Summer of the Apocalypse

his face ached. Hail turned to rain, pressing down the fires. It didn’t look like the flame had crossed the river anywhere, and Eric realized that if the conflagration had begun on the other side of the river, his house might have burned down. Dad would have had nowhere to hide. The close call made him shake even harder, and Leda said, “Are you all right?”

Eric unclenched his jaw, and found he could barely move his arms to put the sleeping bag down. He stuttered, “Ye…yes.”

She pushed their cover away and turned him toward her, holding his face in her hands. The sleeping bag rolled slowly down stream, and the rain became slushy, not hurting, but mushing against him sloppily.

“Your lips are blue,” she said. “Come on.”

“We’ve lost the packs,” he said. He searched the river surface for any sign of them.

“Doesn’t matter,” she replied as she guided him across the water. Eric tried to help, but his legs seemed far away and unresponsive. Every rock reached out and tripped him. He fell several times, once banging his elbow on the bottom, but that didn’t rouse him. He tried to make a joke of it as they staggered out of the river, but his words slurred and sounded unfamiliar in his own ears.

Although the wind had died somewhat, a breeze still fluttered a torn American flag hanging in front of the bank, and Eric found himself staring at it because it looked strange. At first he decided it was the sunset light through the storm clouds—he was dimly aware that Leda was still tugging on his arm, dragging him up Littleton Boulevard, and it annoyed him; the flag was interesting—but then he saw the snow. The flag looked peculiar because the sleet had turned to giant white flakes, spinning lightly down. He thought, In June. Who’d have thought it’d snow in June? It stuck in Leda’s dark hair. He reached up to pluck a flake out, but his fingers wouldn’t pinch together, and he bumped the back of her head. She said, “You’re frozen.” He thought her lips looked pretty blue too, and he didn’t want to say this, but he liked the way her blouse stuck to her. “We’ve got to get you warm,” she added. He tried to say, “I just need to rest,” but it came out, “I yusht nee to resht.” After what seemed like hours of Leda pulling, and Eric pausing to lean against light poles or mail boxes, he found himself in a front yard alone. Where’s she? he thought. Snow still fell thickly. He couldn’t see the grass at all. Rotating slowly, he looked for her. Their footsteps marking the snow showed where they’d come from. Soberly, he followed their path with his eyes until he reached his own feet. I’m here, he thought. I’m not lost. It’s her fault. He turned and tracked her steps to the house, a white bungalow with blue trim. On the door, someone had painted a blue goose with a “Welcome” sign on it. Her steps led to the front window, and it took him a moment to notice that it was broken in. Nearly all the glass was gone. The front door opened, and Leda hurried out. “It’s empty,” she said. “Furnace is off, but I found blankets.” Her teeth did chatter now, loudly. She led him up the step, through the living room, and into a bedroom. It was so dark inside he could barely see her. He started shaking again. She moved around the room, but he couldn’t tell what she was doing. She said, “We’ve got to get warm.” He could see the outline of the bed, and the urge to lay down moved him toward it. I’ll be better after some sleep, he thought. We’re in Littleton now, and Dad’s not far away.

“No,” Leda said. “You’re sopping wet.”

He felt her hands against his chest, holding him upright. Then she fumbled with the buttons. He could barely stand, the shivering was so hard, and he couldn’t tell what she was doing anymore. He was cold though. He knew that. Damn cold.

The room tilted. He tried to keep balance, but it was inevitable and irresistible, the bed rising up from the floor. I am, he thought, delirious, and that felt good, to let go, to let his guard drop. He could feel himself losing it.

And in his mind’s eye, fire haloed a two-story cedar house, a ring of light around a circle of dark. He could feel his dad’s hand on his shoulder. “Some things can’t be looked at straight on,” he said. Leda spoke from the darkness, her voice kind and low and subtle, full of breath. “Fifteen? You’re fifteen?” Then, from out of the eclipse, rose her face, and she smiled.

