David Dalglish - A Land of Ash

“Try and hurry back,” Wilma told Oren as he climbed into his rusted blue Ford. “If you’re out too long I’ll get worried, and it’s a devil to put blush on when my face gets red like it does.”

“Don’t you worry,” said her husband. “Ring the Pankratz while I’m gone. Maybe they’ll change their minds.”

“I don’t think they will,” she said. “They have family down in Texas, though god knows what the roads look like since the…”

“Just try.”

He drove into town, dirt billowing behind his truck. The Dollar Store would have been cheaper, but he turned down Main instead for Hank’s Groceries. Hank waited outside, his ankles crossed, his arms calmly folded over his belly, and a loaded shotgun tilted upward by his feet. Oren pulled up, shoved it into park, and shut off the ignition.

“Morning,” Hank shouted as the roaring engine died. “I was wondering if you’d show.”

“Yeah,” Oren said. While climbing out, he made a grunting noise and gestured to the shotgun. “Hope you haven’t had to use that.”

“I’ve let people take what they want,” Hank said. His voice sounded tired, and the puffy darkness below his eyes signified tears, drink, or both. “The first couple families cleared me out. The rest wander around like stunned mules. I let ‘em see everything’s gone, and then they go, usually holding something weird. You know those filters for the big window air conditioners? Had a guy walk out holding ten, all I had. What in Jesus’s name he think he’s going to do with them?”

“I’m sorry,” Oren said, as if the whole mess were his fault. He certainly sounded like he thought it was his fault.

“Think nothing of it,” Hank said. “Though I’m glad to be talking to someone who’s not waving a gun in my face. You hear about the Dollar Store?”

Oren turned to the side, spat, and then shook his head.

“Glenda lock it up tight, I take it?” he asked.

“Not like it did any good. There’s a reason my door is wide open, Oren, because if it weren’t, I doubt you and Wilma would ever see my ugly face again. Besides, not like money means anything, not anymore.”

Oren glanced inside. Every wall and shelf was stripped bare. He caught a puddle of what looked like milk spilled across the floor of one aisle, apple sauce in another. He felt a bit of pity for old Hank, and he clapped the guy once on the shoulder.

“Looks like me and Wilma will make do with what we have at the house,” he said. “You’re welcome to come with.”

“Nah,” Hank said. He glanced back at his store, and he looked uncomfortable and embarrassed. “I planned on climbing up to the roof, drag up one of my lawn chairs, and sit up there. And wait, you know? When did they say the whole shitstorm would start?”

“About four-thirty,” Oren said. “Though you never know. Weathermen are hardly better than the farmer’s almanac. Hell, a coin flip does better than them, I heard once.”

“Yeah?” said Hank. “I think they’re right about this one, though. They wouldn’t dare fuck this up. I take it your radio’s out, too?”

“Every station. I checked on the drive here.”

A bit of awkward silence followed, and at last Oren turned to his truck. When he waved, a bit of the hardness in Hank’s face broke.

“You know,” Hank said. “I stashed a few things when I heard. Not much, not like the hoarders with their water and flour and god knows what else. But enough for a good meal. I’ll come by in a bit, once I say goodbye to the old place. Thirty years. Thirty goddamn years, mopping the floor with my sweat and paying bills with my blood. And for what, Oren? For what?”

He looked ready to cry. Oren frowned, not accustomed to such easy emotions from another man. Unsure of what to do, he hopped into his truck and slammed the door.

“Come say hello to Wilma,” he said. “She’d like that.”

“She’s a sweet gal,” said Hank. “Anyone else going to be there?”

Oren started the truck. As the engine banged, he continued talking, the satisfying rumble easing the nerves he had felt building during his conversation.

“Wilma’s trying the Pankratz,” he half-shouted. “Don’t think they’ll be coming. The Williams will be there. Kids were living in California, so Thelma’s pretty shook up, and Roy isn’t taking it much better. They needed the company, so…”

His voice trailed off. Hank resumed leaning against the front of his store and braced the shotgun across his lap.

“Go straight home,” he shouted. “Stay away from the highway; the roads are hell right now.”

Oren had a thought to tell him that the whole world would soon be hell, not just the highway, but kept his mouth shut. He drove home to his wife.

Wilma had done well applying her blush, along with the rest of her makeup. She had on a modest white dress and her finest jewelry. Oren felt a tug of memory at the forty Easter services he had attended with his wife. They’d had two kids, and through fevers, snot, tantrums, and teenage rebellion, they’d dragged them into their small community church year after year. Their eldest, Julie, had married a German man at college and moved to New York. They’d managed to talk with her about two minutes before the cell phones went dead. Julie had sounded scared but holding together well.

“I wish I was home, daddy,” she said only moments before the static. “That’s all I want right now, I want to be…”

Oren wiped a tear from his cheek. A part of him was glad that his son Jerry was not alive to see everyone so afraid. He’d been born slow in the head. He could wipe his ass, but that was the most complex set of actions he could manage by himself. A seizure had claimed him in his thirties. He might have lived, Oren had told the lawyers that, but the home had been too full of difficult patients and poorly-trained attendees. His son had died thrashing and shitting himself, unable to call for help, and by the time someone noticed, he’d nearly chewed off his own tongue.

Poor Jerry, he thought. Never could watch nothing but Disney shows. Hospitals are crowded so bad they’re worthless; that’s what the television said before it went blank, anyway. God, what would it be like at a rest home? Would the nurses even stay?

He doubted it. He felt pity for all the elderly and retarded, but he clamped that emotion down. Pity was a dangerous thing, for there were too many, just too many, and a man could become overwhelmed. There were the elderly, the sick, the pregnant, the nursing, the little babes, the orphans, the poor…they’d die. All of them. Just like the rest of North America.

Hell, if he was going to pity anyone, he’d pity Wilma and himself.

“Did they have any?” Wilma asked as Oren got out of his truck.

He shook his head.

“Cleaned out. He didn’t have a lick of spit left to sell.”

The wrinkles on his wife’s face pulled back tight across her jaw.

“Not even the zucchini? Cripes, no one liked it before, but I can’t make my lasagna without it, Oren. I thought, surely, it’s just zucchini, they’ll take the water and the flour and the meat, but not the zucchini…”

She wasn’t crying; she more appeared to be leaking out the corners of her eyes. Her voice never wavered. Oren wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. He felt her quivering against his chest, and he had a strange image of himself as a child holding a scared rabbit.

“You’ll make do,” he said. “We raised two kids on water and hope. You can manage your lasagna without zucchini.”

Wilma sniffed. When she pulled back, she reminded him less of a rabbit and more like an old tree, its bark peeling and its leaves fallen, but the roots still firm in the ground. He kissed her cheek, and she smiled at him.