by J. L. Esplin
I roll to my side, push myself up with a jolt. It’s dark. Completely dark.
I wipe the dirt from the side of my face, from my mouth. I get to my feet, ignoring the stab in my heel, looking up at the sky in a panic, trying to wrap my head around the shift in time.
How long have I been out?
I pick my way through the grass blindly, tripping over rocks, bumping into low bushes and spiky branches, repeating the same curse over and over in my mind.
What did I just let happen? How much time has passed?
My muscles are cramped and weak, my feet are like two throbbing blocks of cement, but I get through the grass and onto the flat gravel that stretches along the highway, and it hurts, everything hurts, but I push myself into a jog.
What did I just let happen? What have I done?
I’ve messed up. I’ve messed everything up.
I search the night sky for the moon, but it’s nowhere. Can it be that late? Is it past midnight already? But I see a change in the darkness ahead. It’s a shade lighter. When I get through the narrows, get a couple of hundred feet past it, I finally spot the moon. It’s hanging low among the stars, but it’s still there. It’s 9:00 P.M. It’s gotta be around 9:00 P.M. I should already have been back to them by now. Even at my slowest pace, I should have been back to my brother hours ago.
I push my jog into a run, keeping my mouth clamped shut this time, saving any shred of moisture that remains, and forcing air in and out through my nose. My tongue feels swollen, and I don’t know if it’s even possible for your throat to turn into a cracked, dry lake bed, but that’s what it feels like. It’s useless to try to work up any saliva at this point. There’s nothing left and it’ll only make the pain worse. I’m not even sure I’m able to speak. And I’m too afraid to test it.
I’ve lost track of distance, completely unaware of how far away I am. And I let myself lose track of time as well, let my mind go foggy. Because I can’t think about what I’ve done. I can’t think about it. Soon, the physical pain becomes my only relief from the pain of what I’m feeling inside. I’ve got to make up for this massive mistake. I’ve got to feel as terrible on the outside as I do on the inside. I keep running, keep feeling the pain, letting my vision cloud, and not seeing anything beyond the faded black asphalt winding before me.
So I almost miss the sign.
A painted wooden sign with two thick, square posts. No power going to the spotlight beneath it. BRIGHTON RANCH, 1.8 MILES AHEAD, it says, the message coming from a cartoon tortoise waving its scaly reptile arm.
One point eight miles. Depending on your perspective, that’s either very close, or incredibly far.
But the next thing I know, I’m running beside the barbwire fence that lines the Brightons’ property, counting the posts as I go. There’s nearly a mile of it that follows this highway. And then I hear a dog barking in the distance. I slow to a jog and then to a walk, my chest still heaving.
Sammie, the Brightons’ golden retriever, is walking alongside me on the other side of the barbwire now, his tail wagging double time. He gets ahead of me at one point, but then looks over his shoulder, slows his pace, and waits for me to catch up.
Right before I turn up the drive to the house, I stop and Sammie doubles back to me, sitting in the weeds along the fence line, his tail beating back and forth like a distress signal. I crouch down and rub him behind the ears. He stops panting and scoots himself a little closer, as close to the barbwire as he dares, lifting his chin so I can get under his neck. “Hey, Sammie,” I croak out, testing my voice. I swallow, wincing at the pain. “Anybody home, boy?”
I glance up at the house. It’s so dark; I can barely make it out. Not that I expected the lights to be on, of course. It’s just that I’ve never seen it like this. So dark and lifeless. But if the situation were reversed, and they showed up at our place in the middle of this mess, they’d probably be just as weirded out.
“All right,” I say, pushing the words past my throat, patting Sammie’s head one last time. “Let’s go.”
The drive is mostly gravel with a strip of uneven asphalt near the center, just wide enough for one-way traffic. Sammie starts barking again, and as I get closer, the outline of the Brightons’ ranch-style house starts to come into relief against the night sky. The wraparound porch is the darkest part, like a band of black through the center of the house, like a reverse Oreo cookie.
