He began searching, reaching for anything to support his case. He remembered the anomaly, how it appeared as a dark spot in the morning sky and wondered about that, wondered whether it might have any connection to a gamma ray burst. Somewhere in the murky zone between memories of the anomaly and learned concepts of a gamma ray burst, between knowledge and experience, an idea emerged. It was a crazy idea, but this was now a crazy world where all bets were off and anything could happen, any assumption was possible.
In order to get Eva to go along with what he was about to say, he decided she needed a little priming. He began with, “Not necessarily…”
Her eyebrows went up.
“There are a lot of things about the universe we still don’t understand,” he said. He continued, “Dark matter, dark energy, parallel universes, extra dimensions, particles popping in and out of existence…Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Sort of.”
He held her gaze for a long time. And then he said it. “Wormholes.”
She stared at him blankly for a long time. “Wormholes?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not following.”
“Consider this.” He said, raising his hands as if holding an invisible ball. “The universe is a ball of jelly. Okay?”
“Okay,” she replied studiously.
“Now if we take our finger.” He aimed his finger in the center of the invisible ball.
“Is that supposed to be the finger of God?” She chuckled. Sometimes her own cleverness amazed her. However, her smile dropped away after noticing the frown on her husband’s face. She cleared her throat. “Sorry.”
His finger remained hung in the air pointing at his chest, while the other hand still held the invisible ball.
“Wormholes,” she said, waving to spur him on. “Go on…”
“All I was going to say is a wormhole is like taking a finger to a bag of jelly ...actually two fingers on opposite ends of the bag, and pushing into the bag until the opposite ends meet.”
“You’re saying a wormhole is a pinch in the universe.”
“Yes. So that point A and point B, which are normally located at great distances-”
“Twenty six trillion miles,” she interjected.
“Yes, are brought together.”
“So you’re saying a wormhole did this?”
“I’m saying it would explain why a gamma ray burst hadn’t been previously detected.”
“And you believe this?” she asked.
“Let’s just say if I was a betting man…”
She thought about what he said. She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Drew. I’m just not buying it.”
“What about the anomaly?”
“What about it?
“You saw it with me. Didn’t you find that a little odd?”
“Yes, but the news explained it. I forgot what they said exactly but it was just a natural weather phenom-” Her voice trailed off as she recalled how the sky suddenly turned black just before the flash. “I just don’t believe it! That’s all.”
He noticed her change. “Wait!” he said. “You remembered something! I can see it in your face! Tell me what it is!”
“It’s nothing!” As if the sky turning black was as common as a thunderstorm.
“Eva,” he said suddenly calm.
She looked up at him.
“Tell me,” he said gently.
“You didn’t see it, did you?”
“See what?”
“That’s right,” she said remembering. “You were in the bathroom.”
“See what?” he repeated.
“The sky. Right before it happened. The sky changed.”
“I remember it got very dark,” he said, “before it got very bright.”
“Yes, but you didn’t see why everything got dark. I was in the middle of a nine-one-one call-”
“Wait - you called nine-one-one?”
“I did,” she said. “I had an impossible time doing it because I couldn’t get my phone to work, but I eventually did.”
“Why did you call - “
“Because you were in the store with that maniac for a long time!”
He stared at her, perplexed.
“I couldn’t wait any longer! I shouldn’t have let you go in there in the first place.”
A pause.
“Anyway, I was ending the call when things started to go dark. At first I thought it was just storm clouds moving in, though I didn’t think there was rain in the forecast. Otherwise I would have brought my umbrella.
“But then, it kept getting darker and darker and darker. I looked outside and, Drew, the sky...it was that hole again, the anomaly, but this time it spread outward and with unbelievable speed, like watching a time-lapse video of cloud formations. Wait - it wasn’t like that. It was more like looking up at a glass ceiling as ten thousand gallons of ink is being poured on it. Just spreading outward until all the light was blocked out.
“It looked like it wasn’t just blocking light out, though, but sucking it in like a black hole! And before I knew it, the sky was completely covered. It was like being locked in a closet, I couldn’t see anything! That lasted for only a couple of seconds before the sky lit up.”
“And then it was the complete opposite,” he remarked. “Everything was completely white.”
“Yes.”
Drew reflected on this. At last he said, “I remember everything going dark and then going bright, but I actually didn’t see it take place like you did. It must have been…”
“I was never so scared in my life. I could hear people mumbling to each other and to themselves.
“I heard a few screams, but I think most of us were in too much awe to do much more than stare with our mouths open. The real screaming didn’t come until the flash.”
“How were you able to call nine-one-one?” he asked abruptly.
“I used the crowbar.”
“I don’t follow.”
“I got the crowbar from the trunk and used it to push the button to voice command the call so I didn’t have to touch the phone.”
“Wow!” he said, “That’s brilliant!”
“I was surprised it actually worked,” she said, her face beaming with pride.
“Why didn’t I think of that?”
“It was a pain in the butt…”
Something caught her eye. She shot a look to the right. A couple of withered maple leaves chased each other into the brush. She relaxed.
The closing daylight began to shed its greenish veil. Evening was settling in blanketing the land with deepening tones from violet, to purple, to black.
