The Snow (A Post-Apocalyptic Story)

by Joseph Turkot

  I ran Tanner, he says. He smiles at me. I see that his teeth are still white, just like the snow and his pale face. His eyes shine darkly and I imagine him running hysterically through the snow. Battling the wind and the spray that shoots like dagger pellets, plunging and rising from the quicksand stretch that rides all the way toward the distant building.

  I saw the tower here, and that was it. I knew I had to run. And I ran, as hard as I could. All night. And then I got here in the morning. Ernest laughs and says there’s no running in that snow, and tells Russell that we thought we made good time. He admits we had to sleep a night in the tent.

  I got here and found a hole in one of the apartment walls, Russell says. I think of the apartment where Dusty and I gathered the bricks, and know in my heart that’s the same one Russell must have found too. Once I got in, Russell says, I got the stove going and fell asleep. Dead, just about. I think I slept a day. When I woke up, I started to look around. That’s when I saw them, all four of them. The snow walkers? I interrupt. Russell figures out the nickname I have for them and nods. With the old man. The one we can’t account for, he says. You took out three? And I got her. But none of the ones I saw were the girl, he continues, confirming there is one still out there. After I saw them, with their guns, I stayed away. I knew this wasn’t Leadville.

  When he says that this isn’t Leadville, I look at him funny and ask what he means. He tells me that Leadville is different. Nobody walks around with guns drawn there. Then he tells me about the flyers, and I tell him I’ve already seen them too, but how can he know this isn’t Leadville? I think his vision must be clouded by the disappointment, and it’s not letting him see that this has to be Leadville. Ernest remains silent about it, close to the stove, watching Russell. If it’s called Leadville here, then it’s not the place we’ve always heard about, Russell finally says. Call it what you want, but the place we’ve been going to—this ain’t it. Ernest chimes in and says that this isn’t like the Rainless Land he’s heard about either.

  But it’s not raining here, I argue. Russell looks off to the pure darkness of the window that conceals the night. It’s raining alright. Call it snow if you want. It’s just cold rain, he says. I get the urge to stop his story and ask if he saw the maps—tell him about the ice crawl markers that devour the southern part of the country. But on his own he continues telling what happened, after he woke up that morning, after he saw the four snow walkers.

  I watched them for a little bit, and then I noticed the smell, he says. He tells us how he traced it to a closet staircase that led down to a basement. No food, but there was a tank of fuel. And some containers for carrying it. Once I had that, and I didn’t know what the hell else to do, I headed here, this building, he says.

  How’d you get around them? I ask. Night, he says. And then I found the dog food. And I would have come back to you. Russell looks at Ernest. I would have went back to get Clemmy. See if you’d come and picked him up. But my leg.

  In my mind I see the red rubber, exposed flesh that will never heal. I think of the constant infection he used to battle, and how now it’s back worse than ever, because I’ve never seen him walking as slow as he is now. But you said you ran through the snow, I say. How did the infection come back so fast? I ask, thinking that it must have hit him while he slept in the apartment. Or maybe the radiation’s gotten into it. Latched on to the weak part of the muscle and started to eat away, piece by piece. Then, out of nowhere, Russell laughs. He can’t control it and he looks at both of us, unable to tell us what it is. Ernest smiles, and finally, gets up and walks to the window. It’s almost too high even for him. He looks out and comes back, like he’s satisfied that there’s no one out there, but I don’t think he saw anything but darkness.

  Russell finally calms down and tells us that he sprained his ankle. Instantly my heart calms because it’s not the infection. He tells us that the only reason we’re all sitting here is because he sprained his god-damned ankle. He says that he did it on the steps when he first got to this building. One stupid step. And that if he hadn’t, he’d have gone back to the ocean and waited for us. And since that’s the way we came in, none of us would have ended up here in Nuke Town. My mind can’t think that it’s true, because he would have been out there alone by the water. The weather would have sucked him right out into the sea. But I don’t argue with him. If I accept what he says, then Dusty died because of him. And I know that’s not true.

