I leaned forward and yanked the lever near my left foot. Jake ran around the front of the car and disappeared behind the faded red metal. There were few loud bangs and the car shook from side to side.
“Try it again!” Jake yelled.
I twisted the key and the car made a sluggish churning noise. I took a breath of excitement, but it was short lived. It died out and the churning faded into an empty click.
“Hold on,” Jake said.
“More…more coming,” Brent groaned
He was slumped in the back seat. His eyes were nearly closed and his breathing was shallow, but he was doing his best to help.
I looked passed him, through the back window where a small crowd had gathered. They were standing where the lone man had been earlier. He was still there, but his cigarette was now a metal pipe and he looked more than interested in what we were doing.
“Jake,” I called through the window. “Jake, hurry up!”
“Try it again,” he replied.
I quickly turned the key and the car rumbled and started to sputter. The steering wheel shimmied in my hands then the engine died. It was like the world was against us.
I looked back again and the crowd had begun to move toward us. There were half a dozen guys armed with bats and crowbars.
“Hey! Is that your car?” one of the men yelled.
“You guys need some help?” another one heckled.
“Jake, get in the fucking car!” I shouted to him. “Get in the car now!”
“I almost got it,” he replied.
Dozens of thoughts went through my mind. Like why didn’t we take Carl’s gun. Hell, we didn’t take anything. Carl had a storage full of food and we’d left it all behind in our rush to end up here and die. I was turning out to be the shittiest leader ever.
“Jake, get in the damn car!” I yelled.
Slamming the hood, Jake rushed around the side of the car and jumped inside. He shut the door and locked it then turned to me with a pale face.
“Go! Go, go, go!” he snapped.
“How?”
I twisted the key again and the car sluggishly rumbled. It puttered for a few minutes then died again with a loud clunk. We were trapped inside and had nowhere to go.
There was a smack against my window and I jumped. A man was standing outside with his palm pressed against the glass. With his other hand, he tapped the window with a piece of metal piping.
“Come on out,” he said. “I don’t think that car belongs to you.”
There was another thud and a man stopped beside Jake’s window. He raised a metal bat to eye level then bashed it into the glass. It shattered, sending tiny fragments into the cabin, but it didn’t break.
“Holy fuck!” Jake screeched. “Go man, get us out of here!”
I tried to start the car again, but it churned like an old washing machine. Fate taunted me as the engine would rumble, cut on and off then completely die.
“Get out the damn car!” the man on Jake’s side roared.
He cracked his bat into the window again and it rained a shower of glass down onto Jake. Shouting, he reached into the car and grabbed at Jake’s arm. Jake screamed and slapped at his hands, struggling to keep the man outside.
“Drive! Drive!” Jake screeched in a high-pitched tone.
More people began to circle the car and beat their weapons against the doors and trunk. The man beside me grinned then started to jab the metal pipe into the window.
I turned the key again and again. More grumbling, but the end result was the same. With a sudden thump, a man jumped onto the hood and started to swing a crowbar into the windshield. Jake was still screaming and trying to beat the man’s hands away as he gripped his collar and pulled him toward the window.
Cindy tucked her head and curled up in a ball. Brent could hardly stay awake and even as the car rattled from side to side and glass broke and sprayed the cabin, he didn’t move.
I mashed my foot on the gas and turned the key again. “Come on you piece of shit!” I pumped the gas over and over and with an ear-splitting squeal the car finally came to life.
I slung the shifter into drive and mashed the gas. Just as we sped away my window burst into slivers of glass and showered my legs with daggers. The sudden thrust forward freed Jake from the man’s grasp and like that we were off.
“Where do I go!” I yelled in panic.
“Just drive,” Jake replied.
To my surprise, the streets were mostly empty and any crowds that we did see were far enough away that they wouldn’t bother us. As we drove deeper into the city I started to recognize some of the streets and I managed to find the highway. Twenty minutes later, we were back on open road and the burning city was a speck in the rearview mirror.
