Chapter 3

XX

Henry swore violently as he slammed the brakes on the enormous Oldsmobile station wagon he was driving, causing the brakes to lock. He had absolutely no idea what he was doing as a driver, and clumsiness and constant fouling up was the result.

"Goddamn!" Mark cried, tumbling into the front dash and then the floor. "Fuck!"

"Mark," Henry shouted, "just hold on!"

"Shit!" Mark shouted. "Motherfucker shot me! Goddamn it!"

A lifetime ago, Henry would have gone running to the nearest hospital with a lie ready, but two things had changed everything. First, the hospitals were jam-packed with dead bodies; attempting to save his sibling using whatever stocks were left in that nexus of death would be pointless. Second, Mark had been saved by the magnificent old house Henry had just stopped at. The place had bailed him out once already.

Henry just hoped it would be able to do the job this time. Henry had yanked some gauze out of a crashed ambulance and wrapped it around his own right shoulder and Mark's left. Shards of broken glass had sliced marks all over Henry's shoulder, and a bullet had torn through Mark's. The auburn-haired boy was already forcing the door open and getting out of the car, but it was clear that he was in incredible pain.

"I can't believe that little faggot shot me," Mark said in disbelief. "He kisses boys and he fucking shot me."

"We'll kill him, Mark," Henry promised. "He'll get it like he's never dreamed of. Come on, we gotta get you inside."

"I can't wait," Mark said with a weary smile. "I love this place."

"Yeah, now that you're not afraid of everything," Henry said. He went to Mark, took his right arm and threw it over his shoulder.

"Aw, fuck, this hurts!" Mark hissed as they started walking.

"You'll be fine."

"Goddamn, I didn't see this shit coming," Mark said. "I swear I'll fuck up that little fag if it's the last thing I do."

"He'll pay," Henry vowed. "He'll pay. Just you wait."

As they reached the front doors, Henry reached for the right handle, but barely touched it before the door swung open on its own. Still supporting his wounded brother, Henry focused on putting one foot ahead of the other.

"We got any guns in this house?" Mark asked, still breathing hard. Blood had turned most of the white bandages on his shoulder maroon.

"Not that I know of. But we can look around. Maybe this place will come up with something." Henry raised his voice. "Hey, Great Aunt Helen, some guns would be good, all right? Is there an armory in here?"

They made it up the Grand Staircase with Mark cursing and swearing all the way, then turned and began making the long trip down the Corridor, the extremely long hallway that ran almost the entire East-West length of the house. Henry's shoulder grew damp, and he looked and saw Mark looking pale, his face dripping with sweat.

Shit.

"Henry," Mark said suddenly, "I-I don't feel so good."

"You'll be fine!"

"I want you to know," Mark went on in a tired voice, partly slurred. "I want you to know, Henry, that I love you, and thank you for saving me." He paused. "Little faggot shot me."

Then Mark's knees gave and he passed out.

Henry cried out as the full weight of his growing brother fell on his injured shoulder, but he managed to kneel and slide Mark off him. After taking a moment to assess the situation, Henry reached down and lifted Mark up onto his shoulders. That was a lot to take on at once, even for Henry, but he managed. Sweating hard and growing truly frightened now, Henry started to head down the hall at a plodding, maddeningly-slow pace.

I won't give up. I can't. If he dies, I'm dead. Life will be pointless. But… I guess, if that happens, I gotta go finish the job. John will be so sorry if Mark dies. He'll get it a thousand times worse. Left, right, left, right…

Refusing to give up now after he had come so far, Henry kept Mark atop his shoulders and marched onward, getting closer, ever closer to the Glass Library. The closer it got, though, the further away it seemed, the less Henry could tolerate the remaining distance. Swearing that he would get even with John LaFleur if it was the last thing he ever did, Henry forced himself to keep going even as his lean shoulders trembled under the weight.

"Shit," Henry gasped, feeling every ounce that Mark weighed, wishing that his beloved sibling hadn't taken to working out with so much enthusiasm. The very thing the two boys had encouraged each other to do was making it harder to save Mark now.

As he neared the door, Henry concentrated on it with all his might, willed for the fucking thing to open! Incredibly, in Henry's greatest hour of need, it did, and he staggered through with Mark on his shoulders, spasms wracking his biceps and shoulders. The blond boy made it to the middle of the room, the center, the heart of the house's power. With agonizing slowness, he knelt and slid Mark to the floor.

Then Henry fell over and passed out himself.

