Under a Broken Sun

by Kevin P Sheridan

  “Wolves?” Marilyn asked.

  “Maybe. Maybe just wild dogs, looking for dinner.” We started our way slowly to the sound of the baby, now just a soft whimpering.

  “The baby’s out in the open,” Marilyn whispered. “Otherwise we wouldn’t hear it. Windows open?”

  “Or a convertible.”

  Growling from three directions: ahead, right, and left. The baby sat in the car in front of us. I felt around the car, found where the roof was supposed to be, but felt nothing.

  “Convertible,” I said.

  A bark scared the shit out of me; I dropped the knife, Marilyn screamed. Several barks followed. Loud. Repeated.

  Dogs.

  Clicking of claws on the roads. Scraping of claws on the hoods of cars. From all over.

  “Marilyn, get in the car and grab the baby,” I said, dropping to the ground to find the knife. “Now!”

  The baby screamed as Marilyn fumbled for the door handled. I heard the door open and close.

  A larger bark. “Get down!” I yelled, and started waving the knife around, cutting thick, black air. I felt it plunge into the side of a dog, deep enough for my fist around the handle to brush against the fur. I pulled the knife out and swung again, slicing something thick. High pitched yaps.

  A chomp into my calf. I screamed - that fucker hurt. Another swipe. More slices, followed by more yaps.

  “ADAM!” Marilyn screamed. I could just barely make out a moving lump in the backseat, something clawing at something. I drove the knife down deep into the dog, which let out a howl that the Wolfman would’ve been proud of. I pulled the carcass off of Marilyn and threw it aside – the dog must’ve weighed a hundred pounds. More scurrying claws on pavement, but this time going away. Some quicker than others. I could hear heavy breathing with intermediate gurgling from the ground around my feet. I wanted to put them out of their misery, but couldn’t see them.

  No sound from Marilyn. Or the baby.

  I reached for her. “Marilyn?” I said, pulling at her back to lift her up.

  She resisted. “No!”

  “It’s ok, it’s ok. It’s over. They’re gone.” I lifted her up again, slowly.

  She held the baby close to her chest, letting it suck on her finger.

  I called out to Ashley to let her know it was safe to come out.

  A car door opened. “Over here,” she shouted.

  We walked the rest of the way through the tunnel. We heard other dogs, some whimpering, dying, others snarling but not making a move. The darkness of the tunnel felt like a coffin. Every nerve in my body stood at attention ready to move - the hand holding the knife shook in anticipation.

  We couldn’t see any sign of the end of the tunnel. We just walked.

  After an hour of maneuvering around wreckage and stalled cars in the dark, we stood outside the tunnel, staring down a hundred yards of highway stretched between the exit and the entrance to another long tunnel. I looked up, saw that the black sky had become a deep blue, and realized the night was over. Already I could feel the heat settle in like a fog.

  “We should spend the day in here,” I said. “Figure out what to do with the kid.”

  Marilyn, nuzzling the baby, stopped and looked up at me. “What do you mean?”

  “We can’t keep it with us.”

  “She’s not an it, she’s a she.”

  I started towards the tunnel. “How the hell do you know that?”

  “I peeked. I’m calling her Eve.”

  “Cute.” Once inside, I tried the handle on a car well out of the sunlight towards the middle of the tunnel.

  “He’s right, Marilyn, we can’t keep her with us,” Ashley said. The door opened.

  “What the hell do you know?”

  “Marilyn,” I said, “You take this car. With Eve. Roll down the window if you can. There’s not much air in here.”

  "Don't you want to stay with me and our baby?" she said with a frown.

  Our baby. I hated the thought of it. Not that I didn't want to try making babies with Marilyn. But caring for one? I'd just fuck it up. "Too much body heat in an enclosed space like that. Oxygen's light as it is, no room to share.

  “What about Ashley?”

  “I dunno, but I’m hoping there’s a Corvette up ahead.” I handed Marilyn another water bottle and some food. “I don’t know what the kid’ll eat, but you can at least keep her hydrated.”

  “Leave me a banana. She’ll eat that.” I handed it to her and walked away as Marilyn got into the car.

  Ashley followed me. “Adam, I don’t want to stay alone again. Not after the dogs.”