“How much gas do we have?” Jake asked.
I hadn’t even thought to look and my heart sank as I thought about it. But our luck held and a smile spread over my face when I looked down at the gauge.
“A little under a full tank,” I replied.
“Good, real go…” Jake’s voice trailed off.
I glanced to my right and he was staring into the backseat. Somehow, I knew what he was looking at, but I had to ask, I had to be sure. Swallowing the massive lump in my throat I took a deep breath and prepared myself for the worst.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Brent…he’s dead.”
CHAPTER 19
WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU
I couldn’t stop staring into his eyes. They looked alive, like he should’ve been there. Like he was waiting for the right moment to speak, to tell us some secret he’d been holding in all along. Deep down I knew better, but I hoped for some kind of miracle.
“We’ve gotta move him,” Jake sniffled. “Stop the car.”
Wincing, I pulled over on the side of the empty highway and put the car in park. I turned and looked behind me. Cindy was crammed in the corner of the backseat. She hadn’t said a word, but was crying non-stop.
Brent was hunched over on the opposite side of the car. His face was pale, but his eyes were as lively as they’d ever been. I couldn’t believe he was gone. I thought if I just screamed louder or gave him more time he’d wake up. He couldn’t be dead.
“You ready?” Jake asked.
I didn’t reply. I kept staring at Brent, trying to comprehend the lie my eyes were telling me. He was alive five minutes ago and now he was nothing more than a lifeless bulge.
“Max,” Jake said a little louder. “We have to move him. He needs to be buried.”
“Buried,” I repeated.
The idea seemed mad. What if we were wrong, what if he was just in a coma? What if he woke back up? We couldn’t bury Brent alive, we just couldn’t. Suddenly, an uncontrollable anger swelled over me. I couldn’t’ believe he would even suggest that.
“You’re his best friend!” I growled. “You can’t just throw him away like, like trash.”
“He’s gone man…I’m sorry, but he’s gone.”
“Fuck you!” my voice quivered. It was hard to breath and my fingers twitched as I struggled to find the right words. “Fuck you, Jake! He’s not gone!”
My voice broke and the sound scared me. A wave of tears rushed from my eyes and I felt my head spin in wide swooping circles.
“It’s ok, man…it’s ok,” Jake said and grabbed my shoulder.
“Don’t you fucking touch me,” I snapped and shoved him away.
Fuming, I opened the door and stepped outside. I sucked in a lungful of air then bent over and rested my hands on my knees. Suddenly, my stomach twisted and I lurched forward, spewing bits of beans and rice into the grass.
I grunted and caught myself before falling completely to the ground. I heaved forward again and released another stream of puke then straightened up and wiped my mouth.
“My God,” I gasped and stared up into the clouds.
The other door opened and Jake stepped out. He walked around the back then stopped a few feet behind me.
�
��You done?” he asked.
“Don’t start with me, Jake!” I warned.
“Well, while you’re out here throwing a fit like a fucking baby, Brent is in the backseat dead. We have to deal with this. It doesn’t matter how you feel…we have to deal with this!”
I stared past him as an anger I’d never felt before surged through my veins. Everything, all of it was his fault. All he cared about was his own ass and he’d sacrifice anyone to save it.
He threw his hands up in defeat and murmured under his breath before taking a step closer. “Max, come on man. We’ve gotta get him out of the car. Cindy’s back there with him for Christ’s sake.”
I looked back into the car. Cindy was still cuddled in the backseat with her face toward the window. I felt my heart drop at the sight of her. She was mumbling to herself, her skin laced in dried tears.
Sighing, I dropped my face into my own hands in desperation. I yawned then turned to Jake and lowered my head. “Fine, let’s move him. I’ll see if I can find something to dig with in the trunk.”
