The After War Page 5

  Simon had killed the defenseless creature, and in doing so he felt he had taken a step over the line separating humanity from monsters.

  Back at camp, it was getting dark. He heaved the carcass on top of the sturdy butchering table not far from the cabin and went to the stream to wash away the blood, the soot, the mud, and his sins. Tears welled in his eyes as he lowered himself in the ice-cold water, letting the flowing stream and the moonlight wash over him.

  As time passed, something happened. A twinge of that animalistic instinct came back, a vast and distant memory of the wildness he was a part of—which all of humanity was a part of, or once had been. Life comes, and it goes. Even his own. The impermanence of all things was everywhere he looked, all around him, in everything that could be seen and touched, and even the things that could not.

  At that moment, and forever after, he was no longer the same person he had been before arriving at the cabin. He was no longer the same person he had been only hours previous. Simon Kalispell was the bear, the wolf, and the tiger. He was a predator—a wild animal living in the wilderness, in wild times.

  Simon’s mind stilled, clean and sharp again, as the waist-deep water flowed around him.

  The sky was clear with a million stars, and his body glistened in the thick moonlight as he stood dripping from the water. He prayed in his own way for the sanctity of the animal and his gratitude for the life it had given so that he may live to see another day. Hunger stung at his belly. His stomach was a pit, an empty void. He would eat with relish, like the wild animal that he was.

  To this day, after Simon’s first primitive hunt, he had accepted death and survival in an entirely new light. It was now something he was a part of, and not just observing.

  He was no longer in a survival class, able to go home whenever he wished. Survival was now imperative above everything else. He had to survive. He had promised his mother and father that he would. He’d promised that he would return home, return to them. The wild had made him strong, his abilities extreme. Simon was no longer the boy who had entered the woods; he was a man forever changed by nature.

  Chapter 7

  Waterlogged

  Mud, mud, and more mud. The ground underfoot was loose, and Brian’s and Steven’s boots sank at times to their ankles and made a thoop sound when pulled back out. They had given up wearing the kneepads and elbow pads, as they only made walking more difficult, and somewhere along their journey they’d left them behind. Their tactical vests were worthless under their ponchos, so those too were removed and packed away in their rucksacks.

  But Brian and Steven continued on.

  The day grew into evening, and the rain was now pouring from the heavens, coming down in sheets to batter the earth and to make the bark on the trees soft. Their entire bodies felt as damp as a frog’s skin despite the thick ponchos that covered them down to their ankles.

  “Careful here,” Brain called to Steven over the roar of thunder, pointing to a rock jutting out of the mud. “It’s just pissing down, ain’t it?”

  Their throats were sore and harsh against the cold wind, and the men took to long periods of silence with their eyes cast to the ground, carefully traversing the muddy earth and feeling the rain beat against the tops of their hoods.

  Brian looked to a large fallen tree that lay across their path. The rooted side jutted out of a steep grade, and the leafy top had fallen in a thicket of climbing vines that seemed to go on indefinitely. They walked to the side of the great oak and Brian reached to take hold of the grooves of the bark. His hand slipped, but Steven hoisted him up until he steadied himself on all fours at the top of the fallen side. Brian reached down from the top and extended his hand to Steven.

  There was a branch on the opposite side, halfway between their perch and the forest floor. Brian stepped carefully onto the branch and then down to the earth, where his boots were sucked deep into the mud.

  Steven steadied himself on top and then stepped down to follow. But as he did, the spongy bark under his foot broke free, and he fell forward. His leg caught the branch on his ankle, and he fell face first into the mud. He caught himself on his left knee and elbow, his body weight pushing them deep into the earth. The large rucksack he wore rode up on the straps, hitting his head and smashing his face deeper into the muck.

  “Jesus! You okay?” Brian rushed over to help his cousin.

  He grabbed Steven’s arm around the bicep and pulled. Steven shot up on his knees, yanking his arm free from Brian’s grip. Dirt was plastered to his face.

