by Tom Abrahams
Marcus laid his head back, tipped his hat forward over his eyes, and sighed. Maybe now he could sleep. Chances of anyone else trying to rob the train between here and the next stop were less than nothing, as far as he was concerned.
“Could be,” said Marcus. “A lot of things in life are dumb luck if you look at it through that lens. But if that woman doesn’t go to the bathroom, we don’t hear the bandits. They run amok in the other cars. More people die. Ten? Twenty? Half the train?”
“Still dumb luck,” said Dallas. “Bad luck for the people next to us. Good luck for the others.”
“Or it’s not luck at all,” Marcus countered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Marcus opened his eyes and tipped back the brim of his hat. He shrugged. “My dad used to say that if you aren’t doing what you’re not supposed to be doing, things that aren’t supposed to happen won’t happen.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Sure it does,” said Marcus. “Don’t put yourself in bad spots.”
“I get what it means, I’m saying it doesn’t apply here. These people weren’t doing anything bad. They were sitting on a train heading south. They paid for their tickets. They were minding their own business. None of them deserved what happened. It was just bad luck.”
Marcus sat up and withdrew the gun from his waistband. He set it on the seat next to him and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index finger. “That’s assuming you believe in luck,” he said. “In my experience, luck has very little to do with anything.”
“Predetermination and all that?”
Marcus snorted a laugh.
“What’s funny?”
“Nothing’s funny,” said Marcus. “I never expected to hear those words come out of your mouth is all.”
Dallas folded his arms across his chest and crossed his feet at the ankles. “I’m not stupid,” he said. “I can read.”
Marcus took off his hat, setting it atop the Glock next to him. He raked his fingers through the thinning hair on his head. He needed a shower. “I’m not saying you’re stupid. Lou wouldn’t have you if you were a moron. I just didn’t expect such a philosophical conversation. I expected to be asleep by now.”
“You started it.”
Marcus rubbed his chin. The scruff was like fine sandpaper on his fingertips. Dallas was a man, but he was a child. Lou mothered this one. No doubt.
He sighed. “Look, Dallas, I’m not attacking you. I’m only trying to express my view of the world. That’s it. Doesn’t mean you’re wrong or stupid or need someone to change your diaper and fix your boo-boos. None of that.”
“Then what’s your point?”
“The longer we talk, the more points I need to make.”
Dallas’s expression tightened. His frown deepened. “You’re going to lecture me, then.”
“I don’t have the energy or the inclination to lecture you.”
“Then what?”
“One,” said Marcus, “I’m putting this to bed. Whatever residual anger you have about me going my own way and not communicating with you—”
Dallas uncrossed his legs. “With Lou.”
“With Lou,” said Marcus, “you need to get over it. I’m here now. I’m helping. Against my better judgment, I’m doing what you asked me to do. So enough. Okay?”
“What’s two?”
“My original thesis,” said Marcus. “It’s that there’s no such thing as luck. What’s going to happen is going to happen. You can either put yourself in a position to be there when it does, or you don’t. I’m saying these people put themselves on the train. That woman put herself in the bathroom. The bandits picked this trip. So did we. It all converged.”
Marcus held his hands out in front of him and laced his fingers together, sliding them in and out for effect. He held them there until Dallas spoke.
“Sounds like luck to me.”
Marcus chuckled. “You believe what you want to believe. I’m not trying to convert you, I’m only making conversation, sharing my thoughts on the cosmos.”
The train squealed, the car shimmying on the tracks. Thinking they were done talking, Marcus lay back and closed his eyes.
“That’s saying we have no control over our own fate,” said Dallas. “I thought you were a religious man. I thought you prayed. Why would you pray if you think everything is already determined?”
Marcus opened one eye.
“If you’ve got no choice in anything you do, if it’s all on a map—”
Marcus lifted his finger to his lips. “Shhh,” he said. “You’re doing what you’re not supposed to be doing. That means something that’s not supposed to happen is going to happen.”
