The Zona Read online

  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 pun
ching 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.

  VIII. The Tucson Colony, a home for lepers and madmen

  The border of Tucson was marked with burned-out house frames and punctuated with obliterated trailer parks. It reminded Lead of Kingman in its charred abandonment. Past the destruction, camp fires glowed and broke the evening black and attested to life in the town.

  “We need to leave the highway now,” Terence whispered.

  “Middle Tucson is a haven for lepers, resilient virals, and madmen. The Church dumped them here.”

  Beyond the rows of buildings Lead looked to the bonfires and lit buildings. An inhuman whooping rode the night winds.

  Terence pulled Lead’s six-shooter from his knapsack.

  “In case there’s trouble you’ll want this.”

  He handed the pistol back to Lead, handle first.

  “You’re out of bullets.”

  “I know.”

  The gun felt comfortable in Lead’s hand, like the return of an appendage. He gripped the handle and felt its weight. He had relied on this tool for so long that it had become part him.

  The ex-Preachers followed the edge of Tucson south, avoiding the noise and movement of the inhabitants. They lurked silently in the darkness. Lead clutched his gun and looked to the villagers circled in the fire light.

  “We need to talk to them,” Terence whispered. “Without fresh water we won’t make it to New Pueblo.”

  “What about plague?” Lead was worried. He had not forgotten his hard lesson about savage villages.

  “No choice. We can’t live on cactus water. We need this.”

  Lead followed Terence to the outskirts of a bonfire fueled by house lumber and furniture. His mind returned to the fire of the Jimson eaters near Havasu.

  Around the bonfire stood men and women whose faces and bodies were cracked and twisted by mutation, radiation, and disease. They resembled the living dead; eating, speaking, and laughing in the flickering light. Faces stood without eyes, arms without hands, legs without feet. What skin showed was pocked and marred by sickness or scar. The villagers fell silent at Lead and Terence’s approach. Lead held up his gun, visible to the fire light.

  “We mean you no trouble. We’re here on the Lord’s business,” Lead said. He rested his gun against his right thigh.

  The nearby men stood up. Those who had hands clutched planks of firewood. One of them hefted a shovel. Terence stepped forward in haste.

  “My friend misspoke. We are not here on the Lord’s business. We are men on our way south, looking to leave behind the Church. Let us pass without delay or violence.”

  The man with the shovel approached Terence. He was dressed in dirty blue jeans and a red flannel shirt. Half of his face had lost shape and resembled melted wax illuminated by the camp fire. Thin arms held the shovel over his left shoulder.

  “Look at these lovelies,” the man said over his shoulder in a strange, slurry accent.

  “All dusty from the winds. Coming up from the sands like desert djinns. Who are you, rags?”

  The man’s mouth twisted into a half smile, the disfigured side of his face remained solid, immobile.

  “I’m Terence Wood, Terence the Dead if you recognize the name. This is Lead, he travels with me,” Terence said.

  The twisted man’s face grew serious.

  “We’ve heard of the Dead, but we hold none here. The ones passed through went south to New Pueblo or the grave.” His half smile returned. “What brings you to our gorgeous, God-given paradise, our Eden of monsters and half-men?” The man asked sarcastically.

  “We’ve come to trade or barter. We’ll be headed south from here soon as we can,” Terence said.

  “Good for you old man, we’re glad to trade. The Church won’t let a man who enters leave this camp. Says we’re unclean and they’re unclean, but that’s all bullshit. I say if God takes your life, in here is no more likely then out there.”

  Terence nodded and held out his right hand. The leper let go of his shovel and shook Terence’s hand firmly.

  “Be comfortable.” The man said and gestured to his seat near the fire. “Please, accept the hospitality I can give. I’m still human.” His face tightened in pain. “But please sit near my fire. Get comfortable. I’ll return with our representative and you can talk price and barter.”

  The ex-Preachers sat on the ground and warmed themselves in the fire’s glow. Villagers stared at Lead and Terence with curious eyes. The men and women were horrifyingly misshapen, but something else separated them from the parishioners Lead was used to. He suddenly realized that they were not afraid. These men and women, bandaged, warped, and dying, creatures living in perpetual death had nothing to fear from the Church or gun.

  Lead tucked his pistol into his jacket pocket.

  “Thank you for your hospitality.” Terence announced to the villagers. “Thank you for the warmth of your fire and the comfort of this seat.”

  Lead clutched the remnants of his trench coat closer to his body. The villagers continued w
atching the newcomers, making no noise. The man with half a face returned with an old ghoul, the obvious leader.

  The ghoulish man was tall and lanky with a shock of white hair revealing his age in ways his rough horned hands couldn’t. He wore a black suit peppered with dust and sand. His black silk tie stood in contrast to a clean white dress shirt. The campfire’s light made the silk tie gleam. He faced Terence and Lead. A black silk cloth, the twin of his tie, covered his eyes. The blindfold also gleamed in the fire light. The leader’s face was a road map of burns and scars.

  “I welcome you newcomers. My name is Reverend Richard Bell. Everyone here calls me Reverend Greek. You may as well. My associate tells me you’re here to barter.”

  He held his right hand up in a welcoming gesture.

  “I hope you find our accommodations to your liking, humble as they may be.”

  Terence spoke. “We thank you for the hospitality. I did not imagine Tucson so civil and well ordered.”

  “Aye, civil we are. We make the best of our abandonment and imprisonment,” Reverend Greek said.

  “You’re prisoners of the Church, then?” Terence asked.

  “The Church gives us supplies enough for survival. The Pueblo folk want nothing to do with our diseased, and we’re surrounded by miles of desert. We’re nature’s prisoners, not that I complain too terribly. We have food and water, and we busy ourselves with the care of the dying and infirm. A life of purpose and the means to continue it is more than I deserve.”

  The man with half a face led Reverend Greek to the empty throne near the fire.

  “What does that mean, Greek?” Lead asked.

  The Reverend smiled. His smile was unnerving with his lack of eyes.

  “It’s a type of people. They lived on an island on the other side of the world. Tan skin, big noses, kind of hairy, best warriors and philosophers for a big part of history. I’m Greek, or at least my ancestors were.”