  So you all show up and I hear everything from the basement here, Russell says. He looks at Ernest. Heard it all from you. I was right below you just about. And if you hadn’t got things going here, says Russell, looking at me now, I was going to have to do it myself. He smiles. But you brought the guns, he says. You got rid of the bad guys. He smiles. I smile too, but the red-haired girl’s voice talks in my head. She’s telling me again about how she went after the face eaters, so that I’ll never be sure they really were the bad guys. But I don’t care enough to let her keep talking. I push her away. We’re together here. Now. Russell looks to Ernest and asks him to fill in what’s missing on our side.

  Ernest tells him we waited until we couldn’t wait any more. And then we came in, through that same storm he did, landed, and saw the broken up boat on the shore. And we all marched in, he says. Heading in to find you. He tells about Clemmy, but just enough that he leaves out the clothes frozen in the snow. And then he tells about his own mistake.

  I thought this was the place, he admits. And I know he means Leadville. I thought it was, he says again. And I tried to reason with them. He looks at me again, deliberately, and says, The bad guys. Then he chuckles and says that he didn’t take into account a rifleman.

  It’s a good thing you were shot, Russell smiles. I was about ready to try the snow with my ankle. I don’t think I would have made it far. Not all the way to the water.

  So you heard all my bullshit, then? Ernest asks. That’s right, Russell replies. And if they didn’t wait so long to leave her alone here, I would have cut you free sooner.

  What did you tell them? I ask Ernest. He tells me the lie: That he was wrecked on the shore, but that he had come alone. That he came all the way from the East, just to find some place where it wasn’t raining. They laughed at that, he says. That’s our story! You lied and told them our story! I say to him. Sure did, he says. But they didn’t believe me, not that I came alone anyway. They wanted to know all about the East. So I fed them more bullshit. And then, when I heard them talking about the smoke, I thought you and Dusty were goners. Ernest pauses at that, looking over to me. He says he’s sorry. He says it because his hunch was partly right, but only Dusty was the goner. I tell him it’s okay. Russell reaches out, strokes my arm and looks down into the flame. Voley lifts his head because he knows Dusty’s name too. He looks around, thinking maybe he’s come home. But we’re all quiet. I want to tell them that I don’t care, that I hardly knew Dusty, and that he didn’t mean anything to me anyway. I go through all the reasons that it doesn’t make sense to feel sad about him anymore. That it makes me weaker to remember him. That it was all a mistake, because Russell taught me better than this anyway. But it’s not Russell’s fault either, and I can’t prevent the rush of feelings. Part of me knows what happened with Dusty was real. Part of me knows it still is. But it’s nothing but invisible stuff now. Like the radiation. It’s okay, I finally say. I raise my hand and wipe like I have something in my nose, but slide my hand up very quickly, just for a moment, to catch my tear. When I look up at them again, they’re both staring at me. It feels awful because I feel weak, but they don’t say anything. No judgment now, not even from Russell.

  So we’ve all got the story straight. The thing is what to do now, Ernest says. We don’t have a lot of options, do we? Russell draws back into thought, as if this is all very new to him, and he hadn’t thought ahead at all. And then, before either of them express an opinion on how the hell we can get out of this place, I ask about the map. Russell says he’s seen it, but th
at he didn’t know what the lines meant. Ernest looks at me like he doesn’t have any idea what I’m talking about. I explain the dotted lines and how the red-haired girl told me that they meant ice. And that the ice had crawled all the way up from the bottom of the world, and that it looks like it’s going to eat everything.

