The Second Intelligent Species: The Cyclical Earth (6 page)

I was going to say something smart-assed, but I held my tongue. I was glad to hear her speaking and thinking about how we were going to get through this.

We had about fourteen cans up to the point that I found the mother lode. What used to be a case of crushed tomatoes lay at my feet. The crate had burned away, but some labels remained.

A can opener still escaped us, but I did find some magazines that weren’t totally destroyed, the edges were burned off, but the middle was still
readable. I threw them to Beth. “Here you can read these when you get bored.”

She piled the magazines, just like she did the cans and pieces of wood she’d gather, while I was looking for a can opener. Then I realized that we were looking in the wrong place.

“Hey, we’re not going to find a can opener here, we need to look in people’s houses, where their kitchens were. That’s where you’ll find your pots and pans too.” Suddenly I sensed guilt about rummaging around in the burned down homes of dead people. Just as quickly, I realized once again what we were up against. “There’s one across the road.”

“I’m not stealing anything from…” Then common sense hit her too.

Morals didn’t matter right now. Nobody was left to judge us. We only had to answer to ourselves, and my God.

Chapter 8

Another Survivor

Our stash consisted of one hundred forty-two cans of food, and a walk-in cooler of canned drinks. Some bottles had even made it—a lot of it was beer. We had hit the jackpot.

There was no way we could carry all of it with us, and there was no reason to stay in this town. Nobody had survived here. We had to move and try to find other people. There was strength in numbers. Maybe we could find some area that didn’t get hit so badly.

We took a break and opened up a few cans of food. Beth insisted that we eat a can of tomatoes; they were full of vitamin C. We filled up on soda and beer, even though Beth said that I shouldn’t drink only beer. I assumed that these would be the last I would see for a long time.

We had to find something to carry as much as we could haul. “We need to find a wheel barrel.” I said as I tipped back my third beer.

“Stay right here and rest, I’ll be right back” She grabbed her torch, lit it off mine and headed into the darkness.

“Hey, you be careful,” I said. Taking her advice, I opened another can.
Hmm, pork and beans
. I quickly wolfed them down before she came back. It felt good to have a full stomach, even though this was canned food. I seldom bought it when we shopped, though Phony Bologna wasn’t any better.

Beth must have found something because I heard the loudest racket. She was coming down the road with not one, but two kid’s wagons: the metal ones with the rubber tires. The only problem was, some of the rubber on the wheels hadn’t burned off completely. It sounded like a whole herd of those shopping carts that I always got, those that had a tire squared off on one side. I think she was just dragging one. Because the wheels wouldn’t move it was sliding sideways.

“This ought to carry what we need.” She was so proud that she had done her part. “All I had to do is look for a backyard that had a swing set.” She was in this as long as I was. It made it so much easier not to go through this alone.

I stood up to see her new find. “Great. Bring them over here, and I’ll fix those tires.” These would be a great asset. I didn’t think we needed all the cans, but we could carry most of them. We continued eating the canned food and drinking warm beer and soda. Beth found a can of peaches, and she shared them with me. I gave her one of my beers. I felt guilty about the pork and beans.

When we finished eating I cleaned all the rubber off the metal wheels of the wagon. They still didn’t roll quietly, but they did roll straighter.

We loaded as many cans of food into one wagon as it would hold. The other was filled with soda and beer. Beth took the magazines. The remaining cans of food, drinks, and piles of wood were left near the store in case other survivors stumbled into town.

We had to learn to adapt. We made the best of what was left. It wasn’t easy pickings. Most houses had cellars, the climb down was too dangerous, so we did all our picking in houses that didn’t have cellars or in garages of those that did. The garage was the only place that wasn’t eight feet lower than ground level.

In the first house we searched, we found a can opener to the right of the range. Five minutes or so of digging turned up forks and knifes and spoons. We each kept one fork and one spoon, I already had a knife.

A small ax was added to the wagons. The hatchet once had a wooden handle surrounding a metal shaft, but of course the wood had burned off. Duct tape took care of that problem. We found a roll in a fridge some guy had used as a storage cabinet in what was his garage. This stuff was one of the greatest inventions man ever made. I just wrapped the handle a half dozen times with
duct tape and, voila. We made a makeshift backpack out of a burned one we found. We used the remaining duct tape to weave a sticky basket around the frame. I even found some fish line and fishhooks in a tackle box that had melted around most of the lures.

We knew our whereabouts because of the road signs, even though the paint had burned off. The stickers that reflected light had melted, but still could be read. “We’ve got thirty-six miles to go before we hit the city,” I said. “I know we’ll find people there. The odds have to be better just because of the sheer numbers. There are tunnels, and every building has three or four floors under the ground. There were sprinkler systems, and so many more places to hide and take cover.” I stopped talking to hack up a big chunk of lung butter and then spit it out. All the smoke I’d been breathing really messed up my lungs, even more than when I was in the fire department. Maybe I was just getting cleaned out. I was even hearing Beth bringing up crap. I hadn’t heard that since she quit smoking dope. It was at that point another cough was heard, and it wasn’t Beth.

