by Wise, A. R.
Porter sensed the need to say something kind. He wasn’t good at that sort of thing. “He forced me to agree to come get you. I wanted to leave you behind.”
“Well, thanks.”
“Just being honest.”
“Keep being honest,” she said. “It’ll make it easier to stick a knife in you.”
“Okay, if you think it’ll help.” He smiled, and should’ve stopped talking. Perhaps it was the blood loss that convinced him it was appropriate to continue, “I don’t know. I guess I’m just sick of watching him constantly uproot everything to fit in with whatever girl he’s hooking up with. One minute he’s with one girl, and the next he’s screwing her best friend.” He recognized that was a low blow, and continued speaking in the hopes it went unnoticed. “He’s been doing it his whole life. Every month or two he’s got a new soulmate, and he’ll do anything for them. He falls head over heels in love. He’s addicted to it.”
“To what? Being in love?”
“No, being in – whatever the hell it is at first. Lust, I guess. He likes the start of a relationship, but not the ‘hard-work’ part of it. That’s him in a nutshell. He doesn’t like the ‘hard-work’ part of anything.”
“Is that why you fired him from the business you two started with your mom’s money?”
Porter was taken aback by her bluntness, although he guessed he deserved it. “Yeah, it was.” Their conversation stalled momentarily. When he started it back up again, he was timid. “He told you about that, huh?”
“Yep.” She didn’t offer any more clues as to how much she knew. Instead, she kept her eyes on the hot blade over the flame.
After a lengthy pause, Porter said, “I bet there’s more to the story than you know.”
“I’d hope so.” She refused to look at him. He was familiar with getting the cold shoulder from women. He’d been getting it most of his life.
Porter heard someone panting, and the crash of weeds in the ditch. Moments later, Red rejoined them, keys in hand and two pistols tucked into his waistband. He halted, put his hands on his knees, and panted a few times like a long-distance sprinter at the conclusion of a race.
“What’d I miss?” he asked with a smile, assuming everything was fine.
“I was just about to stick a hot knife in your brother,” said June. “Wanna help?” She smiled wickedly.
Day Two – 12:31 am
“Stick him with what?” asked Red, taken aback by his girlfriend’s odd greeting.
“She’s going to cauterize my wound,” said Porter as he searched the ground for a sturdy enough stick to bite down on during the process.
“Oh shit,” said Red. “We’re doing that?”
“You’re doing it,” said June. “I’ll hand you the knife and…”
“No, fuck that,” said Red. “You do it. I’ll hold him down.”
“I don’t want to do it.”
“Neither do I. He’s my brother.”
“Which is exactly why you should be the one to do it,” she said.
“Guys,” said Porter, “I don’t care who does it. Let’s just get it over with.” He put the stick in his mouth and laid back against the sloped ground.
“I’ll hold him down,” said Red. “He’d throw you like a ragdoll. We’d be searching for you in that field for weeks.”
“God damn it. This is such bullshit.” She inched her grip on the pocket knife back to avoid the growing heat.
“Here, I’ll hold him down,” said Red before sitting on his brother’s waist.
Porter spit out the stick and asked, “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m going to hold you down.” Red did his best to grapple the larger man.
Porter put the stick back in his mouth, and then grabbed two handfuls of grass.
“Do it,” said Red.
“Don’t let him kick me.”
“I won’t, just do it.”
“I’m sorry, Porter,” she said, cringing.
He couldn’t see it happen, but he felt the heat of the blade as it neared his leg. He recoiled instinctually, and Red held his leg tighter. The hairs on his calf sizzled as the blade came close, and then, all at once, the intense, searing pain hit him. Again he recoiled, more forcefully this time, but Red kept him down.
Porter ripped the handfuls of grass out of the ground. Their scant roots gave little resistance. Dirt scattered in the air as he pounded the tufts against his brother’s back.
“Hold still,” said Red. “Stop fucking hitting me.”
Porter’s teeth dug into the wood until he felt pain in his gums.
The agony didn’t get much better when she took the blade away. It changed, but didn’t get better. He squirmed beneath his brother.
“She’s not done,” said Red. “Stay still. Bite the stick.”
Porter bit down even harder, and the stick cracked in his mouth. Red glanced fretfully over his shoulder.
“Ready for round two,” said June.
Porter slammed the back of his head against the ground, hoping to daze himself. It almost worked.
“I’ll tell you a joke to get your mind off it,” said Red.
Porter tried to tell him not to, but couldn’t do anything but moan.
“A Mexican magician promised the crowd that he had a great new trick.”
Porter felt the heat of the blade growing close, and preemptively started biting into the stick again.
Red continued, “He waved his wand and said, ‘Uno, dos…’ Poof! He disappeared without a tres.”
The blade touched him on a different part of the wound, and the pain started all over again. He dug the tips of his fingers into dry earth, and clawed at the stones he found there. He could hear his flesh sizzle.
“Okay,” said June. “I think that did it. I hope.”
The pain was still too intense for Porter to stop biting the stick. He knew cauterizing a wound would be agonizing, but this had been far worse than expected. It seemed like his entire leg was on fire. There were moments where it felt like he was freezing, and then others where he would’ve sworn June was digging the knife through his calf to the bone and twisting. Sweat poured from his brow, and stung his eyes.
