Under a Broken Sun (12 page)

Tommy opened to the door and Ashley supported his weight with an arm around his waist as they left.

Marilyn smiled, stood up with Eve.  An explosion not too far in the distance got me moving.  Marilyn went to the kitchen and disappeared from view.  The three of us high-tailed it out.  I hated Marilyn for leaving me.  For fucking us up.  But I loved her, and that hurt worse than cutting.

As the sun rose higher in the sky, it seemed even the trees were sweating.  Or maybe melting.  I felt lightheaded, and as soon as we hit the forest up the side of the mountain we dismounted.  After a walk we came to a break in the woods, and looking back, we had a perfect view of the landscape behind us.  The army stopped in front of Tommy’s house and the three men on horseback dismounted, entered the house.  The soldiers looked like they were done for the day, as tired as we were.

Less than a minute later I jumped as a shot rang out.  I closed my eyes. 

Marilyn.

Maybe they wouldn’t kill the baby, but they’d sure as hell kill Marilyn. I slumped down next to a tree.  I couldn’t feel my body - a shock wave rippled through it as numbness replaced life.  They killed her.  The motherfuckers killed her.

Ashley bawled behind me, Tommy put his arm around her trying to comfort her, but fuck them. 

Marilyn was dead.  And I was gonna make sure Hill answered for it.

13.   

Dense forests carpeted the hills around Tommy’s house which kept the heat at bay for the rest of the day.  When we woke up, the sun was setting, and the sky turned that blue-purple color that to everyone else seemed beautiful.  To me it spelled doom.  The atmosphere was hosed; UV rays from the sun pounded down on us, as my sunburn continued to remind me.  The Earth had become a microwave.

I shuffled over to the gym bag and grabbed a protein bar and water.  I split the bar into thirds, had my share, and drank a third of the water.  Not much to go on, but at least it was something.  Ashley stirred awake and Tommy snored like a motherfucker.  Ashley took her share and sat on a fallen log.

After a moment of silence she spoke.  “This sucks.”

I had to laugh.  It was by far the most understated, obvious point anyone could’ve ever made.  Ashley looked up and started laughing too.

I heard a stream rolling nearby, so I followed the sound.  Not sure if stream water would help, but it couldn’t hurt the BO. 

“Where you goin’?” Ashley asked.

“Taking a New World shower.”  I walked further up hill, could hear Ashley following, and saw the stream ahead.  Not much more than three feet wide, it did have some water trickling down hill.  It wasn’t a roaring river or romantic waterfall, but it’d do.  I stripped off my shirt, knelt down, and scooped up the water over my head and back.  It wasn’t freezing like I expected, but it sure as hell felt good on my burn - just not so good on my cut. 

Ashley came up behind me with no shirt on.  No bra.  Just pants.  “What the hell?” I said, shocked into stumbling backwards.

“Touch me and you die.  Turn around,” she demanded.

I did what I was told.  I saw the bandages on her shoulder, dirty from sweat and halfway peeled off.   Still, I turned away.

“How’s the shoulder,” I asked.

“Hurts.”

“I should look at it.”

“Nice try.”  I heard her splash water over her body.

“Ashley, get real.  I'm not a pedophile.  I just don't want it to get infected."

“I already took an antibiotic today.  I can tell it’s starting to hurt like an infection.”

“I’d feel better if someone saw it.  Made sure.”

She stopped washing herself and sighed.  “Fine.”  She stood up, moved her hair away from her shoulder, and covered her front.  I went over to look.  I lifted the gray patch and examined her shoulder.   Underneath, the little holes had all scabbed over, and I couldn't detect any smell or anything that might've been wrong.

Ashley shifted away from my touch.  She jerked away from me.  “That’s enough.  Is it ok?”

“Yeah,” I said.

She threw on her shirt.  “Good.  Then let’s head back.”

On the return she looked over at me, at my arm.  “How can you cut yourself?”  She asked.

I glanced her way.  “Beats killing people.”

“Is that why you do it?  So you don’t hurt others?”

I ducked under a low branch.  “Something like that.”

We came back and saw Tommy rummaging through the bag.  “Hey,” I said.  “What’re you looking for?”

“Something more to eat.”

“Nuh-uh, pal.  We’re rationing everything.  If there’s one thing people will be dying of it’s starvation.  We need to conserve.  Get used to it.”  I grabbed the bag from him and shuffled through it.  I pulled out a gauze patch and some tape.

