The Two That Remained Read online

  He’d been afraid to take any food from the 7-11. He had no idea how long they’d been asleep in that tube, or in stasis, or whatever it was that had happened. It had to be more than five years judging from the incident with the car, and what was more, everything was far too dirty for it to be much less than ten. The trees were taller than he recalled, much taller and unkempt. Rust had formed on many of the cars parked on the I-64, Poplar Street Bridge, the kind of rust only caused by years of being left in heavy snow. A few shrubs had even rooted themselves onto the overpass. And again, the air was so much clearer than he remembered. He could see for miles in all directions, no fog or smog, and no human activity.

  “How long has it been?” he asked, and Emily pointed.

  “What’s that, Dada?”

  “The Arch at Gateway Park.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A car, baby.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Another car.”

  “What’s that?”

  Ryan shivered, her pointing finger coming to rest on an intermixed pile of bones between two motorcycles.

  “Nothing, babe.”

  She cocked her head and furrowed her brows. The questions went on, and on, as did the wind at their backs, rushing up over the river to howl its way through the city like a death rattle.

  Without people, the city had become just another set of brittle bones, void of life, disclosing its acceptance of a decaying fate as it yielded to the only certainty in the universe.

  Ruin.

  Without the influx of souls that powered its heart, formed its brain, acted as its hands and feet and filled the bloody torrents of its arterial roadways, it was a Titan past its prime, wasting away to become nothing more than dust and rust. The boot of time would soon crash upon this forgotten grave, grinding its heel on this very spot, making a new way, a fresh path for the wonders of what were to come. But man would not be there, Ryan supposed.

  The time of man was done. He and his daughter were all that remained; alone in this space between life and death.

  A sharp hunger grew in Ryan’s belly like a tumor. Emily had to be just as hungry, and so she refused to walk any farther. He was forced to sling her over his shoulder and carry her. She was rubbing her eyes and crying softly, kicking him to be set down, yet not wanting to be let go of. She was done, as he and Lillian had said often. Done with it all. And if he was being honest, so was he. His legs were sore and his trembling arms were turning into sun-dried spaghetti.

  The cold wind now only caressed his skin. At his core, he was a furnace. Sweat poured off his back, drying in the breeze, leaving his undershirt soggy and stained. The wind gusts whipped and shifted their direction, producing a creak of twisted steel beyond the bridge that reminded him of a T-Rex’s roar. The creak, creak, of the metal groaned until finally, there was a deafening crash. Ryan leapt out of his skin, and Emily screamed.

  His gaze snapped from the bridge onto the windows of the city’s tall buildings. Every one felt as if they had eyes that were peering down at him. He stared for a long time at the Southwestern Bell building, a twenty-eight floor tan citadel, and it stared back at him with its hundreds of eyes, all indifferent. On the twelfth floor he swore he saw one of those eyes blink, but how could a skeleton blink at him? Bones cannot blink; bones have no life, no soul. Bones only exist to support the living.

  Without the creaking, he was left with nothing more than the whisper of wind and Emily’s quiet sobbing. The day was getting late. His vision swam with exhaustion. He didn’t know what to expect when they made it home, but he couldn’t remain here like this was a campout. He needed to get home where they could bar the doors and rest. Where they could be safe. He had to push through all fatigue.

  Emily mumbled, then screamed, then slapped him in the face.

  “Hey! Baby, be nice. Be sweet.”

  Her tantrum only multiplied. With each step he took, she screamed louder, her desperate voice echoing off and into the skeletal city. “Mama,” she said. “Where’s Mama?”

  Ryan choked. He gripped her tighter and rubbed her back, shushing her softly. He felt his feet move more quickly, like he was running from something great and invisible. At his back, he could feel his fears mounting, a place beyond the edge of the river reaching out at him with its claws. “Go…” Lillian’s voice echoed in his mind. “Go…”

  His eyes stung and he felt sick. His foot caught on one of the expansion joints of the bridge, and he nearly pitched on his face. All of his weight would land on Emily. He stumbled awkwardly, painfully to recover, twisted his foot, but still took off running.

