The boy was excited. Real food!
“We've earned this, you think?” Grandfather said, smiling in that way the boy was getting used to.
“Yes.”
Soon, the truck was northbound out of town towards Interstate 10, their route west, to Grandfather’s house.
Chapter 17 - Blood
First light. Transition time. The time between dark night and the light of day. The boy watches as the vague night shapes clarify into cholla cactus, cottonwood trees, Palo Verdes, sagebrush, ironwood.
As the ledge lightens, the deep brown of the rock emerges. He crawls out of the debris cleft. Dusts off his clothes. Stands. Stretches. Looks out over the desert, then down at the pack. He sits next to it and hooks his fingers through a strap to pull it close.
It was a gift of sorts, thrust at him in Grandfather’s last moments of life when the boy was still in the house, when people first went crazy in the burning city. Mad-crazy with sickness, anger, and fear.
~
Grandfather had come out of the back room of the house from his makeshift lab. The boy had been looking through the large kitchen windows at sporadic fires in the bowels of the city. The house, on the flanks of a low mountain range, had a clear view of the plumes of smoke rising like omens into the light of the setting sun. When he turned from the window, his grandfather stood on the other side of the kitchen, coughing. The boy saw blood come out of his mouth. Grandfather wiped it away, his movements listless. The blood brought back the memory of his mother’s death.
"Grandson." The old man's voice was weak. "You can't stay here."
"Why not, Grandfather?" The boy felt tears fall down his cheeks. "I thought you made the serum work. Made it permanent."
His grandfather's expression had been hard and angry when the boy first looked at him. Now, he watched the old man's expression change. Soften.
"Too late for me."
He held up a small pack. The boy saw it. Then the arm dropped it back down, the pack heavy in his weakness.
"I did not plan for it to go this way, Grandson. We were to travel together."
He started coughing again, more violently than before. The boy watched. Anxious. Helpless.
"Don't leave me," the boy said.
The light from the sunset washed over the Mexican tiles that crisscrossed the floor to his grandfather, the color a deep burnt orange. The coughing stopped.
"Our time together . . ." Another short, bloody cough. ". . . was too short." Grandfather smeared blood across his cheek, attempting to wipe it from his mouth. "I am so grateful we had this time. You know enough now to survive out there." Grandfather nodded his head to the north. "On the landscape."
"Not without you!" the boy cried.
"Stop!" Grandfather gasped. "Listen to me." His atoms apple bobbed up and down each time he swallowed. "I've taught you all I can. How to survive, move, hide. The rest is in the journal."
He lifted the pack again.
"It's in here. With other things you'll need."
Another short, bloody cough. The convulsions bounced the pack.
"But Grandfather . . ." the boy pleaded.
"Enough!" he said. "You won't have me anymore. If you feel sorry for yourself out there, you're dead."
With a last effort, Grandfather slid the pack across the tiled floor to the boy. The boy looked at it. Looked at his grandfather now slumped against the far wall, the red of the setting sun covering his body.
"Out the back door." The old man nodded toward the backyard. "Get to the desert. To the ledge. Go north from there. To the Red Cliffs."
Again, a cough. His chest racked violently, forcing out more blood. How could there be more blood, the boy thought? It came from every part of Grandfather's body. The boy was horrified.
"Trust no one. They'll be sick. They'll kill you."
A chill rushed up the boy's spine and into his shoulders.
"Why not wait ‘til morning?" the boy pleaded.
"Morning is too late."
The old man was fading. The boy saw this but did not want to believe it.
"Don't lose the journal," he said, breathing erratically. "For everything else, use your inner sense."
A last look from the old man. His dark eyes, like the boy's mother's, penetrated across the distance. The boy felt as much as heard his words.
"You have thirty minutes," he said. "That's all."
Grandfather's eyes released the boy, and his head dropped to his chest. Blood streamed freely now. From his mouth, eyes, nose. It ran down his chest and shoulders in narrow rivulets. Pooled around him. The boy stood, frozen, watching the last of his family dying.
Grandfather's movements had stopped, yet the boy still detected shallow breathing. Death had not taken him. Not yet.
"But," the boy barely spoke. Grandfather did not respond. "Where are the Red Cliffs?"
Chapter 18 - Man-made Death
The boy came back to himself. He was standing in the kitchen. Grandfather was dead, on the other side. He wondered how long he had been like this. Focus. He had to focus. Obey Grandfather's final instructions. How much time did he have?
The boy picked up the pack, left through the back door, and moved to the side of the house. Up to the corner at the front of the house. He waited. Listened. The pressure to get away from the house was building. He took a short step into the front yard, out from the shadows.
He froze. Something was wrong. A hunch. He backed into the darkness and crouched behind the trashcan in its stand a few feet back from the corner. Watching. For what, he did not know.
Two minutes later, a pickup truck appeared from his right, moving slowly. Gut-fear froze him to his hiding place. A spotlight slashed from one side of the road to the other, searching.
For what?
The beam paused on Grandfather's house. Brilliant white. He held his breath. It moved on, swept across the street to the other side. The boy let out his breath.
