Will McIntosh - Soft Apocalypse

Ange was still twisting and thrashing.

“Help them,” the father said, waving a finger toward the clearing. A third brother ran over and pressed Ange’s hips to the ground.

It was a bluff. It had to be. They were going to scare her, then let us go. That had to be it; they couldn’t really mean to do this.

Ange screamed, thrashing her head back and forth.

“Please don’t,” I said. I could only see out of one eye.

Ange’s eyes clenched shut, and the pitch of her scream changed. It went on and on, broken only long enough for her to take quick breaths, drowning out the crackling of the bamboo, and my screams.

Could this really kill her? Could a bamboo shoot really grow right through her, or did it just hurt badly because it was ramming against her back? Surely that was it. Later I’d give her some antimicrobial Goldenseal and she’d stay put for a while and heal.

Ange stopped screaming abruptly. A bird sang brightly nearby. Ange looked at one of the brothers hunched over her.

I couldn’t seem to string my thoughts together; the blows to my face had left me disoriented, my head literally spinning.

“Please get it out of me,” Ange said. “Please.” He looked off into the distance, one of his fists closed over her wrist, the other on her breast. “I’m really sorry. Please let me up.”

There was a fluttering under her shirt, as if a moth were trapped there. A green shoot poked out near her collar bone.

“Can I have a drink of water?” Ange said.

One of the brothers slid a hand under Ange’s shirt. He squeezed her breast, stared at his hand beneath her shirt, mesmerized, his mouth hanging open.

“Let me get her a drink of water,” I said.

The father hit me on the side of the head with the gun.

I couldn’t see the green shoot grow, but every time I looked at Ange lying there, the shoot seemed bigger. Soon it was jutting a foot over her, pointing straight at the sky. Ange groaned, and cried.

“I’m so sorry, Ange,” I cried. “It’s my fault. I’m so sorry.”

“Shut up!” The butt of the gun slammed into my cheek, whipping my head sideways.

“It’s not your fault,” Ange said.

“Yes. It is.”

I was hit again, harder. “Every time you open your mouth, you’re gonna get hit,” the father warned.

“I love you, Ange.” Another blow landed; I heard a crunch. One of my back teeth had been knocked out. I felt it sitting against my tongue and tried to spit it out.

“I love you too,” Ange murmured. She made a strangled choking sound, and didn’t speak again after that.

When it was over, three fledgling stalks trembled over her, streaked pink, their bright new leaves still tucked.

The brothers stood; one brushed the knees of his jeans.

The father got off me, pushed the pistol back into my neck. He gripped me by my collar and shook me hard. “Are you next? Huh? You gonna be next?” My head swung back and forth; the ground spun in a sick blur.

“No, please,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for your loss.”

He held me still for a long moment.

“Go on,” he said, shoving me. The youngest brother started to protest, but the dad cut him off. “Tell your friends what happened. Tell them we’ll do the same to anyone who tries to steal from us.”

“Go on,” he said, motioning toward the bamboo forest. “Before I change my mind.”

I ran, my face wet with tears and sticky with dried blood, leaves whipping my face, until I tripped on a fallen tree and tumbled to the ground.

One day I was going to go there and kill every single one of them. But what did it matter? Ange was dead. I would never wake up beside her again.

I crawled to my feet and walked on. “She was shot,” I said aloud, sniffing, wiping my runny nose. I winced as my hand touched my face. “Ange was shot. They shot her. She died right away.” That’s what I would tell the others. That’s how I wanted to remember it, if I could convince myself. I didn’t want to remember the truth; I wanted it gone, stripped from my mind.

Cortez was on the porch. He leapt up as soon as he saw my face. “What happened? Where’s Ange?”

“Ange is dead,” I said.

Cortez covered his face and sobbed.

“What happened?” It was Jean Paul, standing in the doorway. “What happened?” I only shook my head.

The screen door squealed and Colin appeared. “Oh, jeez,” he said. He raced out, grabbed me by the elbow to help me inside.

“Ange is dead,” I said. Colin froze, his expression melting from concern to despair.

“What happened?” Jean Paul repeated.

I told the story as it had happened, except I told them that they shot Ange in the clearing.

Cortez disappeared upstairs, reappeared a moment later armed to the hilt—gun, knives. No Eskrima sticks. “Where is this farm?” he asked me.

“No,” Sophia said, grasping Cortez’s arm. “Let it go. They’re all armed. We don’t need anyone else dying today.”

“She’s right,” Colin said. “We need you here, we can’t afford to lose you.” Colin glanced at me. I didn’t care. I wanted to be unconscious.

Cortez stuck the gun into his belt. “They murdered Ange, and we’re just going to walk away?”

“Yes!” Sophia said. “We just walk away. Killing them isn’t going to bring her back.”

Cortez turned and stormed out. As the screen door slammed, I was already on the stairs, weaving like a drunk, heading to my bed.

The faded purple neon sign by the road read “Paradise Motel,” and “No Vacancy.” There was an empty pool in front, between the highway and the parking lot, surrounded by a cyclone fence choked with kudzu. The roofs on the last four units had collapsed, but the others looked to be in decent shape—a few even had glass in the windows. An ice machine was tucked between two support poles, a toppled and partially crushed snack machine next to it.

“I hope they have plenty of ice,” Colin said, “I could use a cold one.” Baby Joel, his head lolling, was asleep in the makeshift carrier on Colin’s back.

“It feels strange not having the bamboo around. I feel exposed,” Sophia said, hugging her elbows. The bamboo had tapered off just past Midville, though we knew it was just a patch—an area the scientists and eco-terrorists hadn’t bothered to target. The bamboo would make it here eventually.

“We got dibs on this one,” Colin called, peering into a room with his hand on the door knob. “There’s even a mattress, sort of.”

I opened the door to the next room down.

A woman was standing inside, a machete raised over her head. I cried out in surprise.

“I don’t have any food,” she said. “I don’t have anything of value. Just leave me alone.”

She was wearing a big floppy hat over wild, tangled auburn hair, Khaki shorts, and a white button-down sweater like my grandma used to wear. Still, she had a machete.

I raised my hands. “Okay. No problem.”

As my heart slowed I noticed that the woman was so scared the machete was shaking. She had a pretty bad cut on her shin—it was straight and fairly deep, like a slashing knife wound.

“We’re just looking for a place to—”

Behind her, the bedside table was adorned with knickknacks. A postcard of hula dancers caught my eye. The caption read Everything’s Better in Metter . It reminded me of something: I’d bought a postcard just like it once, at a convenience store when I was on a date.

A tingle washed over me—an honest to god tingle. I studied the woman carefully.

“Phoebe?”

Her look of surprise was priceless. She looked at me carefully; her eyes grew wide.