Black Box 86ed (29 page)

“O you don’t want to do that.”

“We’re just gona have to see about that.”

“Ok,” we take our places at an imaginary starting line.

“On your mark get set!”

Putting out my foot
I trip her causing her to buckle into the waterless water fountain as I sprint to the hole in the pet hospital wall. A barge of laugher stifled by a sting of cavorted fuck
yous and cheaters follows. Laughing as I reach the opposite wall, her not forty yards away walking towards
me.
Suddenly a noise. We hear it both at once, not just hearing it but feeling it in our
most gut wrenching parts. A bomb
,
a missile whatever you call it. We only had a second to digest what was happening
as I try
to run back to her

“Hurry
!” I scream as it hits sending me flying back into the pet hospital.

CHAPTER…

I land on my back dazed, in almost another world. A soft ringing fills my ears. Time seems to have stopped as I gather what has just happened. I stare. I stare at a hazy moon peeking through the shattered roof, trying as hard as I can to remember what I should be doing right now. How do you start a 401 k again? I ask
myself as blood trickles from God knows where. I feel its warmth soaking my hair. 401k? Is that right? No it’s something…
else. Something… important. Something I need to do right now. Sparks fly in and out of sight as they slowly swirl around me. Like fireflies, their light beaming then softly and silently burning out as they mix betwee
n the stars. I watch as one slowly floats
to me. Its light growing brighter as is finally rests on the tip of my nose, what little energy it has transferred to me with just a tiny little prick. I feel my thoughts slowly falling back to me, as I begin to observe my surroundings. Where did that fire come from? Why is there a hole in the ground, and who issssss……? I stare. I stare at the sun now. My sun. My lovely yet slowly fading sun lying on the ground not a person in sight asking her how her day was, if she wants to meet up after work, or what she’s doing this weekend. Wait, wait, what the hell am I thinking. My head starts to clear. Staggering to my feet and as fast as I can I shuffle my way to her. I feel it now, Panic slowly moving throughout my entire body. Please be ok please be ok. 25 yards, my eyes fill with tears as I’m finally completely brought back to r
eality. twenty yards, fifteen yards, O God
I see the blood. O no o no O G
od no! Please don’t let this happen. Please let her be ok, ten
yards I trip and fall, and catch myself. I cra
wl to her. Sobbing looking to Grace, now just a blur in my vision. Five yards

“GRACE, GRACE!” I scream. Making it to her, rolling her on her back. The life in her dark blue eyes near gone and fading.

“It’s ok Grace, I have you.”

A shallow struggling breathe
her only response as I brush away her blood drench hair from her face.

“It’s ok, everything will be ok!
Help somebody please help. She needs a doctor!” I cry out but no response. Not even the god dam army. She shakes ever so softly in my arms, almost unnoticeable but I feel it, I’ll always feel it. “I love you, I’ve always loved you.” I tell her tears streaming down my cheek onto hers.
“For years I’ve thought about you every day. I would wake up to you I would fall asleep to you, I dreamed of you.”
Her eyes fixed on mine as I poor myself into them. Her breathing shallows, barely enough for a whisper. She’s almost gone. I can feel it. What do I do, wha
t can I do? I pull her head to mine my lips near her ear. Holding her gently rocking back and forth, the struggles of her chest against mine.
“
Please don’t go Grace, please stay.
Even if it’s just a minute longer please, do it for me.”
Her eyes flutter for no more than a second as her breath stops completely. “No, no don’t do this. Please, please come back, grace!” “Don't go, don't leave me.”

“William, WILLIAM!” I hear Roger screaming, he sounds as if miles away. I continue to clutch Graces slender frame hoping this could all just go away. That I could just take her back home, and lay her in her bed. She would just sleep it off. She would wake up tomorrow her makeup softly faded smiling at me. “William!”
I hear Rogers’s footsteps runni
ng towards me. “We need to go now!” His hands on my shoulders shaking me. I ignore him. I can't leave now. Not when she needs me, not if this is the last time I have her, I can't just go. Another explosion, this time hitting the building we were hiding in not two minutes ago. Ash and bits of rubble cascade around us. Roger leans down wrapping his arms around my chest and starts dragging me towards the hospital. I hold on to G
race, as we are both dragged. Roger trips, we come to a stop.

