Dominoes in Time

by Matthew Warner

  “Yeah, well, you’re going to miss a whole lot more if you aggravate her right now. Now get some sleep. I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”

  They shook hands and parted. Daniel rubbed his chin as he watched him go. Then he headed toward the taxi stand.

  He gave the cabbie his home address.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Holding their son, Emma glared at Daniel through the glass storm door. “What do you want?”

  “I want to come home.”

  “I could call the cops again.”

  “Please don’t.”

  They stared at each other. Emma’s eyes were red and tired. She looked strange without her oversized belly. The baby started to cry, so she patted its bottom. Daniel watched this, his heart imploding. His hands ached with the desire to hold his son, just for a little while.

  Oh God, she has to let me hold him.

  “Why did you do it, Daniel?”

  “The cat. I—”

  “No, no. I know why you tried to kill the cat. That was a cruel and disgusting thing to do. What I want to know is, why did you try to kill me?”

  He gaped at her. “I—I didn’t. I just—I don’t know what happened. I was just trying to shove you away, and it was an accident. I shouldn’t have shoved you to begin with.”

  “You got that right. I just don’t know if I can trust you anymore.”

  “Please. I love you. I love him. Joe. I can do better.”

  Another eternity passed. By degrees, the hardness of his wife’s face melted. In its place remained a deep weariness.

  Her voice came out as a whisper: “I don’t have the strength to fight you. I can’t do this by myself.”

  “I know, honey. Please let me back in.”

  She unlocked the door.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  They sat in lawn chairs on their backyard patio for the next hour, not saying much. Daniel held the baby in his arms the whole time. Like his son, he cried for a while, then became quiet and peaceful.

  Emma watched him, her gaze like that of teacher during detention.

  “See?” she said. “If the cat had stolen the baby’s soul, you couldn’t be doing this right now.”

  He nodded. He knew he was a fool.

  “I’m not sure what’s going to happen between us, Daniel, but I want you to know that…”

  Her voice trailed off.

  She was staring into the woods behind the house. “What the hell?” She stood up and crossed the lawn.

  “What is it?” He followed her, still holding the baby.

  Beside the trunk of an old oak tree lay a dead cat. Pickles. Daniel felt a knot of tension uncoil from around his stomach.

  Emma searched his face. “Did you do this?”

  “No. I swear it.” And that was the truth.

  Another pause. This one was nearly as uncomfortable as when they stared at each other through the door an hour ago. Emma finally looked back down at Pickles. Maybe she was noticing that there were no obvious signs of trauma. The cat had simply keeled over.

  “Okay,” she said. “I believe you. Please just throw it away. I can’t deal with this anymore.”

  She took the baby from him and returned to the house.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Daniel didn’t tell her—couldn’t tell her—what he saw later as he disposed of the carcass.

  He had just carried it to the outdoor trash can upon a snow shovel and dumped it inside. He put the shovel down and prepared to slam the lid onto the can. He took one last look inside as he did so.

  And saw the naked body of a newborn.

  He closed his eyes. Opened them again.

  Just a cat this time. Just a dead cat.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  The following work week was hard, and the initial trip to the marriage counselor was harder. But that weekend, Daniel received his reward: Emma let him sit on the patio by himself with the baby. It was a grand show of trust, although sometimes he felt her observing him through the kitchen window.

  The baby was too young to bottle-feed yet—at least that’s what the literature said. The gurus said to breastfeed exclusively for at least the first month so that the baby didn’t grow confused about who its mother was.

  Daniel smiled down at the baby, and the baby smiled back. “You’re not confused at all, are you?”

  The only person around here who’d been confused was him. A soul-sucking cat, indeed. How ridiculous. How could he even have entertained the idea?

  And yet…

  What if the cat really had sucked out the baby’s soul? Then the cat died, taking the baby’s soul with it. He had seen it in the garbage can, but he still threw it away with the Thursday morning trash pick up.

  He pinched his eyes shut. Stop it.

  But if that were true, it didn’t make sense that he had a living, breathing baby, right here in his arms. The baby had to have somebody’s soul.

  Daniel opened his eyes and looked at his son.

  He was holding a tabby cat.

  It meowed. Then it leapt away.

  Daniel began to scream as it ran into the woods and disappeared.

  Second Wind

  The sand storm outside Shelter 5 howled while the midwife conducted her examination.

  She pinched her lips and looked up at Clay. “Can we talk in the hallway?”

  Lorraine spoke before he could answer. “You can talk about me here.”

  She tried to say more, but another contraction took over. Clay held a plastic tray under his wife’s mouth as she vomited.

  As they waited for her to recover, Clay stole glimpses at the storm outside. They were perfectly safe in here behind these four-inch steel walls and double-paned windows, built once the nuclear strikes were over. Everything was airtight—no chance of exposure to the air—but he still worried, particularly now. The sun shone brighter between gusts. He saw a guard pass by outside wearing a bug-eyed filter mask and black environmental suit.

  Lorraine gasped and moaned. Clay wiped her mouth, trying to stay stoic. It wouldn’t help matters if he broke down.

  “Okay,” Lorraine said. “Go on.”

