Arkadium Rising (30 page)

"Come on now, give her what you got!" Mike said.

Again, Jason wiped his hands on his shirt, and then took hold of the plug wrench. When he put his full weight into it, he not only felt the stuck plug loosen, but he also felt a bolt of pain shoot through his still-healing rib area. He immediately felt like the wind had been knocked from him.

"Ah… got it," he said as he stepped down from the bumper. He felt under his shirt. The area was swollen and it seemed to radiate heat. It could only mean a broken rib. He couldn't think what else it could be.

"You all right, Jason?"

"Yeah…" Jason's voice came out in a rasp. "Feels like I reinjured my back. About a week ago, I was…" He paused, remembering his escape from his brother and subsequent violent tumble down the hill. He recalled the violent impact of his body crashing into the base of the tree... and the pain. "I fell down a hill. Just clumsy, I guess, and I hit a tree."

"Geez, you shouldn't have let me give you that wrench. That's all my fault."

"Mike, I'm fine. I've taken worse beatings from my little brother…" Jason laughed, sending a spasmodic pain rippling through his back. When it subsided, he said, "It doesn't matter. The sparkplug is loose, now let me catch my breath and go switch it out."

1.

"You're probably right about waiting to leave until morning." Mike sat down next to Jason. The country-style kitchen table had four matching chairs and was covered with a red checked cloth. "That'll give us time to load up the supplies."

"No offense to your Uncle Vince or your cousin after him, but it's hard for me to put my faith in a seventy-five-year-old truck."

"No offense taken." Mike chuckled as he watched Kat chase after her own tail. She pounced on it and what she meant to be a playful bite made her take off in a mad sprint into the living room. "That's one oddball of a cat."

"That she is," Jason agreed.

Even after switching out the final sparkplug, it had taken another hour to get the old truck started and have the engine maintain a steady rhythm. As Mike and Jason tweaked, adjusted, and cleaned parts that Jason didn't even know the names of, darkness had settled over the farm. Now, as they sat down to eat, six candles illuminated the kitchen table. Others were spread out around the kitchen countertops. With their overlarge shadows dancing on the walls, it felt like many more than four people were gathered here.

"I'm not trying to scare you, but if we break down, we'll have no idea who we might run into. To be honest, you've been lucky being stranded here. I've seen… horrible things. Just horrible."

"We'll play it smart." Mike looked guilty for not witnessing similar unspoken tragedies. He absently twisted the cloth napkin at his plate setting. "Being smart is more important than ever."

"You got that right." Jason nodded. "Thanks for these." He rattled a bottle of Tylenol with codeine. After twisting off the cap, he shook a pill into his palm. He downed it with a cool glass of well water. He tasted minerals and the earth itself.

"You go ahead and keep the bottle. I don't think Cora will miss them any. She twisted her ankle something fierce a year or so back, but I don't even think she took any. I just wish we had some ice for you to put on that back of yours."

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure I won't feel a thing in half an hour." Jason felt a tickle in his throat and coughed into his palm, awakening slumbering pain receptors in his ribs. "Which can't come soon enough."

"I took a real chance." Mike set his napkin aside and looked up at Jason.

"How so?"

"I almost didn't show you the truck. But I couldn't just let you leave, not when it looked neither of you would hurt a fly."

"That's mighty kind of you." Jason thought that Leah certainly couldn't hurt a fly. He watched her move about the kitchen, practically dancing with Aunt Cora as they moved food around the hot woodstove. She smiled, nearly spilling a platter of fried chicken, and then noticed he was watching her. While her smile didn't disappear altogether, she veiled it in a coy smirk. Still there, still ebullient, but now made self-aware.

Sure, he could never imagine Leah resorting to violence, but he already had many times over. He'd killed… two people—at least two he could indisputably claim as his victims. Until a week ago he would've been hard-pressed to remember his last childhood fistfight. Whenever it had been, he was pretty sure that Marcus was involved.

"Don't look so glum." Cora brought a plate of homemade bread and a butter dish to the table. "The storm's over and Vinny's called the electric company. They'll be around by and by."

