“I’m fine, Sis, keep going,” he tells me, panting.
“Don’t be stupid, I ain’t going anywhere.” I have to shout to be heard over the wind.
Micah gingerly tests his weight on his foot; he winces, but it holds. I give him my arm to lean on and look for the others.
“Over here,” Curtis yells, barely visible through the haze. Behind him walls rise up out of the dust, more ominous because I can’t see where they start. My hands tremble, and I can’t tell if I’m afraid because I know I should be, or because I really am. Micah squeezes my arm and we make our way to the others, their figures strange and blurred.
“Stay as close as you can,” Curtis shouts, clapping his hand on Sam’s shoulder. “When the storm hits, the shakes won’t be able to see any better than we will. We’ll hole up in a house and wait it out.”
The wind pulls out strands of my hair and whips them back across my face. I squint and tug my hat farther down my head.
“Keep a hand on the person next to you,” Curtis goes on. “I’ll go first. Ben, you’re at back. Try and protect your face. Understood?”
Micah tightens his grip on me and grabs Sam’s free shoulder. Another hand settles on my own shoulder, heavy and warm, and I tilt my head up.
“Brace yourself,” Ben says, his voice muffled. I reckon he pulled his shirt over his mouth and I wish I could see him more clearly and then I realize I can’t see at all; we’re inside the storm.
36.
Everything is gray and murky, like my eyes are wrapped in gauze. The sun’s gone black and the air feels like it’s on fire, spitting and sparking in the dark. The wind whips and howls around me, an angry and vengeful thing; it freezes the sweat at my back and I start to shiver, cold and raw and frantic.
A tug on my arm brings me to my senses and I hurriedly raise my shirt to cover my nose and mouth. I can breathe, just barely, but the air tastes sour and sickly on my tongue. Micah pulls me forward, one painstaking step at a time. The wind screams and claws at me like I am insubstantial, like only the weight of Ben’s hand on my shoulder is keeping me grounded. Without it the wind would snatch me up and toss me around like so many cottonseeds.
It takes us forever to move forward, the wind fighting us for every step. I keep my mind away from where we are and think instead of what we must look like: five tall children playing red rover in a dust storm. I have a sudden and wild urge to laugh, and then something solid and warm slams into me and I go flying.
The ground rushes up to meet me and I land hard on my hip and shoulder. A beat later something lands on top of me; I try to push it off and meet cloth and hot skin. Then fingernails are clawing at me, scraping against my shirt and ribs, trying to tear through to my skin. I open my mouth to scream and a rush of dirt and sand and clay shove their way into my throat. I choke and cough and flail my legs out; one of them connects and I kick again as hard as I can and dislodge the shake from my body. I scramble away, crawling on all fours and gasping, and I can’t see or hear or breathe. This is what it feels like to drown in the desert.
I reach out blindly with one hand, desperate. But there’s nothing; there’s nothing weighing me down, there’s nothing to cling to. There’s dirt in my lungs and sand in my eyes and the storm rages on, unrelenting as life. The wind spits at me, pushing in from all sides like it’s trying to crush me. I dig my heels into the dirt and curl in on myself, lost and blind in the dark. Above me the air keeps to its crying, and below me the sand fights to escape. I am nothing at all to this storm. Just a piece of debris caught in her path, like an ant or a stone. I’ve never felt so insignificant, and all I can think is that I don’t want to be alone.
I struggle to my feet while the wind fights to keep me down. I spread my arms out wide, reaching for anyone, anything to hold on to. I move forward, or maybe back, or maybe in no direction at all. I think I hear shrieking and I feel my way toward it, not caring if it’s only the wind or shakes. Halfway through a step my hand hits something soft and warm and I desperately cling to whatever it is. A hand grips my arm and pulls me forward. I don’t know how, because I can’t see him or hear him and there’s no real reason for it, but I know it’s Ben. I grab a fistful of his shirt and twist my fingers in it, as much to keep ahold of him as to make sure he’s real. I’m so grateful I have to stop myself from crying.