Shouting from the truck! He looked out and saw people, three men and a woman, jump out the back.
They ran through the yard of the house across the street, into the light of the beam, to the front door. Two men hurled themselves full speed into the door and fell inside. The others followed.
Yelling from inside. Now, screaming. Gunfire inside the house.
Darkness, rapid flashes, darkness.
The boy, still crouched, stared at the black hole that was the front door. Everything else was blinding white. He heard scuffling from the inside, then more voices, more shouting.
Now the truck people came out. They were carrying bodies! Bloody bodies, into the brutal light, the blood, bright red. Running to the truck, they struggled with the weight of the dead.
One body was much smaller than the others, carried by a man like one would carry a sack of potatoes slung over his back, bouncing.
The boy knew this body. It was the little girl, the six-year-old who lived there, across the street.
The boy gagged and threw-up, trying to stay quiet. Unable to look away, he watched the bodies heaved into the back of the truck. That's when he saw the other bodies already in the bed of the truck, piled carelessly.
“Let’s go!" a man shouted from the cab. "We have enough."
The truck tires screeched as it shot out of view to his left. The killers, sitting on their stack of bodies, gripped the bed rails. Crouched and hidden, the boy tried to calm his confusion, tried to understand what he just saw. He stared at the dark hole across the street that used to be the front door.
Then, a blinding flash and a deafening explosion ripped the night, knocking the boy on his back. The boy's ears rang as he propped himself up on his elbows. His ears were numb, but his eyes could see.
A phantom ship appeared, small with flashing lights, came over the death house and into the street. It swung in an easy, casual arc and turned towards the fleeing truck. It hovered over
the hole it had just blasted in the middle of the street, between him and the open front door.
The airship had no propellers. No whoop, whoop, whoop a helicopter makes. It was shiny, metallic, and quiet with powerful searchlights beaming down the street. He had seen pictures of this thing, seen it flying down in the city.
A flash from underneath its shiny belly sent a rocket screaming out of sight down the road.
Another explosion. Maybe the death truck. The shiny metal craft hovered for a moment more, over the crater in the street, then flew in the direction of the explosion.
Chapter 19 - Shark
Time passed as the boy crouched behind the trashcan in the now-dark yard. How much time had passed, he didn't know. The immediate area was quiet as the ringing in his ears backed off.
Explosions and sirens reverberated from somewhere. In the direction of the drone that had chased the truck, he guessed, to the west.
He needed to go north. Needed to cross the street between the death house and another house. In front of him, the crater yawned where the drone's rocket had hit. The hole blocked his route. He would have to skirt around it.
Quickly, he shot across the street. Not thinking, just moving. He knew if he thought too much, his fear would defeat him. Racing across the right side of the yard, between the houses, into the darker shadows of the death house, he moved as quietly as he knew how. He did not remember deciding to run, but here he was. His skin crawled at being so close to this place of fresh death. After a brief pause, he kept moving into and through the death house backyard and over its three-foot wall. He landed on the hard ground of the back alley and stopped.
He noticed the extra weight of the pack when he jumped the wall. But inside was life. The boy worked the bladder tube free from the pack strap and took a few sips of water. He leaned against the alley wall. At this spot, he had some distance from Grandfather’s house. It also helped that the death house was out of view behind him.
As water wetted his dry mouth, he was thankful for his pack. Grandfather had made him get used to it when they walked in the desert. It was familiar now, a part of him.
From where the boy squatted against the wall, the alley branched north, away from him. It also ran east-west, to his right and left. He crossed the east-west part of the alley and moved into the north branch, hugging to one side. His shoes made a crunching noise on the small rocks and hard ground. Instinctively, he shifted his weight to the front of his feet. Less weight on the hard hitting heels. A lesson from Grandfather, how to be silent.
The boy traveled some distance up the north alley in the eerie quiet. Further ahead, he saw the alley was cut by a street and that the alley picked up again on the other side. The street formed a barrier. He wanted to be on that other side, but crossing the street meant he was vulnerable to unknown threats.
He slowed his pace and pressed closer to the block wall on his left, wishing he was invisible. In the block wall, a small door appeared: a house's backyard gate. Eyes glued to the sickly glow from the streetlight, he fumbled with his fingers until he found the gate latch. It moved. It opened. Thank god it didn't squeak. He half entered, his eyes still riveted to the street. Not knowing why.
Then, slowly, silently, the why glided into view. A car, dark in the glow of the street. It oozed silent death. Like a shark hunting, it drifted into the open space and stopped, blocking his escape route. No lights. The boy felt malevolent intent in its pause.
He did not blink. He did not breathe.
He knew the car held death. It radiated fear, pulsing it down the alley where it swept over him and beyond him.
Doors opened with no sound. Figures emerged out of both sides of the car, males wearing baseball caps that hid their faces in shadow. One held a rifle. The other a long club of some sort. They looked into the other alley across the street. Could they see in this murkiness? Quickly, they crossed over to the boy’s side.
The boy moved. No, he seemed to be watching himself move from another angle, above his body. He moved through the gate and carefully closed it behind him, slowly releasing the latch. Click.