  “Fuck!” Steven screamed. “Jesus, fucking, FUCK!” He spit dark grime from his lips.

  He strained to get to his feet, but his knees were still suctioned to the ground, and he fell backward, his back hitting the branch that had tripped him.

  Brian saw Steven’s eyes—his gaze piercing, his teeth clenched, the filth washing down his cheeks—and said nothing.

  “Fuck!” Steven screamed again, and he beat at the earth on either side of him with clenched fists. He used the branch to pull himself up, and when his knee suctioned free from the mud, Brian saw blood trail out from a rip in his pants.

  “You okay?”

  Steven did not answer.

  Thunder crashed in the sky, and the rain fell over their faces in waves.

  “You cut your knee? Let me take a look.”

  Still, Steven did not answer. Brian saw anger and frustration in his eyes, but it was transforming to something else. It was the same look he used to get when they were younger, and Steven was teased and taunted at school because the other students thought he was stupid, or because of the slight lisp and stutter he got when he was angry and could not form words into sentences quick enough. The look always came after the anger, and after the epic beating he would impart on whoever had teased him. It was the look of sadness and the acceptance of reality.

  “I’m fine,” Steven mumbled. “Le-let’s get out of here.” His eyes were thick and watery.

  Brian felt a spike of cold enter his body from a gust of wind. The dire and instinctual need to be warm and comfortable was overwhelming. Life in the bunker was glorious in comparison to the outside world. There was ping-pong in the bunker, and a weight bench, and enough food to last them both almost another year. Brian knew that the last place on earth Steven Driscoll wanted to be at that moment was where he was—cold, hurt, tired, and miserable.

  “Let’s take five,” Brian said.

  Up a ways, they found a large pine tree with swooping branches around its wide base. They parted the branches and crawled into the open, nest-like cavity. They both had to sit slumped over, but there was plenty of space for the two men to lie out, and the inside was relatively dry. The boughs of the tree did a good job shielding away the wind and rain.

  The ground was littered with dry pine needles and smelled deeply of the very tree they were using for cover. Steven peeled up his soaked and ripped pant leg, and when he moved his foot, mud pushed out from the top of his boot. A laceration about one inch in length trailed blood from above his kneecap.

  “You’re lucky,” Brian said. “It’s not bad.”

  “You’re lucky, ’cause it ain’t happened to you.”

  Brian shot his cousin a quick look that implied, Stop being a pussy.

  “It don’t hurt,” Steven said.

  “No, but it’s bleedin’ plenty.”

  Brian pulled a first-aid kit from his pack and rolled Steven’s pant leg up higher over his knee. He poured clean water over the wound and then squirted the area with iodine.

  Steven’s face reddened and his hands clenched the pine needles blanketing the ground.

  “Hellfire!” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Thought it didn’t hurt?”

  “Don’t be an ass.”

  Brian covered the wound with gauze and wrapped waterproof tape around the joint. “That should keep it clean. We’ll change the bandage later. If you start feeling sick, or if it gets puffy and infected, you start taking an
tibiotics right away. We don’t got much, but you can’t wait until a fever sets in.”

  Steven looked off.

  They dug a shallow hole and started a tiny fire with handfuls of the dry pine needles and a few low-hanging dead branches they snapped off from the tree. It was dangerous and stupid to start a fire under a tree, where it was dry with a layer of tinder covering the ground and branches not so far overhead, but the last thing they were concerned about was setting fire to the tree. If the fire got out of control they would just leave. Simple as that. Let it burn. Let the dead world burn to the ground.

  The tiny flame did marvelous things for their demeanor. The heat on their puckered fingers brought their hands back to life and sent warmth to their hearts.

  It had grown dark outside the safety of the thick branches, and the men unrolled their sleeping bags, curling themselves around the base of the tree. They slept better than they had since leaving the bunker. At first light, Brian started another small fire as they readied themselves, taking turns to pass their battered fingers before the warmth.

