by L. H. Davis
I normally don’t go down to the wall so early in the morning, but yesterday I’d found a walnut tree and brought home a sack of nuts for mom. She got up early and made a wild raisin and nut loaf for breakfast. Mom knows Daddy will fuss at her for wasting the sugar on food, but she did it anyway—for him. He keeps us and our neighbors alive.
“Good morning, Miss Kayla,” Daddy says as I start climbing the embankment.
I slip on the grass, still wet with dew, and turn up the winding stone path. “Morning. Mom says I should watch the wall while you go up to the house and eat.”
“Uncle Wilbur has the watch in an hour,” he says. “My breakfast can wait.”
“Don’t be stubborn. Mom baked you something, and you should eat it while it’s hot. She just pulled it from the oven. Save me a piece?” I ask, sitting on the wall beside his boots.
He cradles his rifle and pushes back, tipping his chair up on two legs. “Now… that all depends… don’t it. What did she—” His eyes fix on something beside me.
I turn my head, slowly, and lock eyes with a huge bobcat, standing on the wall beside me—much too close. She seems frightened, so I don’t move. We stare at each other for a moment, but then she glances over at Daddy and hops down on the deck. Without looking back, she trots down the slippery embankment and disappears into the cornfield, now mostly dry stalks.
“Um,” I say. “Where’d she come from?”
“Jumped up from below,” Daddy says. “Hell of a jump, too. A good eight-footer.”
“Does she come through here often?” I ask.
“I’ve seen her up on the rocks,” Daddy says, pointing up at the cliffs, “but never down here. She knows someone’s always on this wall.”
My great-grandfather built the wall between the two cliffs to keep out busybodies and moochers. Moonshine has always been the Wilson family’s primary source of income. Our ten acres are surrounded by natural granite that only cats and mountain goats can navigate. The wall seals off the only natural entrance. And since we don’t have mountain goats in the Appalachian Mountains, cats and birds are our only uninvited guests.
“So why would she jump up—”
“Because that was chasing her,” he says, pointing toward the railroad tracks. “Hijacker.”
An emaciated man wearing filthy rags is watching us from the railroad tracks, just beyond the wall. He climbs up onto our pump trolley, which we use to make deliveries on rainy days. Pacing the length of the little car, he seems to be considering his next move. Hijackers aren’t too smart. They might have some reasoning power, but they act like pissed off four-year-olds on steroids. Daddy stands and shoulders his rifle.
“Are you sure he’s been jacked?” I ask.
“Have you heard him speak?” Daddy asks.
“No.”
“Then he’s either real stupid, or he’s been jacked.”
I once saw two jackers tear apart a little girl. We’d been in town scrounging, and she wandered too near an open window. They yanked her inside and had at her. We shot ’em through the window, but we certainly couldn’t put that little girl back together.
“Shoot him,” I say.
“I’d dearly love to,” Daddy says, “but we’re getting low on shells. The deer will be migrating down the tracks in the next few weeks, so we need to save every shot until the next rain.”
Thunder rumbles in the distance. I stare up at the cold gray sky. “It’ll rain today.”
“Well if it does,” he says, “I need you and Becka to make a run over to the Dawson’s. They’re needing ten gallons of shine, and they’re holding a hundred rounds of thirty-ought-six for me.”
Becka came into this world four years behind me. Momma’s never said so outright, but she sometimes implies that Becka might have been a surprise. It’s usually when we’re talking about woman stuff, so I think Momma might be trying to warn me about men. Or maybe, she’s trying to tell me a little more about her than I want to know. I got her good looks, green eyes and thick auburn hair, the kind that won’t even curl on rainy days. And Becka’s a right pretty young woman, too, but I always figured she took after Daddy. She’s got his skin tone and curly black hair, but I don’t know where she got those bright blue eyes. His are as dark as coal. But no matter where she got ’em, she’s still my little sister—and if it comes down to it—I’ll die for her.
Daddy raises his arms and yells at the jacker. “Go on! Get!”
The man lunges as if wanting to attack, but he doesn’t, a sign he’s only recently turned.
