My shouting and wild hitting at the creature woke Shaun. “What is it?” I screamed hitting at it again and again. But I couldn’t dislodge it. “It has sharp teeth and fur,” I said to Shaun.
Shaun jumped to his feet and slid on his knees to Sarah’s side. Bending over her, he tried extricating its teeth from her dry pale flesh.
“Get it off of me. Get it off of me,” she screamed. Her eyes rolled back and she collapsed. I didn’t know whether she fainted from the sight of the creature or that she had lost too much blood.
“It’s a bat. A vampire bat,” Shaun shouted reaching for its wings and head and pulling its fangs out of her leg. She tried to open her eyes. Already weak from the ordeal of losing both parents and now this, I thought. A creature was draining what little blood was left in her poor tortured body.
“I don’t think he could have drank a lot of blood. He doesn’t look full,” Shaun said turning to me with the thing in his hand who was as hungry as we were. Shaun grabbed his wings and turned him over. “I think we should kill it and then eat it, it’s the size of a small bird. Looks like enough meat for us,” Shaun said with his eyes shining. The thought of fresh meat had affected his reasoning. A dead or live animal was potential food.
“Is it safe to eat?” I asked locking eyes with Shaun to validate whether it was Ok to eat it. We would eat it anyway if it meant one more day of life.
“I don’t know? What choice do we have?” Shaun said.
“None,” I answered.
“I’m not eating anything that can suck my blood,” Sarah said dragging her small body against the wall of the cave. She managed to sit without help, and I examined her wound. There were two small breaks in her skin. I pulled a little first aid kit from my shoulder bag and rubbed the wound with a homemade solution, and then I put a bandage over it. My mother had thought of everything. She always knew we would need the alcohol one day as well as the food she stashed away and canned.
Sarah raised her head and glanced my way and said, “It’s only a tablespoon of blood.” I looked at her.
“Only fifteen milliliters,” she said looking confident that it hadn’t taken more. She couldn’t afford to lose one milliliter of blood. She would be weak and probably have difficulty walking. I had planned to give her my ration of canned food before this occurred, but now she needed much more than that, and I doubt Shaun would be so generous.
“We have to get out or here,” I said to her looking around with fear.
“Maybe there are more of them?” she added.
“I hope so. If you see one there will be more. Look at the mess on the floor of this cave. They’ve been here a long time,” Shaun said walking away from us holding the LED lamp over his head.
“Don’t go far. I’ll light a fire and cook it. We can’t stay here long,” I shouted.
Turning my head, clenching my teeth, grimacing, I hit the bat with a rock. Its blood made a small stain on my tee shirt. That was the first time I killed something that I wouldn’t consider eating. Maybe next time it would be easy—killing I mean.
I lit the fire and singed the hair off of the bat so we could stomach it. The smell was gut wrenching and I almost vomited. My stomach being empty, everything was a dry heave. You had to have something there and there was nothing. Not even liquid.
“Bats are like us you know,” Sarah said looking up into my eyes as I bit through the body. “They are mammals. But they are dirty animals that carry disease. Maybe rabies,” she said crinkling her nose and shivering. It made me shiver thinking about what I was eating.
I held my nose and swallowed it. That was how I first managed to eat worms. I knew I had to eat to live not live to eat. That was a lesson my father taught. Everything was potential food if it wasn’t poisonous and it wasn’t human flesh.
“All right that’s enough.” I narrowed my eyes. “If I hear anymore I won’t be able to enjoy this meat,” I said. As I ate I knew this wasn’t the meat my mother and father spoke of. I saved some for Shaun but it wasn’t long before he came back with two more bats.
“There must be water somewhere or insects otherwise the bats wouldn’t be in the cave,” I said to Shaun.
“These are vampire bats. You find them in Central and South America,” Shaun said watching what was left of the bat, his mouth salivating. I looked up at Shaun. “I learned this in the old Encyclopedias my father had as a child. They were passed on by our grandfather. These books lasted longer than the internet,” he said.
I tried to forget the bitter taste in my mouth.
I smiled, but that didn’t tell me why the bats were there when everything appeared dead around the cave. It was as if Shaun had read my mind and he continued, “There are only a few left because these are males. The females are somewhere else or don’t exist anymore. This species could have lived on all the plant and insect eating bats.”
“These bats can live up to fifteen years with a good food supply,” he said examining them. They wiggled around and let out a shriek when he dropped them into a mason jar. He screwed the top on, took out his knife, and punched holes in the top. “Probably migrated because of the food supply was low. No animals, no fish, no plants,” Shaun said.
“What about water?” I questioned.
“They don’t drink much water. They could probably drink the sweat from the walls of the cave.” Shaun glanced at me and said, “I looked and there was no water and no more bats but these.” He paused looking strange.
“What?” I questioned.
“There are human bones with skulls scattered around the cave in each section. They’re not as old as the ones we stepped over at the mouth of the cave. I don’t know what that means and I don’t want to find out.”
“Let’s get out of here,” I said. We doused the fire with sand and brought along the live bats for later. I helped Sarah to her feet. We needed her to carry a few things and since she had been getting rations from me and now Shaun, she managed to carry a light back pack.
