by Brandon Dean
“Hey, now, call it what you want, but the truth’s the truth,” he replied with a smirk. Dad handed me the paddleball, then went back to his treasure hunt.
Mom chimed in. “I remember the first time you ever tried to play with that as a little one. We were in the grocery store, and they had that at the counter. I didn’t understand why a one-year-old wanted a paddleball so bad, but I couldn’t say no to that little face,” she said with a wink. “Watching you run around the house in your diaper, flailing that little arm around like a wet spaghetti noodle . . . it was truly something else,” she said through a snorting laugh.
I smiled at the thought.
All those times I’d cursed my parents under my breath when I was angry, all those things that irritated me over the course of a day—spilling a glass of water, the lawn mower getting clogged, having to clean my room—were now suddenly so meaningless in that reality. There we were, scraping flavorless black-eyed peas from a tin can, living in a hole in the ground, hoping just to see another day and thankful for every moment we had now.
Day two was much like the first.
Dad rummaged through boxes we had scattered in the cellar, digging up old mementos. The pain of seeing my old baby clothes, four old photo albums full of past memories, die-cast trucks—it was close to unbearable. It seemed to help Dad, though.
Those same four photo albums had their pages flipped through an infinite number of times as my parents sat next to the oil lamp and examined them. They both smiled every time they saw the pictures. For Mom, I think it was a reminder of happiness. But for Dad, I think it symbolized hope. We had lived through the attack; we were out of sight and out of mind. But we would have to resurface before long. I tried reminding him of that, but he either refused to accept it or he chose to avoid it.
Day three, we dined on canned beets for breakfast and dinner. Dad noticed how low on food we’d gotten, so we no longer had lunch. Dessert did make its way into the mix, though: butterscotch-flavored powdered pudding poured into a wiped-down tin can with just a splash of water. It wasn’t like any pudding I’d ever tasted. The mixture was more like wet sand than anything, with a subtle sweetness that left behind a chalky residue on my tongue. I hated the taste of it, and I knew that if I never had to eat that again, it would still be too soon. But I didn’t have a choice—it was either eat shitty pudding or starve. The bright side was, I wouldn’t have to suffer through it long. There were only three boxes of pudding mix to start with, minus the one we had just choked down.
Mom was starting to get purple crescents ringing the underside of her eyes, and her hand shook a little as she placed beets in her mouth. Her favorite blue sundress, something she’d always loved to go out on the town in, was soaked by the sweat pouring from her chest, back, and underarms. I was also beginning to notice her health start to decline. But she had always been a strong woman, so I told myself she would be okay. She had to be okay; we couldn’t afford for her not to be. She kept insisting it was a cold, and Dad believed it. He couldn’t bear to believe anything else.
I think that was the day everything finally sank in, though, the gravity of what the world had become.
I didn’t know what time of day it was. I couldn’t see the faintest hint of sunlight peeking through the cracks anymore. What a world we were living in; even the sun had given up trying.
That was the first night—the first of many—that I finally broke down. This was no nightmare, no matter how desperately I wanted to believe it was. I cried myself to sleep on day three. And I cried many, many times afterward.
Day four, it was beets again, for both breakfast and dinner.
Mom didn’t look any better. But on the plus side, it didn’t look like she had gotten any worse, either. There was a gag-inducing stench coming from the far-most corner of the cellar, where we had a bucket for relieving ourselves. Dad had placed an old tarp over it in an effort to contain some of the smell, but as far as I was concerned, it wasn’t working. It was funny, though, in a way. Once upon a time, had someone told me that their family used a bucket as their shared bathroom, I would have retched at the thought. And now here I was, facing that as my new normal.
After all, I was in a hole, with no light other than an allotted few hours a day via oil lamp, eating cold canned food with my fingers, sleeping on the ground in a cellar with my parents—what was pissing in a bucket? No big deal, at that point.
When the bucket reached its capacity, we had no choice but to empty it, and the duty fell to Dad. To get through it, he wore his gas mask as he lifted the bucket by the handle. It was more than unsettling to hear the fluids slosh around inside the bucket; it may have been worse than the smell itself. He opened the cellar doors, and that was the first time I caught a glimpse of outside—albeit, just the sky, really. What I saw was pitch black, like an endless void, absent of all stars.
Dad poured the contents of the bucket onto the ground as he tilted it on its side with a grunt. The sound, once again, was almost indescribably unsettling.
Dad came back inside and closed the doors behind him. “My goodness! That thing was filled to the brim!” he said, his speech muffled through his gas mask.
“That’s just lovely, Dad. Thanks for that,” I said.
Dad removed the mask and hung it back on the wall, then wiped his hands on an old grease rag.
Mom began to cough again, and I was once again reminded of my frustration at my father for not making a move in getting us out of there.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked Dad.
“Haven’t really thought of it much yet. Just gimme a few days and—”
“We don’t have a few days, Dad,” I said, cutting him off.
“Being negative isn’t going to get us anywhere,” he replied.
“You’re right. Being negative won’t, but being realistic just might.”
“And what do you know about life, Clint? You’re just a kid.”
