Cataclysmic Evolution - 3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

“I found three kids in a treehouse today. The stink was awful, even from the ground.” William dropped onto the cot beside Creed. He rubbed the back of his neck, then winced. The skin was already pink, and rapidly turning red. “How did we get used to this shit so fast?”

“Necessity.”

That word was beginning to have an evil overtone to Barron. They should all be living it up, planning a graduation party to end all parties… instead they were searching houses for dead people.

“That why you got burned?” Creed picked at peeling skin on the back of his hands. He was sitting on his cot, next to Barron’s.

“Yeah.”

Barron got up and went to the locker room. He wet a washcloth and twisted out most of the water. It dripped on the gym floor as he headed back to the cots. Coach would’ve had a fit… before. “Here.” He wrung out the last of the chilled water on the reddened skin, and then draped the folded rectangle across William’s neck.

“Ooh.” William hunched his shoulders and shivered. “It took less than three minutes out in the sun. I mean, the treehouse wasn’t up very high.”

“That’s why we have the covers over our hats. Keep it on from now on.” Barron sank down on his cot. He lay flat, propping his head up on his arms. There were windows near the roof, covered with mesh to keep them from breaking. Even with the windows, the light in the gym was dim.

The backup power grids were spotty, and the light of the sun didn’t penetrate the dirty brown clouds blocking the sky, even at noon. The UV rays did, though, and too many people had been burned before they realized the problem. Barron had spent the second half of the week lying on his stomach to avoid the pain of a burn he got through his T-shirt.

It took forever for him to find a comfortable position on his back that didn’t irritate the sensitive skin still healing from his exposure. Barron had never had such a bad burn before, and he hoped to never have one again.

William shook his head. “I couldn’t keep it on and get up in the treehouse. I had to check.”

He’d ask why, but he already knew the answer. Barron closed his eyes. Anyone not in a thick concrete basement or building, far from windows, had died. Most within hours. They were the lucky ones. The ones who weren’t lucky raved wildly, screaming in pain, before they collapsed.

Most of the folks dying like that were already gone. Finding the decomposing bodies, bloated and reeking in the late spring heat, wasn’t any better.

But what else were they going to do? No one wanted to assume and miss a survivor. They had to check anywhere a person might have been.

They’d cleared the cars first. Coach found Barron’s mom in hers near the bulk goods store. His dad had died where he spent much of his life—in his office.

Mr. Hodge had organized pallets for his class and any other kids found alive. There were just a few. Not nearly enough had made it, outside the senior class members out of town on their field trip. The first night Barron went home despite Mr. Hodge urging him to stay. He needed time to himself, to come to terms with the fact that he’d lost his parents in one day.

No more micromanagement. No more demands to shape up or else. No more hugs and no more knowledge that, for all their faults, his parents wanted the best for him. The silence in the big house was enough to drive him crazy. He’d retreated to his room when the sun went down. He lit a camping lantern they’d had in the garage and huddled under his favorite blue quilt.

The silence was too complete. No fan whirring from the computer. No TV. No cars humming past on the road. It was that quiet, coupled with the stress of wondering if whatever it was that killed everyone would come back when he was all alone, that drove Barron out of his bed.

He packed a backpack and kept it in his gym locker. Clothes, a few pictures, his favorite Brogherd novel—the author’s first, a signed edition Barron kept under his bed—plus all the cash his father had tucked in the family safe filled the pockets. He already had his parents’ wedding rings, but he’d grabbed his grandparents’ rings as well.

Then he’d walked back to the school. The darkness was absolute, all the streetlights out. His lantern only lit up a small circle around him, but he’d made it. William and Creed were already set up in cots next to each other. William’s brother Harvey slept at the station in case someone needed help, but he wanted William to stay at the school. Thavin still had his older sister; he was staying at her apartment by the community college at night to protect her. During the day, they all searched. It was that or sit in the gym doing nothing and helping no one.

Without any answers.

With the grid completely wiped out, there was no news over the television or radio. Mr. Hodge led their small group, watching over his kids, as he called them. He made sure they got food, and he chivvied all the boys into taking a shower—even though the water was cold. It was better than living with the stink.

After the first day of moving dead bodies, no one had argued about showering.

“Hey”—William kicked the leg on his cot—“I heard you found a kid.”

Barron closed his eyes. The little girl’s mom must not have been inside when whatever it was hit. She’d made it back in, but sometime after that she died on the floor of the bathroom. Marya had been on the counter when he came in, rummaging in the cupboard for another box of cereal.