We helped her out of the cave and she began to walk on her own. I caught up with Shaun.
Sarah was still dragging behind us. “We will have to get something to make a sleigh and we can pull it like the farmers use to do. Father said that he pulled a plow when the tractors and gas gave out. We can put food and blankets on it and Sarah too. Like that we can mover quicker.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“It’s the best one yet,” I said to him. I turned my eyes away because I didn’t want to hear anymore of—we should leave Sarah. That would never be an alternative. I would die first and I knew that was a high probability if I didn’t find a way where we could cover more miles a day. We could run out of water and food before we reached the first well.
4
We climbed and walked all day into the mountains going higher until we were short of breath, stopping every few steps. Now we had to travel that distance down into the valley. I knew this was the long way but I gambled that we could find some kind of water. We knew the odds of finding water or Cactus in the desert. Little or none.
So far I had gambled and lost. Water was nowhere to be seen. I waited for Sarah and helped her along. Once we caught sight of Shaun, he appeared exhausted sitting on the side of the road without moving, as he gazed out over a steep cliff.
I shouted, “Shaun! Shaun! What’s the matter? Wake up.” I made a feeble run in his direction. I reached him and touched his back. He stirred around looking up at me with deep dark sunken eyes.
“I’m hungry and I can’t go any further. I thought I saw my father in a distance.”
“You are hungry and delusional. I have something that will make you feel better.” I flung my backpack to the ground and reached in and gave him some figs my mother had canned and a sip of water. The figs were old and full of sugar, but what did we have to lose?
We could eat some dog food from some of the old battered cans I packed and die of botulism. I saved that for last just in case we ran out of water. If we didn
’t eat what we had we would die anyway. It was what my father called a catch twenty-two.
After our ration of water and food, we lit a fire. We huddled together and shivered at the foot of the mountain range until we were asleep. It was so cold. But not cold enough to snow. If there was only a bit of snow we could find water but no such luck.
“We have to take turns watching the fire,” I said to Shaun. Sarah was already in a sleeping bag with her head covered still frightened from her experience with the bat in the cave. “Everything around here is dry and dead. The fire could spread if the wind comes at night while we’re sleeping.”
Shaun understood and he agreed to take the first watch. It was me and Shaun. No way would we would put our lives in the care of a nine year old child.
The next day began with thunder, wind, and a sickening heat. We wore scarves to cover our mouths and headed out pushing east. I wished we could just stay where we were but who knows what was in the mountains?
I read that there was snow and ice once, but the atmosphere had turned to a stifling and sickening mess of heat and dust. Nothing was as my father had known.
With a short sleep, we started early and walked all day and into the night to get out of the mountains. We were coming to a small valley but had miles to go before we were near the place where the first well was drawn on the map.
“Stop.” We have to stop. I can’t go on and what about Sarah?” Shaun said breathing heavy. His mouth dry and blistered. I knew he was right so I dropped everything and made a makeshift tent on the hard rocky ground. I drove two heavy dry sticks in the earth and place small boulders to hold the sticks, and pulled a large sheet over. We crawled under and tried to sleep.
Tossing around worried about the next day, I manage to close my eyes.
We were more exhausted than hungry or thirsty. But then that isn’t a good sign. Our bodies could shut down any moment. I woke everyone and we shoved the last of the crackers into our mouths, which my mother saved in a jar. Who knows how long they had been there.
But we needed protein. It was now the right time to eat the bats we were carrying in a jar. “Shaun we need to eat those bats.”
“We don’t have but one. One died.”
I rushed to him and grabbed his collar. “Why did you let it die?” His eyes widen and he glanced down at my hands.
“It was sick, David. Like we are. If we had eaten it we would have died,” Shaun said his eyes searching for a tear. But once again his body failed him.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened to me,” I said.
“I know,” Sarah said. “We are so hungry and thirsty that we are turning on each other.” I walked away with my head down and ashamed. I built the fire in silence and we cooked the last bat. The last fresh meat and savored every skinny leg.
As we sat in a circle thanking God for having something to eat, I glanced out to see two small children move from behind a large bolder. They appeared to be on a hunt for food. They must have smelled it, I reasoned.
They walked with their hands extended and said in soft weak pathetic voices, “Food and water. Food and water.” The boy’s pants were falling and he held them up with one hand. They weren’t pants but a thin piece of cloth that was once a pair of pants. The soiled pants were shredded to his underwear and I didn’t think he had any on. He stood shirtless and shoeless. The girl had only a tee shirt that served as a dress. I shot Shaun a quick glance and his eyes fell back to me.
We both looked at Sarah. “You have to give them something,” she said.
“But we can’t feed ourselves,” Shaun responded. His eyes tight. I had seen looks like that before. These children were near death. Their stomachs swollen. They were beyond anyone’s help.
I saw it once when a man begged for water and offered my father the map I now carry. He was traveling with a group of children who had lost their parents. The children fell dead along with him one by one. “It’s no use giving them water or food, they are dying,” Shaun said with a sigh. Shaun’s worried glance fell on me because he knew what Sarah’s heart said. Do something we just can’t let them die.