He moves his mouth next to my ear and the coarse hairs of his beard itch against my skin.
“Don’t do that again,” he shouts, and I elbow him in the stomach for ruining the moment.
I lift the collar of my shirt to cover my nose and mouth and close my eyes to the sharp grit. I can’t hide the rest of me, and the wind sends wave after wave of dirt and debris to pummel my arms and legs and sting my cheeks. I brace myself, hunching my shoulders and leaning into Ben. We stagger once or twice but he pulls me along, sure of where he’s going. The world boils down to just this: the wind in my ears and sand in my face and Ben’s arm around me.
A whistle pierces the roar of the air, and Ben whistles back, high and sharp. He turns to the right a bit, and Curtis, because it must be Curtis, whistles again. This time it sounds much closer. My foot scrapes against wood, and then we’re being pulled through a door into a dark room, blessedly free of the wind and sand.
“I got her,” Ben says.
“I got Micah,” Curtis answers.
My eyes are crusted with dirt, and I blink to clear them. It takes a moment, but slowly I make out that we’re in someone’s house, the main room by the look of it. Nana stands in one corner, looking out of place and unconcerned. Curtis shoves the wooden bar across the door into place, and then Micah slings an arm around my shoulders in a feeble hug.
“One hit you too?” I ask him, pushing him back so I can check for injuries. My voice comes out strange, muffled by my shirt and caked with dirt. He nods, and a cloud of dust comes out of his hair.
“I’m fine. You all right?”
I nod; my skin is raw and red and chapped by the sand and my ears are ringing, but that’s the least of my worries at this point. I’m just happy to be inside and out of the storm.
“Check the windows, make sure they’ll hold,” Curtis says, his voice thick with sand.
Wooden planks are nailed across both windows; whoever these people were, they must’ve tried to wait out the sickness. One window is completely blocked, but some of the planks have rotted through on the other. I’m exhausted, so I let Sam and Micah flip the table and place it upright against the wall, covering the exposed area.
“This’ll work,” Curtis says, nodding. “Stay away from the door, but we should be safe enough till the storm passes.”
“How are we gonna get out?” Micah asks. “We can’t stay in here forever.”
“The storm should daze the shakes, some,” Curtis answers. “Even they can’t survive that sand. They’ll hole up somewhere, same as us. We might be able to leave without too much notice, if we stay quiet and out of sight. Either that, or we shoot our way out.” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, dislodging a cloud of dust. “Look, I know it’s not ideal, but we’re making the best of a bad situation. One problem at a time, all right?”
The house is bigger than ours, and well kept, though the furniture is nothing fine. There’s a large threadbare rug covered with sand blown in through small cracks in the walls. Everywhere I see signs of former life: a broken mug, a tarnished and cloudy silver mirror, a bowl turned on its side like an unfinished thought. They left in a hurry; there’s a pot of something now thick and black sitting on the stove. There are three shelves with rusted pots, a pile of shriveled firewood stacked neatly, four sagging chairs pushed back from the missing table. Ratted curtains may have been lace once, and a rotted ladder leads up to what I suppose is the attic bedroom. The house feels lonely, pining for its family; the waste of it sickens me.
“Here,” Curtis says, passing around water. “I’ll check the shelves, see if there’s anything worth taking. Ben, check the lamps, will you?”
/> The water dislodges the grit from my throat, and Sam finds a quilt that smells of mold to wipe the dust from our faces. He takes his glasses off to clean them, leaving two perfectly round dirt-free spots around his eyes.
There are two kerosene lamps, both painted prettily with flowers. The first is empty, but the second still has a full fount. Ben tries to light it, but the fire won’t catch.
“Give it here,” Micah says, and Ben glances at me.
“Micah knows what he’s doing,” I tell him, and he shrugs and hands the lamp over.
Micah pulls the blade from his belt and digs something oily and black out of the lamp, then cuts off the top of the wick.
“Try it now,” he says.
Ben flicks his lighter again, and this time the wick catches and holds. Once the dust burns off it glows steadily, though he turns it low to save the oil.
