The sun glared from above and bounced off the desert sands around them. Blinding from above and so below. The tropical lushness of western Washington was behind them, and within a few miles had changed into a barren wasteland.
Barren, thought Shard, but beautiful. The whites and yellows were broken up by dwarfed shrubs and cacti, all canopied under a rich blue sky. She rolled the window further down and shoved her arm out into the cool air as they sped through it.
The Cadillac had seen better days. The air-conditioning had failed about seventy thousand miles ago, and rust - due to the long salt-encrusted winters in the Northeast- had corroded and shredded the blue paint work and split the go-faster stripes. The engine had started to hum slightly, as the oil in the engine solidified into black sludge. They had used up the spare tire on the way out and were riding high on the hopes that the spare would last them back to the Atlantic.
Automobile maintenance was not Bryce's strong point.
Shard glanced over at him, squinting to keep the wind off her eyes. He was staring straight ahead as usual, his left hand resting on the window ledge and his right hand hanging limp on the U of the steering wheel, the faded, dated, tie-dyed shirt whipped in the breeze exposing his thin arms and slim trunk, pale and white.
Montana, Big Sky State. No shit, thought Shard as she stared at the vast expanse before them. Beats Idaho, though.
"So you're never getting married right?"
Shard pulled her head back out of the breeze from the window. "What?"
"You said you'd never get married," repeated Bryce.
"The concept's so out dated," she said, squinting into the horizon. "I'm not going to commit myself to one person for the rest of my life."
"You're weird, Beavis."
"The thought of staying with one person for the rest of my life," she said. "That sounds weird to me."
"Why?"
"I'm not religious, in any way," Shard said. "It wouldn't mean anything to me in that sense."
"What's wrong with having someone to share life with, to grow old together, to help each other?" Bryce asked as he squinted into the glare of the morning sun.
"What planet are you from again?" She asked mockingly. "Maybe my frame of reference is a little distorted, having been adopted by two people who are now divorced."
"So, let me get this straight. You're dating your boss..."
"Ex-boss," she corrected. "As of last month, anyway."
"Who is married..."
"Separated," she snapped. "Mostly."
"And you don't use protection of any kind..."
"For the past six years, I've used the Think Method."
"The Think Method."
"If I don't think I can get pregnant then I won't."
"Right."
"It's worked so far."
"And you wanna know what planet I'm from?" Bryce asked.
Shard stared ahead, tight lipped.
"Let me guess," ventured Bryce. "You're late."
"Yes."
"Oh."
Silence.
"So are you going to call him Dennis or Mark or..."
"Shut up!" she smacked him on the arm, but she was laughing.
"Hey, easy. I'm just-" Bryce paused for a second. "Hey, wait a sec, where's my camera?
"What? Why?"
"You still got it?" He asked excitedly. He started fumbling between the seats, only one hand on the wheel and both eyes stuck to the sky.
"Yeah, hold on-" she said reaching under her seat, sorting through the Pepsi bottles and McDonald's wrappers. "Got it."
"Come on!"
"What?" she asked exasperatedly, looking down the road.
Bryce flailed an arm across her face. "Over there, what, you blind or something?"
She followed his frantic waving and stared off to the left. Distance was deceptive here, especially out West with no points of reference. But the mushroom cloud looked only about five miles away. It was the size that bothered Shard.
"Roll the window down," said Bryce, "get a couple shots. Holy shit!"
"What is it?" Shard stared at the expanding mass. It was as large as a thunderstorm, sitting above the plain and swelling larger.
Springfield, Tennesee
Barry was old. And bitter. He had waited all his life to be old and bitter and by God he was going to enjoy it.
The moon was just a quarter full, just a slice of lemon peeping through the evening clouds. The chill nights of winter were quietly being softened by the northerly breezes and Barry could once more pull out his sun chair outside the steps of his door.
He lay on his aluminum and rayon throne and reclined his head facing upwards, watching the sparkling vista above him with his eyes closed.
And his ears open.
It was a dull night at the apartment complex: the confused babblings of a dozen different televisions blurred together, somewhere the water was running, and someone somewhere was playing Eleanor Rigby over and over again.
