The Dark Roads (16 page)

Carvel, AB

April 24, 2021

3:31 AM  81*F

The bandage over Richie's left eye was bothering him as he walked. He kept reaching toward it, trying to pull it away from his dead eye, forgetting that he couldn't see out of it any longer. Once the realization struck him again, he'd leave the patch alone for a while.

He wondered how well he'd get along as a half-blind squatter. At least he'd chosen a shotgun as his weapon of choice. There wasn't a lot of need for precision shooting, or even aiming, when you were firing buckshot.

They were traveling again, walking down the road in a loose grouping. Richie had given watch duties to Amanda. She’d taken their new find, a wind up pocket watch they'd scavenged from a pawn shop, and kept up with it religiously. She'd even started sounding the hour, telling them how far they were from the light of day. It was helpful, but somewhat discomforting.

Richie's need for Vicodin hadn't diminished much, but his ingestion of the pills had. He had to make sure that the tools he had left could be used without too much chemical dulling.

He
had
taken to slathering the aloe gel all over his burns whenever they started chafing against his dressing. The relief of the cooling gel was close to what he'd felt from the Vicodin, but it did nothing for his lack of sight.

Elvis had already started keeping an eye out for one of those pirate eye patches with the skull and crossbones painted on. Buddy, always the smartass, had started calling him "One Eye" and pointing to his own crotch when it struck his fancy.

"You're a dick," he told Buddy after one of these displays.

"Yeah, but you actually look like one, now."

"Nothing like a couple of apocalyptic survivors walking down the road making dick jokes," Amanda chimed in, "Gives me real hope for the human race."

Elvis laughed for a long time over that one.

"Good humor never dies," Richie said, tugging at the bottom of his bandage, earning a slap on the hand from Amanda, "It just changes location."

"Amen to that my one-eyed friend."

"So, you know that you're going to have to try shooting soon," Amanda told Richie.

"Yeah," he admitted, "I know. We just need to be in a safe spot."

"When you find one of those," Buddy added, "You just tell me where."

"You don't want to take aim with the wrong side."

"I'll stay on his bad side," Elvis said, causing laughter that he didn't understand at first.

"Never in life, Elvis, could you be on my bad side," Richie said, helping him along.

"I meant the bad eye side," Elvis clarified.

"It's not a bad idea," Amanda said.

"Let's just burn that bridge when we get there. Amanda, what time is it?" Richie asked.

"Just past three-thirty."

"House up ahead," Richie said, "Want to stop for the night?"

"Is it on the right?" Buddy asked with a grin.

"You never told em' how you kept the one eye, Richie," Elvis said.

"They never asked," he replied, slapping Elvis on the shoulder.

"I'm asking now," Amanda said, "I've been wondering about that."

"Saw a pretty girl driving by and winked at her," Richie said.

"Can you see this?" Amanda asked, raising her middle finger just to the left of his face.

"Low blow, woman," Richie remarked as his friends laughed, "It was sweat. It got in my eye and I closed it. I must've turned my head too."

"Jesus," Buddy said, "No shit?"

Richie shook his head.
None at all
, he thought but did not say.

They each hoped for such luck. Pain, something they'd all grown accustomed to, had partially saved their friend. The need, the instinct, to avoid it had allowed a man one eye with which to see when, by all rights, he should've lost both. Pain could help a person to escape, warn them not to get too close, and save their lives as easily as such a thing could end it.

***

Richie stared at the thermometer with nothing but sheer amazement. They'd slept the day away, ate when they woke, and exited their shelter for the night. It was all very routine to them after eleven months on the road, but something had been different about the air on this night.

All of them had felt it, right away. It wasn't nearly as hot as it had been just before dawn, which was normal, but it also wasn't as hot as it had been twelve miles south of where they stood, where they'd started out on the night before.

The cycle was easy to keep track of. Two hours after sunset was the warmest time of the evening, starting the night in the most uncomfortable fashion possible. Half way through the small hours, say around one, things cooled down to the nicest part of the night. By four things started to heat up again, leading up to a killer sunrise.

Lately, the nights were starting out in the low eighties, dropping down as low as seventy-six, and finishing out just over eighty again. Tonight, however, was turning out to be different.

"What's it say?" Elvis asked.

"Seventy-two," Richie said as if whispering a prayer.

"It's really happening," Amanda said.

"It is," Richie replied, "It'll be hotter on the surface, but not by that much."

"Let's get moving, before we all lay down right here. Man, I haven't felt air like this in...," Buddy began, but couldn't finish.

"Yeah," Elvis said, hitching the straps of his backpack further up onto his shoulders, "Don't wanna catch cold."

Their steps were lighter, more energetic than they'd been before. The group of them headed northwest, barely noticing the way the road was starting to elevate. Their packs were lighter than they'd been, too.

Supplies had been growing thin, but if their calculations were right, everything they had would stretch for at least a month. It made sense that they should travel lighter. They'd be able to find everything they needed once they found a town in Alaska to settle into. That was what all of this had always been about. That was the
plan.

Richie thought of these things with growing unease. His mother had told him once that if he'd like to hear God laugh, he should tell him about his plans. The thought of it actually sent a chill down his spine.

He had to turn his head now to look left, and he did exactly that in order to catch a look at Elvis. The man had grown thinner than Richie thought was possible. He glanced back to the right, seeing Amanda and Buddy. Something was wrong. It was almost like autumn outside and they were close to what would be their new home.

