gone except you. What the hell is that?” He shined the light on Audrey’s arm, the bloodstain on her sleeve. “Undo the chain, ma’am. We can help you.”

  “Are you arresting me?”

  “Is anyone else with you?” He pulled the door shut before ramming against it with his shoulder. A picture fell to the floor. The chain barely held. His radio squawked. He rammed the door again. The chain was almost off.

  “One squatter, possibly more, likely infection,” he yelled into the radio.

  He rammed the door a third time.

  The chain gave. The door struck the muzzle of the rifle.

  Audrey fell on her ass.

  She fired.

  The man fell to the floor. His flashlight rolled away and stopped against a doorframe. It shined back at him. He was a young guy, twenty or so. He wriggled on the floor, clutching his gut.

  Blood gushed out of his shirt and through his fingers. He stared at Audrey slack-jawed, silent. There aren’t words when you’re shot like that. There’s nothing when you’re shot like that but drumming in your ears and cold in your heart. He died without a sound.

  He wore a belt with two gun holsters, cop-issue 9-millimeter Glocks, a pair of handcuffs, and eight extra clips. His radio was bulky, something they probably used in Viet Nam. It had landed on the porch, chirping with constant activity.

  Audrey looked out the foyer window. “He left a truck running in the driveway.”

  “We need to go,” I said. “Before they send the whole army.”

  We took his guns, clips, cuffs, and flashlight. We crammed the remaining rations in the pack and loaded the truck. Audrey hopped in the passenger side. It was a straight shift. I stared at my feet. “I don’t think I can work the pedals.”

  She climbed over my lap and sat behind the wheel. The heat in the truck was nice, but I missed the fire. The couch. The quiet.

  The truck slid and skidded down the driveway. We plowed through the steel gate and went sideways into the ditch. It stopped as soon as she let off the gas. The engine stalled. She cranked the motor but it wouldn’t catch. The sour smell of gas leaked into the cab.

  “Flooded,” she hit her head against the steering wheel.

  “You ought to see if we’re stuck otherwise,” I said.

  She hopped out with the flashlight and circled the truck. I watched her kneel in the ditch and dig at the snow. It was cold, but I only admitted it to myself. I was tired of running.

  Barely visible in the headlights was a girl, not ten years old, in white pajamas. Like the rest of them, her face was filthy with blood. The white gown dripped in the snow. She stood just behind Audrey. I crawled across the seat and fell out the door into the snow.

  “Get up!” I yelled.

  Audrey looked up, panicked, and scooted through the ditch on her knees. The girl in white pajamas followed her, mimicking Audrey by moving on her knees. The girl was fast, not two steps behind Audrey.

  Chasing her was like a bad dream. I tried to stand. To run. But there was only cold air and pain. The girl was already on top of Audrey when I got to her. The tiny fingers wrapped ferociously around Audrey’s forearms. I took the rope saw from my back pocket and wrapped it around the girl’s neck. I felt every bit of cartilage and muscle as it tore through, vibrating through my fingers, my body. I felt it in my heart. Not beating, but shaking.

  The girl fell to the snow. Her head, connected by a scant piece of skin, twisted to the side. Audrey was sick in the ditch. My hands dripped. I picked up handfuls of snow, wiping away the thick, black blood. I dropped the saw and we climbed slowly into the truck. It started without a problem. Audrey twisted the wheel side-to-side, feathering the gas. The truck rocked back and forth and lumbered out of the ditch.

  We drove slowly in four-wheel drive, following the winding road west. At least, I thought it was west. I could hardly stay awake. The road was dizzying.

  “I have no idea which direction you’re going.”

  “Me either.”

  “Yeah, but how much gas do we have?”

  —

  “How much?”

  “It’s already on Empty.”

  “We might be backtracking.”

  “Or we’re dead on.”

  The road opened into a white horizon. I reached across the seat and poked her leg.

  “You can see the stars.”

  She glanced up. “It’s totally clear. When did that happen?”

  “Think it’ll be sunny tomorrow?”

  “I kind of like it when it’s cloudy.”

  We followed the road several miles, mostly straight and flat. A gibbous moon lit everything in perfect yellow.

  She slowed down.

  “Are we out of gas already?”

  “No, look there. It’s a barricade.”

  Ahead were concrete dividers high as the bumper and three rows deep.