Running towards the sound brought us to a figure sitting up against the remains of a vehicle. He coughed again. As the light from our torch reached him one thing drew my attention. A patch of white around his neck stood out in contrast to
his burnt flesh. In all my years as a fireman, I had never seen anyone survive such burns and survive. Somehow this priest was still alive.

“In Jesus’ name it shall be done.” He attempted to make the sign of the cross. His whole arm trembled, stiff and weak. His hands were swollen and skin hung down from his face. No hair remained, and his eyes were slightly opened, oozing with fluid. It was impossible to distinguish clothing from skin. They had melted into one, except for the collar, which looked untouched.

Beth grabbed a soda from the wagon and knelt down. “Here drink this.” She opened it and lifted the drink to his lips.

With a burst of energy he raised his hand, knocking the can to the ground. “You have been sent to me by Christ.”

I picked up the can before it all spilled out. “Here Father, you need to drink.” Again he refused.

“No it is you who need to be saved. I have been chosen to stay behind to save one more. You are the one.” He strained to look up at Beth.

All the doors of the car he was next to were open. “Father, were you with anybody else?”

He slowly pointed to the guardrails without lifting his arm. “There,” he said.

“They might have survived.” I slid down the embankment, more on my ass than my feet.
I looked into the dark void for a place where passengers could have survived.
Nobody
.

Then I found them. A father and his two daughters lay motionless in the water, the girls beneath him. Their hair was long and blond, best I could tell. He took all the fire to protect his babies. His shoulder blades and backbone were showing as a result of all the heat. The back of his skull shined in the light of my torch. His daughters died of drowning while he tried to keep them from the inescapable heat. I can only imagine the conflict in his mind during the end of his life. Keep his daughters under water away from the intolerable heat, or let them up in an attempt to breathe the burning air that surely would have killed them immediately.

I’m glad Beth had stayed up on the road with her patient. I’ve never told her of what I found. If there’s such a thing as power-weeping, that’s what I did. She didn’t have to know. Even though a nurse, she never witnessed the things we’d seen these last few days. She didn’t need to see any more.

Chapter 9

The Gift

I composed myself and made my way up to Beth. She knelt next to the only person we’d found alive. Her hands were in a position I’d never seen her take. Was she praying? I couldn’t believe my eyes. “How’s he doing?” I asked.

Her arms jerked to her side as fast as her head snapped left. “He still won’t drink. He keeps rambling about saving me.”

“Looks like he did.” The holy man was unconscious but breathing shallow and rapid.

“Fuck you, Nick. He said he would drink if I prayed with him. I did it just to get him to drink. He gave me this.” A gold cross and chain hung down from her index finger. “Here, you take it. I don’t need this thing, and I’m not wearing it!”

“I don’t have any pockets.” I took off my hat to avoid breaking the chain.

The old man started coughing and spit up some black bile. Beth caressed his head while wiping away sweat and vomit. She’d witnessed many patients’ last breaths. She knew the end was near. “There, Father. You rest now. You rest.” She stroked
his head while he gasped for each breath. He tried to speak, but fluids blocked his vocal cords, a gurgling sound was best he could produce. “You rest. I’ll do it, Father.” She drew a breath. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallow be thy name…”

I was speechless. I’d never heard Beth pray before.
What did those two talk about while I was down in the ditch?
“…Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done…” I kept up with Beth. She never faltered, but did not cross her forehead, only looked at her watch. She slipped out from under the body. There was nothing soft to place under his head.

Her watch hit the pavement causing a small spark. “No sense carrying around dead weight. Can you believe I checked for the exact time of death? Old habit.”

Her demeanor didn’t surprise me. She had been desensitized. We were on our way again. The handles of the wagons squeaked as we continued south.

I wanted to ask Beth what they talked about while I was gone, but couldn’t find the courage. So we walked silently.

Underpasses turned out to be obstacles, because everyone took cover under them. People crashed their cars into others under the bridge, just to get away from the molten rain. They drove up and around the guardrails to get under the overpass to the point that we couldn’t get by without
climbing over one or two burned vehicles. Several times we emptied the wagons to portage the dam of wrecked cars.

Most of the fires were out, but still smoldering. We tried to stay upwind of every fire we saw. Our lungs were fried and we didn’t need any more chemicals in them than we already had. Some of the trucks made me nervous. There was no way to know what they were carrying.

We came across an armored car. In an attempt to escape the flames the guard had opened his door, and it remained unlocked. The keys still hung on his belt, or what was left of it. “Here’s our chance, babe. All we got to do is take all the money out, hide it in the woods, and come back and get it when this whole thing is over, we’ll be set.”

Beth’s response came quickly. “Do you really think money is going to be worth anything anymore? We’ve gone back to the barter system. The question is: will there be anybody to barter with?”

We opted not to waste precious energy retrieving something that was now obsolete.

The sound of water alerted us to yet another culvert. I scampered down the embankment like I had for every culvert or tunnel we’d come across.

The water trickled out ankle deep. Tree roots and other branches blocked the entrance. The only way to see to the other side required kneeling on all fours. Some of the debris seemed loose enough
to pull out. Setting it aside, I poked the torch and my head into the drainage pipe. Too small for anybody other than a small child, this one was empty too.