“What do you mean?”
Marcus opened his other eye. “I’m going to shoot you and go back to Chatham.”
Dallas opened his mouth to say something but thought better of it.
Marcus shut his eyes and leaned his head against the cold window glass. No sooner had he begun to drift off than the train’s whistle blew and the train lurched.
They were at their first stop. Four more to go before they hit the wall.
CHAPTER 13
APRIL 17, 2054, 11:55 PM
SCOURGE +21 YEARS, 7 MONTHS
EAST OF RISING STAR, TEXAS
Lou couldn’t be sure this was the place. She’d never seen it in person. But she was pretty sure this was it. There were the burned remnants of three large buildings on the property, connected by a semicircle drive. And there was a treehouse in an old oak that, despite the drought, was still alive.
Most of the other trees on the property were dead, as far as Lou could tell. The fence that separated the large piece of land from the highway that ran across its face was in disrepair. Everything was dead or in disrepair along Highway 36 heading east.
She’d stopped at two other places first before dismissing them. This one, though, down to the overwhelming sense of sadness that hung heavy in the air, matched the images she’d seared into her memory from countless detailed stories about her friend’s time here.
She couldn’t see everything. It was midnight. Her flashlight only offered so much definition of her surroundings. She cranked it again, turning the handle counterclockwise, and the LED bulbs brightened.
“Who lived here?” asked David.
“Marcus,” Lou replied.
They were in the treehouse. Although it wasn’t an easy climb for a pregnant woman, it gave them a modicum of shelter. The flashlight served as a nightlight for David.
“Marcus Battle?”
“Yes,” said Lou.
Their horse was tied off at the base of the tree. It was restless. Lou hoped it would calm down and rest. It had been a long ride here.
“Tell me more about him,” said David.
“About who?”
They were flat on their backs, a blanket underneath them and another on top. David was nuzzled up against her. The child couldn’t have gotten closer had he tried.
“Marcus.”
The flashlight dimmed and Lou stared up at the ceiling of the treehouse. Through the slats, gaps in the wood, rot, starlight twinkled high above. She recognized some of the constellations as the same she’d watch move across the night sky in Baird.
There was Ursa Major, the Big Bear. Leo the Lion.
Lou ignored her son’s question and pointed through the widest of the spaces in the roof. Her finger traced the object, like she was painting the sky. “See the lion?” she asked.
Lou hadn’t planned on coming here. It was a last minute decision when she’d left Baird. The easiest path was a straight shot along Interstate 20. She couldn’t risk that. Even covering her bump, a woman traveling alone with a young child was a target.
So she took the long way, less traveled farm-to-market roads, county roads that jogged south and east and sometimes a little of both. It was dusk, the sky on fire with a brilliant sunset to the right when she hit Cottonwood. Old rusting signs told
her she could head south farther than she’d planned and, at Cross Plains, turn east again. That would take her to Rising Star.
Rising Star. She’d only ever heard of the place because of Marcus Battle. He’d spoken about the town both affectionately and with disgust.
“I see the lion,” said David. “I don’t see the bear.”
Lou took his hand with both of hers. She extended his index finger and guided it across the sky.
“I see it!” said David. “I see it there.”
Lou let go of his hand. She turned toward him and kissed his head. The boy’s head stunk. It was a mix of sweat and oil. But she loved it. She loved him.
Lou never considered having kids until she was pregnant with David. The thought of being a mother was terrifying enough. The idea of raising a child in this apocalyptic world made it an even worse prospect.
When David came kicking and screaming into the world, her perspective changed. It wasn’t that she was any less concerned about her son’s future. She was, and perhaps more so. Rather, it was the love that swelled in her chest. It was overwhelming, nearly suffocating.
There were no words, even for a woman as well-read as Lou, that could describe the all-consuming sense of responsibility and wholeness that came from being a parent. It was like someone flipped a switch, turned on the power, and the world exploded in lights and colors never before visible.
