New Title 3 (23 page)

As we were about to continue our walk, I spotted something that froze the blood in my veins.

Another grave had been started.

Grabbing Connor’s arm, I pointed it out. Sid, who was a few paces ahead, turned around, but I motioned for him to stay put. “Did you do this, Connor?” I whispered, praying that he’d deny it.

“
I found dirt in my fingernails this morning.” He looked like he was about to throw up.

“
Go to the shed, Sid,” I called. “See if we caught anything in that trap Earl left there and report back to the house.

“
Sure thing, Joel.” Sid was confused, but knew better than to argue. He checked his weapon and hustled the rest of the way.

I tried to reassure Connor. “Maybe it’s just a routine now, and doesn’t mean anything.”

He shook his head violently. “No! No, that isn’t it, Joel! Haven’t you seen enough to know? Haven’t you experienced enough? It’s for real.” He paused, then turned to look me directly in the eye. “And this one’s for me.” He grasped the trunk of a tree as if he were about to fall.

He slid down the trunk of the tree, breaking into tears. The thought of losing him crushed me, making me collapse near him. I was so tired, so drained. Crawling over to my friend, I too sought support from the tree’s strength, but in doing so, sent the weak trunk crashing to earth, taking us both with it. The shock on my face actually made Connor laugh despite his misery. I followed suit. Surrendering control over our overtaxed emotions, we sprawled on the ground and howled until the tears returned. We were still at it when Sidney rejoined us.

“
What is it, guys? What’s happened?”

“
Sorry, Sid.” I got up. Connor, sitting cross-legged in the dirt, wiped his eyes.

“
What’s going on?” He was genuinely concerned. “Were you guys laughing or crying?”

“
What’s the difference anymore?” I helped Connor to his feet and threw an arm around each of them. “Did we catch anything?”

“
No, not yet.”

As we headed back to the house, I sent a silent appeal to the angel:
please, let Connor be wrong.

*****

A week later, I cornered Connor to have it out over Julia’s death once and for all. He was still refusing to talk about it, and I worried that his quiet veneer could explode any minute. I approached him as he sat at the bar in the basement with guitar in hand, bent over and holding it as if it were a child.

“
Connor, let’s have a talk.”

He swung around on his stool and placed the guitar at his feet. “What’s on your mind, old man?”

I pulled up a stool next to him and sat. “You, that’s what. Are you really okay or do I need to sic Sara on you?”

He had to smile at that. “I’m alright, Joel. Seriously.”

“
How can you say that? I mean, she was your girlfriend, you must miss her.” Either he was lying or he was a lot colder than I had ever imagined.

“
I’m still shattered that she took her own life. No one deserves to be that unhappy. But the fact is, Joel, I never loved her like you love Sara.” He smiled sadly. “There was potential at first, sure, but over time she became so depressed and moody that I just lost interest altogether. I would have left her for sure if we were back in the old world.”

“
But you didn’t think you should in this one.”

“
Right. I mean, Jesus, what if she cut herself after I had split from her? Then it would have been my fault. But I stuck it out and gave her plenty of reasons to live. The baby was number one. Shit, I could have been a father, Joel. Truth be told, that’s the thing that’s messing me up the most.”

“
Really? Never saw you as the type.”

“
Me neither, until now.”

I stood again and picked up his guitar. “Play me something loud- all this easy listening you’ve been pumping out isn’t doing anyone any good.”

He grinned and took the guitar from me. I squeezed his shoulder as I left through the back sliding doors.

E
ight days after they’d set off in search of what lay to the north, Earl, Sonny and Fred returned to the house with much to tell. When they learned of Julia’s death, there was a moment of silence, followed by condolences. Then, while we all grouped in Skylab, they told us what they’d seen.

“
Beyond our position, there isn’t much in the way of people. Not living, anyway,” Earl said.

Fred spoke next, shuddering as he did so. “It was like a mass grave, but no one had taken the time to bury the bodies.”

“
The military…. We think they did it.” Earl said solemnly. “At least, that was the conclusion we came to. There were too many of them to explain it any other way.”

“
It stunk...” Sonny stared out the north window. “I mean, it was worse than the pit out back. This was awful.”

“
How many?” I asked.

“
Aw fuck, Joel. A lot man.” Earl took a seat. “So that was the first thing we encountered: the killing fields. That was two days into the journey. We decided not to go any further. Who knows if we’d suffer the same fate. Whoever did that was cold, man, and powerful, obviously.”

“
A good idea. Probably saved your asses,” Seth said.

“
Yeah, so we decided to veer off to the east and who do we see? None other then Gareth and his flag cronies.” Earl waited for a reaction, which he quickly got. Everyone looked alarmed. Satisfied, he continued. “Not that we actually ran into them, but we did come across them camping out in a clearing. So we set up just a few feet outside of their encampment, close enough to watch them but far enough away to go unnoticed.”

“
That’s fantastic!” I exclaimed. “Then you managed to get more information on them?”

“
Better than that!” Freddy said. “I mean, we camped out at that spot for three days.”

“
They’re really no better off then they were after the battle here,” Earl went on. “Still no larger than the twenty or so we sent packing, but they seemed to know more about what’s going on up north than we did. Let me tell you something, the bodies up there stretch for some three miles, along an open area that was once a farmer’s field. No one else could have wiped out that many people. It could only have been the military.”

“
What do you think the military had up there?” asked Sidney.

“
Whatever it was we’ll never know, trust me on that one. No one in Gareth’s group seemed to have any idea either.” Sonny was dead serious. His attention did not waver from his view out the north window. I could tell he was harboring ugly memories of what he’d seen.