  “Must be a straight shot out of town.”

  “Can you go through the ditch?”

  She steered off the road and drove alongside a fence parallel the ditch. The front tires flatted and the truck sank. Audrey opened her door and shined the flashlight down.

  “It’s a bunch of two-by-fours with nails in them.”

  I stretched out my good leg and pressed her foot with mine. The motor roared, the two-by-fours flopped and banged against the truck. The steering wheel drifted left and right, the motor strained. We passed the barricade and Audrey swerved out of the ditch. The tires were gone. The rims scraped and squealed against the icy asphalt. The truck died less than a mile down the road.

  Laden with supplies, Audrey and I walked cautiously along the highway. Shortly, she took my hand in hers. Our fingers stuck together. In the ditch ahead, we saw a large cluster of highway signs scraped free of snow and ice. The large one read:

  Welcome to Marshall, North Carolina, All-American City 1958, 1978, 1998.

  But it had been hastily covered with thick red spray paint:

  Welcome to Kill Town, USA.

  A SENTRY SHOWED UP TEN MINUTES AFTER WE DID. His headlights floated through the woods, splashing the snow with a dull glow. We hid in the woods and watched the sentry examine our abandoned truck. Audrey wanted me to keep the Winchester trained on the patroller, but he wasn’t armed.

  After fifteen minutes of pacing, he picked up his radio and spoke into it briefly. He walked back to his truck and sat in the dark. Ten minutes later, faint headlights appeared up the road. The sentry got busy loading a shotgun from the floor of the truck.

  Audrey sighed. “Shit. He was calling for backup.”

  A train of lights burned the road. Trucks lined up behind his, all loaded with dirt bikes and ATVs. Several men unloaded from the trucks, rifles hanging across their chests. Slowly, I put my face into the snow. I kept it there until it burned. I took my head out of the snow and wiped the water from my eyes.

  “Audrey?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t think I know what to do.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They aren’t law. They’ll kill you. And I’m not a prisoner.”

  The ATVs and dirt bikes sputtered in the darkness. Their headlig
hts pointed to the woods where we hid.

  “Twelve of them,” Audrey said slowly. “They’ll kill both of us. Because they are lawless. And we are nobody.”

  Click. Slide. Click.

  The hand of God struck one, two, and took out another with a shot through the hip. The night exploded with gunfire and filled with the smell of black powder. The dirt bikes launched into the woods. I aimed at the single headlights. The bulbs burst and sparked. In darkness, the riders veered into trees. They landed face first into trunks. The bikes tumbled through the brush. Left for dead, the men squirmed in the cold and lonely.

  The floodlights reached deep into the woods. They were aimed right at us. I ducked into the ditch and waited for them to move the lights. Over our heads hung the excruciating yellow light. They were torturing us.

  Finally, they aimed up the road. Audrey and I scurried downhill, half rolling and half sliding on our asses.

  We followed a riverbed, stumbling over cracked shale slabs. The shallow river ran under a bridge then on for a quarter of a mile before being blocked by barbed wire. We scrambled up the bank, following the wire, and got back into a thick patch of trees. We were well out of breath. We listened. There was nothing to hear except the faintest trickle of lazy water. No ATVs. No trucks. No guns.

  Audrey dropped the pack and collapsed against a tree trunk. Her breathing was dry and labored. I grabbed the pack and emptied it in the snow. I tossed what we didn’t need. I kept my thermal underwear, the sleep sack, the remaining half-box of ammunition, the pistols, clips, and what little food remained. I released the clips from the nine-millimeters and emptied the chambers. I reloaded them and handed one to Audrey.

  “Don’t let anyone touch you,” I said. I showed her the release for the clips. I pressed it several times and slid the clip in. “Then you pull, like this,” I pulled the slide. I zipped the pack and stood. “I think this is it. We’ve run ourselves out.”

  “You’re giving up?”

  I shook my head. “The strong do what they can. The weak suffer what they must.”

  I cinched the pack tightly to my arms and waist and climbed the hill to the road at the top, the same road that crossed the bridge just a quarter-mile back. It had been plowed recently. I stood on the centerline, waved the flashlight, and emptied the nine-millimeter into the air. The echo barked from the trees. I dropped the clip to the road and reloaded, pulled the slide and swung the flashlight around.