Terence and Lead spent nights crossing the desert. The moon was at the full end of its cycle. The clouds remained in the east. The night was illuminated by the lunar orb and stars and the occasional western lightning. Lead saw shadows in the distance, augmented by the traveling celestials, but he saw no demons or night spirits.
Lead walked behind Terence, watching his feet shift through sand, rocks, and brush. They trekked swiftly through the night. In the dawn’s light, Terence made a lean-to with brush and a reflective tarp he’d scavenged from CRASS. They slept until the sun retired. The men saved their endurance for the cool nights.
Lead’s body regained its strength. He was young and hardy and well-conditioned enough to keep in motion. He worried about his soul, about his severance from the Church. Through the silent nights he prayed for the Lord to understand and forgive on his day of judgment.
When the sun rose on the third day of trekking, Terence announced they were out of water. He dug two holes in the sand and placed empty jars in the center of each hole. He motioned for Lead to help him lift a large boulder. They wrenched it out of the sand with straining backs and grunts.
“Help me put this heavy bastard on top of that barrel cactus.” Terence said.
Terence smiled through the strain, happy in his wisdom. They heaved the boulder against the cactus and smashed it into large moist chunks. Both men collapsed in the dust.
“Can’t drink the liquid straight out of the pulp, it’s bitter poison. Takes more water and sick getting out of your system than it puts in. Killed more cowboys than the pox.”
Terence cut the cactus pieces into smaller chunks and tossed them into the holes with the jars. He covered the holes with folded plastic sheets from his pack and dug the edge of the sheets into the sand. He then dropped pebbles into their middle, making the sheets dip towards the mouth of the jars.
“The sun will cook the water out of the cactus, plastic will drip it into the jars. It’s clean, or cleaner at least.”
Lead crawled under the lean-to. He hadn’t spoken much since the telling of Las Vegas. Terence squatted next to the shelter and drew shapes in the sand.
“How long did you Preach for the Church?” Lead asked.
Terence thought in silence before speaking.
“Don’t suppose that matters; maybe twelve, thirteen years. I stopped counting birthdays and regular days.” Terence looked to the rising sun. “You know I was in the guard. When the states broke up I stuck to it and accepted the new boss. Got born again. How about you, you Preach long?”
“No.” Lead picked at the torn sleeve of his trench coat. “After Vegas I was put in a bible camp outside of Flagstaff. I kept the uniform shirt and pistol and they knew me for a veteran. I was assigned to guard the perimeter and keep out heathens. None came. The call to Preacher service didn’t come ‘till maybe two, three years ago.”
Lead snapped a twig between his fingers. He looked past the edge of the tarp, to the morning sun.
“I’ve killed a lot of men, a woman too.”
“I know,” Terence said. “That’s the service.”
“I don’t know how many I’ve killed in total, maybe twelve.” Lead’s voice trembled. “I haven’t been preaching long, but I can’t remember all the faces of the men I’ve killed or detained, or who got away.”
“They don’t retire us,” Terence interrupted. “In earlier days, Preachers worked together or at least knew each other. Church later realized we needed to be kept separate. Never knew a Preacher to leave service in any way but death or disappearance; at least it was that way when I knew Preachers.”
Terence shifted his back to the sun. “Preacher’s retirement is at the end of a mark’s club or under another Preacher or Crusader’s blanket. Make no mistake; you did right in following me out here.”
Terence laid his head under the tarp. The wind flung a plastic bag through their campsite.
“Do you know how many you put under the blanket?” Lead asked.
“No. Lots though. Not all my killings were put under blankets. I was a shooter in the guards. I’ve killed more than I can remember, more than what’s right for any man. I’m guessing a lot more than you.” Terence closed his eyes. “My soul is rolled up so there ain’t a way out of it. If I had another fifty years of saving men I couldn’t break even with the destruction I’ve wrought.” He looked at Lead’s back.
“I remember the first. Most nights if I remember my dream, it’s about that first killing. A man is not the same after he has killed another.”
Terence told his story.
The last year of San Diego was similar to the past years of San Diego in its wealth and splendor. People existed in beauty and opulence, except for those who were indigent; they settled for living near beauty and opulence. Highways stretched through miles of neighborhoods marked with greens and ocean views and weather that range from great to almost great. This was Terence’s home. He lived in an apartment a few blocks from Balboa Park, and a short walk from the zoo. He owned an annual pass to the zoo, which he and Christine, his wife, used almost every weekend. They walked the paths, weaving between tourists, to watch polar bears, orangutans, Meer cats; not so much there to observe the animals, but to be young and together and in love. When John, their son, was small they’d rent him a stroller. When John grew bigger, his child legs carried him through the zoo and park until he turned tired and cranky, then Terence would perch him on his shoulders and carry him like a Czar through the bird and monkey habitats. Some weekends they camped on the beach, or in the eastern mountains. The adventures were often repeated but never grew dull in their repetition due to the company. Their family was one held together in honest love.