Barry let out a quiet sigh as he felt a warm brush against his leg. He bent down and scooped Phoebe up into his arm. Phoebe nuzzled his chin and flicked her tail in his face as he scratched the base of her tail. She turned around several times in his lap before perching upon one knee, purring softly, keeping sentinel as Barry returned his thoughts back to eternity.
From above them, there came and incessant ringing. Each plea of the electronic pealing was met with a steamy silence.
Harry became so distracted by the noise that he started counting the rings. He had reached sixteen when he heard the sound of rushing water squeak off, followed by a female voice that uttered a very unladylike oath. This was quickly followed by a loud, wet, thud.
Several more unlady-like shouts drifted down to Barry and Phoebe, followed by scrabbling noises, possibly like those made by an angry, sopping wet person frantically pulling herself across slimy tiles having slipped upon, say, a towel.
Finally the ringing stopped.
"WHAT?"
Barry eavesdropped without the slightest sense of guilt.
Pause.
A battered Buick, radio blaring, pulled up alongside the row of parked cars, and a young man jumped out. He ran across to the door of apartment C and started pounding on the old and splintered wood.
Barry shook his head as he watched the young man. The owner of that apartment had bolted the night before, scared away by a raid a few doors down. Most of his clientele had yet to learn that their dealer had done a runner.
After some kicking and muttering, the youth jumped back in his car empty handed and sped off into the night. As Barry's ears adjusted to the sudden quiet, he began to catch pieces of her voice again.
"You can tell Commodore Mrazik to go shove his head up his own… A gas?... It releases a gas... Nothing on any of the bodies... A bacteria?... Virus, then... Well, is it or isn't it?"
Barry felt a tiny wet spot at the top of his knee as the cat's drool began to soak through his jeans, purring with contentment.
"Well you should know, not me. After all, I'm the one they fired. How long is the incubation period?"
She swore, violently.
Phoebe stopped purring.
"What change? New Orleans! I just resigned yesterday… I only just moved in, I'm not going back to New Orleans-"
Silence. Long and heavy.
Barry drifted off to sleep, and Phoebe curled into a warm, furry ball in his lap.
Phoebe jumped four feet into the air, gouging out a considerable portion of Barry's legs as the box dropped out of the sky next to them.
Barry stared up at the window above.
A head, mottled with slick, wet hair poked out of the window.
"Well, don't just sit there," Dr. Sahara Shaw yelled. "Help me get this crap outta here!"
Rio
Grande,
American-Mexican Border
November, 1974
Pain flashed through her and her body spasmed. She forced herself to remain upright, forced herself to ignore the cold water that was up to her waist, to block out the shouts around her. She spread her arms out for balance and staggered once more through the river, her feet sliding as they lost grip and the tide pulled at her, tearing her further downstream.
She made several more wearing steps before her body folded on itself once again and her vision was sparkling with white lightening. Her teeth clenched as the contraction overwhelmed her and she curled around her belly. Her mouth gulped water and her head told her she was floating, floating away.
Her gut clenching as her lungs heaved, she unfurled and lanced upward out of the water, taking great heaving breaths of rich, wonderful air. She spat up water and her feet skidded along the bottom as they dug for purchase in the mud and silt. She blinked clear her eyes and saw that she had been carried another twenty meters downstream.
She couldn't tell if she was crying, her face was so drenched with sweat and the water of the Rio Grande. She barked out a short harsh laugh. She wondered if her water had broken.
It had been so long, her family so far away… her limbs ached and her vision was fuzzy around the edges, blind with pain.
There were no thoughts in her head, she kept moving with a driving desire a need, for her baby to be born on U.S. soil, to not to be cursed with her life. She kept walking. Blood left a scarlet trail, waving and dissipating as it flowed downstream from her.
At 1:45 A.M. she gave birth a sandy bank of the Northeast shore of the Rio Grande River. She died twenty minutes latter, her baby clutched to her chest, the umbilical cord still attached.
The dogs found her first. The guards came across them soon afterward.
No one even knew her name.
Crying on the banks of the river, gritty sand peppering his red skin, lashed by doggie tongues was a boy who could save the world.