  “Just a couple more miles.” St. Louis City Center and Union Station slid past on his right. “Not much farther.” He rushed down the zoo exit ramp and turned north on S. Skinker Boulevard towards the Delmar Loop. Raspy air cycled through his lungs. He hissed the Disney song, “One Jump Ahead,” from Aladdin, between his clenched teeth—a habit he’d picked up in parenthood.

  Moving so fast he had little time to consider his situation, though on some level he knew. The bridge had been safe in its way, but down here, in the city, animals could be hiding anywhere.

  That was one thing he hadn’t seen since they’d left the lab. No animal remains, no animal bones. He kept up a good stride, singing the next song in Aladdin, musing about his sad life as a street rat. It was not helping.

  Emily slept against him. He listened to the air, and thought to himself there was nothing to be done if something wild attacked them. He was a pacifist by nature, terrified of guns, and though he’d been in the Boy Scouts at one time, he didn’t even carry a knife unless he was camping. How’s that for being prepared? Besides, how do you fight while holding your daughter? You’d be as likely to use her as a hapless shield than to protect her from harm.

  “Just be cool,” he told himself as if he were cruising down Ohio Avenue later at night than was appropriate. If he didn’t draw attention he’d be just fine. He was just being paranoid.

  A bestial howl pierced the cold winds and his blood turned to ice. Emily’s head shot up and she whispered, “Lany? Play?”

  It started with one, then two, then three. Before Ryan knew it, howls rose from all around in a widening net. He took off, running as fast as his fat ass would fling him, Emily bouncing in his arms. He drew her ever closer, wishing he could absorb her into his flesh. If he died, she died. If she died, he died. They were one family. He had to protect her. He was her father, her shield, her daddy.

  As he tore up the street, animals not used to humans parted in all directions in a flood, shocked at his sudden appearance. A pair of deer rushed across the road, nearly hitting him, a rabbit ran in from the sidewalk on his right and thought better of it, taking refuge beneath a car instead. Birds in trees took flight and even a duck quacked as if offended.

  Ryan glanced back at the dogs, grey and brown and black and tan. As many different breeds as he could have ever imagined, yet only the ones that could survive on their own without a master. Rottweilers. Labradors. Great Danes. Maybe a poodle-cocker mix or two. Folk that lived in the Loop loved their dogs, and in any variety they could get their hands on.

  “What’s that?” Emily said, pointing over Ryan’s shoulder at them. “Doggy! Lany! Lany!”

  He turned briefly and kicked out his right leg, catching a tan mutt square on the flank with the heel of his sneaker. The dog tumbled into a daze.

  “Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit!”

  They were just past the edge of Forest Park—Ryan’s former workplace across from it, Washington University in St. Louis—and so he rounded the corner onto their street, weaving in between several automotive accidents blocking the way.

  Rows of old, craftsmen homes blurred past on either side, his attention solely focused on the lone, weed-choked driveway leading up to their home. The dogs howled and barked and growled. Some broke off and began fighting one another. Ryan gave one last push, reaching into his energy stores of adrenaline, gathered his will,
and took off down the secluded drive leading onto their lot. He fought his way through a jungle of grass, stalks slapping him and Emily in the face, stumbled up the broken steps, fumbled with his keys, dropped them once, then twice, and forced open the front door.

  Barely inside, he slammed the door shut, his back falling against the oak. They slid safely to the floor of the foyer, his throat dry and raspy. Claws raked against the front door, seeking a way through, but they were safe.

  They’d made it. They were home.

  Chapter 4

  Beyond the safety of the heavy oak door the dogs howled an uneven chorus of frustration. Ryan and Emily kept still for a time, breathing soft and deep, backs against the wood. Emily wasn’t sure why they should be upset, but she sensed her daddy’s unease and kept close.

  A scritching noise came from the front porch, the dogs’ many nails clicking against the wood deck and digging at the bottom of the door. Ryan hoped there wasn’t a way for them to get inside, but he had no way of telling. How long had their home sat vacant? How long had it been?