“Don’t recognize that one,” Daddy says. “Let’s teach him not to come around here.” Propping his rifle against the chair, he pulls a pint bottle of moonshine from his pocket and takes a sip. “You too,” he says, handing me the bottle.
I take it but hesitate. I’m old enough to drink, but I still don’t like the taste of shine, especially before breakfast.
“Go on, Kayla,” he says. “You don’t need much.”
I take a sip and shiver as the burning liquid goes down.
“Looks like he finally got hungry enough,” Daddy says as the man leaps from the trolley. Daddy pulls the fire hose from its reel. “Open it up.”
I spin the valve and turn as the man catches the stream of water in the face. He screams. The water tower behind us is only forty feet tall, so the pressure ain’t all that, but water can kill a hijacker. The man turns around, easily outrunning the stream. But he’ll never be back. Blistered and bleeding, he whines like a beaten dog as he disappears over the rise of the tracks.
“Save the water,” Daddy says.
As I spin the old valve, the center seal spews, soaking my face. It’s a good thing I took that shot of moonshine; without the alcohol, I’d be jacked within minutes. We fill the tank from the pond, which got contaminated the night of the invasion. Them aliens seeded it, along with every stream, lake, and ocean on Earth. Some deep water wells and natural seeps are still clean, but only wild animals can tell the good from the bad. If it hadn’t been for Millie, our cow, we’d have never lived long enough to see those warnings on TV.
I let her out that morning at first light. Like always, she wandered straight down to the pond for a drink. Millie stuck her snout down in the water, just for a second, but I guess she took a pretty good sip. Rearing up on her hind legs, she bellowed and stumbled back, squirting poop and pee, and puking at the same time. Then she started bleeding, and not just a little; she bled out every drop in less than a minute. It turns out that animals can’t be turned, they just die. And domesticated animals can’t smell those alien seeds any better than people, but wild animals can; they’ll die of thirst before drinking bad water. People aren’t so lucky.
After rewinding the hose, Daddy pulls the bottle from his pocket and takes another shot. “Take another for good measure,” he says, handing me the bottle. “Hang on to the rest until I get back. Fresh out the oven, huh?”
“I got my own shine,” I say. “But give me a couple more shells. And tell Becka we’ll be heading into town right after breakfast. It’ll be raining before you get back down here. I can feel it coming.” I look up at the darkening sky. Flipping up the hood of my raincoat, I settle back into Daddy’s chair.
Rain is a good thing. Hijackers don’t like the rain any better than fire hoses. They hunker down inside long before a single drop falls, almost like they sense it coming. They might watch you through a window, but they won’t come out into the rain after you, no matter how hungry they are. You’re safe enough in the rain, but seeing that look in their eyes is still creepy. Of course, knowing they’ll eat you, if given the chance, makes pulling the trigger that much easier.
A steady rain pelts the fields as Daddy and Becka carry down the shine. Handing me a quarter of the nut loaf, he says, “Eat some now and the rest before you head back. All that sugar will help you pump the grade up into Mill Run. So I guess that sugar won’t go to waste after all.”
“What about me?” Becka asks. “I’ll be pumping just as hard as Kayla.”
“I don’t know if I believe that,” Daddy says, “but I do know you already ate your fair share.”
“I didn’t get near that much,” Becka mumbles.
I wink at her. Becka grins, knowing we’ll share. This bread is the first treat we’ve had in almost two years, ever since the invasion. We grow sugar beets in season, but the mash takes most of ’em. And the shine is all that keeps us and our neighbors alive. It purifies our drinking water—and us.
I stay out of the rain and savor a few bites of bread while they load the trolley. The little five-horse Briggs Daddy rigged up will do most of the work, but the old clutch has begun to slip. Mill Run sits on a rise in the tracks, and we’ll need to pump the trolley by hand up the grade into town, both going and coming back from the Dawson’s.
“Be careful girls,” Daddy says. “If the rain stops, stay at the Dawson’s until it’s safe to come home. Worst case, you borrow one of their boats and come back on the creek. I’ll stay near the phone, so let me know what’s going on. Now… let me see ’em.”
