Deadlocked 5 (22 page)

It seemed that the other couples in this group were all men and women, just like the Instructors at the Facility had told us occurred on the Surface. My attraction to Hailey was suddenly suspect, and I wondered if we would drift apart now that we had made it to the Surface.

Hailey pulled her hand out of mine. "I'm going to get some more wine. You sure you don't want some more?"

My head was already spinning from the alcohol, but I nodded anyhow. "Maybe just one more." She leaned in and kissed me before leaving. I couldn't stop thinking about losing her as she walked away. My concern must've been evident in my expression because Bonnie came to sit beside me in Hailey's absence.

"What's bothering you, darling?"

"Nothing," I said shyly.

"Then why do you look like you've been sucking lemons, sour puss?"

I shook my head and smiled. "I don't know what you mean."

"You look sad. What's the matter?" She nodded in Hailey's direction. "Are the two of you fighting about something?"

"No, not at all. It's not that."

"Then what is it?"

She put her hands on mine and I smiled back at her. "Can I be honest?"

"I'd rather you be honest than lie to me."

"I think I love her, but I know that's not the way things are supposed to be."

Bonnie scowled and asked, "What do you mean?"

"I know that men and women are supposed to love each other. I know it's not natural for two women to…"

"Let me go ahead and stop you there, Cobra," said Bonnie as she stood up. I was mortified by her reaction and was certain that I'd offended her with my admission of love for Hailey.

"Beach," said Bonnie as she waved at someone across the room. "Can you come here?" Then she reached down for my hand and pulled me up as she spoke to me. "I'd like you to meet my spouse."

The woman that had been playing harmonica walked over to us with a smile. Bonnie took the woman's hand and they shared a kiss before she turned to look back at me as an uncontainable smile erupted on my face. "Cobra, this is Beach."

Hailey came back with a cup in each hand. "What's going on?" she asked.

I surprised her with a hug and then kissed her on the lips as the crowd around us cheered.

BEN WATANABE

Harrison did his best to include me in the festivities, but I was reluctant to enjoy myself. I was most comfortable when alone, and the overwhelming surge of humanity in this room, with everyone laughing and clapping along to the music, made me nervous. Noise and lights were the bane of a survivor in this new world, and this group reveled in both.

They stomped their feet and a man with a fiddle hopped around, swiping his bow across the strings in a frenzied motion that was hard to fathom. Sweat poured off his head and his hair whipped around like a wet dog tail. Another man, an emaciated twig of a human, was wearing nothing but a pair of ragged shorts as he smacked a set of bongos hard enough that I expected to see his fingers bleeding. A few others joined Stitch and they continued to sing songs from the old world that I never bothered learning.

When we arrived, I tried to warn Beach about what happened to Juniper and Hanger, but the old woman insisted that we wait until the morning to discuss it. She said that tonight was an important celebration, and that she didn't want to upset anyone if she didn't have to. She was right. There was nothing that telling people tonight could accomplish, but I still insisted that she was making a mistake.

This celebration, and everything it represented, should've been a welcome respite to the harsh world around me, but I couldn't enjoy myself. The people were kind and welcoming. They offered me food and drink in excesses that I hadn't enjoyed in well over a decade, but every drink brought me further into a self-imposed depression.

I'd been meaning to speak with the red haired
woman named Annie that I thought was the same girl I'd saved at the military complex twenty years ago, but as I watched her laughing with her friends, I decided to leave her be. What use would it be to try and force her to talk about those horrible days? She'd only been three, and wouldn't remember anything. Even her sister had trouble recalling those days. Then I thought about how Kim told me that Annie thought she had a guardian angel, and that it was her father that had died who came back and saved her at the military complex. Why would I want to take that away from her? It was best to leave her be, and let her think her father was the one that saved her.

"Ollie!" a man screamed from the hallway that led to the entrance. It was a black man, about my age or older, with an impressive physique and short hair. "Get your ass back to the entrance. I'm sick of pulling guard duty."

A portly, drunk man rolled over on the ground and waved. "My Hero! Where've you been all night?"

"Mother fucker, I've been sitting in the chair at the entrance like you told me to." He walked closer as Ollie rolled and laughed on the floor.

"I can't do guard duty, man," said Ollie. "I'm in no shape for that."

"I'll do it," I said as I got up.

Hero looked at me and said, "Thanks, whoever you are."

"Name's Ben." I shook his hand and he clapped me on the shoulder with his wide palm.

"I'm Hero. Good to meet you. Now get on out there so I can get a few cups of wine before roly poly Ollie drinks it all."

"The front entrance, right? The one above the metal door?"

"Yep," said Hero as he stepped over Ollie and made his way to the wine barrels.

I didn't bother waving goodbye and was thankful to have an excuse to leave. My gear was still in this room, but I figured it was safe here for the time being, and I didn't feel like telling the children that I was taking Stubs away, so I left him too.

There was a part of me that was ashamed of how I wanted to avoid the group, but I'd managed to survive for twenty years on my own without the need of a community. In fact, the only times that I'd been near a festival like this had ended in tragedy, perhaps not immediately, but callous disregard for the terrible world around us always led to death. These fools, with their drunken songs and wild celebration, were begging for a grisly demise.

Wine turns me into even more of a sullen prick than normal.

As I walked across the bridge and heard them singing behind me, I knew that I was the fool here. My avoidance of companionship was a weakness, and I recognized that, despite my attempts to think otherwise. I wish I was able to be a gregarious singer, smashing my cup against those of my fellow revelers as we shouted into the night sky. No matter how much I tried to convince myself that they were the foolish ones, I knew that wasn't true. This town, and the people that lived here, had managed to cobble together happiness amid a desert of sorrow. Why should I disregard them for it?