“ I need a little air,” Eva said waving a hand to fan air at her face. “Can you open the window, just a little bit?”
With a turn of the key, the dashboard lights came on. They flickered. Drew placed a hand on the window power switch, hesitating a moment, he pulled the switch. Eva’s window cracked open.
“I wasn’t sure it would work,” he said.
Eva closed her eyes and drew in a long breath. Tainted or not, the air smelled fresh. “Well, it did,” she said in a whisper, enjoying the simple pleasure of fresh air on her face.
“I guess some electronics are more sensitive than others. I tried to lock the doors with the remote and it didn’t work. The radio didn’t work, not very well at least. And our phones failed.” He considered. “I wonder if electronics with radio transceivers have something to do with it? Or maybe the level of complexity in the circuitry.”
Eva shrugged not caring one way or the other. She dropped her seat back and rested against the head cushion, which wasn’t very comfortable. You would expect a truck of this size to be more comfortable, she thought, and stared out the window at nothing in particular. After a long, thoughtful silence she rolled her head toward Drew. “What happened in there with you?” she asked.
Drew turned to her, “Hmm?”
“In the gas station. What happened?”
“In th
e store?” he asked.
She nodded.
“It was a miracle you made it out,” she added. “How did you do it?”
He sighed, cast his eyes down and spent long seconds reaching for memories he was trying to forget.
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“If you don’t want to talk about it-”
“No. It’s okay… I don’t know if I can remember everything is all… I went in, looked around for him. I didn’t know what I was going to do if I saw...him. Maybe scream or something. Alert the clerk.”
She gave weak smile.
“It was at that moment,” he said, “that moment of not knowing what to do if I saw him that determined my course of action. It was the simplest course of action to take. Alert the clerk about the psycho, what he’d done to us, that he was armed, and tell him to call the police…. Your solution to call nine-one-one was better than mine. I wish I had thought of that before I went in.”
If Drew hadn’t been so determined to play the Hero, perhaps she might have, she thought and pushed it away. No use complaining about the past. The past was gone. The gamma-ray burst had cut a line between then and now so distinctly, so abruptly, that the future was left without anchor or dock. They were adrift in an ocean of uncertainty, and on this raft there was no room for blame or resentment or regret.
“I wasn’t thinking straight at the time,” he said. “I guess I was letting my anger cloud my reasoning... And fear, I suppose. I was very scared.”
“Well, what happened, happened,” she said.
“Yeah. Anyway, I was in line with some money in my hand, ready to hand the guy a twenty for gas. As I was waiting there in line, I felt this presence. You know the feeling?” He said it as more a statement than a question.
She nodded.
“I felt him standing over me before I actually saw him.”
Her eyes widened. “He was standing right behind you?”
“Yes.”
“And he didn’t recognize you, or anything?”
“Obviously, not. But I recognized him. It was his red cap, and his beard. What I didn’t realize however was how big he was. I mean I only went up to his shoulders! If Bigfoot wore clothes and a red baseball cap, he’d be that guy. He must have been stooping down behind one of the aisles when I walked in. That would explain why I didn’t see him at first.
“Eva, whatever nerve I had was lost at that moment. I couldn’t even bring myself to say ‘gas’ let alone, ‘Call nine-one-one, this man is a nut and he’s got a gun!’
“When it was my turn to pay up I just stared at the clerk, who was looking back at me like I’m an idiot; my eyes bulging out of my head; my mouth opening and closing like a fish outta water. I must have looked really silly to him…
“I felt cold, trapped! I couldn’t breathe! I know that sounds stupid, like I could have just left, but I was afraid that if Jolly Psycho Giant sensed my fear, he’d be on me, on us, that he’d be on us again! Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes,” she said. “And it doesn’t sound stupid at all.”
“I don’t remember exactly what happened then, I think I gave the clerk my twenty for the tank, maybe not. I only remember wanting to find a place to hide so that I could think. I knew that if I left I wouldn’t come back… I wasn’t finished with him! I still felt that something had to be done… I don’t know… So I ran into the bathroom…” He looked at Eva. There was a sorry look in his eyes, and if it had been brighter in the car she would have also noticed their redness. “I’m not a coward, Eva,” he said in a shaky voice. “I really did want to do something!”
She touched his shoulder. “I know you did. I know.”
Drew cleared his throat. He let out a deep breath. “So there I was, back against the door, exhausted, trying to think of how to approach this... I hardly paid any attention to how dark it was getting outside. Until it got very dark, then I had to see what was going on. I was about halfway to the window when it hit.
“It was like I was hit by a freight train. I was thrown back and nearly knocked unconscious. As I was lying on the floor covering my eyes, fearing that I had gone blind, I started screaming. I think at one point I did pass out, because when I got up I felt like I had a hangover or something. My head hurt, my eyes hurt, my throat hurt.
“For about a minute it was really quiet outside. You could’ve heard a pin drop. And then I began to hear crackling sounds that I knew were coming from fires and other noises like explosions and maybe buildings collapsing. Sounds of catastrophe. I thought for sure we were nuked, that the terrorists had pulled off another synchronized attack, but this time triggering nuclear bombs instead of ramming planes into buildings.
