Wendy pressed the outlet valve of her mask against Clay’s neck so he could hear her better. “You shouldn’t have said anything. Adam’s been through a lot. He lost his wife in the war, and he played nursemaid to me while my legs healed.”
“Sorry.”
“You should be sorry. And you should be thanking me for coming with you.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re an asshole, Clay.”
He kept his mouth shut. Talking would only disrupt his breathing. Still, he wanted to ask, Doesn’t trying to save my family prove I’m not so bad?
“And now,” she said, “you’re not even asking me the obvious follow up.”
“Sorry. What?”
“About my legs?”
He stumbled. Wendy clutched him tighter, gasping. She should shut up and let him focus on running. How much time did they have left? Two, two-and-a-half hours? But then, he really was curious about what happened to her. Might as well ask. He didn’t need her to be more sullen than she already was.
“Okay,” he said, panting with the effort of carrying her. “What happened?”
“Adam and I went into a fallout zone to search for survivors. There was a building. It was still smoldering and unstable, and it fell on top of me. It crushed my legs.”
Breathe in for two, breathe out for two, Clay chanted in his mind. Listening to Wendy’s story made this harder.
“I had to give medical instructions to Adam and the others on how to care for me. But there were complications. I had to tell them how to amputate. I’m still in pain, every day.”
In Clay’s mind, Wendy and Lorraine merged into the same person. He imagined her screams, which made him stumble again. He barely managed to stay upright.
“Maybe I should let you concentrate,” Wendy said.
“Yes.”
✽ ✽ ✽
They passed through the ruined city and into the wastelands that surrounded his shelter. This cheered him somewhat because he’d heard the weres in the city and not out here. But he also knew they would never make it back in time, not at this rate. The realization increased Wendy’s weight on his hips and back. Soon, he could only manage a fast walk.
“How much farther?” Wendy said.
He was too out of breath to answer. Wasn’t sure, anyway. Maybe another five miles across the roughest terrain of the trip.
As hopeless as the quest felt, though, there was also something transcendent about it. For the first time in his life, he knew he was being completely unselfish. He was risking and straining himself for the health of his family. Even if he failed, he would know that he’d done everything possible.
So this was it. This was the time to dig down and use every available scrap of energy. Conserve nothing. If he died of a heart attack at the threshold of home, then that was okay because at least he would have given his family a chance.
He forced himself to speed up into another jog. His breathing rasped inside the mask. His lungs felt like torn cloth.
Wendy surprised him with a chuckle. “I won’t be able to sit down for a week after this. That puts me in a bind, doesn’t it?”
He wanted to say something nice to her. He wasn’t sure what, but he opened his mouth anyway. “I think—”
A dark shape jumped out from a shadow and collided with them.
Their attacker snarled and clawed as they all fell. Wendy screamed as they rolled off the sand dune they were crossing. Sand sprayed into the air as Clay landed on his back, crushing her under him. He groped for his revolver.
The were-man landed below them in the trough of two dunes. Face-down, the creature splayed its limbs and shook its shaggy head like it was dizzy. Its only clothing was a torn white dress shirt with a businessman’s tie. Long fur covered the rest of its body.
“Oh, Jesus,” Wendy said.
It regarded them. Two canine teeth jutted up from its mouth in a pronounced underbite to touch its cheeks, also covered with fur. It dug its fingers into the sand and arched its back, preparing to spring.
“Oh, Jesus,” Wendy said. “It’s going to—”
Clay fired. A black hole appeared between the were-man’s nose and right eye. Their attacker fell over and lay still.
He waited in case there were others. Were-men usually traveled in packs. But after a few moments, he judged they must have gotten lucky. He sat up. Wendy came with him, thankfully, still strapped to his back. The carrying harness wasn’t damaged.
He reholstered the gun. “You all right?”
“I… no.”
“What?”
“My filter. When we fell.”
