by Tom Abrahams
“I’m not the one…in your condition,” he said the last word as if it hurt his teeth to speak it. “But we both know that, don’t we, Andrea?”
A wave of nausea washed through her. Not the kind that came in the mornings during the first trimester. This was one that sent a weakness surging outward from her core to her fingers and toes.
A broad smile spread across Warner’s face as he nodded toward Javi. “How you feeling, Javi?”
The boy was sitting on the ground now, his head bobbing as if he couldn’t hold it up. His eyes were slits. He mumbled something unintelligible.
Andrea crouched down, putting her hands on the boy’s shoulders. “Javi? Mijo?”
He wobbled and his chin fell to his chest. His body fell into hers, unconscious. At the edge of her vision, she noticed Blessing waggle the canteen.
The nausea ebbed, and anger welled again. Holding her son, Andrea spat at Warner, bilingually cursing at him. “What did you do? What did you give my son? What was in the water?”
Warner shrugged. “A little something to help him sleep.”
It was then Andrea felt the first effects of whatever it was they’d used to drug her. Her vision blurred and her balance wavered. She tried picking up her son. She tried standing but wasn’t able to do either. Instead, she plopped onto the ground, the world spinning in jerky clockwise motions around her. The last thing she saw was Warner standing to one side of her, ordering Blessing to do something she couldn’t fully understand. Then the world went black.
CHAPTER 1
APRIL 16, 2054, 3:30 PM
SCOURGE +21 YEARS, 7 MONTHS
CHATHAM, VIRGINIA
Marcus Battle grabbed the shotgun from the kitchen counter and eyed the threat on the wall-mounted display. The image moved from one side of the screen to the other, across the wide-angled field of view from an outdoor security camera hidden in a tree near the edge of the sprawling farm.
Although it was late afternoon and the bright sun washed out the camera’s low resolution, it was clear enough to reveal the armed intruder’s position on his property. The threat came from the road, on foot, and had about a quarter-mile walk to reach the front door of the modest farmhouse at the rear of the acreage.
Marcus had time to get to his weapon, which he kept in the master bedroom closet. He could have taken the nine-millimeter Glock 19 he kept in the knife drawer next to the Gstove, but he liked the shotgun. He was planning on getting close to the intruder, close enough to look at the man eye to eye before he pulled the trigger.
It had been a few months since any unannounced visitors had wandered onto his land. The intrusions were fewer and fewer these days. The drought had driven people away from the low, dry hills, pushing them towards the lakes or coastlines. In a strange way, Marcus missed the confrontations with misguided or ill-intended souls who crossed his land looking for something he wasn’t willing to share. Like an ignored child who craves attention, even negative, Marcus’s solitary existence made him crave interaction of all kinds. The shotgun promised that interaction in a way the other less personal forms of self-defense did not.
Pushing his way through the back door, Marcus moved stealthily from a covered area at the rear of the house toward a thicket of woods that ran along the back of the expansive yard, which sloped away from the house. He was barefoot, and the thick carpet of bronze pine needles cushioned his movements as he worked his way amongst the tall, dying and dead pine trees that still managed to give shade to those traveling beneath their canopy.
The tripwires and other booby traps he’d used to fend off strangers had long since done their jobs. He’d been meaning to reset them. He’d been meaning to do a lot of things.
His knees ached and the arthritis in his shoulders flared as he hurried away from the house, arcing east in a wide semicircle. The dry air was warm, and a rivulet of perspiration sweated his brow. He carried the short weapon, a Mossberg Shockwave he’d traded for a couple of years earlier, in both hands and found himself even with the house again. From behind an old, dilapidated barn that was more kindling than structure, Marcus found the perfect spot from which to surveil the approaching threat. Though reading was increasingly troublesome, he could see things far away as clear as a scope. From behind the shambles he eyed the lone intruder.