I notice the carport that Mr. Brighton built last year, to give him more space in the garage. His truck isn’t parked there. It’s always parked there, but maybe he moved it. Cleaned out the garage, parked it in there. I know they’re home. They’ve got to be home. No way would they leave Sammie behind.
Then I see a flashlight through a window, moving along the front rooms, shining out at me. It stops. Disappears for a while, and then I hear the front door open, the screen door slamming shut on its hinges, muffled by the distance between it and me.
I keep walking forward, squinting when the strong beam hits me directly in the face. And then the light moves, and I blink away the dark spots left floating in my vision, and I see Nate Brighton halfway down the front porch steps. He greets me with a .33 Winchester rifle. Pointed straight at me.
I’m confused. Or maybe he’s confused. I take a breath, start to call out to him that it’s just me, but then I hear the click of the hammer being pulled back, hear Nate instruct me to “Stop right there, John.”
21
I DON’T KNOW what Nate Brighton is doing with that rifle. I don’t know why he’s got it aimed at me. He’s wearing only a T-shirt and boxer shorts, his hair disheveled, sleepy. And he’s got a freaking rifle aimed at me.
“Where’s your dad?” I say, my voice hoarse and gravelly. “His truck is gone.” I take a few steps forward.
“I said stop, John.”
I do what he says, still confused, my hands automatically going up so he can see them. I don’t want to get too close to him with that gun anyway. I don’t think he actually intends to shoot me point-blank—I’m used to seeing Nate with earbuds, listening to his weird music on full blast, not with a rifle in his hands—but he’s got the hammer pulled back, the barrel aimed in my direction.
I’m not stupid enough to test somebody with a loaded gun—assuming it’s loaded.
“Where’s Jess?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer, but my eyes have adjusted to the soft moonlight, and I see him start to turn his chin, as if to look over his shoulder. I look past him to the house, but it’s completely dark, no other flashlights bobbing around.
I lower my arms, because they are starting to shake. “I’m here to get insulin for Stew. He needs it badly—”
“You’re not taking any of Jess’s insulin.”
I shake my head, because he doesn’t understand me. “Stew is out of insulin.”
He sighs. “I’m sorry if you weren’t prepared for this kind of thing, but you’re not taking any of Jess’s.”
My eyes tighten at his words. “Not prepared—” I start to say.
Don’t talk to me about being prepared.
I shake my head again. “It was stolen from us, Nate. Everything was stolen from us.”
He shifts uneasily. “Well, I’m sorry, but that doesn’t mean you can come steal ours.”
“Steal?” I’m thrown off by his words, by the way he’s twisting things around. I didn’t come all this way to steal anything. I’m standing here with nothing. Nothing. Asking for help. Stewart needs insulin. He needs it, or he’ll die.
Maybe it’s the anger, or maybe it’s just exhaustion, but my whole body starts to quake. I clutch my hands into tight fists, willing them to stop shaking. I can’t talk to him while he’s got that stupid rifle pointed at me. So I ask him as calmly as possible, “Is the rifle really necessary?”
He tips his head to the side a little. “I’m just being cautious.”
“It’s me, Nate. Why do you need to be cautious with me?”
“I’ve got to protect Je
ss.”
My eyes widen, because he’s got to be kidding. “From me?”
As if to make my point, Sammie, having gone around the fence line, comes trotting around the front porch. He walks down the steps, goes about halfway between Nate and me, and lies down.
Nate adjusts his grip on the rifle. “From anyone who isn’t in this family.”
My anger surges again. As long as we’ve known each other, we’ve referred to the Brightons as family. And suddenly, because of this blackout, because Stewart needs help, we’re not?
“I’m not a threat to Jess!” I say, my voice dry and raspy, barely sounding like myself.
“You just said you want her insulin.”
“What? No—” He’s twisting things around again. And I try not to let it get to me, try to stay focused, try to figure out what I need to say to get through to him.
But then he says, “I need you to leave, John,” and something in me completely snaps.