  It was almost exactly as he’d left it, a home with the strong intention of getting itself clean, but instead having been caught in a furious variety of shit storms that could only be conjured by toddlers. The front entry was filled with all kinds of toys: Duplo Legos, Barbies, magnetic building blocks, fake cell phones and empty candy dispensers, as well as hair bows and a few sippy cups that had once held milk. He kicked the nasty cups into the Fancy Bedroom off the front entry before Emily could pick one up. The contents would be either toxic sludge, or nothing but dust by now. Neither were conducive to her long term health.

  Ryan loosened his grip on Emily and let her stand on her own.

  “What’s that?” she asked, putting an ear to the door. “Doggy?”

  “Mean doggy,” he replied. “Mean, mean doggy.” He added a growl to his voice.

  “Lany? Lany?” she asked, tone a hair distressed. “Lany gone.”

  “Not Lany.”

  Ryan poked his head into the mud room on their right, hearing the howls and clicking dog claws getting louder from that direction. On the floor he found a collection of fresh dung, pellets the size of quarters in quantity. The stench of them was sharp and pervasive, reminding him of trips to the zoo. Emily tried to pick one up but he told her no and eased her away by the shoulders.

  “Stay in the hall, baby.”

  “It’s mine!”

  “Shh.”

  “Mine.”

  He found the cause for the increasing clarity of sound from outside—a busted front window. That explained why the mud room had signs of mold and mildew, why the floorboards felt uneven and warped. He searched for any other breaches to the home, taking a quick pass around the family room and kitchen, then relaxed. They were safe enough for now. The dogs weren’t getting inside unless they sprouted wings.

  “Gone,” Emily said, feeling at her neck frantically. “Gone.”

  Ryan felt sick to his stomach. The little star necklace his mom had gotten her at a discount store, that she had loved like the sun and the moon, had been lost in their hasty getaway. And so he did what any self-respecting parent could do in a situation so grim.

  “We’ll find it. Don’t worry. I’m sure it’s around here somewhere.”

  “But, gone.” She raised her open palms and her face was slack. “Star. Gone.”

  “I know. Don’t worry.”

  “Dada, star.”

  “Yes, star. We’ll find it.”

  Upon closer inspection, the house hadn’t fared as well as he’d hoped. Surely they’d find a clean enough place to sleep for the night, but everything was damp and cold. Blots of black mold were on the furniture, as well as the curtains, and worst of all, Emily’s toys. No Clorox wipe in the world could clean well enough to make those safe again.

  His lip twitched as he rubbed his wedding ring. His chest was a gaping hole.

  Hopefully, the upstairs would be better. Hopefully, he could clean this place and make it safe to breathe in. He had to tell himself, it was hard to see how bad the damage was with night coming on fast. As the room grew dimmer his stomach growled louder. He took Emily with him into the kitchen to find something to eat, being careful to keep an eye on what she was up to. He set the messenger bag on the island at the center of the room and surveyed the mess. The trash can beside the back door was still full, brown strains still covered the counters, and Emily’s furry rocking horse was on its side by the back door. The one advantage to nightfall was that in a few minutes he wouldn’t be able to see any of this mess. The mess that never seemed to go away. The mess he never fucking had a lick of help with. Nevertheless, he could feel the stickiness of the floor and didn’t dare take his shoes off.

  “Eat, eat,” Emily said, and he nodded. He was starving and not very hopeful.

  Ryan sung half-heartedly as he opened the fridge, “Let’s see what bounty there be for us, the curious buccaneers makin’ a fuss! What booty, what ho! What riches that be, a pirate treasure for you and me!” His nervous excitement died like a fly caught in sticky poison. The stench coming from inside the fridge couldn’t have been described as rot—it was beyond that. The food inside had decomposed to nearly dirt. Sure, it smelt like a stinky shoe left at the bottom of a muddy lake that was later crapped on, but it wasn’t that sweet, poignant aroma of active bacteria. He closed the door and shook his head. He locked eyes with Emily and made a mock frown. “The stock’s gone bad, me hearties. Time to check the galley.”