Why was this all on me? I questioned myself. The answer came back. When you are in charge of lives, you will be expected to make decisions and heaven help you if you make the wrong one. These were my father’s words.
I took off my hat and rubbed my forehead. The children trembled at my innocent action. They appeared to have suffered immensely and I didn’t have the coldness in my heart to prolong their suffering.
I waved my hand making a gesture. It said come here. They understood. As they neared our camp I saw that they weren’t little children, but the lack of food had stunted their growth, and the expressions they wore said they were old teenagers. Shaun pulled out two pieces of candy and bits of meat out of his sack and threw it at them to keep distance between us.
They fell to the ground eating the pieces from the dirt. Then they looked up from the dirt with the meat between their few teeth and said, “Water. We need water.” I didn’t want to get any closer than I had to. I waved my hand signaling for Sarah and Shaun to move further back. I placed two small cups in front of me about one tablespoons of water in each cup. I inched back one foot at a time.
Before I could take safety behind the rock, the boy pounced on me with his last ounce of energy.
We rolled over and over and I felt his energy leaving him, his body limp, and on the last roll, he managed to pick up a small rock, but before I could tell Shaun, “No!” Shaun bashed him in the head with a larger rock.
When I pushed the boy off my stomach, Shaun reached and tried to pull me to my feet. Out of breath, I stood up from the dirt looking around for others, but the girl had disappeared. No one else came.
“Why did you do that Shaun?” I said breathing hard with a stare he understood. A stare of disbelief. I stood speechless for hours but it was a few seconds.
“He was lashing out with his teeth. He was trying to bite you. He’s sick and we don’t know what he has. If you keep up with the sentimentality we will all be dead,” Shaun said with a large huff of breath. And he walked away and turned Sarah around, who appeared to be in shock. He stood in front of her and held her tight, shielding her from the sight of the blood gushing from the boy’s eyes and mouth.
I had to catch my breath. “Oh shit,” I whispered. I didn’t want him to kill the boy. I thought we could just leave as they were busy drinking and eating. I wondered what happened to the girl. It was too late to worry about her now. She had seen us kill her brother or friend and for now we were safe if we hurried out of the valley.
“Pack everything and let’s get out of here,” I shouted.
My mind was fuzzy. What had happened? My father warned me that it may come a day when it would be us or them. It was coming down to us or them. Who were them? These were the human beings who just wanted to survive.
Survival was a basic instinct. People now needed food and water to survive. Years ago it was having a job to pay for food and water. There were charities to provide these resources if jobs weren’t available to everyone. Now there is nothing.
Have we fallen so low as humans that the laws of the jungle rule—kill for food. Eat what you kill?
The water vanished as if someone sucked it up in a giant hose. The dry earth began eating itself, leaving no grass, no trees, and no water, and with each digest, the earth rumbled and cracked leaving crevices the size of the Grand Canyon everywhere we walked.
We kept trudging down the highway in silence trying to forget. Forget the look on the boy’s face as he lay in a pool of his blood on a dry broken piece of ground. We gathered rocks to cover up our shame of killing another human being.
I questioned ever arriving at our destination because of the horror of our past chasing us slowing us down.
We came on a town that had been deserted for years. Some buildings were burnt, some rotten and leaning. We stepped over everything including human bones and skulls. We passed throug
h the town and in its main street, skulls were piled high, and rags were discarded in another pile. It was unsettling and scary.
“Shaun,” I screamed, “Don’t stop. I don’t know where that girl and boy came from and I don’t trust what I see. That boy and girl must have been a member of a larger group and the only place the girl may have come from is that town in the back of us.”
“I don’t think anyone is alive in that town,” Shaun said whipping his hat across the holes in his jeans, where there were large openings in the knees. We could search--.”
“It doesn’t make sense. They had to come from somewhere,” I said. I knew what Shaun wanted but if there was anything of value, and the only thing of value was water and there was none here, then there was no need stopping.
We walked fast discarding things as we used up our supplies. We were traveling light now, which was good and very bad. We knew that we were coming to the end of water and we had to find the well.
I peeped at the map as we stumbled in the dust. Looking up and trying to gage when the next round of tornado wind and dust would arrive, I saw a wall of dirt and dust headed in our direction. Searching for shelter I spotted an old red car parked on the outskirts of the town. It was huge. Probably a 1960 model. The kind my father called a gas guzzler.
“We better take cover in this car,” I said to Sarah and Shaun. We trotted as quickly as we could and opened the door, it appeared to be comfortable. More comfortable than the cave or the open air. Sarah hopped over the seat in the back.
A second later a giant cone of air swirling around lifted the car with us inside. I yelled, “Sarah, put your head low and cover it with your hands.” The cyclone of wind and dust dropped us in a pile of sand, near a large cliff.
There was silence. Sarah stopped screaming. Is she alive? I turned around to search for her in the back seat and she wasn’t there. “Shaun, Sarah is gone.” My eyes caught sight of the broken window. I hadn’t noticed it before.
Well 2 Page 2
