Last Woman (16 page)

Mr. Doyle didn’t spend the entire night, but he did stay long enough to have a drink and tell us that he was trying to find his other daughter who was across town. He had no plans on returning, but decided he was going to come back for his RV and
then head west. I can only imagine what he thought when he saw I had his RV and his car.

He was good about it. That was just Mr. Doyle. He didn’t hold much hope that his daughter out west was alive, because the last they talked she was very sick.

He did, however, run into other survivors. “A man and a boy,” Mr. Doyle said. “I was going to stay with them, but they were headed south to Kentucky and didn’t want to wait for me.”

He also didn’t understand quite why.

Dodge explained to him what was happening and Mr. Doyle said he’d return in the morning to start getting Fastball ready.

He didn’t waste time the next morning either, bright and early he came over. I was still sleeping, my mind spinning and turning from looking at the driver’s licenses all night long.

I woke to discover how good Doyle was with children. Actually, remembering how good he was. I kind of felt out of place. Dodge being ‘mister’. Dad, Doyle being a natural grandfather.

After splashing my face with a little water, freshening up, I stumbled into the kitchen as they spoke regarding me shaving my head.

Doyle facially disagreed with Dodge. “I honestly just think they haven’t found any women yet. Is it possible for a flu to be genetically specific? Who knows? I was a tax lawyer. Ask me about a Schedule C and I’ll go into great detail. Ask me about a germs and I’m clueless.”

“It’s a tough situation,” Dodge replied. “If it were just her and I, then I’d really debate on joining up with a group. But the boys need that. The boys need other people and they need someone to watch out for them.”

I cleared my throat to make my announcement in the room, then poured a cup of coffee. “I’m not shaving my head, deepening my voice or pretending to be a shocked mute. Forget it.”

“If you are the last woman,” Dodge said. “It can be bad.
”

“Not yet,” Doyle added. “Maybe a few months from now. Worry about it then. Right now, I think people aren’t thinking that way. Most aren’t and th
e few who are … well, you look like a big mean guy, Dodge, no offense. But I think you wouldn’t have any problem dealing with it. Rich is probably breathing a sigh of relief you found her.”

“She found me.”

“In jail,” I added.

Doyle smiled over his coffee. "Even better.”

Suddenly, I believe Doyle saw Dodge as a hardened criminal.

We all shared a morning laugh over that until George barreled into the room.

“He’s gone.” George yelled.

“Who?” I asked panicked, “Darie?”

“No, he’s playing that old hand game. Mikey. He’s gone. I went into the room to see if he wanted to eat or go out and he was gone.”

Dodge’s head cocked. “He had to have left before I got up and that was hours ago.”

“Damn it.” I chugged my coffee as hot as it was, set down the cup and headed to the kitchen. “Thank you George.”

“Whoa. Wait. Where are you going?” Dodge grabbed my arm.

“To find him.”

“Let him go. He’ll be back or he won’t. I got a bad feeling about that kid, Faye.”

“Dodge, you’re wrong. He’s only lost and confused and he’s gonna search every body.”

“Then let him.” Dodge said.

“I promised him I’d help.”

“Faye, he obviously doesn’t want your help.”

“He doesn’t know how much I can end his search. You know it and I know it.”

Dodge sighed out, then ran his hand down his face. “Showing him his mother’s license isn’t going to make a difference.”

“I know. But I have to try. If I can stop him from looking at one more decaying body then that’s one less nightmare that boy will face.” I went into the dining room, to the get the license, the one I found in the tenth stack, the one that belonged to Mikey’s mother. I retrieved it, placed it in my back pocket and walked to the door.

“Faye.”

“He’s on foot, I know where he went. I’ll find him.” I opened the door, ignoring Dodge’s call of my name, and walked out.

<><><><>

When I reached the edge of my property, I remembered Rich’s bike in the garage. I wasn’t sure how well the tires were, but I didn’t want to waste the gasoline going only a few miles.

Dodge was diligent
ly trying to stop me, calling my name, swearing at me. But I ignored him and stayed focused.

About a mile down the road, I heard the car pull up.

“Faye, get in.” Dodge said from the car.

“You’re wasting gas.”

