Arkadium Rising (29 page)

"Just one thing after another after another," the man repeated.

"Listen..." Leah sat down next to him. She touched his arm and he finally looked up to meet her gaze. "I'm sorry but I didn't catch your name."

"Mike Dunkirk."

"Nice to meet you, Mike. I'm Leah, and that's Jason. We're just trying to find some place where everyone hasn't lost their minds. You know what I mean?" She had a calming, sensible voice. She could say just about anything and it would sound believable.

"Good luck with that." Mike laughed cynically.

"We have to try. There has to be somewhere safe."

"Well, if there is such a place, I'm guessing St. Louis might be a good place to start. Maybe, Quincy or Springfield. I don't know."

"I'd say St. Louis. I know the area, but it's still quite a ways off any way you look at it. We really got stranded in the middle of nowhere, didn't we?" Jason said.

"I'd say that Dalton County isn't the best place to seek out others during the apocalypse," Mike said and laughed again. No matter how grim he found the situation, he also couldn't help laughing; it was unnerving, but Jason supposed it was better than participating in the depravities he'd witnessed so far. Some people used laughter as a coping mechanism.

"So, is that what this is?" Something caught in Leah's throat. She tried to clear it before continuing. "This is the apocalypse?"

"You know, I shouldn't have said that," Mike said. "I don't know what's going on. I don't think anyone does. But we're alive, right? Isn't the apocalypse when everyone's dead?"

"The day isn't over." She stared into Mike's eyes until he looked down at his hands.

"I know you don't know me, but I'm going to lay it all on the line. I'm all on board with trying to find others. Whatever is going on, I want to know. This sitting around crap is killing my nerves." Mike stood, his mood turning hopeful. "Do you think I could tag along?"

"Sure, if you have some good hiking shoes," Leah said.

Mike clapped his hands together and then snapped his fingers. "I've got a better idea!" He turned toward the barn. "Why don't we just drive?"

"How about we fly?" Leah played along. "That'd be even better. And you know what? Let's take a private jet!"

Mike chuckled. He waved for them to follow him and then headed for the barn.

"What now?" Jason asked, but Leah only shrugged before hurrying to catch up to Mike. Jason didn't have a good feeling about this. They didn't know this Mike guy. He could be a killer or member of some twisted group like the Anaki. Jason wouldn't admit it out loud, but he also felt a certain amount of jealousy and an even stronger desire to protect Leah.

Jason eased his pack from his shoulders. Kat meowed angrily and hopped over to sit on the porch railing. Obviously, he'd upset her nap schedule, which was how she spent most of her day. Jason jogged to catch up to Mike and Leah. Mike had already disappeared inside the barn. As Jason rounded the side of the farmhouse, he noticed a driveway leading from the front of the house out toward the street. Rows of old maple trees lined the driveway.

"Leah, wait," he said too quietly to even warrant a reaction from her.

When Leah slipped from view into the barn, Jason removed his .38 from his waistband. He felt like a kid pretending to play detective as he leveled the gun with both hands.

"Oh my God!" Leah cried.

Jason broke into a sprint, and when he raced inside after her, he nearly ran into the fat, rounded bumper of an antique baby blue pickup truck. "Whoa… What the hell?"

Leah held her hands clasped in front of her and bounced on her tippy-toes in excitement.

"Sorry about that, Jason." Mike stepped from the running board inside the truck's cab. He closed the door and rolled down the window. "You must've thought I was some kind of cannibal killer or something."

"No… it's just that… never mind." What the heck was he doing? Running around with his stolen Taurus .38 drawn and ready to shoot? He didn't recognize himself anymore. "What's going on?"

"You're not playing the worst joke ever are you?" Leah said, still bouncing. "This thing actually works?"

"In a fashion." Mike turned the ignition key, and miraculously, something happened. The engine tried its damnedest to turn over. It sputtered and spit gouts of black exhaust from the dual pipes at the rear of its boxy truck bed, sending chaff dust dancing across the barn's dirt floor. Mike stepped on the gas and the engine wanted to roar to life, but something wasn't quite right. "Son of a bitch. Almost had it!"

Mike pulled the keys from the ignition and hopped out of the cab.

