James Van Pelt - Summer of the Apocalypse

“Yes.”

After Teach spoke, Eric sat dumbfounded while the big man sprinted to the steep part of the mountain beneath the aqueduct, then vanished around the corner in less than a minute, covering the same ground that had taken Eric fifteen minutes to traverse.

What Teach had said was, “I can’t read. I never learned.

Eric sputtered, then said, “But I thought… I mean… Who taught Ripple?”

“Taught herself,” said Teach. “She couldn’t have been more’n six or seven years old either. Amazing, huh?”

While the afternoon wore on, and the sun dropped closer to the horizon, Eric thought about teaching six-year-old Troy to read. For hours they sat at the kitchen table, drapes drawn wide, a pile of primers and paper at one end.

“Can I say the alphabet again, Dad?” Troy had asked, and he smiled when Eric nodded. Troy’s forehead knitted into a series of wrinkles as he struggled with the letters after “P.”

“What’s this word, son?” Eric said and pointed at C-A-T under a cartoon picture with goofy eyes.

“Cat, Dad. Everybody knows that.”

“Did you read the word, or do you know the picture?”

“Read it.”

Eric found the D-O-G flash-card, covered the picture and asked, “And what’s this word?”

“Cat,” said Troy.

Eric sighed and slumped in his chair.

“Fish?” said Troy hopefully.

Eric shook his head no.

“Why don’t we go scavenging, Dad? I’m tired of reading.”

Out the window, Eric saw the long, prairie grass waving in the breeze. The day before they’d dug through the rubble of a Radio Shack, looking for parts. The only useful item was an intercom kit. All afternoon they’d worked together assembling it. Troy bubbled over each transistor slipping into place, and the intricacy of the wire patterns. Just before they’d finished, Eric had realized that it ran on batteries, which they didn’t have, but Troy didn’t seem to care. He thought it was an art project.

“Yeah,” Eric said. “Maybe we can find a Hooked on Phonics book.” Footsteps woke Eric. When he rolled to see who was coming, deepening purple above, orange streaks on the horizon, and the creaks in his back and neck told him that he’d slept against the tree for some time.

“Ouch,” he said, rubbing his neck.

Teach squatted next to his pack. “Good thing I wasn’t a bear. You looked a lot like dead meat to me.”

“What’d you find out? Are they following us?” asked Eric.

Teach pulled gently on his beard. “We’re gonna have to leave at first light. From the looks of their trail, I was right about them not heading to Highwater.”

Eric smiled. He could imagine Dodge and Rabbit putting their heads together to do what they’d done days ago, follow their grandfather.

“Did you send them back?” He thought, they are good boys. Once caught, they’d do what they were told. Willful kids though; you have to catch them first.

Teach shut his eyes and sighed deeply. “I trailed them until I ran out of light. They’re not behind us. They doubled back, skirted the blockade and are headed to Boulder on their own.” Eric’s hands felt suddenly clammy.

Teach said, “They’re moving into more danger than they can possibly know.”

Leda said, “Fifteen? You’re fifteen?”

He realized she had thought him older, and he wished he could take the words back. “Nearly sixteen. Next month.” His voice sounded lame to him, so he clapped his teeth tight over whatever else he was about to say.

They walked almost directly east, down Bowles Avenue, their shadows stretched before them. They passed one mini-mall after another: Ace Hardware, Target, Big-O Tires, Cost Cutters, Walden’s, Bennigan’s, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Arby’s. All empty. Where windows were not boarded, glass shards reflected dully the smoky sunlight.

At South-West Plaza, the largest shopping mall in the Denver area, gun-shot cars, some of them little more than burnt-out hulks, littered the lot and reminded Eric of the line of cars on U.S. 6 he’d passed after leaving the cave. Eric guessed they only had three or four miles left. They’d arrive at his house by sunset. He figured Dad would be waiting for him, or there would be a note of instructions. Dad might be sick or hurt. Why else hadn’t he come back to the cave?