“Well, I’m here. Mr. Doyle is with the boys. Park the bike.”

“I can’t just leave it, it’s Rich’s bike.”

“I’ll come back for it when I do the gas run.”

I kept peddling.

“Goddamn it, Faye.”

I stopped. “Why do you swear at me?”

“I’m sorry, just get in. Leave the bike, I promise no one will steal it.”

Reluctantly, I perched the bike against a parked car, and got in the wagon with Dodge.

It was a good thing I did, because when we arrived at the Walmart, Mikey was nowhere to be found.

I imagined Mikey lost, wandering, checking every body he passed on the road. I didn’t want to face the fact that we may have lost him, he may have taken off.

Dodge headed east and told me about another site they were taking bodies. One he and the boys saw the day before and that was where they found Mikey.

We weren’t even a block away and I could smell the bodies. It was rank and I wanted to gag. I brought my shirt over my face.

How many bodies were there that the stench carried that much of a distance? We hit a military blockade before I even saw any bodies. But I heard the flies. Millions of them. Dodge was able to drive around close to the body dump site.

Just beyond the blockade was the fence to the local high school baseball field. The field was covered in black and tan body bags, occasionally speckled with what looked like bed sheets in the tall, wide and high mound
s. As we stopped the car, that was when I saw Mikey.

He was by home plate, at the edge of the mound, he sat on the ground, rocking back and forth and in his arms was a body.

I quickly looked to Dodge. “That can’t be her, can it? We found her license.”

“Maybe they just took her license.” Dodge suggested.

I opened the car door.

“Faye.” Dodge called my name.

The smell was horrendous and hit me like a ton of bricks, instantly filling my mouth with saliva. As hard as it was, I had to put that aside and focus on helping Mikey.

“Mikey,” I called his name.

“Go away.”

“Mikey,” I stepped closer.

“I said, Go away!” He shouted emotionally then looked down to the body he held. “It’s over.”

I was still a good twenty feet from him. But clearly I could see how rotted the body was.

“I went to homecoming with this girl. Look at her. Look at this. It’s over.”

“Mikey, let’s go.” I extended my hand.

The body rolled from Mikey’s lap as he stood. “I’m not going anywhere until I find my mother.”

“She’s not here, Mikey.”

“She is.”

“No.” I reached into my pocket. “When I was at the stadium, there were thousands and thousands of bodies. The military gathered their names and identification. I took a lot of those photo
ID’s.” I pulled the license from my back pocket. “I’m sorry, Mikey, I am so sorry. I found your mother’s license last night.” I held the license out to him.

Mikey surprised me in two ways at that moment. He shouted emotionally knocking the license from my hand and swatting me away. “You’re lying!” The second surprise was that he did so with a gun in his hand.

Instinctively I stepped back.

“Where did you get that?” I asked. My
body shook, I hated guns and I inched back even more.

“There’s dead soldiers everywhere, where do you think. It wasn’t hard.”

Dodge must have spotted the gun, because he raced over and the second he did that, Mikey swung the gun outward and aimed.

“Put it down, Mikey,” Dodge said calmly.

“No.” Mike shook his head. “This is life now? I don’t want to be a part of it. My friends are dead, my family is dead. What is there left?”

“Us,” I said.

Mikey laughed. It was a mad laughter. “Oh my God, are you serious? Are you fucking serious? You think you’re a reason for me to want to live? You didn’t want to live. I didn’t understand it then, I do now. You know I hated you for pushing me away. Hated you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I called the police when you took those pills. I’m sorry I kept checking on you scared to death that you were gonna kill yourself. I kept thinking, Mark wants me to watch his mom. But you didn’t. I shouldn’t have stopped you. I was wrong for not letting you die.”

“No, you weren’t. You weren’t wrong.” I pleaded. “Please, Mikey, just put down the gun.”

“And do what? Go to Kentucky? Make new friends, call you ‘Mom’ and Dodge here ‘Dad’? Right. People aren’t replaced and you know it. There’s nothing to live for. I don’t want to live in this world, Mrs. Wills.”

“I want you to,” speaking gently, I slowly extended my arm again. “Come with me, Mikey. We’ll talk, work this out. I really want you to live.”

