by Patten, Sean
“I missed,” she said, lowering her gun and looking ahead.
“Your finger is still on the trigger,” I said. “Take it off.”
“Oh, shit,” she said, quickly fixing her behavior.
“You made a rookie mistake,” I said. “You pulled the gun back as you fired.”
“Damn,” she said. “I did. I didn’t know what to expect, I guess.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “No one’s first shot is going to be pretty. Now try again, but this time hold the gun just enough to keep it pointed straight ahead. Not too tight, not too loose.”
“Goldilocks-style,” she said with a smile.
“That’s right,” I said, matching her smile with one of my own. “Not too hot, not too cold. And make sure you don’t yank it back this time.”
“Okay,” she said. “Ready.”
“Now shoot.”
Once again she let the air out of her lungs before squaring up for the shot. Another pop sounded out, followed by a small puff of dust from where the bullet hit the rock.
“Darn it,” she said.
“You missed,” I said. “But it was a better miss this time.”
She chuckled. “That’s one way to look at it, I guess.”
“One more shot,” I said. “Make it count.”
Amy nodded and got back into position. She got into stance, raised the gun, breathed out and then…bang. One of the bottles, the middle one, flipped into the air and disappeared behind the rock.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “Not the one I was aiming for, but I hit it.”
“There you go,” I said. “And that’s no small feat. If you were aiming at a person you’d have at least hit him.”
“Guess that’s the thing to keep in mind,” Amy said, lowering the gun. “Gonna be shooting at a real person eventually.”
I stepped over to her and took the gun out of her hand.
“Hopefully, it’ll never come to that,” I said. “But…”
My word hung in the air.
“I know,” she said.
“Better to know how and not need to than need to and not know how,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. “You’re right.”
I turned my gaze back in the direction of the road.
“You about ready to get home?” I asked.
Amy nodded.
“Yeah,” she said. “Let’s do this.”
4 Amy
Ed and I walked back to the car in silence. It was strange. All he’d done was show me how to shoot, but it had put me in such an odd frame of mind. Part of me felt better, knowing that I was that much more prepared to survive in this new world of ours. But another part felt…different.
“Put that in the glove box,” said Ed, handing me the gun.
“Sure,” I said.
I took the gun from him, but instead of doing what he’d asked I instead held it in my lap, feeling its coolness and weight in my hands.
“Don’t tell me I accidentally turned you into a gun nut or something,” he said, snapping me out of my trance.
“Huh?”
He glanced down at the gun. “The way you’re looking at that thing. Like a pyro looking at a fire.”
“No,” I said. “It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?” he asked.
I wasn’t sure exactly, but there was something there, something I couldn’t ignore.
“This thing,” I said. “It’s real.”
“I know it’s real,” he said. “It’s as real as it gets. And you’d better make sure to treat it like it is.”
“No,” I mean. “I don’t mean it like that.”
Ed cocked his head to the side, clearly confused.
“Don’t tell me you snuck some of Dante’s stash out after all,” he said wryly.
“Sorry,” I said. “I know I’m being weird. But I just had one of those moments where everything is crystal clear.”
“How so?”
“Holding this gun, shooting it, knowing that I can kill someone if I need to… It’s making it really sink in that my old life is gone for good.”
“You mean the shit we just got out of didn’t send that message home?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I was so caught up in it that I didn’t have time to think about anything else. And I think right now, like you said, my mind is finally starting to decompress and sort through everything.”
“And…how’re you feeling?”
“Like…okay, my old life wasn’t perfect, far from it. There was stress and drama and everything else you’d expect. And had things continued on like normal right now I’d be on my own, in the process of putting it all behind me. But it was…pretty amazing, too.”
“I bet,” said Ed. “You up on stage, playing your songs for thousands of screaming fans. Bet there’s nothing else like it.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Knowing some bass riff I came up with inspired someone to pick up the instrument, or hearing that some words I wrote helped someone out through a tough time.”
“Now wait a minute,” said Ed. “I wasn’t exactly the biggest fan of you guys. But wasn’t that lead singer of yours supposed to be the creative genius behind KPX?”
“Ty?” I asked. “Well, yeah. That’s what we said in interviews. Our manager liked to push this idea that he was some tormented genius who came up with everything. And don’t get me wrong—the guy was good. He wrote the lyrics to some of our biggest hits.”
“But…”
“But the last couple of albums…he’d kinda-sorta started to buy into his own hype. Spent more time acting like a misunderstood drama queen than writing. So, I had to pick up the slack here and there.”
“How much slack we talking?”
“Like…pretty much everything on the last two albums, actually.”
“Damn,” he said. “So the reason you guys were even up on that stage to begin with…was you?”
“That’s one way to look at it,” I said. “Chris helped a lot, too, don’t get me wrong.” I shook my head. “But it doesn’t matter anymore. Those guys are all gone.”
“I’m sorry,” said Ed. “And I know this is going to take some time for you to work through.”