“I reckon these might still be good,” Curtis calls, holding up two cans with the labels long since peeled off. “Y’all may as well get comfortable. Nothing left to do but wait.”
37.
The storm lasts minutes, or maybe hours, or maybe days. Inside the house, I lose track of time. It’s dark, the storm sucking all the light from the sky. Or maybe there’s no more light; it could be midnight or high noon for all I can tell, the lamp casting long shadows on the floor. My back aches from bracing against the wind and my cheeks still sting from the sand.
The cans turn out to be stewed carrots, which we eat cold with some biscuits and hard cheese from the way station. My gun is packed with sand, and I hand it off to Micah for fixing; he’s better with the fiddly parts than I am. Outside the wind beats against the walls, throwing fistfuls of debris with a determination that feels personal.
The waiting is the worst part. Ben throws his knife at the floor, where it lodges in the wood, upright and defiant. He tugs it out and tosses it again, and again, making a rhythmic thumping until Curtis glares at him to stop.
I sit on the old rug, away from the others, wanting only my own company. I cross my legs and I’m tempted to pull my boots off to give my feet some air, but when I try and tug them off they won’t come. My feet are swollen from all the walking, so I give up on the boots and just let them rest. Curtis and Sam poke around the room until they’re sure there’s nothing of interest, then they flop down on the chairs, noisily and gracelessly, stirring up plumes of dust. The swirls lift into the air, and for a moment I see shapes in it. A cat jumping, a ship with a sail; is this what people see when they look at the stars? I’ve never been able to see the constellations, to find the plow or the bear in the tangle of lights. It doesn’t make sense to me, to single out one bright spot in the spiderweb. I can’t see anything but everything, all at once.
For a while no one says anything, and in a way it’s peaceful. Or it would be if everyone weren’t thinking so loud I swear I can almost hear it. Sam is thinking about how much longer the storm will last, how much water we’ll need, doing the calculations in his doctor’s brain. Micah is fussing with the barrel of my gun and wishing he had a different life, one where nothing is uncertain and everyone has a future. Curtis is planning, checking his watch, running scenarios in his head and weighing the results. I know what it’s like to have people depending on you, looking to you for guidance; it’s a lonely state, one I don’t begrudge him. And Ben, Ben the gruff and taciturn; him I just can’t read. He stares at the gashes his knife made in the wood, I would swear he’s not thinking anything if I didn’t know better. Maybe he’s scared; I’m scared. I’m scared I won’t leave this house, that I’ll become one of the ghosts haunting it. I’m scared because it’s not enough to have a plan. I had a plan, and look where it got me.
My hand hurts. The pressure is building up, the blood and the disease packed tight beneath my skin. I try not to think on it, but it throbs along with my pulse. Every heartbeat only serves to remind me that my heartbeats are numbered. I don’t want to be stuck in this house, I don’t have the luxury of time. My backside goes numb from sitting in one spot on the frayed rug, counting down the hours I’m wasting.
And then, when I’m starting to forget how time passes, the wind dies without so much as a good-bye. Light breaks through the cracks in the walls, spilling faint and yellow onto the floor.
“Is it over?” Sam asks, getting to his feet.
Curtis holds a finger to his lips and crosses over to a window. He presses his eye to the slit between two planks of wood.
“Looks clear,” he whispers, stepping back.
After the noise of the storm, the silence is deafening. It takes a moment for my ears to adjust, and that’s when I start to sense it. It’s nothing I can hear, not voices or the din of people living, but it’s there, on the edge of my awareness. A presence made up of shallow gasps and drawn-out sighs, the thousand tiny creaks and moans of shifting bodies.
“They’re out there,” I breathe.
“They don’t know we’re here,” Ben says, his voice low. “Curtis, how do you want to do this?”
Curtis shakes his head. “I’m not sure.” He pulls out his watch, looking down at it and frowning. “All right, listen up.” He sits back on his chair and we gaze up at him, like he’s about to tell us a story. “We’ve only got a few hours of light left. I’m putting this to all of you: we can stay the night here and leave in the morning, but the shakes are gonna be rowdier by then. Or we can leave now, while they’re still shook up from the storm, but we won’t make it to Best before sunset. That means we’ll have to stay out through the night, find a hotbox to hole up in. I leave it up to y’all to decide.”