"I don't get it. Since the explosion I haven't heard anything but dead clicks when I've tried to start a car," Jason said.

"Me too," Mike replied. "My Sebring, which has never been in the shop outside an oil change or tune-up, is dead as a doornail out front. Been that way since that explosion. But my Uncle Vince's Ford '40? I didn't think about trying to start it until this morning, but she's damn near there, isn't she? It must be something to do with the technology. These old trucks are all engine. No computer anything. Next to no electrical."

"I hadn't thought of that," Jason said. "So the explosion fried circuit boards, or whatever, but older technology still works?" He wanted to mention Leah's cell phone, and also the drone he'd seen, but the timing didn't feel right. He just didn't know Mike well enough to trust him yet.

"That's what I'm thinking. I don't know much about engines. Do you?"

"No. Unfortunately." Jason turned to Leah. "How about you?"

"Me? You're so funny. Yeah… no," Leah said. "What about your Uncle Vince?"

"Sure, he's right over there." Mike pointed to a small patch of cleared land surrounded by fruit trees and enclosed by a low wrought iron fence. "He's the second to the end, first row."

"I'm so sorry." Leah's face flushed with embarrassment. "Was it… sudden?"

"Don't worry yourself. It was sudden all right, but back in 1977. Uncle Vince drank himself to an early grave. Tell you the truth, the only thing I remember about him was sitting in the passenger seat of this old Ford and having him rev the engine," he paused, smiling fondly. "Back then Uncle Vince had it running smooth, but it was a smooth growl. Like an exotic animal."

"Is there anyone else around?" Jason asked.

"Well, there's only one other person at the farm. My Aunt Cora, my mom's sister—she's inside baking fresh bread over the woodstove from her childhood, if you can believe it. She's the reason I'm out at the old farmhouse to begin with since there's no one else to check in on her. There's my aunt and uncle's son, Malcom, but he hasn't been around the last year or so. He used to look in on Aunt Cora, but I think he'd come out just as much to fiddle with Vincent's old Ford, tell you the truth."

"What changed?" Leah asked before Jason could stop her. He could see cracks in Mike's expression with barely concealed pain just beneath the surface.

"His wife left him, taking the kids out to live in Boston with her new husband. Malcom couldn't stand being separated from his family, so he relocated out that way." Mike blinked as his eyes flirted with tears. "I can't blame him. Not one bit. I have three kids of my own. And right now…" He couldn't hold it back any longer. No amount of blinking would hold his tears at bay.

Jason looked from Mike to Leah, who looked almost as upset as Mike. She had an innate compassion that was hard to deny.

"And right now they're back in O'Fallon with their mom and I don't know if they're alive or dead." He sniffled and then continued. "Suzette, she's strong and stubborn. That's why we're always fighting. But she'll keep them safe."

"I'm sure she will." Leah tried hard to bring some hope to her voice. "Like a lioness protecting her cubs."

"Right. You're right." Mike looked up, managed a wan smile. "That's my Suzette—a lioness."

"Your Aunt Cora works the farm herself?" Jason asked, trying to change the subject.

"She's had help with the crops since Vince passed away, and the last decade or so her helper's been this nice Polish guy named Jacek. He called me a week before the power went out, saying that Cora's starting to forget things. That she enters a room and can't remember why. She sits down thinking it's breakfast time, but the sun's actually setting. That sort of thing. I've been dreading that call, I tell you, but I knew it was coming. Last Christmas she kept calling me Vinny, and once she even pinched my butt."

Mike laughed sadly, and Jason broke into a smile.

When Mike just stared off for a while, Leah said, "So you came out to check on her?"

"Yeah, and I pretty much found what I expected. It's time Aunt Cora had someone looking after her. I've tried to bring it up more than once, that she needs to have around-the-clock care, but she won't hear anything about it. She just thinks I want to ship her to a nursing home and sell the farm and steal her money. But all that's gone out the window, right? I doubt there are any nursing homes."

"Everything's changed," Jason agreed.

"All but Cora's senility," Mike said. "That's not going away. Just getting worse."

"But if you can get this truck started, you might be able to find her care."

"True," Mike said. "I've tinkered with the engine a bit. I was able to get a few gallons of fresh gas into her. With the way she almost turns over, I think it might be the plugs."

