The World Without Crows

by Ben Lyle Bedard

  "I don't really like baseball," he told Eric. He didn't take his eyes from the burning horizon. "My Dad loved it though. Watched it whenever he could." He swallowed and then smiled thinly. "Mets," he said, looking at Eric. He was quiet then for a while before he began again. "Guess I must've been a little of a disappointment to him. I never played sports. I played video games." Something like laughter emerged from him. "Doesn't that seem like a lifetime ago? Or maybe it was never real."

  Eric didn't have anything to say. It did seem unreal, that life. It seemed more unreal with each day that passed. Had he ever got up to frying bacon? Had they gathered to watch movies and eat pizza? Had he ever sat next to his mother on the couch and rested his head on her shoulder?

  "It doesn't matter," Eric said finally. "None of it matters now."

  "What does matter then?" Sergio asked quietly.

  Eric looked at him. "We need to find Birdie," he said. "And we need to kill that son of a bitch, Carl Doyle. That's what matters."

  _

  Eric imagined himself seeing a bloody, limping Carl Doyle, coming down the road toward him. He pulled his pistol out, stretching out his arm to its length. He pulled the trigger and shot with rhythmic certainty. Bang. Bang. Bang. In his mind, Carl Doyle clutched at his chest, stumbled forward, and then fell. He felt triumph fill his veins, elation and euphoria. Then Birdie ran to him from the Land Rover and Eric embraced her and felt her hard plastic barrettes against his cheek.

  _

  On the Pennsylvania side of the river, the town was called Matamoras. On the New York side, Port Jervis. The northeastern part of the town, across the river, was a dark ash ruin. The rest of the town was quietly crumbling. Under the blue skies of July, it was still except for the sound of the wind through the empty town. With water so near, the streets were devoid of Zombies, most of them having thrown themselves in the river weeks ago. Several skeletal corpses, picked to bone by fish and crow, clung to the banks of the river.

  As Eric walked into town with Lucia and Sergio to each side of him, he kept his hand upon the pistol in his pocket. It was warm and smooth and his finger nestled into the trigger guard like a chick under its mother. Although they needed food, they always needed food, the object was to cross the bridge. So they moved through the dead streets with firm but careful strides. Sergio clicked his tongue nervously, until Lucia told him to stop, a sharp whisper in the stillness.

  The landscape had flattened into swells as if some quiet ocean existed just underneath the soil. The bridge stretched across the blue expanse of the river. Eric had the sense that it was trying to hold the two sides together. In the months since the plague, the bridge had suffered. Several burned out cars were on it, crumpled to the side of the bridge. There were two gaping holes in the side of the bridge where vehicles must have plowed through and toppled over into the river, proof of some tragedy that would never be known or reported or put down in any statistics, vanishing into the great obscurity of a time beyond history. History had died with humanity. It left Eric feeling cold and alone. He grasped the pistol tighter in his pocket.

  It didn't take any time to arrive at the Pennsylvania side of the bridge. The wind blew their hair as they stood contemplating the crossing. Once they were on the bridge, they would be vulnerable and easily spotted. Sergio began clicking his tongue again, but this time, Lucia said nothing.

  Eric walked toward the bridge. The others followed.

  There were several burnt out cars on the bridge. As the wind moved by them, it whispered through burnt scraps of metal and clattered against loose flaps of plastic. Below them, the river moved quietly, glassy and bright blue.

  They were near the middle of the bridge when the Land Rover suddenly appeared before them, its color obscured by gore. Carl Doyle hunched over the steering wheel. Eric's heart thumped in him and he clutched the pistol, but he was not surprised. This was exactly what they had all feared. It was the obvious place to wait for them. To ambush them. Sergio took a step back, but when his sister didn't move, he stepped forward again.

  The Land Rover stopped in the middle of the bridge, and Carl Doyle stumbled out the driver side door. He slammed it shut behind him, and then hopped forward, dragging his bad leg.

  "Let's kill him now," Sergio whispered.

  "No," Eric hissed. "Not until we know where Birdie is."

