My knees popped as I rose to my feet. My joints were screaming, unused to the exertion I’d just put them through with the barrels. I cupped my hands over my mouth, shouting over the thunder and the drum of the raindrops pounding the leaves.
“I said that I think we should—”
Another blast of thunder boomed over the mountains, closer now. Hidden beneath it, I imagined I heard a muffled thump coming from inside the tool shed.
I hobbled over to Carl and said, “I reckon we should get inside. We’re gonna get pneumonia if we stay out here much longer.”
“I suppose you’re right. I’m soaked clean through to my skivvies.”
We slogged back to the house and got out of our wet clothes. I hung them up to dry, lent Carl some clean drawers and a pair of pants and a shirt, then fixed us each a cup of coffee. We sat in the living room, making small talk and letting the hot mugs warm our cold hands. Carl, still the master of stating the obvious, confirmed that it was indeed some weird weather we’d been having. The weather had always been one of his favorite topics, so I figured he was really in his element now.
He rubbed his arthritic knees and winced. “Boy, I hate being old.”
“Me too. You ever look at a photo of your younger self and wonder where he went to?”
“Shoot,” Carl snorted. “These days, I’m lucky if I can remember him at all.”
I rubbed my sore biceps. “Picking those barrels up wore me out. I don’t know what I’d have done if you weren’t here to help.”
Carl nodded. “I’m pretty tuckered out myself.”
“The coffee will wake you up. It’s strong stuff. You could strip paint with it.”
He glanced down at the coffee table, where my crossword puzzle book and a pencil were lying.
“Doing one of your crosswords, are you?”
“Yep. But I’m stuck. I don’t suppose you’d know a three-letter word for peccadillo?”
“Peccadillo—isn’t that the name of that young fella who wrote those Westerns? The ones with the pregnant gunslinger and the escaped slave and all that?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Oh. Well, then I’m stumped. Never much cared for those books either, to tell you the truth.”
He droned on while I wondered why God had seen fit to make Carl and myself the only survivors. I was dying for some good conversation, craving it almost as bad as the nicotine.
“So, have you heard from or seen anybody else?” I asked.
“Nope. No one. Punkin’ Center’s like a ghost town. I did hear an airplane about a week ago, though. Sounded like one of those little twin-engine jobs. I ran outside to have a look, but I couldn’t see anything by then, on account of the cloud cover. And one day, when the fog lifted for a bit, I spotted a helium balloon. I waved my arms and tried to get their attention, but it was a long way off. I don’t reckon they saw me.”
I blew on my coffee to cool it, and then drained the mug in one swallow. “Well, at least that means there’s still folks alive somewhere.”
“There’s got to be,” he agreed. “I stopped by Lloyd Hanson’s place a while back, because his dairy cows were mooing up a storm. He wasn’t there.”
I thought about the missing livestock I’d noticed. “But the cows were?”
“Not all of them. I reckon a bunch of the herd wandered off somewhere. But the ones inside the barn…it was awful, Teddy. Their udders had swollen up and busted since nobody was around to milk them. Most of them were dead, of course, or dying.”
I shuddered. “I haven’t seen any animals other than some deer and a robin. The pastures have all been empty.”
“Maybe they got loose? I’m sure the ground is wet enough in some places that the fence posts probably fell over.”
“Could be.” But I wasn’t sure if I believed that. Images of the robin flashed through my mind. I considered telling Carl, but didn’t. I was afraid he’d tell me I really was crazy. Same reason folks don’t tell their friends when they see weird lights in the sky.
Carl sat his coffee mug down on a coaster. “There was a hole in the middle of the pasture. Another sinkhole, I imagine. Maybe his herd fell through that.”
“One cow, maybe. But the entire herd? They’re cows, Carl, not lemmings.”
“Those little penguins that jump off cliffs together? I don’t think we have those in West Virginia, do we?”
I fixed another cup of coffee and bit my tongue.
“How about you?” Carl asked. “Have you seen or talked to anybody since the evacuation?”
“No one. Like I said earlier, until today, I thought I was alone. Nobody has stopped by. I wonder if there’s any other folks left on the mountain?”
“I’ll bet crazy old Earl Harper’s alive,” Carl said. “Ain’t no way those National Guard boys got him to leave.”
I snickered. “I reckon so. He was liable to put up a fight if they asked him to.”
“Think we ought to go check on folks? Drop by some houses and see if anybody’s still around?”
I hesitated, remembering my ill-fated trip down the mountainside. It was dangerous for men our age to drive these back roads, especially when the roads were slick with rain, washed out in places, and covered with downed trees and loosened boulders.
“I don’t think it’s too smart for us to go gallivanting around with conditions the way they are. But I guess maybe we should at least look in on Earl. Make sure he’s okay. His shack ain’t that far away.”
Carl’s eyes grew wide. “I don’t want to go messing around the Harper place, Teddy. We say howdy to Earl, and that lunatic is likely to shoot us for trespassing.”
“He might, but we should still make an attempt. It’s the Christian thing to do. What if he’s sick and needs help, or what if he’s out of food? He could be lying out there with a busted leg or something. If it were us, we’d want somebody to show up and help.”
“But he ain’t us.”
“All the more reason to show him a kindness.”
Carl sighed heavily. “I’m telling you, Earl Harper’s liable to shoot first and thank us for our kindness later. But I guess you’re right. He is the closest after all. Him and the Simmonses.”
“Dave and Nancy?” I asked. “Surely they’re long gone by now.”
Carl nodded. “Yeah, they probably are. Didn’t look like no one was home when I drove by.”
“Well, let’s get this over with.” I pushed my chair back and stood up.
Carl’s eyes got big. “Now?”
“Yeah. We’ll check on Earl, then come back and eat supper.”
We finished up our coffee, shrugged back into our rain gear, and slogged back out to Carl’s truck. It coughed to life, shot blue smoke from the tail pipe, and rattled and rumbled the whole way out the lane. Carl had a cassette player in the truck, and we listened to Johnny Cash sing about Sunday morning coming down. I always liked that song, but now the lyrics took on a sinister new meaning.
“Damn wiper blades need changing,” Carl muttered, squinting through the rain-streaked windshield.
I nodded, lost in thought. Goose bumps ran along my arms and neck, both from the dampness in the air and the sound of the Man in Black’s low baritone grumbling out of the speakers. He’d always had that effect on me, especially after his death.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Carl said. “What you thinking about, Teddy?”
“Death,” I told him. “I’m thinking about dying.”
“Dying ain’t much of a living, boy,” Carl said.
After a moment, I realized that he was quoting Clint Eastwood in
“Maybe not, but that’s what’s on my mind.” I wiped condensation off the window with my sleeve.
“Well, that’s not very cheerful. Why do you want to be thinking about something like that?”
“Because when you’re our age, what else is there to think about? Especially now?”
Carl was quiet for a moment, his brow furrowed in thought. Then he smiled and said,