“No. I’m not saying this because I want you to feel bad for me. I get that my old life is as gone as my friends are. All I care about now is getting to Mom, making sure she’s safe.”
There was something else, too.
“And the only reason I’m still around is because of you, Ed. And I just want to know that I’m grateful.”
He smiled faintly, but warmly.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “Just trying to do the right thing.”
I shook my head. “You could’ve left me back there at any time. And I wouldn’t have blamed you. I mean, I’m a musician—it’s not like I’ve got the most useful set of skills do deal with what’s going on. If anything, I’m a burden.”
“No,” said Ed, his tone firm. “You’re not. But there’s something you are without a shadow of a doubt.”
“What’s that?” I asked, curious.
“A survivor.”
“What…what do you mean?”
“Let me ask you this,” he said. “When that horrible shit went down with you and your friends and that crazy bitch, what did you do?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean she came after you, right?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you do? You had to do something or you wouldn’t be alive right now.”
“Um, she came for me with the knife and…I fought back. Smashed a candle on her crazy head, then ran the hell out of there.”
“There you go,” he said. “You know how many people react to danger by just standing there, total deer-in-the-headlights look on their face? A hell of a lot. I’ve seen shit go down before, and most people aren’t exactly quick on their feet when it comes to that sort of thing. But you are. You fought back. And you’ve been fighting to stay alive ever since.”
I almos
t wanted to say he was wrong, that he somehow had gotten the wrong impression.
“I mean, I guess you’re right,” I said. “But I’ve never thought of myself that way.”
“Doesn’t matter how you think of yourself,” Ed said. “Matters what you do when things get dicey. And I’ve only known you for a short time, but it’s been long enough for me to see what you’re really made out of. And you’re made out of tougher stuff than you think.”
He smiled. “You’ve got a lot to bring to the table, Amy. Few people could see what you’ve seen and been through what you’ve been through and come through it all fighting and surviving. You’re not sitting here next to me breathing air because you’re lucky. You’re here because you’ve got something in you that you’re only now starting to learn about.”
I didn’t know what to say. It was so strange hearing someone talk about me like that. Almost like he was describing someone else.
“Thanks,” I said, not sure what else to say.
But I felt good. I felt less like I’d been gifted some luck that I didn’t deserve and more like I was staying alive because I had a reason to do so.
“Now,” he said. “I’ve got a feeling things are only gonna get tougher. In fact, our surviving this mess is only getting started. So, you ready? You with me?”
A small smile formed on my lips.
“I’m ready,” I said.
He nodded, apparently pleased with my answer.
“Then let’s hit it.”
5 Amy
Before too long we were back on the road. We drove around the jackknifed truck, and lucky for us the dead cars on the road eased up and we were finally able to get some good distance behind us.
“Shit,” said Ed, finally breaking the silence.
“What?” I asked. “Something wrong?”
“Gas,” he said. “Getting low, low, low.”
“I thought we were doing good on gas?” I said, surprised.
“We were,” he said. “But cars like this go through gas like it’s nothing. And all that speeding up and slowing down we were doing wasn’t exactly good on the MPG.”
“Great,” I said. “What’re we going to do?”
“Keep driving,” he said. “And hope that we make it to Sandy Vista before this thing runs out of juice.”
He was right. There was nothing else to do but keep moving and hope for the best.
Another ten minutes or so passed as I kept my eye on the gas meter, hoping that the little orange warning symbol would vanish. But no such luck.
Then I spotted what we were looking for: the turnoff for Sandy Vista.
“There!” I shouted, pointing towards a two-lane road that split off from the highway. “That’s it!”
“Huh?”
“There!”
I’d barely noticed the road in the low light, but once I had there was no doubt in my mind that it was the right one.
“Turn!”
Ed turned the wheel hard, the tires squealing as we pulled onto the road.
“Damn!” said Ed after he’d stabilized the car. “Little more notice next time, all right?”
“Sorry,” I said. “But it’s dark out.”
“How you do even know this is the right one?”
“Those two Joshua trees,” I said, pointing to the thick-limbed trees on both sides of the roads. “I remember them from when I was little. They were how I knew I was home.”
“You positive?”
“Not a doubt in my mind.”
“And how much longer until we’re there? Because this gas situation’s getting pretty dire.”
“Shouldn’t be any more than fifteen minutes,” I said. “We’ll be seeing the outskirts of the abandoned part of the town before too long.”
We kept on driving, and sure enough, off in the distance I spotted rows and rows of houses. A sign posted in the ground just before the first row read “Welcome to Sandy Vista!”, the letters written in a fun, postcard-style font above a faded, chipped painting of a sun setting over the desert.
“Jeez,” said Ed. “You weren’t kidding about this place being abandoned. It’s a damn ghost town.”
He was right. The bulk of the town was just as desolate and empty as I remembered it being all those years ago. Hundreds of homes, most of them simple ranch-style structures, sat unoccupied. Most of them featured broken windows and dead lawns and other signs of neglect and disrepair. The ten years that had passed hadn’t been kind to the remains of Sandy Vista.
