by Ryan Schow
“Good story, Mom,” Macy says, her eyes dry but her emotions clearly unwound.
Turning around, I say, “Shut the door!”
She does.
Looking at Stanton I ask, “Are we bad people?”
His gaze won’t leave the old woman’s crippled frame. Tears slide into the bowl of his eyes, then roll over the lid and drip onto his cheeks.
“You’re not. But I…I think that maybe…I think I am. I think that’s just what happened, Sin. I think I just became a bad person.”
11
We’re starting to realize there’s something much larger at play here. “This isn’t a terrorist attack,” Stanton says. “It can’t be.”
The siege is coordinated and substantial. It seems every corner of the city is getting hammered to one degree or another. But there aren’t enough drones to hit us all at once, and there weren’t enough bombs to flatten the entire city in a day. That means we have a chance. It means San Francisco still has a chance.
Or is that the lie we’ll tell ourselves to keep on going?
Honestly, I can’t be sure.
The point is, the more destruction we see, the more our moods sink. The more we are forced to admit that if this concentrated effort to cripple our city isn’t the work of terrorists looking to make a statement, it could be a bunch of machines working on behalf of rogue AI trying to stamp out every last human soul.
Downstairs, the unrelenting croon of a woman sobbing keeps the silence from taking hold. We’re out of the woods, though. For now anyway. The old lady has a bed, clean sheets, two good blankets. She has food, cold water, some medicine.
“About that shower,” I say, and no one protests.
In the bathroom I peel off my clothes, avoid my face in the mirror, then wait until the water is hot enough to step inside the old tub. Pulling the shower curtain closed reminds me of my college days, but there is nothing nostalgic about this place.
Five minutes becomes ten and I find myself sitting down, arms pulled around my knees, sobbing. There’s a knock on the bathroom door I don’t respond to. The door opens then closes. The drapes come back a bit but I don’t look up.
“Are you okay?” Stanton asks.
I give a subtle nod. I don’t hear the curtain close, but when the door opens then closes, I go back to crying.
Twenty minutes later I’m blow drying my hair, looking at myself in the small mirror but not really looking much. My eyes look tired. I feel depleted.
When I walk into the living room, which is now all hardwood floors, an old couch, the coffee table and a flat panel TV, Macy says, “Did you save any hot water?”
“I think. Where’s your father?”
“He rolled the old lady up in the carpet, then said he was going to…I don’t know, do something with her.”
“Like chuck her in a nearby dumpster?” I hear myself saying.
Me and Macy look at each other, neither of us blinking. “I don’t think he wanted to kill those boys,” Macy says. “I think it’s starting to bother him.”
“It would concern me if it didn’t bother him. Especially the old lady.”
“Yeah,” she says, reflecting.
“Did he find a shovel or something?” I ask, breaking her moment.
“He didn’t look.”
“Go take a shower, sweetie,” I say, going to her, hugging her. She holds me and I pull her close, kissing her forehead. “I’m going to find your father.”
“Make sure you come back,” she says.
“I will.”
“Both of you,” she says.
“For sure.”
I’m tip-toeing down the stairs getting ready to head outside and find Stanton when the door to the outside world opens. My feet stop, my breath refuses to come. Then I see him. My Stanton. Relief pours out of me, but I’m terrible at showing it. I just don’t have the energy.
“Do you need help?”
He looks exhausted, physically for sure, but mentally, too. Anyone can see the toll it’s taking on him.
“She’s rolled up in the carpet, just outside. I can’t do this today. I need to get a shower and some sleep. I need something to eat.”
“Let’s go inside. Macy’s showering, so maybe you can wash your face and hands, get something to eat, then rest. There will be plenty of hot water for a shower when you wake up.”
“When I wake up, I need to find something to bury her with. And someplace. She shouldn’t just be left on the sidewalk like some half-baked mob hit.
My mind goes to the little girl, the woman, the sitting dead man. That familiar ache deep in my breast for the toll this war is taking.
