A Cold Black Wave (14 page)

A shade of calming blue covered the horizon as the last vestiges of the evening sun disappeared from the world, and the low hanging clouds dispersed as if never there.  The full moon attempted to emulate its big brother, but even at its zenith could only cast a fraction of the light on the land.  He walked carefully to where her pack lay on the ground and sat next to it, pulling it between his legs.  A yellow flower dangled from a loop that she had fashioned out of a pine needle.  He smelled it and tried to hold back tears of anger and frustration.  All of this had been for nothing and his worst fear had come true.

She was infected with the virus.

The hours that night
passed slowly for Josh.
 
By the time he had returned to the tent Leah had already fallen into a peaceful sleep.
 
Her
 
hand
 
lay on top of her book which was open and facedown.
 
He administered one of the last
 
shots of antiviral and then sat back and watched her rest.
 
It was a vain attempt to fight the disease.
 
She would die like the others.

He couldn't stand being in the tent with her any longer and sat outside under the stars.
 
They flickered in the sky as
 
low grey clouds drifted by like ghost ships.
 
The mystery of life stared back at him from the darkness and asked a question he couldn't answer.
 
His short life had not amounted to much and meant little to Josh, and the one good thing in his life was now being taken away as soon as it was given.  He couldn’t help but feel the rising indignation in his blood against the idea of a God who could set in motion such a cruel joke.

He had placed both of their weapons down next to the packs and he lifted his up to examine it, or maybe he felt comfortable with it in his hands as a toddler would with a stuffed toy.  Josh didn’t have any of those growing up.  They were not issued from the dispensary, anyway.

Leah wouldn’t last long, especially under these conditions.  If they were on the Westbound they’d have access to enough experimental meds and technology to extend her life, but ultimately once infected there was only one outcome.  Josh felt a glimmer of hope with Leah, a sense of something possible that didn’t seem possible before.  She resuscitated what he considered long dormant or even non-existent feelings.  Unfamiliar and foreign.  Frightening and exhilarating as he imagined life outside the Academy might have been like.

He would do anything to save her, but that dream was slipping out of his grasp.  His heart ached as it had never done before, this feeling of love for another that sapped every ounce of being from his body and cried out for justice and salvation, anything to keep her alive.  His face burned with bitter tears as he flagellated his emotions with hopeful thoughts that will never be.  He would never be with Leah and she will die in this empty, dead land.

Josh nonchalantly placed the butt of the gun against a rock and pressed his forehead against the barrel.  Comfort.  Serenity.  One squeeze and then the eternal darkness.  No more pain, suffering, or anguish.  The pain of love and loss had become greater than anything before in his life.  Leah would not survive with or without him so his death would mean nothing.

He considered the possibility she simply had a cold and would recover, and that he should wait it out, but he looked into the future and felt too inferior and broken to ever be worthy of her affection even if she did live.  She deserved more and who was he to give her that?  What man would even consider abandoning her?  Yet here he was with the muzzle of a gun to his head.

He worried then what Leah would do when she found him lying in a pool of his own brain and blood.  She was ignorant to the affliction she bore and what it would do to her, he alone suffered that.  She wouldn’t understand and would surely die, and if she was smart, she would turn the gun on herself and end the prolonged misery that awaited her.

The head would not be sufficient, not from the outside, and he knew that.  It was just the starting point as he brought the barrel down and at a forty five degree angle into his mouth.  It would ensure there was nothing left when he fired, and no chance of survival.

His eyes watered and he began to shake as anger washed over him.  Over his wasted life and the selfishness of humanity that had robbed generations of people of a chance to live, and that things could have been different and that he and Leah could be on earth now, and he a different person capable of fully loving another human being without regret, fear, or trepidation.  It was a fanciful dream and nothing else.

He squeezed the trigger.  Nothing happened.  The
safety was on
.

After being fully submitted to the idea of death, Josh’s singular thought was arrested and he crumpled to his side and let the gun fall away.  He lay there weeping as he wished he would just be taken away from this hell.  He was ashamed at his attempt, at what Leah would think of him had she known what a coward he was.  He wanted to dig into the mantle of the earth and disappear.
 
Josh eventually nodded off under the naked sky, lying in the dirt.

He awoke to the early morning light creeping over the foggy land.  Farther down the stream a brown bear waded into and pawed at the water as he drank from it.
 
Then it started walking towards him, still unaware of Josh’s presence.
 
Josh watched it carefully, not moving a muscle.
 
The creature came closer, sniffing the air with its dripping nose, a magnificent and awesome beast full of power and grace.
 
It sneezed and shook its head, then
 
galloped a few feet as it splashed in the water.
 
The bear stopped and looked around, its mouth hanging open as water ran from its jaw.

Josh slowly pulled his gun up and rested it
 
on his stomach as he lay awkwardly on his back.
 
The bear grunted and started making its way over to the tent, sloshing out of the water as it went, but Josh wasn’t quite ready to shoot the beast and waited to see if it would change direction and move away.  It didn’t.  Josh flipped the safety off.

"Hey!"
 
The bear paused at Josh’s voice.  Turn away.  It let out a disgruntled snort and continued on towards where Leah slept, lumbering slowly in some innocent curiosity.

Josh pointed the gun skyward and fired.  The bear flinched but only momentarily looked at Josh before moving with purpose for the tent, now only ten feet away.  Josh climbed atop a boulder next to him to gain some kind of high ground.  He lay on his stomach and rested the gun on the rock to have a steady aim.  He lined the bear up, let his breath out slowly and squeezed the trigger.
 