  "She's in the jeep!" Sergio insisted.

  "We don't know that," Lucia said.

  "Eric!" boomed Doyle.

  "Let's kill him now!" Sergio pleaded.

  "No!" Eric insisted. He looked them both in the eye. "Nobody does anything until we know where Birdie is, do you understand?" They nodded, though Sergio looked pale and uncertain. "I'll go talk to him," Eric said. "You two stay here."

  "No, we're coming with you," Lucia said. Eric knew by her tone that there was no arguing with her.

  Carl Doyle looked worse than he had before. His eyes were red with blood now, and half of his mustache was gone, leaving a patch of yellowish skin, speckled with dark scabs. He wore a hard pith helmet with a dark leather strap over the front brim. His clothes, however, still had a strangely neat appearance, despite the filth of his clothes and the ruined mess where the bear had mauled him. Eric thought was even larger than before.

  "Ho ho!" Doyle cried, dark spittle coming from his mouth. "Look who it is! By God, it's Eric." He laughed a grumbling deep laugh. "It's good to see you, my boy!" He didn't seem to have eyes for either Sergio or Lucia, who stood to either side of him. "It's been a hell of a trip through the wilderness, hasn't it? I've searched the Congo, my boy, I've searched it to its dark heart. Cut my way through armies of savages to get here. And now I find you again! Excellent! Each day, we are moving closer and closer to the grand objective!" Blood trickled from his eye and dripped from his chin to the ground.

  "Where's Birdie?" Eric asked as steadily as he could.

  "Who?" Carl Doyle absently wiped his face with his arm, streaking it with light, pinkish blood.

  "The little girl," Eric said. "The little girl you took from us!"

  "Ah, the little Negro girl, you mean," Doyle said. He looked out over the bridge and grew silent. He looked with such intensity that Eric turned to follow his gaze. He saw nothing but air over water. Angrily he turned back to Doyle to repeat his question, but Doyle began before he could open his mouth. "You don't think the darkness lives, do you?" he asked. He didn't wait for an answer. "It's the savages, Eric, they're not like us. They don't feel. They don't hunger for meaning. They just walk around, as if it all didn't mean anything. You and I understand, don't we Eric?" He gave them a ghastly smile, all dark teeth and bleeding gums.

  "Where's the girl?" Sergio asked.

  Doyle went on as if he heard nothing. "The island! We know it. We need it, you and I. From it, we can make a stand. We can build. Without it, there’s just wilderness. Savagery. Winston Churchill said it best when he said. He said." Doyle took off his pith helmet to scratch his head. They held their breath in revulsion. His scalp was bare and the skin was red and raw. In places, the skin was broken and bleeding. Doyle scratched at a bloody surface before he put his hat back on. "If you're going through hell, keep going!" Doyle smiled. "That's what he said."

  "Please listen to me," Eric said. "What did you do with the little girl?"

  "We can't stop now!" Doyle said excitedly. "We have to keep going, meet the savages head on! The only thing they understand is brute force! We must battle them from here to the island!" He smacked one fist into the meat of his palm. Then a puzzled look came upon his face. "What girl? The little Negro girl?"

  "Yes!" Eric exclaimed. "What did you do with her? Is she with you?"

  "She's a traitor," Doyle said. "Don't think of her, my boy. She's gone. A traitor to the island!"

  Eric stepped forward. "Doyle, listen very carefully. I want the girl back. Tell me where she is. Now."

  Carl Doyle smiled. "You can't make friends with traitors. The point is this," he said. "You can't appease a crocodile,
you understand? We have to fight our way to the island. We can continue as we have been while I, while I clear the way. You continue, my dear boy, I'll clear a path!" He waved his hand over the land like a magician.

  "Tell us where she is!" Sergio cried.

  Lucia stepped forward. "Mr. Doyle," she began.

