When the preparations were finished, Eddie napped, but Rachel lay on her back and looked at the stars while waiting for sunrise. Sometimes she would start counting them, never quite sure why, knowing she would lose count after twenty or thirty. But she did it anyway. The stars were her favorite thing about their world, on the rare occasion the skies cleared long enough to give them a view of the heavens. So many stars scraping the roof of the world that it looked like the sky was bleeding starlight. Without electricity, you could see entire galaxies, you could see the constellations the way their ancestors had and you understood why they named them the way they did, glorious names like Orion and Cassiopeia and Aquarius and Aries.
Dawn approached and she willed it to stay dark a little bit longer. She liked the darkness, she liked the night; it let them hide from the world for a little while. Because when the sun came up, there the world was, in all its dying and barren grotesqueness.
Eddie was still asleep, and that was fine with her. She took the first shift watching the road. It was boring and tedious but at least it kept her mind off the cold temperatures. By mid-morning, Eddie was awake and a light drizzle had begun to fall. The air was dank and Rachel was shivering. Beside her, Eddie lay prone under a giant billboard for a McDonald’s, the Egg McMuffin and cup of gourmet coffee long since faded. He was propped up on his elbows, the field glasses pressed to his eyes. She sat with her knees drawn into her chest, rocking back and forth to stay warm. The M4 lay next to her like an obedient dog.
“You really made a mess of your dad’s funeral,” he said, startling her. It was the first time either had spoken since they trekked out here.
She glanced at him. With all the problems they were facing, her eulogy was about the last thing on her mind. That said, she felt a tightness in her chest. She shouldn’t say anything, she should just let it go and eventually Eddie would let it go too. But she couldn’t resist.
“He was my dad. Not yours,” Rachel said, her nostrils venting vapor like smoke in the morning chill.
“Not sure where you get off.”
“I’m not going to even dignify that with a response.”
“I can’t have you flying off the handle about every goddamn thing,” Eddie said. “Makes us look bad.”
“Makes you look bad is what you mean.”
Instead of replying, he pressed a finger to his lips and gestured toward the highway. He handed her the binoculars and she focused on the flutter of movement in the distance. She adjusted the lenses until the scene came into view. They were still a ways off, maybe a mile away. Three of them, sitting abreast in a horse-pulled wagon under that brooding sky. In the middle, holding the reins, was an older man, probably in his late fifties. He wore a thick beard heavily dusted with gray. His dirty barn jacket hung loosely over a thin frame. A young woman sat on his left, her cheek bearing a nasty scar. Her hair was tied off in a messy ponytail, and her eyes puffed with exhaustion. A shotgun lay on her lap. On the old man’s right was a boy of about fifteen or sixteen, his face pockmarked with acne. He wore a gray sweatshirt emblazoned with the five Olympic rings and the words Rio 2016 printed underneath.
Their faces were narrow and gaunt, the angular visages of those who had not had a warehouse full of food at their disposal for the past decade. They stared straight ahead, their heads bobbing as the wagon jostled down the road. The look in their eyes spoke of people who did not seem to care all that much whether they made it to their destination. Even the horse looked uninterested. His ribs jutted from his dull coat, a living fossil.
A black tarp covered the wagon’s cargo area, but the corner flap had folded back over itself, revealing part of its load. Rachel caught a glimpse of a case of baby formula and several boxes of dry soup. A sharp ache spiked up Rachel’s midsection, part hunger, part guilt.
She tapped Eddie on the shoulder; when she caught his eye, she shook her head slowly and deliberately and made a cutting motion at her throat, the signal to abort the mission. Eddie rolled his eyes and slapped her hand away.
“We are not doing this,” she said sharply under her breath.
“That’s meat for the pot. For Will.”
“Look at these people,” she said, tipping her head toward the wagon. “We’d be killing them.”
“You’d rather our son starve?”
Oh, he was “our” son now. And he was right, of course, the little shit.