XX

Under the floor, Mark, wounded and in pain, reached out for Henry. Not physically; his need was deeper than that. Mark pleaded for Henry telepathically, asked where he was, and felt a flood of relief when his brother answered.

I'm here, Mark. I'm here.

I'm not going to die, Henry.

No. You're going to live.

I can't die. I have too much to do first.

You're damn right we do.

Mark slipped in and out of consciousness, which was already difficult to define precisely down here, in the strange and mysterious depths below the Glass Library's floor. He felt pulsing heat, then an itching he couldn't scratch. He felt Henry's mind reaching for him, comforting him, promising without a word that all would be okay.

That meant the world to Mark. It meant everything. Briefly, Mark tried to imagine why he had ever disagreed with Henry, ever found cause to argue or fight with him during his visit back in 1993. His true identity as Henry's brother had not yet been discovered then, not yet recognized. That the boys were born as cousins meant nothing to either of them, and since Henry had given a piece of his soul for Mark, since Mark had been changed by that gift, they had been brothers on a far more important level than who one's parents were.

I don't know what it was like then, Mark thought distantly. I know I was mistaken. Obviously I was. Henry is my brother. Why would I disagree with him about anything?

That Mark could not think past that, could not remember much of his life before 1993, did not bother him in the slightest. He wasn't terribly interested in recalling his old life anyway. Life without Henry had been incredibly boring. It was like remembering 12 years of watching the paint dry. Did you really want to?

Slowly but steadily, the pain faded. It was not so much that the wound was healed- the very fact of Mark getting shot was erased. It was as if Mark had never been hit at all.

Just as Mark began to think gratefully of his Great Aunt Helen and this magnificent house, he saw something. A skinny, sweaty, frightened-looking kid with a mess of black hair was hiking down the side of a highway, the one where Henry had thrown Mr. Highway from that overpass last year.

West, Mark realized, he has to be heading west. And he won't be going very far or very fast. He's not used to the weight of the gear, or that gun he's carrying. He surprised us last time. This time, we'll be the ones surprising him.

As if to encourage that idea, that line of thinking, Mark's vision changed. He saw himself and Henry ambushing John, smacking him in the face with a car door as he made his way through an endless sea of stalled and wrecked vehicles. They disarmed him, pinned him down, cut his belt and pulled his pants down. John struggled and started to scream, but Mark and Henry just laughed. Henry forced the kid's skinny legs apart, and Mark took careful aim and sliced. The agonized scream that followed warmed Mark's heart.

When Mark woke up, he was naked, and so was Henry. The messy, blood-stained clothes Mark had been wearing were beside him, perfectly clean. Henry hurried over, hugged Mark joyfully.

"You're all right! I knew this place would save you again!"

"Mf, yeah! I'm doing great."

"I love you, Mark."

"I love you, too, Henry. Now, can we get dressed? I don't need to see your fucking dick and your balls just dangling around."

"Jeez, Mark," Henry said, laughing. "We just popped our cherries taking turns with that cunt in her house. How's seeing me like this bother you?"

"It doesn't bother me. I just don't need to see it."

Henry shrugged his pale, lean shoulders and went back to get his own cleaned clothes. The boys dressed and headed back out of the Glass Library together.

"So, did you see what I saw?" Mark asked.

"John's heading west."

"Not to Vegas, not to- whoever he is."

"No, not him. I bet he's heading to Colorado, hoping some boys his age are still alive so he can go and be fucking gay with them."

"I know what highway he's on."

"Me, too."

Mark considered something. "We better have guns when we try to get him this time."

"You don't wanna kill him with a knife?"

"We might need to shoot him to take him down, but we make it so that doesn't kill him. In the shoulder or something. Then we cut him up."

"All the hunting stores and stuff are looted or bought out," Henry said. "Not much chance there. But, I know of this old guy on the edge of town. I bet we can find what we need there."

"How?"

"This guy had a hundred guns in his house, Mark, from what I heard. A lot of 'em were illegal, but he didn't care. Wallace was always saying he didn't understand how this guy got away with it, but it doesn't matter now. No way did he clear out with all his guns, even if he tried to leave before he died."

"Who says somebody else didn't get there first and rob him?"

"Not that many people knew, Mark, and you see all the cars out there on the roads? Everyone wanted to leave. That or crawl into bed and choke on their own snot and die. They weren't thinking logical, or scientific. They just ran like scared rabbits."

"So, like me before you saved me."

Henry smiled warmly at Mark, and it was clear he was pleased. "Yes," he said, "just like that."

"So, when do we go there?"

"Now."