“Ashley, we need to change the bandage.  It’s ok for now, but it won’t be for too long.”  She let out a sigh, turned her back to me, and lifted up her shirt.  Tommy whistled. 

Ashley shot him a look.  “One more time, jock-boy.  Whistle one more time.”

He quieted down.  Smart.

“So what’s your story?” He asked Ashley.

I taped up the gauze.  “Yeah, what
is
your story?”

She lowered her shirt.  “I already told you.  I was with my parents.  I was in the stairwell when the plane hit.”

“You were on your way to Disney,” I continued.

“Right.”

“Connecting flight from Columbus?”

“Right.”

“Then why were you in the parking garage?”

Silence.  I continued.  “You were in the airport, when I first met you.  But then I found you under a cardboard box.  You acted all girlie and weak, but you know enough to know when your wound might be infected.  You look fourteen but are really, what, sixteen?”

"Seventeen,” she said.  She looked down.

“Really?” Tommy asked, his seventeen year-old bag of hormones suddenly interested.  “Hell, I thought you at thirteen, fourteen tops.”

“You’re a runaway,” I said.  “How long you been on the streets?”

Ashley stood up, her small, five-foot frame now looking very different than it did before.  “About three years.”

“Wow.  So why do you wanna go back to Columbus?”

“I’ve been gone long enough,” Ashley went looking in the gym bag, then the backpack.

“How’d you get past security?” I asked.

“I saved up.  Got a ticket.  One way.”

Tommy chimed in, “So what’s with the psycho routine all of a sudden?  Trying to act your age?”

Ashley sighed and stood up.  “No.  We have to go back to Wal-Mart.”

Not a good idea.  “Are you kidding?  No way.”

She stared at me, as Tommy walked over to her, saying, "Ok."

I stood up and pulled the gym bag over my shoulder.  “Let me try again.  No
fucking
way." I said, “First of all, that’s backwards.  And it’s not a ‘just around the corner’ trip.  Secondly, who knows what’ll be waiting there, or if there’s anything left.  Let’s press on.  There’s gotta be something up ahead, right?”

I looked at Tommy for support.  “No.  Nothing other than farms.  Next town’s twenty miles away.”

I sighed.  “Why the hell do you need to go back to the Wal-Mart?  What could possibly be worth the risk?”

“You guys forgot to get certain feminine products.  Without it, I get very.  VERY.  Cranky.”

I looked at her.  At Tommy.

“I’ll get the horses ready.”

It took the three of us about five hours on horseback to get back to the Wal-Mart, crossing the other side of the mountain again, down to where Tommy and I first saw the dancing blazes of torches from the mob.  Now only the fingernail moon provided any kind of light.  The building sat sleeping in its little strip mall, waiting for the power juice to come on and wake it up.

We went to the smashed front door, the peaceful exterior contrasting the destroyed interior.  I lit a torch, and immediately saw the results of not only looting, rioting, and stealing, but of murder too.

The rotting meat smell had only gotten more powerful.  The heat of the previous day had roasted everything left inside, including decaying bodies.  They hadn’t been dead long.  My guess is that the “rationing” that the phony army guys were talking about didn’t happen.  Which made me think – the government had no clue what to do, at least out in the remote areas like this.  Maybe in the cities, but the rural areas had become forgotten wastelands overnight.  How many more farmers and small town folk like these lay entombed in other supermarkets and stores?

Ashley nudged me forward.  I had to lift my shirt up over my nose to cover the smell, but my b.o. wasn’t a much better choice.  Looking around, I could tell the chances of getting anything here would be slim – like the convenience store a few nights ago, this place had been picked clean.

Ashley took the torch and marched right towards the pharmacy area.  It took her all of two minutes to find what she was looking for.  Women must have a nose for that.  She picked out her favorite brand, and ripped open the bag, pouring the maxi-pads into my gym bag.

“You really need that many?”  I asked.  She glared at me in the torchlight.

She went to the pain reliever aisle, grabbed another bottle of pain pills, and then one for cramps and that kinda shit.  I told her to keep them with her.  “I don’t wanna mix them up and take yours.  I might grow tits or something.”

“Seriously?”  She sighed again, zipping up the gym bag.  “I swear, men are wussies.”