Mike looked heartbroken hearing her call him by his dead uncle's name. He didn't try to correct her.

Jason fashioned a smile from the fractured glimpses of old memories: learning to ride a bike at seven, kissing Kelly Roberts at thirteen, walking across the stage to receive his diploma at Washington U. It was difficult, but he managed to pull it off.

When his aunt stepped clear of the table, Mike leaned over. "I didn't know what else to tell her. Every day she wakes up and asks me to switch out the bulb in her bedside lamp. Thinks it burns out every night, not because the bulbs are crud, but because she can't remember asking me. The first couple of days I tried to explain everything to her, but she just couldn't handle it. She got agitated, started throwing whatever she could lay hand to."

"I totally understand."

"And tomorrow, when we wake up, I'm just going to tell her we're going on a trip to the St. Louis Zoo."

Jason nodded and drank more of his water.

"Once you get washed up, I'm sure you'll feel a lot better." Leah placed the chicken at the center of the table. "But Cora promised me the first shower."

"Your shower works?"

"For now at least. We have an old-fashioned well."

Jason touched his rough beard. It felt alien to him, a road kill pelt clinging to his face. "Please tell me you have a spare razor."

"Jason, since you helped get the truck started, you can claim anything not bolted down."

Jason laughed, and again felt the tickle in his throat. He tested out a cough, and he could already tell the pill was taking effect. He felt warmth spreading throughout his body, almost like a fever. A chill ran through him and he smiled.

"It's not just old tech that's survived." Feeling the effects of the pill, Jason's guard was down, nearly gone.

"What do you mean?" Leah asked. When he looked into her eyes, she gritted her teeth and shook her head slightly. So, her cell phone was a touchy subject. Message received.

Jason looked to Mike and then back at Leah. Both avidly awaited his next word. He glanced over to the stove, but Cora seemed oblivious to what he was saying.

"About a week ago…" He started, and had to cough again. A chill swept through him. "I was... far, far from here. A little village called Kettle Creek."

"Never heard of it," Mike said.

Leah sat down in the seat across from Jason. "Me neither."

"Neither had I and I don't think I could find my way back there even if you offered me a million dollars. Anyway, I was resting on this wooden deck, just resting and watching these enormous turkey vultures gliding by overhead. Dozens of them just circling, circling. So graceful, so peaceful."

"Sounds… eerie," Leah said.

"Oh, it was. It was many things, and eerie made the list near the top," he said with a dopey smile. He paused to sip more water, and both Mike and Leah grew agitated. "So I'm watching these vultures and there's this shape gliding through the circling… flock, or whatever you call it. It was a flight path cutting clearly through the breeze; no flapping wings, no circling, looking for the next rising thermal. Just the shortest path between point A to point B. Remember that from geometry class?"

"A straight line?" Leah said. "So what was it?"

"Something manmade," Mike cut in. "It was manmade, wasn't it?"

"I'm pretty sure it was a drone."

"A drone? One of those unmanned military planes?"

"I couldn't tell if it was military," Jason said. "All I know is that it was as unsettling as if a UFO landed in the middle of Main Street would've been a couple weeks ago."

Mike snapped his fingers. "You know, it could be the media. I remember hearing about TV stations buying them up to take pictures and video."

"I'm not sure which one would be scarier, the media or military."

The conversation lagged for a few empty seconds until Cora came to the table with a fresh tomato salad. "Let's eat, everyone!"

2.

While holding a brightly burning candle, Jason waited for Kat to scoot into the bedroom and then closed the door behind him. Faded cowboy and Indian wallpaper lined the walls. The confined space smelled like mothballs and dust.

"Excuse me." He stepped around Leah as she negotiated the narrow walking space between the twin beds on either side of the room. His pack was lying open on the floor with the pockets open and their contents spilling out. Jason set the candle on the bedside table between the beds.