Faster than he would have thought possible, Clay tore off the shoulder straps so he could twist around and look at her.
Wendy’s mask looked fine, but then he traced the length of the hose between the outlet valve and the filter strapped to her chest. A half-inch tear had opened in the hose.
He slapped his hand over it.
“That won’t work,” she said. “Don’t you have any duct tape?”
He knew her question wasn’t meant to be serious. Duct tape was more valuable than gold these days. Nobody had it anymore.
“No.”
“Then I’m screwed,” she said. “And so’s your wife.”
✽ ✽ ✽
There was no way they could reach Shelter 5 before Wendy was exposed to contaminated air, if she hadn’t been already. A torn hose wouldn’t permit the passage of purified air from the filter into her mask.
The math was blindingly simple. One good mask. One person who absolutely had to stay human.
“What are you doing?” she said. “No!”
Once his mask was off, Clay took a shallow breath of the outside air. It smelled deceptively clean. Sand smacked against his cheeks when the wind blew. The sun warmed his forehead and nose.
He unhooked the good hose from his mask, then reached for Wendy’s. “Hold your breath.”
She pinched her eyes shut, squeezing out a tear. Clay tried to steady his trembling hands as he replaced the hose connecting her mask to the filter.
“All done,” he said.
Wendy took a deep breath of filtered air and examined the new hose. Then she glared at him. “You’re a damned fool. You’ll be a were-man within the hour.”
Nothing more needed to be said.
Clay threaded his arms through the carrying harness and stood back up with her.
✽ ✽ ✽
Within minutes, Clay’s throat began to hurt. He thought at first that it was the sand, but then he thought better. Soon, he couldn’t swallow.
“This may be our last chance to talk,” Wendy said, “so I think we should clear the air between us.”
Clear the air. Har de har har.
His throat hurt too much to talk, so he just nodded. Oddly, his fatigue was lessening. He picked up the pace.
“I’ve never forgiven you for what you did,” she said. “To forgive a person, I need for him to ask for it. You’ve never asked for it.”
He tried to interrupt, but he could only cough. His face felt hot. The dunes ahead of them began to swim.
“A bigger person would forgive you anyway, but I’ve never been good at that. You hurt me too deeply.”
Was she trying to weaken him? This was like kicking him when he was down.
“But I admire you for what you’re doing. It doesn’t change how you betrayed me. But today, at least, I think you’re on a better course. And…”
She stopped talking, and he thought maybe she was done. Then he realized she’d only paused because she was starting to cry.
“If… if you’re no longer human after today, at least today you acted like one. A good one.”
This time, she stopped talking for real. He heard her crying inside her mask. Somehow that sound was worse than anything, because Wendy had always been the tough one. He had only been the brainless, brawny half of the family. The deepest thought he’d managed during the divorce was a formless cloud of shame—something to exit as f
ast as possible, kind of like this stretch of wastelands.
He didn’t have time to stop, but he did so anyway, just for a moment. He needed to manage one sentence Wendy could hear clearly. The wind hushed as if to grant that moment.
“I wish it was different.” He sounded drunk. “Wish I could go back.”
“No. If you could go back, you wouldn’t have that little baby. The one we’re going to save.”
Clay closed his eyes. He felt a change come over him, and it had nothing to do with the were-virus now rampaging through his body. He was glad they had talked about this.
“You better get going,” Wendy said.
He got going.
✽ ✽ ✽
It was their last conversation. All of his attention was focused on running now. He couldn’t have talked more, anyway. His throat hurt too much. And also when he considered the woman strapped to his back, he had to struggle to remember her name. Soon, he couldn’t remember it at all.
He knew he needed to reach the woman ahead of him. The woman in the building. He ran faster and was delighted to discover it was becoming easier.
“Ow, ow, ow,” the woman on his back said.
Joy, pure joy, rose in him. He felt powerful. Alive. Invulnerable.
