The Second Intelligent Species: The Cyclical Earth

by Dale Langlois

  “I wonder if any cars made it inside parking garages.” I was really getting sick of walking. I’d always said we should walk or get more exercise. Now I would take a ride on anything. I was really getting tired. The constant diarrhea had weakened me.

  “There’s one at the hospital and one at the dome.” She came down to the city a lot more than I did. “I know there’re a couple more on the east side of town.”

  “Which is closer, the hospital or the dome?”

  “I’m not sure. Everything is confusing me. Half of the buildings are gone. Nothing looks the same. We have to find a street sign. I think the hospital is closer if we go this way and cut across lots. We might find a shelter there.”

  I almost said the old, “You’re driving,” thing, but I caught myself this time. “Good idea. How much further do you think it is as the crow flies?”

  As she was doing the calculations in her head, I realized that even the English language was going to change if we continued to exist. Would anyone ever see a crow fly again?

  “It can’t be more than a mile, but we’ll have to climb up an overpass or two. I’m not sure; it’s so hard to tell.” She pointed towards where she thought the hospital was. Every time she would think about an overpass she would raise her hand up, and then down, like her hand had to go up and over an imagined overpass.

  “How much water do you have left?” We’d had a canteen, and a two-quart soup can of water each when we started. We were drinking out of the canteens first. It was just more convenient. The soup cans had a hole in the top plugged with some cloth bunched up tight like a cork in a wine bottle.

  “My can’s still full but I don’t have much left in my canteen,” she said as she opened it and downed the rest. “Correction, my canteen’s empty.”

  I had to take off my half-assed backpack to get my can out. The tape kept sticking to my shirt, but with enough struggling, I got the pack off. I was careful not to tip it over, but when I found the can, the cloth plug had come out. I hadn’t noticed the water running down my back because I was already soaked with sweat, and the water was as warm as we were. “Argh…” I growled. “We need to find a way to get some water now. My can’s almost empty. The plug came out. I didn’t think this would work. C’mon, babe, think. We need to put our heads together and work as a team. We’re all alone in this world.” I never, ever, ever, ever thought that I would use that cliché, and have it be so true.

  “If it starts to rain we can catch it. We can boil water to sterilize it. I even heard a guy tell another guy at work, you can drink your own urine as long as you strain it through your sock. I’m not straining it through your sock though. What about water heaters down in people’s cellars?” That was the end of the fooling around. She was back to business. I was glad, too. She was the brains of our team. As long as she was with me we could lick any problem.

  “A lot of them were crushed when the bulk of the buildings fell. Plus you can’t get at the drains at the bottom. There’s too much debris. Then if you can, it’s melted shut. I checked seven or eight different places before we hit the throughway when I was scouting.”

  “What about radiators in cars?”

  The poor girl, she could tell you what Einstein meant when he formulated the equation E=mc2. She could tell you about the cosmos, evolution, paleontology, medicine, anything science, but I’ll be dammed, she knew nothing about vehicles, balancing a budget, or doing the grocery shopping. When the bills needed paying, even though we had the money, if I didn’t pay them, they didn’t get paid. When we first got married, she had an SUV. She kept driving that rig until one day it just quit. She had actually blown the engine in a vehicle, only because she never checked the oil. I think it’s important to know the arts and music, math and science, history, sports. It’s all important. There’s a thing called good old-fashioned common sense. I was never taught that in school. That was taught to me by my dad and uncles and grandfather. They’re the ones that taught me engines don’t run without oil, your dog will not live without water, righty tighty, lefty loosey, and some things that my grandpa told me not to repeat.

  “Hello, what about radiators in cars?” she yelled at me. She gets irate when I don’t answer her right away.

  “They all have antifreeze in them, babe. Keep thinking.” That’s when I started thinking. Would there be any oil left in the block of a car, after it has burned like these have? If so, we could use it for the torches. It would be hard to check a car, since they were too low to the ground because the tires burned off. Trucks had bigger clearances, and held more oil, but we’d need bigger tools to pull the plug. I needed to find a big adjustable wrench.

  “I need a big piece of flashing and two big pots that can take a good fire. We won’t die of thirst on my shift.” She was still thinking of how to get water.

  I wasn’t all that up on starting a fire unless we had to. Attention is something I like, but only when I’m ready and prepared for it. That was another problem we had to think about. Nearly all the fires were out now. We had to find another way of lighting torches. We couldn’t paw around for hot coals anymore. Butane lighters couldn’t stand the heat very well. We might find a “Zippo,” but there would be no fluid to put in it. We had to think of something, or find something. The cellars were cool enough to look around in, but we’d still have to be careful of nails and such.

  “My stomach feels all tore up. We need to take a break, and I’m beat.” The constant diarrhea was still being followed by nausea and intolerable cramps.

  We both sat down on the ground to rest.

  “Give me some of that cloth.”

  She dug through my backpack, easier than me trying to take it off. She gave me a couple pieces, and I headed off to the side of the street. I found a charred tree trunk to hide behind. Even though Beth and I had been married almost nine years, I still needed privacy sometimes. This was one of those times.