Their apartment was a one-bedroom on the bottom floor of a three-story art deco building. The walls were painted white; the rooms furnished and trimmed in bamboo and sea green. Johnny slept on a racecar bed in the living room next to the kitchenette.
For work, Terence taught history at a charter school in El Cajon. The commuter traffic east on the Eight was always light; the serious commuters always came west from El Cajon to Downtown. Terence rode his morning commute for an hour each a day, five days a week, part of the inconvenience of city living.
Christine stopped working after Johnny was born. She had been a teacher. She preferred being a mother. Christine looked after the little one and kept house and planned the weekend trips her family lived for. They didn’t have much room at home, but it was enough. Terence worried about what they would do when John got older. They would have to find someplace bigger, further from the ocean and parks and zoo to stay in their price range. He did what he could. Teachers weren’t paid a lot. He worked, she didn’t. The concern lingered but was swept away in the good times.
The Storms started with rain. Talking faces on the television had argued about the weather for a long time, for decades. Some said it was getting too hot. Some said the heat was normal, that change in the weather was normal. They argued and argued and their voices became a steady drone that filtered into the background of all the other ambient noise of human existence. People stopped listening. Some never had.
The rain got worse and it brought winds and darkened days. The people of the coastal cities kept working, shopping, living. They watched their televisions and looked for answers, solutions, direction. With renewed attention they listened to experts argue about the cause of the weather and when it was going to end. The experts cried and moaned about God or science, some both. San Diego became less beautiful and buildings were damaged in petty floods. The beaches and parks closed. Many of the streets were closed, but people continued to live and to make the best of things, as the saying went.
Terence was at school when the first wave hit. It came as a wall of ocean pushed by Pacific earthquakes and what they later referred to as a sudden and unpredictable shift in the Earth’s polarity. The wave rode into the city of San Diego and broke the homes of man and creation and beauty. Klaxon alarms blared and radios and televisions switched to emergency messages, never to return to regular broadcasting. Terence abandoned his class. He ran out into the ceaseless deluge. He drove west, towards San Diego, towards the ocean and the waves.
The highways were rendered useless in both directions, loaded with cars first used and then abandoned by people who too late realized they could not navigate through standing water. People left their cars and walked in the rain, blank and confused, numb with tragedy. Terence opened his car door against the force of winds. He ran in ankle deep water towards San Diego, towards home. The horizon held funnels of tornadoes which ripped and tore and broke that which the waves hadn’t. Terence ran towards the horizon and tornadoes and destruction. He ran against the crowds fleeing and panicked. Blue bolts of lightning arced across the sky, illuminating clouds that would always remain. Terence broke from the crowds and waded through a runoff ditch. Somewhere in the sludge he lost a shoe. None of it mattered, Terence was going home.
“My neighborhood was wet rubble, unrecognizable. Buildings, landmarks, shopping centers, everything was ripped apart by waves and winds. The roads were choked with pieces of buildings, and overturned cars, and corpses. I found my home late in the night using street signs as the only remaining landmarks. I used my cell phone like a flashlight. The signal towers were not broadcasting anymore, but I kept my phone in false hope.
There was almost nothing left of my apartment complex. The top two floors were ripped clean away, like they’d been uprooted by the hand of God. I waded into my living room, which was open to the elements. Everything had washed out except my bed. In all that destruction, in all that devastation, my bed stood in its room, my last material object; a monument. I laid on it. Of course it was soaked but that didn’t matter. I waited for my family. I waited for Christine and Johnny to come home so we could leave together. I watched the sun peek through rain clouds. A rainbow formed overhead. The water rose to mattress level. I rolled to a sit and let my legs dangle in the water. From under the bed, a tiny hand reached for me.”
Johnny lay under the bed, peaceful, unmoving. In the panic of the tidal wave, he hid in the safest place he knew, under the bed of his parents. The wave struck and carried his mother and his home away and yet he remained, trapped under the bed in the water. Terence touched the hand. It was real. Terence’s chest clenched, his heart beat frantically. He pulled the boy out. Johnny was wearing his pajamas and blue galoshes. His skin was a similar hue of blue. Terence felt the boy’s necks and wrists. He shook Johnny and screamed and moaned at the boy and God in equal parts. Terence grasped the boy to his chest and rocked him, tried to force warm life from his own body to that of the child. His mind groped for direction, explanation, anything sane and rational. He lay down with the boy and closed his eyes. He whimpered, lacking words.
“I awoke to thunder and wind whipping itself back to life. Rain pelted my face. I looked to the body of my boy and knew for the first time, truly knew, that he was never coming back. I knew that he was gone, and Christine was gone, and my home was gone and the park and zoo and museums and all parts of a life I had lived within and loved.”
Terence rubbed has hands together.