It didn't matter if they were right to celebrate or not. Either way, this wasn't where I belonged. Harrison had been right about me. The road was my home, and I found no solace in community.

I reached the entrance as the crickets chirped below. There was a chair beside the wall, and a sniper rifle on the floor. Below me were the ruins of a small western town that would've been quaint by the standards of the old world. This was the main street area, and the tall building that the party took place in was formerly a bank. It was amusing to think that the grimy, greasy denizens of Vineyard, with their love of music, gardening, and drinking, chose to base their revelry in the skeleton of a bank. That made me smile.

My instinct was to leave. The car that Harrison had jump-started was below, and it would've been easy enough for me to drive away. They probably wouldn't even know I was gone until morning, but I'd left my gear behind, and I would never leave without it. I put my feet up and stared off into the starry night. I had no desire to return to the party, but I was oddly reassured by the noise. It made me happy to guard them, and the recognition of that was a revelation that I blamed on too much wine.

Harrison thought he was being stealthy as he approached, but the old man was far too drunk to walk straight, let alone walk without sounding like a horse in heels. "You're going to get yourself killed," I yelled out before I turned to greet him. He was hanging on to the rope railing with one hand and had Stubs in his other. I got up to go to him, and he thought I was going to help him across, but I just took my dog as the old man floundered on the bridge.

"I almost got you," he said. "If I didn't slip back there, you would've never heard me coming."

"Whatever you say."

"What are you doing out here in the cold?" He rubbed his arms as he shivered.

"Cold? It's beautiful tonight. You're just cold because you're covered in sweat from jumping around all night."

"Maybe so. What are you doing out here?"

"Hero needed a break. I'm on guard duty." I sat back down with Stubs in my lap. The dog tried to climb up my chest and lick my chin, but I pushed him back down over and over until he gave up.

"Seemed to me like you were miserable in there and were looking for a reason to leave."

I sighed and was about to respond, but Harrison stopped me as he sat down at my feet. "No need to explain, kid. I know all about it. You're a road warrior, you never pretended to be anything else."

He looked up and then past me as his eyes widened. He pointed out at the sky and stood up to come closer to the edge. There was a roof above us, so he had to lean out over the wall to see what he was pointing at. "Look! It's a shooting star."

The black sky was illuminated with a fiery red comet that streaked slowly over the mountains. Harrison clapped his hands with excitement and then gazed down at me as if hoping I shared his glee. "That's a big one. Look at it. I'll tell you what, not many good things came after the apocalypse, but I don't ever remember seeing comets and shooting stars back in the day that could ever compare with the ones we see now. I don't know if it's because there's no more light pollution or what, but damn, they're beautiful. Aren't they?"

He leaned over the roof's edge to watch the comet disappear behind the mountains and whistled after it was gone. The old man had a wide smile as he sat back down and crossed his legs. He slapped my calf a few times as if we'd shared an emotional bond in that moment.

"You know that's not a comet, right?"

Harrison's smile faded and he stared blankly at me. "What do you mean?"

"Those aren't comets you're seeing."

"Then what are they?"

"Satellites. They've been orbiting the Earth for the past twenty years, but without some scientist sitting at a control panel somewhere to tell them to fire their thrusters, they get sucked back down by the atmosphere. It took about ten years for them to start falling, but they've been coming down ever since. There're thousands of them up there, all crashing down on us. Maybe we'll get lucky and one will hit us someday."

Harrison was silent for a long time. I assumed our conversation was over and that he was a few blinks from passing out, but then he whispered a curse at me. I asked him what he said, and he stood up to glare down at me. "I said you're a fucker." He laughed and shook his head. He wasn't laughing in amusement but in frustration. "You're just a miserable fuck of a man. You know that?"

"What did I do?"

He pointed out at the night sky. "Why'd you tell me that?"

"About the satellites? I told you because it's the truth. You said they were comets, and I corrected you. They're not comets, they're satellites. What's the big deal?"

"They were shooting stars to me." Harrison jabbed his thumb into his chest and I saw the glint of tears in his eyes. "They were stars to me, and I fucking liked it that way. They were stars to me."

"You're drunk." I huffed and settled back in my chair with Stubs in my lap.

"And you're a fucking miserable piece of shit." He started to walk away, and I was happy to see him go. I didn't understand what I'd done to offend him. I assumed that he wouldn't know either once the wine wore off.

Our conversation wasn't finished though, and Harrison stopped at the bridge to turn and yell at me more. "You didn't get a single fucking thing for telling me that. Why'd you do it?"

"Sleep it off, old man." I dismissed him without looking his way.

"Fuck you, Ben."

I spun in my seat and yelled after him, "Why are you so pissed off?"

"Because you did that to hurt me, and I've never done nothing but be good to you."

I looked out at the sky and back to him, flabbergasted by his anger. "I didn't do anything to hurt you. What are you blathering on about?"

"I told you about one fucking thing that made me happy. One fucking thing, and the first thing you do is shit on it. You stole my stars." He stumbled over to the edge of the roof, beside the bridge, and fell hard on his rear.

I set Stubs down and stood up to help Harrison, but the old man swiped at my hands. He spit at me, and I stepped back with an angry glare. "Go sleep it off, Harrison."

"You need to learn how to see a good thing when it's staring back at you. You've got a fucking piece of shit mask on." He waved his hands in front of his face as he wavered even while sitting. "Blinders. Pointing you straight ahead to who-knows-where. Who fucking cares where? No one, Benny-boy. No one."