  "What?" Carl Doyle turned to Lucia, his eyes blazing with sudden fury. Lucia froze. "Where did you pick up this little trollop?" His bleeding eyes searched Lucia up and down. His voice grew low and dangerous. "Fornicator! Beware of this one," he said to Eric, pointing at her. "A little savage whore, is what she is."

  Sergio gave out a cry and Eric saw him pull out his gun. "No!" Eric cried. Then the world slowed to a crawl. He could feel his own heartbeat pump in him, terrified and painful. Sergio's hand moved toward Doyle, clutching his weapon. Eric moved to stop him, but he fired. Eric saw a puff of sweater erupt from Doyle's shoulder where the bullet grazed him. Doyle roared like a bull and sprang toward Sergio. Eric felt Lucia pounce by him, knocking him back. Lucia stood in front of Doyle, her hand held outward as if she could stop him with the power of her mind. With one meaty arm, Doyle swept her to the side with terrible violence. She flew to the edge of the bridge where one of the gaps yawned toward the air, and tripping, she vanished over the side. Sergio stared in horror at the emptiness for an instant before Doyle grappled with him. Eric fumbled for his gun.

  Doyle pulled Sergio's gun from his hand and then lifted him effortlessly over his head. In a daze of panic, Eric held out his pistol, but Doyle shoved pass him and the gun clattered to the ground from Eric's loose grip. Doyle stepped to the edge of the bridge. For just an instant, Doyle held him there, suspended over his head, where Sergio struggled in a panic.

  "No don't! Please! Please!" cried Sergio, held in the air over the bridge.

  Carl Doyle grunted and tossed him over the side. Sergio's blood-freezing scream ended abruptly.

  For the space of a heartbeat, there were the small, meaningless sounds that were left. The wind across the bridge. The heavy breathing of Carl Doyle. The humming idle of the Land Rover, as if purring at its master's triumph.

  Eric didn’t think. He felt himself move forward. He slipped out of his backpack, letting it fall to the road. He took one, two steps toward Doyle, and then he was running. Eric leapt past him, hurling himself into the void. He wanted to dive, but when he jumped into the embrace of the air, his body tumbled and rolled.

  There was air. His wildly beating heart. A fleeting glimpse of Carl Doyle on the bridge, looking down at him. The rushing wind about him. He thought about Birdie. He thought about Lucia. He thought about Sarah's charred bones and Jessica in the gutter with her eye shut out. Then his mother, smiling, as they snuggled down on the couch at night to watch television. She smelled like baby powder.

  Then he hit the water.

  _

  When Eric surfaced from his darkness, he was surrounded by bubbling water. For a moment, he did not know up from down, just the clutch of the water and the pain of his impact. His whole right side flamed with pain. It was a strange moment there, held by the water, not knowing his place in the world. He knew one way was up, toward the surface and life. The other was down to the river bottom where he would gasp, fill with water, and then slide along the bottom until he died. Which way should he swim?

  Held there in that suspense of water, Eric felt the first cold hands of death. It was surprisingly gentle. What was living anyway? Pain, suffering, grief, toil, and fear. Yet the cold, sinuous hands of the river were tender and held him complete. They did not care he was fat. They did not care that he had failed to protect Birdie. All of these lives were nothing to them. They promised him peace, at last, and the wonderful, almost unimaginable, absence of fear. Death was kind. Death was a gift. In that moment of suspension, the world of water bubbling about him, Eric felt more comfortable than he had in all his life. He never realized how much terror his heart held until it released him.

  Then he kicked upward and followed the bubbles around him.

  Death was a gift, but one he would not accept until his time.

  This was not it.

  _

  Eric broke the surface and gasped a lungful of air.

  As he struggled in his soaked clothes, he became aware that someone was screaming. Turning around in the water, he tried to find the source.

  "Lucia!" he cried. "Lucia!"

  "Eric!" she screamed back. "Get him! Get my brother!"

  Eric could see her waving on the bank of the river frantically. She was pointing downstream, where a tree had fallen, its branches submerged in the river. Sergio was there, face down, snagged by the branches. Awkwardly swimming, still in pain from the fall, Eric kicked toward Sergio.

