The System #2 (7 page)

“Yeah, sure, okay,” came Grant’s reply.

She sniffed and turned toward him.

Then she caught a shape out of the corner of her eye. A flash of fabric, a familiar outline.

“I think there’s a body back here,” Lucy shouted. Grant stepped away from the counter and craned his neck to look around her.

“Only twenty-five left to discover, I suppose,” he replied. Grant dug into his pocket and pulled out his lighter. He flipped open the lid and the wick erupted. Then he walked over to Lucy and tried to hand it to her.

“Why are you making me look at it?” Lucy asked and she crossed her arms.

“Hey, new rule. You find it, you examine it,” Grant said with a smirk and he pushed the flame forward.

“No way. We go together,” she said and then she tugged on the corner of his shirt and pulled him forward. He skipped a step and then bumped into her shoulder. Lucy lost her balance and stumbled into the shelving. It jiggled and then settled; none of the boxes spilled to the floor below. She righted herself and cleared her throat, then they started to move.

Tip-toeing forward, Grant and Lucy shuffled toward the shape. They bent down and Lucy’s breath caught. She thought she was immune to the discovery of bodies, but there was something about the dark and the orange flicker of the lighter, mixed with the unsettling nature of the entire town, that made this particular venture more hair-raising.
 
The body was turned away from them—there was a mass of tangled hair; the body wore a long flower dress and a khaki vest.

“It doesn’t smell,” Grant noted and Lucy realized he was right. The odoriferous victims of the virus had become commonplace and impossible to escape. Rotting flesh, the stink of melting organs and decomposing flesh, replaced other smells; their noses had adjusted to the shift, especially in larger cities, but Grant was right—and Lucy only now realized it: the town didn’t stink.

Lucy leaned over and touched the dress and the body rolled backward to the floor with a small crash and a rattle; the hair sloughed off and fell to the floor, exposing a white skull. She let out a small scream and her hand flew over her mouth to stifle it. This body was a skeleton. Its jaw hung open, all the teeth were intact, but there were gaping holes where this person’s nose and eyes used to be. The khaki vest had a small patch on it that read “Brixton Post Office” but the clothes looked tattered and moth-eaten. Around the skeletal ankles were white socks and the body was still wearing its orthopedic shoes.

Grant moved their light up and down the bones. Then his hand stopped at the skull. He took his free hand and reached over and stuck his pointer finger into a dime-sized hole near the temple.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Grant noted and he popped his finger back out. “Plot twist. She didn’t die of the virus.”

“Shot?”

“Execution style.”

“And left undiscovered? In the middle of an unlocked post-office?”

Grant stood up and flipped off the lighter. The darkness enveloped them and Lucy let her eyes adjust. Then she felt Grant’s hand on her shoulder and she fumbled around for his hand, letting him help her up off the ground. Then still holding on to him, they walked back toward the light in front. Lucy and Grant ducked back under the counter and then out to the road, leaving the skeleton behind them.

“So, let’s get this straight,” Lucy started, squinting at the sudden brightness. “The whole city of Brixton disappears. Leaves mugs and drinks and cash unattended. They vanish.”

“Except they didn’t
vanish
,” Grant said, his eyes scanning the town, his brows furrowed as he scanned each building. “They were murdered.”

“The whole
world’s
been murdered,” Lucy pointed out and she put her hands on her hips and tried to follow Grant’s gaze. “And one dead person in a post-office doesn’t mean that everyone died that way.”

“You wanna bet?” Grant asked and he snapped his head back to her.

“Not particularly.”

“But you admit that there’s no one here. Right?”

Lucy shrugged.

Grant started walking back down the middle of the street, bypassing the library and heading toward the church and its bell tower.

“Where are you going?” Lucy called after him.

He turned and pointed toward the church. “I want to find the rest of the bodies.”

Grant’s instinct was mostly right. Inside the church they found five more skeletons. All with bullet holes in their temples. Two of the remains were in a pew; at one point they might have been sitting side-by-side, but as their bodies withered down to just the bones, they now slumped together at an odd angle; one skull resting on the other in a perpetual state of embrace. Lucy picked up a hymnal and flipped open the pages. Each row was outfitted with a Bible and a hymnal and a collection of offering envelopes. Layers of dust covered everything—the fabric on the pews, the bones, the floor.
 