Becka and I open our raincoats. Mr. Dawson owns the hardware store, so the first thing he did was arm all his friends. He gave all the women 9mm autos with ammo holsters. We keep ’em cleaned, oiled and stuffed with shells. He also gave us little plastic flasks, so we always have a little shine on us for emergencies. I slosh mine so Daddy can hear that it’s almost full. Becka does the same. If we drink some before we get ahold of bad water, we’ll be fine. If we drink it after bad water, we’ll bleed out like Millie. But at least we’ll die quick.
“Good girls,” he says. “I’ll call down and have Bryson clear the tunnel.”
The regular phone lines went down in an ice storm last winter. But my dad knows things—a lot of things—and he figured that with a few jumpers here and there down the line, the steel railroad tracks could replace the phone lines. And they have. He made a list of what people needed to make their old phones, like from back in the sixties, work with the rails. I know you need a car battery, but there’s also some kind of transformer or something. Anyway, within a few weeks, the dozen families still living off the tracks near Mill Run had their own phone company. Anyone that wants to listen in can hear your conversation, but who cares?
Becka and I like riding the rails, although the trestle is a little scary, especially when you consider what might happen if you end up down there in that bad water. We rafted on that same creek a hundred times before the invasion, but knowing it’s now teaming with seeds from an alien world… Yeah, just looking at it gives me the creeps. I don’t like our pond much anymore, either, but at least it just sits there nice and still. As I stare down at the churning white water below, I get the feeling something’s staring back. And then our motor dies.
“Shit,” I say as we coast in silence. “What the hell happened?”
“Kayla,” Becka says. “I shut it down like we always do before reaching the grade.”
I glance up the tracks, which rise gently into town over the span of the trestle. “Then let’s pump.” We stand. Rain drips from our faces as we push down and then pull up on the handles. Becka keeps staring at me. “What?” I ask.
With a meek smile, Becka asks, “Do you think Tommy will come down to the tracks with Bryson?”
Tommy’s only sixteen. Becka’s two years older, but when the world turns to crap people can’t be that picky about who they date.
“When Tommy sees you, he’ll come running.”
Pumping faster, Becka says, “Kayla.”
When she hesitates, I say, “I’m right here.”
“You like Bryson,” she says. “Don’t you?”
“Yes. I like him a lot.” We shared a few of the same classes in high school, but that was about it. We never dated or anything, but I’ve been thinking hard about him lately. And if I ever get him alone, I plan on letting him know how I feel—him and his big ol’ hands.
“Have you ever… you know?” Becka asks.
“You mean?” I make a silly face and pump my hips.
Becka giggles. “Yeah.” Wiping the rain off her face, she asks, “Well? Have you?”
“I have,” I say, “but not with Bryson.”
Almost in a whisper, Becka asks, “Do you think Tommy has ever done it?”
“Not with Bryson,” I say, letting the real question linger.
As the grade levels off, I check the sky. This is the place to turn back, if need be. The grade will give us speed and the trestle will stop jackers from chasing us. And that’s pretty much all they do. If they see you, they charge.
Hijackers don’t say anything or try to outsmart you. They just keep coming. If you’re lucky, they might spot a squirrel or some other living creature and decide to chase it, but you better not count on that. The people that turned first ate all the tame animals, pets and livestock. And jackers aren’t smart enough to catch wild animals by hand on a regular basis. Since they only eat living things, most of ’em are starving now. Some have already starved to death, which is good; we only have so much ammo.
The rain shows no sign of letting up, so I crank up the Briggs. The tracks follow the creek upstream, keeping Mill Run on our left. When Daddy comes to town with us, we walk through the streets and drop any jacker we happen upon. They’ll just stand there, in the houses and stores, staring out at the rain. They get agitated when they see us, but they don’t hide. It isn’t much fun shooting ’em, but it has to be done. Daddy hasn’t been back to town since his heart thing, but if the rain holds, I plan to bring Becka back like I been promising. She’s good with a gun.
At the far end of town, the tracks cut through the mountain while the creek turns east for a bit. They merge again on the far side, just before the Dawson’s place. I hate the tunnel worse than the trestle. It’s straight enough, but all downhill. I’ll need to kill the Briggs and ride the brake, or we’ll coast a mile past the Dawson’s wall and have to pump back up grade. I can see the light at the other end and no jackers, but there are a few places inside they could hide. We’ve never seen one hide, and Daddy said Bryson would make sure the tunnel is clear, but I pull out my 9mm just in case. Seeing my pistol, Becka grins and pulls hers. I kill the engine. We start picking up speed, so I pull back on the brake.