  The midwife nodded at her. “Your baby’s head is too big to pass through your pelvis. It won’t come out on its own.”

  Clay felt the blood drain from his face. “Then she needs a C-section.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  They all looked at each other, not needing to say more. There were no doctors left at Shelter 5. The last one died a couple months ago. It was an all-too-common fate for those caught in the fallout zones.

  If the child also died, it might be a blessing. It would never have to face the horror of having to live a life confined indoors. Being exposed to the outside air risked infection by the were-virus, an artifact of biological weapons used during the Second Wave.

  Lorraine grimaced but somehow remained calm. “Are there any doctors at the other shelters?”

  The midwife shrugged. “I wish I knew.”

  It wasn’t like they could just pick up the phone or send an email. Telecommunication was one of the first things destroyed in the war. And due to radiation pockets, radios were also useless. Each shelter was an island, not knowing the fate of the others.

  “I know a doctor.”

  The women looked up at Clay and blinked in surprise.

  “It’s Wendy. In Shelter 4. She even did a clinical rotation with an obstetrician.”

  The midwife looked pleased, but Lorraine stared at him. “Your ex-wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “The one you left to marry me?”

  “Yes.”

  She closed her eyes. “Maybe I shouldn’t have heard about this after all.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  The more they discussed it, the more it became apparent Wendy was their only hope. The midwife finally pulled Clay into the hallway to hash it over.

  “Your wife has maybe six hours left.”

  “Until what?”

  “Until she gets too tired to p
ush. Then she and the baby will die.”

  The world shifted around him. It hadn’t occurred to him that Lorraine could die, too. He knew—as sure as he was standing here—that he couldn’t go on without her. He would arrange to die along with her, if it came to that.

  “I’d better get going to Shelter 4, then.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Saying goodbye to Lorraine nearly robbed him of volition. They kissed long and tenderly and promised to meet again on the other side. The other side of what, he didn’t know.

  He donned his environment suit and filter mask in record time. His friends were conspicuously absent from the airlock as he made his way out. Being on hand to bid him farewell would raise the question of why no one was making the journey with him.

  They might not have been cowards if there was still gasoline to run those vehicles not wiped out by the electromagnetic pulse. So that left running cross-country, which meant risking airborne infection or attack by the roving bands of were-men. And no one in the shelter could run as fast or as long as Clay. Even during the war, he’d jogged five miles a day on the treadmill, followed by an hour of martial arts practice.

  Clay pulled his sun hood tight around his filter mask and set out at a medium speed. The guards outside nodded at him as he passed. His heart raced as if he’d already covered the ten miles to Shelter 4.

  Control your breathing. You won’t help Lorraine if you keel over.

  He inhaled for two paces and exhaled for two paces. Over and over.

  After a long while, he caught his second wind and settled into a comfortable pace. His lungs kept up with his legs, even carrying the extra equipment and treading the unsteady sand dunes. An occasional gust blew him backward. The sun glittered off the sand and the ruined city on the horizon.

  His handgun bounced against his leg. It made him think of the were-men. They could be waiting for him just over the next dune.

  The were-virus’s inventors, long since dead, called their bioweapon RY-Alpha. Mere skin exposure to the air was all it needed for a foothold. It roared through the body within an hour, suppressing regular genetic expression and activating dormant genes—long-dormant genes—causing people to devolve into fur-covered, mindless, proto-humans. The fur took time to grow, of course. You could always tell how long a were-man had been infected by the length of his fur. The traits that expressed themselves instantly, however, included the adrenaline-fueled super strength and the psychosis. This was why the sentries outside carried rifles—and why Clay prayed sand wouldn’t jam his gun if it was needed.

  Please be willing to come back, Wendy, even though I treated you like shit.

  Then, remembering the doctor who died of cancer, he added, Please still be alive.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Two hours gone. Four hours left, according to the midwife.

  The city on the horizon became the ruins he now passed. The sand dunes gave way to cracked asphalt, and he picked up the pace. He wasn’t sure how far he’d run—but he knew he would have to re-enter the wastelands before he reached Shelter 4.

  His legs and breathing were holding steady, and he dared to hope that he was almost out of the woods. A funny expression, that. “Out of the woods.” He hadn’t seen wild vegetation since before Lorraine became pregnant. Maybe if—

  His toe jammed against a crack in the street, sending him sprawling. Dust plumed as he landed on his hands and knees.

  He immediately rolled over and checked for damage—not to his body, but to his environment suit. Even a small tear meant doom.

  After a minute, he determined there was no damage. He shuddered with relief.

  By this time, his breathing had slowed and no longer rasped in his ears. He heard the shifting wind more clearly.

  And in the distance, the howl of a were-man.

  Another voice answered, closer.

  Clay sprang to his feet. He sprinted for a nearby alley. He took cover behind a rusted Dumpster. A bed of fine, white bones cracked underfoot.

  He drew his gun and waited.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Precious minutes passed. He debated following the alley to another street and finding a different route. But this was the way he knew, and he didn’t want to risk getting lost. So he just waited and listened.

  The were-men fell silent.