Chapter Seventeen FIRST TIME

There are so many of them,” Eric said as another pair of soldiers marched by their hiding place, a pile of wood and brick rubble, the sunken remains of a house next to an intersection. A bent street sign leaning over the cracked sidewalk said “College Ave.” The other sign said “Broadway.” He had an awful premonition of hundreds of men like the ones who had executed the prisoners in the canyon the day before, a whole army overrunning Highwater and Littleton. There’d be no way to hold them back.

“No,” whispered Teach. “I think this is all of them, but they’re surrounding the campus, so it seems like a lot.” The patrol turned onto a path cut through head-high sage that grew between the distinctive red-stoned architecture of the University of Colorado. The building to the right of the path looked like a shell, its doors gone, the glassless windows gaping darkly. The smaller building on the left looked better cared for. Its windows were boarded, and the doors were barred tight. A thinning of the bushes showed where the sidewalk led to the door. In town, the streets were relatively clear of vegetation, the normal grasses pushing through cracks, but sage and greasewood crowded what used to be suburban lawns. On the campus, the growth seemed even wilder. Tough, dark-barked branches pushed against the buildings, choking the spaces between them. Most city trees, of course, thought Eric, died long ago. Boulder, like Denver, had once been covered by beautiful trees, all gone now without constant watering. A thin, mechanical sound drifted to him from somewhere deeper in the campus. It was speech, but high and tinny and he couldn’t make out the words. Someone on a bullhorn, he decided. Eric peered over the top of the rubble. From here, the red brick of the C.U. campus stood out from the dusty green and gray brush. He’d seen little evidence of fire damage in Boulder, which surprised him. Fires swept through the prairies around Littleton every five or six years, and none of the thousands of wood frame houses still stood. Only the most solid of the brick homes and the steel and glass businesses remained relatively unscathed. But here, the city’s empty buildings rattled and clattered and creaked in the breeze, and downed power lines flapped against their lonesome poles. Boulder was a true ghost town. All the damage seemed to be caused by vandalism, wind, rain or the plain old weight of time. “You know what makes me feel better,” Eric said, “is that I haven’t seen anything motorized. They may have guns, but no trucks or tanks.”

Teach grunted. “We’re on foot too, you know.” He scanned the buildings across the street sourly. “The problem is all this brush. It’s so thick. I don’t see but one or two ways through, and if Federal’s got any sense at all, they’re guarded. How are we going to get to your library? And for that matter, the campus is so big. How are we going to find the kids?”

Eric swallowed his fear. Since they’d reached the Boulder city limits, it had been all he could do to resist calling out for Dodge and Rabbit. They were out there somewhere, among the deserted houses, stupidly moving toward whatever goal he’d planted in their brains. “We ought to wait a bit…” said Eric, “…to see their routine. If we can get into any of those,” He waved at the structures across Broadway. “We might be able to make the library. Besides, the best we can do to meet up with the kids is to go to the place they know we’re going to. Either they’re there already, or they will be soon.”

“Okay,” said Teach. “We wait. You watch.” He propped the water skin beneath his head, shut his eyes, and within seconds, seemed to sleep.

Eric crawled a few feet away from Teach to a low spot in the foundation they hid behind. He could see both stretches of the street and the paths between the closest buildings. Rabbit, he thought, Dodge, where are you? He imagined them held captive or shot outright. How could he live knowing he’d brought them to this danger? He should have sent them home when they joined him days ago. Nothing was gained by bringing them. He stared at the backs of his liver-spotted hands, turned them over, made fists of them, and the bony knuckles stood out from the near translucent skin. I’m an old man, he thought. I needed them to be young for me, and, he admitted, closing his eyes, I wanted to be a better grandfather to Dodge than I was a father to Troy. If Dodge could see the books, he’d know. If he could see all the learning man has piled up, he’d know what man is capable of. We don’t have to fall back to the beginning. We can rise again, but we have to do it with him and his generation. Another handful of years, and it will all be too late. The secret is in the books. We find out what is making Littleton sick, then we go on and rebuild. That’s what we’ll do.