About a week before I met Cindy, the guidance counselor called me to his office. He asked me what I wanted to do after graduation. College wasn’t an option—not with my grades and my parents’ income, and he knew that. I told him I didn’t know. He pressed me, insisting I must have some idea. But I didn’t. And I think he knew it. He was just going through the motions. Just doing his job. I had no doubts that after graduation, I’d go to work in the steel mill just like my father. That’s how we’re brought up. You join the union, you support the union, you have some kids, you retire, and then your kids join the union.
After a few weeks with Cindy, I had an answer for that guidance counselor. I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to spend the rest of my life making her happy. Making her feel the way she made me feel. That was my dream.
But like I said, this town is hard on dreams. Around here, dreams get washed away with everything else. They call us ‘Flood City’ for a reason. Founded in 1800 in the center of these three rivers, our port was a key transfer point along the Pennsylvania Main Line Canal. Charles Dickens even visited once, during a ferry stop. But that’s not what we’re famous for.
We’re famous for our floods. Every so often, the river breaches its banks and engulfs the town, and all that we are is washed away—our hopes, our fears, and our dreams.
And then we have to start all over again.
We know a lot about starting over. When they completed the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1854, we abandoned the canal because the trains took our business away. We turned to iron, steel, and coal, instead. We became the largest steel producer in the country. Then, on May 31, 1889, a flood came along and destroyed it all. It was one of the worst disasters in American history. Folks don’t remember it these days, not in the era of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. But that 1889 flood nearly washed the town away.
We rebuilt and started over again. Things were good. Johnstown embodied the American Dream. We made much of the nation’s barbed wire. Our population swelled and our public transportation system was considered one of the best in the country. Then the river rose up again, on St. Patrick’s Day, 1936, and put an end to all that prosperity. More than two dozen people lost their lives and the city was gutted.
Once more, we rebuilt and started over, striving to obtain that American Dream. By then, the coal veins had run out, but we still had the steel industry. In 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt announced the federally-financed flood control project, and we were finally flood-free. Oh, the rains still came, on occasion. But they didn’t wash us away. Johnstown grew, providing more than thirteen-thousand jobs in the steel mills. We were more prosperous than ever, and all of our dreams came true.
Then, in 1977, despite Roosevelt’s control project, the river flooded again, killing more than seventy-five people and washing away our economic growth.
The dream died, as all dreams eventually do.
Cindy and I didn’t know that back then. We were young and in love, and dreams were meant to last forever. We spent our nights making love down by the water and the flood never touched us. My dream of making her happy came true every day.
Then Cindy got pregnant.
Our parents were pissed, but an abortion was out of the question. They wouldn’t have allowed it, and Cindy didn’t want it. She cried for a few nights, and I did, too, because I was scared. But despite her fears and misgivings, Cindy was still happy.
“As long as I have you,” she said, “everything will be fine. Together, we can get through anything.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. All I want in life is to spend it with you—a little house, enough money for us to be safe and warm and content, a healthy baby, and to grow old together. That’s what I dream about.”
Then we kissed each other’s tears away, and there in the darkness, with the sounds of the water whispering in the night, I promised Cindy that I’d make all her dreams come true.
The next day, I applied for a job at the steel mill.
We were broke, and our parents refused to pay for a wedding, so we had the Justice of the Peace do it for us. Cindy wore her Prom gown. I wore a suit I’d bought at K-Mart. I forgot all about getting her flowers, so I picked her some dandelions outside the building. When it was over, we climbed into my car. In place of tin cans on strings and a ‘Just Married’ sign, we had a bad muffler and four bald tires. Instead of a honeymoon, we went to our spot along the water. I serenaded her with my harmonica. The moonlight shined off the river’s mirrored surface, and we pretended that we could see our future reflected in it—two kids, a dog and a cat, two cars, and one day, lots of grandkids. No sickness, no stress. No death.
We moved into a second-floor apartment downtown. It was drafty and damp and smelled old, but we filled it with warmth and hope. Filled it with our dreams. The traffic was loud at night, and the toilet leaked when we flushed it. But it was home. Cindy had an afghan her grandmother had made for her when she was a little girl, and we sat together on the couch with it wrapped around us and watched television, or just talked. We bought a crib and changing table at the Salvation Army store, and tried to save as much money as we could. I worked long hours at the steel mill. Got up at six in the morning and came home after six at night, tired and dirty and sore. The tub turned black when I took a shower in the evening, and my muscles ached so badly that sometimes all I could do was lie on the couch and watch TV. But that was okay, because Cindy laid there with me, in my arms, and we were together. I used to tap on her belly and the baby would kick back. We’d laugh and I’d say he or she was doing Morse Code.
* * *
And then the laughter faded.
The baby was stillborn.
I remember it clear as day. The delivery room smelled like antiseptic, and the lights were so bright that I had to squint. Cindy gasped and pushed; they’d given her an epidural for the pain. The baby’s head came out and I hollered with joy and Cindy’s grimace turned into a smile and then the doctor had the baby in his hands—and the room went silent. The doctor didn’t say anything. The nurses were quiet. And the baby....