“Don’t shoot Bryson or Tommy,” I say as we coast inside the tunnel.
“Can we kiss ’em?” she asks.
“You’ll need to ask Tommy that,” I say. “But I wouldn’t mind a little—” Hearing the sound of running feet, I look behind us. Backlit by the gray sky over Mill Run, I see a silhouette, maybe eight feet behind us.
“Bryson?” I yell. Nothing.
“Jacker!” Becka says.
The flash of my pistol lights up the face of a woman. She was a jacker alright, but she was also a cashier down at Kimble’s grocery store.
“Was that—” Becka says. Then she screams.
When I turn, she’s gone. She screams again, this time behind me. She fires. I see her in the flash, huddled against the wall. Another flash, and that jacker falls, too.
Locking the brake, I jump down onto the tracks. “Becka!”
“Don’t shoot,” she says. “I’m okay… mostly.”
I can see her limping my way, so I stop and wait. The trolley coasts outside the tunnel before the brake holds.
“Kayla?” Bryson calls. He and Tommy stand in silhouette.
“We’re okay,” I yell, slipping an arm around Becka.
“No,” she says, pushing me away. “I think my arm’s broke.”
“Damn it,” I say, but then I kiss her forehead.
“What happened?” Bryson asks.
“Two jackers jumped us,” I say.
“I don’t see ’em chewing on your leg,” Bryson says. “You must of got ’em.” He pecks me on the cheek but then says, “Why the hell didn’t you let us know you were coming?”
“Daddy said he’d call you,” I say, kissing him back. Catching a little bit of his lip, I linger.
He grins. “Good to see you, too.”
“Hey,” Becka says. “What about me?”
“Sorry,” Tommy says, and then he kisses her square on the mouth.
She smiles and blushes. “Thank you,” she whispers, “but I meant my arm. I think it’s broke.”
“Mom will fix you up,” Bryson says. “Tommy, take Becka up to the house. And make sure the phone is still hooked to the battery. Kayla and I are going back in to make sure those freaks are dead. We need to drag their bodies off the track, anyway.”
Bryson grabs an oil lantern hanging just inside the tunnel. We climb up onto the trolley, and Bryson pumps while I search the crevasses for jackers, pistol in hand. We check the entire tunnel and then start back toward the bodies. But I stop Bryson after only a few feet. And there, in the cold, damp tunnel on a gray and rainy day, we make love. The world, for just a few moments, is again beautiful—and right.
∞
“Take your medicine before you leave this house,” Bryson’s mother says. “And carry some with you, just in case.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bryson says.
Catching my eye, she smiles and gives me a faint nod.
Becka sits on the front of the trolley, dangling her legs. She’s got one arm in a sling, but her pistol’s at the ready. Bryson and I pump the trolley up the grade in the tunnel. He doesn’t need my help, but I sense he doesn’t mind it either. Leaving the tunnel, I reach for the brake so we don’t roll back.
Bryson grabs my hand and asks, “Okay if I ride a ways?”
I check the sky. “It’s starting to let up,” I say, setting the brake. “You don’t need to be walking back all the way across town.” The Briggs can take us all the way home from here. We can even cut it off just before the trestle and coast most of the way home.
Pulling me close, he says, “Well, I’m not done… visiting with you.”
I grin and say, “Good,” and then crank up the Briggs. He releases the brake, and we snuggle as we ride past town.
“Let’s go rafting,” Becka jokes. She points down at the rickety store and dock by the creek. The rafts, stacked on the front porch for winter, still look to be in good shape.
“I grabbed two of those rafts in the last rain,” Bryson says. “We don’t have a trolley like you guys, but, with a few shots of shine, I could ride the creek down to your place in less than half an hour. Keep an ear out. You might hear me calling your name… late some ni—”
“Jacker!” Becka says. She points her pistol toward town. The rain has stopped.
