Eric Stever - Non Metallic

Many times I have no idea what will happen at the end, which makes for long, cascading revisions, but more fun first drafts. The process of finding out, and then locating the hidden messages in the text (clues from my non-speaking brain), is pretty much why I write. I’m always interested to find out what happens at the end.

Warning: I wrote this early in my career and this is a brutal story, especially the first scene. I don’t think I could write something like this today, since I am now a father to young children. There’ s nothing gratuitous or excessive or weird, but since this is post-apocalyptic, there is death. It bothers me. Probably because, it’s true.

Emma edged the police cruiser around the line of smashed vehicles that blocked the road through the Mojave desert. The boxy vehicles were dark, their batteries run low from calling for help that could not come. The fall rains had started early, and stalks of cheatgrass sprouted where the water ran off the sleek Smart-Carts and puddled onto the cracked pavement.

For the tenth time that morning, Emma flicked her blond hair away from the ragged black stain that soiled the shoulders of her police uniform shirt. She hated wearing that baggy shirt, the too long arms pinned back, showing her bony wrists, the smell of sweat and blood and burnt skin.

Back in town, people said that when Deputy Ferguson had been killed, he’d simply boiled out onto the shirt. His brain had superheated under the Droolies’ weapons, then dripped and fused into the fiber. Now Emma wore that mantle.

Her sister Jeanine, two years older with legs already running to fat, sat in the passenger side of the police cruiser. Her uniform shirt fit snugly, accentuating her curves and straining against her stomach. Her shirt was smaller than the one Emma wore, and even though Emma had found it in the police station basement, Jeanine had taken it. She was the one that got to be pretty.

“For Christ’s sake Emma, the gas pedal is on the right in case you forgot,” Jeanine said. “We’ve got lots of cars to mark and if we’re late again…”

Emma responded by slowing the cruiser noticeably, creeping back up to her original speed only after Jeanine snorted her disapproval. The drone of the tires over the rumble strips and the hiss of the air conditioner was the only sound they heard.

“We have plenty of time,” Emma said. She kept her voice even, but she fidgeted just the same when they passed a bright blue school bus, its emergency lights and interior darkened. That had been a bad one, a day that nobody in town would talk about. They had known some of those kids. A few people had just walked out into the sagebrush and never came back.

“We’ll be done with Highway 318 in a few weeks,” Emma said, “If we go too fast, the Captain of the Droolies will put us back on mine duty. What’s the rush?”

“You just want—”

“I’m just waiting,” Emma interrupted. “This job should get easier. We should be through the worst of it. It’s been almost two months since the attack, three weeks since the Captain led the Droolies up from Vegas. Everybody else has got to be dead.”

Jeanine reached for a hand rolled cigarette and lit it. The sulphur smell of the match faded into the sweet smoke of real tobacco.

Emma thought about driving off the road, into the scrub. They could find a place to live, Jeanine and her. There were weapons in the cruiser, food, water. But they’d have to leave their mom, crazy as she was. So she pushed this idea out of her mind.

They passed a long row of black Smart-Carts, each with a spray-painted orange circle on its side. And then they came to one that was clean; a Smart-Cart that was still waiting for assistance. The internal computer would expect a tow-truck to come and tell it why the networks weren’t there, explain where the hell all the maps went. Its light flashed three times in quick succession: Click-click-click.

Emma slowed the cruiser, and edged to the side of the road. She reached into the back seat and grabbed a pink box of cookies. Though the lid was closed, she was careful to only let her palms touch the smooth sides of the box. Both girls got out of the car.

“Well, you want to do the talking or should I?” Jeanine asked her over the top of the cruiser. She had put on her sunglasses like always. Pretending to be a cop.

Emma glanced at the dried blood on her uniform. She suppressed an urge to scratch at the spot where the stain rubbed against her skin, trying to find a way in. “I guess… well I did the last one, so you can talk this time.”

It was, Emma knew, an easy thing to give up. Her sister liked to pretend to be a cop, liked to talk to the Smart-Carts and fool them into opening up. It made her feel… superior. Emma insisted on doing it once in awhile, and each time they danced this dance, but they both knew their roles. Jeanine did the talking, like always, and Emma did what was hard.

Jeanine walked up to the Smart-Cart, and took out her deputy’s badge. It had partially melted when Deputy Ferguson was killed, but it still held its ID chip. The blue flashing light on top of the Smart-Cart cut out, and from inside there was a clicking noise. The doors unlocked.

Emma took a deep breath, and looked out at the sea of scattered sagebrush, at the dots of pinyon and juniper trees further out on the hills. Somewhere in that tangle were creatures who didn’t give a damn one way or another what she was about to do.

“Got a network failure,” Jeanine told the inhabitants of the Smart-Cart. She didn’t mention that all the networks had failed simultaneously across the country. “Yeah it’s a bummer, network down, so you’ve had to wait quite a while. Sorry about that.” Jeanine said all this in the bored tone of a police officer, who maybe hasn’t seen it all, but has seen all this area seems to offer.

Emma looked at her sister, at the open door of the Smart-Cart. “How many?” Emma whispered.

Jeanine smiled, as if this were all just a game they were playing. “Two and a half.”

Emma took a step forward then faltered. Was she kidding, was this just a stupid— No, Emma had rounded the edge of the Smart-Cart, and could see inside now. Her sister was not kidding.

The inside of the car was streaked with blood, the stench of urine and feces strong enough to make even her sister stand a few feet away. The male—Hell the father, was she thinking like a cop now?—Yes the father, had managed to claw most of his neck out of the way before he succumbed to the blood loss. He had not removed his implant in time, and had suffered a massive stroke and died.

The mother was less lucky, having lived for over eight weeks on what water and food the Smart-Cart could deliver to her. She cawed something to the two of them, not quite a word. Her eyes did not seem to understand anything in this world, not anything, nor would they ever again. Another stroke. She was young, so her heart had survived the adrenal poisoning. Wasn’t it a blessing to be young?

Emma opened the box she held, offering the pink, frosted cookies to her sister. The smell of sugar and butter wafted over to her but it was followed by bitter, chemical smell of the poison.

Jeanine took out one of the cookies with the plastic tongs, put it in the mouth of the woman and made chomping motions. The woman understood, chewed, dryly swallowing the cookie laced with poison. A few crumbs pitter-patted against the vehicle’s leather seat, like hail failing from a blue sky. The woman continued staring at the wall of the Smart-Cart. It was the last thing she would ever see.

“Everything will be all right now,” Emma said. It was as close to the truth as she could get.

“You said two and a half,” Emma said.

Her sister smiled, lifted up her glasses, so that Emma could see the tears in her eyes. “Two and a half,” she said again. She pointed to the small body, still secure in the child seat.