"Do you have any replacements?" Jason said. "Maybe between the two of us we can figure it out. If we can get the old truck working, and get your Aunt Cora the care she needs, then you can set off for your family."

"You're serious?" Mike asked. "You'd do all that for me?"

"Mike, it's not so much for you, but for my blistered feet."

Even though Leah stood in the periphery, Jason could feel a glowing happiness radiating from her direction.

"Let's get started!"

2.

Jason stood just inside the barn and marveled at the quiet normalcy of the farm. Sure, he didn't hear a tractor in the field, but the simple sounds persisted. The wind rasping through the looming cornfields. The nervous clucks coming from the thin grassy patch outside the chicken coop. The squeak of the porch swing like a slow, steady heartbeat. These sounds were timeless, unbowed by the changes at hand. For the first time since Marcus's supposed "divine day of election," Jason felt tangible hope for the future.

"Your aunt is a real go-getter," Jason said as he looked over at the old Ford. All he saw of Mike were his legs sticking out from under the open hood.

"That she is," Mike said with a grunt. There was a frustrated clanging noise as he hammered at something randomly with his wrench. "That's why I'm letting her cook. She can do that in her sleep, especially cooking over the old woodstove. I think it's tapping into her childhood memories. It's a shame… her disease. Shouldn't happen to good people like her."

Before he started working on the truck, Mike had introduced his Aunt Cora, a lovely woman in her eighties with piercing green eyes. After quick pleasantries, and no sign of senility that Jason could detect, Cora took Leah's hand in her own and joyfully insisted that she help her finish up dinner for the menfolk. As Cora dragged her away, Leah looked back and had given Jason a wink. It wasn't that long ago that he'd found her frightened and nearly inconsolable in the back of the SUV in the decimated town of Rose Ridge. She was probably the only survivor of the Anaki scourge, which was either a testament to her will to survive, or her inordinate luck. Regardless, Leah possessed an inner strength and resilience he envied. He saw himself as a battered ragdoll, a cheap imitation of life. He only continued on because he didn't know what else to do. He only continued on because he was too much of a coward not to.

As Mike fought the years of build-up inside the engine, Jason couldn't help wondering how Leah was handling his Aunt Cora inside the farmhouse kitchen.

"This last one's gonna give me a heart attack." Seeking leverage, Mike climbed onto the truck's front chrome fender as he struggled to loosen the last corroded sparkplug.

"It's always the last one, isn't it?" Jason said, trying to make light of the situation.

The wrench slipped and Mike lost his balance on the bumper, staggering down to the packed dirt ground. While he landed on both feet, it was still jarring. "Dag nab it."

"How about I give it a go?"

"Sure, have at it. And if we ever do reach St. Louis, you can keep this baby blue piece of crap for yourself. Yes, sir. When we cross the river and see that big ol' arch, I'll sign over the title on the spot." Mike handed him the wrench.

Jason wiped his hands against his shirt and then climbed onto the bumper. "What's the saying… lefty loosey, righty tighty?"

"And you said you know nothing about fixing engines." Mike laughed.

With the sun starting to fall, Jason had trouble finding where to latch the wrench. Finally, after locating the sparkplug and notching the wrench around its squared side, he felt a foreboding sense of déjà vu. The morning Delaney came to his parents' house to track him down he had been fighting a bolt on his dad's rusty lawnmower. That fix-it job ended with a sliced up palm and Delaney dragging him off in search of Marcus. He felt like only agony could come from getting this truck started, but he passed it off as nothing more than coincidence.

"You two make a nice couple," Mike said.

"I'm sorry, what?" The wrench nearly slipped from his grip.

"You keep an eye on her and keep her safe."

Jason took his eyes away from the engine, ready to set Mike straight. But he could plainly see Mike's concern for his wife and kids reflecting back at him. It would seem somehow cruel if he denied being with Leah. He didn't have the heart to tell him that they were basically strangers thrown together at random.

"I will," he said, feeling choked up. "I certainly will." He gave the wrench a cautious tug. Nothing happened. The plug didn't move, but the world didn't come crashing down around him either. With more confidence, he attacked the plug, gave it a hard two tugs and then a third.