“I was done with my beautiful life. I waded to what was left of my neighborhood market and scavenged cans of soup and bottled water. The shelves that stood were plentiful, there wasn’t enough life left in that part of the city to support looting. I packed a bag of supplies for Chris and Johnny and left it on the bed, like coins for the ferryman. I was that crazy with grief.”
Terence walked back into the bedroom. The water sloshed at knee level. He set the shopping bag next to Johnny’s body and touched his face for the last time. Terence slung his pack over his shoulders. He had planned to order pizza when he got home from work the night before. On pizza nights they usually played checkers. Johnny was old enough to play by the rules, though he showed no aptitude for the game. Terence stopped himself from thinking about it. He knew he should be crying but he couldn’t do it.
Terence wadded through downtown San Diego in the early morning light.
“The day before, when I left for work, I knew the storms weren’t right, that things were wrong with the Earth. I knew the world was ailing and we needed to move east, away from the ocean. It was in my head. I don’t know why I did nothing. A man’s job is to protect his family. He’s supposed to follow the right voice in his head, the one that tells him what’s wrong, what’s dangerous. I went to work like it was a regular day, like the wind and Hell of the Earth wasn’t blowing down the coasts. I ignored what was obvious. Before leaving, Chris asked me if I could take some time off, if we could go visit her relations in Arizona ‘til the storms stopped. I told her it wasn’t necessary. That the storms had to break up sometime.”
Terence turned away.
“I killed Chris and John. Nothing is right after that.”
Terence pushed the toe of his boot into the sand.
“You ever love anyone?”
Lead thought about it. “Jesus…my mother too I guess,” he replied.
“What about real women, not relation?” Terence asked.
“The ones at the fugee camp were older. Young ones were removed earlier on. Only ladies at Flagstaff camp were Marys or Goodwives. Preacher ain’t supposed to take a wife anyway; doesn’t fit the life and purity.”
Lead closed his eyes. He listened to the wind scour the tarp with sand.
“You didn’t kill your kinfolk,” Lead said. “It was the Storms. Storms killed lots of folk…”
Terence interrupted Lead. “A day later, walking the mountain roads to Julian town, seeking higher elevation, I killed a man with my hands.”
Terence looked to his clenched fists.
“He was middle-aged, simple-minded by the sound of his speech. He was scared, and desperate, and hungry. He wanted the food in my pack. I beat him with my fists until he stopped moving and breathing. I broke two of my fingers punching his face over and over and over. I beat on that man until he stopped moving and twitching and long past when he went over. I threw his body into a flood stream. I assumed I would feel bad about it, but at the time I didn’t. It didn’t matter. It was all part of my new tragic, empty life.”
Terence shifted.
“I hiked to Calexico where I met a group of guards tasked to hold the border against Mexican fugees. The Mexicans had it way worse than us with the Storms. The guards needed manpower to push back the hordes of men migrating north. I was young and able-bodied and American. I volunteered and that was that.”
Lead listened to the wind. He waited for Terence to say more, but Terence was finished. Lead drifted to sleep imagining cities filled with water.
They woke in the early evening. Terence folded his reflective tarp and placed it back into his knapsack. He pulled the jars from the water traps and handed one to Lead.
“It’s not going to taste right and it might hurt your stomach a little. The important part is to not let it out. Keep the water in you because that’s the only thing that is going keep you alive out here.”
Lead looked at the cloudy inch of water at the bottom of the jar. It smelled like cut plants. It tasted bitter and wrong. Lead held his breath in his nose and swallowed the rest. He handed the jar back to Terence.
Lead gagged and clenched his stomach until the nausea passed. Terence drank from his jar, gritted his teeth and sucked wind against the bitterness. Terence put the jars back in his knapsack. They began their nightly journey.
The ex-Preachers came upon a river of cars half buried in sand. In the distance, moon light reflected off of rows of windows reaching out to both horizons.
“That’s the Highway Eight. It starts under water in the Storm land and kind of runs through the ruin of mankind. From the old Pacific shoreline through the Zona, through kingdoms and lands I’ll never see,” Terence said.
The cars stood still and quiet and endless. Lead brushed the dust off of a windshield. A bleached white skeleton smiled back at him with its lipless eternal brilliance. Fleshless fingers rested on the steering wheel. A gentle breeze blew through the interior and shifted the tatters of the skeleton’s shirt.
“Don’t touch anything,” Terence said.
He gently pulled Lead away from the windshield. “Looks like virus sixteen or twenty-three, both were quick killers. Can’t see any other way someone would pass away clutched to a steering wheel.”
“What about a gunshot?” Lead asked.
“No. He would have lain down to bleed out, unless it was a headshot, which isn’t the case here. The skull is still intact.”
The two stared at the corpse for a silent minute.
“Come on, we follow the Highway Eight for a now. Don’t get too close to the cars. I don’t want to stir anything.”
Terence and Lead walked through the dunes next to the highway, past cars and trucks consumed by rust and dirt. The wind kicked up the earth and colored the air, making all things brown.