by Paul Curtin
Then came the worst of it. His clothes were caked in ash from weeks of chopping wood, and he insisted on keeping as much grime out of the house as possible. So, he stripped down in the enclosed, unheated breezeway between the garage and home. He peeled the layers off slowly, wanting to go faster, but the cold seeming to have invaded his joints, thwarting his movements. When he came to a garment that needed even a little force to remove, his fingers burned. When he removed one of his gloves, pain emanated from his index finger like he was being stuck with a needle. He sucked in air and pulled the glove off, throwing it away from himself. The skin underneath was the color of hot flames, and a strip was missing from his middle knuckle. A bead of blood sat upon the wound. “Damn it,” he said, sucking on it.
He checked his jeans and sweatshirt for any ash, put the outdoor clothes into a large trash bag, and threw it over his shoulder. He grabbed his axe, so cold he thought his hand might stick to it, and headed inside. No more cold handles. It was coming in.
He entered the living room to find Aidan reading a thin paperback aloud with Kelly listening next to him. He leaned the axe against the wall and knelt near the fire, extending his hands toward the heat, letting it flow over him.
“Were you chopping wood, Dad?”
He turned his head to them. “Yeah. Sure is cold out there.”
“Maybe I can help tomorrow?”
He smiled and rubbed his hands. The wound on his finger itched. “Not sure that’s a good idea. Might turn into a popsicle.”
“I could help.”
“Maybe if it’s warmer tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
It would not get warmer. Not tomorrow and not anytime soon.
He faced the fire and absorbed the heat before planting his hands on the ground, springing up from the fireplace, and walking into the den between the living room and garage. He grabbed the farmer’s almanac off a bookshelf and perused the historical temperature for that day. Twenty degrees. He sighed. Thirty-five degrees below average. It was the trend. Each day the temperature sank further below the average since the eruption. Each day the sun seemed less and less likely to come out. He closed the book.
“Hey Sean,” Kelly said from the doorway.
They had never spoken much over the years. Not much to say to one another. They would nod and speak pleasantries during visits, but not more. He had a hard time relating to a twenty-seven-year-old fashionista.
“I just wanted to thank you.”
“Thank me?”
“For letting us stay here.”
“You don’t have to.”
“No, we do. I don’t know where we would be if we had left the day after all this started.”
Dead. You would be dead. “You guys are family.”
“We want to help more. With things.”
“Like what?”
“I thought maybe Michael could chop the wood sometimes. For starters.”
A month and a half into this thing, and he wanted to offer help. And it wasn’t even him offering. He wanted to help, he could say it himself. The useless sack of crap. At least Kelly would watch the kids. She did something. “That’s not necessary.”
She curled a strand of blonde hair around her ear. “Really. I don’t know what I have to offer, but I want to earn my keep.” She reached out and touched his arm. It was innocent, but he found himself drifting into thoughts he didn’t want to have—thoughts about what she could really do for him if she wanted to earn her keep. To make herself useful…
“I’ll try to think of something we can get you guys working on. Sound fair?” he said.
She retracted her hand and slid it under her armpit. “Thanks.”
He nodded and reopened the book. As she turned to leave, he trained his eyes onto the pages like it was the most interesting thing he had ever read. He wanted to look at her ass—tight in those yoga pants—but kept his gaze away. Even so, he couldn’t shake the image. When she disappeared out of his peripheral, he rubbed his eyes. Stayed there a few minutes, grimacing. He loved Elise. He loved her only.
The baseboards upstairs crackled. He was sliding the book back into place when he heard a cry—guttural, terrified.
He pulled the pistol from his waistband and sprinted into the living room, stopping a second later. His son thrashed around the couch as his aunt, tears cascading down her cheeks, looked back at him. Her lip was split open in the middle and her chin dripped blood. “He just started shaking,” she cried.
Sean’s mind clicked. He set his pistol on the coffee table and sprinted toward the stairs. Elise emerged from the kitchen. “Oh my God,” she yelled.
“Get something for him to bite down on,” he shouted, running up the stairs.
“Are you getting the medicine?” she yelled back.
He ignored her, leaping three, sometimes four steps at a time until he was at the top. He bolted into the main bathroom to a wooden medicine cabinet mounted on the wall. Almost tore the door off getting into it. He grabbed a pill bottle next to the acetaminophen and his sleeping pills. Aidan’s pills wouldn’t stop the seizure, but they might prevent a second one. And the doctor said the second one would do the most damage. He might stop breathing. If it lasted too long, he would suffocate. Sean ran out of the bathroom.
Molly came into the hall and closed the door behind her. “What’s going on?”
“A seizure.”
He was already halfway down the stairs before he finished his sentence. He came around the banister and rushed to his son. Elise cradled him, holding his head against her body, his chest heaving and his legs and arms spasming. His eyes had rolled back into his head, and he bit down on the handle of a plastic spoon like it was a piece of tough steak.
