In The End: a pre-apocalypse novel (11 page)

Angela’s tears stopped as she
listened to Jim. The shock and pain she felt when Jim said he couldn’t be with
her was replaced by a feeling of numbness. Jim loved her? He had always loved
her?

“Jim, I don’t need or want someone
better than you. I just want you.” She reached for him and he reached for her.
They held each other, leaning over the center console and shivering in the
frozen car. He whispered in her ear with his lips so close that her hair moved
as he spoke.

“I’m messed up, Angie. You don’t
want me.”

She took his head in her hands and
moved it so his face was right in front of hers. She looked intently into his
eyes.

“I do want you, Jim. I love you.
You’re all I’ve ever wanted.”

Jim moved his head back beside
hers. He didn’t want her to see him cry. But she could feel him crying as she
held him tightly.

Monica looked around for help. There was only the house on
the corner. The gravel road they were on ran between empty lots covered with
weeds and snow. There was nothing behind them but the highway and the mountain.
She climbed over the back seat and crawled through the space between the front
seats.

She looked out of the broken window
at the house for any sign that someone was home. There was a motorhome in the
long, wide driveway but no other cars. And there was a man lying in the grass,
unconscious and bleeding.

“Trey!” she shouted.

Adrenaline coursed through her
veins and she burst into action, reaching for the door handle on the passenger
side of the van. She hopped out and landed on the thin layer of snow and ran to
Trey. She kneeled in the snowy grass next to him and looked at his
blood-covered face. She could see the fog from his breath. He was alive.

“Oh God, I need help,” she cried
out.

There was no one around to hear
her. She stood up and ran to the front door of the one-story house. She grabbed
the knocker with cold, shaking hands and slammed it down on the brass plate
repeatedly, begging someone to answer the door.

“Please,” she moaned.

She let go of the knocker and
pounded on the door with her fists, yelling, “Hello!” No one came. She looked
at the RV and dared to hope as she ran over to it. She grabbed onto a chrome
handle and pulled herself up onto the step below the driver’s side door and
reached for the handle. It opened.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

She climbed onto the driver’s seat
and leaned over in search of the ignition and wanted to hug God when she saw it.
The key was in the ignition. She turned the key and had never been so happy to
hear the sound of an engine come to life.

She looked at the instrument panel
to see how full the tank was and she watched as the temperature gauge rose
rapidly to the halfway point. Someone had been running the engine very
recently. And the tank was full. Monica figured the owner must’ve been planning
a trip and would probably be back soon, but surely they would understand her
predicament. It was an emergency. She wasn’t trying to steal anything.

She went into the back of the RV
and to the side door, exiting and setting the door to stay open. Now she had to
try to get Trey inside. She knew it was best not to move an injured person, so
dragging one was probably really bad. But she had no choice.

She ran back to Trey and was
relieved to see that he was still breathing. Small puffs of vapor briefly
appeared in front of his nose. Even smaller wisps of steam rose from the blood
flowing from his head. She had to do this quickly so she could stop the
bleeding.

She stood behind Trey’s head,
squatted, then hooked her hands under his armpits and simultaneously lifted and
pulled as she started walking backwards. She was able to drag him, but slowly,
and it required all of her strength. Trey was thin, but he was dead weight, and
he was wet from the snow. Her frozen feet pushed hard into the freezing ground
with every step. Her hands, arms and feet hurt from the effort but she didn’t
stop dragging him until she reached the driveway. When the resistance increased
from his waist scraping against the pavement, she gently lowered his head to
the ground so she could rest.

She stood there breathing hard and
willing her arm muscles to stop hurting. She looked behind her and saw the steady
stream of exhaust coming from the RV’s tailpipe. Her lips stung where they were
split. She licked them and tasted blood. She turned back and looked down at
Trey.
Still breathing.
Still
bleeding.

Two hours ago she was sitting in
her warm and boring house wondering if she could make it into town for some
shopping before the storm arrived. The forecast called for three days of rain
and sleet. It was going to be a long, boring weekend. And now look at her. None
of this could’ve possibly happened if Thomas had been here. She didn’t want her
mind to go there. She told herself to focus on what
was,
not what could have or should have been.

Once again, she took hold of Trey’s
inert body from under his armpits and dragged him backwards, careful to keep
his dangling head above the ground as she pulled him across the driveway. She
rounded the back corner of the RV and continued dragging him toward the side
door. Her muscles screamed for relief, but she didn’t stop until she reached
her goal.

Then she laid his head down again,
exhausted and out of breath.
“Now for the hard part.”