They reached an expensive housing development. For a few blocks, high privacy-fence lined both sides of the street, and they glimpsed huge houses through cracks. Beautifully finished, six-foot high brick walls replaced the wooden fence and separated them from the wide, dry yards. Wilted flowers and neatly manicured bushes grew from the median strip beside them.

A gust of wind pushed his back, skittering scraps of paper along the pavement. On both sides of the street, dry leaves rustled loudly in cottonwoods and willows, and it sounded almost like fall. Spring and summer had been dry, and Eric realized it’d probably been a month or more since most people had watered. At the cross street he saw long, uncut grass rippling in parched, brown lawns.

“It’s not a big deal,” said Leda. “You’re as old as you act.” Eric’s feet felt lighter. “Right,” he said. He remembered something his mom used to say that never made any sense to him before. “Age is as age does, huh?”

“Sure,” she said, but she seemed distracted. Another rush of wind smacked his back, and this one was distinctly cooler, like an open refrigerator door, and he wished he had a soda, something sweet and bubbly in a glass with ice-cubes clinking. He felt like he’d been breathing soot for weeks.

“It’s smokier,” she said.

“Might be cooling off,” said Eric. “Maybe another storm.” Leda dropped her backpack and sleeping bag to the pavement and flinched when the breeze hit the broad patch of sweat where the pack had rested. She pulled the shirt away from her back, ran to the brick wall and climbed to the top.

“What’re you doing?” asked Eric. She faced back the way they had come, shading her eyes from the sun. She looked… jaunty up there, her hair stretched back, white cotton shirttails fluttering behind. He turned and gazed down the road, squinting as the wind picked up, carrying dust and smoke and a strong, harsh, burning odor. A dark barrier rose from the mountains: thunderclouds, ebony and deeply gray. Shapes boiled up within them, like a sea of fists and black babies’ heads. As he watched, the storm’s top edge touched the sun and swallowed it. The temperature dropped another five degrees, reminding him of something, as if he’d done this before. He shook his head to clear his thoughts.

“I need to get higher,” Leda said. “Come on.” She jumped to the other side of the wall and out of sight. Eric caught up to her as she pounded on the front door of a brick tri-level. She waited a second and pounded again, three quick whaps that rattled the window.

“Nobody home,” she said. “Or dead. We’ve got to get into the garage.” Confused, Eric said, “It’s going to rain. Maybe we should find some place to wait it out.” But she’d already disappeared around the corner. He shrugged his shoulders and followed. The sky grew darker.

The deja vu returned and he suddenly placed the memory: it was the eclipse, and with the darkening, the dropping temperature, he felt an overwhelming sense of doom.

When he was six or seven, Dad had started talking about a “total eclipse of the sun,” and he talked about it for weeks. One day, he seat-belted Eric into the car and the two of them left. Mom stayed home. He didn’t know why. They drove south until late that night, Eric reading comic books. Air blasted through the open window, ruffling Dad’s hair. Eric snuck shy looks at him. Once their eyes met, and Dad winked. He seemed so confident and strong, so focused on the road. Palm on top of the steering wheel, he made tiny corrections to keep them on course. Eric tried to rest his elbow on the door’s edge too, but he was too short. When it became too dark to read, Eric watched the lights out the window: farm houses mostly. Occasionally they’d flash by a gas station alone on the highway, its neon sign a pool of radiance in the night. “You’ll appreciate this when you’re older,” said Dad. “You’ll only get to see this once.” They’d slept in the car at a truck stop. Dad crammed in the back seat, his head against the armrest, his knees bent, and Eric took the front. For hours, it seemed, Eric lay on his back, sleepless, watching the stars through the windshield. He had no idea what a “total eclipse of the sun” was, but he was excited. It’s Christmas, he thought. It’s better than Christmas, because we have to drive a long way to get there. A tiny flutter tickled in his stomach, and he almost squealed for joy. Eric scrunched his eyes closed and tried to will himself to sleep.