Marcus scanned the property spotted with the occasional tree stump and partitioned with the remains of wood livestock fencing, but didn’t see anyone else on his land. It was a single man carrying a handgun at his side. The man walked with the slouch of someone at the tail end of a long journey. He leaned into his steps, barely lifting his boots as he trudged forward, forcing a wake of dust and dirt along his path.
There was something vaguely familiar about the stranger’s gait, how he carried himself, though Marcus couldn’t quite place it. There wasn’t anyone he knew who’d be coming today, or anytime soon.
Marcus waited for the man to pass him, to get closer to the house, before he moved around the barn and worked his way west. Again, he made a wide arcing path until he was directly behind the man, then quickly closed the distance. By the time the stranger heard his approach, it was too late. Marcus raised the shotgun, holding it chest high. He pumped the weapon and ordered the man to raise his empty hands high. Empty? Where had the man’s sidearm gone?
They were feet from the front porch. Marcus had the drop on the stranger and the man knew it. He lowered his head and glanced over his shoulder.
“I’ve killed a man for less than stepping on my porch without an invitation,” said Marcus, the gravel in his voice more resonant with age. As best he could remember, he sounded a lot like his father. At least how his father had sounded a quarter of a century earlier.
The stranger didn’t say anything at first. Doing as he was told, he raised his hands above his head and held them there.
“You armed?” asked Marcus. “Pretty certain you’re armed.”
“Yeah,” said the stranger. “Pistol on my hip.”
“I’m gonna reach around and take that from you,” said Marcus. “You’re not gonna move. If you do, I’ll end you right here. And it’s gonna tick me off ’cause I just swept the porch. You hear me?”
“I hear you.”
Marcus stepped back and, holding the short-barreled shotgun with one hand, extended his other to take the pistol from the man. Moving around to the stranger’s side, he gripped the weapon and pulled it from the leather holster looped into the man’s belt.
“I ain’t here to hurt you,” said the stranger.
Marcus tucked the pistol into his waistband and leveled the shotgun with two hands again as he moved around to face the stranger.
“You’re right about that,” he said, ready to lecture the stranger about coming onto his land unannounced. Had Marcus not softened over the years, the man would already be dead or wounded.
Before he offered counsel, he narrowed his gaze, focusing on the man’s face. There was something familiar about it…
The stranger, perhaps sensing that Marcus recognized him, offered a weak smile. He glanced at the old man and then averted his eyes as if staring too long might earn him a trigger pull.
“I’m here about Lou,” said the man. “She needs your help.”
Marcus felt the sting of a dagger to his heart. Lou. He hadn’t said that name aloud in years. It had been longer since anyone else had said it. No way she would send some stranger, easy to give up his gun, to do her bidding. No way.
“I doubt that,” said Marcus, trying hard to hide his surprise and his skepticism. “If Lou needed something from me, which I highly doubt she ever would, that firecracker would come and ask me herself.”
“She can’t,” said the stranger. “It’s too dangerous.”
Marcus studied the man’s face. It was his eyes that were familiar. Maybe the shape of his jawline too.
“I know you?” asked Marcus.
“Yeah,” said the man. “I’m Dallas. Dallas Stoudemire.”
Dallas Stoudem
ire.
Marcus flinched at the name. He did know this man. Not as lanky as he remembered him. He’d filled out. The stubble on his chin even had a couple of flecks of gray. Or was it blond?
Still, he didn’t lower the weapon. “Why would Lou send you here, Dallas? What have you got to do with her? And what does she want to do with me?”
“Can I lower my hands?” he asked. “They’re kinda heavy and I’ve been walking a while. I’m tired and thirsty.”
Taking another step back, Marcus gave Dallas an elevator stare, looking him up and down while trying to measure the veracity of what he’d said. If this guy was the Dallas he remembered, then it was all good. If he wasn’t, and most people weren’t who they were eleven years ago, keeping the gun on him was the prudent thing to do.
Marcus motioned with the shotgun toward the high-backed wooden rocking chair near the porch’s screen door. Dallas followed the direction with his eyes.
“How about you have a seat in that chair over there?” asked Marcus. “Take a load off. We’ll talk. If I buy what you’re selling, I’ll grab you a drink.”