  “Ashley, you’ll be in a car with the doors locked. You’ll be fine. We’re in the shade so it should be relatively cool. Just relax. Get some sleep.” I felt along the hood of a car – felt like a Camaro, or maybe a Mustang. That’d work. I opened the back door and slid in. Manual windows. Score. I cracked the window a bit and the night air spilled in.

  Whether Ashley made it to a car or not, I didn’t really care - I felt like a babysitter, or worse, a dad. I needed to sleep. I passed out as soon as I leaned the seat back as far as it could go.

  After about four hours I woke up with a start. I had dreamt of my dad, the warning on the cell phone, everything. I dreamt of the Earth blowing up instead of slowing frying. I don’t know but I think that in some ways that’d be better – a lot less suffering. They always said in a nuclear war to pity the survivors. I know what they meant.

  Growing up with an astronomer can be scary – you have no idea how dangerous the universe really is. My dad made sure I understood. Supernovae, solar flares, gamma-ray bursts, these were the boogeymen in our house. I didn’t check the closet, I checked the sun.

  The rising morning heat drew sweat out of every pore, yet I still shook from the nightmare, frustrated that I couldn’t do more and enraged that I had to do so much. I took out my cross and thought of my dad. He never even noticed when I bought it. I had to show him it to watch him flip the fuck out. Which I guess was the point. He didn’t want any religious icon in the house, and though I didn’t have any more belief than he did, his reaction fed my addiction to pissing him off.

  A quick tug and the knife slid out from the bottom. I held it over my arm. Just a quick one. I remembered what I told Marilyn. I knew it was stupid. But at that point, cutting to me was like drinking to an alcoholic. You think everyone else should stop, but you don’t have to. The rules I laid down didn’t apply to me, because I made them up.

  I rolled up my sleeve and drew the knife slowly across my shoulder. Just a short, quick, one-inch cut. Immediately the rage left me like sweat evaporating. I breathed heavy from the pain, the awesome pain that told me I was alive, and surviving. I could feel the sting even after I stopped, and felt the blood stream down my arm.

  I grabbed the first aid kit and patched myself up, something I’d done a hundred times before. I had to make sure all traces were gone, and when I lowered my sleeve, the cut disappeared, invisible. Another trick I had gotten quite good at.

  I turned to lie back down and sleep, but someone yelled in the tunnel like a gunfighter arriving in town. “TOMMY!” Then a long, drawn out sucking sound.

  10.

  I heard sheet metal pop and creak from someone climbing over cars. The Wheezer dude cried out again, and then fired a shot into the tunnel. In between cries his hoarse, sucking of air floated around like background noise. I could barely see his silhouette in the tunnel entrance, and then a figure bounced over the trunk of the car in front of me and slid down to the side of the tunnel. I opened my door, listening. Feet scurrying down the tunnel towards me, sneakers shuffling on pavement.

  “Hey,” I whispered. “Over here.”

  A kid, looking sixteen maybe, scurried to my car and climbed in the driver’s side without saying a thing. Then he just started crying, saying, “Oh shit” repeatedly. His fear contrasted his build: I knew a jock when I saw one. This guy wore the cropped hair and too-tight T-shirt; al
most cartoonish.

  “What the hell?” I asked.

  “My dad. He’s gone, man. Fucking gone. Holy shit. I was just getting some wood and he starts yelling at me. Then he grabs his gun and starts shooting. Never says anything else. I just ran. I think he shot my mom and my sister. Oh Christ.”

  “TOMMY” came a bubbly, gurgling yell. Then the wheezing.

  I couldn’t see clearly, but I could hear Tommy sucking wind; his breathing was short and raspy.

  Oxygen.

  Tommy’s father was oxygen depleted. He was gone. I reached in the bag and pulled out the O2 tank. It had about half left. I gave him the mask.

  “Put this on. Breathe.”

  “What the fuck is this?”

  “Oxygen. Your dad’s suffering from lack of oxygen. Makes the mind go nuts, hallucinate, that kinda thing. He doesn’t have long before he has a massive stroke.”

  Tommy took the mask and breathed into it.

  “I’ll go take care of your father.”