We walked through the Wal-Mart.  Goods were littering the floor, clothes scattered about off their hangers.  The normally neat rows of toys, office supplies, even furniture spread across the floor like a bomb had gone off.  We made it to the sporting goods section.  The gun cabinet was completely empty. 

Tommy sifted around.  “Need more rounds.  We only have a few.”

I didn’t see even a bullet.  “Doesn’t look like they left us anything.”

Ashley hugged herself.  “Bunch of crazed freaks armed with guns.  Nice.  Let’s get out of here.  The sooner we get to Chicago the better.”

A loud crash thundered from the electronics department.  Tommy cocked his dad's rifle.  Ashley and I ducked down. 

Another crash.  Followed by a manic scream – frustration?  Hatred?  I couldn’t tell.

Tommy led the way with the gun and his testosterone-based bravado, Ashley clinging to him in a way that I'm sure made Tommy very happy.  I walked behind them, letting him have his little fantasy.  Tommy’s movements were crisp - clearly he’d either done some hunting with his dad or had designs of being in the military.  Or seen too many movies.

Several more crashes – like glass collapsing on glass.  Then a shout of rage, with a bit of a crack in the voice.

Tommy came to the end of the cosmetics aisle, and peeked around the corner.  He lowered his rifle and walked on.

When I turned the corner, I saw a young kid smashing a big screen TV with a baseball bat.  “You son-of-a-bitch,” he shouted.

Tommy held the rifle at hip level, still pointed at the kid.  I made him lower it.  “Hey,” I shouted to the kid.  “Hey!”

The kid stopped, looked at us, our faces lit only by the light of our torches.  He freaked.

“I’m sorry!” He shouted as he dropped the bat and ran.  Within a second he was out of sight.

“Hey!  It’s ok!  We’re not gonna hurt you.” I called after him.  Silence.  Then his face peered from around the wall of iPods and cell phones.  Set decoration now, for all the good they are.

“You’re not?” he said.

“No.  I’m Adam.  This is Ashley, and this is Tommy.”

He slowly came out towards us.  “I’m Louie.  You sure you’re ok?  I mean, I’m sorry about the TV’s.”

“Dude, we don’t really care about the TV’s, ok?  They’re not much use anymore.”

He smiled, looked at the forty-two inch plasma TV on the floor, its face grinning from an end-to-end crack.  He raised the bat and brought it down on the TV again.

“Hey!”  I grabbed the bat.  “I didn’t mean light it up again.  Ease up, ok?”

Louie let me take the bat from him.  He stood as tall as Ashley, but shifted himself around like any thirteen, fourteen year old.  His short black curly hair released beads of sweat as he stuck his hands in the front pockets of his cargo shorts that drooped down to his shins.   I could barely make out a video game character on the dark blue t-shirt covering his little round gut.

“C’mon, Adam,” Ashley said.  “Let’s go.”

“Hang on,” I told her.  I looked at Louie.  “Where you from?” I asked.

“Around here.  My parents are dead.  My older brother...people are losing their minds.  I’m afraid I might be losing it too.”

“You’re not.”  I said.  “We’re going to Chicago.”

His eyes lit up.  “Really?  Can I come too?  Holy cow, this is awesome.  Let me grab some stuff.”

I thought he’d be heading for the pharmacy aisle, or maybe clothes, but he stayed right in the electronics.  He grabbed an armful of video games.

“Dude,” I held his arms.  “Quit clowning around.  You wanna go with us?  You take only what you need.”

He looked at the video games, weeded through them, and pulled out three.

“Ok.  These three then.”  He stuffed them into a backpack that was lying on the ground.  We just looked at him. 

"What?" he asked.

We walked our horses through the forest, in the dark.  Our torches threw shadows in the forest like some lame medieval movie.  Louie never shut up.

“So then, you know Ciaoba?  The dragon dude on Dragon Master Quest three?  So anyway, I was gonna kill him right there, right?  But then my brother, he pulls the plug on the machine!  Totally wipes out the game!  I jumped him.  That was my first fight.  I lost.”

“Kid,” I turned to him.  “Shut up.  We don’t wanna attract attention to ourselves.”

“Ok, ok.”   He looked really hurt. 

I sighed.  “Just keep your voice down.”

We were going downhill, leading our horses by their reins, making slow time because of the lack of visibility.  “You guys got last names?” Tommy asked, trying to make conversation.

“Dawson,” I said.

Ashley looked away.  “No.”