by David Kazzie
“A lot of arguing after the funerals last night,” Charlotte said. “I hung in there until dark, and then I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“What’s the consensus?”
“There isn’t one,” she said. “Some folks want to hit the road and see what’s out there. Others don’t want to abandon the water supply. Eddie’s headed up to Market to see what he can find out.”
“And the others?”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about them,” Charlotte said, nodding toward the door, to the community beyond.
“Why do you say that?”
“Another week, and this place will be empty.”
8
They set the trap before dawn, under a spray of stars stretching away to infinity. They were about four miles west of the compound, along Interstate 80, one of the few still serviceable freeways approaching the city. Still road mostly, but shaggy with moss and weeds. She and Eddie worked in silence, Rachel knowing the best way to avoid yet another go-nowhere argument would be to keep her mouth shut.
It was a chilly night, cloudy and damp. There would be rain by midday. On the trek out here, they passed by the familiar buildings in this industrial section of southwest Omaha. She knew every nook and cranny of every one of them. Metalworks here. Equipment rental over there. Inside and out, every one of them, every structure in a ten-mile radius of Evergreen, explored, dug through and spelunked.
The intricate network of roads crisscrossing America had fallen into disrepair over the years, more evidence of a world winding down. Most resembled the surface of some dead planet, pockmarked with large potholes resembling craters, the pavement buckled from endless cycles of freezing, thawing, expanding and then cracking again. Cars abandoned on the highways at the height of the plague sat where they’d last hitched to a stop, rusting, cracking, peeling, disintegrating. Many still contained the skeletal remains of plague victims who had died during their futile attempt to outrun their invisible slayer.
The steady traffic along the busier thoroughfares kept the weeds at bay a little, but it too was a losing battle. Each day, little by little, they retreated a bit more as these titanic forces of life, of nature, gained more ground. Within weeks of the plague ending, a generation of weeds and grasses had risen through the tiniest cracks and died, succeeded by their descendants, which rose before dying as well, decomposing, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, until a carpet of humus blanketed the asphalt and it disappeared forever. You could feel it all slipping away now, their grim fate set in concrete that was almost finished curing.
It had been two weeks since the attack on the compound. Even limiting rations, they were burning through food faster than they had anticipated. A day of reckoning was approaching rapidly; each night she had lain awake and decided as to whether to stay or go, whether the time had come to pull the ripcord and flee with Will. If there was food, they would stay.
But now this.
Highway robbery. Literally.
Every day for the past week, Harry had been sending two-person teams out here with orders to rob any travelers they encountered. To date, the results had been mixed. Five teams had come home empty-handed, but one pair – Dave Thompson and Brigid Correll – had returned with a few grocery bags of canned goods, some medicine, and a small cache of ammunition. They had taken the beat-up old pickup without firing a shot, sending their victims away on foot. Rumors were flying that some of the unsuccessful sorties had been because they didn’t want to rob innocent people.
The trap was simple enough. Eddie used a pair of binoculars to scout for any approaching traffic. If the target was promising, he and Rachel pushed the rusting chassis of an old Honda Civic into the middle of the roadway, in the blind curve, right at the point it would be too late to turn back. Then they’d circle in behind the prey and take them before they could put up a fight.
When the preparations were finished, Eddie napped, but Rachel lay on her back and looked at the stars while waiting for sunrise. Sometimes she would start counting them, never quite sure why, knowing she would lose count after twenty or thirty. But she did it anyway. The stars were her favorite thing about their world, on the rare occasion the skies cleared long enough to give them a view of the heavens. So many stars scraping the roof of the world that it looked like the sky was bleeding starlight. Without electricity, you could see entire galaxies, you could see the constellations the way their ancestors had and you understood why they named them the way they did, glorious names like Orion and Cassiopeia and Aquarius and Aries.
Dawn approached and she willed it to stay dark a little bit longer. She liked the darkness, she liked the night; it let them hide from the world for a little while. Because when the sun came up, there the world was, in all its dying and barren grotesqueness.