A single shot hit just below its mark on the massive beasts head and it leaped back on its hind legs and roared in anguish.

Blood expelled from its wound and it thrashed about on the ground before recovering and
 
charging haphazardly towards Josh.
 
Josh fired again but the bear had, in its death throes, slipped forward and avoided the shot before regaining its feet.  With the bear only seconds away from his position, Josh moved to sit up but slipped on the wet rock and in a single motion collapsed awkwardly to the ground.  A sharp pain gripped his ankle.
 
His gun clacked against the rock and remained on the boulder above him, the stock hanging halfway over the edge.

The bear
charged full bore at
Josh
as he
unsheathed his machete and raised it in a desperate last stand.

Gunfire crackled in the air and blood spattered from the bear’s neck as it
 
planted hard
 
on its face.  Leah was hanging out of the tent with the rifle propped up on a river rock.
 
Josh went to administer a blow to the bear’s neck, but paused as he watched its chest heave erratically.  A death rattle entered its lungs.
 
 
A gasp of air escaped its nostrils along with a stream of heavy blood, and then it lay still.

“You okay?”  She called hoarsely.

He was too stunned to answer and his eyes darted between her and the beast lying at his feet.

Leah covered her mouth as she coughed violently, spitting up mucus against the river stones.  Josh reached up the boulder just far enough to grab his gun and limped back to Leah before sitting down next to her in relief.  Finally he said, “I had ‘em.  I did, I had ‘em.”

“Sure,” she said, exhausted, as if saving his life had taken every last ounce of energy out of her.  She remained lying halfway out of the tent, squinting against the sun to talk to him.  “Would that have been after he ripped half your face off, or just before?  I couldn’t really see your uh, plan of attack from this angle.  Oh?  A big knife.”

Josh smiled, and then burst out laughing from nervousness, exhaustion, and just the ridiculousness of it all.  Leah smiled back and reached her hand out to his and he welcomed her touch and held it tight.  Such a simple gesture created in him a fullness that he had missed for so long.

“I should have been teaching you more gauging how well you learned to shoot.  I’m really impressed!”

“I just got lucky I guess.  Not like I could’ve missed at this distance ...”

“Actually it’d be very easy to miss,” he said softly.  “You’re lucky you didn’t blow my head off instead.”

“Little bit of training, little bit of Providence is all.”

He shook his head.  Providence.  Here she is thinking God helped aim her gun yet allowed tens of billions of souls to be extinguished between earth and this planet, and whoever else was out there.

“How’re you feeling?”  He asked, touching her forehead with the back of his hand.

“Could be better.  My chest,” she held it with a concerned look.  “It’s like I got a brick sitting inside it and I gotta cough it out.”

“Here, let me get you something to eat.”  He started to get up and pointed towards the bear, “You want a steak?  Got about a few hundred pounds over there!”

“Ugh, disgusting.  I can’t even think about food right now.”

“Come on.  You’re eating something,” he said, rummaging through his pack to pull out a protein meal.  She opened it and tossed it aside in disgust after getting a whiff of the pungent substance. “Maybe later...”

He sat next to her, this time bravely closer than he would otherwise and rubbed her hand with his thumb.  They smiled at each other again.

“What?” she asked.  She beamed at him with glazed eyes, the sickness changing the disposition of her features.  Josh could already see her body being worn down, pale and sick.

“I’m glad your father did what he did.  He was a brave man and obviously loved you very much.  I just wanted to say I’m sorry I said anything against either of you.  I’d be half as lucky if I had a father that cared about me like that.”

She thought about her father.  The lonely nights on this planet often brought up the regret that she didn’t stay behind with him and that words were left unsaid.  She, like most others, assumed life would continue forward in the same manner as it always had.  The future seemed clear and predictable one minute, then it was all gone the next.

Before she could say anything he continued, “I need to have a look around.  I’m not going far but keep the rifle near you and if you think you’re in trouble, or need me for any reason just fire a couple rounds.  Okay?”

She nodded and replied with uncertainty, “Okay.  Not long right?”

“I’ll be back soon, I promise.”  Their eyes were locked and it drew him in just as he was about to leave, and his sudden motion to kiss her caught him by surprise, an unexpected impulse.  Just as soon as he had kissed her, that shy embarrassment that he was unaccustomed to kicked in and he pulled away and looked at her for a response.  She smiled warmly and ran her hand down the side of his face and he kissed her again.  He pressed his forehead against hers and ran his hand through her hair.  Josh quickly kissed her again, and then departed.

Josh took his gun along with an energy bar and some water, taking the path downstream towards the bridge.  He looked back to Leah a couple times as he left.  However, once she was out of sight his ever-present melancholy began to dredge his good senses again, looking for that morsel of pessimism to bring him back to reality.  This elation he was feeling must be wrong, and his mind fought to find a reason why he shouldn’t feel this way.  But Josh was tired of thinking about reality and felt better imagining the dream, and so kept it that way as he walked.

Josh found the spot he and Leah had climbed the day prior and which caused them to turn back due to the blinding wall of grass in front of them.  He painfully climbed up the ridge with his twisted ankle and bruised body until he reached the top with much effort.  From where he stood it did look like the grass went on forever, but now he knew there was a road to be found on the other side.  He had to get to it.  All roads lead to somewhere.