Michael watched from a distance, Kelly sobbing into his shoulder and staining his sleeve with her bloody lip. Sean pointed to him. “Get a glass of water.” He paused. “And the small knife we keep in a baggy in the silverware drawer.”
Elise shook her head. The knife was a last resort, if the medicine didn’t work. If they needed to make a hole for Aidan to breathe. Sean seemed to hear Elise’s thoughts, so he grabbed her arm and looked her in the eye. “Just in case.”
Michael highballed into the kitchen, and Sean got on his knees in front of the flailing boy. Molly sat in a chair, bowed her head, and clasped her hands together. Sean knew her prayers weren’t being heard, but he put his hand on her knee and squeezed it to encourage her.
After one more agonizing minute, his son’s fingers loosened, and his limbs dropped and ceased twitching. He lay back, sweating, tears rolling down the sides of his cheeks. Sean smiled. Elise hugged him tightly. “How are you, bud?” Sean asked.
“I had a seizure.”
“Yeah, you did. It’s been a while.”
Michael set a glass of water and the knife on the coffee table, Sean staring at Elise. Last resort.
They were on borrowed time. If there was another seizure coming, it would hit soon. “I need you to take one of these pills,” Sean said.
Aidan took the glass. Sean popped one pill into his hand. The medicine was white and powdery, encased in a clear shell designed to break down and absorb quickly. “Open up.” He slipped the pill into Aidan’s mouth. The boy took four large gulps of water. “Like a pro.”
Then they waited. The pills were fast acting, hitting the bloodstream within minutes, but they had to wait to see if another seizure came. The clock ticked off seconds. Then minutes. The sobs died. “I think I’m okay,” Aidan whispered, his eyelids flitting.
Elise released him from her grip and Sean hugged the boy, relief spreading through his whole body in a wave. He rose, pill bottle in hand, his mind filled with a fog like he could faint at any point.
He walked around the couch and steadied himself against the wall. Soon, he was in the reserves. He pulled the cord for the light and sat agai
nst the side of the steps, watching the cord swing like a pendulum, gripping the clear bottle so hard his veins were popping out of the back of his hand, looking inside it. Seven pills left. He sighed and leaned his head back.
No more after that. He hadn’t needed one for a while, but still. If his son’s seizures became more frequent…
No rescue.
He sniffled and swallowed. He couldn’t be seen crying. The morale of the house stood on a teetering edge. If they saw him weak, they would assume he was losing control. And he couldn’t do that.
He wiped his eyes and looked out at the reserves. His strong city. He watched the light play off the bottles and cans and tried to relax.
Wait.
The cans. One was out of order. He dropped the pill bottle on the ground in front of him and got up, walking closer to the shelves. Every label was faced, except one. Instead of a can, a shadow. Nothing there.
He tried to rationalize it. But Elise wouldn’t have taken anything this early in the morning. She needed nothing from the reserves today. He tried to think back when he had fronted and faced the shelves. Maybe he had missed a spot. Sean looked at the label behind it.
Black beans.
He covered his mouth. There was no way somebody was that selfish.
There was no way somebody would steal food.
Elise
She found Sean in the basement teetering on a wobbly stepstool a moment away from collapsing. He had disappeared so fast. She had put Aidan in bed—rest being the best thing for him after an episode—and then went to find her husband. He wasn’t out chopping wood or in any other room of the house. Should have checked the reserves first—he was spending a lot of time there lately.
She stopped in the middle of the room, rubbing her arms, her teeth chattering. “Why’d you disappear like that?”
He rummaged around a wooden stud along the ceiling for something out of reach. The stool legs shook. “I’m sorry, babe,” he said, not looking back at her.
“That was a really bad one.”
“I know,” he said, almost as if he wasn’t listening.
Her son’s windpipe could have sealed shut, and he didn’t seem to care. She turned to go back upstairs, too exhausted for a fight, but the pill bottle on the floor caught her eye. She almost didn’t want to look. It had been a while since they had filled the prescription, but Aidan’s last seizure was two years ago. The doctors thought they might be finished.
“How many are left?” she asked.
He stopped and looked at her. The step stool wobbled. “Huh?”
“How many pills does Aidan have left?”
Sean paused. “Seven.”
“Seven?”
“Did you get into the reserves after dinner last night?”
“What?”
“Did you get into the reserves at all today?”
“No. I didn’t do anything—” she said. “Sean, what are you doing?”
There was a small clinking noise, and Sean said, “I got it.”
“Got what?”
He lowered himself from the stool and showed her a small box, a cord dangling from the back. But his fingertips were bleeding.
“Oh my Lord, Sean,” she said, rushing toward him and grabbing his wrists. “What did you do?”
He pulled away. “It’s just a cut. I needed to get a nut loosened.”
Her breathing hastened. “What’s going on?”
