Family

by Matthew Costello

  She and her kids had weapons, two handguns, and the one rifle they had brought to the hospital.

  They had bullets. Christie had so far not counted them.

  Because she didn’t know what they would do when they were out.

  “Okay, Mom. I’ll be fine. There’s a bookshelf, books. I’ll do some reading.”

  “Get up and stretch if you feel sleepy, Kate, and if you—”

  “Mom, I’ll be fine.”

  Christie nodded.

  “Okay, Simon. Let’s go get some sleep.”

  She grabbed her cane and, using it as leverage to get up, pushed up from the chair with her free hand while holding the metal stick, and then followed Simon as he walked up the blue-carpeted stairs, leaving Kate below.

  CHAPTER 23

  On Kate’s Watch

  Smiling, Kate had watched her mom and Simon walk upstairs to a stranger’s bedrooms.

  Though she would have liked to have walked right along with them. She hadn’t told her mother, but the driving had left her frazzled, achy even.

  And now so tired.

  But her mom needed rest; her leg was getting better, but lying down would be good.

  And Simon…

  She would never say it to him, but she was amazed how for a kid—really, just a kid—he could be so strong.

  Was her brother changed forever?

  Then, Were we all?

  Now it was quiet in this house, this place looking so normal, as if the world hadn’t really changed outside.

  She went to the living room, and stood by the windows. Her mom had been very clear.

  Don’t get too near the windows.

  Take a peek, but stay well back.

  She looked around. Everything neat, orderly. No one had broken into this house after whatever battles had raged in this town.

  Standing there, all alone while her mom, her brother, slept, she hoped that there was nothing out there.

  That the Can Heads were all gone.

  Just the dark, the cold.

  And now so alone, she found it hard to hold on to that idea. That belief that this place was deserted.

  She took a deep breath, and then walked back over to a large easy chair, a recliner she could tell from a wooden lever by the side.

  Sitting down, she felt dwarfed by the chair.

  She pushed down on the lever, and the back of the chair tilted back jerkily while a footrest magically appeared.

  Then the thought, Only minutes into her “watch”… could this chair be too comfortable, planting dangerous thoughts of sleep?

  She quickly undid the recline.

  A leather-like pouch hung on the side of the chair with three remote controls. She picked one up that looked like it might operate the big screen TV over the fireplace.

  She pressed a green button.

  A flickering noise, but the giant screen remained dark. She pressed the “up” arrow, then down to move through channels as the TV screen remained blank.

  Not that she expected anything else.

  She guessed it had been such a long time since the last broadcast of Adult Swim or The Vampire Diaries. And those shows… always repeats, even back home on Staten Island.

  No new shows. Not after the Can Heads.

  And so many nights, the TV dead. No cable. No Wi-Fi.

  As if such things never existed.

  She guessed there might be DVDs around here somewhere—some people probably still watched them—maybe a player near the TV.

  Instead, she got out of the over-padded chair and walked into the kitchen.

  She opened the refrigerator without putting the kitchen light on.

  The insides had been picked clean, and since their arrival this evening, they had only put a half-empty can of peas inside.

  No refrigeration needed for all the other random canned goods that were supposed to keep them fed.

  For how long ?

  That was always the question.

  She shut the door.

  While back at the Mountain Inn—as terrible as it was there, with all those men looking at her and no doubt what they were thinking—at least it had been a place to stay.

  To sleep.

  But then that place had been overrun, Simon nearly captured by people—regular… people, if that’s what they really were—who decided that living like a Can Head was not such a bad idea.

  People had to eat.

  The memories… made her shiver.

  But walking out of the kitchen, she realized that when she thought about their future, her future, what was there?

  The hope of meeting up with people trying to build a life, so far away… Michigan!

  Really? Might as well be Mars.

  Could they really get there? And even if they did, what would they find?

  She shook her head as if that could make these worries fly away. Then again out to the living room, only lit by the yellow light of a table lamp beside the recliner.

  She saw all the books on the bookshelf.

  Never been much of reader.

  She liked her music. She liked watching her shows when they were on.

  Reading… seemed difficult.

  Now—not much choice.

  She walked over to the built-in wooden shelves.

  She didn’t recognize any of the books. The titles—meaningless.

  All seemed old, many with their dust covers frayed, while those without covers had the stern, dark binding of the hymnals from the small Episcopalian church they used to go to on the big holidays.

  Christmas. Easter.

  Just the big holidays.

  God—not much of a thing for them.

  Seemed so long ago.

  She ran her fingers over the spines, looking for a title, something that would make her want to slide one of the books out.

  Then she came across one that—for some reason—she seemed to remember hearing about.

  Had her mother read it? Or her dad?

  Though she didn’t remember seeing him with a book either. Her dad liked to tinker with the car, do things in the garage, and, and…

  She stopped that train of thought.

