Jacqueline Druga - Wasteland

“Probably has the flu as well.”

“What are we gonna do?” Falcon asked.

“Let the child die with his mother,” the doctor suggested. “Do you want to bring another baby into this world?”

“But is it right to let it die in there?”

“If we let it be born, it’ll die out here, probably within an hour. In there, it isn’t suffering.”

Falcon just wanted to cry. Stacy couldn’t give him an answer. He felt like crumbling each kick he felt. He was losing his wife and his child.

“Cut it out,” Jim, Stacy’s father, said. “Cut it out of my daughter.”

Falcon lifted his head.

“I have raised my child for twenty-nine years. I know what she would want. She’d want that baby to have a chance. Even if slim, give it a chance,” Jim said.

The doctor breathed heavily. “She won’t survive a surgery.”

“She isn’t surviving anyhow.” Jim’s words trembled. “I’m losing my daughter, my only child. Please, don’t let me lose the life inside her, as well.”

The doctor all but said it was a lost cause and a waste of time. But they performed the caesarean.

They sedated Stacy and the moment the doctor made the first incision, Stacy passed away. Holding her husband’s hand, her head tilted and she died.

The doctor removed a little girl. She was the tiniest thing anyone had ever seen. They said she wasn’t even five pounds and no one expected her to live through the night.

When she did, they gave her another week.

No mother’s milk, limited baby formula. One week.

But Lilly defied the odds. There was something special about Lilly. Not that there wasn’t about Josh, but Lilly, she was the fighter.

Lily was a survivor. Her entire ‘no nonsense attitude’ wasn’t that of a normal six year old.

And because of that, Falcon felt it all right to talk to her and Josh before they journeyed north.

Tell them the bad as well as the good.

Tell them why they would see what they would see.

Prepare them. Even though he knew it would breed a lot of questions, Falcon didn’t mind. It was road talk.

But it would be the truth.

As Bill Gleece said…

No By the Waters of Babylon world for his children.

“Okay, so let me get this straight,” Josh said to Falcon as he climbed into the vike. “You made us sit there and listen because you think we thought everything would look pretty?”

“Aren’t you expecting that?” Falcon asked.

Josh shook his head. “We aren’t dumb. We know it’s not gonna look like them pictures in the books and magazine. There was a big war, Dad.”

“Just making sure,” Falcon said as he lifted Lilly. She smiled at him. Her eyes were so big and brown.

“I want to see new people,” she said. “Think we will?”

“I don’t know.”

Josh said, “Heard there are mutants out there.”

Falcon paused as he got into the Vike. “Now where did you hear that word?”

“Chad.” Josh replied. “He said there are mutants in Indiana.”

“Daddy?” Lilly asked. “What’s a mutant?”

Falcon answered, “It’s someone or something that doesn’t look normal, someone who is deformed.”

Lilly screamed.

Falcon closed off the ear closest to her. “Stop.”

“I don’t wanna see a mutant,” Lilly said.

“There aren’t any mutants,” Falcon added as he snapped the rein to the horse.

“Chad said,” Josh added, “they have three arms.”

Lilly screamed again.

“Will you stop?” Falcon said with a snap to his voice. “We aren’t gonna see any mutants.”

Josh laughed.

Lilly shook her head. “Don’t know if I want three arms. The extra one would just dangle. Hang there and dangle.”

“Stop,” Falcon argued moving the horse at a steady pace. “No one is gonna have three arms.”

“Then they’ll have three heads,” Josh said.

Lilly screamed.

Josh laughed.

Falcon pulled the reins and brought the horse to a stop moments after Josh’s awe filled ‘whoa’ rang out and the boy began to stand.

Falcon expected the ‘awe’ or shock, but not so early.

He knew it was coming. They pulled down the driveway and the kids joked. They were filled with enthusiasm as they headed to town, confident, maybe even cocky, about the trip. And then the chatter slowed as they made it through town.

It was quiet as the town became a mere speck in the background.

And Falcon felt Lilly’s little fingers wrap around his when they couldn’t see the town anymore.

Her head rested against is arm as he sat between the two kids.

Josh stared out, quiet, intermittently biting his nails.

The winding road was quiet. They didn’t see a soul or animal. Dead trees lined the cracked road that still had dust from the storm and scattered crushed leaves.

It wasn’t until they passed the bent sign, faded and partially hidden that both kids seemed to tense and sit up.

They pulled on to the highway.

“Whoa!” Josh blurted out.

The vike stopped.

“What is this kind of road?” he asked.

“It’s called a highway. Or it was.”

If it appeared vast to Falcon he could only imagine how it appeared to the children who had never seen a highway.

The six lanes with the open middle extended as far as the eye could see.

The concrete was dry and cracked, with weeds, long since dead extending from the middle. The hills and mountains that surrouneded the highway were brown, like everything else.

Even the abandoned vehicles here and there seemed miniscule and small.

“Holy cow,” Josh said. “How big were people that they needed roads this big?”

Falcon chuckled. “It wasn’t the people, it was the cars. Everyone had one. Most people had two and this road here, was one of those roads that took people from major city to major city.”

Lilly asked. “Why don’t they use them anymore?”

“Most folks don’t have the water we do. Although, I suppose up north it’s not as bad. Horses need water. And there aren’t any more cars. So there is no need. Plus, you know, people just aren’t going to the big cities.”

“Why?” Lilly asked.

Josh said, “Because of nuclear war, he told you that. They burned up or got sick or just moved on. Gees.”

“To where?” asked Lilly. “Did they go to the oceans, Daddy?”

“Maybe,” Falcon answered. “Or someplace green.”

Lilly sighed. “I want to see green, Daddy. Josh saw green.”

“When I was young, but not much though,” Josh said.

“Daddy?” Lilly asked. “When you were my age, did you see green?”

“All the time, baby girl. All the time.”

Lilly shivered and folded her arms, raising her head boldly. “Oh, then I want to see green. Just once. You think we’ll see green going to the Peemale?”

“The what?” Falcon asked.

“Peemale. You spell it all the time. I can spell. PML.”

Falcon was going to correct her, but didn’t. “You know what, for your sake, I hope we do see Green.”

Her innocence made him smile and Falcon snapped the reins to get the horse moving once again.

Falcon truly hoped, for his daughter’s sake, there would be some green as the highway crossed through the Daniel Boone National Forest. It extended so long, how could there not be? That was what Falcon thought.

But nothing. No green.

It looked as if wildfires had ripped through the forest. He recalled seeing the smoke a year ago and wondering what it was. Someone said it was the forest, but to Falcon there was no way it was all gone.

Maybe it wasn’t.