But there had to be a line somewhere. Every day they drew ever closer to it, assuming they hadn’t already crossed it and they were too far gone to realize it. Was survival worth the price of her humanity? Did she want to cross that line? How far was too far?
She looked through the binoculars again. Quarter of a mile away now. Three minutes, maybe five. The road behind them was empty. Was she serious about trying to stop Eddie? She could scare him with the gun. She could do that. She could press the barrel of this steel serpent against his temple and whisper into his ear that they were not going to do a goddamn thing to these people, that they were going to let that scrawny horse clomp on by.
But she didn’t. A grainy movie of a possible future played out in her mind, the story of Will starving to death because they were out of food and she’d think back to the time they had let this wagon go because she’d wanted to do the right thing.
They kept coming, the horse’s hooves clocking loudly on the weed-choked pavement, the wagon’s occupants blissfully blind to the threat that lay ahead. Guilt coursed through her veins; it wasn’t fair that these people had no chance, that nothing more than dumb luck had brought them to this point. Rachel pressed low to the ground as the wagon curled south, the road funneling them into the trap.
The woman was the first to perk up as the wreck came into view, her hands going straight for the shotgun. She stood up as the wagon slowed, placing a hand on the old man’s shoulder for balance. Her head swiveled from side to side.
“Aw, what the hell is this,” the old man muttered as he pulled on the reins, bringing the horse to a stop.
“Quiet,” the woman said.
Rachel locked eyes with Eddie, who nodded. They bounced from their hiding spot and drew up behind the wagon before the woman could turn to face them.
“Nobody fucking move,” Eddie barked.
They froze, their bodies locking up as the paradigm shift was driven home for them. A few moments ago, it had been just another day, but now everything had changed. The woman’s shoulders sagged.
Eddie kept his gun trained on the trio as he eased around the side of the wagon to the front. Rachel drifted to the left, keeping the woman squarely in her sights.
“Where you folks headed?” Eddie asked.
No one answered.
He stepped forward and aimed the gun at the woman’s head. His nostrils flared and his brow was furrowed, which made Rachel nervous. He was in a bad mood, worse than usual.
“I’ll ask again.”
“Market,” the old man said, his voice gravelly.
“Well, we’re going to save you the trip,” Eddie said.
The old man scratched his face, the sound of his fingernails against his rough beard huge in the morning quiet.
“Leave us half,” the man said. “This here’s all we got in the world.”
“I’m not negotiating,” Eddie replied. “You folks kindly step down from the wagon, and we’ll be on our way.”
There was an ease about Eddie that Rachel found disconcerting. It was a big deal what they were doing. Just because something was necessary didn’t mean it should be easy or enjoyable. It mattered. Robbing these people was akin to signing their death warrants. Maybe they’d find another week’s worth of supplies somewhere, maybe not. That’s what she told herself. Out there, that big empty world was getting emptier by the day. People, innocent people, died for no good reason every single day.
It would bother her tonight and tomorrow and next month, as it always did. Theirs was a world of takers and victims and today they would be the takers. Tomorrow, perhaps, the
y would play a different role.
“What’s your name, old timer?”
Old timer?
Did he think they were in a Western?
“Austin,” the man said. “Adam Austin.”
“Mr. Austin, nobody has to get hurt here today. Toss the gun into the grass.”
Austin nodded toward the woman. As she picked it up from her lap, the boy lunged for it and wrenched it from her; she struggled with him, that instinct to resist kicking in hard. It happened so quickly Rachel barely had time to react. The boy got off one shot at Eddie, but it flew wide. The horse reared back and neighed in terror before slipping its reins and bolting up the road.
Eddie returned fire, the report of his gun roaring across the plains. His first shot struck the woman in the forehead, caving it in. Blood splattered across the sleeve of Austin’s jacket. The boy fired another shot, again missing badly. Eddie returned fire again, catching the boy in the stomach. The kid dropped the gun and staggered to the edge of the wagon before tumbling out like a sack of potatoes.
