James Van Pelt - Summer of the Apocalypse

Meg fastened a needle to one end of the plastic tubing, and the other to a three-way stopcock. The syringe went into the middle plug on the stopcock, and the I.V. bag fastened to the third. Jared said, “Is this gonna work?”

Meg turned Eric toward the water heater—he couldn’t see Jared or the dark-haired woman now—and swabbed his inner arm with a wet cotton ball. “Don’t know,” she said. “Better than the alternative.” Eric bit his upper lip, afraid he would yelp when she poked the needle in. Then he said, “Don’t you need to know what my blood type is?” He knew from biology classes that blood types had to match for transfusions.

She gripped his upper arm hard and pushed the needle through the skin. He barely flinched. “I’m AB positive. Anything will work for me. Universal recipient,” she said. “Don’t know about Jared.” She drew back on the syringe. The plastic tubing turned red. “Got to do this is a hurry. Little bit of heparin in the bag’ll keep it from coagulating, but not long.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know about me?” Jared asked angrily.

“Don’t. Ain’t that clear? If the types don’t match, might make you sick. Might kill you. I’ve got no way to type blood, and I don’t know how. I figure the way your cough’s going, and the way that fever keeps spiking, that you ain’t good for three or four more days tops as it is.” She turned the stopcock and pushed blood into the I.V. bag. Eric couldn’t connect the blood to him. The process was more interesting than frightening.

Eric said, “How much are you going to take?”

“Filled with questions, ain’t we?” Meg turned the stopcock again and pulled out another syringe full.

“Hospitals only take a pint, but I figure they’re extra cautious.” Blood squirted into the bag. “Couple pints. Might take more.” She filled the syringe again. “Worried about it?” He didn’t answer. Where the needle was taped to his arm began to burn a little, and he felt dizzy, so he shut his eyes. He heard the blood squirt into the bag several more times, then she jerked the tape off and put a band-aid over the tiny wound.

When she finished with the dark-haired woman, she piled the two blood-filled bags and the rest of the equipment onto the TV table, picked it up, and started out of the room.

Swaying on her seat, the dark-haired woman said, “You can’t leave us like this all night. We’ve got to sleep.”

Meg stopped. The room was nearly dark now, so her face was lost in the shadows. “You stay there till morning, child, and if the blood works, we’ll see about chaining you to a wall or something, but until then, a night without sleep won’t kill you.”

And Jared said, “If the blood works, we might see about getting you some more lively company too.” He spun the dead man on his rope. Then—Eric couldn’t be sure in the half-light—he winked at the woman and licked his lips.

Long after the last light faded, Eric asked, “You all right?” His stomach ached and he still felt dizzy. In the darkness, the silence scared him. He peered hard in the dark-haired woman’s direction, eyes wide, trying for any sense of where she was.

“Yeah,” she answered, finally.

“Do you think they’re still in the house?” He hadn’t heard a noise from upstairs for sometime.

“Probably.” Her throaty voice floated in the air. “The blood idea, it won’t work.”

“How do you know?”

He heard her move on her stool, maybe to face him. “Scientists aren’t stupid. If the plague could be treated this easily, no one would have it. They’d figure out what it was in the blood that keeps some people well, then they’d duplicate it. Nope, they’re doomed.”

He thought about that for a while. He could hear her breathing, the room was so quiet. “What did you mean earlier,” he said, “about a horse learning to talk?”

The dark-haired woman chuckled, It was a tired sounding chuckle, but Eric liked it. “Oh, it’s an old story. Goes like this, In an ancient kingdom there lived a cruel king who executed any one who upset him. Well, one day a man is hauled into the king’s court for some minor crime, and the king’s just about ready I pronounce sentence, which will be death, when the man says to the king, ‘If you give me a year, your Majesty, I can teach your horse to talk.’ Well, this intrigues the king, so he tells the man to do it, but if the horse isn’t talking at the end of the year, the man will be executed. As the man is being hauled down to the stables, the guard says to him, ‘What a stupid thing to do. You’ll never make that horse talk. Why’d you agree to try it?’ The man looks him over, then says, ‘This is the way I figure it. A lot can happen in a year. I might die. The king might die. Or hell, the horse might talk.’”

Eric smiled in the darkness. His arms hurt. His stomach ached. He was dizzy, but he said, “Good point.” Eric thought the story would have been a good place to end the night, but it didn’t. They talked for a while longer. He learned she’d lived in Aurora in east Denver, and that Jared picked her up on the highway when her car broke down. Eric told her a little about the cave, since she asked about it, but he didn’t feel comfortable talking about his dad, so the conversation trailed off, and after a bit he found himself drifting. I might dream about the ocean, he thought, if I don’t fall off the stool. With that thought, he rested his chin on his chest and relaxed.

Sometime later, a noise snapped him into attentiveness. He couldn’t place it. A squeak and a rattle. It was rope playing out of a pulley. He twitched his head side to side, trying to catch another sound, or a glimpse of anything. Something wheezed, like a dragon, he thought. Something’s in the room. The dark-haired woman whispered hoarsely, “Don’t, goddamn it.”

Cloth ripped.

“I told you I’d be back, missy.”

Eric stood on the crossbars. What’s happening? he thought, what’s going on? A scraping noise. Must be the stool.

“Don’t!” Then a muffled yell, like a hand was over her mouth. A metal clink. Belt buckle? A swishing sound. Cloth on skin? Another muffled yell, a pained moan this time.

Eric leaned forward, the rope snagging him short. His pulse beat in his ears like surf. Darkness pressed around. He recognized the feeling. It’s like the dream! I can’t stop the wave. I can’t do anything. The water’s coming in. I’m stuck. I’m stuck.

The noises came from below him. They were on the floor.

Fear, or something, anger, rose in him. He wanted to jump down, but he could feel the rope on his neck. The wave towered within him, dark, solid and unstoppable. There’s nothing I can do! He’ll kill us both. The noises struggled on the floor. Eric whimpered. His daddy wasn’t up the beach. What could he do?

The nightmare never ends, he thought. In the dream he was frozen; in the dream he could do nothing to save himself. And in the dark, it was himself. He was being attacked. He felt hot breath on his chest, hands pushing down his jeans. He was in the dark-haired woman’s head.

Jared’s voice filled the dark. “Lay still, you bitch.”

Then he couldn’t stand it any longer. I’m not in a dream. I don’t have to do nothing. I’m not a child. He opened he mouth and yelled, “Meg! Meg! Come down here quick!”

He felt the rush of air at his face before the blow reached him that knocked him off the stool.

Don’t get up,” said Teach.

Campfire light flashed rhythmically against the bluff’s tan wall of stone where a swath of black marked the smoke trails of previous fires. Eric rested his back on his still rolled sleeping bag. The rest of the party sat equidistant from the fire, their faces yellow in the light; the back of their heads lost in the shadows.