  He waded through the collection of dry leaves on tile, and around what possibly had been a rats’ nest at some point. He checked inside the pantry and began to remove items one at a time. Emily reached for a sleeve of saltine crackers by the edge of the island, but Ryan stopped her short. He unwrapped another one of the Tootsie Pops from the 7-11. It appeased her as he continued to dig for something substantial. He’d read a book once on keeping foods for long periods of time, he just hoped he had the numbers right in his head.

  The food would fall into three categories:

  Safe to Eat.

  You’re Taking a Risk, Johnny.

  In Case of Emergency.

  “But how long has it been?” he asked, turning a can of beans on end. “Let’s assume at least five years, because of the battery. That puts the canned stuff into ‘You’re Taking a Risk, Johnny.’”

  He stacked the cans on the kitchen island and found himself saddened with how much emptier the pantry was when he was done. He grabbed a plastic honey bear, unopened, and set it on the counter beside two empty wine glasses. He’d been careless leaving those out in the open before going by Lillian’s work. Like that mattered now; what was she going to catch him doing? He took a sniff from the grimy neck of Two Buck Chuck cabernet resting beside the glasses. The noxious vinegar scent trapped within made him choke.

  “Blech. Okay.” He let out a breath, recalling many days of mixed emotions trapped in those bottles. “The honey’s safe to eat. It never goes bad.” A bottle of single malt scotch appeared behind a structure of expired snack bars and it was added to the safe pile. “A good a time as any to drink alone. Safe.” Below the shelves on a wire rack were several grey lumps, which had likely been potatoes or beets once. He left those alone. That left only a little pasta, dried beans that didn’t look safe in the least, and white rice. Something told him the rice would be the safest bet, and besides, Emily loved rice. Win-win.

  “Safe to eat,” he told the rice. “Good on ya, mate.”

  He peered through the window over the kitchen sink at his neighbor, Karen Mannford’s, fence. It was turning dark fast.

  “Come on, Emme, let’s get something to cook with.” He dug through one of the kitchen drawers and produced a slender candle and lighter. He led Emily with him into the garage, past the dung in the mud room, and over to where he kept his camping gear. It had been a while since he’d gone backpacking with Lawrence West, but if he remembered correctly, he had five or six canisters of propane left for
his camp stove.

  The single candle bathed the hermetically sealed garage in pale, flickering light. It was dry, and warm, for once. He could still hear howling and barking outside; a pair of dogs paced just beyond the closed, overhead door. He had to tell himself they couldn’t get through. Emily didn’t seem bothered by the dogs, but was now whining softly from both exhaustion and abject boredom. She’d done admirably to hold up this long—all day outside with no nap, traveling over eleven miles being carried most of the way, and with nothing to eat and hardly anything to drink. She was a real trooper. Ryan knew this wouldn’t last. Tomorrow, she would be hell.

  Towards the back of the garage was a stomach-high bench covered in computer components of every era; a pair of dusty CRT monitors, an open Commodore 64 box, an Apple II with a busted keyboard, varying types of RAM, and the coup de grace, an unfinished RAID server Ryan had been planning to use for cloud storage, home media, and to run a new shared computing architecture he’d been developing solo based on his dissertation. He’d never finished it. He never finished anything he’d set himself to do in a long time other than household chores. But everything was still here, and dry, and theoretically functional.

  But what was his education good for now? Building a framework in C for data collection, or optimizing a physics simulator wouldn’t feed them any longer. He needed to reassign his life skills and learn a new set. He was smart, but so were cavemen. They just had different skills, ones suited for a lower tech existence.

  Just looking at the dusty parts brought back memories of his assistant professorship at the University of Washington in St. Louis. In those days he’d been someone, a man in his prime doing things, going places. He was fostering bright new minds into the powerful world of computer programming, a world of knowledge that had begun to shape the fate of humanity in every facet. His students would one day put people on Mars, create a general A.I., or solve the mysteries of time and space with the aid of compilers and advanced computer modeling. He would be part of changing the world, making it better. Instead, he’d been stuck at home changing dirty diapers while his wife had been doing what she always dreamed. He hoped the result of her work hadn’t been what he saw now.