He thought of the pain medicine that he’d packed in the Jeep. He’d do damn near anything to get his hands on an opiate of some sort to dull the pain.
“You okay, big guy?” asked Red as he started to get off his brother.
Porter’s gums were bleeding. Splinters from the chomped stick clung to the spit on his lips and littered his beard. He took the stick out of his mouth, and let out a curse of agony as loud as his lungs would allow. He panted as he spoke, “That was… that was so much worse. So much worse than I thought it’d be. Fuck. Oh my God. That joke was pure shit.”
Red laughed and said, “It wasn’t that bad.” He was on his knees beside June, and leaned over to peer at the seared wound. He grimaced, and then looked back at Porter.
“Did it stop bleeding?”
“I think so,” said June. “Hard to say. There’s nothing to clean it with. We need some water.”
“Or alcohol,” added Red.
“Well, yeah,” said June, “but that’s not exactly an option.”
“Neither is water,” said Red.
“I know,” said June, struck by sudden inspiration. “I’ll go check out that other car – the one the truck ran off the road before us. Maybe there’s something we can use in it.”
“Good idea,” said Porter, genuinely impressed. “Red, did the truck have anything useful in it?”
“I didn’t think to check. June, you go to the car and I’ll go back to the truck. Meet back here. Porter… chew on a few more sticks or something, and see if you can come up with a better joke if you don’t like mine.”
“Sure.” He continued digging at the ground like a zombie trying to claw its way back into the grave after giving up on humanity. The sensation of small stones poking at the sensitive skin beneath his fingernails was a helpful distract
ion.
Red and June left him there alone. He leaned against the side of the ditch, and stared out at the rippling waves of green and pink light of the aurora borealis caused by the coronal mass ejection that’d wreaked such chaos across the land. However, the power outage caused by the solar event was just the beginning of the problems the nation faced.
Only a few stars were bright enough to make their presence known in the bright northern light. Porter considered the possibility that they weren’t stars at all, but satellites on a crash course with Earth, all but doomed now that their guidance systems were offline – a slow, methodical, spiraling decent that would eventually end in a fiery death.
The smell of burning plastic mixed with meat. Was that beef jerky or MREs burning that he smelled? Or was it his own leg?
He grinned, despite the pain, and closed his eyes. He conjured an image of a freshly cooked chicken leg replacing his own.
* * *
“Porter, Porter.” Red called his name, and violently shook his shoulders.
“Yeah, hey… what?” Porter came to, muttering and confused. He was greeted first by pain, and then the recognition that he’d passed out. “I’m okay. I’m here.”
“You were asleep,” said Red. “I don’t think you’re supposed to fall asleep when you’re hurt this bad.”
“That’s a myth,” said Porter.
“Yeah, well until I can check Google I’m going to assume it’s true. Don’t fall asleep again. You hit your head worse than you think.”
Porter reached to his brow, confused. He’d forgotten about the cut there. “It doesn’t hurt. Is it bleeding a lot?”
“No, but maybe you got a concussion in the crash.”
“Did you find anything in the truck?”
“Not much,” said Red. “Ketchup packets, some tools, and a lot of McDonald’s wrappers.”
“What sort of tools?”
“He had a toolkit in the back of the truck. I brought it.”
It was a long, metal box that was rusted at the corners and at the base of the black, rubber handle. Red opened it, and started rifling through the contents while listing them, “Plyers, hammer, couple wrenches and screwdrivers. There’s some sandpaper, and super glue, and…”
“Super glue?” asked Porter.
“Yeah.” Red held up the tiny bottle with the bright red cap.
“Give that to me.”
“The glue?” asked Red as he handed it over. “Why?”
“Because if I knew we had it I wouldn’t have let June burn the shit out of me.” He examined the small bottle. “I could’ve used this.”
“I don’t think that’d work,” said Red with a patronizing smirk.
“Yes it would’ve. They do it at hospitals all the time.”
“For real?” asked Red.
Porter mocked him, “Yes, for real.”
“Do you want me to glue you up?”
“No, not now. Let’s not waste it unless I start bleeding again. We need to make sure to hold onto this.” He gave the glue back to Red, and then pointed at the toolbox. “All of this.”
“Sure, of course.” Red looked in the direction of the car that June was searching. “No word from June yet?”
“No,” said Porter.
“I should go check on her.”
“Sit down. She’s fine. She’s tougher than she looks.”
“Maybe,” said Red. “But she just killed a guy. That’s got to mess with your head.”
“Give her time. She’ll tell you if she needs help. June’s a smart girl.”
Red put the back of his hand against Porter’s forehead. “You feeling all right? That almost sounded like a compliment. Should I be worried?”
Porter grumbled unintelligibly.
“Are you actually starting to like another human being?”
“Shut up. I didn’t say I liked her. I just said she’s tougher than she looks, which isn’t saying much. She looks about as tough as butter.”
Red groaned. “Don’t use that phrase. I hate it.”
“Why?”