  If it’s all ice to the south, then which way do we go? Ernest asks. And how? It doesn’t take Russell long to answer part of Ernest’s question. He looks at all of us, like we’re in no shape to be traveling anywhere, or at least that’s my interpretation because we seem so beaten by the snow and the cold. I know we’d make it two hundred feet through the snow, and that’d be it, except maybe for Ernest. But Russell tells us what he’s figured out. There’s a boat, he says. It’s buried under snow between the cooling tower, but it’s a boat. Ernest’s face contorts. He asks, Are we sure we want to try for the water? He’s thinking the same thing I am. He looks hesitant, as if he knows we’d never make it to water again. Not across the blinding snow, all of us but him nearly broken. And although he got us through the valley once, it’s as if he’s realized that he can’t do it again. He coughs, and grabs at his side. And then my delusion is snapped. In the quiet dark and growing warmth, I realize that he’s broken too. And that just because he ran off to get medicine for me, up a flight of stairs, doesn’t mean he’s the Ernest that he was when we climbed down the ladder of the Resilience. It dawns on me that none of us will leave these mountains.

  We have to, Russell chimes in. He tells us that this place will kill us, and there’s nothing to live on. No one talks, no one mentions the meat store that Russell said he found. It’s out of the question as far as he’s concerned, because the meat is unidentifiable. Ernest doesn’t much seem to care one way or the other, except that he says we could probably live here for a while. Especially now that there is only one snow walker left to keep an eye out for.

  My mind plays with the idea. To make Nuke Town our own place. To stay here forever. And it starts to make sense. Why should we leave? My mind imagines the empty tomb apartment, and how I never want to see it again. But even that I could learn to deal with. We would have this building for our home. Its great skeletal darkness. All if we can convince Russell that we should eat the meat. I look at Ernest as if he’s about to start this argument, and convince Russell that we need to stay, but Russell starts first.

  We can’t stay because the radiation will kill us. You know the ones we found—on the boats? he says to me. Then he looks at Ernest, The ones you gutted for bait? Ernest and I nod. They left from here, he tells us, and they left because of the radiation. How do you know? I ask, remembering that the red-haired girl had told me a different story—that they had left because of some argument. Because where the meat is, there are also bodies, Russell says. And they aren’t dead from natural causes. They’re covered with boils. It’s this place. Something went wrong here. And all the snow in the world won’t keep it from coming up. It goes right through. Right through everything.

  In my mind I conjure up images of deformed bodies, bubbling skin and twisted faces. I see them all lying in a row, rotting, their skin sliding off, boiling, decaying from within. You can go look at them yourselves, Russell says. But I don’t have any doubt what did it. The radio was right. It’s the radiation.

  Then how about the snow walkers? They didn’t look like it was harming them and they’ve been here a year, I tell Russell. That’s a lie, he says. Remember who they are, Tanner. You can’t trust what she said. He says this and looks into my soul, through my eyes. He sees all of the doubt I have. Doubts about everything he stands for—all the invisible scraps of humanity he wants to hold onto. A lie, he says again. They haven’t been here long at all. But even that might have been too long for them. He tells us he overheard them talking. And that they were trying to decide the same thing we are: Where to go next.

  How long can we stay here? I say. Fear rises in me. As if we’re on a timer, and each minute we stay here brings us closer to becoming the bodies Russell saw in the basement. I don’t know, he says, and he looks at Ernest. Ernest finally responds: Well if we have to go, we go. But that doesn’t answer my first question. Where do we go?

  And all at once it’s clear to Russell. You’ve seen the evacuation flyers, right? he says. I nod my head but Ernest shakes his head no. I fill him in about the evacuation. It talks about East Harbor, Russell says. We can get the boat there and take her around the coast, back to the Resilience. What about the storm? Ernest replies. Russell smiles and says that we hope she’s gone.

  Chapter 15

  Ernest and Russell start to organize our escape. They talk about how much ammo we have left, how much food we should bring, all of it dog food. At first Ernest protests, asking if we should consider looking at the meat stored in the basement again. At first Russell refuses consideration. He replies that there’s more than enough dog food to get us hundreds of miles across the brown. And if we don’t find something by a few hundred miles, there will be fish anyway. But his voice says the fish will be there as if it is a question. And Ernest is supposed to answer it. Ernest looks back at him and says, Should be. What’s left on the ship will have gone bad by now. So there better be.

