Ben Bedard - The World Without Crows

“What does matter then?” Sergio asked quietly.

Eric looked at him. “We need to find Birdie,” he said. “And we need to kill that son of a bitch, Carl Doyle. That’s what matters.”

Eric imagined himself seeing a bloody, limping Carl Doyle, coming down the road toward him. He pulled his pistol out, stretching out his arm to its length. He pulled the trigger and shot with rhythmic certainty. Bang. Bang. Bang. In his mind, Carl Doyle clutched at his chest, stumbled forward, and then fell. He felt triumph fill his veins, elation and euphoria. Then Birdie ran to him from the Land Rover and Eric embraced her and felt her hard plastic barrettes against his cheek.

On the Pennsylvania side of the river, the town was called Matamoras. On the New York side, Port Jervis. The northeastern part of the town, across the river, was a dark ash ruin. The rest of the town was quietly crumbling. Under the blue skies of July, it was still except for the sound of the wind through the empty town. With water so near, the streets were devoid of Zombies, most of them having thrown themselves in the river weeks ago. Several skeletal corpses, picked to bone by fish and crow, clung to the banks of the river.

As Eric walked into town with Lucia and Sergio to each side of him, he kept his hand upon the pistol in his pocket. It was warm and smooth and his finger nestled into the trigger guard like a chick under its mother. Although they needed food, they always needed food, the object was to cross the bridge. So they moved through the dead streets with firm but careful strides. Sergio clicked his tongue nervously, until Lucia told him to stop, a sharp whisper in the stillness.

The landscape had flattened into swells as if some quiet ocean existed just underneath the soil. The bridge stretched across the blue expanse of the river. Eric had the sense that it was trying to hold the two sides together. In the months since the plague, the bridge had suffered. Several burned out cars were on it, crumpled to the side of the bridge. There were two gaping holes in the side of the bridge where vehicles must have plowed through and toppled over into the river, proof of some tragedy that would never be known or reported or put down in any statistics, vanishing into the great obscurity of a time beyond history. History had died with humanity. It left Eric feeling cold and alone. He grasped the pistol tighter in his pocket.

It didn’t take any time to arrive at the Pennsylvania side of the bridge. The wind blew their hair as they stood contemplating the crossing. Once they were on the bridge, they would be vulnerable and easily spotted. Sergio began clicking his tongue again, but this time, Lucia said nothing.

Eric walked toward the bridge. The others followed.

There were several burnt out cars on the bridge. As the wind moved by them, it whispered through burnt scraps of metal and clattered against loose flaps of plastic. Below them, the river moved quietly, glassy and bright blue.

They were near the middle of the bridge when the Land Rover suddenly appeared before them, its color obscured by gore. Carl Doyle hunched over the steering wheel. Eric’s heart thumped in him and he clutched the pistol, but he was not surprised. This was exactly what they had all feared. It was the obvious place to wait for them. To ambush them. Sergio took a step back, but when his sister didn’t move, he stepped forward again.

The Land Rover stopped in the middle of the bridge, and Carl Doyle stumbled out the driver side door. He slammed it shut behind him, and then hopped forward, dragging his bad leg.

“Let’s kill him now,” Sergio whispered.

“No,” Eric hissed. “Not until we know where Birdie is.”

“She’s in the jeep!” Sergio insisted.

“We don’t know that,” Lucia said.

“Eric!” boomed Doyle.

“Let’s kill him now!” Sergio pleaded.

“No!” Eric insisted. He looked them both in the eye. “Nobody does anything until we know where Birdie is, do you understand?” They nodded, though Sergio looked pale and uncertain. “I’ll go talk to him,” Eric said. “You two stay here.”

“No, we’re coming with you,” Lucia said. Eric knew by her tone that there was no arguing with her.

Carl Doyle looked worse than he had before. His eyes were red with blood now, and half of his mustache was gone, leaving a patch of yellowish skin, speckled with dark scabs. He wore a hard pith helmet with a dark leather strap over the front brim. His clothes, however, still had a strangely neat appearance, despite the filth of his clothes and the ruined mess where the bear had mauled him. Eric thought was even larger than before.

“Ho ho!” Doyle cried, dark spittle coming from his mouth. “Look who it is! By God, it’s Eric.” He laughed a grumbling deep laugh. “It’s good to see you, my boy!” He didn’t seem to have eyes for either Sergio or Lucia, who stood to either side of him. “It’s been a hell of a trip through the wilderness, hasn’t it? I’ve searched the Congo, my boy, I’ve searched it to its dark heart. Cut my way through armies of savages to get here. And now I find you again! Excellent! Each day, we are moving closer and closer to the grand objective!” Blood trickled from his eye and dripped from his chin to the ground.

“Where’s Birdie?” Eric asked as steadily as he could.

“Who?” Carl Doyle absently wiped his face with his arm, streaking it with light, pinkish blood.

“The little girl,” Eric said. “The little girl you took from us!”

“Ah, the little Negro girl, you mean,” Doyle said. He looked out over the bridge and grew silent. He looked with such intensity that Eric turned to follow his gaze. He saw nothing but air over water. Angrily he turned back to Doyle to repeat his question, but Doyle began before he could open his mouth. “You don’t think the darkness lives, do you?” he asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. “It’s the savages, Eric, they’re not like us. They don’t feel. They don’t hunger for meaning. They just walk around, as if it all didn’t mean anything. You and I understand, don’t we Eric?” He gave them a ghastly smile, all dark teeth and bleeding gums.

“Where’s the girl?” Sergio asked.

Doyle went on as if he heard nothing. “The island! We know it. We need it, you and I. From it, we can make a stand. We can build. Without it, there’s just wilderness. Savagery. Winston Churchill said it best when he said. He said.” Doyle took off his pith helmet to scratch his head. They held their breath in revulsion. His scalp was bare and the skin was red and raw. In places, the skin was broken and bleeding. Doyle scratched at a bloody surface before he put his hat back on. “If you’re going through hell, keep going!” Doyle smiled. “That’s what he said.”

“Please listen to me,” Eric said. “What did you do with the little girl?”

“We can’t stop now!” Doyle said excitedly. “We have to keep going, meet the savages head on! The only thing they understand is brute force! We must battle them from here to the island!” He smacked one fist into the meat of his palm. Then a puzzled look came upon his face. “What girl? The little Negro girl?”

“Yes!” Eric exclaimed. “What did you do with her? Is she with you?”

“She’s a traitor,” Doyle said. “Don’t think of her, my boy. She’s gone. A traitor to the island!”

Eric stepped forward. “Doyle, listen very carefully. I want the girl back. Tell me where she is. Now.”

Carl Doyle smiled. “You can’t make friends with traitors. The point is this,” he said. “You can’t appease a crocodile, you understand? We have to fight our way to the island. We can continue as we have been while I, while I clear the way. You continue, my dear boy, I’ll clear a path!” He waved his hand over the land like a magician.