“But then there was no blast wave, no heat. I wasn’t incinerated. I waited minutes for it to happen, but it never came. I guess that was when I began thinking it wasn’t a nuclear attack. The idea that it was of extraterrestrial origin hadn’t occurred right away though. The idea was cooking in the back of my head as I was trying to stay alive, and save you.
“It felt like forever standing there with my hand on the doorknob. I was afraid that if I opened that door I’d see bodies lying everywhere… I’d go out to the car and see you slumped over. I had to brace myself for that possibility, even though doing it was tearing me to pieces.”
He wiped his eyes.
“”But that’s not what happened. When I finally opened the door, the first thing I noticed was that everything looked the same, except for the greenish haze in the air, but I didn’t care about that. I thought it was odd, but at that point what wasn’t odd - right? The world hadn’t been vaporized! That’s what I cared about. Everything was as it should have been! And I didn’t see bodies anywhere in the store. I was so relieved! All this happened in the span of about a minute. Then I became aware of the crowd. I heard them first, and then I looked out the window and saw them all crowding around the car, our car, and I thought, what the fuck! What’s going on? Why are they attacking our car? Did Eva piss them off somehow? Did she say, ‘Your mother sucks cocks in hell’?”
Eva snorted a laugh. “Please, don’t,” she said. “I’m too tired to laugh.”
The corners of his mouth drew upward into a slight grin. “Sorry,” he said and continued. “Even though I was totally scared and confused, I knew one thing for sure. You were in danger. When I saw those people trying to get at you like a bunch of ravenous zombies, I had to get you out of there.”
There! He said it, she thought. Zombies! No matter how hard she tried to deny it, it was the one word that kept popping into her mind like a musical earworm that won’t go away no matter how hard you try thinking of something else. It just keeps replaying over and over in your head until you want to blow your brains out.
Both Drew and she tried skirting the word with substitutes: monsters, animals, “turned”; but the strongest associations had already been planted by film and television. Shows about the undead with a mindless desire to consume human flesh proved eerily similar to what was really happening. Zombies! Ugh! Eva couldn’t think of anything more degrading or disgusting – but it was also true. She knew her husband felt the same way. Otherwise he would have never used the word “zombies” when describing the recent behavior of the turned.
“But I was stopped,” he said. “Mr. Crazy Red Cap tripped me up when I tried to run for the door… He looked so messed up I knew something - or I should say something else - was wrong with him. He came at me and tried to bite my neck and then my face! I pulled away and locked myself in the bathroom and he smashed through the door like it was made of cardboard… I don’t know how I did it, but I was able to fight him off. I think it was probably because he was so badly brain damaged…
“I was winded and I didn’t have much fight left in me, so I needed to do something fast. Without doing much thinking myself, I grabbed the toilet lid and used it to,” he hesitated, “defend myself. And then since I knew I had to draw the crowd away from you, I nee
ded a diversion. That’s when I thought of the Ford pickup he drove. So I went into his pockets and found his keys.”
She understood at once without knowing the details. The only way to bring down a giant like the maniac was to get a lucky blow to the head in, then another blow to be sure he stayed down, and another...and another. She pictured her husband bashing the maniac’s brains in and then thought of how she brought the tire iron down on the Hispanic road worker’s head. Her stomach twisted into knots. She shuddered.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes. I’m fine. It must have been horrible.”
“That wasn’t all,” he said. “Then the clerk came at me.”
“The clerk?” she said, realizing she had forgotten him.
Nodding, Drew said, “He must have awoken behind the pay counter while I was fighting with Red Cap… I used the porcelain lid on him, too… We attracted a bunch of zombies and they began pounding on the door and glass windows. By the time the clerk went down-”
By the time you put him down, she thought.
“-they had already crashed through and ran after me. I climbed on the toilet and pushed myself through the window above, barely making it through. I felt their hands grabbing at my feet. I thought I was a dead man. I think it was the feel of so many hands on me that made something inside finally snap. From that point on I didn’t care what it took to stay alive. I’d do anything to save myself - and to save you.
“I fell into the bushes - that’s how I got these cuts on my face and neck, well, most of them - and crawled into a tight spot. They were coming at me from all directions, drawn to the noise from the bathroom window. They crashed into the bushes without paying any mind to their own well-being, leaping and body slamming against sharp branches. The bushes shook so hard I was almost thrown out! It was unbelievable!”
“And they never saw you?”
“No. Well, not at first. I was in a ball at the bottom and surrounded by the thickest branches, which were strong enough to hold up the zombies that fell on top of me, and to stave off those that slammed the bushes head-on. But it was only a matter of time before the branches would give. I had to make a break for it before that happened. I had to wait for the right moment… And then it came. I saw a wide gap between sieges, if that’s what it was, and didn’t hesitate. I jumped out and sprinted for the corner of the building. And they chased me. They chased me around the corner, and to the fence separating the back lot from Pratt Street. I climbed the fence and made a beeline straight for the pickup. The fence bought only a few seconds. I heard it crash down and... Jesus! They were so fast! I pulled the keys out while I was running - I’m lucky I didn’t drop them.”
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