  He concentrated on his breathing, trying to stay in control. Sometimes, he heard tales of air filters becoming clogged with sand, forcing the wearer to strip it off. Those people didn’t make it home safely.

  As he waited, he also thought about Wendy. Their marriage ended before the war. She was a doctor, and he was a ditch-digger. After two years together, he stopped deluding himself they had anything in common. Meeting Lorraine had made that belief easier.

  He’d always regretted the decision to leave her. He knew, deep down, that if he’d just tried harder to be a good husband, he never would have inflicted the pain on Wendy that he did. Although in some ways, he didn’t see how it could have gone differently. But that didn’t matter anymore. What was done was done.

  Except now, it was time to pay the piper. If Wendy wanted Lorraine and his child to die, then she had that power.

  Clay poked his head out of the alley. He was alone. Keeping his gun drawn, he resumed running.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Shelter 4 was a squat, hockey-puck-shaped building 539 feet in diameter and extending two stories underground. Clay knew this because it was exactly the same as Shelter 5.

  A guard waved him in.

  Once through the airlock, Clay knelt in the corridor to catch his breath. He was much more tired than he expected to be. The run was only twice as long as his normal daily workout, but the weather conditions and stress had taken their toll. Half his time was gone; only three hours left until Lorraine might die. Assuming Wendy was willing, how could she keep up with him for the ten miles back in that same period? Her idea of exercise was walking to the mailbox.

  “What are you doing here?”

  His ex-wife was sitting in a chair by the window. He hadn’t seen her. Her blonde hair looked long and brittle.

  “I’m sorry.” It was all he could think of to say.

  “Are you really?”

  “I need your help.”

  “Oh, so yes. Of course you’re sorry.”

  He stood up and took a deep breath. “Lorraine—”

  “Is dead, I hope.”

  He stared at her. New lines crossed her forehead and extended from her nose to the corners of her mouth. She looked old and dry. An Army-issue woolen blanket draped over her legs. Upon it a lay an unopened energy bar and a paperback—a bodice-ripper by a writer who was probably dead. She still believed in romance, in the perfect fairy tale, but he’d ruined that for her.

  “I guess I shouldn’t have come here.”

  Wendy sagged. “Okay, I’m sorry. I don’t wish she was dead. I just wish you were dead.”

  “She’s in labor. She needs a C-section. You’re the only person who can do it.”

  Wendy remained silent for so long that he wanted to scream. But he stood there and took it. He waited for the recriminations—You bastard, I wouldn’t help your new wife even if my own life depended on it. You adulterous piece of shit. How could you have the gall to even ask me?

  But instead, Wendy just took a deep breath and bowed her head. When she looked up at him, he was surprised to see tears.

  “I wish I could help her, Clay, but I can’t.”

  “Look, I know I treated you badly, but—”

  “It isn’t that.”

  She pulled aside her blanket—and now Clay saw why she hadn’t stood up.

  Both of Wendy’s legs were gone below the knees.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Lockers and storage crates lined the corridor’s walls. Clay rummaged through them as Wendy talked.

  “Lorraine doesn’t have to die from this, Clay. Back before C-sections were invented, a woman could still survive. It just meant killing the baby.”

 
He stopped slamming locker doors to look at her. “Kill the baby?”

  “Yes, you’ll have to—” She grimaced and looked away. “—crush its head while it’s still in the womb. Then it’ll be able to fit through Lorraine’s pelvic bones to come out.”

  “No. We’re not doing that.”

  A sandy haired boy walked in, probably about eight years old. “Not doing what?”

  It was Adam, Wendy’s nephew.

  “Oh, hi, Uncle Clay. You staying for lunch?”

  “Go back in the other room,” Wendy said.

  Clay grabbed the boy’s shoulder. “No, wait. Does your father have any of those parachutes left? The ones he used to wear before the war?”

  Adam looked between the two adults. “You’re going up in a plane? Can I come?”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  With the help of the boy and the boy’s father, Adam Sr., Clay successfully converted an old parachute harness into a carrying pouch. Wendy hung onto Clay, piggyback, while the men tightened the straps around her. Her environment suit crinkled and squeaked as it rubbed against Clay’s.

  “If I do this,” she said, “then I expect you to carry me back home once it’s over.”

  “No problem.”

  Adam Sr. crossed his arms. “You sure you want to help this guy?”

  “I’m not doing this for him. I’m doing it for Lorraine and that baby. I’m still a doctor.”

  Clay felt himself flush. “If you think it’s too dangerous, why don’t you come with me? I could use another gun.”

  Adam Sr. took a step back and put his arm around his son’s shoulders. “No. If I die, my boy won’t have a father anymore.”

  “But I’m carrying your sister here. Isn’t she just as—”

  “Stop it,” Wendy said. “It’s okay. I don’t want him to risk his life for this.”

  Clay looked from one Adam to the other and finally settled on the father. He never had liked him. “Fine. You do what you have to for your child, and I’ll do what I have to for mine.”

  He snapped his filter mask into place and stepped into the airlock. Wendy already weighed heavily against his back. As the door hissed shut behind them, he heard Adam Sr. say, “Yeah, you’re welcome for the harness, pal.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  They set out across the sand.