Saliva had pooled into a little pocket between Jake’s gums and the remaining flap of cheek flesh. It spilled over as he leaned closer and leaked onto Hayden’s chest. “Don’t do this, Jake. You need me to survive. You need someone to look after him.”
“Yeah, I can’t do it on my own for much longer... But I’m not leaving him with you.” Jake pulled the rifle away from Hayden’s throat and struck the side of his head with the handle.
Chapter 11
Hayden woke up and discovered all hell had broken loose. One of the shelter doors was smashing up against the side of the hill, the other had been torn away from its hinges altogether. Dirt and straw were swirling around him in ferocious eddies, and he could see through the dust that the sky had turned a deadly shade of bruised purple and black. He called out for Nicholas, but the boy didn’t answer. The gas lantern was next to him, lying on its side, the glass cover broken into a hundred pieces. The wind had snuffed out the flames within, sparing Hayden a painful, burning end. He crawled to the opening and pulled himself up along the jagged remains of the door frame. He screamed the boy’s name again and pleaded for Jake to bring him back.
Green lightening forked down from the clouds, and thunder pounded into Hayden’s ears a second later. A sheet of sand whipped into his face and it wasn’t until Hayden went to wipe his eyes that he saw it was rain. It was burning his skin, irradiating him. They wouldn’t last long out in that, he thought. Even at his healthiest, Jake was no match for these new, perverted elements.
Nothing could survive in that. They’re dead already.
He stumbled out into it anyway. Where would they have gone, where do I start to look?
Something clomped up beside him. Trixie stuck her wet nose into the side of his neck and snorted her fear.
***
“You don’t have to be afraid. I’m here now, and everything’s going to be okay.”
Nicholas backed away further from the man that sounded like his dad. There wasn’t much room, and only one way to go, but he moved anyway.
Jake held his hand up in a gesture that said: I understand, you’re frightened, but don’t go any further. Crawling into the drainage pipe had only staved off the inevitable. If the burning rain didn’t kill them, suffocating in the four foot high, thirty foot long steel tube would. The wind had buried the far end in with rubble and soil, and the small opening they’d crawled through was acting like a reverse vacuum, sucking out all the breathable air left.
“I know. I screwed up... big time. We should’ve stayed in the shelter.”
Nicholas pressed up against the metal and pulled his knees into his chest. He muttered something, but Jake couldn’t hear it over the howl of the wind. Jake crawled towards him again. “What did you say, son?”
Nicholas cringed away from the raw-looking fingers. “I want my Mom! I don’t want to be here with you! You’re not my Dad!”
“I know I’ve changed... I know I don’t look like Dad, but you’ve got to trust me... it’s just the two of us now. Mom’s not coming back.” He rested his hand on Nicholas’s arm and felt the boy flinch away even further. “We’re going to get through this together.”
Nicholas screamed and dove under his arm. He scrambled for the opening, kicking his way forward against Jake’s ribs. Jake grabbed at one of his ankles, and the boy’s other foot kicked dirt up into his face. Dry grit stung into Jake’s eyes, and he let go.
Nicholas made it out of the drainage ditch and fled into an open field. Jake yelled after him, spitting dirt up from the back of his mouth, and blinking it out of his eyes. He climbed out from the pipe and watched his son run into the storm. Lightening forked throughout the clouds, and thunder shook the ground. Nicholas was a speck in the midst of it.
Jake started running after him, and the wind knocked him to all fours. He tried standing again, but the wind kept pushing at his back, as if the hand of an enraged God was forcing him to his knees. Jake fought back, he pushed harder, and the wind won. He collapsed forward into the dirt; his face pushed into grey soil. It isn’t just the wind, he thought. My legs are dead. All of me is done. Only his mind had the strength to fight back, and his mind was useless to him. He couldn’t will his son to return. All he could do was watch the small form shrink further away. “Come back,” he croaked. There was another flash of blinding green lightening, a boom of thunder rattled though his bones, and Nicholas was gone.
Jake rolled onto his back, resigned to the fact he would never see his son again. He would never see his wife again. His family, his world... all lost. He shouldn’t have fought it for so long. There had been dozens of opportunities to end his life before now. I could’ve let myself drown in that slough runoff. I could’ve let my body drop into the well. I could’ve stopped walking and starved to death... I could’ve just stopped.
The clouds above were a maelstrom—a gigantic swirling vortex so thick it looked almost liquid in formation, like a pot of melted grey plastic being stirred counter clockwise. Jake stared into the dull green eye of it, now directly above him. There was a moment of calm; the wind stopped howling in his ears, and the dust settled. It was a