“No you don’t.” He said coldly. “And I don’t think you really want to live either. Your kids are dead, your husband is dead. Yeah …” he nodded. “You don’t. Here’s what I took from you.” He extended the gun.

It all happened so fast. I saw the gun, I felt the fear and then I felt the slam of Dodge’s body into mine just as the gun went off. We careened hard to the ground and landed with a thud. Dodge was heavy on top of me, I could barely move.

My mind spun, I was trying to comprehend. Mikey shot at me, I felt a pain in my left arm and wasn’t sure if I was having a heart attack or if I was hit.

Dodge lifted some
of his weight, and I turned my head, catching my breath and then I saw Mikey.

The gun was to his head.

He looked right at me, as if waiting for me to see him.

“No!” I screamed loud and long.

Bang.

It was the second most traumatic event in my life. Not even waking up amongst a pile of decomposing bodies measured up to identifying my family at the morgue or seeing a sixteen year old boy kill himself.

Mikey had taken his own life and made eye contact with me as he did it. It seemed to happen in slow motion. His look at me, that eerily peaceful look, then watching the spray of blood.

It was too much.

Far too much.

I screamed. Relentlessly with agony, I cried out, trying to make my way to Mikey’s lifeless body.

Dodge held me back.

I had actually been shot. His aim as dead on. I was a moment away from that end result I sought just a few months earlier. Had it not been for Dodge’s quick interference, I would have been dead.

Not that it mattered.

Dodge had tackled me from the left, when he did so, my left arm extended and in that split second from the hit of his body the bullet grazed across my lower bicep.

If Dodge had been one split second later the bullet would have hit my chest.

I suppose Dodge didn’t want to add to my injury and he stopped holding me back. I broke free and raced to Mikey’s body. As if I expected him to still be alive. It was not something I should have done.

I saw it from a distance, to see what was left of him up close was too much to handle. Despite his obviously
self-inflicted wounds there was something else I noticed.

A look of peace on Mikey’s face.

He opted out of this life.

Life … if that what you could call it.

I must have been bleeding badly, because it my shock, I recalled Dodge wrapping his shirt around my arm. I went through stages. Screaming, crying, hysterical then quiet.

Staring out the car window all the way back, Dodge’s voice sounded like it was in a can.

“We’ll get you home. Figure out a way to close that up. It’s a flesh wound.”

I didn’t respond. The only thing I did say was, “Rich’s bike" when I saw we had passed it.

There was no pain, it subsided and I figured that was my body shutting down in shock. The reality of how bad I was bleeding hit me when I heard the reactions when we arrived back.

Dodge carried me in the house.

“Good God, what happened?” Doyle asked.

“She was shot.”

“The kid?”

“Yeah.”

“Where’s Mikey?” asked George. “Is he okay?’

“No,” replied Dodge, carrying me into the den.

Darie screamed and cried, I heard him and also heard Doyle trying to calm him down.

I was in such a state that nothing was really registering the way that it should.

Dodge placed me on the couch in the den. “You’ll be okay. It was bleeding pretty bad.”

“I don’t care.”

“Well, I do.” Dodge said. “I’ll see if Mr. Doyle has any experience in this. If not, you’re stuck with me fixing it. I can do it, but it won’t be pretty.”

“I don’t care. Mikey’s dead.”

“Mikey took his own life. I am sorry you had to see that. I’m sorry he decided this world wasn’t for him. But he almost took you with him, and that is what I’m thinking about. I’ll be right back.” He leaned over me, staring for a moment, then after running his hand over my face, Dodge walked out.

I lifted my uninjured arm to my eyes, covering them and I began to cry.

Mikey had taken his own life and I was a catalyst in that. He didn’t process the loss of my son and I compounded that by pushing him away and not helping him. He was already fragile when the world fell ill. A fragility I could have stopped.

Mikey was the last living part of my previous life, I watched him die and I somehow kept thinking it was a sign for me.

I blamed myself. I was sinking to a new low and couldn’t help but feel it was all my fault that Mikey was dead.

My fault that he killed himself. It was something I would have to live with for the rest of my life.

Or did I?