Eddie was still asleep, and that was fine with her. She took the first shift watching the road. It was boring and tedious but at least it kept her mind off the cold temperatures. By mid-morning, Eddie was awake and a light drizzle had begun to fall. The air was dank and Rachel was shivering. Beside her, Eddie lay prone under a giant billboard for a McDonald’s, the Egg McMuffin and cup of gourmet coffee long since faded. He was propped up on his elbows, the field glasses pressed to his eyes. She sat with her knees drawn into her chest, rocking back and forth to stay warm. The M4 lay next to her like an obedient dog.
“You really made a mess of your dad’s funeral,” he said, startling her. It was the first time either had spoken since they trekked out here.
She glanced at him. With all the problems they were facing, her eulogy was about the last thing on her mind. That said, she felt a tightness in her chest. She shouldn’t say anything, she should just let it go and eventually Eddie would let it go too. But she couldn’t resist.
“He was my dad. Not yours,” Rachel said, her nostrils venting vapor like smoke in the morning chill.
“Not sure where you get off.”
“I’m not going to even dignify that with a response.”
“I can’t have you flying off the handle about every goddamn thing,” Eddie said. “Makes us look bad.”
“Makes you look bad is what you mean.”
Instead of replying, he pressed a finger to his lips and gestured toward the highway. He handed her the binoculars and she focused on the flutter of movement in the distance. She adjusted the lenses until the scene came into view. They were still a ways off, maybe a mile away. Three of them, sitting abreast in a horse-pulled wagon under that brooding sky. In the middle, holding the reins, was an older man, probably in his late fifties. He wore a thick beard heavily dusted with gray. His dirty barn jacket hung loosely over a thin frame. A young woman sat on his left, her cheek bearing a nasty scar. Her hair was tied off in a messy ponytail, and her eyes puffed with exhaustion. A shotgun lay on her lap. On the old man’s right was a boy of about fifteen or sixteen, his face pockmarked with acne. He wore a gray sweatshirt emblazoned with the five Olympic rings and the words Rio 2016 printed underneath.
Their faces were narrow and gaunt, the angular visages of those who had not had a warehouse full of food at their disposal for the past decade. They stared straight ahead, their heads bobbing as the wagon jostled down the road. The look in their eyes spoke of people who did not seem to care all that much whether they made it to their destination. Even the horse looked uninterested. His ribs jutted from his dull coat, a living fossil.
A black tarp covered the wagon’s cargo area, but the corner flap had folded back over itself, revealing part of its load. Rachel caught a glimpse of a case of baby formula and several boxes of dry soup. A sharp ache spiked up Rachel’s midsection, part hunger, part guilt.
She tapped Eddie on the shoulder; when she caught his eye, she shook her head slowly and deliberately and made a cutting motion at her throat, the signal to abort the mission. Eddie rolled his eyes and slapped her hand away.
“We are not doing this,” she said sharply under her breath.
“That’s meat for the pot. For Will.”<
br />
“Look at these people,” she said, tipping her head toward the wagon. “We’d be killing them.”
“You’d rather our son starve?”
Oh, he was “our” son now. And he was right, of course, the little shit.
But there had to be a line somewhere. Every day they drew ever closer to it, assuming they hadn’t already crossed it and they were too far gone to realize it. Was survival worth the price of her humanity? Did she want to cross that line? How far was too far?
She looked through the binoculars again. Quarter of a mile away now. Three minutes, maybe five. The road behind them was empty. Was she serious about trying to stop Eddie? She could scare him with the gun. She could do that. She could press the barrel of this steel serpent against his temple and whisper into his ear that they were not going to do a goddamn thing to these people, that they were going to let that scrawny horse clomp on by.
But she didn’t. A grainy movie of a possible future played out in her mind, the story of Will starving to death because they were out of food and she’d think back to the time they had let this wagon go because she’d wanted to do the right thing.