“I’ll help you.”
“This isn’t on you,” he says.
Taking his face into my hands, looking at him eye to eye, I say, “We are husband and wife, a family. We are in this together, which means we share the responsibilities as well as the burdens. This isn’t on you or me or Macy. We didn’t do this. We aren’t these kinds of people, but we’re going to have to be for a little while if we want to survive.”
“What if this is the end of civilized life, Sin? What if this these are the people we’ll have to become to make it through this? I don’t think I can do it. I can’t be this way.”
“Survivors survive by any means necessary, Stanton. We’re not bad people. You’re not a bad person. It was her time.”
“I barely even hesitated, Sin. With those kids.”
“And it’s a good thing you didn’t, because the more I think about the looks in their eyes, the more I think you were right to act so quickly and decisively. And they weren’t kids, they were thugs. Armed bullies who threatened us. You. I shouldn’t have doubted you, or questioned you. You were right to do that.”
“I’m just not sure I can live with it,” he says and there’s a heaviness in his eyes I’ve never seen before.
I lean forward and kiss his cheek, then: “Well you’re going to have to.”
The night is fairly uneventful, except for the downstairs neighbor’s on and off crying. Macy showers, Stanton lays down and rests his body but not his eyes. There’s too much going on inside his head for him to doze off. I don’t blame him. After an hour, he gets up and takes a shower, using up all the hot water, not that we mind.
“Is he going to be alright?” Macy asks.
“Are any of us?”
“Where am I going to sleep?” Macy asks.
“The couch,” I say.
“I don’t want to be out here alone,” she replies, confiding in me. “What if someone tries to get in here? What if one of those things bombs us and you’re hit but I’m not? Or me? What would you do if the bomb hit me and not you and dad?”
“We’ll pull the bed out here, honey.”
She nods her head, like she’s grateful. And she is. Truth be told, I was thinking the same thing anyway. Macy just beat me to the punch in saying it.
By the time Stanton comes out of the bathroom, he’s looking measurably better. Without saying a word, he goes into the old lady’s bedroom and starts taking the bedsheets and blankets off the bed.
“What are you doing?” I ask from the doorway.
“I don’t want to be in here while she’s out there. I was thinking she could sleep with us, but this is a full and this bedroom is too small. I can take the couch and you two can have the bed. At least all of us can be together. If that’s okay with you.”
I’m now wondering if he’s not so lost after all. Nodding in agreement, I say, “Yeah, it’s okay with me. But Macy can take the couch. You need the bed and I need you next to me.”
We’re all ready for the night by the time the sun is setting.
“When the last light of day finally burns out,” Stanton says, “we need to keep the lights off. We don’t want anyone knowing we’re here.”
Before the sun dips below the horizon taking the day with it, I grab a piece of mail off the counter and text my brother, Rex, the address. I tell him to come if he can, that I lo
ve him. There’s not much juice left in the phone and the screen has all but shattered from the recent events. I’m not sure if Rex will even get the message, but I pray he does because if this onslaught persists, it’s better to have the people you love around you. No one will ever protect you as fiercely as your family, and vice versa.
The sun finally slides behind the city and just as everyone’s starting to drift off, my phone beeps. I get out of bed, hide the light from the window and try to read through all the splits and cracks on the screen. The breath I’ve been holding finally rushes out of me.
“Did you just get a text?” Macy asks. I didn’t know she was still awake.
“It’s your uncle Rex.”
I can feel her smiling in the dark. “What did he say?” she asks, her joy in knowing he’s okay evident in her tone.
“He’s coming here tomorrow morning.”
What it really says is, O THANK GOD UR ALIVE! BEEN WORRIED SICK. TRYING 2 FIND WAY OUT OF SF. FILL U IN 2MORROW.