The baby made no noise at all.
“What’s wrong?” Cindy kept asking, over and over again.
Still, they didn’t say anything.
I tried to speak and couldn’t.
Then Cindy began to wail.
* * *
It was a girl. My parents paid for the baby’s funeral plot, and the union sent flowers. I got two days off work with pay.
That night, as we lay in bed together, I reached out to touch her. My fingers gently traced the smooth skin of her shoulder.
Cindy stiffened. “What are you doing?”
“Just....” I wasn’t sure what to say. “Trying to be with you. Giving you some comfort.”
“I’m tired. Let’s just go to sleep.”
My hand lingered and Cindy went rigid. I remembered when she’d softened to my touch, and I longed for those days.
The next few months were hard, but we got through them together. Cindy cried a lot, and when she wasn’t crying, she slept. Her smile—the smile I remembered from that day at my locker—was gone. I wondered if it would ever return. I lost myself in work, trying to clock in as much overtime as I could, letting the industrial noise drown out my dead daughter’s silence. I started drinking, and developed a taste for it.
Eight months later, we tried to have another child. Cindy miscarried halfway through the second term. After that, I got a vasectomy and there was no more talk of children. We moved down to the first floor apartment when it became available, trying to get away from the memories on the second floor. The first floor apartment had a little fenced-in yard—room enough for a barbeque grill and a plastic wading pool that would never get used.
Years passed. I got a potbelly and lost a lot of hair. Cindy stayed beautiful, but sad. She got a single white streak in her hair. The rest of it stayed black, even if it didn’t shine like it once had.
That was our life.
We
changed. Got older. So did the town. The people who do the census say that Johnstown is the least likely city in the country to attract newcomers. The manufacturing jobs are gone and the service opportunities shit. We’ve tried to adapt. Tried to rebuild one more time. The University of Pittsburgh opened a campus here, and the city government added a whole bunch of fine-arts attractions, but nobody goes to them because all art does is remind us all of our failed dreams. The abandoned coal mines left behind brown, barren fields. Our houses are turning into slums. Kids deal drugs rather than growing up to follow in their father’s footsteps. Johnstown is just as depressed and hopeless as ever before.
The only thing that’s changed is the weather. It doesn’t rain anymore, and there hasn’t been a flood in years. They say it’s because of global warming, but I don’t know. Maybe it’s because the rain’s still falling—but only on Cindy and me. Everything else is dry, but all that we are is being slowly washed away.
A few months ago, the steel mill closed. Cindy still had her job at the grocery store, but it was only part time, and didn’t pay all of the bills. I’m collecting unemployment. I drink more these days, even though we can’t afford it.
* * *
She came home one night and I was sitting in the recliner, drunk. She stood in front of the TV until I looked at her.
“We don’t talk anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Guess I just don’t have much to say, lately. I’ll try to do better.”
I craned my neck, trying to see around her. The Pirates were up and it was the last inning.
“Is that all you can say?” Cindy put her hands on her hips. “I’m sorry?”
“Well, what do you want me to say?”
“You could show some emotion. You could speak in something other than that dejected monotone. You could try walking tall again, instead of with that beaten look. Remember Young Guns II? Remember the scars?”
For a second, I didn’t, but then it came back to me.
“You’ve let those scars control you. You’re not searching anymore. You’re not happy.”
“Of course I’m not happy.”
“Then tell me about it!” she yelled. “Talk to me! Tell me what you’re feeling and thinking. Get mad at me. Shout at me, if you have to.”
“I don’t want to get mad at you.” And I didn’t. In all our years together, we’d never had a serious fight. Oh sure, we bickered sometimes about money and things, but we’d always made up before going to bed.
Except for that night.
She kept on, and when she didn’t get the reaction from me that she desired, Cindy got in my face. We both said things I’d never thought I’d hear us say. I got mad. I lashed out. I still don’t know if I meant to hit her or if I just wanted her to stop, but I guess it doesn’t matter very much. I apologized, of course. But once it happened, I couldn’t take it back.
* * * *
Cindy and I don’t talk much anymore, which is funny, since our fight was about not talking. At night, we still watch TV together, but we sit apart. We go to sleep at night and I lie there in the darkness, wondering if she’s awake. Wondering if she’s wondering the same thing about me. I think a lot about the dreams we had when we were young. I promised her back then that we’d be happy. I promised her our dreams would come true. But they didn’t. We never talk about it. We never talk about anything.
Not even the storm the radio says is coming, which they say will be a big one.
I sometimes wonder if she blames me for everything that’s happened. If she thinks it’s my fault. Were those dreams just stupid, teenage fantasies? They seemed so real at the time. They still do. But they never survived in this town, just like all the other dreams that crashed and burned.
Cindy was right about something else, too.
I’m not happy anymore.
And neither was she. She told me so, right before....
But at least she’s at peace, now, lying in the back seat, wrapped up in the afghan her grandmother made for her when she was a little girl. She loved that blanket. Seemed only right I should use that.