“Shit,” Bryson says. “Pump!”
Bryson and I pump as hard as we can, but the jacker is fast.
“That’s Billy Weston,” Bryson says. “I played football with him in high school.”
“Becka,” I say. “Shoot him.” She takes aim but holds off to let him close in. Spotting another jacker on the loading dock ahead of us, I yell, “Up on the dock.” Becka turns and fires. The jacker, not much more than a boy, drops in a heap as we pass. Vaulting up onto the dock, Billy Weston hurls himself out into the thin air above us.
“Duck!” Bryson says, reaching up to deflect the airborne man. Billy passes overhead, but he latches onto Bryson’s sleeve. Tumbling head over heels, they both splash into Mill Run Creek.
Becka eyes the loading dock, smoke curling from her barrel. I keep pumping, but even over the whine of the Briggs, she hears me wail. Becka glances around the trolley, searching for Bryson. “He’s gone,” I say. Seeing her eyes fill with tears, I say, “Stay sharp.” I point ahead at the trestle.
Becka wipes her eyes and takes a deep breath. Scanning the town, she takes aim and fires. I glance over as a jacker crumbles, two blocks away. Best shot I’ve ever seen with a pistol, but I’m not surprised; she’s been shooting Daddy’s big gun since she was ten. I don’t much care for guns, but when Becka picks one up, it becomes a part of her.
I glance down at the creek as we cross the trestle. Billy Weston bobs to the surface, blistered, bloody, and quite dead. But Bryson is gone.
∞
Becka and I share a hot bath when we get home, both comforting and crying. The world sucks. Becka brushes out my hair, one-handed. Then I work on hers, until Mom comes in.
“Get dressed,” Mom says. “Come down to the wall, right now.” As she walks out, she adds, “Your father will kill him.”
We stare at each other, but only for an instant. Grabbing our robes, we run outside. I slip into mine as we reach the wall.
Uncle Wilbur moans, “Oh, dear Lord,” as we run up.
Becka ducks behind me. With her arm and all, Becka needs my help to get dressed. I wondered why she kept mumbling “wait” as we ran down from the house.
Daddy holds the lantern out beyond the wall. I look down.
“Hey, Kayla,” Bryson says.
“Bryson!” I say. “I thought you were dead.”
“And I still might be,” he says, “if… if you don’t talk some sense into your daddy.” Bryson sways.
“Where’d you go?” I ask.
“I swam under to the far side of the creek. I was hoping Billy would float on down… stream. And when I didn’t see him no more, I followed that… beaver trail on down. Crossed back over right down there,” he says, pointing at pretty much everything behind him.
“Are you drunk?” I ask.
“Maybe just a little,” he says. “Or a lot. My mom made me drink… my med-sin… before she’d let me leave the house. And I polished off that bottle I brought with me before I even took a breath of air. And then your dad made me drink another bottle when I got here… to proof… I ain’t been jacked. So yeah, I feel pretty good, but I could use a bite to eat.”
I look over at Daddy. “Why haven’t you let him in?”
“He’s drunk.”
“And whose fault is that? Really… why?”
“He… he says he’s been with you. Is that true?”
“I did not say that,” Bryson yells. “I asked for your hand in marriage… and he said no!”
“Daddy? Why’d you say no?”
Daddy shakes his head and mumbles, “Cause he’s drunk.”
“Daddy,” I say softly, taking his arm. “Why?”
“Like I told him… your mom and I dated for two years before we even talked about getting married.”
“And like I told him,” Bryson says, “times… have… changed. And why should we wait? Our baby’s already in the oven.”
Becka squeaks.
I glare down at him, shaking my head. Today was our first time, but somehow I know Bryson’s right. Or maybe I’m just hoping he is. I want him… I know that… even if he does have a big mouth. “Shoot him, Daddy.”
Daddy laughs. “Anything for you, princess. Or… I could just let him in. He looks fit enough… to watch the wall… and to plow… and husk corn… and hoe beats… and—”
I whisper, “Thank you, Daddy,” and peck him on the cheek.
Daddy grins. “And haul water… feed the chickens… strain the mash… bottle the shine. Son… is you sure you want in?”