I scoffed at the remark. “A kid? No, I can’t afford to be a kid anymore, Dad! You know just as well as I do that we aren’t going to last on two boxes of pudding, three cans of carrots, two cans of beets, and six jars of water. Not to mention that Mom’s sick.”
Dad looked agitated by my backlash. “She’s just got a cold. She’ll be fine,” he insisted.
“Colds don’t make you shake to the point that you can barely feed yourself! Colds don’t make you too weak to speak! Wake up, Dad!”
Dad took a seat on the floor next to Mom, reaching his arm around her frail, trembling frame, and took a long pause. He began to cry. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Clint.” He stopped to take a breath. “All I ever wanted was to take care of you, your mom, the baby . . . I can’t even do that.”
I sat down next to him. “You can. You will—you always have. But please, let me help. We have to do something. This hole is not a house, and we can’t stay here.”
Dad’s glossy eyes looked up at me. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
I reached my arms around my parents and hugged them both. “I know, Dad. This isn’t your fault,” I said, releasing my grip and leaning back to look at him. “None of this is your fault. This is going to take all of us if we want to get through, though.”
Dad wiped his face with his sleeve and nodded.
“I’m going to try to get some sleep, Dad. We’ve had enough for one day.”
Dad agreed. “I love you, Clint,” he said.
“I know, Dad. I love you, too.”
Day five, I was awakened early by the sound of screams.
“Amelia, listen to me! Breathe!” Dad yelled, waking me from my slumber.
“What’s going on?” I shouted.
“Something isn’t right with your mother, Clint! Hurry! Turn the light on!”
I scurried across the cellar floor, making my way through the darkness. “Dad, where’s the lighter?” I yelled.
“On the bottom step!” he shouted back. “Amelia, please, slow breaths. Come on, sweetheart, you can do it. Please, listen to me,” he said as my mom wheezed and gagged. “Clint! Today, please!” Dad yelled.
I felt around on the cold stone step, and the tips of my fingers finally closed around a small, rectangular piece of metal. I made my way to the other end of the cellar, where my parents were, bending down to feel my way along. I flicked the flint of the lighter to help me see what I was doing and lit the lamp.
My blood went cold at what I was watching. Dad shook Mom in a panic, trying to talk her to wakefulness. Blood and saliva trickled out of the corner of her mouth as she lay helplessly on her side.
“Oh, God. Oh, God, please, no!” Dad screamed as he watched the life begin to fade from Mom’s eyes. The color was draining from her skin.
I couldn’t just sit there and watch, but I had no idea what to do.
Suddenly, Dad sat Mom upright, draping her upper body over one forearm while thumping her back with the open palm of the other. Blood began to mist from Mom’s mouth in a harsh wheeze as she desperately tried to catch air.
“Come on! Come on, Amelia!” Dad shouted. He followed the urgent words with another blow to her back, and another, and then another. Finally, green phlegm flew from Mom’s throat and onto the dirt floor.
“That’s it, Dad! I think it’s working!”
Dad reared his hand back once more and channeled his remaining energy into the last strike. The sound of Dad’s hand hitting Mom’s back resonated like the beating of a drum.
A solidified chunk of dark red goop the size of a golf ball escaped Mom’s chest as she wheezed to reclaim her breath.
“Oh, thank God! Oh, thank God!” Dad gasped as he held Mom close to him, rocking her back and forth. Mom was panting, still breathing heavily, but she was breathing.
“I’m so sorry I had to do that. I didn’t know what else to do,” Dad whimpered through his tears, Mom’s head buried in his chest.
I noticed something that didn’t look quite right with Mom’s side—a spot on her dress was covered in blood. “Dad, what is that?” I asked, pointing at her side.
“What is what?” he answered, looking confused.
“That, around her rib cage,” I replied.
Dad felt around in the dark through Mom’s dress. There was a small tear in the fabric. “What in the hell?” Dad said as he took out his pocketknife and cut a small area of the fabric away, revealing what it was.
It was a chunk of something buried into Mom’s side; must have been shrapnel from the explosions days ago. The area around the cut was badly infected, the skin pigmented yellow with puss seeping from the edges.
“Oh, no! Oh, no!” Dad moaned. “I have to go get help,” he said to me.
“Help from who?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter who—we need to do something! She’s going to die if this is left untreated.”
My father was right. She had already flirted with death, and for her to have any chance at all, we would have to get help.
“Well, I’m going with you,” I insisted.
“No . . . no, you need to stay here with your mother in case she gets worse,” Dad said.
“Worse? If she gets worse, how is my being here going to help? Face it, Dad, you don’t know what’s out there. You really want to walk through a wasteland alone?” I asked.
“Want to? No—but you have to stay!” Dad spat back, clearly losing patience in his frenzy to do something.
“No . . . ,” I murmured.
“Excuse me?” Dad boomed.
“No. I’m going with you. I’m no doctor; I don’t know how I’d help if something happened to Mom. And what if you need help? You can’t go out there alone,” I answered.
Dad looked me in the eyes for a moment, coming to the realization that what I was saying made more sense than he wanted to admit.