The next morning Stanton and I get up (to the distant sounds of bombing), get dressed and head outside to deal with the bodies. Specifically the old lady. When we go outside, though, we find that the dead guy sitting up against the garage door is gone. Only the rolled up old lady, the woman and the little girl remain.
We’re both looking at the little girl. I’m thinking about waving off the flies, but that won’t keep them away. They’re buzzing around the woman and the old lady, too.
“I don’t think I can take her,” I admit.
“I’ll do it,” Stanton says.
“I wish you didn’t have to.”
“Someone has to or she’s going to sit there and rot. Or get eaten by coyotes when they figure out they can have their choice of corpses now that people are being exterminated and civility is a formality of the past.”
“Don’t call her that. A corpse.”
“Yeah, but…she’s starting to stink,” Stanton says. He’s not wrong. Then: “Sorry, Sin. You’re right. I shouldn’t be so blunt. It’s just…all this, what’s happening to us, San Francisco, it’s starting to feel like—”
“Where’d the guy go?” I ask.
Stanton turns and looks at the dried-blood smears leading up to a vacancy in front of a garage door that’s also smeared with the same rust-colored stains.
“He didn’t just get up and walk away,” Stanton says. I level him with a frown. “Sorry. I’m just trying to not be so bothered right now.”
“Well good luck with that.”
We scout out a place to stow the bodies. We settle on a row of bushes on the grassy hillside under the shade of twin trees at the foot of The Exorcist stairs that are formally called Arbol Ln for some reason or another. It’s not a lane, it’s an escape route. A serial killer’s shortcut. The perfect movie prop for demons and priests.
Using the better part of an hour, we dispose of the old lady and the two perverts Stanton shot yesterday. Stanton drags the little girl and the old lady down, too. He stops three times to gag and once to puke. They really do smell awful.
“If we kill anyone else,” Stanton says, “we’re going to have to find another place to stash the bodies because these bushes are full.”
“This whole hillside is going to reek inside of a day or two.”
“Blowflies and maggots will find them, and eventually we’ll have to burn them,” he replies. “Or not. Who knows what’s going to happen in the next few days? So far, though, it’s not looking promising considering the blue skies are now brown and full of ash.”
“Will you try not to sound so morose?”
“If we’re lucky,” Stanton says, not even listening, “the coyotes will drag one or more of them off and save us the trouble of a human bonfire.”
“If I never think about what you just said for the rest of my life,” I tell him, “it’ll still be too soon.”
As we’re climbing back up the stairs, we hear the rumble of an engine. Motorcycle, not car, truck or drone. By the time we get up top, I see the sport bike and its driver parked in the driveway of the house we confiscated last night.
The rider pulls off his helmet, stretches.
“Is that Rex?” Stanton asks, looking at me. I smile and he looks excited. “How come you didn’t tell me?”
“You needed a good surprise after all the bad ones.”
Rex and Stanton are tight, even though Rex is twenty-three and ex-military and Stanton is thirty-five and a soft money man. Well he was soft. Not now.
Not anymore.
“Hey!” I shout as Rex is getting off his bike.
He sees me, smiles, and we run to each other, into a ferocious hug that lasts forever. I can’t keep him to myself though. Macy is outside now and Stanton is waiting.
The thing about Rex is he’s competent, full of exciting stories and usually the life of the party when there’s a party to be had. It doesn’t hurt that he’s super good looking either.
“Whatcha guys doing?” he finally says, looking at me and Stanton.
“Gardening,” Stanton replies.
As I’m looking at my hubby, I’m realizing I like him with a bit of scruff on his face and his hair a mess. It’s totally the opposite of what he usually looks like. And Rex? His dark hair is short on the side with a little length on top, he has the same scruff as Stanton (although he’s a few days ahead in growth), and he looks like he’s been working out. Plus, he’s clearly packing. There’s a sawed off shotgun on the bike, a pistol holstered on his side and a military issue knife strapped to his boot.
“You have any trouble getting here?” I ask.
“Yeah. Plus I’m out of ammo.”
