James Van Pelt - Summer of the Apocalypse

“Are you all right?” asked the woman.

“It’s hard to breathe,” said Eric. Dots swam through his vision. On the other stool, the man coughed weakly.

The woman said, “Listen close. I’m going to call for help, but we’re in a fix here and probably going to die.” She had a narrow face, fine boned, and her dark hair fell in ringlets to the collar of her blouse. “But we’re not dead yet, so don’t do anything stupid.”

Her voice was low and hoarse, like she’d bruised her throat, and Eric strained to hear her. She continued, “There are two of them. I know what they want, so they won’t kill us right away, but don’t tick them off. The man, Jared, is the worst, but Meg is dangerous too.” She paused. Eric tried to take a full breath; the pressure was too much.

“You got that?” she said.

“Yes,” he gasped.

She faced the stairwell and yelled, “Hey! We need some help down here!” Except for the wheezy breathing from the man who still hadn’t opened his eyes, Eric heard nothing. The woman shouted again, then the ceiling squeaked, and he heard heavy footsteps. A door opened and light filled the stairwell. Jared was a fifty-year-old slob. Eric guessed he might be five and a half feet tall, but he probably weighed over two-hundred and fifty pounds, most of it in his gut that hung out of the dirty t-shirt and nearly covered his yellowed underwear. Brown hair with streaks of white stuck straight up on the left side of his head, as if he’d slept on it. His breath reeked of alcohol, his pocked complexion was flushed, and his eyes watery. He stretched up and put his hand on Eric’s forehead.

“Not hot. No fever at all,” Jared said to Meg. He coughed hard, doubling over, then hawked phlegm onto the floor. “I told you so.” He smirked and gave Eric a push that swung him hard enough that his feet hit the wall behind him. Eric clenched his teeth so he wouldn’t scream. The rope bit under his arms and pulled underarm hairs out.

Meg snorted, stepped forward and put the flat of her hand on Eric’s chest, stopping his motion. She was big too, huge, maybe the same weight but a couple of inches taller than Jared, and younger by fifteen or twenty years. Eric’s momentum didn’t jolt her at all. He just stopped. She bent down, picked up the fallen stool and, supporting Eric’s weight with an arm wrapped around his waist, slid it under his butt. The pressure off his chest, Eric almost fell over. She steadied him. He could feel the fever baking out of her. “You gonna stay there?” she said. Her bloodshot eyes looked right in to his from six inches away, and her breath smelled sick, like old cough drops. Underneath that smell came something else, something sad and slippery and rotting. Eric didn’t flinch away, but tried not to inhale too deeply. He looked at her lips, which were incredibly chapped. Cracked scabs covered the corners of her mouth. He nodded, and she stepped back. She was wearing jeans and a red flannel shirt. Eric had never seen such an expanse of flannel before. Neatly combed blonde hair fell to her shoulders from a dead-centered part.

“I’m gonna change your rope, youngster. Now that you’re awake, I don’t want you thinking about going anywhere.” She stepped behind him. “Jared,” she snapped. He snatched his hand off the dark-haired woman’s thigh and got a club from beside the water heater. It looked like a cut-in-half baseball bat. Duct tape, the same type holding the Grateful Dead poster, wrapped around the end of it. Jared rubbed his hand up and down its length, glaring at Eric as Meg undid the rope, then retied it around his neck. “If you get too rambunctious here, you’ll choke to death. You got that?” She put her hand on Eric’s chest again, tipping his stool backwards. He kicked his feet out to maintain balance. The rope snugged tight, and Meg held him there, feet out, stool tipped, rope cutting off his air for a handful of seconds. He couldn’t swallow. “Yes,” he tried to say, but it came out a gurgle.

“Good,” she said, and tipped him forward.

Eric squeezed his eyes shut against the pain in this throat, then opened them. A tear spilled out of each eye, and he brushed his cheeks against his shoulders to wipe them off.