Another skeleton was crumpled near a wooden pulpit. Two more huddled together in a baptismal. Lucy and Grant found a small spiral staircase off to the side of the sanctuary; they climbed it, taking the steps slowly, feeling their way. The door at the top opened up to the bell tower. From there, they could see their car and each and every building in Brixton. Everything was silent and void of life. In the distance, they saw the rolling Sand Hills.

They climbed back down and exited the church.
 

Maybe they’d never know the details, but the broad story of what happened to Brixton was clear: Each and every person in this small town had been systemically wiped out with a single bullet to the brain. Lucy didn’t want to venture into the single-room schoolhouse next to the church and she begged Grant to just leave it be, but Grant would not be deterred. He pushed open the doors and stood for a long moment, counting with his finger. Then he shut the doors and met Lucy back down the steps.

“Four little ones. Two adults. That’s half the town. I bet if we searched every house and every building we’d find everyone.”

“No. I don’t want to. And I don’t understand.”

“It doesn’t look like these people were hiding…it must have happened fast,” Grant noted.

“Why would my father send me here? This feels like a joke. A cruel, awful, horrible joke.”

“We haven’t really been looking for a message…maybe that’s what we need to do. Go back and see if there’s a message here for you.”

“Grant—” Lucy started and she could hear the whining in her voice, the admission of defeat, and the worry that all of this would be nothing more than a dead end. Which was worse? Facing her father and her fears? Or realizing their entire trip had been for nothing? She threw her hands up when she saw Grant’s glower; he had such an intolerance for her moodiness.
 

“We’re here, Lucy. We’re in Brixton! And we’ve been here for less than an hour…so, maybe hold off on the defeatist attitude until after we’re sure there’s nothing to find. Okay?” Then he smiled and raised his eyebrows—a ta-da—an invitation to make it a challenge; he would match her step by step. He never just let her stew and sulk, and it simultaneously irritated and impressed her.

Lucy paused and glared at him; she crossed her arms over her body and dug her heels into the dirt.
 

“Come on,” he said and rolled his eyes.

“I’m not going to fight with you,” she stated and raised her chin.

“Perfect. I’m not going to fight with you either. You know I’m right. Don’t do that thing.”

“What thing?”

“That thing…where you make up your mind that something is going to be one way and then throw a fit when it turns out to be another way…and then five minutes later realize that it’s not the—” he stopped and frowned.

“You were going to say the end of the world, weren’t you?”

Grant made a face.

Lucy smiled despite herself. “Anyway,” she continued. “It’s not being defeatist if we are, indeed, defeated, you know?” She wanted to explain her desire for a quick exit. But even as the words left her mouth she realized that even she didn’t sound convinced.

Grant walked over to her and put two hands on her shoulders: she tilted her head to look up at him as he towered over her. “Same conversation as before. It’s always the same.”

“It’s just…you’re right…I guess, it’s not what I expected,” she admitted. “That’s all.”

“Yes, because all of
this
would have been so easy to
expect
. Please, Lucy. This is an easy fix. Abandon expectations.”

Lucy waited a second and then nodded.

He dug her hand out from her crossed arms and gave it a squeeze, then spun Lucy around and began pulling her back toward Main Street.

“Library. Then houses. No stone unturned.”

“We have maybe an hour or so before sunset.” She nodded toward the sky.

“Then we camp.”

She shivered. “I don’t want to stay here, no way. It just doesn’t feel right.”

“We’ve stayed with dead bodies before,” Grant offered. “The dead can’t hurt us.”

Shrugging, she let him pull her up the small steps to the library. “Feels different, I guess.” Then Lucy paused. She tightened her arm as Grant continued forward, and then she yanked him back. He complained, rubbed his shoulder with his free hand, and then looked at her.

“What?” He dropped her hand and met her on the second-to-last step.

