Beauty and Dread

by Nicki Huntsman Smith

  “Can’t we just give them some Flintstones Chewables?” Steven was beginning to feel annoyed. He had more on his plate than he could get done in a year. Must he also deal with these kinds of issues that should be Cate’s and the HG crew’s responsibility?

  Another noncommittal shrug. “They’re not to be found. People must have been smart enough to stock up on them before the end.”

  “I’ll talk to the HG people. See if we can make it a priority.”

  “Very well.” The woman turned her back and walked down one of the darkened corridors. There was no “take care” or “see you later.” She was finished with the conversation and didn’t feel the need to offer the typical valediction expected in normal social situations.

  Steven found it refreshing.

  Natalie was staring at him. He could feel her hostility, but there was also something else.

  “I need to talk to you,” she whispered with a glance at Cate’s diminishing backside.

  “What’s up?”

  “Not here. Go outside and wait for me around the corner of the building next to the smoking area.” Then she was gone.

  I don’t have time for this female drama, he thought, and then felt a minor pang of guilt. A couple of weeks ago, he’d had sex with her then kicked her out of his house. Other than some near tangible animosity, there had been little fallout. The least he could do was give her a few moments of his time.

  He had been leaning next to the building for ten minutes and was about to leave when she arrived.

  “So what’s with all the secrecy?”

  “I don’t want Cate to hear. This is about her. There is something fishy about that woman. For one thing, why is she so well-fed when the rest of us are practically starving?”

  “I don’t think anyone is starving at this point, Natalie. You look better too.”

  “Thanks for noticing.”

  “I’m serious. I know everyone isn’t eating as much as they’d like, but nobody is starving.”

  “Yes, I realize that. But isn’t it suspicious that she’s so...rotund? She must be holding out.”

  “Don’t you think everyone is doing a bit of that? Did you donate any items to the commissary?”

  “I didn’t have anything to give,” she said, the gray eyes slid away from his. “Besides, it’s not just that. There’s more. I saw her touching one of the girls the other day, when she was asleep.”

  “What do you mean? Like fondling?”

  “No, no. Nothing like that. But it wasn’t the way a nurse or doctor would normally touch a patient. I’m not even sure her hands were making contact with the girl’s body. It looked like she was just sort of hovering them over her. She stopped doing it when she heard me at the door. It was just so strange.”

  “No offense, but this isn’t your area of expertise. The woman has a master’s degree in nursing, so she claims. Her medical knowledge seems to back it up, though, wouldn’t you agree? The Hays women are recovering nicely, I’m told.”

  “Yes, she’s knowledgeable, but I’m telling you that something is off about her. And if you don’t want to get to the bottom of it, I will.”

  “I just don’t know what you expect me to do. The last thing we want is to piss off our only doctor by asking why she’s fifty pounds overweight. If you come up with anything concrete, let me know. Is there anything else you need? Is Brittany doing okay?”

  Natalie scowled. “Yes, she’s fine, thanks. You might want to find some condoms for your son, though. Those two are like rutting sheep. They haven’t done the deed yet, but it’s inevitable, and I’m too young to be a grandmother.”

  Steven wasn’t surprised. The couple had been sitting together at the last town hall gathering, holding hands and exchanging covert kisses. He remembered what it was like to be a randy youth. He would speak to the HG crew about condoms as well as vitamins.

  “I’ll have a talk with him.”

  “Thank you. I’m sorry if I’ve been a bitch. I’m just working through some things. I’ll see you later.”

  She turned and walked away. Steven smiled. That sounded like progress to him.

  Chapter 11

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you do that.” Pablo’s voice sounded surprisingly calm. On the inside, his stomach was doing backflips.

  “Who the fuck is leading this crew?” The man who spoke was short but compensated for his height deficiency with blustery intimidation tactics. Pablo had seen the same method used by playground bullies and low intellect supervisors his entire life.