Chapter 20 - Hunted
“You hear that?” A gravelly voice at the car. “This way!”
Footsteps ran, crunched on the dirt.
Looking around wildly, tasting the bile of his panic, the boy ran across the short lawn to the back of the house. He pasted his back against the stucco wall, facing the gate to the alley. The backyard offered no cover.
The hunters opened gates as they came down the alley. A flashlight, its beam sporadic, slashed across the walls of the backyards. To the boy, the beam felt like a sword slashing, ready to cut him when it found him. He pressed harder against the wall, hands gripping the stucco. He barely registered the door to his right. The back door to the house, no doubt.
Another click, from that door. His heart stopped. The door opened, and a hand reached out, grabbed his arm, yanked him inside, and closed the door. One burly hand pressed on his chest, pinning him to the wall. Another hand clamped across his mouth, with a smell of garlic.
"Shh."
The command came from the blackness along with a pungent whiff of garlic. Light flashed through a small window in the door, outlining a body in the room. A big body. A man. Back crushed against the wall, the boy heard the men talking outside.
“See anything?”
Then an explosion outside blasted the night's tense silence.
“Shit!" The shout came from just the other side of the door. "What was that?”
“Let’s go," came a call from the alley.
The gate rattled open, then gravel crunched as the men disappeared up the alley. The boy's captor raised his head to look through the small window, then pulled back toward the boy.
"Go," the voice breathed. "Get out of here."
The door was roughly opened, the boy pushed out, the door slammed shut again. The boy stood in the dark yard, stunned, then moved to the gate, not sure what was more frightening, the rough man in the house or the men from the shark.
From where he stood, he heard car doors slam and the engine rumble awake. The shark shot away up the street.
The boy stared at the still-open gate. Silence again, from the house, from the alley.
A breath escaped the boy's throat. He stalked across the yard, unsure of what awaited him in the alley. At the gate opening, he paused and dropped to his hands and knees. Being near the ground felt safer. He crawled forward and looked left.
No shark car. Just the eerie quiet of the alley and the empty street.
He swung his head to his right. It was then he saw the flames reaching high into the air, over the roof of the death house. He knew where the explosion came from. Grandfather’s house. Anguish bubbled up from deep inside and he wanted to shout his anger and grief—at the men, at the fires, even at Grandfather.
"Why did you go, Grandfather?" he sobbed. "You left me. How the hell is that fair?"
Without choice, it seemed, his grief poured out onto the hard alley ground. For his mother, Grandfather, his old life. Would the pain ever go away? There was no answer for the boy. Yet, something did leave him, something hard that came from deep inside him.
The tears ran dry. He kept his forehead on the ground. Pieces of dirt stuck to his cheeks and mouth from the tears. He breathed into the ground, noticing the coolness of the dirt as his breath bounced back up into his face.
“I don't know what to do,” he said aloud.
Somehow, the words sobered him, seemed to clear his mind and his heart. Crouching there, half in the yard and half in the alley, he realized nothing had changed. It was still dark. The sickly glow of the cutting street on his left pulsed on. The orange glow of Grandfather’s funeral pyre still lit the murkiness to his right.
He stared at the flames shooting up over the rooftops. No sirens. No fire engines. Just burning.
“Thank you, Grandf
ather," the boy whispered to the flames. "Watch over me. I don't remember everything you taught me. But I will try.”
The ground under his knees grew warm. For no reason that he was aware of, he stretched out on the ground. The warmth soothed him. It seeped into his body and spread to his arms and legs. And then he remembered something Grandfather once told him when they were walking on the desert floor.
“Earth Mother will take care of you, protect you, if you let her.”
The boy smiled, lifted his head off the dirt. Remembering those words helped him make his choice: to pick himself up and get the hell out of there before any more sharks came hunting. After all, he had Grandfather’s journal, his journal now, and Grandfather wrote it for him to help him survive.
He stood. Just as he had that night in New Orleans, he gave a small wave to the flames.
“Safe journey, Grandfather.”
Chapter 21 - Escape
Now he had to face that street and the exposure it brought. He feared the death it could bring him. But life was on the other side of it and the boy craved life. His spirit craved life. Every movement now, each step was life . . . or death, if he wasn't careful.
The boy was up. Moving. On full alert. Listening, looking, scanning for any threat. At the street, he stopped. Carefully, he looked one way, then the other. Listened for the sound of an engine, rolling tires on blacktop, voices, any break to the silent baseline. His eyes strained to see into the darker places. Not for the last time, he wished he could burn the darkness away with his eyes. But even as he looked, his gut felt nothing. No threat. This was a new thing, listening and feeling the message of his gut.
Did he trust it? Did he have a choice?
He bolted across the street to the other side and sprinted down the alley. Every few strides, he glanced over his shoulder, expecting a shot from a rifle, a chase, something carrying death and bounding after him. But nothing came. Focused forward, he slowed to a jog, then a walk.
As he caught his breath, the surrounding stillness made him aware of the noise he made. His footsteps. His breathing. Where was everyone and why was it so quiet?
Behind him, the cutting street was dim and faded in the distance. His body relaxed, some.