  Once the fire burned out, Brian said, “We should get on.”

  The cousins emerged from the dry shelter, their bodies aching, and continued on their path. About a mile into their journey they came upon a circular arraignment of rocks on the ground. The sides of the stones were blackened, and the coals in the center were so absorbed with water that they turned to mush as Brian touched them.

  “A few days old,” Brian said. “Maybe less.”

  Steven looked over his shoulders then continued walking out of the clearing. Brian stood and followed.

  Chapter 8

  Crossroad

  Simon forced himself to drive up the dirt driveway in front of the gas station and park next to the service garage. A sign hung from the pump: No Gas.

  With his rifle in hand, he got out of the van. The desolate interior of the building could be seen through the plate-glass front, and the door had been left ajar. Simon nudged it open and entered.

  The shelves on the far wall were empty, and a soda machine sat cold in the corner like something dead, its door agape and its interior void of cans. Scattered papers littered the ground, blown about from an old wooden desk. Simon went to the door behind the register to inspect the one-car garage, but found nothing useful in the various tool cabinets and chests. The important things—oil, wiper fluid, lighter fluid—were nowhere to be seen.

  Back outside, he walked across the dusty yard to the pumps. He tried the handles, but as he expected, nothing came out. The smell of vapors was faint.

  On the side of the building was a shiny metal trash can, dented from tumbling about in the wind. Simon picked it up and shook out some debris. It was fairly clean inside. There were no visible cuts, holes, or rust, and Simon guessed that it could hold about twenty gallons of gasoline. He put the can in the back of the van, then walked to the passenger side to let Winston out. Winston stretched, sniffed the ground, and then lumbered to the corner of the building to pee. Simon followed and peed alongside him, and when they were done, he found a thick stick in the grass.

  “You want this, buddy? You want this?” He held the stick in the air, just out of Winston’s reach. The dog’s tail went wild, and he panted, the corners of his mouth curling like a smile.

  “Go get it!” Simon threw the stick far in the grass field, and Winston took off like a bullet.

  ***

  The border crossing at Scobey was nearly as desolate as when Simon had driven through two years earlier. A number of abandoned cars and trucks lined the entrance leading into British Columbia, but none blocked the lanes traveling into Montana.

  The van crept along as he passed the service station window. The same window where, two years ago, he had handed across his passport, along with a bag containing ten thousand dollars, to a guard named Stephen Parks—a man his father had made previous arrangements with. The window was now pitch-black.

  Simon thought about stopping to inspect the inside of the building, but decided against it. A few shells for the twelve-gauge would be nice, but the likelihood of finding any was slim. Park offices and police stations were prime targets for looters, and Simon was late to the game. Plus, the shells weren’t necessary; he had plenty of ammo for his rifle, and he was a damn good shot with it.

  The land ahead of the guard post, in Montana, was just as large and vast as the land he was leaving. Fields and valleys stretched on for miles in every direction.

  Simon drove on.

  As the sky began to darken he turned off the main highway and drove down a dirt road that looked to go on forever in an endless straight line across the boundless range. When the highway was safely out of view, he parked behind a cluster of trees and made camp for the night.

  Dinner consisted of cold jerky, and Winston ate from the kibble of dried meat and vegetables. Simon gathered wood and started a small fire close to the van, placing a flat rock at the edge of the coals to be used as a skillet. The light from the flames made him feel uneasy, exposed. However, the warmth the fire provided was overwhelmingly pleasant. The nights turned cold fast, with winter still in the air. He could see the breath escape from his mouth and evaporate with the smoke and flames.

