M. Banner - Desolation

“Lisa honey, I know that’s heartbreaking, but what can we do?”

“Bu-bu-but, they’re our neighbors—our fr-friends. How could it come to this so qu-quickly?”

“They’re homeless. They’re worse off than most of our other neighbors.”

“That doesn’t make it right. We have two houses now, with Max gone. We need to give them ours. Let them stay here until we figure out what we’re going to do next. We certainly have enough food, now that Max isn’t here.”

He couldn’t argue with her about this, even though something in his gut told him what he was about to do was wrong.

He opened up the bedroom slider and ran in their direction. Even in the auroral light, he could see a trail of water slopped from their pails. Each spot looked like blood; he had a flashback of deer hunting years ago, when he’d tracked the blood trail of a buck he had shot. That deer ultimately had succumbed to its wound. He hoped he wouldn’t find the Smiths in similar condition. He followed the trail around to where the front of their house used to be, now the debris of a partially fallen wall. He heard them on the other side of their waist-high front wall and gate. He leaned over and said, “Don’t run, we have food for you.”

Both were on their knees, almost in a starter’s crouch, ready to take off. They looked like frightened animals. It was downright creepy how two normal adults could devolve so quickly. He thought that perhaps any one of them could end up like this.

“Please come with me to the house. Lisa and Sally are making food for both of you and we have some clean water. You don’t want to drink from that pool. You could be electrocuted, and besides, it’s probably poisonous from all the dead birds.” After a few moments of silence, he asked, “can you talk?”

“Thanks, Bill,” Scott said, in a voice more gravelly than Bill remembered.

“Leave those,” Bill told them, and reluctantly they set their pails of toxic water in the rubble.

Even though it was still a couple of hours before sunrise, they were preparing a feast for Scott and Kathy. Sally, who had been mostly despondent since the Event, finding comfort only in her bed most days, shone a bit brighter, receiving much needed succor from helping them.

Their guests tore at their food like the feral dogs they often saw on the beach, ripping at the dead fish that daily washed ashore. After the Smiths had their fill, all the Kings helped them get clean using buckets of water and sponges in each bathroom, girls in one, guys in the other. Employing this method, the Kings washed only a couple of times a week. Even then a sponge bath felt excessive, and they were always cautious; everyone was aware of how much water usage Max had calculated per day. This was definitely a splurge. Afterward, Bill gave Scott an I Got Wrecked at the Reef in Rocky Point T-shirt, announcing allegiance to a local restaurant-bar, along with clean shorts. Sally gave Kathy a similar ensemble. They tucked them into the spare bedroom, and then, crying in silence, watched their guests slumber in the same beds Danny and Darla slept in when they were all together.

All agreed that giving solace to their neighbors felt good and was a fine counter to the spreading evil. But they also felt like they were taking some sort of action for Darla and Danny. The inaction drove them all crazy; there was absolutely nothing they could do for their own absent family members, so the Smiths would be their needful replacements.

Everyone returned to their beds, exhausted for many reasons, but only Sally slept.

Bill and Lisa held each other, weeping for their losses and the world’s. After their tears ebbed, they decided to do something with some of their food. They just couldn’t hoard it and let others die. They felt blessed to be in the position they were, reminded that they could have easily been like the Smiths, had it not been for Max. So, they decided to give thanks to God and provide a gift to some of His hungry in the morning.

When they awoke much later that morning, they found the Smiths had left without a word.

Clyde Clydeston woke up pissed at the world, pissed at his aching shoulder, but most of all, pissed at Thompson and the Kings.

Ten days ago, he had awakened in his bathtub after hiding from the previous day’s explosions and gun battle next door. His girlfriend fled after the battle was over, and hadn’t been heard from or seen since. This morning, like every morning, his shoulder was on fire. It started last month when he wanted to show off for her and tried to jump into his Ferrari like Magnum P.I. used to do on his TV show. He missed the damned cockpit, and crashed shoulder- and face-first onto the pavement in front of her, tearing his rotator cuff and breaking his nose. When the gun battle raged, Clyde had jumped into the bathtub for cover, further screwing up his shoulder. He pretended not to be too concerned about the girlfriend—what was her name again?—and rubbed his shoulder as he sat up. He wasn’t going to sweat the little things any more.

In today’s world, there were new realities to deal with. No power, no food, and no water anywhere here or in town, now a three-mile walk away. He tried to use his money to buy supplies there, but no one would sell. Yet that asshole Max Thompson had boasted about preparing for everything including this. Surely, he had more than enough food. And if not him, his buddies the Kings would.

Walking through the walk-in closet to the bedroom, he stopped at the full-length mirror, and stared for a moment at the image staring back at him. Even in the harsh morning light invading his bedroom windows, he looked good. He stroked his formerly bald head, now a mass of gray stubble (shaving was a luxury), along with his new forest of gray and black whiskers merging with his mustache and goatee. An admiring smile broke on his otherwise sour face as he flexed his biceps, pumping up his already elevated self-image. No wonder the women love me , he confirmed, knowing no one would rebut this even if they were here.

Well, it was now survival of the fittest. Either he was going to persuade them to willingly give him some of their food, or he was going to take it. He pulled up his Hawaiian shirt, admiring the .38 tucked in his elastic waistband. It was the only weapon he could get from one of the Mexican gang-bangers. “You bastards kept the AK-47s for yourselves and left us gringos with the pea-shooters,” he had groused at the one who’d sold it to him.

Smiling once more at himself, Clyde turned to walk out onto the patio and start some negotiations with his neighbors, when a knock echoed from his solid front door.

“Who the hell is that?” Clyde yelled to the intruder who interrupted his plans.

“It’s m-m-me,” came the stuttering response, “it’s Judas Feinstein, your neighbor across the street.” His muffled voice feebly penetrated the door, barely audible.

The pervert ? Clyde thought. It was that fat, perverted little man who he was sure watched him and others in the neighborhood.

He opened the door and the pervert breezed in as if they were old friends and he had been there many times before, which he had not. “Quick, close the door,” Judas said in a hurried whisper. “Trust me; you don’t want them to see us here, together.”

“Who, those drug dealer assholes? They’ve been gone since the power went out,” Clyde said both curious and amused.

“No, the Kings next door.”

“You’ve been watching them, haven’t you?”

“Yes, and they have food and supplies and you’re going to get it for both of us,” Judas said in a perfunctory and certain manner.

In reality, Judas didn’t know if this plan had any chance of working. He was starving and had to do something. So, last night he’d come up with this scheme and decided to push ahead, waiting as long as he could before daring to wake Clyde. Judas didn’t really know much about Clyde, but he knew that their hate for Thompson was pretty much equal. And with the information Judas had, he hoped to persuade Clyde to help him.