  “Do you still have diarrhea?” She yelled.

  “Will you shut up?” I said as loud as I could whisper, making sure she could hear, but nobody else could. Then I realized that there was no one around for me to be embarrassed in front of. “Yes I do.”

  “You know what you have? Beaver fever, it’s from that water we drank in that culvert. I’ll probably get it too. It’s very contagious. From now on we better drink out of our own canteen. Was any of the meat you ate rare?” Being a nurse she knew what questions to ask, but not when to ask them.

  “Can you please shut up for a couple of minutes, I’m busy here.” I tried to wipe myself, but the friggin’ backpack wouldn’t let my arms down low enough to reach my butt. Again I struggled with the pack. Some of the tape had rolled over so the sticky side was stuck to my skin. I ended up pulling my whole shirt off. “God damn it!” I didn’t care who heard me. I was in the mood to kick anybody’s ass. I was standing half bent over with shit hanging out my ass. Concerned that it might land on my feet, or pants, I was afraid to stand up. To add insult to injury, I had lost my wiping cloth in the darkness. Now I had to stand there with nothing on from my ankles up, trying not to step in my own shit, trying to fish more cloth out of my sticky backpack, just so I could wipe my ass. “Aaaarrrrggggg.” I growled like a bear, I was so fucking mad.

  I finally got myself pulled together and stepped around the tree.

  “You don’t remember eating anything rotten that I didn’t eat, do you?” Nurse Beth asked. “Other than canned food, we both ate the same beef at Mick’s. It did taste tainted, but look at what it’s been through. I don’t think it was too bad to eat. It was definitely well done, more like jerky. I think you’ll be ok as long as you don’t get worse. Yup, I think you have Beaver Fever; it comes from the parasites that are found in the water that we drank when we were in the tunnel.”

  “I heard you the first time.” I wasn’t in the mood for another one of her science lectures. She would always try to start up conversations about science and other things that I didn’t know about, or honestly, care abo
ut. Not to make me feel stupid, but just because she was so interested in the subjects that she had to talk about it to somebody. It was usually a one sided conversation. I got used to them after a while. Sometimes I even listened. Right now I wasn’t in the mood.

  “You know, if we were smart, we would have climbed the tower to look for fires in the distance,” she said.

  “Well you’re the smart one. Let’s go back and you can climb up.” My stomach just wasn’t into it. “If you want to know the truth, I would like to make camp, gather our thoughts, and maybe some food.”

  “Do you think you can make it to the hospital?” she asked.

  “Yes, I suppose that would be our best plan.” I put my backpack back on and we began our trek again. I had to stop speaking because I was getting painful cramps again. I was in too much pain to be angry. Climbing up to the highway near an overpass took all the energy I could muster. I was hoping to see some sign of life once we got up higher on the road, but all we could see was darkness. There were no fires visible.

  After about an hour of walking I couldn’t take any more. “I’ve got to stop again. Damn it. How long will I be sick like this?” I took off my sticky pack, dug out the last bit of cloth we were going to use for torch, and looked for a private place to do my business. “Are you sure that we’re going the right way?”

  There was a long pause. That’s when I knew she wasn’t sure herself.

  “Yes,” she said, followed by another long pause. “Hey, look there. Look over there. There’s a light or something.”

  I twisted to look around the remaining trunk of the tree, my pants down to my ankles. I couldn’t stop what I had started doing, but I could hurry it along. Cleaning up to the best of my ability, I pulled up my pants and quickly looked around the burned skeleton of the tree. I saw nothing. Now I couldn’t see Beth either. “Hey where did you go? Beth…Beth.”

  Chapter 13

  Refugees

  Panic gripped me and I ran to where she had been. “Beth, Beth, where to hell did you go?” I yelled.

  “Quiet, down here. Look over there. I thought I saw a light, but now it’s gone.” She was looking out into the distance, her right hand over her forehead, as if she was shielding her eyes from the sun, all I could see was the silhouette of her body against the dim light that was leaking through the clouds.

  “Why are you doing that? There’s no sun.” I should have been looking myself, but the idea of her shielding her eyes when there was no sunshine, struck me as odd. Then I turned my attentions towards the direction that she was looking. “I don’t see anything.” I opened my eyes wide, looked as hard as I could, hoping to find signs of other people. Maybe this time they would be more cooperative. I caught myself raising my right hand up to my forehead. “I don’t see anything. I think your hallucinating. You probably caught beaver fever from me.” Briefly I thought I saw a flicker of light, similar to when I saw the flash on the first day, but I couldn’t be sure. It wasn’t a fire. There was no glow in the darkness like there was when we saw Mick’s fire.

  We both just stood there looking in the dark.

  “There!” We both pointed and spoke simultaneously. The square shape of a window could be seen for a split second. Then it was gone.

  “Down that way.” I pointed in the darkness. “They’re down by what’s left of those brick buildings we passed.” A second or two went by. “There, there, see it? Somebody’s got a flashlight,” I whispered. “You stay right up here and wait. I’m going to get closer and see what we’re up against. Don’t worry. I won’t let them know I’m there. I’ll be right back.” I kissed her and started to head down the embankment.

