by Paul Curtin
“What’s there to talk about?”
He could think of a million things. “About everything.”
“Everything’s an awful lot to discuss at three in the morning.”
“I was just thinking, maybe I could—”
“Don’t.”
“I just—”
“You even try to justify yourself to me, kid, I will whip you across the face with this flashlight right where you stand. You understand me?”
Andrew nodded.
“I don’t give a damn what you think you know or what you want to discuss with me. I have to tolerate you because my daughter has this misplaced attachment to you, so you count your lucky stars that she’s around. If she wasn’t—” He stopped. “Whatever you think you have to say to me—don’t. I see through you. I see through everything. And let me tell you something, boy, it’s a miracle you’re not already out in those woods dead. You better believe it.”
Andrew stood motionless in the cold bathroom, as if moving one muscle fiber would be the end of his life. He watched Sean turn back toward the hallway and walk out of sight, his shadow stretching across the wall like an ominous specter before disappearing.
He popped the cap off the pill bottle and poured two into his hand. Looked down at them as the last ray of the flashlight disappeared and then he tossed in a few more. He didn’t want to come back for more if he needed them.
Not that night. Not ever again.
Michael
“Okay, I’m going for it,” Kelly said, shaking her hips and shoulders as if she were scratching her back on the mattress.
Michael chuckled and nudged her toward the end of the bed.
“Hey, stop it,” she said, resisting him. “I need to do it myself.”
“You do it yourself, you’ll never leave.”
The air in the bedroom was chilly, since no heat was being pumped into it anymore. They were safe from the cold for now, laying under three comforters with a heat rock wrapped in a towel at their feet. But the house grew colder every day, as if each sunset pulled a little more warmth from the air, never to return.
Two candles burned on each nightstand, emitting a soft glow that made the terrible situation almost romantic. Michael kissed her bare shoulder, Kelly looking back at him. “I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you.” Michael curled a strand of hair around her ear. It would be dinnertime soon. He put his face into the covers above him, blowing into the fabric, warmth spreading across his face. Getting out of bed to grab clothes was brutal. The draft against his bare skin was like a harsh blast of winter.
Kelly cuddled up next to him and looked him in the eyes. “How has helping around the house been?”
“Elise taught me to chop wood. She’s a damn pro.” He chuckled. “My little sister showed me how to chop wood, of all people.”
“I know you have to swallow your pride, taking orders from them. From Sean.”
“I’m not taking orders. I’m just trying to help.”
“And I appreciate you doing it.”
Michael kissed her forehead and lowered his voice. “Does he seem a little more on edge than usual?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Of course she didn’t. Kelly wasn’t the most perceptive person in the world, so sometimes he had to lay things on thick. “I mean, he seems jittery? He counts the food every day now. It’s like his time is split between counting food and chopping wood.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“I have.”
She sighed. “Why does every conversation come back to this? You’re about as obsessed with him as he is with chopping wood and counting food.”
He shut up, but his thoughts lingered. He stretched his arms and scooted to his side of the bed. “We need to get up eventually.”
Kelly sighed. “I know. Maybe we can have them deliver us food in bed.”
“Canned meat and veggie stew in bed. Awesome.”
“It’s better than nothing.”
Elise tried her hardest, but it was a losing battle. She made lots of soups and hearty dishes—things that filled them up. But the taste wasn’t great. Neither Kelly nor Michael could complain. They both understood the debt they owed Sean and Elise for keeping them alive, and Sean knew it too because he often stared at them as they ate. That awful, piercing stare…
“All right. I’m going for it. Get ready,” Kelly said.
She propped her arms and legs up under the covers, creating a tent with her appendages as supports. She bit down on her tongue, closed her eyes, but brought the covers back down and sighed.
“All right, this is ridiculous,” Michael said and tossed all the covers from the bed.
The cold air swooped in to fill the warm void. Kelly’s eyes expanded, and she bolted out of bed and stamped her feet. “Are you crazy?” she yelled, scurrying around naked, trying to grab her clothing.
Michael chuckled, pulled his neat pile of clothes next to the bed toward himself, and threw on his layers. Before Kelly even had pants on, he was almost fully dressed. “You’re unbelievable sometimes,” she said, trying not to smile.
“Plan ahead,” he said, slipping a sweatshirt on.
“Don’t be an ass and I wouldn’t have to.”
He cracked the door just enough to slip through and block the view inside. “Well that’ll never happen, so you should probably plan ahead.”
She scrunched her face and threw her balled-up shirt at him. He ducked out before it hit. “That’ll only make getting dressed take longer,” he told her, shutting the door.
He smiled but stopped the moment he turned away from the door. Sean stood next to the fireplace staring at Michael, a few split logs under his arm. The flames raged behind him. His eyes had dark circles under them, his skin washed out, almost gray. They had a hundred razors in the reserves, but his face was shadowed with long and dark stubble. His cheek bones were more defined and the skin on his neck gripped tight against his muscles.
