A Cold Black Wave (20 page)

They reached an intersection where a lone wire hung between opposing metal poles on the sides of the road, and a metal street light dangled in the middle.
 
The lights had long since broken and the
 
holes had telltale signs of an empty birds nest.

They headed towards an old shipping warehouse just off of a side street.  Its walls were made of thick concrete, and the roof angled up to a sharp apex that had only partially collapsed.  Josh grabbed the sides of a large, metal door that was big enough to fit a truck through and, through sheer pain and will, pried it open just enough for them to enter.

Once inside, there were chunks of concrete and metal beams lying on the ground from a portion of the ceiling that had crumbled.  Long, rectangular metal shipping containers in solid blues, yellows, and reds were stacked three high in the middle of the warehouse.  To the right was the shipping office, and there were no trucks or heavy equipment left inside the building.

Josh fell against a rusty orange shipping container and slid down, holding his side in pain.

“Let’s just rest here for a minute,” he wheezed.  Leah sat close to him and laid her head on his shoulder, putting his cold hand in hers.

Twilight stole quickly and they made themselves as comfortable as possible by embracing each other.  They huddled and watched as the blue tinged moon appeared through the holes in the roof and bathed them in a primeval glow.

The ever present chill crawled into the warehouse through its exposed holes, yet the building was insulated enough to keep the frost out.  They intertwined their hands and legs to stay warm and the comfort of being near each other.

“Talk to me.  I like to hear you talk.”  Josh said, genuinely concerned with her disposition.  He watched for her response, holding her hands in his.

She kept her head bowed as she absently ran her hand over his and spoke wistfully, “I used to think we were owed a certain type of life if we were faithful and did the right things.  I thought that somehow, I don’t know, that separated us from those who didn’t believe in God.  I just ... I wish things were different,” she looked up at him with saddened eyes.  “In another life maybe we would have been happy, we wouldn’t be here.”

He brushed her hair back, "In another life we may have never met.  You’re the best thing that’s happened to me Leah.  If there was a God, if there is a God ... he would have never put someone as beautiful as you in such a place as this.  Another student like me should have been in that shuttle.  Not you.  You never deserved this, but I wouldn’t want to be here with anyone else.”

They both turned to each other, only inches apart, sharing the same pained melancholy that only the two of them could feel.  They allowed the comfortable silence to bring them closer, an unexplainable energy that two kindred souls experience when their hearts are reaching for each other.

Her voice quivered as her eyes searched his for reassurance, “I don’t want to die.”

He couldn’t bear seeing her this way.  If there were angels then he considered her counted among them, yet he was forced to witness a pure creature subjected to the cruelties of an absent God.  He tried to smile and turn her attention, “Hey, look, let’s look at the stars,” he beckoned her with his eyes to look through the hole in the ceiling and to the flawless diamonds in the night sky.

“You know,” she whispered after a moment of watching the stars shift hues from red to white and green.  “For so long, people wondered or wished that some other form of life existed besides our own.  I wonder if God ever intended for us to know he made other humans, other planets like ours?  Sort of a secretive lover, you know, hiding his mistresses.”  Then she became morose, “Then ... I think of what we’ve seen, and, I wonder why?  What was the point?  There’s no purpose anymore.”

“Was there ever a purpose?”

“
Yes.  Of course. 
He wanted to share what He had created.  What’s the point of building a city if nobody will ever live in it?”

“The cities we lived in are all gone.  Is this how it supposed to end, just you and I?”

“We were never meant to be immortal
.  N
ot here
,
anyway.  God loves us and wants us to be with Him.”

“He got his wish then, didn’t he?”

She remained silent.  Josh cast his eyes to the stars again.  She could tell he was still carrying his guilt with him, his anger.

“Josh,” she said.  “Whatever happened in the past, no, we can’t change, but we don’t have to carry it with us into the future.  You can alter the future with every decision, and your decision can be completely independent from your past.  Your life isn’t programmed.”

“No,” he said.  “It isn’t programmed.  It isn’t anything.”

She put her head down onto his chest.  She said, “How about we enjoy this moment then, and not worry about what will come tomorrow?”

Josh hugged her close, running his fingers through her hair as they
 
watched
 
the
 
white stars blink and flicker against the dark abyss that had
 
conveyed them here.
 