“Dad’s the only person I’ve ever heard say that. It’s not something people say. Do us both a favor and quit it.”
Porter thought he wanted silence, but it just made him focus on the pain. After a moment of quiet agony, he said, “You’d better hope I don’t start to like June.”
“Why?” asked Red, misinterpreting the statement. “Are you going to try and steal her away from me or something?”
“No, come on,” said Porter, offended. “You know me better than that. My marriage might be in the shitter, but I haven’t given up on it yet. I meant that if I start to like June, I’m going to be pissed off when you dump her.”
“Oh, that old lecture. Spare me.”
“I’m giving you a hard time. Don’t get pissy. She seems like a good girl.”
“She is,” said Red. “And I know it’s too early to say, but I think this time it might be different. She might be a keeper.”
“Good. I hope you’re right.”
“So, hey.” Red’s tentative tone revealed he wasn’t sure if he should broach the next subject. “Speaking of good girls, are you really going to try and patch things up with Mary after… You know?”
This wasn’t a subject Porter wanted to discuss. He’d rather sit in silence and focus on the pain in his leg. It’d be easier. “We’ll see.”
“I figured the two of you were done.”
“Let’s change the subject.”
“Yeah, all right. It’s just that…”
“Change the subject, Red.”
“Fine, fine.” Red knew better than to push Porter any further. “What’s our plan? Are we waiting here until the fire goes out?”
“Yeah.”
“That could take hours.”
“I know.”
“So we’re just going to sit here in a ditch for hours?” asked Red.
“We’ll take turns getting some sleep. And then, once the Jeep cools down, we’ll scavenge what we can from it. Then we’ll go pull apart the car.”
“June’s already doing that,” said Red, assuming Porter’s head injury had caused him to forget.
“No, I mean really pull it apart. There’s a lot of good stuff in a car. Stuff we’ll need.”
“Like what?”
Porter adjusted his position on the grass to get more comfortable. He failed, and slouched back down into the place he’d been before. “First off, we’ll syphon out whatever gas we can. Then we’ll go after the copper wiring, seat covers, spark plugs, battery, headlights. There’s a ton of stuff we can use, and we’ve got a truck to haul it. We’d be dumb not to take advantage of it. From this point forward, we’re going to have to scavenge to stay alive. Do as I say, and we’ll be fine.”
“All right, whatever you say, big guy. This is your fantasy world, not mine.”
Porter found Red’s statement odd. After brief consideration, he asked, “What do you mean by that?”
“This is your fantasy,” said Red. “The end of the world. You got your wish, the apocalypse really happened. You’ve been waiting for this your whole life.”
“You think I wanted this?”
“Well, not exactly,” said Red. “But sort of, yeah. This is… It’s what you and Dad always planned for, right?”
“Doesn’t mean I wanted it to happen.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m not saying you’re some sadistic anarchist or anything. I’m just… I’m just pointing out that you always said this would happen.”
Porter corrected him, “Could happen.” He emphasized ‘could’.
“Could happen,” conceded Red. “You were right. That’s got to feel sort of good.”
“Nope. Not even a little bit. I never wanted this.”
“All right, fine. Now who’s the one getting pissy?” asked Red. “Speaking of getting pissy, I’ve got to take one. Do you want me to wait and see if June finds some water in the car before I waste my pee?”
“
Waste it?” asked Porter. “What’re you talking about? Why would we need your pee?”
“I heard that piss is sterile. If June can’t find any water, then I could piss on your leg to clean it off.”
“Are you serious? What the hell is wrong with… No, I don’t want you to piss on me. If there’s no water in the car, then we’ll use some gas to clean the wound. Jesus, man.”
“Hey, I was just trying to help.”
“I didn’t know you were dying for an excuse to piss on me.”
“All my life, big brother,” said Red with a laugh.
As Red went to pee, Porter heard June’s approach. She appeared through the weeds of the ditch carrying a bag laden with scavenged items. “Good news,” she said as she lugged the heavy, cloth bag. “The car’s a goldmine. Lots of food and water. It looks like she just went shopping for supplies. I grabbed some of it for now, but there’s lots more.”
“Just groceries?” asked Porter.
“No, there’s other stuff too,” said June. “Including this.” She pulled forth a first aid kit like a parent plucking a new toy from Santa’s bag.
“Son of a…” Porter shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe I had you burn me before we checked the cars. That was dumb.”
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t smart.” June opened the kit and found a small bottle of alcohol.
“Use water instead,” said Porter.
“Afraid this’ll hurt?” she asked as she jostled the bottle of rubbing alcohol.
“No,” said Porter. “Water’s better for cleaning a wound. I can do it. You don’t have to.”
“I don’t mind,” said June. “I already stuck a burning hot knife in this mess. The least I can do is clean it up.”
He sat back, let her clean him, and tried not to wince or whimper. Red rifled through the food June had brought from the car, and handed his brother a pear. Porter tried to refuse, but Red insisted. The two of them sat beside each other, facing the aurora borealis, and crunched into the fresh fruit.
“Hate to say it,” said Red as he watched the rippling ribbons of light, “but it’s kind of pretty.”