It took longer for her to catch her
breath this time and for her heart to slow down. The pain in her arms had
reduced slightly, but wasn’t going away. She knew she had strained her muscles and
the pain was only going to get worse. After a few deep breaths and visualizing
what she intended to do, she straddled Trey’s body and slid her hands under his
back. She pulled him upward so he appeared to be sitting while she hugged him
in a kneeling position.

Holding on to Trey, she paused
again to catch her breath. What a life. What a fucked up life. She’d thought
about killing herself before and she wasn’t sure why she hadn’t. She avoided
going to hell in the afterlife, only to live through hell on earth. She looked
around and said, “Hell on ice is more like it.” If she did decide to trade this
frozen hell for a warmer one, it would have to be later. Right now someone’s
life depended on her, so she needed to get off her ass and help him. Her father
had always said she was fighter. Maybe that’s why she was still alive; she was
too stubborn to quit, even when she had nothing to live for.

She took a deep breath and focused,
sliding her right foot forward until it was flat on the ground. Then she did
the same with her left. Now she was hugging Trey in a very low squat. She
squeezed her arms around him as hard as she could. Using all of the strength
she had, she stood up, pulling Trey up with her. Her arms were wrapped tightly
around him, hugging him to her body. She fought to keep her balance as his
weight tilted one way then another. She rotated her body until her back was to
the door of the RV, then she slowly backed up a few steps until she felt the
ridge of the floor against her butt, then she sat and laid down backwards in a
barely controlled fall.

She felt like she had no more
energy left in her to complete the job, but she pushed that feeling out of her
mind, telling herself she could do this. She was almost done. Trey’s weight on
top of her was making it hard to breathe. She had to finish getting him in.
Resting wasn’t an option. She breathed as deep as she could and with her palms
on the floor, forced herself to scoot backwards and out from under Trey. As she
scooted past him, his blood dripped on her face.

She wiped Trey’s blood away with
her arm, smearing it across her cheek. She looked at his body half in and half
out of the RV. She was determined to bring him in the rest of the way so she
could shut the door and let the heat start building up. She grabbed him beneath
his armpits again and dragged him inward and toward the back of the RV. When
his feet cleared the doorway, she set him down and closed the door.

She collapsed on the seat in front
of the dining table and rested. She was too exhausted and out of breath to cry
so she forced herself to think of what she needed to do next. Ten minutes later
she had him on the bed. She got a towel from the bathroom, folded it and put it
on his head,
then
she lay down next to him to rest for
a minute and wait for the warm air to reach them. She hurt everywhere.

Carl had difficulty seeing with the slushy rain frequently
smacking his face and sticking to the windshield. He couldn’t find a way to
turn the wipers on so he had to look out the side window or up over the
windshield, and every time he did that, he got more wet snow in his eyes. It
was really starting to piss him off. He pulled over at the first place he saw.

The row of diagonal parking spaces
in front of the Mile High Tavern was empty. Carl pulled into the space closest
to the door. It was a handicapped space, which Carl thought would never matter
again.

“Fuck a bunch of gimps,” he said as
he got out of the car, eager to get inside and out of the damned snowy rain and
wind.

He pulled the door open and stepped
into the dark interior that was weakly lit by two kerosene lanterns. A small,
half-bald, skinny man with no chin was standing behind the bar taking money out
of the cash register. He looked up at Carl and froze.

Carl looked at him then quickly
moved his eyes left and right, checking to see if there was anyone else inside.
There wasn’t.

“We’re… we’re closed!” the man
stammered, blinking at Carl and not moving. He looked like a mannequin with
cash in his trembling hands. He looked to Carl like someone he’d seen on Get
Smart.
Talked like the guy too – sounded like a girl.

“You need to start a damned fire in
this place. It’s freezing in here.” Carl didn’t care if the place was closed
for business or not. No one was going to give him orders unless they were
backed up by the barrel of a gun. He walked up to the bar and sat down on a
stool.

“I need a beer and I need it now.
A tall draft.”

The man behind the bar unfroze. He
put the money he was holding in his pants pocket and looked around. He saw the
draft beer spigots and then looked behind him and saw rows of glasses on the
counter.

“You ain’t even a bartender, are
you?”

“I’m… I’m the owner,” the man
lied
, his weird voice pitched high with fear.

“Bullshit. Give me a fucking beer
before I come back there and rip your head off.”

The man swallowed and plucked a
glass from the counter with shaking hands.

“I said, tall!” Carl bellowed.

The man saw his error and put the
short glass down and grabbed a larger one. He walked over to the spigots and
eyed the several handles with various names and logos. He looked at Carl, his
eyes wide with fear and uncertainty.