“Fair enough,” said Dallas. He moseyed the few steps to the chair and sat down, his weight swinging him back and forth on the bowed runners, which creaked against the pine slatted porch.
When he sat down, he started to reach into a jacket pocket.
Marcus stopped him. “Hold on,” he said. “What are you doing?”
“Sorry,” said Dallas, lifting up his hands palms forward. “I wasn’t thinking. Lou gave me something to show you. It’ll explain pretty much everything.”
“Slow then,” said Marcus.
Dallas nodded and opened up his jacket with one hand while reaching into the pocket with the other. He fished out a rectangular piece of paper four inches tall by six inches wide and, with it between his index and middle finger, held it out to Marcus.
“Here you go,” he said. “Take a look.”
Marcus’s eyes danced between the paper and Dallas as he carefully approached. Still wary of the man he used to know, he snatched the paper and stepped back to put distance between him and his visitor.
Dallas rocked in the chair, his toes pushing up and down on the porch. Although Marcus thought him far too comfortable to be a real threat, he nonetheless kept the shotgun leveled at him with one hand while he flipped over the paper with the other. It took everything in him not to lose it. A knot thickened in his throat and he bit down on the inside of his cheek to keep the tears at bay.
It was a color photograph. Glossy. Recent. Marcus ran his thumb across the smooth surface of the picture. “How’d you get this?”
Dallas shrugged, his feet still pushing up and down. “It’s mine.”
Marcus frowned. “No, how did you get a photograph made?”
“Printer,” said Dallas. “I was scavenging one day. Found one in an abandoned farmhouse. Rudy fixed it up. It’s not the best, but we got some ink and there’s photo paper. It’s old. Like, pre-Scourge old. Works though.”
Marcus didn’t ask why they would use valuable power to run the printer. Or why Dallas was out scavenging. Or what would make him think to take a printer and ink, of all things, from an abandoned house. Things were still a lot different, more primitive, south of the wall. At least they had been. Marcus couldn’t be sure what it was like now. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He was too focused now on the image on the paper in his hand.
There was a golden hue to the photograph, as if it had been taken before sunset. There were five people in it. None of them smiled, not really. It reminded Marcus of that painting, American Gothic, the one with the farming couple holding the pitchfork. Both man and wife held dour expressions. The man stared straight out from the canvas. The woman looked to her left, as if something had caught her attention.
In the photograph, unlike the painting, Marcus knew the names of the people looking back at him. To the left was Rudy Gallardo. He was thinner and grayer than Marcus remembered him. Time and drought did that to people, and he wondered how much older he looked to Dallas.
Next to Rudy was his wife, Norma. Incredibly, she hadn’t changed much. Still as strong as ever, she stood with her arm on Rudy’s shoulder. Her feet were spread shoulder width apart; her gaze was as intense as Marcus remembered.
On the opposite end of the photo was Dallas. Marcus glanced back at the real-life iteration of the man on his porch. From the look of it, the photograph couldn’t be too old. Dallas appeared almost identical to himself.
In the photo, he had his hand resting on the mop-haired head of a young boy. The shirtless child was four or five. He was holding an empty leather scabbard against his olive skin, and his shorts hung loose at his waist despite being cinched as tight as they might go. No doubt he was his mother’s son. The kid was the spitting image of her.
On the other side of the boy, at the center of the picture, was a woman Marcus would recognize no matter how long it had been since he’d seen her. Louise.
Lou.
She was older too, her face having lost any trace of the cherubic baby fat that had filled her cheeks even into her late teens. Her hair was shorter, cropped at her shoulders, and she wasn’t wearing the omnipresent Astros ball cap in which he’d always seen her.
One of her hands was hidden behind the boy’s back. The other was cupped under the protruding belly that stretched the fabric of the floral-print knee-length dress she wore. Marcus drew the photo closer to make sure it wasn’t an optical illusion or glare. It wasn’t.
Lou was pregnant with her second child. And that was a death sentence.