I wish that I could just drive us both into the water and sink beneath the surface, but the water level is down because of the drought. There’s more mud than water in that riverbed.
But the storm is here.
So now I’m waiting. The thunder and lightning are keeping time as I play one last sad song on my harmonica. The weatherman says it’s gonna flood, soon. First time in years.
Pretty soon, the river is going to flow again.
You were right, Grandma.
Cindy and I, and everything that we were, and all that we became, will be washed away.
ROAD KILL
(A Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. Story)
By Kevin J. Anderson
It’s never a good thing to wake up in a coffin, unless you’re a vampire—and I’m definitely not a vampire. I’m an entirely different sort of undead.
Now, vampires belong in coffins; they actually find them comfortable. Vamps go there regularly to get their sleep. I’ve even known several who kept everyday coffins and vacation coffins (fitted with tropical interior décor). Some are just stripped-down pine boxes, while others are luxury models rigged with stereo systems for music or audiobooks. Some coffins even have tingly massage fingers on the bottom.
The coffin I woke up in wasn’t one of those types, and I sure as hell didn’t belong here.
I’m a zombie, and zombies aren’t so picky about where they rest. Sure, coffins will do just fine, but once we’ve clawed our way out of the grave, we don’t need to sleep often, and when we do we’re okay with sleeping on a sofa, or even just propped up in a corner somewhere. It doesn’t really matter.
But I knew I hadn’t taken a nap here on purpose.
I’m not just any zombie: I’m a zombie detective, and it’s my job to figure out mysteries. I’m good at my job—though I try to avoid being part of the mystery itself.
The coffin was dark and cramped, with very little elbow room. I squirmed, thumped the sides of the box with my arms, managed to roll myself over onto my stomach—which did me no good at all—then had to exert twice as much effort to roll myself onto my back again.
I pounded the wooden lid with my fists. Yes, it’s a cliché: I had become one of those things that go bump in the night.
I felt the entire coffin vibrating beneath me, accompanied by a low pleasant thrumming. No wonder I had dozed off for so long! But this wasn’t a timed “Magic Massage Fingers” sensation. I realized the sound was road noise, the vibration of wheels.
I was in the back of a vehicle somewhere.
Worse, I was in a coffin in the back of a vehicle going somewhere.
I hammered on the lid of the coffin, felt around the edge. No safety latch there. That was a code violation, and I was starting to feel testy.
Coffins are supposed to have quick-release latches, otherwise it’s a safety hazard. Ever since the Big Uneasy, when so many monsters and legendary creatures had returned to the world, laws had changed to protect the unnaturals. My partner, Robin Deyer, lead attorney (make that the only attorney) at Chambeaux & Deyer Investigations, had hung out her shingle on behalf of the vampires, zombies, werewolves, ghosts, and other assorted “beings” that needed legal representation in the changing world. One of her early legal victories was to institute safety systems in coffins and crypts so that, in the event that a dead body came back to life, he or she could re-emerge without discomfort or inconvenience.
I got my hands in front of my chest, flattened my palms, and pushed up against the coffin lid. The planks creaked but remained fastened. Nailed shut. This was getting more annoying by the minute.
I tried to remember where I’d been and how I’d gotten there, but it was all a big blank. I’m better-preserved than most zombies, many of whom eat brains because they have a deficiency in that department (kind of like a vitamin deficiency). Me, I’ve always loved a good cheeseburger, but these days I rarely bother
to eat except out of habit, or sociability. I don’t have much appetite, and my taste buds aren’t what they used to be.
My mind, though, is sharp as a tack...usually. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be much of a detective. At present, I felt as blank and stupid as one of those shamblers who can only remember long strings of vowels without any consonants.
Moving in the cramped box now, I patted myself down and realized that I still wore my usual sport jacket with the lumpy threads where the bullet holes had been crudely stitched up. I managed to get my fingers up to my face, felt the cold skin, ran them up around my forehead and skull, felt a crater there—a bullet hole, entry wound in the back of my head, exit wound in my forehead.
Yes, everything seemed normal.
For many years, I’d been a detective in the Unnatural Quarter, a human detective at first, working on cases where unnaturals ran afoul of the law, or stumbled into curses, or just lost things from their original lives. I made a decent living at it, especially after I partnered with Robin Deyer, and the cases we dealt with were more interesting than typical adultery spying for divorce cases.
On the downside, I had ended up getting shot in the back of the head while investigating the poisoning death of my girlfriend. That would have been the end of any regular Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe, but the cases don’t solve themselves, so when I came back from the dead...I went right back to work.
I pressed hard against the lid of the coffin again, heard the boards creak, listened to the nails groan a little bit. That was some progress, at least. I kept pushing.
Even though, zombies have the advantage of being able to sleep wherever they like, vampires are generally more limber. I was accustomed to stiff muscles and sore joints, however, so I kept pushing. I put my back into it. (What, was I going to get a bruise?) With steady pressure, I managed to coax the nails farther out. The boards splintered, and the lid finally came loose.
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