Summer of the Apocalypse

everything.”

“Batteries,” said Eric. “We can’t make a battery.”

“Don’t you know it. It’s a problem of shelf life. Things just don’t last. If Mom had any sense, she’d have frozen a hundred car batteries while they were still good. We had a huge fight about it. She whacked me, she always whacks me, and said, ‘Hindsight is twenty-twenty. I’d like to see you do better.’ Well, I know now. You keep something perishable like that cold, then take it out later and it’ll be good as new. That’s where most of my electricity goes now, keeping the freezers and refrigerators going.” The hallway’s end door opened into a cavernous garage. The building was much larger than Eric had suspected. He guessed there might be over a hundred vehicles parked there: cars (all on blocks), trucks, tractors, boats, motorcycles and earth moving machines. Back in the shadows, far from the string of lights that ran through the middle of the garage, Eric saw the unmistakable outline of a tank, its gun pointing phallically up. The air smelled vaguely of oil and tires.

“For years,” said Phil, “Mom worked on converting gas engines to propane or natural gas, but she couldn’t get them to run reliably, and other people hoarded the fuel too.” Phil led him down a long flight of stairs. The air cooled perceptibly as they went deeper underground. Every twenty feet, a wire-encased light provided illumination.

“Your mother sounds like an extraordinary woman.” Phil laughed derisively. “She’s a fool.” He looked over his shoulder, suddenly fearful. “I didn’t mean that. I mean, it’s a joke. I love her, really.” Phil’s eyes rolled, and he clenched his jaw so tight Eric heard his teeth grind. Eric let Phil get farther ahead of him, and he decided the narrow stairwell felt too small and confining.

The stairs ended at a heavy metal door, like a bank door. Phil pulled on the wheel in its center.

“Welcome to the inner sanctum. The highest of the holies. I control the whole building from this room: light, heat, water and security. It’s Mom’s, really, but she lets me use it.” An old couch dominated the center of the room. Behind it, a long chest freezer buzzed loudly. A pile of clothes filled a hamper by the door, and a couple of dirty plates and empty glasses crowded a small TV table. Eric decided Phil spent a lot of time here. Like the television room where they had left Rabbit and Dodge, screens lined one wall. These screens were lit. One showed the path that connected the highway to Phil’s Place. Another showed the gully that cut across the highway. On two other screens were outdoor views Eric didn’t recognize. The rest seemed to be rooms or hallways in the building. On one, Rabbit and Dodge sat on the floor watching Star Wars. Phil touched a knob on a control panel and the image of Dodge swelled until his head in profile nearly filled the screen. Phil said, “Beautiful boy. A real heartbreaker.”

Eric warily said, “Thanks. He’s my grandson.”

Some video cameras were mounted on motorized swivels; the view on their screens scrolled from side to side. “I’ve got the entire building covered. Nothing goes on inside or out that I don’t know about.” He flicked a switch and all the screens changed to new views, most of them exteriors now. “I saw you folks coming an hour before you got here.”

Phil took a video tape out of a drawer and held it self-consciously. He said, “You mind me asking where you come from?”

Eric sat on an overstuffed couch with badly sprung springs. An unpleasant sweat odor puffed from the cushions. Phil must sleep here, he thought. “Not at all. Littleton.”

“Ah, I didn’t think of Littleton. You live by yourselves or in a community?” Eric thought Phil looked uncomfortable, like the questions meant more to him than they ought to, as if he was asking something personal or distasteful, but he didn’t seem as intense, as manic, as he did on the stairs. “About a thousand live there now. We farm the land west of the river.” Phil’s eyes glanced around the room. Eric felt that he was consciously avoiding looking at him. Eric said,

“Is there something special about Littleton?”

“No, no. It’s just… well… I didn’t think about trying south.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mom always says go north or east. I’ve been trading in Commerce City and Northglenn my whole life. I’d drive a jeep into town and swap tools for food and stuff. I didn’t know about a community to the south.” Phil wrapped his hands tightly around the video tape.