She slid her hand up under the layers of fabric covering her belly and spread her fingers on the taut skin that stretched across her midsection. She didn’t know yet what she was having. Boy or girl, it didn’t matter. She already loved this second child.
It was stupid to have another child. Yet she was anxious to give birth, to expand her family with Dallas.
Dallas was a great dad. He was the fun one, the playmate. Lou was the disciplinarian and the teacher. David would learn two things in his life, if nothing else: how to read and how to throw knives.
“Whose fort was this, Momma?”
“What do you mean?”
“Who built it? Who played here?”
“I don’t know,” said Lou.
“Marcus?”
“Yes,” said Lou. “He built it. He told me he built it.”
“Who played here?”
“His children.”
David yawned. “Who were his children?”
Lou clenched her jaw. “I don’t know.”
“How many children did Marcus have?”
Lou exhaled through pursed lips. “I don’t know.”
She knew. First there was Wes. He was Marcus’s biological child, the only one he’d had with his wife, Sylvia. Then there were the children he raised as his own. Sawyer, Lola’s boy, whom Marcus had rescued from the Cartel, and Penny, an orphan he’d essentially adopted at the Red River.
All three children were long dead. The women were too.
Lou didn’t count herself among the children to whom Marcus had given his love, his protection. She was, though. He’d stepped into her father’s long shadow after his death. He’d made her laugh. He’d taught her life was worth living. He’d taught her about sacrifice and faith.
“Can we ask him?”
“Who?”
“Marcus.”
“Sure,” she said. “Now, get some sleep. It’ll be a long day tomorrow.”
“Is he coming here?”
“Marcus? No. We’ll meet up with him. Now go to sleep.”
Lou put her lips to her son’s head and kissed him again. She kept her eyes on the starry sky and listened to David’s breathing. When it slowed, and she knew he was asleep, Lou carefully slid away from him and managed to climb down the ladder to the hard ground.
Breathless, she walked a few steps before cranking the flashlight to life. The light brightened and she held it out in front of her. Lou took a deep breath and swept the light back and forth, illuminating a path across the cracked earth between the treehouse and circular drive.
Once there, she swung the flashlight to the left. The beam was dimming, casting barely enough light for her to see the black pile of debris. She lowered it and cranked it again, took a few steps forward, and got a better look at the mess.
The char was odorless now. It had been more than a decade since Marcus had burned it. He’d told her about that day. It haunted him. His nightmares. His daydreams. It was always there ghosting him, following him, stalking him.
Lou stepped to the edge of the pyre. It seemed to go on forever. She pivoted on her heels and took steps toward the main house, her boots crunching against the ashy dirt. There wasn’t anything but a foundation there now. That and some scattered, unrecognizable infrastructure.
She stepped up onto the concrete and aimed the flashlight past the house to what would have been the backyard. The light dimmed and she cranked again, checking to make sure the noise hadn’t awoken David.
While Lou didn’t want him waking up alone, scared, she also didn’t want him to see where she was going. He’d have too many questions she wouldn’t want to answer.
The beam brightened and Lou high-stepped her way across the expanse of concrete until she reached the rear of the slab. Her grip tightened on the flashlight and she angled it down to the jagged edges of rough plumbing.
In her mind, the black surrounding her dissolved into light and she floated into the air. Beneath her, Marcus stood at the kitchen sink, shoulder to shoulder with Sylvia. She washed while he dried. They bumped hips playfully and he nuzzled her.
Wes was sitting at the kitchen table, eating a plateful of cookies, getting more of them in his lap and on the floor than in his mouth. His cheeks and fingertips were stained with chocolate.
This was a happy place. Until it wasn’t. The light dimmed. The room was dipped in shades of gray.