They kept coming, the horse’s hooves clocking loudly on the weed-choked pavement, the wagon’s occupants blissfully blind to the threat that lay ahead. Guilt coursed through her veins; it wasn’t fair that these people had no chance, that nothing more than dumb luck had brought them to this point. Rachel pressed low to the ground as the wagon curled south, the road funneling them into the trap.
The woman was the first to perk up as the wreck came into view, her hands going straight for the shotgun. She stood up as the wagon slowed, placing a hand on the old man’s shoulder for balance. Her head swiveled from side to side.
“Aw, what the hell is this,” the old man muttered as he pulled on the reins, bringing the horse to a stop.
“Quiet,” the woman said.
Rachel locked eyes with Eddie, who nodded. They bounced from their hiding spot and drew up behind the wagon before the woman could turn to face them.
“Nobody fucking move,” Eddie barked.
They froze, their bodies locking up as the paradigm shift was driven home for them. A few moments ago, it had been just another day, but now everything had changed. The woman’s shoulders sagged.
Eddie kept his gun trained on the trio as he eased around the side of the wagon to the front. Rachel drifted to the left, keeping the woman squarely in her sights.
“Where you folks headed?” Eddie asked.
No one answered.
He stepped forward and aimed the gun at the woman’s head. His nostrils flared and his brow was furrowed, which made Rachel nervous. He was in a bad mood, worse than usual.
“I’ll ask again.”
“Market,” the old man said, his voice gravelly.
“Well, we’re going to save you the trip,” Eddie said.
The old man scratched his face, the sound of his fingernails against his rough beard huge in the morning quiet.
“Leave us half,” the man said. “This here’s all we got in the world.”
“I’m not negotiating,” Eddie replied. “You folks kindly step down from the wagon, and we’ll be on our way.”
There was an ease about Eddie that Rachel found disconcerting. It was a big deal what they were doing. Just because something was necessary didn’t mean it should be easy or enjoyable. It mattered. Robbing these people was akin to signing their death warrants. Maybe they’d find another week’s worth of supplies somewhere, maybe not. That’s what she told herself. Out there, that big empty world was getting emptier by the day. People, innocent people, died for no good reason every single day.
It would bother her tonight and tomorrow and next month, as it always did. Theirs was a world of takers and victims and today they would be the takers. Tomorrow, perhaps, they would play a different role.
“What’s your name, old timer?”
Old timer?
Did he think they were in a Western?
“Austin,” the man said. “Adam Austin.”
“Mr. Austin, nobody has to get hurt here today. Toss the gun into the grass.”
Austin nodded toward the woman. As she picked it up from her lap, the boy lunged for it and wrenched it from her; she struggled with him, that instinct to resist kicking in hard. It happened so quickly Rachel barely had time to react. The boy got off one shot at Eddie, but it flew wide. The horse reared back and neighed in terror before slipping its reins and bolting up the road.
Eddie returned fire, the report of his gun roaring across the plains. His first shot struck the woman in the forehead, caving it in. Blood splattered across the sleeve of Austin’s jacket. The boy fired another shot, again missing badly. Eddie returned fire again, catching the boy in the stomach. The kid dropped the gun and staggered to the edge of the wagon before tumbling out like a sack of potatoes.
The guns fell silent, the sulfuric smell of discharged weapons hanging thickly in the air. Rachel stood frozen to her spot, her gun still trained on the wagon. It was over. Two more dead in the ledger of the plague. The older man slowly raised his arms high over his head. From here, she could see his thick wrinkled hands were gnarled with arthritis, the fingers drawn tight like leathery claws.
“Dammit!” Eddie bellowed. “This didn’t have to happen. This is on you.”
Rachel drew up next to Eddie, her jaw clenched tight. It had happened again. Another thing gone straight to hell. More bodies, more death, more unhappy endings, and here was Eddie acting like the man had tapped his bumper in a Walmart parking lot.
She cut her eyes toward Eddie; his face was beet-red and he was chewing on his lower lip. The gun in his hand dipped and dove, almost like it had a mind of its own, anxious in Eddie’s sweaty palm. You could almost feel the gun wanting to go off, to do the thing it was designed to do.
