The Second Intelligent Species: The Cyclical Earth

by Dale Langlois

  Nobody would have opened those doors during the chaos of that day. People were doing everything not to catch on fire. Nobody wanted to loot tutti-frutti ice cream.

  I hurried back with the few charred boards I’d found. No longer looking for wood, but anxious to find other survivors and tell Beth the news, I tossed the three planks, and began to run back to the culvert.

  I approached the opening to the emergency shelter with the same caution I had used when I left, even though my adrenaline was much higher coming in than it had been going out. Carefully taking one step at a time, I heard yelling over the din of the rushing water from the other culvert. I continued my cautious rate of navigation, picking each rock I would step on and how I would plan my step to the next. My heart said run, my instinct said slow down, survive.

  Looking up over the fire I saw that Beth and Maria were arguing with Sarah. All three were crying and yelling at the same time.

  I stepped around the fire, and over the kids warming themselves, down to the women. “Stop it,” I barked. “This isn’t going to change anything. Adam is gone. We’re still alive, and I’m going to keep it that way.” I didn’t raise my voice often, but when I did, it caught people’s attention.

  All three went silent.

  “Listen, I think there are some more survivors. I found signs of activity after the fire. There was a truck that somebody had opened the doors on. We all need to go out and look for wood and signs of people. Sarah, are you able to walk and help us?”

  She struggled to get up. “Yes I can still walk…I think.”

  “Even if we don’t find anybody we can stay undercover here until the snow lets up, but we’ll need more wood. No more arguing. We need to work as a team. What’s done is done. Let’s go.” I wasn’t waiting for a response. “Marcos you stay here and watch the little ones. Get dried out and try to get them to sleep. We’ll be back before the wood runs out.” It would be futile to tell him an hour or two.

  “Where’s Adam?” Marcos asked. He was old enough to know the truth, but I didn’t want to take the time to deal with that now.

  “Listen to me.” I looked him right in the eye and said, “Adam was hurt very bad. He died and is in the back of the tunnel. I don’t want any of you going back there. Do you understand? I’ll talk to you about it when we get back. Now I expect you to be in charge here. I know I can count on you, right?”

  “Yes.” He had a solemn look on his face while he held Tara and Eve, both staring into the fire. Megan was asleep. The pill had taken effect.

  The four of us left the entrance in single file. The tension was thicker than the snow, but I knew it would quit snowing.

  Chapter 27

  New Hope Leads to

  Tragedy.

  We split up and fanned out to cover more area. Beth and Sarah needed to talk to each other. Constant communication was the only way to insure we wouldn’t get separated.

  The open doors of the truck were the only sign there were any survivors. No tracks in the snow or signs of fires could be found.

  Snow covered the ground, obscuring any wood. Small pieces were scattered. There was little under the steel roofing, like there was in other towns. The trees that were left were just stumps lacking any limbs within reach.

  The snow was still falling heavily. Our tracks had all but filled in and were difficult to recognize. Dragging a piece of metal roofing, piled with wet wood, we made it back to the culvert.

  It took us longer than I’d expected. Looking down at the culvert, no glow from the fire could be seen. It had either gone out because Marcos ran out of wood, or because it was too wet.

  Forming a type of bucket brigade, we carefully moved the fuel from our sleigh to the culvert.

  A few coals glowed in the smoldering fire. Water bubbled out of each piece. Steam rose above the charred wood to the round ceiling and then out into the night.

  Night, I’m so tired of that word. I laughed to myself while watching the steam mix with the snowflakes falling almost out of nowhere.

  With the dim light of the fire at my back, I looked out to where a city once stood. I stepped to the edge of the culvert away from the steam, smoke, and snow into an ultimate blackness. I imagined this was what it was like to be blind. I could hear the rushing water. A vision of city lights popped into my mind’s eye. I could almost imagine car lights traveling along the interstate, forming a never ending snake of white and red lights. Then I realized this view would never be seen again, except in visions.

  I turned my attention back to the fire. It took a long time to get to the point that a person could warm himself. I spent most of my time drying out the wood, clothes, shoes, and manning the fire.

  The others were huddled together under some beaver pelts. We only had four, so not everyone had something to cover up with. To make matters worse, they were stiff, not pliable, and didn’t have much of an R-value.

  We gathered enough wood this time to warm the whole tunnel.

  Beth and Sarah hadn’t talked since we returned, until now.

  “Let Megan under the fur!” Beth yelled in a tone that I hadn’t heard since I learned not to do the things that made her yell that way. “I don’t care if you freeze to death. We’ll drag you back there with Adam. And where’s the rest of the pills? You better not have given her more!”

  “Fuck you, you fat bitch. I didn’t have any…”

  “Hey, enough!” I attacked Sarah, even though Beth was just as out of line.

  Both screamed obscenities at each other while I thought about what Sarah had said. “Fat bitch.” Beth was not fat anymore; none of us were.

  Beth started getting up, and then so did Sarah. The beaver pelts flew like Frisbees as the women jumped to their feet. Both were holding children. Both were fuming. As rage burned in each of their hearts, the discipline of their art again showed itself. Each of them laid down the child they were holding with the utmost care.