CHAPTER 2
APRIL 16, 2054, 4:00 PM
SCOURGE +21 YEARS, 7 MONTHS
CHATHAM, VIRGINIA
“How did this happen?” asked Marcus, immediately understanding the implications of the photograph. There was a reason nobody was smiling.
Dallas stopped rocking and chuckled. “You need me to explain—?”
“No,” said Marcus, devoid of humor. “I don’t mean how, I mean why. How could she be so stupid? Lou was never stupid. Argumentative, sarcastic, and obstinate, yes. Never stupid.”
The smile on Dallas’s face evaporated. “That’s what you’re gonna ask? You ain’t seen us in, what, six years? No letters. No visits. No messages of any kind. And the first thing you got to say is that we’re stupid?”
There was a distinct resentment barbing his words. Dallas’s face tensed. His gaze, which had bordered on warm, went cold with judgment.
Marcus lowered his weapon and crossed the distance to stand in front of Dallas. He made a point of looking down at him when he spoke.
“The first thing I asked was why you were here,” corrected Marcus, holding up the photograph. “I guess I got that answer.”
“She needs—we—need your help, Marcus,” said Dallas, his tone softening. “I used what money I had left to get here. I need you to come to Baird. You’re the only one who can get us out of this jam.”
Marcus huffed. “I don’t know about that.”
“About which part of it?”
“Any of it,” said Marcus. “Not sure I want to cross the wall again. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not the strapping young vet I once was. I’m gonna guess you could find someone else better qualified than me.”
“Can we talk about it?” asked Dallas. “Maybe go inside and get that drink?”
Marcus sighed and stepped back, motioning for Dallas to get up. The two walked into the house, the screen door clapping shut behind them as they entered the foyer of the one-hundred-fifty-year-old farmhouse.
It was dark inside. Shafts of daylight filtered in through the windows, dust dancing in the glow. There were bars on the windows, inside and out. The wooden floors, unpolished and uneven, creaked underfoot as Marcus led his guest along a narrow hallway that led past a pair of rooms on either side then into the kitchen in the back.
The kitchen was brighter than the rest of the house. Larger windows faced the midaft
ernoon sun. The white counters, cabinets, and flooring reflected the outdoor light and brightened the space, making it appear almost cheerful.
Marcus nodded toward a circular oak table to one side of the kitchen. There were four matching chairs around the table, all of them padded with fabric cushions affixed to the seats and backs with knotted loops. The pattern on the fabric was of red barns and piles of hay.
“The furniture came with the house,” said Marcus. “Not my taste, but I don’t entertain much.”
Dallas didn’t say anything as he pulled out a chair, its feet scraping against the white tile floor. He plopped down into the seat and leaned on the table with his elbows. There was a mason jar of honey at its center, a brittle comb trapped inside like it was frozen there.
“I chose the place because it’s private, isolated, and pretty much nobody knows I’m here,” he said. “Chatham didn’t fare so well once the drought took hold. I think I’m maybe one of two or three people still living here. The government leaves me alone.”
“This place is bigger than the last one,” said Dallas. “How long you been here?”
Marcus reached into his refrigerator, which rumbled as much as it hummed, and hefted a clear plastic pitcher from the top shelf. It was half full of water.
“Moved here from Lynchburg maybe seven years back?” said Marcus. “Maybe longer, maybe less. It all runs together, to be honest.”
Plucking two glasses from the cabinet next to the fridge, he placed them on the engineered stone countertop with a clink and then filled them both. Leaving the pitcher on the counter next to the shotgun, he carried both glasses to the table and sat down opposite Dallas.
Noticing the photograph on the table next to Dallas, Marcus referenced it with his chin and tipped his glass toward it. Dallas followed the lead and eyed the photograph. It was faceup and creased along one side.
“The boy yours?” asked Marcus.
Dallas was slugging back most of the water in his glass. Still, he managed a deep frown, the lines across his forehead deepening with hurt. He swallowed the water and cleared his throat.