"So when Mike thought we were a couple, you didn't think about correcting him?" Leah pulled back a patchwork quilt from the bed on her side of the room. After her shower she had changed into one of Cora's old summer nightgowns, and then hand-washed her one set of clothes. Her cheeks were still rosy from her shower, and her blonde hair spilled over her shoulders, concealing the shaved dyed-black hair beneath. In that moment, she looked like a haunting figure of timeless beauty.

"His face…" Jason said, before losing his train of thought. He sat down on the edge of his bed, his hair still damp from his turn with the cold shower. The water pressure had gushed like a fire hose, so he didn't really mind the cold. The bracing temperature had felt purifying against his skin and helped to sooth his ribs. It was either that, or that pill was really doing wonders. Kat hopped up next to him and he petted her absently. She didn't seem to mind his inattention and gave off a throaty purr.

Finally Leah said, "So, his face?"

"Yeah, sorry." Jason looked over to her. "He was so sad. He misses his family so bad it's like a physical wound. And when he saw us together, I think he wanted to believe that we really are together. I didn't have the heart to say otherwise."

"Don't you get any ideas." She climbed into bed and pulled a sheet up and tucked it under her armpits.

"Believe me, the only ideas I have are sleep and more sleep."

"I have a boyfriend."

"You do?" He looked at her, and she said nothing. He kept looking at her, and a corner of his mouth perked up.

"So, okay, I don't have a boyfriend, but I could. That's not the point."

"Point taken. I'm not leaving this bed until the sun comes up. Promise." He yawned deeply, more out of physical necessity than to emphasize his point.

"What about you?" She toyed with the sheet, crumpling it into a ball, and then flattened it again.

"No, I don't have a boyfriend, either."

"I didn't think so," she said with a chuckle. "What about a girlfriend?"

"No," he said, smiling. "Before all this… before the end of civilization or whatever you want to call it, I was a journalist."

"Really? And that prevented you from finding a girlfriend?"

"Not at all, really. It just got in the way of finding anyone I wanted to spend my life with."

"How so?"

"I wrote stories about bars and clubs, hipster gallery openings. Stuff, that now… just sounds so stupid and empty."

"I see where you're going. The young handsome journalist working the nightlife beat? I can see how that would be hard to date any one person."

"I wouldn't go that far. Things just haven't worked out for me in that department. To be honest, I haven't been in any kind of serious relationship since college."

"Well, Jason, the world's changed."

"Yes… it has." After a lengthening silence, when he thought she might have fallen asleep, he whispered, "Leah?"

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you a question?"

"You just did."

"Fine, can I ask you two more?"

"You're down to one." She laughed and her eyes glimmered. "Better make it good."

"You're a goofball."

"Is that your question?"

"Just stating the obvious. My question is: what was the cell phone message?"

She didn't respond right away.

"Leah?"

"I… I don't really want to talk about it."

"Is it anything serious?" He couldn't help pangs of longing for his parents, no matter how often they normally frustrated him. Even if they had survived the fallout of Election Day, his mother was sick, and needed care.

"You're not going to let this go, are you?"

"So now you're the one asking the questions?"

As if sensing Leah needed comforting, Kat jumped from one bed to the other and curled up on Leah's stomach. She stroked Kat's fur as she stared at the ceiling.

"It might be serious. I never had a chance to find out. But you heard the message. It says, and I quote, 'Hi, this is Selma at Dr. Hovart's office. We have your test results. Please give us a call back to schedule a follow up appointment so we can discuss your treatment options. Thanks!'"

"If you need anything, I'll do whatever I can to help. Whatever you need."

Leah moved to her side so she was facing Jason, sending Kat leaping back to his bed. Leah propped her head with her hand and stared at him for a long moment. "You know, I think you believe that. I really do."

"I do."

"But we just met, right? You don't know anything about me."

"I know you're a good person. I have no doubts about that. And really, when all is said and done, that's all that matters anymore. At least to me. I was in such a dark place when I found you. You made it possible for me to believe that good people still exist."

"How can you know all that?"

"I just do."

She rolled back onto her back. "Do you know what bothers me most about that phone message?"

Jason waited for her answer without uttering a word.