  “DON’T!” Tommy said, turning around to look at me. “Don’t hurt him. He’s not a bad guy.”

  “Dude, he’s got a gun.”

  “Please!”

  “TOMMY,” came the yell, closer this time. The breathing became raspy and liquid, like gurgling water.

  “Get down,” I said. “Lock the doors.”

  “They’re electric”

  “Fuckin’ press them down, moron!”

  He slapped the lock down, as did I in the back seat. Then I got to the floor of the car, the cut on my arm burning with every movement.

  We waited. Another shot. Shattering glass. Wheezing. BLAM. Then a click as he reloaded. BLAM.

  “TOMMY”

  Click. BLAM. Wheeze.

  I hated waiting like this. What about Marilyn and Ashley? Were they ok?

  Click. BLAM. Wheeze.

  “TOMMY” – right outside my window. The wheezing turned into a coughing fit. The passenger side window exploded in as he nailed it with the butt of his rifle. Glass fell like hail on my back. I thought I heard Tommy whimper, but just barely. His old man moved on.

  He walked further down the tunnel in the direction of Marilyn and Ashley.

  Marilyn’s baby wailed.

  The tunnel amplified the sound. The old man laughed a little, with whatever air he had left.

  “Shit,” I said grabbing the O2 can from my gym bag and popping out of the car. I could hear the guy's footsteps quicken in pace as he trudged down the tunnel. “HEY!” I shouted at him. “Over here, ya dumb shit.”

  I ducked behind a car to my left, just barely quick enough to avoid the blast. The footsteps, more sure of themselves, shuffled towards me. I waited as long as I could. I had to feel it – there was no visible way to see him.

  I smashed his face with the O2 can, and he dropped like a rock. Tommy bolted out of the car. “DAD!”

  “Over here,” I said, directing Tommy in the dark. Tommy dropped down to his father’s side. “He’ll be ok. I tried to just knock him out, so he’ll sleep for a while. Help me get this on him.” I pulled the O2 mask over his head and let loose the oxygen. He was gonna need a lot.

  My dad used to warn me of O2 depletion. Another of our fun-filled bedtime stories. Let me tell you about the end of the world, Adam. You might have to save the world someday, Adam. Little things like that that would give any child a case of shits. Save the world? Fuck that. I didn’t even want to go to college. My dad wouldn’t shut up about it. It was my duty, that kinda thing. He said he wanted me to be happy. I told him I knew what made me happy. I think he meant he wanted me to be happy his way.

  I watched Tommy's dad struggle to breathe. Did they have the same kind of relationship? Did his dad share his secrets instead of dropping dumb-ass hints and vague allusions to what “might” happen. My dad could’ve given me these papers weeks ago, years ago, to be prepared for this. But he didn’t care. Or worse, he didn’t trust me; thought I couldn’t take it if I knew the truth; would freak out or something.

  Dad didn’t trust my mom to wipe her nose. I always thought that might’ve had a part to play in her suicide. If he had given her the feeling that she was stronger, maybe she would’ve fought harder. I dunno.

  It didn’t much matter now. I’d be lucky if I ever saw him again – if he even survived the plane going down. Weird, thinking of your dad as possibly dead, and then not having many memories to tear up on. I struggle to think of “the happy times”. Not that he was mean or abusive – he just wasn’t there. And when Mom died, it got even worse. The only time I’d see him was when he had some new idea he was all stupid about. I even tried to pretend to care once or twice, but it didn’t matter. In the end I was just a sounding board, a one-way communication vehicle.

  I bent down to look at Tommy's dad. The sun provided a little light but not much, and the heat in the tunnel was getting painful. The old man coughed up a thick, smelly mess of blood and phlegm. Tommy turned his dad's head to the side. “Your dad a smoker?” I asked Tommy.

  “Yeah. Two packs a day at least.”

  I looked around the tunnel, then at Tommy's dad. We had no choice.

  “We gotta get out of here. This was a bad idea. It’s like an oven. He doesn’t have long in this atmosphere.”

  “What the hell’s going on? What happened to the power?” Tommy asked.

  “I’ll explain later,” I said, scanning the area for an idea. Marilyn and Ashley came up to us, Marilyn holding the baby.

  “What happened?” Marilyn asked.