“Sorry if I interrupted,” Michael said.
“You didn’t interrupt anything,” Sean said and threw a log onto the fire.
A cloud of burning ash ascended the chimney. Sean seemed more hunched each day, his shoulders always forward and never tall, as if something were pressing him closer to the ground. Michael almost felt bad for the guy. Almost.
“You need any help?” Michael said.
“I’m good.”
Michael put his hands in his pockets and walked closer. With each step closer to the fireplace, the temperature seemed five degrees warmer. Sean sighed and tried to lift a larger log but dropped it. It crashed against the hearth and rolled onto the carpet. “Damn it,” he hissed.
“You sure you don’t need help?”
“I just got a splinter.”
“You need some antibacterial cream? I can grab some from the reserves—”
“No,” Sean yelled. He looked at the ground and splayed his fingers as if to stop himself. “It’s fine. It’s no problem.”
Michael tilted his head to see, but Sean hid his hand behind his back. “You feeling okay?”
“I’m fine,” Sean said.
“Getting sleep?”
“Why do you suddenly care?”
“I remember you were having issues a few years back. Do you have any sleeping pills? Maybe so you can get a good night’s rest?”
“I’m fine, Michael. Thanks.”
Michael and Sean had an unspoken agreement to avoid one another. But Sean was becoming more difficult to ignore. Elise had told him Sean wasn’t sleeping, or at least he was never in bed when she woke up. It worried him, not because he cared about Sean—he didn’t—but because his behavior was growing stranger. He muttered to himself nonstop, snapped at his kids. Snapped at everyone.
“Listen,” Michael said, “I do
n’t want to be intrusive.”
“You don’t? Because that’s what you’re doing.”
Michael raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes. Kelly walked out of the guest bedroom rubbing her arms and making a funny noise with her lips. Sean looked up. “You both are being safe about your alone time, right?”
Both Michael and Kelly stared back at him, a little taken aback by the question. “Excuse me?” Kelly asked.
“Did you not hear me?”
“We heard you fine,” Michael said, “but that’s none of your business.”
“Not to be intrusive, but it is. If there’s another mouth to feed, we’ll be hurting.”
“You’re being inappropriate.”
“No, I’m not.”
An uncomfortable chuckle rose from his chest. “Sean, just because we’re here doesn’t mean you have any right to know how my wife and I—”
“It does. Just don’t let her get preg—”
Before he could finish his sentence, Michael noticed Andrew, Molly, and Aidan standing at the base of the stairs.
“You guys ready for dinner?” Sean said with an unexpected cheerfulness.
“Did Mom say it was ready?” Molly said.
“She said ten minutes, and that was ten minutes ago, I think.”
Molly nodded and headed toward the kitchen with Andrew and Aidan. Sean’s head followed the kids as if his eyes were glued to them. When they passed out of sight, Sean turned back to the fireplace and grabbed the log he had tried to throw in earlier. “Just don’t screw up.”
Michael licked the inside of his cheek and glanced back at Kelly, who was shaking her head and had already started out of the room. She didn’t want to pursue it any further, so he gave up too.
Some battles weren’t worth fighting.
They ate around the fireplace like most nights. The fire smothered them in heat and cast a yellow glow into the room. Some nights it even felt cozy.
Elise placed a large cast-iron pot filled with vegetable and meat slop on the coffee table and sat down herself. “All right, we need to say grace,” she said before anyone took a bite.
Sean grimaced. A common reaction when Elise asked to pray, but this time he was snarling and rocking back and forth.
Elise didn’t seem to notice. “We always want to be thankful for what we have.”
The group joined hands and bowed their heads. Sean made no move to join them.
“Father,” Elise said, “we want to thank you for your provision to us this evening. We know that you’re in control and looking out for us, and we pray that we would glorify you this evening in our eating—and in all that we do. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.”
Everyone except Sean uttered an ‘Amen’ and started devouring the chunky stew. It tasted a bit like pizza sauce mixed with something vaguely like beef, but sustenance was sustenance. “What have you guys been up to today?” Elise asked Molly.
“We’re almost done with a jigsaw puzzle upstairs,” she said, slurping.
“Oh, I didn’t know you guys were working on that,” Kelly said. “I would’ve liked to help.”
“We’ll probably do it over again. There’s only, like, five puzzles in the house.”
Everyone chuckled but Sean. He carried a scowl on his face while shoveling spoonful after spoonful into his mouth. The conversation continued, but Sean sat on the stone hearth, disconnected from everything. Each passing moment seemed to fuel an anger deep inside, each bite he took more forceful than the last, his teeth gnashing together and gritting. His cheek muscles pulsed under his skin and he exhaled strained, quick breaths from his nose.
Michael stopped and set his bowl down. Kelly glanced up at him as if to ask what he was doing. He said nothing. Soon she caught on and turned her head. She stopped eating too.