  This break in the tension gave me enough time to intervene. I stepped between the two hotheads in time to stop Sarah from getting her ass kicked. Beth is a better friend than an enemy.

  Sarah could hardly walk let alone take on Beth. “Nick, get to fuck out of my way! You’re always taking her side on everything. This is between her and me.”

  “Everybody sit down and calm down,” I said. “We need to work as a team now more than ever. This fighting isn’t going to bring Adam back.”

  There wasn’t enough room for either to pass. After a few more verbal insults, they both sat down in their original positions.

  The adults hadn’t slept for an extended period. Caring for the children, gathering wood, and the stress of the day took its toll. Beth, Tara, Maria, Eve, and Marcos were all huddled together under two pelts. Sarah and Megan were on the other side, curled up under the two smallest of the furs.

  I was the keeper of the fire until Beth or Marcos woke up, then I might be relieved for a couple of hours. Until then I would have to take cat naps between stoking the fire.

  Even with the constant roar of the lower culvert’s cascade, I found my brief naps evolving into lengthy periods of deep sleep. I would wake to see the fire nearly out. After putting more wood on the fire and moving wood around the fire to dry, I would doze off again.

  My dreams were different than the dreams I had before the days of darkness began. Now I dreamt of torchlight days and endless nights. Sometimes I would dream of those two girls and their dad. Not often enough about the grandbabies, but when I did it was too often, because it reminded me that we’d never see them again. Those dreams were my new nightmares.

  Over the roar of the water, the screams of both Sarah and Beth woke me from a dream so deep that I felt I was there, but for the life of me I can’t remember what I was dreaming about. It took me a second or two to gain my full senses.

  “Where’s Megan? Where’s Megan?” Sarah was running around the fire, which was nearly out again, stopping short of the end of the culvert, nearly falling.

  “You
were supposed to be watching her. You should never have been allowed to be with children. If she’s hurt in any way I’ll kill you myself!” Beth was furious.

  “Beth shut up! How to hell did you lose a baby with a broken leg in a tunnel?” I too was questioning Sarah’s lack of responsibility.

  The women looked around frantically at the entrance and around the rocks, while I went back to where Adam was buried. The piece of burning wood I brought with me was useless as a source of light. I had to dig out the last flashlight.

  I walked the length of the narrow passageway to the final resting place of Adam. The instant I approached the pile of loosely mounded dirt, I noticed that it had been disturbed. Snow had found its way into the back of the culvert, but it hadn’t just fallen there, it had been brought in and ground into the dirt. I suspected that Megan might have crawled out the widened opening. Upon further investigation I found Adam’s body was missing. I began to panic. Could some animal have come in and dragged his little body off? Was that the same fate that fell on Megan?

  The opening was too small for me to squeeze through, though a smaller person might be able to. I would have to go around from the other side where the girls were looking.

  Beth yelled over the noise of the water, “Did you find her? There’s no sign of her down here, there are no tracks at all.”

  “Where’s Sarah?”

  “She’s looking downstream,” she said as she kept looking amongst the rocks.

  “You gather up everyone and get the little ones ready to travel. I’ll be back soon,” I said as I climbed up to where she could hear me. I looked back to make sure she understood what I had said. “Get everyone ready to travel!”

  The snow was slippery and I had trouble getting footing. Eventually I reached level ground.

  Reaching the other side, it was easy to see tracks coming from the opening near where the water had been diverted. They weren’t the tracks I was expecting to see. These tracks were made by humans.

  I followed the tracks for a short distance until I came to a large area covered with blood, more blood than I have ever witnessed from any deer that I had harvested. It could have only come from Megan.

  I grew nauseous at the thought that other humans could have done this to a child. From the amount of blood that was on the ground, I was sure that there was no use looking for the two children. I hurried back to the entrance and prepared to tell the others of the children’s fate.

  Before I could speak, Sarah yelled out, “Did you find her? I looked all along the river.”

  “Marcos,” I said, “you stay here and watch Tara and Eve. Maria, Sarah, and Beth, come with me.”

  The four of us went to the far end of the tunnel. I pointed out the hole that the two kids were taken out from, and explained what I had seen.

  “We’ve got to try and rescue her.” Sarah tried to push her way by me.

  I described the amount of blood that I had found, and told her I thought looking for her would be futile if not dangerous for the rest of us.

  “We can’t just leave her,” she pleaded

  “These are desperate people, willing to do anything to survive. We need to leave this place if the rest of us are going to survive. We’re going to stick to the country where there are less people and less competition for food. This place has been picked over, and the survivors are resorting to cannibalism. We need to leave while they’re still feeding, and then our tracks will have time to fill in.” I looked at Beth and said, “Get the others ready to go now!”

  We were out of food, and I didn’t have any idea where we were going to get our next meal. We would have to travel in the dark. I knew that whoever snuck in while we were sleeping would be back looking for another easy snack.

  Our party left the temporary shelter without another one in mind. We ventured off into the blizzard, blind to our future.