“I'm sorry, I’m so sorry G
race,” I tell her running my hands through her bangs so I can see her face, one last time. “It's all my fault I could have.... I should have saved you.” Her eyes staring distantly, lifeless, her face expressionless.

Roger steps over straddling her in from of me. “I’m so sorry for this but we have to go right now, we will both die out here if you do not pull yourself together.” He slaps me shockingly hard.

My eyes rise to meet his overwhelmed by fear. “Ok,” I whisper.

“Ok,” he replies grabbing my arm he slings it over his shoulder pulling me to my feet. Grace slides off my legs onto the ground as we turn away towards the pet hospital.

CHAPTER…

My arm over his shoulder, huffing
as he drags me into the vet clinic, the roof almost completely gone. We stop about halfway through what use to be the lobby.

“Are you hurt?” I shake my head. “Ok then Will, I need you to walk I can’t do this, you need to snap out of this, I can’t carry you all the way to the lake.”

Looking down, I see my shoes covered in blood and grime. I kick a dog toy, sending it squeaking
as it bounces away. “Which way do we go?” I ask.

“You just have to follow me, it’s only a couple blocks away.” Jets soar over head their engines shaking what’s left of the building. Dust from the ceiling settles on my head and shoulders.
I look back to the courtyard G
race’s silhouette darkening as the fire from the explosion starts to die. Motionless, her eyes perpetually staring… Starring at the sky. She’ll see every shooting star, every sign I had pleaded for God to give me. For him to just show me he cares,
that he is listening and to show me that everything will work out in the end. The signs I’ve asked for, now forever raining over the only conceivable answer I’ve ever gotten. God’s own fucked sense of humor.

Putting his hand on my shoulder I turn back to Roger. “Listen a
ll you have to do is follow me.
Just stay behind me, and everything will be ok.” Placing his hands on the sides of my head making me look at him. “We can still do this Will, we can still
make it out of here.
We have ten
minutes to make it to the dock?.
We have to keep moving.”

I nod in reply.

“Ok now stay up with me.” He turns to a gaping hole in the wall leading to the next block. The desolate streets aligned with destroyed homes and the bodies of militia taken before they were even able to fight. Sea gulls caw over the sound of distant gunfire. “We’re really close now.”
Roger says as he pulls out his flashlight, the light stutters as he bangs it against his palm. “You see that bus right there?”

Nodding I look to a burnt out school bus listing to one side.

“We are going to run to it, then stick close to the left side of the street there’s a lot of trees down that side so th
e drones probably won’t see us.
They know we’re here but if we even just have the littlest bit of luck we are going to make it.” He draws h
is gun, “on the count of three.
One, two, three,” he takes off.

I quickly fall behind but am able to stay close enough.

He slides under the bus. “Come on!” He screams. I crouch down next to him. “I need you right next to me Will, the less they can
see us the more chance we have.
Now that awning right there that’s where we go next.”

“Ok,” I reply.

“Let’s go.” We scramble out from under the bus sprinting to the awning. We repeat this over and over, maybe a dozen times, moving from shelter to shelter. The lake finally coming into view the dock less than half a block away we see a group of militia through the glass doors of a pink houseboat.

Finally making it to them.

“Whoa, whoa!” One man yells raising his rifle.

“The president is dead,” Roger yells ba
ck the man motions us to him.
We run down the dilapidated dock jumping onto the boat.

“Cargos on board let’s get out of here,” he yells to the front of the boat.
The engine kicks
in as we depart from the docks. “You are some lucky bastards, we were just about to leave without you.”

“I don’t think luck describes the last couple days,” Roger replies blankly. The man shrugs, he walks to the font of the boat.

