Mark Falkin - The Late Bloomer

But for the dog’s smacking: the stillness. The quiet. Just me now. A wet broken house full of rocks and distant smoke. I checked the fridge instinctively. The light out, cool but not cold. A cursory survey of the outside revealed destroyed generators, slashed tires on all the cars, even Mom’s, save for Bastian’s beater Bronco. They wanted to hear me coming. Fine. I could easily get another car, but fine. Whatever you guys want. I was pissed now.

I missed the water. I had cuts and stingers all over and wanted to wash them out, wash my face off at least, brush the suede off my teeth, slake a brutal thirst. I felt relief when I remembered the cases of bottled water we’d stored in the garage. When I checked, of course, they were smashed and spilled out. I found a couple bottles intact and chugged one down in seconds. I used the other to rinse my face off.

Back inside, I made my way through the rocks, kicking at some. They hit the walls, popped and echoed. I changed clothes and in Mom and Martin’s bedroom I found the glock and holster and put them back on. My uniform.

As I walked out of the bedroom, my heart panged. There on the dresser by the door was Lord of the Flies , Kodie’s pink gum in an imperfect ball stuck to the green cloth hardback cover. I picked it off and put it on my tongue. It took a few presses of my teeth to get it into chewing shape, but once it moistened it still tasted of hot cinnamon, of Kodie. Her hot laugh in my mouth.

I wanted to collapse with her gone, but I couldn’t. Stony resilience bred within me.

The change of clothes felt so much better than I ever thought a change of clothes could. I collected the Lord of the Flies , a few guns and boxes of bullets, my $1,000 binoculars, and climbed into the only vehicle they’d left me.

Maggie came running out and I opened the door for her to hop in over my lap.

Following the smoke, south. No kids. In the blur of my motion I do notice that the few cairns looked disturbed. The bodies had been pulled out. I’m pushing the Bronco as fast as it will go without losing control. The muffler’s blat in all this quiet heard for miles.

Ask me if I cared anymore.

Now, however—floating along here, I hear them in the trees. They fill my head with euphoric hum. It’s a new-world serenade and its impact is physical. It makes me feel good. They know to do it when I’m feeling sad or tired or scared. Usually it’s all three at once. It calms me. Like I’m at the dentist and the assistant has slipped the nitrous oxide tube into my nostrils. My head fills with sweetness. She asks in a mellifluous, warbled voice, You feeling more relaxed now, Kevin? Good, the light panels on the ceiling looking soft and I can only nod at her.

A lullaby is what it is. It feels so good that I don’t care. Grows stronger as I float south. They’re helping me. They’re easing me down down down to the sea whence came the wave. And when they cut it off… I’m their junkie. More. I keep going in hopes of feeling it again.

I speak these hosannas when I’m feeling their song, as I do again now, which is why I click off.

Now: no song. When they cut it off, I come to my senses. Things clear, I’ve lost hours, but I’ve gone many miles. No portaging necessary for the flood.

Got to tell it faster now, as I’m getting closer.

How many more like me stood upon high watching them do this? Were there any? In over two days the ham found nobody else. Was there somebody in some field outside La Paz watching a similar scene? Some savannah on the outskirts of Nairobi? A chilly expanse near Winnipeg? If there are, the children aren’t wanting us to get together. Seems they’ve moved on from the initial shock and crazy download they all got to burning.

The rising smoke my beacon, I finally arrived near its fire. Southbound MoPac ends and takes a hard right to the northwest. I stopped on the little rise of an overpass.

Unlike the other day at Butler Park when we approached slowly and quietly, this time I’d come roaring up, Bass’s muffler heralding me. Maggie barking. When I got to the top of the overpass, I put the Bronco in park and let it chug. I get out and stand on the shuddering hood with my binoculars. To my right is the Circle C housing development. They’re in the open space south of it. Moving as an entity. Their movements a sea. They hummed. This is what they do.

Beyond their mass, the fire.

I put the binoculars to my eyes.

One looks over her shoulder, then they all do, and the movement of their turning heads fans over the thousands of them looking like wind stirring a millpond.

They’ve dug a pit. Still expanding and deepening it, kids digging around its perimeter. Without binoculars they look like ants working their pile to some end they don’t comprehend. The pit is aflame. In it I see mounds of corpses. The kids drag them. I see no vehicles. My mind staggers: How in the hell did they get all those corpses there?

I scanned around with the binoculars. In the trees surrounding the open area hung nests. Maybe I saw ten. They have rounded, basket-like bottoms made of branches, sticks, and vine. The watchers sat there, disconnected from the rest. All ages, the watchers.

I see nests here and there along the river. I’ve seen a head pop up a few times, a semicircle of dark against the sky, darting back down as soon as I notice.

These open spaces, these burning pits. I imagine this happening all over the world right at this moment. Out where the city melds into the pastoral there are children digging pits, dragging the corpses that had been under cairns. Rolling them in, watching them burn.

Will they next burn entire cities? Or will they simply acquit themselves of the metros to let them crumble and overgrow? Seems that’s more their style.

It dawns on me for the first time that in looking at them, other than Rebecca, Simon, and Johnny, I’ve never seen or hear them speak. Not to each other, not to us. They hum and they roar.

Any pity I may have had for them in the beginning was gone. I should’ve held no faith in reserve for them after seeing them in that room in Rebecca’s house. They’ve killed my friends, taken or killed my love, Kodie. They’ve taken my brother away from me, demolished my house when all I’d tried to do was help them. I told them as much at the plane crash. Their shadowy ranks just stood there. And now they were probably burning Mom and Martin and Mr. E in that pit down there.

When you stand at a busy anthill, the ants barely notice you. You have to kick the hill to get them to move.

I pull Lord of the Flies from my waistband, took out the glock and held them both high over my head in each hand. I fired into the air, screaming my throat raw, “Burn this too! Burn books with the dead. Go ahead! Be my fucking guest!” I threw it at them, smacking Kodie’s gum as the book flew out from the overpass.

Through the binoculars, focusing in on one little boy at the back of the mass, leaning against a shovel taller than he is. He’s got it gripped in two fists in front of him, his forehead to it, eyes closed as if he’s resting.

My stare bored into the back of his head. I whispered, “Turn. Look at me.”

When he stood up straight as if something had stung him, his movement rippled out over the swarm. He turned slowly around and the ripples flared out. He faced me. The scene shook a little through the binoculars due to the distance. This kid with his cropped hair, gamer’s body, and doughy face wearing an Under Armour tee ordering all to Just Call Me Awesome , he called me over with his arm. All around him did it. Beckoning me to come down. He lifted the shovel and held it up.

They wanted me to help them dig. Taunting me.

He smiled wide. They all did. All their smiling teeth.