In a moment of recklessness as they climbed a dune, he dropped to all fours. He pushed off with his feet and landed on his hands. At the dune’s crest, he pushed off with his feet again and jumped far through the air to the next dune. He landed on his hands and sprang again.
The woman screamed, but he no longer cared. There was only the run, only the strength, only the power.
He turned a sharp left, then a sharp right, enjoying the flow of the dunes and where they might take him. He turned around and found his own footsteps, then tried to see if he could land inside of them, retracing them step for step. The pleasure of this game made him howl.
The woman yelled, but he didn’t understand the words.
He paused at the top of a dune to catch his breath, hunched over on all fours. The woman felt heavy. He considered tearing her off.
Something scraped across her clothing. It crackled and crumbled like stone. He smelled it. Food. His mouth watered instantly.
A piece of the food suddenly flew through the air, away from them. It landed on the next dune. He pounced on it. Devoured it. It was crunchy and small.
Another piece of food landed on the next dune, and he chased it again. After he swallowed it, more food appeared, and he likewise leapt after it.
The woman was talking, her voice soothing and encouraging. She jostled on his back each time the food appeared in the air.
In time, a shape loomed before them. It was many times larger than him. It felt familiar. Men patrolled its perimeter. They hadn’t seen him yet. They carried long metal sticks that he knew could hurt him.
But they weren’t important right now. Only the bits of food, which had become smaller. He grew frustrated.
The woman. She had more. He turned around and tried to bite her. But each time he pivoted, she remained just out of reach. She started screaming, which only irritated him. He turned the other way, and still she remained out of reach.
He stood upright on his legs so he could reach her with his hands. She screamed again.
But he suddenly stopped his grabbing because others had appeared. Others like him. Three of them. They circled him, pawing at the ground. Snapping their jaws. They wanted the food, too.
He wouldn’t give it to them. It was his.
The first one leapt. He caught the creature with his hands. It had long fur—and he sensed that it was stupid. Older. It tried to bite his throat with long teeth. But he knew better. He still remembered. Someone once showed him how to make his hand flat and hard.
He chopped the front of its throat. Felt the cartilage snap and crush.
The next one took advantage of the distraction to tackle him. This time, it did bite him, on his shoulder. But he received help from an unexpected quarter. The woman. Screaming, she reached around him and grabbed his attacker’s throat.
The move gave him the extra second he needed to tear at its bare genitals.
The third creature sprang. Its motion was arrested by a great bang. Its head exploded in a cloud of blood.
The men from the big shape were here. More bangs came from their sticks. They reserved the last one for him.
Pain ignited his left leg. The woman screamed and screamed.
He fell down. The world went dark.
✽ ✽ ✽
He awoke on a hard, flat surface. Dark walls surrounded him. Through an opening, he saw the sand outside and wanted to go to it. But something restrained him, held him down.
He growled and tried to break free.
A figure rushed forward from the shadows. Something hard and sharp jabbed into his neck.
Before he fell asleep, he heard a small voice cry out in the next room.
✽ ✽ ✽
When he awoke, hard sand ground into his back. Blue sky covered him. The air smelled of a small animal, and his stomach rumbled.
The big shape sat beside him. Nobody surrounded him. Nothing restrained him. He rolled over and crouched on all fours.
His leg hurt. It was covered with white skin. He tore the skin away to see his own skin: swollen and oozing. He examined it for a long time. He tried to lick the wound, but he couldn’t reach it with his tongue.
And yet, in the short time he sat here, he saw the swelling reduce. The sides of the wound were slowly drawing together. In a day or two, he knew it would be all right. He knew he had never healed this fast before, but he didn’t know why that was so. It didn’t matter. The bite he’d received on his shoulder was already gone.
He became aware of someone watching him. He craned around, sniffing the air.
Finally, his gaze alighted on the big shape. He could see through its surface. People standing there. He limped closer.