  He ignored the rhetorical question. “What you’re proposing is inherently dangerous. Why would you subject your people to needless peril?”

  “There you go again, using all those big fucking words. I’ve had just about enough of your smart mouth.” The grizzled beard was so close, Pablo could identify dried clumps of the oatmeal he must have eaten for breakfast.

  “I’ll switch to monosyllabic. Don’t do this. It would be bad.” The reply flew out before he could stop it. Being a puto arrogante just might get his ass kicked today. The leader of the Hunter-Gatherers was short, but he was all wiry muscle and lightning reflexes. There was a reason he had been selected for the job, and it had little to do with book smarts.

  “You smartass beaner.”

  And there it was. Funny how people still clung to their bigotry even after the world had ended.

  “There is a vehicle parked behind the dumpster at the back. Until we check it out and at least confirm it’s been sitting there for a year, we need to assume the person or people who drove it here are inside.”

  Ted squinted in the direction of the dumpster. The rest of the group, two men and one woman, stood in a semicircle next to their Dodge Ram. It was one of the two official HG vehicles. The other was a twenty-four foot U-Haul moving truck. So far, the only instance when its capacity had been required was at a restaurant supply building near the airport in Wichita. The warehouse hadn’t been fully stocked, but there’d been two pallets of canned peas, a dozen cases of beef consommé, and enough Scott 2-ply to fill a small house. The toilet paper was quite a boon; it was the new gold standard these days.

  Ted’s gaze returned to Pablo. The man’s thoughts were so obvious he could have had English subtext scrolling across his forehead. The newest member of his crew was right, but if he admitted it in front of his people, he would lose street cred.

  The situation was about to take a nosedive.

  “Here’s how this is going down,” Ted replied. “We’re going in. You can go with us, or you can sit your happy brown ass right here.”

  “Why don’t you at least send one person through the back entrance? That way if there are hostiles in there, you can deal with them from two vantages. You could be walking into an ambush.”

  “I think he’s right,” one of the men muttered.

  The short man spun to face the subversive, shoving the taller man in the chest with enough force to knock him to the pavement. “I’m in charge. I make the decisions. Let’s get going now!”

  The group scrambled to obey. Pablo watched them cross the parking lot to the front of the Kwik Shop, which was located in the outskirts of Salina, seventy miles to the east of Liberty. Almost every foray took them farther away from the relative safety of their town. This would be the third Kwik Shop of the day. The chain of convenience stores was as prolific here in Kansas as Starbucks must have been in Washington. The previous two had been picked clean. This location was on a remote secondary road, and for that reason, it might have escaped notice. That was Ted’s reasoning, at least.

  Pablo was no hero. He knew that about himself. He would put his life on the line for Maddie, Jessie, and Amelia, but he barely knew any of these people. Why follow Racist Ted into potential danger?

  “Goddamn it,” he grumbled, then jogged around to the back of the small building. He held his shotgun in one hand, and in the other, a Glock .380, given to him by Ted with smirk.

  Know how to use that, taco head?
<
br />   It’s a handgun, not a Rube Goldberg machine...I think I can figure it out.

  The blank expression on the face of the leader of the monumentally important Hunter-Gatherers had told Pablo the man had no idea what a Rube Goldberg machine was, and probably didn’t know a lot of other things too.

  He stopped at the corner of the building and peered around to the back. All clear. But the metal rear exit door had been propped open with a rock.

  “Shit.”

  He crept toward the door then stuck the barrel of the shotgun in the opening. There was no answering blast of gunfire. So far so good. He stepped into the darkened stockroom and flipped on his flashlight. A quick scan revealed no occupants other than a stack of Pepsi six-packs, two large boxes with the Cheetos’ cheetah printed on the side, and a small box with an M&M logo. Maddie’s words echoed in his head: You and your M&M addiction. You’re such a girl.

  Instinct told him the dust-free pile had recently been assembled, which meant whomever had left their automobile by the dumpster and propped open the back door was still in the building. His ambush theory was probably correct.