The guns fell silent, the sulfuric smell of discharged weapons hanging thickly in the air. Rachel stood frozen to her spot, her gun still trained on the wagon. It was over. Two more dead in the ledger of the plague. The older man slowly raised his arms high over his head. From here, she could see his thick wrinkled hands were gnarled with arthritis, the fingers drawn tight like leathery claws.
“Dammit!” Eddie bellowed. “This didn’t have to happen. This is on you.”
Rachel drew up next to Eddie, her jaw clenched tight. It had happened again. Another thing gone straight to hell. More bodies, more death, more unhappy endings, and here was Eddie acting like the man had tapped his bumper in a Walmart parking lot.
She cut her eyes toward Eddie; his face was beet-red and he was chewing on his lower lip. The gun in his hand dipped and dove, almost like it had a mind of its own, anxious in Eddie’s sweaty palm. You could almost feel the gun wanting to go off, to do the thing it was designed to do.
“What am I supposed to do with you?”
He looked at Rachel.
“What am I supposed to do with him?”
The rush of adrenaline faded, and she shivered in the cold damp air.
“Let him go,” Rachel said. “Let’s take a look at their stash.”
She walked gingerly to the back of the wagon, her stomach clenched, her leg muscles tight and stiff. Using both hands, she peeled back the tarp, which made a strange zipping noise as it folded back over itself before sliding to the ground in a heap.
“What do we got?” Eddie called out.
Her heart soared when she saw the full scope of their score. Baby formula, canned goods, medicine, guns, ammunition, soap. A jackpot, one that bought them a little more time. One unusual item caught her eye. It was a large metal briefcase. She fiddled with the latch, but it was locked.
“A lot,” she said, feeling guilty and relieved at the same time. These would fetch a hefty price at Market and, she briefly forgot about the blood that had been spilled in the acquisition of this bounty.
Eddie laughed, a high-pitched cackle that was equal parts victory and desperation.
“Fuck you,” the old man said.
Eddie clocked the man on his forehead, opening a wide gash above his eyebrow. Blood leaked from the laceration, which resembled a small mouth, its thin lips parted just so. Austin made no move to address the wound, letting the blood trickle down his cheek before rolling off his chin in fat crimson drops. Even when the trail of blood changed course, curling in toward the corner of Austin’s mouth, he sat stoically, unmoving.
“Shut up,” Eddie said. “Nobody’s talking to you.”
Rachel rejoined Eddie, uncomfortable with the tension still lingering. It should have been over, the spasm of violence defusing the situation. But things were still buzzing. Eddie was obviously still charged up, the adrenaline still flowing. This had to be fear driving him, controlling his strings like a puppeteer.
“Folks is waiting for me over at Market,” he said. “I don’t show up, there’s gonna be questions.”
Eddie pressed the gun to the man’s head.
“Could’ve been anyone,” Eddie said. “Highways are dangerous.”
“Why don’t you hit the road, my friend,” Rachel said. “I’m sorry it turned out this way.”
“He’s not going anywhere.”
A burst of frustration then, that feeling of skin tightening and stomach turning to stone when someone simply would listen to reason.
No more. They were going to let this man go.
“Make you a deal,” the man said.
“You’re not in any position to be making deals.”
The man continued, ignoring him. “You give me the briefcase, I’ll pin this on someone else.”
“What briefcase?”
“There’s one in the back,” Rachel said, her eyes narrowing. “It’s locked.”
“Let’s have the key,” Eddie said.
Now it was the man’s turn to laugh.
“I don’t have the key. I’m just the messenger.”
“Stand up,” Eddie ordered. He patted the man down, searching every pocket, every inch of fabric in his clothing. Maybe Eddie would order the man to strip and conduct a body cavity search.
“Search the others,” Eddie said to Rachel.
“Don’t bother, miss.”
“What’s inside the case?”
He laughed again.
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.” A shimmer of fear rippled across his face.
Rachel was struck by the man’s sincerity.
“And what’s in for you?”