Now Lou saw Marcus alone. He absently cut vegetables, staring through the window into the backyard. He asked questions aloud and answered them. It was like he was having a conversation with someone who wasn’t there. He plucked a piece of radish from the cutting board and popped it into his mouth like candy, chewing while he cut.
Lou turned again, and the warm glow returned to the room in her mind. Marcus was at the island, standing across from Lola. She was tired, frightened. But there was something in the way she looked at him, the way he looked back, that told Lou there was an undeniable and unspoken connection between the two of them. It was as though Lou sensed they knew they could be each other’s salvation.
Then the images evaporated into the dark, and Lou was standing there alone again at the edge of the slab. A shudder ran through her body and she shivered involuntarily.
She cranked the flashlight again, the beam brightened in front of her, and she aimed it into the yard. In front of her was a tangle of dead vegetation in a raised bed of dirt. Lou remembered what Marcus told her about his property, and stepped off the slab. With the light guiding her, Lou marched to her right toward the back corner of the yard. As she approached the edge of the cleared land, she lowered the beam to scan the ground in front of her feet.
At first she didn’t see them; then, under a thin layer of dirt and debris, she found what it was she sought. Crouching down and resting her butt on her heels, she held the flashlight in one hand while swiping at the dirt with the other. Under her fingers, she traced the rough edges of chiseled stone.
Lou leaned onto her knees, set down the light, and swiped at the dirt with both hands. Hurriedly, as if on the verge of uncovering long-buried treasure, she swept away the dirt from one stone, then two.
When she’d finished minutes later, there were five stones in front of her. Sweating now, Lou backhanded a fine sheen of perspiration from her forehead.
For a moment, she knelt silently, listening for any sounds from the treehouse, but heard none. David was asleep.
Lou eyed the dark. The shadowy outline of the large oak and its treehouse loomed beyond the slab and the driveway. The sky, a lighter shade of black, framed the thick tangle of branches and the angular edges of th
e pine boards that held her son.
She found the flashlight on the ground next to her and picked it up. A few counterclockwise cranks later, she had the beam aimed at the rocks. Each of them was crudely inscribed with a name and a date. Although the carvings were barely legible, Lou already knew what they said, so it was easier for her to decipher.
Sylvia. Wesson. Lola. Sawyer. Penny.
These were their graves. This was the spot where Marcus told Lou he’d buried his loved ones, where he’d spent painful hours digging the holes, filling them, finding the stones, chiseling them, and praying before them.
A thick knot swelled in her throat as she rubbed her hands across the stones. Her memory flitted to her parents’ deaths.
Her mother died first, taken by the Scourge. She and her father had burned her body in a pyre in their backyard in Austin. Years, and miles, later, her father died protecting her.
She’d avenged his death, killing the men who’d taken her dad from her. So much of her life, she thought, was about death.
As she knelt in the dirt, in the dark, she understood how Marcus’s had been that way too. They were decades apart in age. He’d had a life before the Scourge; she really hadn’t. But the two of them were kindred spirits. Both suffered. Both survived. Both exacted punishment. Both lived with the pain, the nightmares, that came from all of it.
Lou’s chin quivered. She clenched her jaw, repressing the urge to cry. She couldn’t, however, stop the tears. They blurred her vision until she closed her eyes, pressing the tears down her cheeks.
No wonder he’d burned this place. No wonder he’d wanted to leave and never come back.
Sobbing such that it was difficult to breathe, Lou understood Marcus better than she ever had. She felt closer to him, yet she had never felt so far away. She held her belly, cradling her unborn child.
Calming herself, swiping the tears from her cheeks and thumbing them from her eyes, Lou caught her breath and exhaled deeply. Then she clasped her hands in front of her.
“Two things,” she said to the assembled tombs. “Just two. That’s all. And I’m not crazy for talking to you. This is more for me than it is for you. I don’t know…maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I’ve lost it. It could be the hormones. I read that hormones are crazy when a woman is pregnant.”