  First thing in the morning, we take a look at the maps. Get an idea of where we’re going, Russell says. And then we move out. His plan sounds so simple, as if we’re all in perfect shape, and uncovering the boat and hauling it through the sinking white will be easy too. I can’t imagine how heavy it will be, and how we can ever hope to bring it across the snow. Part of me wants to suggest going back the way we came and just swimming out to the Resilience. Because after all, the route to the East Harbor might be longer than the way we came in. But if it was longer to the harbor, I tell myself, they wouldn’t have evacuated that way. And something in me remembers the flyer mentioning weather along the way. Maybe each way is just as dangerous as the other.

  My body is finally warm again. And my heart is beginning to calm down. Ever since the apartment I’ve been frozen inside. And now, again, as if by some miracle, I’m surrounded by real people. Voley is one too, and I’m glad he’s picked me to curl up against.

  Russell says we’ll still need to take shifts, if only to listen. Listen for noises, he says. In case someone returns to the building. It’s all open space in here, so we should be able to hear someone walking anywhere. Doors. Footsteps. The last face eater that will, or already does, know we’ve killed his family. If that’s what we really believe they are—face eaters. And he’ll want to kill us. If he could catch us while we’re sleeping, that’d be the best way. Russell has two pistols by his lap and he sits upright by the stove, his face illuminated with a look of half-sleep. Cradled skyward in a point is the rifle. He opens it and puts it back together, double-checking everything on it for the third time.

  He tells me to stop watching him and get sleep because we have to get out of here tomorrow. I still can’t believe we’re in such a rush. Part of me realizes how good we could make this place. If only we didn’t have to worry about the last snow walker and the radiation. And if only he could accept eating the meat. But then I tell myself even that would run out. And then what? Try to find foxes in the snow? We couldn’t last forever here. This place is being buried. And the meat. It has to be toxic. What else could explain the bodies Russell saw in the basement? Part of me wants to go investigate. Sneak off and explore the cold dark colossus all by myself. Part of me thinks he might be lying. Making it all up so we don’t linger here longer than he wants to. Maybe the meat’s fine and there are no bodies, but he just doesn’t want to let go of the veneer yet. Like he’s still clinging to Leadville at the same time that he wants to leave the place.

  Ernest coughs again from his corner where he’s bundled in a giant sideways mass by the stove. I can’t help but think he’s warm now, but he keeps shaking, as if he can’t stabilize his temperature. I want to ask him if he’s okay, but something keeps telling me he has to be. And I keep my eyes open, looking
at them both. Two that I thought were dead, both of them brought back to life before my eyes. But coming back didn’t destroy their injuries. I realize this as Ernest enters into a coughing fit, and finally Russell moves over to him and places his hand on Ernest’s forehead. Did you take the antibiotics? Russell asks softly. I listen in, closing my eyes now. Yeah, Ernest says. I open my eyes again and Russell’s hand is still on the forehead. Take the Tylenol, says Russell. He moves to grab the small plastic bag from within the first aid kit. I hear the plastic crinkle as he grasps it. Ernest says no, I don’t need it. I’m fine. Thank you.

  I watch Ernest settle again and close his eyes, and Russell returns to his statue form. Voley doesn’t so much as move a single ear. Together he and I have come into the most warmth we’ve known in days. And because I can’t sleep, partly from the noise of the wind howling along the window, and partly because I’m afraid of where my dreams might take me, I ask Russell if he thinks this is the real Leadville. If this is the place we always heard about.

  He takes his time to answer, and when he does, he doesn’t respond clearly. It’s sort of a mumble, but I get that his answer is really I don’t know. I hope it’s not, he says, Because it’s still where we’re going. I ask him what he means. It’s the same place, he says. Then he asks me to tell him about it. And I know he means the story of Leadville, even if that’s no longer the name it goes by. The place we’ve had in our heads for years. I tell him the story. I tell him our story about the place where we’re going. And as I repeat the old myth, I realize it’s a symbol. Leadville is just a symbol. Like Poseidon, or the veneer. It’s supposed to keep our heads in the game. Something like hope. I give it to him like the old happiness we used to use when we spoke of it. The words roll off my tongue.