  Winston curled up on a blanket beside him, and Simon put another blanket on top of the old dog, tucking it around his neck. He sat on a log with a deer hide draped over his shoulders and opened a bag of flour made from wheat he’d gathered near his cabin and ground with a mortar and pestle. He mixed a scoop of the flour with a few splashes of water and stirred it until a thick dough formed. Then he began rolling small balls of the batter in his hands, and squashing them between his palms to form patties. The patties sizzled on the flat rock, and within a minute they were scorched and ready to flip. He made a dozen or so of the little cakes, plenty for a few days ahead.

  As he ate one of the small, flaky flatbreads, he pondered whether he should sleep in the van as he had originally intended. There was enough room to lay out in his sleeping bag, tucked between the wall and a pallet of goods. But the interior was still pungent with gasoline, and he didn’t like the isolated feeling. His awareness of the outside world would be cut off.

  So he decided to sleep on the ground under the sky.

  As cold as it was, he was warm and toasty inside his two-person sleeping bag. Winston came in to join him, and he stuffed the sides and bottom with blankets and animal furs. The fire died down to a crackle. The sky above was a brilliant array of stars, like the flecking of a million dots of paint on a canvas—only entirely more brilliant and awe-inspiring. Several shooting stars streaked across the sky before Simon closed his eyes.

  ***

  “Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die! Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die! Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die! He ain’t gonna jump no more!” Simon was singing to Winston and tapping the steering wheel. Winston stared at him with a cocked expression, occasionally barking and wagging his tail.

  “That’s it, Winston! Sing along! Gory, gory …”

  Despite Simon’s constant fear, he saw no signs of life at all. The small towns were few and far between, and avoiding the larger cities had been easy so far. It was simple enough to keep in good spirits and try to ignore—if only temporarily—the situation that he and all of humanity were currently enduring.

  However, on the outskirts of a town named Sherrie, the battered road sign reading Population 750, Simon drove past several mounds in the earth, each maybe seven feet tall and twenty feet wide. A backhoe sat cold beside a heap of dirt that had been dug up and piled to the side. Whoever started this work had never finished. As Simon approached, it became apparent that the first mound was not dirt at all, but badly decomposed human bodies, piled from head to toe. Skeleton and sinew.

  Simon stopped singing.

  He drove straight past Sherrie, trying not to look anywhere but the road ahead. In the next town, he witnessed another large stack of bodies, this one in the middle of the town square and bu
rned nearly through by a funerary blaze. Then came more. Some graves complete, others not so much. Piles upon piles of corpses had been left in great heaps, or buried in large holes with clusters of crudely constructed crosses sticking out from the mounds. Many were left in blackened pyres, barely recognizable as having once been something human. Simon wondered how many hundreds—thousands—of mass graves existed off in the fields, far from the roads, never to be seen.

  Then he imagined the cities. What did they do with all the corpses where land was scarce? Were whole parks dug up? Did they incinerate the bodies in fires, stacked as tall as buildings? Or were they just left where they fell? Probably all three. He shook the thought out of his head.

  As he passed through the towns, he stopped and inspected four additional gas stations with no luck, but he was able to siphon a few gallons of gasoline here and there from a number of abandoned vehicles. At a small stream, he filled the metal trash can with water, and it proved to be watertight. He filled it with siphoned gasoline from the corroded drum, found a lid that roughly fit, and duct-taped the hell out of it. The thought of taking inventory of the fuel was frightening. He knew he needed a lot more, and there was a strong chance that any gasoline he’d find would be spoiled. But all he could do was continue onward and keep searching.

  The highway drove straight and true in a southeastern direction, when he passed a sign on the side of the road that read, Welcome to the Town of Rochelle, Population 220.

  The town was the same as the others—a strip of dismal buildings, boarded up, wiped clean, burned down. Everything gray with dust. Dead.

  At the far end of town, about a half mile away from the last building, came the gas station. CRAIGS, the sign said, and of course, another sign on the pump read No Gas. The front was a flat dirt lot, with tufts of wild sagebrush dotting the terrain. Dust billowed in the wind. A thicket of trees behind the building edged a small section of woods, with wild pinegrass taking advantage of the moist forest floor.