He saw the woman he’d been carrying. She was sitting down, watching him with big, round eyes. Unafraid. She raised a hand, palm up, then put it down.
Next to her stood another woman. He’d seen her before, but he couldn’t remember where. She cradled something in her arms. A small person. Her mouth trembled. Water leaked down her face.
He felt…
He knew he should feel hostility, but he didn’t. He just wanted to stare. Wanted to touch the small one.
Finally, he turned away. He felt weak, like he should curl up on the sand and not move.
He forced himself to limp away from the big shape. As he crossed the first sand dune, he felt the gaze of the women on his back. He turned once to look at them, but the sand had started to blow.
He resumed walking away.
Soon, he began to run.
“Second Wind” comic adaptation by Michael Heath Pecorino
With the Eyes of God
Whoever said the eyes are the windows to the soul must have known about the Peering.
The first time it happened, Tommy was seven. It was during the all-day viewing of Grandpa Jared’s open casket at the funeral home. Long about sundown, relatives gathered in the lobby to head off to a hog’s bait of a dinner at the restaurant next door.
Tommy’s parents weren’t the over-protective type—Capersville was just a bug splat of a farming town in those days—so they didn’t notice when he snuck back into the empty chapel. Approaching Grandpa’s open casket, Tommy steepled his hands and closed his eyes.
“Thank you, Jesus, for my grandpa, who taught me the Bible.”
His voice shook, but not so much from grief anymore. The place was much too cold from the air conditioning, and he was still recovering from the flu. Plus, he was a little afraid of ghosts.
“Ever seen the spirit, boy?”
The voice nearly startled him into falling over. He thought Grandpa had spoken until he saw a bushy bearded man in the aisle—one of those uncles he’d never seen till today.
“You’re Ellie’s child, the third-
born.”
Tommy was too frightened to answer. It hadn’t sounded like a question, anyway. And now, darnit, he was hyperventilating. Where was that stupid inhaler? He frantically dug it from his pocket and sucked.
The uncle just watched him, tongue pulsing against his lips. Dirt stains covered the length of his Sunday clothes as if he’d crawled through Tommy’s favorite ditch on the way there.
The man nodded at Grandpa Jared in the casket. “My daddy there, he was third-born, and he could see the spirit. And I’m third-born, like you, and I can see it. So tell me, you ever seen it?”
Tommy swallowed, wanting to run—but that was for sissies. He put away his inhaler. “G-Grandpa said you can’t see no spirit of God. When Moses went up the mountain—”
“No no, boy, I don’t mean that spirit. I’m talking about the spirit of another person. Ellie’s spirit, your dog’s spirit, my spirit.”
The uncle’s face was wild and sweaty. This scared Tommy, and he started backing away, thoughts of sissies long forgotten. “Don’t have no dog.…”
The uncle seized his wrist. “Where you going?” He forced Tommy to his knees—then clamped his head between two vice-like hands. “You hafta see it, boy. It’s time. And I’m the only one who can explain it.”
Tommy opened his mouth to scream.
Before he could eek out the first “help,” the uncle pulled him forward. The man sealed his right eye over Tommy’s right eye. It was a blurry mass up this close. Sharp whiskers poked Tommy’s face. The man stunk of booze and sweat. Tommy wailed as the uncle mashed their faces together, eyebrow and cheekbone burning with the pressure.
White light flashed within the uncle’s eye. And more than that: feelings, emotions, memories.
Luke, his name was. Grew up in an Appalachian town with a creek running black with coal sediment. Tommy saw and felt and knew this as if he’d lived that childhood himself.
The next memory: Grandpa Jared—Luke called him Daddy—catching him masturbating. Daddy made him stand in cow dung and recite the story of Onan till he was hoarse.
The next: discovering he could peep into people’s eyes like they were keyholes to see their spirits, just like young Tommy was now doing. Luke could see it all, backwards and forwards, from their pasts to their futures.
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