James Van Pelt - Summer of the Apocalypse

“What… what?” she said, frantically grabbing the bat and rising to her knees.

“Shhh… sorry. I made a noise.”

Dropping onto her hands, her hair covered her face. “God, I thought I was dreaming.” She looked around. “We’ll have to go up after all.”

Tension gripped him, tightening his stomach. They were upstairs: bloated Jared and hard-hitting Meg. And a gun. Eric sucked air between his teeth. “I’ll lead.”

Mercifully, the stairs didn’t creak. Eric, holding the bat now, slowly tested each step before putting his weight on it. They climbed higher. Looking back, he saw her smile grimly, and beyond her, just visible, the feet of the still dangling dead man.

On the kitchen counter, foul dishes were piled precariously. Eric crept past them, quietly opened a door next to the counter to reveal a washer and dryer, and a back door.

“We can get away,” he hissed.

She shook her head. “No, I have to know what happened. I won’t ever feel safe.” Her eyes were round and deep and intense. “Okay.”

He peeked around the corner into the small living room where maroon curtains cut most of the morning light. Dust motes swirled lazily in a narrow shaft that slipped through a gap between them. A shadow of a couch crouched under the window, and a pair of recliners faced a television. He couldn’t imagine Jared and Meg sitting in them, watching a show. But the room seemed so suburban. The light beam ended on a pleasant landscape on the opposite wall.

“The bedroom,” she said. “Could be they’re sleeping.” Her voice quavered. She’s scared too, he thought, but she’s going on. It made him feel braver.

“Smells bad,” he said. Holding the bat in front of him like a probe, he moved into a hallway, past a bathroom, then past a bedroom with boxes of canned goods piled to the ceiling. Blotches spotted the carpet. He bent down, touched one. It was wet. The door to the last room was partly closed. He pushed it with the end of the bat and it creaked as it opened. Bad air wafted around him, menthol, alcohol and the distinctive smell of vomit. Eric wrinkled his nose.

Micro-inch by micro-inch, he edged his eyes by the doorway. A dresser covered with empty blood bags spilled from a carton, then the end of a bed, someone under the covers, someone with bare feet on top. Then, jeans. A red flannel shirt. Meg lay motionless on her side on top the covers, back to the door, her arm across Jared’s chest who faced the ceiling, the blanket pulled up neatly under his chin. An almost black stain soaked the blanket above Jared’s midsection. Clearly, he was dead, his face rigid and held in a grimace that wasn’t quite human. Eric couldn’t see a gun.

Leda crowded behind him, pushing him into the room. She held his arm against her. A sheer curtain covered the window, but through. it Eric saw a tree, and a car parked on the street. Everything felt surreal. How could he be here? How could he be in danger? The sun is rising. Wind is blowing in the leaves.

Taking the bat from him, Leda eased herself to the edge of the bed and reached out to touch Meg. Without moving, Meg said, “He was a bad, man.”

Leda gasped and jumped back, banging into the closet door, Eric almost ran out of the room. He gripped the doorsill, panting like he’d run a race.

Meg pulled Jared close and pressed her forehead to his cheek. “He was a bad, bad man.” Gently, she kissed him. “And he died too soon.” The bed shook and Eric thought, she’s crying, but the shaking went on and Meg convulsed into a fetal position, never releasing Jared, and Eric realized she was silently coughing. He watched for a minute, then the coughing stopped and she relaxed, painfully straightening her legs until once again she lay full length beside him.

Leda mouthed, “Let’s go,” and they started to back out of the room. Meg hugged Jared tight, partially pulling herself onto him and said into his ear, “You’ll never get to be a father.”

They walked south through disturbingly quiet neighborhoods. Four houses in a row were burned to the ground, only pipes and chimneys poking from the smoking beams and rubble. An old couple sat on a porch in rockers, faces shrouded in flies, their hands hanging between them like the last thing they did was to lot go of each other. Toys littered the yard of a house with a Wee Care Day Center sign over the door, the windows closed tight and draped inside.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

Ahead rose a house-covered hill. Eric leaned into the climb. Sun bleached the street. Flattened grass on unmowed lawns lay brown and beat. Last night’s storm had done little to revive it. We, Eric thought. We are a we? Most of the buttons were gone from her blouse, and one sleeve was almost torn off. Her slim shoulder glistened with sweat. “Following my dad,” he said. “I think he’s gone home.”

She opened her mouth as if to say something, then shut it. She shook hair out of her eyes and looked up at the sun. “Hot, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” The road flattened and they were at the hill’s top. Before them, the city fell away, houses on houses, streets pleasingly parallel and neat. Here and there, plumes of smoke leaned with the breeze. To their left miles away, the Denver downtown pushed its buildings high into the skyline.

“Are you religious?” she said. “I’m not. Seems to me that the end of the world would be more dramatic if there were a god. There’d be some sign.”

He thought about it. More of the city was visible now. He slopped. “What is that?”

“What?”

He pointed. Directly in front of them at the bottom of the hill, a narrow streak of houses two blocks long and a block wide was completely flattened.

“Jesus,” she said.

Eric thought, it looks like somebody stepped on that spot, and he remembered the dream about King Kong, about how Dad talked for hours about King Kong while Mom died in the cave. She said, “There’s another one.” A half-mile farther on, another block of houses were down. “And another.” She pointed. He saw three other spots of flattened houses leading away from him to the south. A trail! he thought. We’re following his footsteps. And for a second he thought he had a sign. God does exist, and he walked right here.

“What could have done that?” he asked, and he half expected her to answer, “It must be supernatural,” but she shook her head in puzzlement.

When they reached the first spot, Eric as if he crossed a boundary. Untouched, the last house he passed looked like all the houses on the street, but the next one was gone, the foundation stood out of the lawn, and lumber littered the yard. Wood shards stuck out of a tree trunk broken off like a match stick at hip height.

“This wasn’t a fire,” he said, levering up one end of a ceiling joist. “No charring.” She stepped carefully over a nail-studded section of roof, the shingles covering one side. “The destruction is so complete.” Bending over, she picked up a round object and held it to him. “Dinner plate,” she said.

“It’s not cracked.”

Next door, the story was the same, but the next lot, one wall remained, family photos hanging from it. The roof and all the other walls were gone. Just the roof was missing from the next house, but all its windows were broken out, the glass fanned across the lawn from each.

“Explosion came from the inside,” Eric said. “Somebody planted a bomb in these houses?”

“No sign of fire, remember?” She put the plate down she had been carrying and winced when she stood up.

“Are you hurt?” Eric asked.

“Just a bruise,” she said and gingerly massaged her shoulder, the one under the untorn sleeve.

“Let me see.” He walked around a pile of brick between them.