Eric could see Phil was disturbed. “You don’t trade there anymore? What’s the problem?” Phil stared into the video screens. His eyes glistened damply. “You and your boys are the first people I’ve seen in three years. Must have been four or five-hundred folks between the two towns. Last time I went, they were all gone.” He looked intently at Eric. “I haven’t seen a soul on that road for three years before I saw you today. I said to Mom, ‘Company’s coming,’ and I turned on the lights.” He paused to clear his throat. For a second, Eric thought

Phil might be on the verge of tears. “I’ve been afraid to go anywhere. I haven’t been fifty feet from home since the summer be-; fore last. People don’t just disappear, and, of course, there’s this.” He held out the video tape.

Phil pushed it into a VCR. “I run a continuous record on the outside cameras. Mom told me it’s better to be safe than sorry.” All the screens flickered, then showed the same scene, a patch of aspen and scrubby pine in the background, a stretch of dirt reaching to them. “This is the field behind the place here. It’s the back approach to the generator. Filmed this two days ago, but I’ve seen it before.” A breeze swayed the aspen branches. White letters at the bottom right corner of the screen read,

“6-04-56 4:14 p.m.”

“Watch close,” said Phil. He moved his face a foot from one of the TVs, giving his skin a spooky pallor.

“There…” He pointed. “See it?”

Back in the shadows, a white form drifted from left to right behind the aspen. Eric guessed it might be five or six feet tall, but darkness and the fuzzy picture prevented him from discovering anything more. The white form itself wasn’t particularly disturbing, but the situation felt so creepy: the tall, bald man frozen in front of the television like a gargoyle; the cool, close room deep underground. Eric said, “Is it a man?” Phil stroked the screen as if trying to feel the image. He said quietly, to himself, “No tracks. I ran out when I saw it. Mom said to stay inside, but I ran after it. Three years, you know, is a long time. I ran out but it was gone.”

A figure dashed into the middle of the picture. The time read, “4:16 p.m.” It was Phil. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. The camera showed a roll of fat and a soft mid-section. He glanced quickly left and right, as if hunting for a scent, then ran into the trees. The white form had moved off screen. Phil turned off the VCR. Now all the screens showed the closeup of Dodge watching the movie. Phil stared at him. “A man needs companionship. We weren’t meant to be alone. But I don’t think what I’ve recorded is human anymore.”

“What do you think it is?”

“I saw ’em first the summer Northglenn and Commerce City were deserted. I thought they left because of me—you know—like I did something to upset them. There was some trouble.” Looking down, he sat on the edge of the freezer. “They thought I’d kidnapped a kid, but I didn’t. The boy wanted to be here.” Phil stretched and leaned back until his head rested on the wall. Eric had to turn to see him. Phil said, “I lost him too. He left the same summer.”

Confused, Eric said, “I don’t get it. What’s the shape in the video? Why does it frighten you?” Phil slid off the freezer, put his hands on the back of the couch and whispered, “Millions of people died. Mom told me about it. I remember we went into a storehouse once—she thought it might have car parts in it. I didn’t want to go. Old building, windows boarded, filled with crates. But she whacked me and told me to go in, so I did. Took a crowbar to this crate, must have been eight feet tall, and I popped the side off.” Phil breathed deeply, shakily. “Filled to the top with clothes and bones. For a second they stayed packed in the crate; then they slid out around me. Bones up to my knees. I tried to run, but…” He wiped his lips. “…something grabbed my ankle. Something in that pile of corpses wasn’t dead.” Eric thought about all the bones he’d seen in the last fifty-five years, bones in cars, in broken down and rotted beds, in dumpsters, under overpasses. In the end, no one was around to pick them up. “People died. Their bones don’t mean anything. You must have panicked.”

“That’s what Mom said. She laughed, called me a scaredy-cat, but, I tell you, something is out there now. It’s ghosts. They’ve been searching and searching and now they’ve found me. This place, my mother’s temple, is all stolen stuff, stolen from those people.”

“Why don’t you leave?”

Phil shook his head and laughed. He took a couple of deep breaths, composing himself. “It’s Mom. I can’t leave Mom.” He patted the freezer.

“She’s in the freezer? She’s dead?” Eric stood and backed away.