She shrieked when she first saw him, screaming about strangers. She’d chucked a dirty cup at him, and he’d had to dodge the plastic missile. It’d been hell to get her to trust him enough to come down off the counter, but once she did…

Her little pink backpack had smacked against his back as he walked her to the school. He’d packed her some clothes, then grabbed a picture of her and her mom and a fuzzy unicorn blanket to cover her while he got her out of there before a reclamation crew came back. She’d insisted on carrying a lop-eared stuffed bunny clenched in one arm. The blanket had to be over them both, and the extra layer killed Barron in the late evening heat, but it kept her safe.

Her other arm clung to the back of his shirt as he hustled them both to the school and out of danger from the sun.

“Yeah, I did.”

“That’s it, that’s all you have to say?”

Barron sighed. “Her name is Marya. She’s three, I think.” She never shut up. He kinda liked that about her. It was like white noise to cover up the silence he’d grown to hate. All he had to do was say uh huh, then smile, and she beamed. Eventually, she conked out with the other preschooler staying in the kindergarten room.

“You going back out this afternoon?” Creed asked.

“Of course.” First he needed a nap. Barron could sleep with the noise of the other people in the gym. The footsteps, squeaking shoes, and creaks of the cheap cots lulled him to sleep. He only woke up twice from the nightmares.

After the second, a real doozy of a mind trip as William called them, Barron sat up. Thavin lifted his head off his pillow, blinking sleepily. “You okay?” He’d arrived sometime while Barron slept.

“Fine.”

They didn’t ask each other about the dreams themselves anymore. They all knew what horrors they held. Barron sighed. He’d watched far too many zombie movies before… whatever had happened. The uncertainty of what exactly went wrong ate at him. It always seemed like everyone knew what went wrong when the world was coming to an end in movies, but they didn’t know shit.

In Barron’s dreams, the people he found were trying to eat him. Getting back to sleep after the corpse of Marya’s mom latched on to his ankle, trying to get to the little girl he held in his arms, had felt so real. He didn’t get any more sleep before it was time to go back out. He grabbed a sandwich, just some peanut butter slapped between two slices of limp bread, and a bottle of water for his backpack. He checked his map. His assigned section was highlighted in red, and it was filled with far too many little x marks.

It was still hot outside. The cloth hanging on his hat helped cover his face and neck from damage. That, along with the UV fishing shirts and gloves, kept him safe from being burned again as he walked house to house looking for survivors and marking the location of bodies on his map. His sunglasses were the kind that wrapped around, but they didn’t keep the sweat from dripping into his eyes and making them sting.

He was exhausted by the end of his second shift, dragging his feet as he walked back to the school along Main Street. He’d nearly finished his latest quadrant, but it took him out to the edge of town. Walking took so much longer than driving; he’d never spent so long on his feet. All he had time to do was look for survivors, eat, and sleep. He barely had the energy to talk to his friends. After just a week, it felt like this new reality had been going on forever, with no end in sight.

When he got back to the school, the parking lot was lit up. Not by the streetlights, but from the headlights of cars. Camouflage Humvees filled three spots next to the gym entrance and a large truck was alongside the short wall around the corner. Barron hurried inside to check in with Mr. Hodge and Harvey. He’d finished his quadrant and needed a new one. When he made it to the coach’s office, two guys in green fatigues stood outside the door.

“You can’t go in, son,” one said when Barron approached.

“I have to check in,” Barron protested. He crossed his arms over his chest.

The other soldier produced a slip of paper and a pencil. “I have a list of volunteers here. Name?”

“Barron Pernell.”

“Got you.” The soldier ticked off a mark next to his name. “Your teacher said for all you boys to clean up and hit your racks.”

Did Mr. Hodge really expect them to just ignore the soldier’s appearance? They were supposed to shower and sleep, like the prospect of some explanation for the deaths all around them didn’t haunt them all?

Barron sneered. “Whatever.” He knew he wouldn’t get anything out of the two guys standing outside the door, anyway.

The other kids staying in the gym were huddled in small clusters throughout the room. Sweat trickled down Barron’s back as he peeled off his UV layers and hung them up, along with the ridiculous head covering that made him feel like he was a woman from the Middle East.

“Barron!” Thavin came bounding over with Creed and William behind him. “Did you see them?”

“The soldiers?” Barron flapped his shirt, trying to get some air moving, to dry the sweat dripping down his spine.

“Well, duh.” William rolled his eyes.

His friends had changed, they all had, but some things stayed the same. William still liked his weird old sayings. Barron shook his head at the goofy teen, but he smiled too. “Yeah, I saw them.”

“Do you think they know what caused all this?”

“Probably. There’s that big base about four hours west of here, remember? They probably had all sorts of equipment monitoring, just in case. Not like they’re going to come running to tell us, though. We’re just kids.”

Creed was quieter than usual. “Do you guys still think this was a bomb?”