The blue light of the moon was peaceful and the air quiet as they both fell asleep in each others arms.

 
Leah
 
awoke to shafts
of warm morning light on her face as the sun broke through the
 
cracks in the stone walls.
 
She sat up and
 
stretched.
 
Then she noticed the strange silence
 
and the emptiness next to her.
 
Josh wasn't there.
 
She looked around, "Josh?"
 
There was no response as her voice echoed in the
 
warehouse.
 
She rubbed her arms
,
but it wasn't from the cold.
 
Then she noticed that the gun was left on the ground near her.
 
Josh would have never left without it.

"Josh!"
 
She called out. Leah grabbed the rifle and picked her way over the fallen debris
 
and the cinder blocks with gnarled rebar bending out of it, careful not to twist an ankle or catch herself on a sharp edge.
 
She pulled the garage door back as the rusted metal dragged against the concrete and poked her head out.
 
The streets were empty
,
and dust devils whipped furiously in short-lived stints along the road.

Somewhere down the street, a door that
 
had
 
become partially
 
unhinged
and
clattered back and forth against
 
its rotted frames.
 
She thought of calling out for him again, but the
 
ghostly streets gave h
er chills, and
 
she retreated
into the warehouse to look elsewhere.  Where
 
would he have gone?

It wasn't like him to take chances like that.  She bit her nails and
 
eyed the office in the back corner of the warehouse.  The door was slightly ajar
,
and as she approached, she
 
noticed
 
the legs of an overturned chair through the opening and papers and folders spilled about on the floor.
 
Thick grey dust covered everything except for fresh
 
smudges and markings on the floor, and then she saw the fresh footprints.
 
Josh was defin
itely here, but her heart raced in anticipation of what she was about to find.
  Why wasn’t he answering?

"Josh?"  The crushing silence that answered her caused her skin to shrivel and tighten.

Leah pushed the door open to see Josh bent over his knees
with his palms pressed against his eyes. 
A black cable had been fashioned into a noose and slung over a pipe that ran the length of the ceiling.
 
He didn’t notice her come in.

“Josh?”
 
Leah asked as she stepped closer, her heart racing.

He tried to wipe his face at the sound of her voice and didn’t look her way.
 
She went
over
and knelt b
eside him
, placing an arm around
his shoulder
and
pulling
him close.
 
This made him weep harder
,
and he buried his face into her
chest
and embraced her tightly, releasing everything that he had built up around him his entire life.
 
He had been exposed fully, his vulnerabilities open to the one person he had left to love, his faults and his dismay for her to see and judge.

“
Josh ...”
 
She s
ighed contentedly
,
thankful he was alive,
holding onto him as if it were the last time she would.
 
Once Josh collected himself, he managed to look up at her with glossy, red eyes.
  His face was still bruised and swollen, and she delicately touched his skin.
 
She could see everything about Josh in
his eyes
, the fear, the pain,
the sorrow, and
the love he felt for her.
 
She whispered to him,
 
“I love you.
  I will never judge you.  I’ll never leave you.  We’re in this together, no matter what.
”

After some time, she helped him out of the room as
he limped along beside her
.
  From that moment on, neither of them would mention the incident again. 
They went back to collect what little they had left, and Leah showed Josh the device she had found in his pack.
 
He held it closely, turning it a bit to examine its details, the warm green light flashing in circular rings on both ends.
 
“What
is it?”  She asked.

He took in a deep breath
, “I think our friend left us a gift.
 
It’s a beacon.”

Leah looked about nervously
, and her body tensed as a sense of exposure washed
over her.
 
“That means the machines know right where we are
.  Why would he make us a target like that?”

“He wouldn’t.
  Th
e machi
nes probably can’t pick up on the signal
.
  Encrypted probably
.
 
No
…
there’s others out there like him, out there, looking for us.”

Leah couldn’t believe it.
 
H
er
thoughts ran
with excitement, anticipating at that moment that
more people like Knicte
could be
outside right now, and all her and Josh
had to do
was
call out for them.
 
She ran to a broken wall and peered outside.

“Just to be safe, we should stay inside.
 
We have no idea what’s out there.
 
If they’re looking for us…we wait for them.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know.  We don’t have much food or water left.  I can barely walk.  We’re safer here.”

“What if the machines find us first?”

Josh shrugged.  “That isn’t an option.”