  Adrenaline surged into his bloodstream, priming his body for the confrontation his brain told him was imminent. He gave a soft push to one of the swing doors leading into the store, creating a three-inch gap. The glass windows at the front of the building allowed enough light to illuminate the backs of two people crouched next to a row of empty shelves. He could also see their firearms pointed at the members of the HG crew as they walked about.

  Pablo shouldered through the doors, aiming his shotgun at the crouching man and the Glock at the woman next to him. They were so focused on the people at the front, they never heard him until he spoke from half an aisle behind.

  “Let’s not make this a bloodbath. No sudden moves. Stand up slowly, toss your weapons to the ground, and raise your hands where I can see them. More than anything, I do not want to kill either of you today, but I will to keep you from killing my friends.”

  The couple rose, the man’s knees cracking and popping. The two exchanged a look as they stood. Critical information was sent and received in that brief moment. Even in the dim light Pablo could see a resemblance in the profiles of the older man and the twenty-something girl.

  Please don’t let them do anything stupid.

  “What we got here?” Ted’s nasal voice came from in front of the couple, who now stood with their arms in the air. They had yet to drop their guns.

  “Just a man and his daughter. I don’t think they want to hurt anyone.”

  “Is that so, taco head? You’re a psychic too? How the hell do you know what these people want? If they’re anything like everyone else left in this godforsaken world, they’d just as soon cut out your heart as look at you. Ain’t that right, old man?”

  Ted and his people carried an assortment of firepower, all pointed at the father and daughter. At that moment, he realized he was in the worst possible position if people started shooting.

  “Come on. Don’t be such a moronic dick.”

  The words were ill-chosen. He knew it the second he spoke them. Red splotches of rage blossomed above the grizzled beard.

  The older man standing in front of him saw them too. With surprising speed, the father whipped his rifle down and got a shot off at the same moment Ted’s .45 fired. Pablo had just enough time to dive to the ground.

  It was a superfluous effort. Both bullets found their targets.

  ###

  Pablo’s Journal, Entry #417

  For a man with such an impressive lexicon, I certainly screwed the pooch today. I can’t say that my goading was responsible for getting Ted and the father killed, but I did see the fury on Ted’s face as clearly as a snapping red flag next to the ocean. My calling him a ‘moronic dick’ sparked a riptide of rage that resulted in two deaths. If I hadn’t one-upped him moments earlier, he might not have already been so violently fueled, and the daughter might still have her father.

  Or perhaps if my happy brown ass had stayed in the parking lot as Ted had directed, all the members of the HG crew would have died at the hands of the pair.

  We’ll never know how the unrealized ripples of these non-events, the impact of those actions NOT taken today, might have affected the future. They’re fascinating to contemplate...the infinite ‘what ifs.’ I find myself pondering them too much lately. It’s an exercise in creativity but also futility.

  In the meantime, more responsibility has been added to my considerable burden. The irony of being assigned the position of leading the Hunter-Gatherers (after participating in the death of its former commander) isn’t lost on me. I argued with Steven when he proposed it, but at the behest of the crew’s remaining members and after another hour of gentle prodding from Steven, I acquiesced. I guess I’m susceptible to peer pressure after all.

  Pablo lifted the pen from the spiral notebook. He gazed at Maddie in bed next to him. She slept like the dead these days, even with the two-hour afternoon naps. He might have been worried about her sudden need for so much sleep if she didn’t look like a rosy-cheeked cover girl for Health magazine.

  “I’m beginning to think that sleeping is your super power,” he had said to her yesterday. She flashed him one of her dazzling smiles and replied, “I’m no super hero. I’m a Sleep Viking! And I can pulverize wakefulness with my mighty dream hammer!”

  He smiled at the memory as he watched her breathing; watched the rise and fall, rise and fall of her chest. Ever since her injury, this had become a nightly routine he looked forward to. Nothing brought him more happiness and comfort than to see Maddie nestled in beside him, sleeping soundly. He leaned over and brushed his lips across a cheek as soft as the lamb’s ear in his mother’s flower garden, glanced at the shotgun next to him on the bedside table, then placed pen to paper again.