Jared said, “I’ll check the girl,” and put his hand on her forehead. She grimaced but didn’t pull back. “Not bad.” He caressed her cheek, his hand cupping the side of it. “I don’t think she’s fevered,” he said and moved his hand down her neck and onto her chest. “No sweat.” He chuckled and pushed his fingers inside the top of her blouse. A button popped off and clattered to the floor. Eric stared as Jared worked his way farther down the woman’s chest. Her face was grim, lips bloodless, but her eyes were open and defiant.

Meg stepped around Eric and slapped the side of Jared’s head with a loud pop. The blow staggered him, and he retreated. “Hey, I didn’t…” he said, and she slapped him again. He seemed to have forgotten the baseball bat he was holding as he tried to protect himself. Meg didn’t say anything. “Wait!” She brought her hand around again, connecting smartly across his mouth. He fell back, saying, “Lay off… lay off,” and knelt in the corner of the room, arms wrapped around his head. She stood over him, palm raised, and held the poise for several seconds.

Finally, she put her hand down. “Get up,” she said. He looked at her from between his arms, like a clam peeking out. “Get up!” Spittle flew from her mouth.

Jared pushed away from the wall, stood up, looked at the bat as if he’d just discovered it, and pointed it at Meg’s face. “Bitch.” The vivid imprint of her hand glowed on his left cheek and his ear was bright red. The man on the third stool started sneezing: wheezy, wet expulsions of air that sounded silly and empty in the basement. Eric saw the scene as so unreal that he wanted to scream. Turning to the sick man, the dark-haired woman hissed out a quick, “Shush.”

“Shoot,” said Jared, tucked the bat under his arm, and felt the man’s forehead. “The guy’s burning up.” He snapped his hand away and shook it, as if the germs might fly off.

The dark-haired woman said, “It’s just a cold.” She sounded as if she were begging. “He’s fine, really.” Meg sniffed. “I told you he was no good from the start.” She started up the stairs. “We’ll bring the needles down later.” She didn’t close the door when she reached the top. Eric looked up. The floor above creaked so loudly that he could spot her position without trouble. Needles, he thought. What needles?

Breathing heavily, Jared stood in the center of the room eyeing the woman speculatively. A swollen, fat, sick old man in his underwear, badly in need of a bath, Jared scratched his bare leg. “We’re alone, missy, at least for a second,” he said to the woman and moved toward her. Breath bubbled deep in his lungs, and he smiled through a couple of strangled coughs. She strained backward on the stool, risking her balance. The rope pulled taut.

From the floor above, Meg’s voice thundered, freezing Jared in mid-reach, “And stay away from the goddamned woman!”

The other man sneezed again and groaned low in his throat. He seemed to be barely conscious, slumped to the side and letting his noose support part of his weight. Jared leaned toward the dark-haired woman, caught himself, then shook his fist at the ceiling.

“Fish,” he said. Eric wasn’t sure he’d heard him right. The word seemed… inappropriate. “Fish guts,” Jared said.

Then, looking at the dark-haired woman’s chest the whole time, as if he could undo the buttons with his eyes, he carefully placed his bare foot on the sick man’s stool and pushed it out from under him. Twenty minutes later, long after the sick man had died, his sneakered feet only a couple of inches off the floor, a strange sound came from upstairs. Eric didn’t pay attention to it at first. He couldn’t take his eyes off the dead man. Thankfully, the man’s face was hidden, but the noose pushed his head to the side, and his shoulders tilted slightly, so one hand dangled free, fingers slightly bent and relaxed-looking. Eric stared at the hand, not thinking about it really, but thinking about the difference between dead and alive. A moment. A little push was all it took. No more strength than to knock over a stool. So he didn’t pay attention to the sound at first, but, eventually, he looked up. From upstairs came a rhythmic pounding and a distinctive squeak. After a few seconds, he placed it—bedsprings— and not long after that, he heard moaning. A soft voice cried over and over again, “Oh, oh, oh.” It was Meg.