  Chapter 28

  Confrontation

  Days turned into weeks, and weeks melded into months. The weather continued to be colder and fires were needed all the time. Snow was unheard of this far south, but we struggled through it. The kids loved it because they got to ride on a steel roofing toboggan, and throw snowballs at the rest of us. I was usually Marcos’ prime target. The snow had advantages that accompanied the cold. It was a fresh source of water. When banked along the sides of shelters, it held out the wind. Its presence made tracking and scouting easier.

  Gathering wood for the fire became the most important job next to trapping meat. This task belonged to Marcos and me. The best picking was at the water’s edge. The wood was surrounded by water during the initial firestorm, and was spared the heat of any tinder lying under it. The only problem was that we had to go out into the water to get it. This was the same place the beavers were cutting down the remaining trees for their food.

  One day while gathering wood I waded out knee deep to retrieve a large limb. I was being careful not to step into a hole and become submersed. We were too far away from the fire, and it was too cold to be soaking wet. I was paying more attention to where I was stepping, than I was about my surroundings.

  “Hey, Nick, look. Here comes somebody,” Marcos whispered.

  I quickly looked up and saw a light flash on and off, and it was coming our way. Immediately I thrust the torch down into the water to extinguish the flame and told Marcos to hide behind a tree stump.

  The light came back on and headed our way. My torch must have alerted them to us.

  The hatchet that I kept for cutting wood was our only weapon.

  “Marcos, go hide that way and don’t go back to the others until you know it’s safe. Make sure they don’t follow you. Stay close enough to see if it’s okay.” I kept as quiet as I could, but I needed to make sure that he didn’t inadvertently lead these strangers to the others should they be the type that took Adam and Megan. “Just like you did with Mick and the others.”

  He scurried off into the darkness, while I waited to see if these strangers were a threat. I could tell that there were only two, both men.

  I was torn between hiding, and confronting them. They had about a couple of hundred yards to go before they reached me.

  “Hello, hello! Is anybody there?” shouted one of the men as they approached.

  I kept quiet and held my position.

  “Show yourself. We saw your light,” said the other one.

  I hadn’t been successful taking on two adversaries before. Now I was even weaker, but I didn’t have diarrhea anymore. I didn’t feel threatened from these two.

  As they drew closer, I could tell that the light was coming from the top of a helmet, worn by one of the two.

  “Hello,” I said as I stepped out into the beam of his headlamp.

  “Freeze!” the other one said, as he pointed a shotgun at me.

  I hadn’t noticed the gun upon their approach. The beam of his light temporarily blinded me.

  “Hey, hey! You don’t need to do that, I’m not going to hurt you,” I said, hiding the hatchet behind my back.

  Calculating my odds, I confessed, “I’ve got a small ax, but I’m not going to use it as a weapon, I just use it to cut wood.” I was nearly up to them, but I wasn’t ready to drop it.

  “Is there anybody else with you?” One of them asked.

  “No. I’m all there is left. Everyone else is dead.” I wanted to protect the others just in case these guys were a threat. “I would appreciate it if you would put the gun down. I’m not going to attack you.” I figured that I could talk to them now. For one thing, talking is all I have facing a shotgun, and second, if they hadn’t shot me by then they weren’t going to.

  “Where are you from?” asked the one holding me at gunpoint.

  “New York State,” I responded.

  “Where in New York?” he asked as he slowly lowered the weapon.

  Until he put down the gun, I wasn’t fully cooperating. “It doesn’t even exist anymore, it doesn’t matter, and I’m trying to forget it. You?”

&nbs
p; “We’re from Kentucky. You sure have walked a long distance all alone,” said the one with the headlamp.

  “Got to keep moving to find enough food. Decided to head south to get away from the cold,” I said. I was having a difficult time concentrating on their questions due to the fact that I could hear Marcos behind me. I was sure that they had heard him too. There were no leaves to rustle around in, but he had stepped on a stone wall and two rocks had clacked together.

  “Is somebody there?” Up came the gun again. “You told me you were alone.”

  “Put down the gun, he’s just a kid.” I yelled, “Marcos, come over here and stand by me.”

  Marcos appeared from the once lush forest, now just a sporadic few stumps of only the biggest trees, charred and void of branches, not much to hide behind. He walked up to me and grabbed my hand in reassurance, much like my grandchildren once did.

  I was no longer the threat that they thought I was at the beginning. I had been traveling with a child, and hadn’t eaten him. I couldn’t be too menacing. The gun was once again lowered.

  “This is Marcos. We’re gathering wood to keep the rest of our party warm.” I wasn’t sure that I could trust them, but then on the other hand, it would be nice to have more help gathering wood and food.

  “How many more are in your group?” asked the one with the light, as he shined it directly in my face.

  I wasn’t entirely ready to tell them that we had women in the group; I needed to feel them out a little more.

  “Help Marcos and me get a bunch of wood and I’ll introduce you to all of them. My name’s Nick, again this is Marcos.” I reached out my hand to shake theirs.

  The one with the light held out his hand. “My name’s Pete, and this is George.” The big guy turned to his buddy, “I mean Jorge.”