“Fine,” he said at last. “But do exactly what I say. Nothing more, nothing less. Understand?”
“I understand,” I said, nodding.
Despite my fear of what was waiting outside, a fear I’m sure was shared by my father, I knew it was the only option. We would have to face the world and whatever it had become.
Chapter 6
It was still the fifth day, the worst of all of those days in that hole. I didn’t know it yet, but that was the day that, for the first time, I would have to say goodbye forever to someone I loved. Someone who had held me immediately after I’d taken my first breath on this planet. Someone who had always had an open ear for me to confide in and a warm embrace that sheltered me from all that was evil. Someone who had always believed in me, pushed me to become something bigger.
I sat in the cellar, anticipating what waited on the other side.
“Ten total,” Dad said. His words brought me out from my reverie.
“Ten what?” I asked.
“Ten cartridges,” he replied, strapping his hunting rifle to his back. “And we’ll return with all of them. Got it?”
“What if we—”
“All ten!” he interrupted. “Do as I say, and it’ll all work out.”
“Okay . . . So what’s the plan?” I asked.
Dad picked up an old black duffel bag that hadn’t been used in years. Spotted layers of white mold covered its exterior. “Here,” he said as he handed the bag to me. “Put some water in there in case we need it. The plan is to stop at the pharmacy in town. We don’t want to go into the city unless we have to. Penicillin and any disinfectants—that’s what we need the most.”
I nodded and placed two of our last five jars of water into the duffel bag.
Dad leaned down to Mom, who looked as if she could slip away from us at any moment, and gave her a kiss as well as a gentle rub on her enlarged belly. “You’re gonna be just fine. Just try to relax, and keep taking care of that baby. Okay?” he said, obviously holding back tears.
I followed Dad’s example and gave Mom a light peck on the cheek.
“Put this on,” Dad instructed as he handed me a gas mask from the wall.
“This really necessary?” I asked, hesitating as I took the mask from his hand.
“It is unless you want to die of radiation poisoning. Now put it on,” he barked.
I groaned as I placed the mask over my head and watched Dad do the same.
“Remember,” he said as he turned around to face the cellar door. “All . . . ten . . . rounds.”
“Got it,” I replied. “All ten.”
Dad flung open the cellar door, and we were immediately overtaken by a blast of freezing air.
“What in the world . . . ?” Dad muttered, his voice muffled by the gas mask. Neither of us knew why it felt like the inside of an icebox—it was May, after all—but it didn’t matter at that point. “Let’s go,” he said.
We climbed the steps of the cellar and stepped onto the frigid ground. I heard a crunch; I looked down at my feet to see layers of frozen dew on the discolored earth. “This doesn’t make any sense,” I said.
“None of this makes any sense. Now let’s quit stalling and get on with it,” Dad responded.
I took in my surroundings, my attention immediately caught by the sky. The shade was a dark orange, not like a normal sunset—more a strange shade between tangerine and dark gray. There weren’t any clouds, either. Not like any clouds I’d ever seen, anyway. It was as if a dense sheet of fog had been stretched across the entire world.
“Beautiful, huh?” Dad asked in a sarcastic tone.
But any kind of sky without planes flying through it was beautiful to me at that point.
We walked around the house and into the front yard as our feet crunched with every step. The entire street seemed dead, with shingles ripped off the roofs of houses as well as broken windows. The place was empty, like a ghost t
own. If there were any survivors left, I knew they’d gone somewhere else. Ashford Lane was ours alone. The cookie-cutter houses still remained standing, but now each had its own unique degree of damage.
Dad removed his gas mask to wipe the foggy lenses before placing it back atop his head. “You know,” he said, “this isn’t exactly what I had in mind when the real estate agent said it was a quiet neighborhood.”
I managed to smile at his cheesy joke.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Mom’s counting on us.”
We walked side by side in the orange, frigid silence until we could see the pharmacy in the distance, several blocks away from us.
“How are you feeling?” Dad asked as we made our way toward the pharmacy.
“Hungry as hell . . . but I’ll be all right,” I replied.
“I hear that. We’ll try to come back out and get some food after we help Mom,” Dad said.
“You think Mom’s going to be okay?” I asked anxiously.
“Yes,” Dad insisted.
“The baby, too?” I asked.
“The baby, too.” He sounded resolute, as though he couldn’t give room to a thought otherwise. “We can’t let anything happen to either one of them. I don’t know what I’d do. You’ll know what I mean when you meet someone special.”
“How will I know?” I asked curiously.
“You just will. And the thing is, you won’t be expecting it. So every little feeling you get when you see her, it’s real. Hits you like a ton of bricks,” Dad said.
Even though I couldn’t see his facial expression through his mask, I knew he was smiling and thinking about when he’d met Mom.
Dad chuckled to himself softly. “Yep, might happen anywhere. You really never know until it happens. And when it does, you’ll get this burning feeling in the pit of your gut. Like a million little firecrackers blasting away in there. And then one day, you’ll be looking at her, wearing a long white dress, and sometime after that, she’ll be holding your little baby. The way she looks when she does . . . There’s nothing else like it in the world.”
