Linda Andrews - Extinction Level Event

Three people, yet only two people were at his door.

“What happened to your grandmother?” Balancing on one leg, Manny propped his knee against Stash’s back and juggled his weight.

After a whisper of fabric, light filtered into the small room. Still clutching her side, Irina stood in the doorway. Streaks glistened on her cheek. “Basia’s dead.”

Manny blinked the sting from his eyes. Irina’s plump grandmother had visited him every Saturday at Adobe Mountain. She’d told him bad jokes in her thick Polish accent and baked him cherry kolaches. Pain radiated from his chest. “Why did they have to kill her? Your grandmother always shared everything she had.”

Turning sideways, Manny squeezed through the doorway and into short hallway leading to the kitchen.

“Basia managed to get rice and beans from Mr. Taylor before the Aspero.” Behind him, Rini’s shoes squeaked on the Saltillo tile.

Rice and beans. Manny’s stomach growled as if he smelled them cooking. “I can’t believe Mr. Taylor shared.”

All Manny’s life, the old man had yelled at him for cutting through his yard on the way to school. Like the grass wouldn’t grow back if he stepped on it. To think the guy had actually shared food when his supplies must be low like everyone else’s.

“He didn’t have a choice. The soldiers gave him the job of distributing the food for the neighborhood.”

The soldiers had kept distributing food? Yet, he hadn’t gotten his share. The niños had been eating half the allotted amount for days. Why had no one told him? Manny jerked to a stop. “What?”

Irina bumped into his back. “Geez, Manny. At least warn me if you’re going to stop.”

Turning slightly, he swiped at the light switch on the wall. He squeezed his eyes closed against the brightness. “How long had this been going on?”

“Two weeks.” She set her hand on his back. “Didn’t you see the notice at the drop-off point?”

“No.” There had been nothing—no sign, no notice, nobody. He’d have noticed. He’d stood there three days straight waiting for the soldiers, praying for food.

“The Aspero did. They demanded half of it for their protection.”

Manny snorted. People needed protection from the gang.

“This week they came for it all. Said we would have to buy the food.”

Manny’s mouth watered. There’d been canned beef sometimes. The niños could have used the protein. “Buy the food? Who has money?”

“Not money. They wanted Basia to give me to them.” Irina’s voice hitched.

Red tinged Manny’s vision. They’d wanted Rini? She was just a girl!

“Basia took the rice and ran, but they caught her. Stash went to help. I… I hid, watching until…” She covered her face with her hands. “When they left, I went over to my cousin.”

“So you weren’t…” The word stuck in his throat. He couldn’t say it, wouldn’t say it.

“Raped?” She sniffed. “No, the puntas didn’t want me around. So instead of bringing me to the Aspero, they had a little fun, and then let me go.”

Why had the Redaction killed so many good people, yet left the animals like the Aspero alive? Blowing out his frustration, he strode through the living room. His arms and legs started to tingle. Stash was getting heavy. “Knock once on the ceiling, and count to two, and then rap three more times.”

“Who do you have up there?”

“Jose, Lucia, Mary and Michael.” The tingling in his back changed to bolts of pain. Gritting his teeth, he kept walking. Stash would need a bed and tending. The light would be better in his parents’ old room. He just had to make it to the end of the hall.

“Mary and Michael are here?” Rini whistled low. “Basia and Mr. Taylor wondered what had happened to them.”

Not enough to ask him. Or tell him about the food. Manny sidled through the door and scraped the switch with his shoulder. The overhead fan wobbled before settling down to a soft purr just as single CFL hummed to life. “Maybe they should have looked a little harder.”

He glanced down and almost dropped Stash. Blood foamed from the two holes in the boy’s thin chest and coated his pale skin in a veneer of red. As for what was left of his face…

Nausea roared at the back of Manny’s throat. They must have used something other than their fists and boots to turn the boy’s face into such a mess. Clamping his lips together, he swallowed the bile souring his mouth.

Manny lowered him to the comforter covering his parents’ queen-sized bed and reached for the landline on the nightstand.

Irina lunged, slamming down the telephone’s switch hook and silencing the dial tone. “What are you doing?”

Manny retreated. “Damn, Rini. Have you gone psycho? He’s hurt and I’m calling 9-1-1.”

She held out her bloodstained hand. “That’s what the Aspero wants you to do. That way they can find us.”

Manny scratched his fingers through his short hair. Damn. He’d been right. Rini was a kind of bait. And he’d taken it. He rolled his head. Well, he couldn’t undo it. And he didn’t want to. They’d just have to find a way to get through this. Together.

“So what do you want me to do?” He tightened his grip on the phone as he looked at her. Holy shit! Puntas had done that to her? Blood smeared Irina’s face and matted her light brown hair. The left side of her face was swollen such that he couldn’t see her hazel eye.

“Nothing?” He couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t bear the weight of one more ghost. Shaking his head, he backed away from her. “Stash will die if we don’t get him help. Is that what you want?

Her bottom lip trembled for a moment. Tears leaked from her eyes. “I think he’s already dead, Manny.”

He looked down so fast the motion jerked on the base of his skull. Dead? He focused on Stash’s chest. One. Two.

Seven.

Come on. Rise and fall.

Ten.

Sixteen.

Twenty.

Nothing. Even the bubbling had stopped.

“When we were making our way to your carport, he made this funny gurgling noise then he collapsed. I dragged him the rest of the way.” Irina ran her fingers down Manny’s arm before easing the receiver from his grasp. “I checked for his pulse while I waited for you to open the door.”

Sixty-two. Sixty-three. Could a person go that long without breathing and still be alive? Swimmers could, couldn’t they? He could still be alive. But how to tell? A pulse. He nodded and inched closer to the bed. He’d take Stash’s pulse, but how? His hand hovered over Stash’s wrist before moving up to his neck. Manny’s hand shook. He could do this. He could… Rini’s words penetrated his pep talk. “When did you learn how to take a pulse?”

If she’d learned from watching TV then maybe Stash wasn’t dead.

“CPR class for my babysitting certificate.” She wiped her nose on her torn sleeve, smearing blood on the blue cloth.

His shoulders sagged. She would know; she’d always been smart. He pinched the corner of the comforter and flicked it over Stash. “I don’t know if I can dig a deep enough hole to bury him, Rini.”

She tucked the comforter around his bare feet and smoothed it over his legs. “I don’t expect you to bury him.”

“We can’t have his body in the house.” Manny glanced up at the ceiling. The niños didn’t need to see any more dead people.

“You don’t understand.” Holding her ribs, she gently lowered herself to the bed beside Stash’s body. “We can’t stay here.”

Head in his hands, Manny leaned against the wall. Leave his house. Impossible. There was nowhere to go. His relatives were dead or in other states, if they were even still alive. There was no car, no money for bus fare. There wasn’t even food beyond tonight. “We can’t—”