“
Anyways, they didn’t look good at all
.
Pale, malnourished! Heard them talking about ripping us off at the barn but nothing ever came of it.”

Sonny grunted. “Wouldn’t have let it.”

“
So they looked pretty tired, then?” I asked.

“
They’re finished Joel. Even Gareth isn’t talking much.”

“
And some of them are becoming disillusioned with their ‘leader’,” Freddy said. “More than one of them questioned the way he handled us. In fact, two of them actually went as far as to question his motives. I think what you said to them on their way out brought that on.”

“
Perfect!”

“
So these two ‘mutineers’ got to talking one night, and there we were in the ditch just beyond the fray, taking it all in.” Earl spoke slowly now, reliving the experience. “We think it was a husband and wife team. We listened as they conspired but we didn’t interfere with the natural course of things. Then, when the dissenters approached the group, we crawled forward, shadowing them, hoping to witness a full-on rebellion.”

“
So what happened?!” Sidney was on the edge of his seat. Truth be told, we were all hanging on Earl’s next word.

“
When they spoke out, they were both shot in the head. Swift justice. Gareth’s rule is not open for challenge.”

“
Where did they get the guns?” Sara wondered. She winced, and I couldn’t blame her. It was an ugly story.

“
They likely had a few stashed in one of the vehicles we let them leave with. It was a shock to us too. We hadn’t seen them with any firepower until that moment. We backed off and that’s when we started home.”

“
Good work, guys.” That was a considerable amount of information for an eight-day trip. Connor brought each of them a drink of gin and flat pop that we’d been saving in the cold room for just such an occasion.

Their safe return prompted us to indulge too. Connor got drunk again, but who could blame him. I lit the pipe. Earl, Freddy and Sonny split up and answered additional questions. Seth perched on the arm of my easy chair and I passed the Sweet Bitch to him.

“
Hey Seth, what’s your take on déja-vu?”

“
Déja – who?” he answered. When I started to explain, he stopped me. “No, no, I was just messin’ with ya, Joel. Actually, I’ve had a theory about it for awhile, based on something my eighth grade teacher said. It made sense then and it makes sense now.”

“
What is it?” I was intrigued.

“
He said déja-vu is the universe’s way of telling a person that they’re on the right track. That if you feel like you’re reliving something, then whatever it is you’re doing is the right thing.”

I pondered his words. Before I could ask another question, Seth noticed that his glass was empty and went off for a refill. That was fine with me, actually. I was exhausted from the day, and after a couple more hauls off the pipe, I was ready to give my brain a rest.

S
ara spent much of her free time in the barn now, helping tend and harvest the plants. It made her feel useful, she said. I was on my way to visit her when I heard Seth yelling something from the house. Changing course, I hurried back inside.

“
What’s up, Seth?”

“
We’ve got three travelers at the end of the driveway.” He pushed the curtains back so that I could see.

They seemed harmless. There were no obvious signs of weapons. If they had any, they were well concealed. I decided to dispense with my usual ‘first contact’ speech, and allowed them to approach the house. We watched as they rang the doorbell, a courtesy that was almost comical, with hands that were raw and scabbing over. Our bell didn’t work anymore, but they had no way of knowing that. They stood there patiently, hunched over and wearing little more than rags. Doubting that they posed any kind of threat, I nodded to Seth and unlocked the door. John and Kevin stood at the top of the stairs, weapons ready in case my original judgment was far off.

I swung the door open, pistol in hand. Seth stood beside me, gun at the ready. Our show of force seemed to frighten the arrivals. Raising their hands, they took a step back. All three were unkempt and obviously had not seen the inside of a shower since the last missile had landed some seven months ago. They had clearly not been blessed with a roof over their heads, so I decided to hear them out and help if possible. Even Seth’s expression softened with pity.

“
Can we help you?” I asked.

“
Sorry.” A heavily bearded man who was sunburned where his hair had fallen out stepped forward. “Didn’t mean to overstep, ringing your doorbell like that. We’re just so thirsty, and the water is toxic everywhere.”

“
Water is all you want?” I asked them. They nodded meekly, so I waved them in and motioned Seth to get them some from the tap.

“
We really appreciate this.” The bearded one spoke again. The others just bobbed their heads. Sweet Jesus, they stank of every kind of stink imaginable, but the smell of death was the most troubling.

When Seth brought the water, they drank it down eagerly. “Thank you so much,” the spokesman said gratefully, handing back the glasses.

“
Set them up with one of the four gallon jugs from the tap, Seth.” I felt charitable. “You don’t need to leave here thirsty. Where are you heading?”

“
We’ve heard others talk about a place to the north. A safe haven. Is this that place?”

I hated to disillusion them, but I had to. “No. But I don’t recommend you keep going north. We’ve just had a group return from an expedition in that direction, and what they witnessed is not a safe haven. It’s a killing field.”

He flinched at my news. His upper lip quivered and lifted, revealing a blackened tongue and teeth. I felt as though I’d just driven the final nail in his coffin.

Then suddenly the man’s eyes widened and gleamed. The water jug Seth gave them fell to the floor, distracting us for the split second they needed to pull guns from their layered rags.

John’s trigger finger came to life, sending a bullet into the shoulder of one of them. Blood splattered across the front door, and everyone scattered. The three strangers, one dripping blood, ducked behind the wall that separated the dining room from the front hall. I swung into the kitchen while Seth took the living room. Connor came through the kitchen’s sliding doors on all fours.

“
What’s going on?”

“
We’ve got three unknowns in the dining room with weapons,” I replied. “John wounded one.”

“
Just three of them?”