  “Be careful and don’t go up to them without me,” she power-whispered.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  As soon as I reached the bottom of the hill, I lost my sense of direction. There was no horizon to follow. Though it was still dark all the time a subtle difference could be detected between earth and sky. None could be seen here. I had to climb back up to Beth and get my bearings.

  “Is that you Nick? What’s wrong?” She could hear me before she could see me. She was surprised to see me back so soon.

  “I just got turned around. Which way were they?” My shame of losing my direction wasn’t as strong as my curiosity.

  “I haven’t seen any light in a while,” she said, still with a whisper.

  I couldn’t go off in the darkness without Beth. I would never find my way back to her.

  We waited up on the highest point of the road, hoping to catch another glimpse of light. Was it possible they passed without our noticing? We saw nothing. We waited silently about a half an hour with no clues to their whereabouts. “How long should we keep looking?” I asked while still looking into the dark, straining to see something, anything.

  “Well, let’s head down to the hospital. Maybe that’s where they’re going,” she said. Beth knew a lot of people down there. She used to work in the city, but the constant waste of life within the gangs, and all the people who lived in the same area as the gangs, drove her to a smaller hospital. She always thought she was a lesser nurse because she couldn’t handle the pressure of the city. I think she just got tired of fighting a losing battle. She told me about some kid she had treated several times before, for either gunshot wounds, or punctures. He came in one day with his throat sliced from ear to ear. She turned in her resignation later that day.

  “Listen,” I whispered. “Can you hear that?” I wasn’t sure, but I thought I could hear footsteps coming our way. It had been so quiet that I thought I was imagining it.

  “Shhhh.” She heard it too.

  That pissed me off. I told her to listen and then she tells me to shush. I’d told her to be quiet first.

  I could hear the footsteps, but I couldn’t see any light. They obviously were coming closer.

  Again I whispered, “C’mon let’s hide over here.” As I looked for a place to hang back and observe who was coming, I was also looking for something to use as a weapon. A pipe or something to use as a club would be fine. I had a knife, a hatchet and a multi-tool, but I needed something to protect her from several people. There was nothing around like a club. I took out the knife and held the hatchet in the other hand.

  We hid in the darkness for what felt like a long time, but in reality was only a few minutes. The closer they got the uneasier I became.

  “Here take this just in case you need it.” I handed the multi-tool to her with the biggest blade out.

  We heard a baby cry. Simultaneously we put our weapons away and scrambled to our feet, we climbed down the hill, looking for light, listening for sound.

  The baby kept crying and it wasn’t long until we had their location pinpointed.

  “Let’s go on up ahead and meet them as they come over the bridge.” I felt like a cowboy ready to cut them off at the pass. Then I remembered Tex.

  We scrambled along the side until we came to the area where we thought they would cross.

  We could still hear the baby crying. I was letting my guard down. Anybody who had a baby would welcome a nurse into his or her party.

  That’s when we saw them turn on their flashlight.

  I could tell that they were no danger to us. There were a couple of women, with four children, No men that I could tell at first glance.

  “Hello, Hello.” Beth didn’t wait for the okay signal. She just walked a hurried pace down to the other survivors.

  She knew what she was doing. I looked over all the people. All I had for light was the flashlight that the head person carried, and that was pointed at Beth. “Hello, I’m a nurse. Can I help with the little ones?” She no longer whispered. Beth wasn’t one to be afraid.

  The leader with the flashlight, still pointing at Beth, said, “Do you have any water, or food? We have several children and we are no threat to anybody.” Both women were carrying a child in each arm. “The children are dehydrated and need help to survive.” Her voice trembled. “We cam
e from the hospital.”

  “Isn’t the hospital a shelter in times of crises? What kind of shape is it in?” Beth asked while assisting by taking one child from the woman.

  “Lady, I don’t know where you’ve been, but this is more than just a crisis. Those motherfuckers finally went and did it. The hospital would have been a good place to be during a blizzard, hurricane, tornado, or just about anything else. This was a doomsday device that a terrorist detonated. The whole city was burned. It had to be a nuclear bomb. This is worse than any natural disaster. Where’s the army or National Guard? Where’s any help at all?” A full head of red hair glowed in the beam of the flashlight when she pointed it in her direction. “I think they’re eating the corpses already. Please help us, please.” The tone of her voice was heightened by anger and frustration.

  “It’s only me and my husband. I’m Beth, and this is my husband Nick. We’re looking for some kind of shelter too. Didn’t they set up something at the hospital?”

  “The hospital’s gone! Everything’s gone! Society’s gone! The human species is gone! We just came from the hospital! The gangs organized and they have taken over the whole city. They’re raping any female age eight to eighty. They’re living there and at the dome—what’s left of them. We’re lucky those bastards let us out with the children. They were tired of all the crying, plus they said the children were eating food that they needed. One guy murdered two of the older people just because they wanted water, and I’m sure they plan to consume their bodies. There are no supplies left anywhere. Please help us. Let’s just get to hell away from here!”

  Trying to take her mind in a different direction I asked, “Where are they getting their water from?” We needed to refill our canteens soon.