“I don’t like this,” he said. “Anyone could be hiding in those places.”
“I doubt it,” I said. “Like I said, most people don’t even know this town exists. And some of the men in the homeowner’s association started patrols of the town when the houses started looking like this to make sure that there weren’t any squatters. There never were.”
“Tell me where to go,” said Ed. “You know this place better than I do.”
“Just keep taking the main road,” I said. “It’ll eventually lead to the subdivision.”
“How will I know when I see it?”
“You’ll know. Trust me.”
Ed drove on, taking a slow pace down the main drag of town, passing long-closed shops and restaurants. Off in the distance, on the far end of town, the closed factory loomed silently, almost like it was standing guard over the corpse of the town.
Eventually a large, white-painted concrete barrier appeared in the distance, the first structure in the town that looked like it was actually taken care of. A huge gate cut through the road, blocking us from going any further.
“There it is,” I said. “That’s the entrance to the subdivision.”
Right as I spoke the words, it sank in that there was a little problem to the plan—namely the massive gate.
“Shit,” I hissed. “That thing’s electric-powered.”
“Well,” said Ed. “I doubt your mom and her neighbors are letting themselves get trapped in there by a damn gate. Let’s check it out.”
He closed the distance between us and the gate, coming to a stop on the side of the road.
“Sure hope your mom’s here,” he said, clicking off the engine. “Because I’d be really surprised if old Franz here had the juice to start back up again.”
I said nothing as I slowly opened the door and slid out of the car, my eyes on the tall gate, built of thick, straight iron, the tops of the bars pointed in an ornate arrowhead design, but pointed nonetheless. I approached the gate, wrapping my hands around the cool, steel bars as I looked through.
Darkness. The moonlight was waning, but I could still make out the curved road and the outline of the houses beyond.
“What do you think?” Ed asked as he approached me, speaking softly to avoid attracting attention.
“Looks like I remember,” I said. “Just with no power.”
And it did. The gentle curve of the road, the immaculately kept lawns, the soft whites and grays and beiges of the houses—it was all there. I could almost feel the eye of the homeowner’s association hovering over the place, making sure that no lawn had gone too long without a cut or that no car had remained parked on the street for too long.
“This gate’s on wheels,” Ed observed. “Bet we can pull it open without too much trouble.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s less sturdy than I remember it being. Looks mostly for show.”
Ed grabbed onto the bars and I did the same.
“On three,” he said. “One, two—”
We both pulled hard, but truth be told once it got going I realized that it likely would’ve only taken one of us to move. The gate was on wheels, no lock or anything else holding it in place. And it was silent, too—no groaning or creaking as it moved.
“Sorry,” I said, stepping back. “I probably should’ve asked if you were okay to do that. You know, after—”
“I’m fine,” Ed snarled, cutting me off. “Don’t worry about me.”
His little spell back there still weighed
on my mind, as much as he clearly didn’t want to talk about it. But I put it out of my head as I stepped through the gate, Ed following me closely behind.
“Damn,” said Ed, looking around. “Some real Stepford shit.”
He had a point.
The place was just as calm and peaceful and totally cookie-cutter as I remembered. Aside from a few regulation-compliant add-ons like a basketball hoop or a toolshed tucked around the back, each home was the same two-story, McMansion-style home with a large front lawn and driveway that led to a two-car garage. It was comforting and serene and a little unnerving all at once.
And it was home. Kind of.
“Which one of these is yours?” asked Ed. “If you can even tell them apart, that is.”
“Cute,” I said, though deep-down agreeing with him. “It’s down around the bend—peach-colored house with a birdbath out front. Follow me.”
We made our way down the road, and as we did my eyes flicked from house to house. The lights were off, which was to be expected, but it didn’t look like there were any signs of life at all.
“They all take off or something?” asked Ed.
“That would be weird,” I said. “My neighbors could barely be talked into leaving the neighborhood to go to the store—everyone treated their house like a little fortress. Can’t imagine they’d do anything but hunker down after the power went out.”
“Then they’re either gone,” said Ed. “Or they’re good and hunkered.”
I scanned each house as we passed, but failed to spot a single sign that anyone was home. Tension gripped my belly as I considered the idea that, for whatever reason, everyone had left. Without thinking I picked up my pace, eager to get back home.
“Come on,” I said.
“Sure, sure,” said Ed.
My speed went from a walk to a jog, and soon after I was making my way around the large bend in the road that led to the cul-de-sac, my heart beating faster and faster.
“Nearly there!” I said, probably speaking louder than I needed to, but at the same time not caring.
As soon as I made my way around the big curve in the road I spotted it, stopping in my tracks at the sight.
Home.
But I didn’t have time to stand around and bask in the nostalgia. Mom was there, and I needed to see her, to make sure she was safe.