Micah looks contemplative, but I don’t need to think about it; I don’t have a night to spare.
“I think we should go now,” I say firmly.
“I don’t know, Willie,” Sam says. “We’ll be blind at night, we won’t be able to see any shakes.”
“Better one shake at night than dozens in the morning,” I counter.
A wail comes from outside, piercing and long. The hairs on my neck stand up, and then other voices join, shrill snappings and low moans. It’s like some horrible song, all discorded and jangled, and then the howl cuts off in a choked gurgle.
“What are they doing?” Micah whispers, nervously handing my clean gun over.
“Eating their dead,” Curtis answers, his face stone.
I shudder, my stomach turning over. They have to eat something to survive, but I don’t want to hear it; I don’t want to have to picture the torn skin and broken bones. At least they wait until one of them is dead; it’s the only civil thing shakes do.
Over the awful noises comes a panicked bray from the corner, loud and startling; Nana’s eyes are large and white with fright.
“Easy, girl,” Curtis says, running over to her. “Easy.”
Nana screams and shakes her head, pawing at the floor. Curtis strokes her neck, but she jerks away.
“Curtis, shut her up,” Ben hisses at him.
But the mule is beyond help. She kicks her back legs out, smacking the wall and leaving two huge cracks. Curtis grabs for her reins, but he’s too late; Nana jolts forward, half mad with fear, and strikes at the door with her front legs. It splinters and breaks, the wood bowing out and light coming in.
“Stop her,” Curtis cries, but she rears up and we can’t get between her hooves and the door. She brings it down with an echoing crash, then leaps over the frame and she’s gone, out into the sunlight and whatever lies in wait.
38.
I stare at the empty doorway in shock, half expecting her to come back. She can’t really be gone; if we lost Nana, we lost everything she was carrying. All we have left is what’s on our backs. Curtis takes a step toward the door like he wants to go after her; his face is as drawn as I’ve ever seen it.
“Everyone back,” Ben says, urgently. “Get back. Curtis, help me,” and he grabs the legs of the table, dragging it away from the window. “There’s no way they didn’t hear that.”
Curtis blinks, like he
doesn’t understand what Ben’s saying.
“Curtis,” Ben shouts at him. “I need you here, brother.”
Curtis stirs himself and runs to help. “I’m sorry, I’m here.”
They shove the table against the gaping hole in the door, and Ben drags a heavy chest in front of it. There’s a loud thud as something bangs against the house.
“I guess they’re here, too,” Curtis adds, and my stomach drops.
Ben goes to the window and squints outside.
“I can’t make out—there’s at least three. More coming, but I reckon they’ll mostly be aiming for the front.”
Something slams against the broken door and I let out a startled yelp. The table shudders and Micah and Sam scurry back, as far from the door as they can get.
Curtis swears and frees his gun from its holster. He braces one arm against the table, holding it in place. “Ben, get over here. If we keep the door blocked, it should take them some time to get through.”
“But they will get through?” Micah asks.
“Eventually, yes. It won’t hold forever.”
Ben pulls out his smaller gun, leaving the rifle on his back and going to stand next to his brother with the same resigned expression. He shoves his shoulder into the table, looking relaxed, like he just wanted to lean against it.
“When they get through, we start shooting. We can bottle up the door with bodies, that oughta slow them down,” Curtis says.
But not stop them. There’s five of us, and who knows how many of them. We’ll run out of bullets before we run out of shakes.
“Make every shot count,” Ben says. “Maybe we can last.”
My hand wraps around the butt of my gun and it feels cold. Maybe this is for the best; better to go out in a hot blaze of gun smoke and grit than to wait for my body to turn on me.
“We need to get out of here,” Sam says, turning in a panicked circle, looking like a cornered animal.
Devils Unto Dust Page 14