  Tomorrow is a day of some import. I’ve given it considerable thought and decided that we’re going to start focusing on the hunting rather than the gathering. I’ve no doubt there is still food ‘out there,’ hidden in remote, isolated, or inaccessible locations; in places that require gasoline, time, and energy to find. But next week, we’ll shift focus a bit. We’ll look for items not packaged in boxes or shrink wrapped or canned. We’ll search for those delinquent pigs and wayward cows Maddie and I discussed in Arizona. Perhaps we’ll hunt the deer I’ve caught glimpses of in the forested areas outside of town. Maybe we’ll take a few fishing poles to Wilson Lake. We’ll need to find horses too at some point, but for now the priority is food on the hoof or the fin. Against my better judgment, I’ve requested the services of Logan for the week. He’s quite the hero these days. The story of his one-in-a-million shot would be difficult to believe if I hadn’t witnessed his talent firsthand in Hays. I think he will improve our odds of bringing burgers and bacon home to Maddie. She mentioned an intense craving just this morning...

  Pablo slid open the bedside table drawer and tucked his journal away for the night. He was too tired to write anything more taxing than stream of consciousness – the latest poem would have to wait. He thought of Maddie’s rant about creating art. Art takes energy, of which I’m currently in short supply. Art will be postponed at least until tomorrow night. He blew out the candle and was asleep in less than a minute.

  Next to him, Maddie dreamed of a dark-skinned man. His eyes glowed like burning coals and his smile was beautiful and terrifying. He was the one Alfred had warned of in a previous dream; she knew that instantly. Unlike the nebulous quality of normal dreams, she could see him with surprising clarity – not crisp and colorful, but like an actor in an old black and white movie. If Pablo had been awake next to her, he would have heard her moan when the man’s gaze fell upon her.

  Down the hallway of the modest ranch house, Jessie also moaned in her sleep. She shared Maddie’s dream movie, but her vantage was from behind the camera. She saw Maddie standing in front of the dark-skinned man who was sitting on a black horse. He held a sword. The beast reared back on its hin
d legs and when the hooves came crashing back to the ground, the long blade found its way to Maddie’s belly.

  The anguished dream scream woke up the corporeal Jessie. She rubbed her sleep-crusted eyes with a tiny fist. Amelia sat on the other bed watching her.

  “Was it terrible? Do you remember what happened?”

  A kittenish mewl escaped her throat. She covered the cherub mouth so more wouldn’t follow.

  “It’s okay if you feel like crying. Crying doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means you’re human,” Amelia whispered. “What did you see?”

  “The Smiling Man is getting closer. I think he wants to hurt Maddie’s baby. I think he wants to hurt everyone else too.”

  “How would he know about the baby?”

  A shrug of the small shoulders. “I don’t know. Maybe he has dreams like Maddie and I do.”

  “Do you think he was having the same dream tonight that you were having?”

  Another shrug. “I don’t know. I think he might hear the monsters though. Like I do, but more. More often. I think he likes the monsters.”

  “Did he see you? Did he look at you?”

  A shake of the bed-tangled hair. “No. He could only see Maddie. I was hiding behind a tree.”

  “Ah. Good girl. Listen to me carefully, child. This is important. Are you ready to listen?”

  “Yes, I’m ready.”

  “The next time you dream of the Smiling Man, find a place to hide. You must always hide from him. Search for another tree or dig a hole in the ground and cover yourself up with dream dirt. Do you understand why?”

  The child nodded. “Yes. So he can’t find me in the real world.”

  “Yes, that’s it exactly. Perhaps he’ll never find out about you.”

  “But he knows about the baby.”

  “There’s nothing to be done about that now. At least not in the dream world.”

  “What can we do about it in the real world?”