  “Another Wheezer. His dad. Heavy smoker, won’t last long out here.”

  "He's not a fucking wheezer or whatever. He's my dad."

  Tommy looked back at his dad, who seemed to be calming down. I looked down the tunnel and saw, out of the string of cars parked end-to-end in the tunnel, a car near the exit, poking out of the exit. Like it was pulling away. A nineteen-sixty-four Chevelle.

  “Stay here with him,” I told Tommy. I raced towards the exit where the car stood. Maybe with a good push, putting it into neutral. Maybe we could get it somewhere faster than walking. It was worth a shot.

  As I approached the car the light grew brighter from the exit of the tunnel. From behind as the car sat at a slight angle I could see a figure in the driver’s side, but it wasn’t moving – like someone put up a mannequin. I came up next to the car and saw the body behind the wheel: a man, mid forties, eyes open, head leaning against the window. He wasn’t hit or shot or anything like that. He probably had a heart attack or a stroke, and no one knew. And he’s been broiling in this heat for three days.

  I wasn’t going in the car. The road ahead stretched out long and flat. Pushing it would be more work than walking. Hell, even if we did, we’d be throwing up every fifteen minutes from the stink. I looked down the row of cars in the tunnel, trying to picture the scene. Each one of them had an owner. Their cars would just slow to a stop, maybe a few fender-benders as they rammed into each other if the owner hit the brakes (if the brakes even worked). They’d try to get their car to turn over, try to figure out what the heck just happened, probably blame the car or the mechanic who fixed it last. But in the end they would notice everyone else getting out of their car, looking around, asking each other “you too?” They’d stand and stare, and then a few, maybe more, would just start walking. Like we did.

  Where did they go?

  I ran back to Tommy. “Dude, where’s the nearest civilization? Like a store or something?”

  “Down the hill, about two miles.”

  “We need to go there, restock supplies.”

  “What about my dad, asshole?”

  I looked down at his dad, face covered by the oxygen mask. Eyes closed. Not breathing. Just like the guy in the car.

  Tommy noticed as well. “No,” he said falling to his knees. “No!” He looked up at me with angry, fierce eyes. “You son of a bitch, you killed him!” He stood up and grabbed my shirt, shoving me backwards. The girls pleaded with him to stop.


  “He was already dead,” I yelled. Tommy stopped. “Look around you, man. You think I did this? Check out the dude in the car up ahead. I killed him? No, whatever this shit is, IT killed him. The air changing, the temperature, whatever. The Earth’s changed, man. I didn’t do it. Nobody did. But it’s not the same place. You better get used to it.”

  I flung his arms off me and left. Fuck ‘em. I didn’t need them or their problems. My mind switched back to one thing: Chicago. If anyone would make sense of this it’d be my dad.

  I only got a few paces before I heard Marilyn behind me. “Adam, wait up.” She carried Eve as she came up beside me. “We need to get baby supplies.”

  “I’m coming too!” Ashley said as she scurried up beside us.

  “What about you?” I said, turning to Tommy. He bent down and lifted the oxygen mask off his father. I wondered what it felt like, watching your father die. My father may be dead already; would I feel anything? I mean, this dude was running for his life ten minutes ago from a shotgun-toting Wheezer that used to be his father. Now he was looking down at the corpse and crying. Would I do the same for my dad? Would I even care?

  I could see the memories in Tommy’s posture – this wasn’t a father who tried to make him anything other than what he was. It was a father that loved Tommy.

  Wish I knew what that was like.

  “Dude, we can’t bury him.” I said, knowing we were leaving the old man to the dogs.

  "Fuck off," Tommy replied.

  "Ashley,” I said. “Grab the O2 tank.”

  Ashley jogged back to him. She knelt down beside him and silently grabbed the O2 tank and ran back to me.

  "Let's go," I said.

  Marilyn grabbed me arm. "Are you crazy? We can't just leave him here." She turned to Tommy. "C'mon Tommy, come with us."

  Tommy stood up, still facing his dead father. He picked up his dad's gun, raised it, stared down the barrel.

  Tommy sniffed; wipe his nose with his arm.

  "Tommy, no," Marilyn cried. Ashley buried her head in my chest and I wrapped my arm around her.