Роберт Уилсон - Days Since... - Xavier - Day 853

For the last mile, Simon appeared to be favoring one leg over the other. His stride tilted with every step. The weight of his body pressed more gingerly on the left sole than the right. Xavier imagined Simon’s face melting with pain as each pulse shot through his nerves. This trip would be agonizing in that condition. Simon didn’t seem to care, or at least, he never led on as such. He never mentioned it. His loyalty to the Second Alliance is what must have motivated his silence. He appeared to be pretty convinced of his duty to their flag. They didn’t tend to deal with failure or dissent well, and Simon surely understood that.

“When’s the last time you been downtown?” Grant wanted to know.

“I guess I was maybe nine or ten. It was the first and last time I ever went to a Reds game with my dad.”

“Used to listen to them all the time.” Grant imitated a pitcher’s windup. It was obvious he had never played. His arm bent at ninety degrees for far too long.

“You throw like a girl.”

“Like hell I do!”

Simon shushed them, “Quiet down, you two. We’ll be coming up on Route 50 in about a mile or so. You two can’t be making noise like that around there. If we’re going to be hit—that’s where.”

Xavier unscrewed the lid to his jug and sipped his water. He whispered, “Look at this place. It’s so rundown.”

“Watch yourself, boy.” Grant snapped. “This is where I lived.”

“Really?” Xavier raised an eyebrow. This place is a dump.

A swift wind moved through the blue-collar neighborhood that once bustled with industry. The depressed facades of the shotgun, row houses watched over the streets of Riverside. To be honest though, it hadn’t changed much because of the virus. It had its issues long before. Its appearance now was only slightly worse.

Many of the homes wore tattered bedsheets billowing from the gutters and roofs. It suited most of them just fine. Their ugliness hidden by the white sheets painted with red Qs, warning the uninfected to stay away. The wind stopped and the sheets settled.

“Not much to look at anymore.” Grant’s head passed from side to side in depressed swings—his chin maybe an inch from his chest. “It’s all been picked apart by gangs, scavengers, whoever comes through.”

Simon raised a fist above his shoulder, signaling for them to stop as he moved to cover behind the trunk of a nearby car—his cheek folded onto the butt of the rifle as he began scanning.

Their carefree attitude dissolved as Grant took Xavier by the arm and pulled him toward the back of a rusty blue minivan. They stumbled. Xavier’s body pressed against Grant’s as they fell to the road. Their bags slammed against the asphalt, breaking Grant’s water jug. “Shit!”

The gush of water washed the chips of the van’s shattered window away from their feet as they scrambled behind the vehicle. They crouched down, just below its busted out window, waiting for the echoes of gunfire to bounce off the houses. But, it never came. They waited, hearts pounding in unison, scanning the roofs and windows of the vacant homes. Nothing stuck out.

“False alarm!” Simon shouted. “Things are moved. Looks different from when I came through here last time.”

Grant peeked from around the bumper of the wrecked minivan. “We good?”

“Yeah.” Simon’s hand waved them forward.

Grant stood from the ground and helped lift Xavier to his feet. Grant looked him over. “You okay?”

“I am.” Xavier brushed the chips of broken glass from his pants. “I thought it was going to get crazy.”

“You did good, boy. Real good. We have to react and recover,” he reassured Xavier. Grant looked at the thin plastic shell of his jug, crumpled and now completely empty. He sighed. “Guess it beats gettin’ shot, but damn, all that dippin’ and duckin’ for nothin’ but losin’ all my water. Stupid thing erupted all over the damn place.”

“We still have mine,” Xavier said, as he shook his jug.

“Where your glasses at?”

Xavier’s eyes slowly closed while he let out a frustrated groan. Please don’t be at my feet already crushed to bits. He bent over to look among the broken glass that littered the ground beneath their feet. Grant snatched the glasses from the air as they fell from between Xavier’s shoulder and bag strap.

“You ain’t ever gonna see luck like that again in your life, boy. Now, come on!” He started to move, but stopped almost immediately for a double take—his attention drawn back toward where they came from. “Holy— No wonder that wind’s buildin’ up. That storm’s movin’ toward us fast.”

“You have to be kidding me.” Xavier deflated right there in the street. “I wasted all that gas on the reservoir tanks.”

“You guys need a break or something?” Simon yelled back to them.

“No reason to dwell on it. Let’s go, boy.”

“I have to tie my shoe.”

Xavier bent down, and Grant continued slinking along the cars toward the middle of the block where Simon stood. At any moment this walk could change for the worse. Xavier kept his eyes on the houses that slouched along the street as he fidgeted with the laces.

Grant stopped abruptly and moved toward the sidewalk. Again, the beating of Xavier’s heart struck against his rib cage. This is crazy. Xavier ducked down behind another car. Alone. Where the hell is Grant? He lay on his stomach and edged to the driver side, peering down the length of the car—no one, even Simon had moved from the street. Nothing was said. Maybe they had been sniped. It was time. Run! Just run! He rose to his feet and broke for the backyards.

“This one’s mine.”

The calm familiar voice halted his sprint. He looked to his left, Grant stood just twenty feet away, his hand resting on the top of an old mailbox. Grant’s mouth formed a weak smile as he bent down to pick up a fragment of concrete from his flaking driveway. He ran his teeth across his bottom lip—saddened by the empty shell that slumped before him. Its wood siding was cracking from the stress of the sun beating upon it—day in, day out. The stale blue paint flaked into the overgrown mulch beds.

Grant kicked at the weeds growing between the joints in the sidewalk that led to the front. He sat down on the top step, placing his duffel bag next to him on the porch. He gripped an imaginary can and lifted it to his mouth. “Hey, boy! Come have a cold one with me. Well, you can have a root beer.”

Xavier laughed and sat down next to him on the porch, removed his book bag, and mimicked the imaginary sip.

“What the hell are you two doing?” Simon gawked at them from the front yard. He drew back some mucus and spit in the grass.

Grant rose quickly from the porch steps and started to descend. “Don’t spit in my yard!”

“This is yours?” Simon put both of his palms out toward Grant in an effort to calm him.

“Yeah.” Grant stopped at the bottom step, pushing his chest up and out. “I haven’t been here for awhile. I need a sec.”

“I’ll give you some time but not much. We don’t wanna get caught out here in the storm. That’ll slow us down a lot.” Simon moved down to a neighboring house and kept watch from the porch.

“Somethin’ wrong with him, Xavier,” Grant said, “but… I can’t know what for sure.”

“What do you mean?”

“This guy don’t seem right. First, he’s messin’ with us, then not, and now again. I don’t know. Something ain’t right. He could’ve been some rapist locked away in jail. Scary thing is that anyone can show up and say they’re whatever they want. Ain’t no way to look that up. Simon’s here tryin’ to play army man, but we don’t know anything about him. He could be some mental case. Some psycho guy.”