James Van Pelt - Summer of the Apocalypse

“So, is this what you were arguing with Dad about?” Dodge rested on his back, looking into the sky.

“Exactly,” Eric exclaimed. “Your dad wants to have his cake and eat it too. On one hand he says that we don’t need to read, and on the other he wants to keep finding Gone Time technology to maintain the community. He wants to scavenge, but he doesn’t want to learn how to make these things ourselves. What’s important is not finding a warehouse filled with leftovers from the Gone Time, but teaching ourselves how to make them again. The answers are in the books, and that’s where we don’t see eye to eye.”

Thinking about Troy normally depressed Eric, but today, sitting with his grandson, eating crabapple jelly by Clear Creek, he felt fine. Something about this spot was restful: the way the light reflected from the water, or maybe its musical clattering as it swept around the canyon’s bend. Now he could see their disagreement as philosophic, not solely personal. If he could figure a way to bridge the argument about relearning Gone Time knowledge rather than relying on or abandoning Gone Time technology (Troy seemed to want to do both), then they could work on their real personal differences. The philosophic chasm just complicated matters.

“I don’t understand,” said Dodge. “Why did people forget?” Eric thought, this is the essential problem: why people forgot. “The plague scared people. For a long time after, they kept expecting to die. The ones that didn’t go insane, and there were many, grieved over their dead and worried about living. And during this time, so much technology was lying around that no one thought how to make more of it. The water plants shut down and the electrical generators quit working, and nobody knew how to run them. They were too big and required too many knowledgeable technicians to throw the switches. People just survived, sort of like we are now. Some of us forgot because we didn’t want to remember.”

Rabbit munched on a handful of sunflower seeds. “Cars sound like fun, but I’m happy here, right now. A car or a book won’t make lunch better. Don’t you like this?” He waved his hand at the creek, the trail that ran below them and the spray of wild flowers along the bank.

Surprised, Eric looked at him. Rabbit never talked about himself, how he was feeling.

“This is a nice spot,” agreed Dodge. “I like the way the mist floats on the river. Kind of like ghosts.” Eric noticed the heat from a half hour earlier had dissipated. A mist was rising from the water, and a cooling breeze bent the grass around them. “Yes, it is,” said Eric. Goose bumps rose on his arms and neck. He was trying to remember. He had been here before. He inhaled deeply. The air smelled, oddly, of tangerine.

Dodge spoke, but Eric missed it. “Excuse me?” he said. He looked at Dodge.

“I didn’t say anything,” said Dodge.

In the corner of his vision Eric sensed movement, and a flash of delicious inevitability flooded his head. He didn’t have to look to know what was coming. He had been here before, not just this place but this time.

Trudging toward them on the trail, a teenage boy, a bike slung over his shoulder, looked up at Eric. What struck Eric first was the boy’s unwashed hair plastered to his forehead. Smaller details, the cassette player hanging from his belt, the wire leading to the speakers around his neck and the Air Jordan sneakers he noted, but what Eric concentrated on most were the boy’s sunken and exhausted eyes. No one had ever looked so alone to him; so abandoned, lost and alone.

The boy glanced down. Eric almost called out to him, but he realized there was nothing he could say. Eric wasn’t even sure if the boy could hear him. He doubted it. Then his eyes watered, and he blinked the tears away.

The boy was gone.

From the old watch post, U.S. 6’s appearance had changed considerably. Despite the height, Eric could see weeds pushing through the asphalt and rocks cluttering the road. Eric found it hard to imagine the same road crowded with traffic. He remembered the scene, but he couldn’t feel it anymore.

“Come on, Grandpa,” yelled Dodge. “I want to see the cave.” He and Rabbit stood at the cavern’s entrance holding hastily constructed torches. Eric guessed they might give them five minutes of light if they were lucky.

Dodge said, “I’ve never been in a cave before.”

Rabbit lit one torch, handed the unlit ones to Dodge and Eric, then led them into the crawl way. On his hands and knees, Eric followed Dodge. The acrid smoke from the torch stung his eyes, and he couldn’t see anything anyway, so he squeezed them shut and continued to crawl.

He butted into something soft. “What…” Suddenly, Dodge’s rump pushed into him. “What…” Eric said again.

Dodge screeched, “Back! Back! Back!” Deeper in the cave, Rabbit swore. Eric tried to turn around, whapped his head against the rock wall, then backed up as fast as he could. The stone roof snagged his shirt and pulled it snug against his armpits before ripping. Dodge smashed Eric’s fingers twice and kicked him in the chin as they retreated.

Panting loudly, they stood outside the cave. Rabbit had lost his torch and his left elbow oozed blood. Dodge’s nose bled freely from a kick Rabbit had delivered, and Eric rubbed his chin gingerly.

“Rattlesnakes,” said Rabbit. “I got into the room, saw the boxes you told us about, then I heard buzzing. Cave’s full of them. Must have been two-hundred.” He sat heavily. “I don’t mind a snake or two, but sheesh!”

Dodge held his nose to control the bleeding and said nasally, “I thought your face was on fire or something.”

Cautiously they inspected the other entrances. All were homes for rattlesnakes. The system of cracks and crevices provided an ideal environment for a large rodent population, and the snakes were evidently well fed. They could find no way in.

“So what’s special about this cave anyway?” asked Dodge. The sun touched the canyon rim to the west. Although it was only mid-afternoon, they could expect no more direct sunlight. Eric thought about the last time he’d been here, the summer after the plague. He and Leda had parked their four-wheel drive at the blocked tunnel, then carried a shovel and pick to the cave. He’d dug in the rocky soil most of the day to excavate a hole deep enough to hold his mother. Leda inventoried the items in the cave and packed the most useful ones to the highway.

They’d wrapped the black plastic tightly around Mother, carried her out and buried her. He’d thought of her as a big woman, incapable of being budged once she set her feet, but her body seemed so light. She was no trouble at all to carry to the grave.

He had a hard time relating the two versions of himself in his memory: the one who listened to rock and roll under his headphones and worried whether school would be canceled or not, and the one a year later who with his wife drove a car he’d taken from a Chevy dealer’s car lot to bury his mother. It seemed as if he’d lived two lives.

“This is where I started to grow up,” Eric said. “I wanted to see it again.” He led them to the grave, a flat patch of ground between matched boulders near the top of the ridge. He’d chosen the site because the rocks sheltered it from the wind, and it was a good high place to rest. He barely recognized the spot. No sign remained of the wooden cross he’d made, and the ground was no longer bare. A knee-high bed of Columbine covered the entire area like a blue fog. Their delicate stems and petals trembled in a breeze too slight for Eric to feel. He paused at the edge of the bed.

“Where’s the grave?” asked Dodge.

Eric knelt and passed his hand over the flowers, letting the fragile blossoms brush his palm. He remembered Mom in the backyard of their Littleton house, knees firmly planted in earth she’d just turned over, carefully pushing bulbs into the garden in expectation of the spring. Mother had always believed in the spring, in regeneration. She’d said once, “A flower proves nature is an artist.”