As the boys made their way out of the house, Henry got back behind the wheel of the Oldsmobile wagon, and Mark took a seat on the passenger side of the bench. Henry was a clumsy and inept driver, but he got them out of the yard in a series of fits and starts. After almost running into a tree a couple times, Henry got the hang of it, more or less, and the journey to the old guy's house began.

XX

Navigating the stalls and wrecks took a while, but since they were off the main roads, the streets were at least still drivable. Henry got them to the house, where the garage door sat firmly closed before an empty driveway. As Mark got out, he noted that the doors were all intact, the windows unbroken. It was a good sign that Henry had been right, but then, Mark had expected all this. Henry was always right.

As Henry got out, he didn't bother taking the keys out of the ignition. After only a moment Mark understood why; nearly everyone in the entire world was dead. There was nobody left alive to take the car, and with so many roads jammed, there was essentially nowhere for it to go.

The doors were locked, of course, but Henry and Mark amused themselves by taking some bricks from the front walk and hurling them at the front windows for several minutes, cheering every time they smashed in more glass. Had the old dude been alive and kicking, he would have come, either shouting or shooting, or maybe both. No one showed up. No one threatened to call the cops. Mark laughed at that one, told Henry about it. What cops? They were all dead, too. It was Henry and Mark's dream to have no restrictions, no rules, nobody to get in their way, and here it was, handed over on a silver platter almost immediately following Mark's relocation to Maine.

After demolishing almost all of the living room windows, Henry and Mark climbed in and unlocked the front door. Then they began searching the house, and after pawning the keys the old guy had tried to hide above the doorframe to his bedroom, they found the room they wanted. Inside were several gun safes, ex-Army ammo cans by the dozen (all filled to the top with either loose rounds or boxes from stores), paperwork on most of the guns, and a legion of books on operation, maintenance, and history on every gun in the room.

There were guns here from the American Revolution, from the American Civil War, the world wars… on it went. Henry detoured to check another room and quickly found the guy had stashed tons of MRE's and sealed gallons of clean water, making this place a virtual warehouse for one's post-apocalyptic needs. It was perfect. Mark, meanwhile, stayed in "the armory," a 25-pound gun he'd found sitting on his lap, leather shoulder strap and an ammo drum already in place.

"Hey, Mark," Henry called, coming back down the hall, "I said I found even more of the food and water. We're gonna be set. Hey, you hear me?"

"Yeah," Mark said, a smile creeping onto his face. "We're gonna be set."

"No," Henry breathed. "No way did you find that."

"I found you something, too." Mark gestured at the shark-like carbine he'd found, banana magazine in, a bayonet attached. Wood furniture so dark it was nearly black, like the finish on the stamped steel parts.

Henry walked slowly over to it, eyes wide, and picked the rifle up. He looked it over lovingly, held it close, like he could not bear to let it go. "68," Henry said, looking to the left of the weapon's rear sight. "What's this shit? Chinese?"

"Korean," Mark said, still not looking up from his find. "It's North Korean. A Type 68. The guy had labels for every fucking gun in here, and where it was from."

"Goddamn," Henry said quietly. "Bit of an opposite to what you found."

"It still kills people."

"Oh, fuck yes, it does." Henry grinned. "Man, I wish I could've used this on Connie. Bam, bam, bam, maybe a bayonet stab or two."

"She'd have whined like a fucking bitch," Mark said. "Given us a goddamn headache."

"Yeah, but she always did that anyway."

"We could just fucking obliterate that little faggot with these guns," Mark said reverently. "He won't even know what hit him."

"You sure you can carry that thing? We better get moving before that girl gets further away."

"I'll be fine," Mark assured him. Though still light and lean, Mark's body was strong, and having fully healed from his gunshot wound, Mark felt better than ever. He rolled up a sleeve and flexed a well-developed bicep. "I'm ready."

"An MG-42," Henry said in awe. "An MG-42 and a fucking AK."

"I wanna just wound him," Mark said. "I wanna make him suffer."

"But if we vaporize him accidentally, that's good, too, right?"

"Sure, Henry." Mark grinned. "That's fine."

"C'mon, brother," Henry said. "Time to get our packs ready. Then we'll go get him."

"He's dead," Mark observed. "He has no idea what he's in for."

"He'll learn. You and I are gonna teach him."

"Yeah." Mark laughed. "I can't wait. I almost feel sorry for that guy."

"Almost," Henry said. "C'mon. I wanna enjoy this."

"You and me both, man," Mark said.