Looking at the pistol on his hip, Macy says, “That thing take nine millimeter rounds?”
He looks at her and grins, like he can’t believe it. “When did you get so grown up?” he asks, looking at her then at me. We haven’t seen him for nearly a year now.
“About fifteen minutes ago. We’ve got a box of fifty rounds if you want some.”
That’s when we hear the shotgun blast and duck. It came from inside the formless three story home we’re staying in.
“What the—?” Rex says.
Stanton and Rex head inside, pushing open the ugly, white, shot-to-crap door. Rex knocks on the first floor door, UNIT A. There’s no answer.
“Hello!” Stanton says. “You okay in there?” Looking at Rex he says, “She’s been crying all night.”
Rex shrugs his shoulders.
“We’re going to come in if you don’t let us know you’re okay!” Stanton says.
Nothing.
Rearing back, he gives the door a hearty kick and it caves around the lock. One more kick and he’s in. Stanton turns around right away, a look on his face. My brother walks right inside.
“Depressed much?” Rex says as he’s looking at the body.
There’s what used to be a girl sitting on the couch, her body flopped backwards against the couch. Half her head is missing, the other half is on the walls at a meaty, forty-five degree rake. Macy tried to come in, but Stanton told me to keep her out.
“Go upstairs,” I say.
“I’m not a kid anymore, Mom.”
I turn and level her with my eyes. “You don’t need to see this. Now go upstairs and get your uncle some water.”
Reluctantly she heads upstairs, one heavy, stomping foot at a time.
Inside, the girl is on the couch. Blood-soaked grey matter is drizzling down the wall, which I find disgusting, even as a nurse. On the floor, laid out before her, is the guy who was outside. The dead guy against the garage door.
“Looks like we found his next of kin,” Stanton says.
“Mystery solved,” I hear myself say.
“We’ve got ourselves a modern day tale of Romeo and Juliet,” Rex says.
Stanton fires him a look.
Rex once told me he’d counted up all his kills. He started to cry when he told me they numbered in the fifties, and every single one of them hau
nted him. The fact that he’s funny and upbeat all the time while holding on to this type of guilt makes me worry about his state of mind. I think it’s an act. The upbeat, life-of-the-party part. I suspect it’s a way for him to conceal the true pain eating him from the inside out.
Lots of ex-military can’t take it anymore so they eat a bullet and call it a life. I pray every night my little brother won’t end up the same way.
Rex starts nosing around the home.
“Guys, I’m not sure if you know this,” he says, “but these people were prepared.”
He’s rifling through cupboards, checking the fridge and the pantry. He steps out into the garage and comes back grinning.
“We’ve got storable food, weapons, ammo and supplies, along with water filters and a bunch of camping equipment.”
“Why would they need all that?” Stanton asks. “This is the city. We don’t have preppers here.”
“Really?” he asks.
On the fridge is an Infowars.com sticker. In the pill pantry are bottles of Infowars products. There’s Brain Force Plus, Anthroplex, and X2 Survival Shield.
“That explains it,” Rex says, pointing to the black bumper sticker on the fridge.
“Infowars?”
“Yeah. It’s a radio program on the internet. The guy who runs it, he’s either brilliant or a total nut job, but either way, he’s always talking about being healthy and prepared for things like the police state and marital law. Looks like they listened, and thank God because what they have, it’s not going to go a long way between the four of us, but it’ll certainly soften the blow.”
“They were prepared for everything but the loss of each other,” I say with a heavy heart. I don’t know what I’d do without Macy or Stanton. Probably the same thing she did. My eyes clearing, I ask, “What should we do with it all?”
“Where are you staying?” Rex asks. I point upstairs and he says, “Let’s get it all upstairs then. Sort through it, start making plans for riding this thing out.”
“Are you staying with us?” I ask.
“Depends on the neighborhood,” he says. “What’s it like? I mean, aside from all this.”