  She slid the book out.

  Gone With the Wind.

  She nodded.

  Yes, that title certainly seemed right, though she didn’t have a clue what the book was about.

  Gone with the Wind.

  Like everything. All gone, after a terrible wind blew through the world.

  She brought the book with its dark, maroon binding back to the chair.

  Probably going to be completely boring, she thought.

  She opened the book, flicked through the blank pages, the title page, to Chapter One.

  And read:

  Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.

  Hmm, she thought. Interesting way to begin a story…

  *

  Hours later, Kate looked up at the big clock on the fireplace mantel.

  She had become so caught up in Scarlett, her world—and all her suitors!—that she forgot she was supposed to wake up Simon for his watch.

  And since this novel of Tara, and the war, and those amazing dresses and men in uniforms had taken her completely away from this town, this house, her life…

  This ugly, deadly world.

  She made a vow: She’d always have a book with her.

  Because that’s what books can do.

  But with an awareness of the time, she now felt her own fatigue come roaring back.

  She needed to awaken Simon, make sure he was okay.

  Things had been so quiet. She barely was aware of her gun sitting on the coffee table.

  She found a coaster and slid it into the book as a bookmark, closed it, and then started up the stairs.

  CHAPTER 24

  Simon Alone

  Simon had been dreaming.

  He had been back at that castle-like hotel, hiding under the bed, when tho
se men came.

  In real life, he hid; they didn’t find him.

  Now, with it feeling so real, in his dream he watched as their feet moved around the room, their faces unseen, lingering, opening doors talking, grunting.

  He wanted the dream to end.

  Even as it was going on, he knew it wasn’t happening. But that didn’t help. Maybe this… nightmare was real.

  Maybe he never escaped.

  Then, one of the men fell to the floor on his knees to look under the bed, and Simon saw his eyes, bulging, crisscrossed with red lines, the mouth gaping open as he barked out words.

  “He’s here! The boy’s here!”

  The man reached out to touch Simon, to grab him, and—

  Simon felt that hand closing on his shoulder, then a voice.

  “Simon…”

  Kate, his sister.

  Her voice low, the room dark—the man, the room, the nightmare fading.

  “It’s time, Simon. Your turn.”

  For a minute he didn’t have an idea what she was talking about. What did she mean by “turn?” To do… what?

  Then, with Kate’s hand still on his shoulder, he remembered everything, all of it coming in bits and pieces. The town they were in, this house they found, the food, the bear, and—

  It was his turn.

  To get up and stand watch.

  There would have been a time when he would have said that he was too tired, that he didn’t want to get up.

  But he knew that he couldn’t say those words anymore. They were together, a team. Kate, sitting on the bed now, had saved him.

  And his mother needed him.

  He rubbed his eyes, partly thankful that his sister’s waking him up had at least ended that nightmare.

  “Want me to turn on a light?” Kate asked.

  He nodded, then realizing it was too dark for her to see… “Sure.”

  His mom was asleep in another bedroom so they wouldn’t wake her.

  Though he’d have to wake her up in a few hours.

  He sat up in bed.

  “Everything… go okay?” he asked.

  “So quiet,” she said. “It’s a ghost town,” Kate said, smiling.

  But Simon wished that she hadn’t used those words.

  Ghost town.

  He started to sluggishly get out of the warm bed. The house felt cold, the floor on his bare feet icy.

  “You going to be okay?” Kate asked again.

  Simon stood up, picking up his socks from the floor, a sweater he had peeled off. He had slept in his jeans, but even with them on his legs felt cold in this chill.

  “Can I put on some heat?”

  “I have it on low. Not sure how much fuel this place has left. So maybe… just leave it. Can you do that?”

  A nod.

  Then down to grab his sneakers.

  He kept having to push away the idea that the only thing he wanted in all the world was to go back to bed.

  “You wake mom in two and a half hours. It will go fast,” Kate said.

  Simon wasn’t sure about that at all.

  He started for the door out of the bedroom while Kate began to slip into the still-warm bed.

  And as he walked out she said quietly, “You’re a good kid, Simon.”

  He nodded.

  He shut the door behind him as he entered the hallway and the stairs leading down.

  First thing he did was to check his gun. Funny how important that had become to him.

  A gun, bullets.

  Just part of his daily life.

  It had been sitting on the coffee table, next to Kate’s handgun.

  A year ago he would have found this to be something out of a movie, even though—like everyone—he knew what was going on outside their fenced-in community.

  Now… this was totally normal.

  But he didn’t put the gun back; instead, he carried it as he walked around the house now, barrel down like his dad had taught him.

  Like my dad taught me, he thought.

  The safety on.

  He was all set. He thought he should check all the windows in the house first.

  But the rumbling in his stomach sent him out to the kitchen, to the refrigerator.