Jake tipped his head and returned to the car. I opened the trunk and began to claw through the piles of junk that the Honda owner had amassed through the years. Where were they now? Were they like Brent, dead and left buried on the side of the road? Or had they made it out? Or had they been one of the lucky ones, to have never lived long enough to see the abyss our world spiraled into?
I’d never know, but as I shuffled through the remnants of their life, I couldn’t help but wonder. Pulling myself back to reality, I felt my way through mounds of clothes, hoping to find a spade or metal object. The best I could find was a tire iron and an old, plastic cup.
With our tools in hand, it was time to get to work. It took us the entire day to dig a hole. We watched the sun rise and start to set as we raged war upon the ground we stood on. The process was sobering and every little bit of dirt that I moved felt like a pile of guilt I stacked on top of myself.
I stabbed at the earth with the tire iron. The soil was loose and moved freely. Sweat dripped from my hands and slid down the rusted metal, enough to turn the ground muddy. But the labor was my penance for failing him, that along with the pain that I would carry until I joined him beneath the dirt.
My arms ached with every thrust into the soil. Every rake of grass and dirt I pulled away, I felt down to my core. I faded into the monotony, letting my mind get lost in the nothingness. To think was to feel and I didn’t want to feel anything. In some ways, I was just there, an empty vessel, the shell of a man after the soul had been ripped from the body and crushed underneath the weight of the world.
“I think this is deep enough,” Jake said as he scooped a cup of dirt over his shoulder.
I looked down into the hole, into the spot that was to be Brent’s final resting place. A shallow grave off the shoulder of some highway in the middle of nowhere. No one besides us would know he was there, no one besides us would miss him.
“So, this is what it’s come to?” I mumbled.
For the first time Jake looked bothered. He dropped his head and frowned then turned his face into the wedge of his arm. He was crying and it wasn’t subtle, it was sniffles and grunts and heavy breathing. It was pain and the actualization of what was happening. It was a last goodbye to a friend that had been there when no one else was.
“I’m sorry, Brent, I’m so sorry. I fucked up, man,” he moaned.
The sky rumbled as if to answer him with its discontentment. A light wind picked up and some of the dirt blew into the air. It was a fitting farewell, a perfect reflection to the storm brewing inside of my own head.
“He’s gone, man,” Jake whimpered then dropped to one knee.
I didn’t have the words to console him. I was battling my own demons and in some ways, I faulted him for how far apart I felt we’d drifted. Brent had always been the middle man, the guy that kept our little friendship together when one of us was being a stubborn asshole.
Who was going to patch us up now? Who was going to be that glue, especially now when we needed it so much.
“Help me get him out of the car,” I finally said after giving Jake a few minutes to himself.
Jake nodded and we moved Brent to the edge of the hole and placed him on the ground. In silence, we stared at him until the sun began to vanish. As an orange haze shined across the sky, I knew it was time to let him go.
Biting my lower lip, I grabbed Brent’s arms and Jake followed suit. We lowered him slowly, like a delicate piece of art. Even in death, he was our friend and he deserved more than what we gave him.
His skin had grown cold, void of life, empty of all the things I’d taken for granted. I questioned how my world had become so morose. Death was something that humans couldn’t comprehend, a fallacy like time and all it did in the end was bring us pain.
“Should we say something?” Jake asked as he stared down into the grave.
“I’m sorry, Brent,” I started. “You deserve better and I wish I could’ve gave you it.”
I looked to Jake, but he’d already started crying again. I grabbed his cup from the ground and started to toss dirt over Brent’s body. It fell softly, but I cringed with every clump of soil that hit him.
“Wait!” Cindy called out.
I turned and found her rushing toward us. She stopped short of the grave and knelt down. Her face was smeared with tears and her eyes were red and puffy, but she looked like herself again.
“Brent, you were a friend when you didn’t need to be. You were a brother to me and I’ll love you forever for it,” Cindy whispered.
She took her watch off and dropped it into the hole with him. Tearing up, she blew him a kiss then with a deep breath, she stood up and headed back to the car.