Something's wrong with all of this, he thought, we're too happy.

And what kind of a thought was that? How could you be too happy when everything was going well?

This is the dream, again.

Richie stopped, dead in his tracks, and turned toward his friends.

Are they real?

"Are you real?" he asked them.

"Shit," Buddy said, sounding exasperated and worried at the same time, "It's happening again."

"We're real Richie. We're here with you," Amanda said.

This happened before. It's not the dream. It's your life.

Suddenly, the coach gun was in Richie's right hand and aimed low toward Buddy's feet. Richie didn't know how it had happened or why he continued holding the thing once the realization had hit him. He had no intention of shooting his friend, but his finger was wrapped around the trigger all the same.

"Buddy, tell me. Are you real?" Richie asked, his left hand moving to the left side of his face.

"Brother, I'm real. We've been through this before. You just have to think through it, man," Buddy explained with slightly raised hands, "Put that thing away and think."

We've been through this before? We've been through this before. We have? We're going through it right now.

"Is my hair short?" Amanda asked, walking to him slowly and taking the hand he'd been about to use on his face into both of hers.

"Yes," he answered, needing to touch his injured skin to see if it hurt. That was how you could tell when things were real. If it really hurt when he touched his face, that would mean that this wasn't a dream.

"If it was a dream, wouldn't you give me back my long hair?"

It was as if she'd slapped him in the face, causing the pain he needed and proving things to him. He actually saw her hair for a moment, long and thick and beautiful in its own way, but he
knew
he was just seeing that because she'd said it. This was all real. He wasn't in the dream again.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I just..."

"We know, man. It's been happening once in a while. In a few hours you'll probably forget it again."

"It's a side effect of the drugs, Richie. In a few days you won't need the antibiotics anymore and it'll stop."

"You're sure? That's what it is?"

"Yeah," Elvis said, "It started right after the pills. We tell you every time."

"Shit," Richie said, "It's like Alzheimer’s."

"Yeah," Buddy said, "But at least you get to meet new and interesting people all the time."

Elvis put an arm around Richie's shoulders, nonchalantly pressing downward on the shotgun's barrels so that Richie wouldn't aim it at anyone, and they all began to walk again.

***

"Antibiotics don't cause this kind of thing," Amanda whispered, looking at Buddy sternly, "They don't cause hallucinations."

"You don't know that. You're not a doctor and you don't know how all of this is affecting us."

"Maybe I'm not, but it's dangerous one way or the other," she said.

"He'll be done with them soon. We'll keep an eye on him to make sure he's fine."

"What if the burn did it? Have you thought about that?" Amanda asked, finally looking away from Buddy's eyes.

"It's the equivalent of getting like fifty sunburns in your
eye
, so I don't know, Amanda. What I do know is that my friend almost died and now he's alive. If he's a little fucked up because we had to play pharmacist, then he'll be fine soon. If he's fucked up for good, then we'll have to deal with it."

"But what if we need him and he locks up? Do you want to think about that? What if he gets Elvis killed? Or you?"

"He won't, Amanda," Buddy said, "What do you want to do, anyway? Leave him? We can't do that. I wouldn't do it and Elvis sure as hell wouldn't."

"No. I don't know what to do. I'm just scared of what could happen. Don't you get that?"

Buddy sucked in a deep breath. They were sitting on the top of the stairwell, just as he and Richie had done so many times, while the others slept.

He could hear Richie talking in his sleep. That was something new he'd picked up. It
was
scary to think that your best friend was losing his mind, but Buddy wasn't about to throw him to the wolves. He would help him through whatever this was. All of them would.

"You need to think about this," Amanda told him.

"You need to have a little loyalty. If it wasn't for that guy down there, you'd be long dead. All of us would."

She was silent, thinking that he was right. The problem came from the idea that he'd be fine in a few days. Richie was suffering delusions and a kind of short term memory loss that left him confused and afraid. He became self-destructive when these episodes hit, so much so that his burns were taking longer to heal than they should have. She hoped that things would change once they finished pumping him full of drugs, but, like Buddy had said, how could she know?

"I'm going to sleep. If you want to talk about this again, we do it
with
Richie. I'm not going behind his back again," Buddy said, taking the steps downward, "And if anybody gets left, it won't be Richie."

She watched as he disappeared into the shadow, angry with herself for being scared by that last comment. They wouldn't leave her to survive on her own. The man was just hurt and frightened for his friend. When she went down to sleep, she did no more than drift in and out for the rest of the day.

***

He could tell that he was in the dream, now. The sun was shining through his windows, a moat of dust particles floating lazily in a beam of light, and he was sitting in his favorite chair. He took a deep breath, relishing the safety of the sleeping world.

He closed his eyes, both of them intact and functional, and opened them a moment later to look around. His sink was full of dishes, not the ones that he'd actually had in his apartment, but a rag tag pile of mess kits that he knew were a transplant from the real world.

Benny was leaning back on one of his kitchen chairs, picking his teeth rudely with the tines of a fork. He was in the dirty ragged shorts he'd been wearing the last time Richie had seen him, but was otherwise clean and healthy. Richie watched him for a long time, grimacing at his manners, which had been awful even before the world fell apart.