  The river tried to pull him further down the river, but it was midsummer, low and sluggish. Eric fought to the side of his friend. When he tugged him free and began pulling him toward the riverbank, Lucia cried on the bank, unintelligible words meant for her brother. He was almost to the bank, his body exhausted and burning with pain, when Sergio suddenly jerked to life behind him. Spouting water, he began kicking and waving his arms, clutching at Eric, and dragging him under the water.

  Eric choked on the water and struggled with Sergio, who was pulling him down. His fingers were claws that dug in him. Sergio clutched at him like he was a life preserver. He was killing them both. Then Eric too began to panic, the pain of the water in his lungs making him flail, trying to get free of Sergio.

  Then strong hands grabbed him and he felt grass and mud beneath him. He lifted himself up to vomit water on the riverbank. He gasped in painful gulps, before choking and vomiting again. Finally, completely exhausted, he rolled over on his back.

  The clouds above shined incredibly white like the wings of birds. They moved so slowly, so patiently across the blue, so aimlessly.

  And then he fell asleep.

  _

  They sat quiet around the campfire. They were naked but for the towels Lucia had found still clinging to some clotheslines. Their clothes were drying on a line that Lucia had strung between two trees. In the heat of July, it would not take long.

  They had returned to the bridge. Doyle was long gone, but Eric’s backpack was still there, the only one left. They had been forced to enter houses in Port Jervis. They needed food and Eric needed new hiking boots. His had come off when he hit the water. He found a pair, but they were slightly too large and very heavy. The only food they found was a bag of rice in the back of a cupboard, half eaten by mice. They had just finished that meal.

  In the quiet, Sergio spoke first. “What now?”

  “We hunt him down, shoot his legs out from under him, and we force him to tell us what he did with Birdie. Then we kill him.”

  They were quiet then, listening to the crackling of the fire.

  _

  It wasn’t hard following Doyle. He left carnage behind him. Burning vehicles, smoldering houses, and ripped open corpses marked his trail. Eric spent his day with his finger on the trigger of the .22 that he had dropped on the bridge. It was now their only weapon.

  But it would do. Even a .22 bullet, humble as it was, would cut into a man, lodge in bone, tear through lung, punch through muscle, and tunnel into the tender heart.

  This time he would give Doyle all the mercy he had shown Lucia, Sergio, and poor Birdie.

  Doyle deserved to die, Eric told himself. He had it coming.

  _

  As they left Port Jervis, they came across a small library. Eric went inside, saying there might be food, but he was looking for a book. He found it.

  How to Clean a .22 pistol:

  1) Make sure the gun is unloaded. Place the gun on a towel.

  2) Spray solvent on your bore brush. Insert your bore brush into the breach side of the barrel. (This is not the side of the barrel where the bullet emerges.) Pass the bore brush through the barrel until the barrel is free of residue.

  3) Pass a cleaning cloth through the barrel with the ro
d until it comes clean from the barrel.

  4) Clean any dirt or rust from the gun’s action with a small wire brush. Be gentle, these are delicate parts of your weapon. Make sure all these parts are thoroughly cleaned with solvent.

  5) Wipe all areas clean with a dry cloth. Then wipe all areas with lubricating oil.

  Remember, the book said, a clean weapon is a reliable weapon.

  _

  Meanwhile they waited for signs of the Vaca B. It was impossible to know how much water they had swallowed when they hit the river. They searched each other for red eyes, flushed, feverish faces, muttering, and irritability. No one mentioned what they were doing. They all searched each other secretly.

  But they all knew they were being watched.

  They searched for antibiotics, but they couldn’t find any. John Martin had been carrying all their medicine when Carl Doyle shot him down.

  It was worse in the morning when it seemed they had nothing to say to each other. They studied each other like lab rats.

  _

  As they hiked quickly to overtake Doyle, Lucia appeared beside Eric. He didn’t slow down, so Lucia took him by the arm.

  “Eric,” she said. “You haven’t said hardly anything since the bridge. Are you okay?”