As the last pile of dirt fell over Brent’s body I dropped the tire iron from my hands then stared up at the darkening sky. A silent flash of lightning flickered through the clouds as a light rain began to fall.
Brent was gone, but we were still here, still here trying to survive in a world that was falling apart. Brent was at peace now, but our fight was just beginning.
CHAPTER 20
AS THE STORM COMES
The air outside had begun to cool. It flowed in through the broken windows and swirled in the cabin of the aging Honda. We needed to find a new car soon. It was only going to get colder and from the looks of it, rain was on the way.
Flashes of light grew in the distance, wicked webs of electricity, dancing through the clouds. It was unnatural, something that would’ve been amazing to see in different circumstances, but now it was just another thing that could kill us.
“We’re low on gas,” I mumbled in a groggy tone then rubbed my eyes.
Jake looked over at me and shrugged. “Let’s go into town.”
I pulled off of the highway at the next exit. So far the infrastructure was sound and I doubted anything had happened out here. We’d clocked nearly three hundred miles and the horrors of Nashville were far away, but somehow still with us.
“I’m thinking if we find gas or a new car we can make it to Wyoming by tomorrow afternoon,” I grinned.
Jake nodded, but didn’t respond. With a yawn, I turned onto the surface streets and made my way toward the city. I felt a cold twist in my stomach as I thought of what we might find once we got there.
“We’ve gotta be close to something,” I added. “I can’t see a damn thing though.”
It was dark and our headlights were our only lifeline to safety. The world had been cast into the shadows with death lurking in every corner. I felt like an explorer on a distant planet. Like we were the first to step foot on Mars and everything we did set a new precedent.
“It’s empty,” Jake mumbled.
“What?”
“This town, it’s empty.”
He was right. There were a few deserted cars on the street, but it was a ghost town. From the road signs, we were about thirty miles outside of St. Louis, Missouri. With such a big city near I thought we�
�d see people everywhere.
“Maybe they all got out,” Cindy said in a weak voice. “Maybe the National Guard evacuated them.”
I glanced back at her and smiled. I was happy to see her talking again. She still looked out of it, but at least she was engaged.
“I hope they did,” I replied.
“Me too.”
“Do you guys hear that?” Jake asked and sat up in his seat then leaned out of the window and looked around. “It’s close, it’s really close.”
I slowed the car down to nearly a stop. The brakes screeched and the tires crushed tiny pebbles as we veered near the shoulder.
Straining my ears, I listened in silence as the car coasted. More lightning flashed and brightened the sky, exposing monstrous clouds, black and menacing as the grim reaper. The wind had picked up, howling and shoving things around, but that was all that I could hear, the sound of the storm we all knew was coming.
Sighing, I stopped the car next to an empty field and put it in park. I cut off the engine and looked at Jake. He still had his head leaning out of the window like a dog.
“I don’t hear anything,” I told him after a few minutes had passed.
“Well I hear it,” Jake replied. “Get out of the car!”
“What?”
“Get out of the car now!”
Jake opened his door and jumped to his feet. With a grimace, he looked up at the sky then yanked open the back door and nearly dragged Cindy from the car.
“Max! Get out of the car now!” he blared.
I still wasn’t sure what the hell he was screaming about, but I slowly stepped out of the car and made my way toward the back. Jake had Cindy’s hand and was pulling her down the embankment on the side of the road.
“Follow me!” he yelled back.
I frowned and shook my head, trying to comprehend what he was doing. Cindy didn’t seem to know either, but she wasn’t fighting. I banged my hand on the hood then Screaming, I ran after him.
“Jake! What the hell man?”
He didn’t reply. He darted into the field and ran like a ghost was chasing him. Another flash of lightning lit up the sky and a boom of thunder echoed in the emptiness. But something else roared even louder.
Deconstruction- The Complete series Box Set Page 28