Sean was like a volcano before an eruption—the crust was cracking, and steam was hissing from beneath the rock. At any moment it would reach maximum pressure, and the fireworks would start. Michael always knew someone would snap eventually—it had almost been him a few times. The nonstop cold, being isolated in one spot, seeing the same people day in and day out, eating crappy food—all of it attacked his sanity. Everyone felt it. Sean just seemed to have reached the precipice first.
“Hey, Sean,” Michael said in a calm tone.
It seemed to pull him out of himself. Molly stopped talking, and everyone’s attention shifted to Sean.
“What?”
“You okay? You don’t look too good.”
Sean stared down at his bowl. The hair on Michael’s arms stood up. “I’m tired of you asking me that,” Sean said.
“I’m just concerned.”
“Cut the bullshit.”
Elise perked up.
“Sean,” Michael said.
“I’m tired of no one being straight with me,” Sean said. “I’m tired of people looking me in the eye and telling me lies.”
Elise said, “Okay, this stops right now.”
“No,” Sean said, “I want Mike to tell me why he suddenly cares so much about my wellbeing.”
Michael said, “Because you look like you’re about to snap.”
“Snap from what?”
“Come on.”
“No, tell me.”
Elise stood up in front of Sean. “All right, this stops right now,” she said.
For a moment he looked like he would jump forward and slug her, his face a storm of fury, but that anger fell away and he bowed his head. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I don’t know what’s going on with me.”
The room held quiet. “Let’s get you a sleeping pill and go to bed,” Elise said, putting one arm around him as if she would carry him.
“I don’t know how much longer I can do this,” Sean said. “I don’t know how much longer I can take this.”
“Let’s just get some sleep, okay?” she whispered to him.
Michael watched the scene, and his heart dropped in his chest. He held Kelly closer to himself.
“I’m sorry,” Sean said as he and his wife turned toward the stairs.
A booming knock resounded from the front door, like something had smacked into it from the outside. But that was crazy. Nobody was outside. Nobody.
Everyone froze.
The wind hissed across the outside walls. The wood in the fireplace crackled. Michael’s first instinct was something had fallen over and hit the house, but it sounded too light and too specific of a noise.
Sean stepped away from Elise, reaching around the back of his belt. Michael held his breath. There was nothing out there. There couldn’t be. It was a wasteland outside. And they were in the middle of Appalachia. Boarding up the windows had been a silly precaution. Nothing was outside.
A loud knock echoed three more times, and the vibrations carried into his chest.
Sean
The knock snapped him back into reality. He had been lingering in a hallucinatory dream. But it was gone the moment the knock resounded through the door. The world fell into sharp focus.
Every cell of his body tensed. His eyes fixed onto the door with the five wooden boards nailed into the frame. It wouldn’t open if someone tried to force themselves inside. This was why he had taken precautions. Why he had prepared.
He reached around his belt and felt the steel and polymer handle of his gun. Rubbed his thumb along the strike-pin indicator on the back—ready to go with one in the pipe.
Elise squeezed his arm so hard it almost constricted his blood flow. Her sharp nails dug into his skin. Sean barely felt it.
Three more knocks resonated from the door.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Each a second or two after the other, laborious, strained. He blinked each time. A neighbor would tap with their knuckles in quick succession. This wa
s a pounding from the side of someone’s fist, the walls vibrating with the blows.
Everyone remained silent. He listened for a crackling of snow outside—but all he could hear was his obtuse breathing.
“Daddy, what’s happening?” Aidan’s small voice said.
Sean whipped around and pressed his index finger to his lips, bringing his hand down after a moment, making eye contact with each person, telling them to keep their mouths shut.
It was just an animal, he thought. A bear or something. He punched holes in his wishful thinking. How was any animal surviving in the conditions outside, with nothing to eat or drink but tainted snow? The only thing that could survive was a person—a person with enough tenacity to live in that desolate land.
He signaled for them to lower themselves. The drapes were enough to hide them if the person tried to look inside, but this person might start shooting the walls. Disasters made people desperate, and desperate people showed their true nature when pressed.
The group, in little increments, sank to the floor. Elise stood with him, and Michael got on one knee as if he was readying himself to spring into action. Sean made eye contact with him and pointed to the shotgun leaning against the wall, motioning for him to take his time. As Michael moved, Sean turned his gaze to Kelly and pointed at his axe gleaming in the fire’s light.
She looked confused. He extended his hand out and motioned it toward himself as if to say, Bring it to me. The door reverberated again with a thunderous boom. Kelly, moving toward the axe, stopped and looked back at Sean. He encouraged her without a word to keep going.
“Please, help me,” someone’s muted voice cried outside.
A man. He had a deep and gnarled voice that cracked midsentence. It didn’t sound like one of his neighbors—not that it mattered. Even the people living down the road would get nothing from him. Kelly grabbed the axe and crept back. She passed it along until Sean had it. He handed it to Elise.
