Paul Curtin - Gray Snow

He raised his pistol and emptied the magazine but didn’t hit enough to stop it. The truck, its chassis raised by a lift kit and its massive tires treading through the snow, swerved into the road, tossing a wave of ash and snow into the air. It jammed into gear coming out of the turn. Sean dropped his own gun and transferred the leader’s pistol into his right hand. Raised it up. Led the truck. He only had one opportunity. He steadied his hand until the shot was in place—a good fifty feet away, but he could hit it—knew he could. His finger squeezed the trigger, the firing pin struck forward, but the gun didn’t fire.

“No,” Sean yelled.

He pulled back the slide, hoping to eject the faulty round but nothing came out. “No.”

He looked through the ejection port. Not a single bullet in the gun. Nothing. Empty.

Sean looked over at his own truck. One tire removed. The others slashed. The same with Michael’s car in the driveway. They didn’t want him to follow, and now he couldn’t.

He lifted his head toward the ceiling, screamed with all the breath in his lungs, and tossed the weapon against the concrete. He collapsed to his knees while the truck rumbled away, the light snow concealing their escape as they disappeared into the gray beyond.

He watched the powdery gray snow drifting downward. The damn ash. Soon it would bring starvation, as he had to watch his family thin until they were nothing but bones.

Though the cold burned his bare skin, he leaned down, pressed his forehead to the concrete, and wept.

TRAVERS HAD LOCKED Andrew and Michael in the basement, leaving them in darkness after they had disconnected the generator. With nothing to distract him, Andrew couldn’t escape the image of the man holding the knife to Molly’s finger, of the blood welling up under it. Then he saw Aidan’s panicked face as he tried to breathe. Andrew closed his eyes, but it was if the scene was projected on his eyelids on perpetual replay.

When the gunshots started, they both had ducked low, Michael telling him to just calm down, Andrew thinking those words were more for Michael himself than for him. Afterward, Andrew had tried to open the door—locked—so instead he paced, asking Michael who he thought had been shooting, Michael telling him to calm down. This time the words were for Andrew.

Nothing happened for a few minutes. His whole body shivered. In the quiet, he kept seeing the guns in the intruders’ hands while he loaded the truck with Michael and Aiden. He remembered the shotgun barrel pressed against his spine when he dropped a jar, Travers telling him that he’d blow his head apart if he broke another, laughing after he pulled the gun away. He imagined them shooting Molly upstairs but shook the thought from his mind.

Someone unlocked the reserves. They perked up, and the light from upstairs lit up the wall in a triangle shape. Someone thudded down the stairs. Andrew grabbed Michael’s arm. He wanted to be brave, to face whatever was coming like a man. The figure sunk below the plane of the ceiling. Sean. Clothed again. He stood at the bottom of the steps, the glare off his flashlight obscuring his face.

“They’re gone,” he said.

Michael stepped forward. “Who is?”

Sean didn’t answer. He raised the beam of the flashlight to the shelves that once stood bursting with food, now like roadkill picked apart by vultures. Jars and cans lay on their sides, a few shattered across the concrete ground. He shined the flashlight back and forth. Not even half remained.

Sean covered his mouth and walked toward the shelving. Placed a jar back on its base. “Go to your wife,” he said, tilting his head toward Michael but not looking at him. “She needs you.”

“What happened?”

“Just go. She’s upstairs. Grab Aidan from the mudroom before you go. Cover his eyes the whole way up.”

Michael spoke, but could only say, “Sean—”

“Take him to his mom or sister. They’re with Kelly. Just cover his eyes. Please. Don’t ask questions.”

Michael looked at Andrew and started toward the stairs before Sean grabbed his arm and stopped him. “Cover his eyes, Michael. Cover them the whole way up.”

Andrew watched the exchange without breathing. Michael nodded and left. Andrew hung back, unsure if he should go too.

“They made you load the food into their truck?” Sean said.

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s like asking a man to dig his own grave.”

“Will they come back?”

“They don’t have enough to attack us. Even if they wanted to.”

“They had guns.”

Sean reached around his back and pulled out a pistol. Without hesitation, he pointed the gun at Andrew’s face, and Andrew recoiled, putting his hands out as if it were enough to stop a bullet. The gun clicked. Andrew winced. Stood still. Not dead. He lowered his shaking hands.

Sean didn’t have a sadistic look on his face, wasn’t playing a mean joke. His eyes looked drained of his soul, like Sean was no longer there. “This is what they had in their guns.” He held it upward. “Didn’t even have bullets.” A tear dripped from his eyes. “They’re not coming back.”

Andrew’s heart drummed in his throat. “Never again?”

“Don’t know. I’m not sure we have enough left to justify the risk.” He looked around. “I don’t know how this happened. How could I have let this happen?”

“I don’t—”

“We should have never let that man in here. He brought death with him. Into this home.”

“We’re all still—”

“It doesn’t make any sense. How can people do this? Why did they do this? The man was an engineer. A few months ago, he was an engineer.”

Sean kept rambling. Incoherent.

Andrew shuffled closer to the stairs while Sean continued staring at the stripped shelves. As he reached the base of the stairs, someone rushed down them. Elise. She slowed. The flashlight lit the outline of Sean’s body, the fringes of his clothing glowing, his core dark. She held her gaze on him for a moment and then turned to Andrew, hugged him, and said, “You okay? Did they hurt you too?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“I’ll live.”

She nodded and cupped his face with her hands. She swallowed hard and exhaled. Without saying any more, she approached her husband.

“Babe,” she whispered.

Andrew inched closer to the steps.

“Babe, talk to me,” she said, standing next to Sean and turning his face toward her.

“Where’s Aidan?” Sean asked.

“Michael took him upstairs.”

He paused. “You let that man in,” Sean said in a low voice.

She pulled back. “How can you say that?”

“We should have left him outside. You and your brother—you let him into our home.”

Andrew moved up a step.

“I was trying to help. I was trying to—”

“Help? This was helping ?”

“This is not the time to be having this discussion.”

“Because you know it’s true?”

“Because what difference does it make now?”

The air hung with cold silence. Andrew went up another few steps.

“I’m sorry,” Sean said. “This isn’t your fault. It’s mine.”

Elise sighed and hugged him.

He pulled away after a moment. “I fell asleep on the job. He wasn’t even gone yet, and I was sleeping.” Andrew could see Elise’s throat rise and fall, Sean saying, “I just don’t understand. I hadn’t slept like that for so long.”

“The body eventually just shuts down,” she said.