XX

John LaFleur cursed as another bead of sweat dripped into his eye, wishing he could've found some way to drive past all the stalled cars that packed the highway. He moved only during the day, despite the brutal heat and the need to constantly stop for water and cover his bare upper body with sunscreen. Had there been any girls left, they would've enjoyed the sight of John's classic pop-star looks, plus the way he was beginning to get quite a nice suntan… but there weren't any. And John was marching at the most strenuous pace he could stand, keeping it up no matter what, because he was afraid of what might be after him. Who might be after him.

There was nothing that could have convinced John to travel at night. He wasn't sure who owned the day, but the Dark Man, the Walkin' Dude- he owned the night. John had never been out west, had never seen the cornfields of Nebraska, but he had seen them more than once in his dreams. He didn't know who owned a banjo or somesuch out that way, but he knew who the red eyes belonged to. John was heading west, technically toward the Man in Black, but not to him. Never to him. John was terrified of that man, but he also knew death would be better than servitude. He already had two monsters behind him here in the east. He didn't need to bow to another out in the west.

As he stopped for water amidst the sea of cars, John saw some roadmaps spilled out of a Pontiac Safari's glove compartment. Without thinking at all, he shouldered the M1 and opened the door with one hand.

The sharp, overwhelming stench of death blew out of the car in a putrid cloud. Baking in the summer sun, sealed in by the closed windows, were a dead adult, a man, and a dead woman and four kids. She had moved to the second row seat and at some point had died with her children still clustered around her, still in her arms. John looked at the decaying bodies, at the swelling, the bloating, the marks on their necks that said Captain Trips had paid them all a visit, and wanted to scream.

John jerked back so fast he hit his head on the doorframe, saw stars and almost cracked his head on the next car. He caught himself, staggered away blindly, leaned up against a Chevrolet Astro, and vomited. Just as he thought he was done, John caught a whiff of the rot now billowing out of the Pontiac's open front passenger door and his stomach violently heaved up what little he had left.

It was agony, standing there like that. John wanted to die, but at the same time, he didn't. Couldn't. Captain Trips had taken everyone, everything, and left John alive. He had been raised to be religious, to believe in hope and a plan for all this, and with nothing left he desperately clung to that. There was hope. There had to be.

John gradually recovered himself and went back to the Pontiac. He thought about taking the road maps but ultimately just shut the door. There was no way he could make himself lean inside that car and get that close to those dead people. He just couldn't make himself face that smell again, that awful scent of death, urine and fecal matter. If anyone would have mocked him for it, John would have told them he didn't care, but nobody was left anymore. Nobody but him and Henry and Mark Evans.

They were far behind by now, John hoped, busy dealing with the fact that John had shot one or both of them. It would both shock them, put some fear in them, but also it would mean they would have to spend days trying to heal. Maybe they would run for a hospital and search through the ruins of a charnel house attempting to locate what they needed, not realizing that the hospitals were nothing but giant morgues now, their stocks utterly depleted in nine cases out of ten. Maybe Henry's wounds would get infected, and maybe Mark's, too. Maybe they would both die of some sickness besides the plague, or maybe they would kill themselves. John didn't know. And what bothered him, as cruel and heartless as Henry and Mark had revealed themselves to be, he didn't care.

XX

A/N: 10-18-2019.

The actual chapter is 3,510 words, a little on the short side, but that's okay. You don't have to stick with any arbitrary chapter length. The key is to reach a logical stopping point, then close there and get going with the next chapter. Obviously you need chapters to be of some significant length; 50 words is not good enough. But as long as a chapter is at least 800-2000 words, that's sufficient and you can work with that.

The Type 68 assault rifle is North Korea's locally-produced copy of the AKM, the updated and improved AK-47 that has accounted for most of the production of Kalashnikov-type rifles in the world. The reputation of the AK-47 has been built on the back of the AKM, and it is the version that has the true reliability and durability that the AK is known for. North Korea's copy of the real AK-47 is the Type 58. Both are chambered in 7.62x39mm and are based on the same design, but the Type 68/AKM features many revisions and improvements that fine-tune the rifle and make it what the world knows it to be, the world's toughest assault rifle.

Henry and Mark are just tall enough by 1994 that they can drive a car, although neither of them has had any formal education on it. The result is that they would both drive quite clumsily, as Henry did here in this chapter. Nobody will be driving cars very much in the post-plague wastelands of the former U.S.A., however, since the roads and highways are jammed and no one will be coming along with a tow truck. So Henry and Mark, just like John, will be making their journey on foot.

A sincere thank-you to anyone who reviews this story. I value all feedback highly.