  He opened the door and said to himself, “More peas! Oh boy…”

  He finished the can. There had only been a few tablespoons in the can, and—now cold—they tasted weird. Not like peas at all, but some slushy mushy stuff.

  But simply eating made him feel better.

  There was also soup, and some other vegetables in the canned goods they’d found.

  I could easily eat more, he thought.

  But then, We have to make the food last.

  And when they got to where they were going, to Michigan—wherever that was—his mom had said there’d be other things, better things.

  Real food, he thought.

  Then he wandered out to the living room.

  Everything so quiet.

  His mom, sister, dead asleep upstairs. Outside, nothing. The only noise was the hum of the refrigerator.

  He guessed he could put a DVD in—he saw them on a shelf, but then he thought, If I’m watching a movie, I won’t hear things.

  And wasn’t that why he was awake, standing guard?

  Listening, alert.

  Still, he had to do something for the next few hours.

  He thought about his old action figures, gathered together in a plastic bag, all from different movies. A few dinosaurs. Luke Skywalker and two robots. An alien with its giant head and teeth.

  An Indiana Jones that his father had said had once been his.

  That was his favorite—just a guy with a rubbery bullwhip, stopping the others… stopping dinosaurs!

  He guessed he could play with them. Hadn’t felt like even looking at them now for a while.

  Gotten too old for them, he thought.

  Too old for toys.

  But now, tonight… it seemed like good idea.

  And he walked over to the hallway where he had dropped his backpack, and he dug out the figures.

  *

  The furniture made for good mountains and cliffs.

  The dinosaurs would chase Indy, and he could lean over the side of a seat cushion and then use his whip to catch invisible branches and ledges to swing down to safety.

  And when Indy swung to the top of the sofa-mountain—to the highest point at the back of the chair, cornered by the hungry alien—the Indy figure could spin around with a crack of the whip, just like Simon saw in the movie, and send the monster flying down to the rocky sea below.

  And it would land on the plush carpet and bounce.

  The fact that no one was around to watch him playing, to watch him being a kid again, made this easier.

  It was—despite how late at night it was—fun.

  And the living room had so many places to climb, to explore, for the action figures to hide.

  Lot of adventures to be had here!

  But eventually, Simon stopped.

  Like something creeping up on him, then suddenly it was there…

  He felt so tired.

  Maybe he could find a DVD for the otherwise useless TV? But instead, he looked at the clock on the wall.

  Only a little more than an hour left before he’d wake his mom.

  Maybe he could just sit in the chair for a while.

  Sitting would feel good. The sofa, once a mountain, now looking so comfortable.

  He gathered his figures together and dumped them at one end. Maybe they’d start a battle or two while he just sat there, rather than him scrambling around the whole room on his knees.

  He plopped down on the couch, pounding one of the pillows so that he could lay back.

  The thought occurred to him that it was too comfortable.

  Then, I really should get up. Not a good idea to lie down like this.

  And that was his last thought…

  Before he heard a noise that woke him up.

  CHA
PTER 25

  Visitors

  The noise hadn’t been loud, just loud enough in the terrible quiet that it made Simon blink awake, heart thumping.

  For a moment, he didn’t know where he was. The living room—where was this place?

  But his life, for all these months, had been all about strange new places.

  Then his eyes went to the coffee table, and the handgun sitting on it.

  Gun right there, just feet away.

  But that noise…

  He sat up, slowly, as though he himself might make a big sound just in sitting up.

  He swung his legs off the cushions—he realized that he had been fully lying down, and had fallen deeply asleep.

  A look to the clock. His mom had another twenty minutes. Still, if that sound was something, maybe he should wake her, go get her up early.

  But what if it was nothing?

  Then again. Cracking sounds, like gravel being walked on.

  Now he felt his heart begin to race even more. And he leaned forward and, taking care to do so quietly, he slid the gun off the table, barrel pointed down.

  A check that the safety was on.

  He was tempted to click the safety off.

  But that was not the rule. Safety on, until it absolutely had to be thrown off.

  The rules were important; the rules let them live.

  Instead, he stood up, his ears cocked. Maybe the sound would go away.

  Could be an animal, he thought. After all, they had seen a bear today. They had actually killed a bear today!

  So wild animals had managed to stay alive around here.

  Bet that’s what it is, he thought.

  But when the sound didn’t come back, he felt his breathing become normal as he stood like a statue in the room.

  Quickly, he thought, It was nothing.

  And to prove it—and to show himself that he was doing a good job at this, even though he had fallen asleep—he walked over to the front windows.

  Pausing a few steps away from the glass that, with no lights outside, looked black.

  Then he leaned close, trying to see into the inky blackness.

  But there was nothing, even as he looked left, then right.

  He saw the outline of their car. Then trees. Farther away, the other houses, all dark.

  Whatever had made the sound, it was gone.

  Sure.