David Dalglish - A Land of Ash

“Yeah, but sometimes, the women, their children…”

Sergio snapped his lighter shut and sucked on his cigarette.

“They all eat. Rationing only goes so far. And no matter what we did, our own would sneak them food. The weak-hearted will give them water, share their scraps. It’s like too many don’t see the winter coming, see starvation waiting like a lion to devour us all. You know what people will do when they’re hungry? They’ll kill one another. Father’s will butcher their neighbor to feed their own kids. Mothers will smother babies to end their suffering. We’ll become a warzone, a country of graves.”

He shifted the floodlight back to his other leg.

“Even scared, wet little girls will steal if they’re hungry. There’s no such thing as a harmless American, not here, not now. They’re no longer from the land of the free and the brave. They’re from the land of ash, and its citizens are dead, all dead. They just don’t know it yet.”

Javier stood and used his fists to pop his back. As he sat back down, he shifted his hip and let his hand rest on the hilt of his gun.

“Sure you don’t need a drink?” Sergio asked, nodding toward the tent. Javier shook his head. Sergio shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

He resumed searching the waters with his floodlight. Every now and then a corpse would float along from further upriver, and his light would linger, waiting, making sure there was no movement.

“Got to be careful of the floaters,” he said.

“I’ve been at this as long as you,” Javier said.

“Never can be too careful, though. You hear about David?”

Javier’s fist tightened, unclipping the gun from his holster.

“No,” he lied.

“It’s a shame,” Sergio said, discarding the second cigarette. “He helped a boy cross the river when he thought no one was watching. Turns out he was a relative of some sort, didn’t hear what exactly. Nephew, maybe, all the way from Chicago. Not sure I buy that, but whatever. They executed them both two days ago, right in the middle of the town. Didn’t even waste a bullet. They used a rope, a maldito rope.”

Javier held in his shudder.

“Real shame,” he said, his eyes locked on the river, fighting an impulse to glance over at his tent.

“What we have to do. What we all have to do. I keep hearing whispers, how the winds may shift and bring all those clouds our way. We’ve been lucky for now, but it could change. Any day they could come, and we have to be ready. We have to be strong.”

He stood, setting the light back down atop the crate. His right hand rest atop the hilt of his gun.

“I’m thirsty,” he said. “Mind if I steal one of your waters?”

“I’m all out,” Javier said, staring up at Sergio. The man turned, and their eyes locked.

“You sure? Maybe I should go look, see if something turns up hiding.”

“It’d be a bad idea,” said Javier.

“It was from the start.”

They both drew, but only one gun fired. Javier was the faster. In the light of his muzzle, he watched Sergio stagger back, a bloody hole in his chest. His knees locked, and then he fell, just another body floating along the Rio Grande.

“Okay, now open your eyes,” Derek’s mom said as she finished tucking the package into the waistband of his jeans and hiding it with his shirt.

Derek did. His mom sat on a small cot, her tangled hair hanging before her face, like dark seaweed. Her brown eyes were still beautiful, but Derek always thought his mom was beautiful. Her told her so whenever he got that uneasy feeling that something was wrong, or his mom’s smile was too slow in appearing at his antics.

“Don’t look,” his mom said when he reached for the bottom of his shirt. “This is a secret mission, Derek. You can’t let anyone see what is inside the package. You understand?”

“Like the Super-Kid Spies,” he said, and her smile made him feel so much better.

“Just like them,” she said. “Now find somewhere quiet. Somewhere hidden. Once you’re alone, take out the package.”

“What do I do with it?”

His mom lay down on the cot, her hands her only pillow.

“You’ll know,” she said. “Now go. Hurry.”

Feeling the importance of the mission swelling his head, he stood tall and looked about the stadium. They slept on the five of the five-yard-line (for how old you are, his mom had said as they spread out her cot). None of the green or painted lines were visible now, not with the thousands of people crammed into them, smothering the turf with pillows, blankets, cots, and bodies. Lots of bodies, everywhere bodies. He smelled them, saw them. Obstacles to his mission.

Knowing the field would be hopeless, he started winding his way toward the opposite end. Lined up like cheerleaders in the endzone were rows of port-o-potties. Derek had to watch his step, though. There was no order to the cots, no reason to the arrangements of the sleeping. He tiptoed past a mother holding two crying babies, both thin as paper dolls. He stepped over a boy a little older than him, careful not to wake him. The older children had grown steadily meaner as the months wore on. None ever wanted to play. All they grumbled about was food.

The noise lessened as he neared the potties, but it never stopped. Even at night the stadium bore a hum, like the sound of a big power generator running on human coughs, screams, tears, and whispers. But other than the people lined up to use the potties, no one slept in front of them, not that he could see. Feeling the package crinkling against his skin, he skipped about the line, careful to show that he wasn’t actually needing to go so no one yelled at him.

The smell worsened with every step. The potties were a faded green, sort of like the turf. A few tilted at strange angles, but most were straight and side by side. Flies swarmed above like a cloud. Derek looped around to the back, to where he hoped to find his privacy.

“Pee yew,” he said, grabbing his nose. The smell was worse back there, the air stagnant and rancid. He tried breathing through his mouth, but that didn’t help. He felt the foulness on his tongue.

Still, he had his mission. What secret agent would let a bad smell defeat him? As he walked behind the port-o-potties, he tried to remember if James Bond ever dealt with something like that.

He didn’t get far before he saw the first body, that of an elderly woman. She lay flat on her stomach, her eyes open, her mouth hanging ajar. Her false teeth had come loose and lay crooked on her tongue. Flies swarmed around her like an insect halo. Derek crossed his arms and took a step back. The lady wasn’t the first body he’d seen. Over the months, as people got angrier and skinnier, they’d become a common sight.

“There’s nothing to eat,” his mom had told him when he’d pointed and asked why one sickly looking man had stopped moving, and didn’t move even when the men in yellow uniforms came to carry him away. “Nothing left, not even to share.”

He’d always seen them afar, and always with people around, covering them with blankets or keeping others away. But there was no one here, so he openly stared. A worm crawled around in his gut, a creeping feeling of unease. The lady’s hair was white and muddied. Her fingers were curled, as if she’d died clawing for her life. Her dress had flowers on it.

Derek touched the package in his waistband. The way it crackled he thought it plastic, but it was also soft. He wondered what secret message or gift hid wrapped within. Glancing around, he knew he was alone. The nearest people were up in the rows of bleachers behind the endzone. A few were watching him, but they were far enough away, so he squatted down, putting his back to the dead lady. Something about her made him uneasy.