“Two months’ worth of supplies.”
“You lie,” Eddie said.
“No,” Rachel said. “I don’t think he is.”
“Shut up, Rachel. He’s lying. Now tell me what it’s in the briefcase.”
She stepped up to Austin and jammed the muzzle of the M4 under his chin.
“You’re not lying, are you?” she snapped. “You better not be lying.”
It was a gamble, a mild escalation in lieu of a far more serious one. By taking the offensive, Eddie could live vicariously through her. She wasn’t going to shoot him, but Eddie didn’t know that. It had a certain bravado to it, and that was the point. Launching a successful conventional attack rather than risk a catastrophic nuclear one. Eddie stepped back, lowering his weapon. She leaned in close to Austin until their faces were an inch apart, until she could smell the decay on his breath, the sour stench of days-old body odor.
“I ain’t lying.”
“Good.”
Austin chuckled. He tilted his head to the side and looked over Rachel’s shoulder.
“You always let your bitch run the show?”
She turned to wrap her arms around Eddie’s waist before it was too late, but it was already too late. It unfolded in slow motion: Eddie putting the gun between the man’s eyes, Eddie pulling the trigger, the small dime-sized entry hole appearing in the man’s forehead. Austin’s head rocking backward from the impact, his body slumping over in the wagon, coming to rest in the lap of his dead traveling companion. The echo of the gunshot reverberated across the chilly land. The single report had seemed louder to Rachel than the gunplay that preceded it. It felt more final, more definitive. Her left ear was ringing and deadened, a sonic anesthetic mainlined into her eardrum. She touched a hand to her ear and it came away bloody. Eddie had ruptured her goddamn eardrum.
“You believe this asshole?” Eddie said, his voice shaky and small.
“Was it worth it?” she yelled. “Was it?”
The world sounded muffled and far away.
She walked away, leaving Eddie with the bodies of his victims and the wagon of supplies, the smell of coppery blood and smoke hanging in their air.
9
When all was said and done at the end of that fateful and terrible summer thirteen years earlier, nearly ninety-nine percent of the world’s
population had perished in the viral holocaust. Of the seven billion humans alive and kicking on the day Medusa had been dispersed at Yankee Stadium, only about one hundred million were still around on Labor Day some four weeks later. In the years that followed, natural selection got in on the act, culling approximately one-third of those survivors in a variety of ways, either by accident or means most foul or, most cruelly, from random illness that would have been easily treated in the old days. Put another way, you did not want your appendix to flake out on you in this new world.
The population of the continental United States shrank to about four million, less than half the number of people living in pre-plague New York City. While Adam Fisher had trekked westward looking for Rachel in the months after the epidemic, the vast majority of the other survivors had had no such heroic quest. These survivors spent their time attending to far more mundane tasks. Staying alive. Not going completely insane. Food. Water. Shelter. Medicine. Self-defense. Survivors sheltered in place, remaining in their homes, venturing out only when necessary to obtain supplies, slowly coalescing to form small communities. PTSD was common. Many people turned to drugs and alcohol to cope with the disaster.
In Omaha, Nebraska, Medusa spared about three thousand people, nearly all of whom remained in and around the city after the epidemic ended. They were scattered from the inner city to the suburbs. When the outbreak began, the nation’s cupboards had been stocked with tens of millions of canned and dry goods, enough to meet the needs of a tiny population for a good while. For the first few years after the plague, there had been little need for commerce, as the supply of virtually everything had far outstripped the demand. Few communities formed in those early days, as the survivors were too scattered to find each other in large numbers, and many were too frightened to join with people they did not know.
Even after taking the warehouse, Rachel and the others scavenged the neighborhoods in the western Omaha suburbs. It never ceased to amaze her how many homes there were, how much food the average family had stockpiled. It could take a team of four a full day to clear five houses of their various and sundry supplies. They learned to make bread and hunt, until the crop failures began wreaking havoc on the wildlife. For a while, it seemed as if the food would never run out.
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