“Did you hear that?” Lucy’s voice dropped to a near-whisper. She left the stairs and took two big strides back into the middle of Main Street, her head spinning from left to right.

“Hear what?” Grant asked, confused and worried.

She heard it again.

A bark.

Distinct and crisp as anything.

She spun to Grant and raised her eyebrows expectantly and Grant nodded.

“Shared auditory hallucination?” he said to her, his voice cracking.

“What direction was it coming from?” Lucy did a half-jog away from the library and listened again, cupping her hand around her ears—hoping that her grandmother’s old trick of amplifying sound would help her detect from what direction this animal was coming from.

Closer now. A bark. A real bark. It was getting closer and closer. Grant migrated back toward the church and then she heard him call out.

“Lula! Look! God Almighty…”

Running full-speed toward Grant and Lucy was a black lab.
 

They watched as it rushed forward, the dust flying up on his heels. It grew nearer and nearer until it pounced up on Grant playfully when it reached him, licking his hand and jumping up and barking. A leash was still attached to a collar around its neck. Grabbing the leash, Lucy tugged the dog over to her and scratched behind its ears. The dog nuzzled her hand.

They heaped love and affection upon that dog like they were men in the desert who just found water. Squatting down into the street, Grant let the dog lick his entire face. And Lucy giggled as the dog jumped and leapt around them with obvious excitement. It was the first living thing they had seen since they left Oregon and they couldn’t help but think the dog was a miracle.

“Maybe the virus didn’t make it here,” Grant said.

“So the dogs weren’t affected in Nebraska?”

“Yeah, but—”

Lucy understood the question before he asked it. This dog wasn’t emaciated from two years of neglect; it was sleek and well-groomed. Its bright red collar looked brand-new and it reacted to humans with trust and comfort. This was someone’s pet.
 

And it was alive.

Looking down at the collar, Lucy palmed the silver paw print and ran her finger over the inscription. Then she let out a puzzled hum.

“What?” Grant leaned down.

“This dog’s name is Frank.”

At the sound it his name, Frank licked Lucy and barked once.

“And?”

“Well…Frank lives at…Floor A. Pod 6. Room F.”

Grant didn’t answer. He just looked down and gave Frank a scratch on his rump, a goofy-grin plastered on his face.

“Frank! Fra-ank!”

They jumped and Frank’s ears perked up at the sound of his name. He joyfully barked again and Lucy and Grant paused.
 

“Oh no,” Lucy whispered. “A person,” she said as a sigh.

Exposed and without cover, they could only freeze, Frank’s leash in hand, and wait.

“Gun?” Lucy asked as she shot a quick glance at Grant.

“Car,” he answered. Grant frowned. “I wasn’t thinking—I—”

Around the corner of the library, a woman materialized. She was young, but older than them, and tall and dressed for a jog in shorts and a tight tank top. She had earphones in each ear, she was still bouncing along to a song they couldn’t hear, and her eyes scanned the street; she hadn’t spotted them yet. Frank barked and pulled on the leash in response to seeing her.
 

And the woman saw Frank before she saw them.

When her eyes traveled from her dog to the person holding his leash, she paused. Her eyes narrowed. She tugged her earphones out of her ears and even from over twenty yards away, they could see the fear in her eyes. She assessed the distance between them and then in a flash took off running—the dirt kicking up behind her, the street full of the sound of her sneakers hitting the cement and then the unpaved road in quick bursts. She was fast, just a blur, and then she scrambled up the steps to the library and slammed the door behind her. Frank broke away from Lucy’s grasp and trailed after her, barking at the closed door.

Grant and Lucy could only stare.

She was there. And then she wasn’t. Fast as lightening across the empty Main Street and into the only place downtown they hadn’t entered.

“Well?” Grant asked.

Lucy’s heart was pumping wildly and she looked at her friend wide-eyed. “Well, what?”

“Should we follow her?”

“Are you crazy?”

“She was just as surprised to see us as we were to see her,” Grant offered. “You know what it means though…” he smiled.
 

Lucy stared at the closed door and the poor confused dog calling for his owner. She replayed the image of the woman’s face seeing them and the quickness with which she fled the scene.