Barron raised an eyebrow. “What else could it have been?”

“Actually, a lot.” Thavin rubbed his hands together. “I’ve been looking some stuff up, at night. The doors to the college historical library don’t lock, with the school shut down and all, so I’ve been sneaking books out for research. It takes forever doing things the old way. Creed and I were talking about how this sickness spread, and how the power went out right when it first started.”

“So, what was it?” William asked.

“I don’t know. No, really, I don’t,” he said when William scoffed. “But I do know I can’t find a single description of any bomb or chemical weapon that could kill people like this, yet be completely harmless in hours.”

“Plus the sky.” Creed looked up, like he could see the murky atmosphere through the ceiling. “That’s not normal.” The blue sky and puffy white clouds they’d stood under before they went to the Doestrin caves were gone, replaced by a brown layer blanketing the sky as far as they could see.

“You’re right. A bomb doesn’t fit.” Barron fought off a yawn, but it won. It was so big, and so long, that his eyes watered. “But you don’t have any answers. I don’t have any answers. We’re certainly not getting any out of them”—he pointed over his shoulder with one thumb—“until they’re damn good and ready to tell us. I’m gonna go shower.”

Maybe getting cleaned up and crashing on his cot wouldn’t be quite so difficult after all. Barron could barely keep his eyes open. He braced himself with one hand on the cold tiles, letting the water beat down on his head. It didn’t help.

After a few seconds, the water began to feel like icy needles on his skin, so he rinsed and got out. At least his dad’s insistence that he keep his hair short had been good for something. Three minutes in and out was all it took to finish cleaning off the dust and sweat from another long day tagging bodies.

Tomorrow they’d finish checking the town, and then they’d haul more bodies and dig more graves. The survivors had all looked for their families first, along with the victims who’d fallen in public. That day had been horrific, for all of them. A strange numbness fell over him when he looked for bodies, but another day like that… He tried not to think about it.

That didn’t stop the dreams. This time his friends threw Barron into a grave. He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, as his body slumped limp over his parents’ rotting corpses. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t beg them to stop like he desperately needed, no matter how hard he tried. Then they began to cover him with dirt. It fell into his open mouth, clogging his throat, and he couldn’t get it out.

“Shit!” Barron’s shout was garbled. He spit out the corner of his sweat-soaked pillow, pushing it off the cot onto the floor. He flipped over in his cot and swiped one arm over his damp face. It wasn’t tears. His parents were already buried, and his friends would never do that to him. Concentrating on the small sounds of the teens sleeping all round him, Barron did his best to slow his breathing.

He’d give anything to shut his brain off. His whole body ached for rest, but his mind wouldn’t let him. Everyone else was in the same boat. How long would it be until one of them snapped?

The black depths of the night were slow to fade. Desperate for a distraction, Barron got up and began to roam the school. The brick building was laid out like a square with a courtyard in the center. With the sun still below the horizon, Barron could safely go outside in his shorts and tank top.

Barron picked a wilting rose off one of the bushes beside the double doors to the cafeteria. Dew coated the picnic tables and benches. He sat down anyway, shivering at the contrast of the cool droplets against his sweaty skin. He slumped against the table, propping his cheek against one fist.

He shook the flower, top down, over the table. Drying petals flew all over. A few stubborn central petals clung to the bud, but he plucked them off, just tore them away from the stem until nothing was left of the red rose but a pile of pieces.

“What are you doing out here?” a man barked. “Identify yourself.”

Barron jumped. He smacked against the leg under the picnic table and grunted. His knee throbbed. He was probably going to have a pretty bruise; he’d managed to find the end of the screw.

“Fuck that hurts. What’s your problem?” Barron spun sideways on the bench. He glared at the soldier behind him.

“Why are you out here?” the soldier asked again. He fingered his rifle but didn’t point it at Barron. That was probably something of a minor miracle; the guy looked barely older than Barron himself, and he was definitely spooked.

“I couldn’t sleep.” Barron bit the words out, still rubbing his knee. No way would he tell the guy why he couldn’t sleep. “In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t a military base. I live here. I woke up early, so I decided to come out here so I wouldn’t wake anyone up. Now go away.” He turned his back on the soldier, expecting him to leave.

“We all get them.” The gun made a solid thunk as he set it down on top of the picnic table near the pile of ruined flower parts. “Bad dreams.”

Barron snorted. “What do you know about it?”

“Plenty. I was about to ship out after basic training. Got a unit and everything. Some of the guys had seen action before, and they had nightmares. One guy told me it was a burden we bore to protect our people.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not a soldier.”

The soldier dropped one hand on Barron’s shoulder. “You might not wear a military uniform, but you’re protecting your people just the same.”