“Give me a
Hef
,”
Carl said.

The man looked again at the taps
and saw one that said
Hefeweizen
and put the glass
under the spigot and pulled the tap down. As the glass filled, foam rose
rapidly to the top. When the foam threatened to overflow, he released the tap
and brought the beer over to Carl. He set it down on the bar in front of him,
sloshing foam and beer onto Carl’s hand.

Carl backhanded the man, which spun
him around. He grabbed hold of the counter behind him to keep from falling,
knocking over a few glasses which fell to the floor and bounced on the grimy
rubber mat.

“Are you a fucking retard?” Carl
growled at him.

Carl saw a dirty bar towel folded
into a neat rectangle sitting next to a Zippo lighter beside the cash register.
He picked up the towel, shook it out and wiped the foam off his hand, then used
it to dry his face. It smelled like old beer poured into an ashtray.

The man behind the bar was staring
at him, waiting to see what he would to do next. Carl threw the towel at his
face. The man jerked, startled, and caught the towel as it fell.

Carl got up and walked around the
bar. The man started walking backwards, certain that Carl was going to assault
him. But Carl grabbed a tall glass and went to the taps and poured himself a
proper beer. Then he went back around to sit down on his stool.

“Now get me some Marlboros from the
vending machine,” he said as he sat down.

The man quickly went to the
register and grabbed all of the quarters, then rushed over to the vending
machine on the far side of the bar below a sign that read Restrooms with an
arrow pointing down a short, dark hall.

He saw that the machine took dollar
bills so he put the quarters in his pocket and pulled out the cash he had taken
and tried to insert a dollar bill, but the machine wouldn’t pull it in like it
was supposed to.

“There ain’t no ‘
lectricity
, you
dumbfuck
.”

“But, you’re the one who said to
use the vending machine,” the man countered.

Carl got up and started walking
toward him. The man raised his hands in front of his face and blinked rapidly.
Carl turned to the right, ignoring him, heading down the dark hall. He found a
locked door, stepped back a bit,
then
kicked at it
with the heel of his boot, aiming to the left of the doorknob. The thin door
busted easily and flew inward. He disappeared through the doorway, then
reappeared a minute later carrying a carton of cigarettes.

“Sometimes you gotta use your
brain,” he said, passing the man who was still cowering next to the vending
machine.

Carl sat down, ripped open the
carton, removed a pack,
unwrapped
it and lit a
cigarette with the Zippo lighter. He took a long drink of his beer and sighed,
finally able to relax and enjoy himself. He was still in a really bad mood
though and would’ve liked to have some music but he knew that wasn’t going to
happen.

He looked at his dim reflection in
the flickering light from the lanterns in the dingy mirror behind the bar. His
face was swollen and bruised with two black eyes and his hair was wet and wild
from having driven in the convertible. He looked like some kind of monster. He
liked it. He could see why the little man was so scared of him.

“Hey you!
What’s your name?”

“Jeffrey,” the man immediately
replied. “Jeffrey
Cordigan
.”

“I’m Carl. Why don’t you look
behind the bar for something to snack on and get yourself a beer and be civil?”

Jeffrey went behind the bar and
found a bag of peanuts. He set them down on the bar and grabbed a small glass,
then traded it for a tall glass like Carl’s and poured himself a beer. He
tilted the glass the way he’d seen Carl do it but still ended up with a glass
half full of foam. He came around the bar and took a stool a few seats away
from Carl and sucked the foam off the top of his beer.

“Nice to meet
you, Carl.”

Carl looked at him,
squinting
his eyes and shaking his head. “I know you came
here for the cash. But did you see a gun behind the bar?
Maybe
a shotgun?”

“No. But there’s a bat.”

Carl poured peanuts onto the bar
and began cracking them open and dropping the shells on the ground, alternately
popping peanuts in his mouth and taking large swigs of his beer.

“
Whaddaya
think
yer
gonna do with the money?”

The man looked around nervously. He
wasn’t comfortable with a casual discussion of his thievery. “I… I don’t know
yet.”

“You did see the bomb, right?”

Jeffrey nodded vigorously.

“Obviously, that’s why you came
here.  You know there ain’t
no
law to stop you.”

More nodding from
Jeffrey.

“You don’t need money. The ‘
conomy
just took a big dump. Might
makes
right from now on. What you need is a gun.”

“You know, Abraham Lincoln said,
‘Let us have faith that right makes might,’ and I think that he—“

“I wasn’t kidding about the fire.”

“What?”

“Start a damn fire in the
fireplace. I can see my fuckin’ breath in here.”