Roger turns to me instantly wrapping me in a bear hug. “We did it. We did it Will, we made it.” He says sobbing into my shoulder.

“No. No we didn’t.
Half of me is back there an
d half of you is back there.
We didn’t make it… I didn’t make it”

He stops mid cry, clearing his throa
t. “No, I’ve still got him.
He’s right here he
says pointing to his chest.
And grace is here too, no matter how cliché it is I will alw
ays carry the three of you with me.
And I know you will to.”

“When we get into Indiana we can head to Canada.”

“No,” I huff.

“Ok than where do you want to go, Montana? Wyoming?”

“Home.” I answer.

“Home? What? I thought you live close to Chicago?”

“Ya I’m about a half hour south.”

“No, no yo
u can’t do that.
You’ll just be going right back into the thick of it.”

“I don’t care, I’m going home.
We can just part ways when we dock in Indiana.

“Will, I know your hurt…
confused but you can’t go back. Not yet at least.
Why don’t you just wait a few days for it to all calm down?”

“I just want to sleep in my bed ok?”

“Ya but you will die there Will.”

“That’s gona have to be left up to God.”

“It’s not your fault.” “You did everything you could… we did everything we could, I know
this is hard for you.
But Jesus Christ you can’t let Grace dying be the end of you.”

“I could have saved her!” I blurt out wrapping my arms around Roger.

“No, no we did everything we could ok?”

“No you don’t understand. I…”

“We’ll hit the other side of the lake in an hour,” a militia man says cutting me off.

“Just think about it Will, we can talk when we get to the other side of the lake.”

CHAPTER…

“This should work,” Roger says looking over the truck. Reaching into his backpack producing a screw driver. He slowly walks around the truck breaking each taillight and side light. “We are just gona use the side hazard lights, it’ll be dark but it’ll be the safest bet.”

I say nothing as I put a Virginia slim in between my lips. The air has turned cool almost cold, you can tell fall is coming soon. The wind whips up to a gust stealing embers off the end of my cigarette as I light it. I look over the water the small swells tumbling over themselves on the rock beach.
The
lights
of the house boat just off shore heading back to the city. I look out over the water, and e
ven though the skyline is gone every few seconds the light from an explosion softly brightens the horizon
. Huh, if I didn’t know any better you’d think it was just a storm over Chicago, instead of well a shit storm over Chicago.
      

“I think we’re about ready,” Roger reports to me. He opens the door. “You ready?” He asks, holding onto the door.

“Ya,” I reply stepping up into the truck, he slams the heavy door for me.

Roger taking the screw driver jamming it into the key hole. He turns it, the engine seems to fight, but it starts. Taking out his pack of Marlboro’s he lights one. I turn the radio on.

“Every American is here by ordered to report to mobile stars locations station along Interstate I55 and I94. Failure to do so will…”
I switch the radio off.

“We might get something a little happier
farther out.
I doubt anyone else, is broadcasting anywhere close to here,” he says. He pulls the gear lever down as the transmission shifts roughly
form gear to gear. “I always loved trucks like this, just a real American truck.” I give no reply as we pull out of the docks. Pulling out another cigarette I light it with the cherry of my last one. “You’re gona look like that old lady if you keep chain smokin like that.”

“As long as you promise to blow me up with my oxygen tank so I die with some dignity.”

“It’s a deal,” Roger replies. “We’ll
take the side roads to Elle ok?
I’ll drop you off, and 24 hours. He stops the car in the middle of the road turning to me. Will in 24 hours you meet me right where I drop you
off. I’ll wait from ten
till the sun comes up ok. I’ll give you some time to clear your head and we will head to Canada, ok? I nod turning back to the window rolling it down the rest of the way. Cool air gushing in and out to the sound of the waves breaking on the beach lining the road. Laying my head on the door I rest my eyes. My cigarette out the window I watch through almost closed eyes as the sparks fly away. I let it slowly slip from my hand closing my eyes completely.