He held the device close to his chest. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”
“Only if you are.”
He smirked, and then his expression deteriorated into a frown. “Someone’s taking food,” he whispered.
“Food?”
“Taking it.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve been fronting and facing the shelves almost every day. Last night, I couldn’t sleep so I came down here and pulled everything to the front of the shelf. When I came down after Aidan’s seizure—the black beans. The black beans.”
“What?”
“I made sure everything was fronted and faced. And now there’s a can missing,” he said, pointing.
There was a gap on the shelf.
“We need to do a full count again. We should have been doing it before.”
He sounded like he was beating himself up. The whole thing sounded crazy. They weren’t even close to the stage of meager rations, so it made no sense why someone would need more than they already got. It wasn’t as if there was suddenly an extra stomach to feed.
But he was going down a path. She could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice. He used to have that tone before making a huge purchase he knew she would disapprove of, but that he insisted was vital. “We can count later, babe. Aidan—”
He walked toward the stairs. “We need to count now.”
“Aidan just had a seizure.”
“Elise, someone is taking our food,” he said. “The food we stocked. That we saved. Taking it like it doesn’t matter.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know who it is. And I can prove it.”
She didn’t have to guess who his prime suspect was. “Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know, but as soon as I watch this—”
“Watch what?”
Sean held up the device—the camera he had installed a few months back. Her brother was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a thief. Although he was stubborn and prideful. Always thought he knew best.
There it was: the feeling that exchanges rationality for panic. Sean had infected her with it, and now she could not see how Michael wasn’t the culprit. He had to be, though she had no evidence to support the accusation. “I don’t—”
He was already halfway up the stairs. She followed, each step a slow march toward something tragic. Like a dirge. She could hear each footstep. Her stomach knotted up. Don’t let it be Michael, she prayed. Please, let it be something else. Anything.
Sean disappeared to the second floor, and she paced around the kitchen. There was no doubt what would happen if it was Michael stealing. He was gone. Kicked out. Sean wouldn’t tolerate it. Any sliver of hope that she could convince him otherwise was quickly tossed aside.
Time itself stretched. She looked back to the doorway every few seconds, but her husband hadn’t come downstairs. Then Michael popped into the kitchen.
He looked back and forth. “Sean around?”
“You can’t be here.”
The harsh tone made him blink. He leaned his head back and widened his eyes. “What did I do now?”
“I think you know exactly what the problem is.”
“I really don’t.”
“Damn it, Michael. How am I supposed to defend you?”
“Defend me?”
“Stop playing dumb. Just admit it and we can try to move past it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
For a second, he had her fooled. His indignation seemed so genuine she was sure he was telling the truth. His eyes told something different. The lies always came to the surface.
Sean walked into the kitchen, a laptop under his arm, and stopped just inside the doorway. Michael looked up to him and then to his sister. “I’ll leave.”
“I think you should stay,” Sean said, opening the computer and hitting the power button.
He passed them and went into the dining room. Elise’s head whirled. Tears formed in her eyes. She had to stop herself from hugging her brother and simultaneously choking him. Michael watched Sean leave and then turned to her. “The hell’s going on?”
“Just admit you did it,” she said.
His lips curled inward, eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what this is—”
“Maybe this’ll refresh your memory,” Sean said from the
other room.
Michael blew air out his nostrils and followed Sean. Elise stayed back for a few seconds, gripping at her chest.
“Did you forget about the camera in the reserves?” Sean said.
Elise inched into the dining room. Sean sat at the table, looking up at Michael. He had plugged the camera into the laptop, and a still screenshot of the footage was on the screen.
“Your camera?” Michael said.
“You’re taking food.”
He scoffed. “You kidding me?”
“Let’s take a look.” He typed, and the footage jumped back to around four a.m. on the video’s time stamp. “This is the last straw, I’m telling you. From now on, I’m having the camera forwarded to my phone.”
Elise’s eyes drifted from the screen and back, torn between curiosity and not wanting to know the truth. The images shuffled forward. The pictures jumped in ten-minute increments or where the camera was activated by its motion sensor. Her hand shook, and she covered her mouth. Couldn’t bear it. She retreated to the kitchen, resting her back against the fridge. She closed her eyes and waited.
A minute passed, her nerves soaring into overdrive. “That’s not right,” Sean muttered. She opened her eyes and turned her head toward the dining room. “What the hell?”
“Rewind it,” Michael said.
She dragged her feet into the room and saw them hunched over the computer, blocking her view of the screen as Sean slammed down on the arrow keys.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Holy shit,” Michael said.
“Guys, what is it?”
Sean leaned back in his chair, mouth hanging open. As Michael took a step back to show her the screen, Sean rotated the laptop toward her. The culprit was in the center of the frame. No need to guess who it was. It was clear.
She reached out for a chair to stabilize herself, hunched over like someone had punched her in the diaphragm.
Andrew