“Do I look like I can just leave?” I yell, my throat closing up as my voice rises, edging out in a raspy shout. “Look at me!” I hold out my arms. “Look at me! I walked here, you—!” I stop myself from saying something I’ll regret.
I drag a breath through my tight throat, trying to calm myself down, trying to breathe.
“My brother,” I say, “Stewart … is twenty-three miles down that highway. That’s as far as he made it. And I don’t even know if he’s still alive.”
I stop again, my voice breaking on the last word.
Even though he’s still got that rifle aimed at me, I sense hesitation from Nate for the first time. And I think maybe Nate Brighton has not completely lost it. Maybe I can reason with him. But then he says, his voice low, “I don’t want to shoot anyone. But I will if I have to.”
A high ringing starts in my left ear, like a warning bell. And I know Nate’s out of his mind. I know I’m not going to talk him into anything.
Then a sound breaks through the ringing. The screen door opening. Jess’s voice. “John?”
Nate looks over his shoulder for the quickest second. And I bolt, using adrenaline to propel me. I run past the gravel for the cottonwood trees on the right side of their property, a quarter acre of shade.
A round goes off. Sammie barks.
It’s pitch-dark beneath the trees. I hear Nate following, swearing, his bare feet on the gravel, calling my name. His flashlight cuts through the darkness. I hear Jess calling out, confused.
I trip over roots, stumble around tree trunks, and run into the five-foot wooden fence that surrounds the tortoise enclosure. Sliding my hand along the upright planks, I look for the gate to get inside.
It’s locked. I ram it with my shoulder, and it doesn’t budge. So I grab the top of the fence, ignoring the pain as it cuts into my injured hand, and pull myself up with a groan, my muscles shaking. My feet scramble desperately against the fence until I find the ledge of the wooden sign nailed to the gate.
BEWARE OF TORTOISES, it reads, with the same cartoon tortoise grinning and waving its arm. I use it to push myself higher, enough to swing my leg over, and then my strength gives out and I drop to the ground on the other side, landing hard on my shoulder.
I wince and roll over onto my stomach, push myself up, my shoes slipping in the loose dirt. I hear Nate coming, and I don’t know whether to keep running or to find someplace to hide. I get about five feet in the dark and trip hard over something smooth and round, falling flat on my stomach with my arms caught beneath, the wind knocked out of my lungs, the side of my head hitting the packed dirt.
A pain pulses through my temple and a long panic-filled moment passes before my chest finally inflates with air. And then Nate is kneeling beside me, yanking my arm, flipping me over, my head rolling to the side.
My vision is blurred for an instant before coming into focus on a battery-powered metal flashlight clinched in Nate’s fist against the ground, the light reflecting off clouds of dust, the dirt around me glowing. No rifle, must have dropped it. He straddles me, gripping the front of my shirt in one fist, breath heavy.
Blinded by the flashlight, I can’t make out Nate’s face. He’s just a dark outline above me. I hear something collide against the fence, hear Jess beating on the gate, calling both our names, pleading for us to stop.
I try pushing him off me, but he just drags me back, pinning me down with his knees on either side. “I don’t want to hurt you, all right?” he says, breathing hard. “I just want you to leave. Just agree to leave and not come back, and I’ll let you go.”
“I’ll leave,” I say, breathless, “as soon as I get insulin for Stewart—”
“You’re not getting the insulin. And don’t look at me like that, John. You’re no different from me.”
“Yeah, we’re exactly the same,” I say, pushing against him, chest heaving, “practically twins. Except, you’re deranged.”
“If it came down to Stewart or Jess, who would you choose?”
I don’t know what he’s talking about. “I don’t have to choose between them—”
“Yes, you do. Because if you take Jess’s insulin and give it to Stew, that hurts Jess. She’ll have less insulin to survive with.”
I stop short for a second, trying to make sense of what he’s saying. “No, Stewart just needs some of it to get him through this. We’ll get more as soon as—”
“And what are you willing to do to get more, John?” he says, “Kill me? Take Jess’s insulin and shorten her life like your brother’s?”