“What am I supposed to do with you?”
He looked at Rachel.
“What am I supposed to do with him?”
The rush of adrenaline faded, and she shivered in the cold damp air.
“Let him go,” Rachel said. “Let’s take a look at their stash.”
She walked gingerly to the back of the wagon, her stomach clenched, her leg muscles tight and stiff. Using both hands, she peeled back the tarp, which made a strange zipping noise as it folded back over itself before sliding to the ground in a heap.
“What do we got?” Eddie called out.
Her heart soared when she saw the full scope of their score. Baby formula, canned goods, medicine, guns, ammunition, soap. A jackpot, one that bought them a little more time. One unusual item caught her eye. It was a large metal briefcase. She fiddled with the latch, but it was locked.
“A lot,” she said, feeling guilty and relieved at the same time. These would fetch a hefty price at Market and, she briefly forgot about the blood that had been spilled in the acquisition of this bounty.
Eddie laughed, a high-pitched cackle that was equal parts victory and desperation.
“Fuck you,” the old man said.
Eddie clocked the man on his forehead, opening a wide gash above his eyebrow. Blood leaked from the laceration, which resembled a small mouth, its thin lips parted just so. Austin made no move to address the wound, letting the blood trickle down his cheek before rolling off his chin in fat crimson drops. Even when the trail of blood changed course, curling in toward the corner of Austin’s mouth, he sat stoically, unmoving.
“Shut up,” Eddie said. “Nobody’s talking to you.”
Rachel rejoined Eddie, uncomfortable with the tension still lingering. It should have been over, the spasm of violence defusing the situation. But things were still buzzing. Eddie was obviously still charged up, the adrenaline still flowing. This had to be fear driving him, controlling his strings like a puppeteer.
“Folks is waiting for me over at Market,” he said. “I don’t show up, there’s gonna be questions.”
Eddie pressed the gun to the man’s head.
“Could’ve been anyone,” Eddie said. “Highways are dangerous.”
“Why don’t you hit the road, my friend,” Rachel said. “I’m sorry it turned out this way.”
“He’s not going anywhere.”
A burst of frustration then, that feeling of skin tightening and stomach turning to stone when someone simply would listen to reason.
No more. They were going to let this man go.
“Make you a deal,” the man said.
“You’re not in any position to be making deals.”
The man continued, ignoring him. “You give me the briefcase, I’ll pin this on someone else.”
“What briefcase?”
“There’s one in the back,” Rachel said, her eyes narrowing. “It’s locked.”
“Let’s have the key,” Eddie said.
Now it was the man’s turn to laugh.
“I don’t have the key. I’m just the messenger.”
“Stand up,” Eddie ordered. He patted the man down, searching every pocket, every inch of fabric in his clothing. Maybe Eddie would order the man to strip and conduct a body cavity search.
“Search the others,” Eddie said to Rachel.
“Don’t bother, miss.”
“What’s inside the case?”
He laughed again.
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.” A shimmer of fear rippled across his face.
Rachel was struck by the man’s sincerity.
“And what’s in for you?”
“Two months’ worth of supplies.”
“You lie,” Eddie said.
“No,” Rachel said. “I don’t think he is.”
“Shut up, Rachel. He’s lying. Now tell me what it’s in the briefcase.”
She stepped up to Austin and jammed the muzzle of the M4 under his chin.
“You’re not lying, are you?” she snapped. “You better not be lying.”
It was a gamble, a mild escalation in lieu of a far more serious one. By taking the offensive, Eddie could live vicariously through her. She wasn’t going to shoot him, but Eddie didn’t know that. It had a certain bravado to it, and that was the point. Launching a successful conventional attack rather than risk a catastrophic nuclear one. Eddie stepped back, lowering his weapon. She leaned in close to Austin until their faces were an inch apart, until she could smell the decay on his breath, the sour stench of days-old body odor.