“What? No,” I rasp out, horrified.
“Then leave.”
I stare up at his dark silhouette, completely caught off guard by the fact that he is trying to reason with me, as if I’m the one who’s nuts.
“You have to leave,” he says again.
I grit my teeth. He’s underestimating me if he thinks that’s going to happen. He doesn’t have a clue about what I’ve already done to get here. And that’s my advantage.
He’s bigger than me, outweighs me by a good thirty pounds. There’s no way I can overpower him from this position. So I do the only thing I can do. I play up my physical weakness, making myself deadweight to him, my arms staying lax at my side, wincing as he attempts to pull me upright. He only manages to drag me another few inches. I sort of groan, let my eyes drift shut, and play like I’m trying to force them back open.
I don’t hear Jess banging on the gate anymore.
“I’m sorry if the world we live in isn’t exactly how you imagined it,” Nate says, dropping the flashlight to get a better grip on my shirt, getting my shoulders off the ground, “but it’s your own fault. Sure, you were probably prepared, in the physical sense,” he concedes. “You had a lot of food and water, maybe even had a decent insulin supply for Stewart. But the reason that stuff was stolen from you is because you were an easy target.”
Oh yeah. It’s nearly impossible to keep my mouth shut after he says that. Seriously, I deserve a freaking medal.
I let out a groan and allow my head to roll to the side a little, like I can’t hold it up any longer. My shoulder bumps the flashlight as he scoots me back, the beam of light spinning away. I move my elbow the slightest bit. I can almost reach it.…
“If you really want to survive a societal change of this magnitude,” Nate continues, trying to drag my shoulders up again, get me up off the dirt, “you can’t be an easy target. Which means you need more than just food storage and supplies. Mental preparedness is more important than any stockpile of prepackaged food or jugs of distilled water.…”
He thinks this blackout is the freaking zombie apocalypse, I realize, listening to his lecture. Or the end of the world, or at least the end of life as we know it.
Just like Stewart.
But there’s a big difference between my brother and Nate. I mean, I thought, after we were robbed, that Stew had changed. I thought he was a different person because he was angry and scared, and maybe even acted a little irrational.
But hearing N
ate go on like this … I know Stewart didn’t change at all. He stayed exactly the same. His character stayed exactly the same.
The last thing Stewart wanted to do was take insulin from Jess. That’s one of the reasons why he fought me so hard, why it took me starving myself to get him to walk to Brighton Ranch with me. And in that shack house, the choice between getting me and Stew to Brighton Ranch alive or helping two complete strangers … Dad would do both.
Yeah, my brother and Nate Brighton are nothing alike.
I know. I get it. People do crazy things when their own survival is at stake, things they never thought they’d do. Like rob kids at gunpoint. Or drink toilet water. Or commit grand theft auto. Or deny lifesaving help to the kid you’ve called family for the last five years. But the thing is, if you do survive, when it’s all said and done, you still have to live with yourself.
So now I have to decide. If I bash Nate over the head with that metal flashlight, seriously injure him, knock him out cold … can I live with that?
Yeah, I think so.
I twist my wrist, my fingers scrambling to find the cool metal handle of the flashlight. Got it.
I swing for his head, using all my strength. I’d shout if I could get the air out. He ducks, the heavy metal baton hitting his shoulder at the last second. Crying out in pain, he grabs for the flashlight, his hands on either side of mine, and we wrestle for it.
But I’m still weak, my muscles shaking from the effort. I feel my hold on the flashlight slipping.
I change tactics. I use the momentum from our struggle to roll out from beneath him. I twist my hips, kick my legs, lifting my torso.
His weight is too much. His hold is too strong. Through the scuffle, the gasps, and the heavy breathing, I realize with disbelief that I’m about to lose this fight in a bad way. I’m about to lose my grip—on the flashlight, on everything. I’m about to be bludgeoned.
And in the shock of that thought, I hear a sound. Like the hum cicadas make just before they begin their static buzz. Like the sound of electricity …