Life Among The Dead (Book 2): A Castle Made of Sand (33 page)

The dizzy young man wants to get through the
barrier fast, and this seems like such a good idea to him. He
carries out the first two steps.
Don’t
pump
it
. The recollection of the warning shifts all of his
concentration to keeping the device in his hand inert.

His insides are in agony, as if they are on
fire. He doubles over in pain and must use the open hatch of his
purple car to remain on his feet. Dustin rounds his idling Camaro
and is puzzled; the barrier is gone, replaced by two rows of
vehicles heading his way.
That
was
easy
, he
thinks, though is unsure how the grenade he still holds could have
possibly done the trick since he is still holding it.

A delirious Dustin slides behind the wheel
and slowly enters the opening between the rows that pass him. He
must steer with one hand, not certain what he is to do with the
object he holds in the other.

##

Never before has Dan ever attempted to tape
someone to the point of immobility while trying to hold them to the
ground, and he is finding it quite the challenge. Though Oz had
started the first few inches of the adhesive material for him, it
is still awkward. He can’t let up on the girl under him too much,
for she is fighting his efforts. His only consolation is that the
convoy is moving.

The Attack Track stops just behind the king
as a foreign car cruises up to the scene, stopping diagonally
before Dan. “What the fuck is this?”

“It’s a Camaro,” Oz answers through the open
window of the van; he took over the wheel so Carla could mourn her
friend’s passing in the back.

The distraction is enough for the girl to
snake free from her captor, capitalizing on his shift of focus. She
rolls under the hands that bind her to the dam in order to bite
into his arm. Her teeth grate Dan’s bicep like a saw as she rends a
sizable chuck of flesh away.

“Fuck!” Dan hisses in pain. Now he is too
busy holding pressure on his bleeding wound to finish taping the
girl. He backs away.

After chewing the stolen morsel, the one
named Eve is ready for another helping. Her eyes lock on the man,
whose flavor lingers on her palate. She rises to her feet, and the
wide roll of tape dangles from her wrists. She is able to free
herself while she strategizes how she will get another
mouthful.

From behind the famished young lady comes the
blaring of a horn and a familiar voice, “Eve!”

“Dustin?” She turns.

At
least
they
know
each
other
, Dan puzzles the pair of
strangers as he rounds the front of the Attack Track. He intends to
leave them behind and has no reservations about it, though he can’t
quite look away from their reunion.

“You left me,” she says sadly.

“I came here to find you help,” he tells her
with sincerity, having lied to himself so well he actually believes
his own words.

The two fall into each other’s arms, but
their tender embrace is sullied by the girl succumbing to her
hunger. She buries her teeth into the lad’s throat. What ruins the
moment for Dan is the sight of a metallic ball falling from the
boy’s grasp. Dan has to leap into the van.

“Reverse! Now!” he yells to Oz as he takes
his family into his arms.

The large man doesn’t think twice about it,
or so much as ask why. He just shifts and slams on the accelerator.
The reason for Dan’s sudden decision becomes as clear as day when
the object of his dread goes off before the white van can get
across the long span. The Camaro erupts, as does the contents of
its trunk, in a devastating burst of orange.

The group sits quietly now that they have
made it to the safety of land, staring at the grey wall that holds
back more than 4 trillion gallons of water. The purple car and the
star-crossed lovers are gone, and in their place is a smoldering
crater. From the smoking pit, deep fissures form that spread
rapidly like rays along the face of Parson’s Dam.

“Turn us around, get us to the ranch,” Dan
tells the driver. He and his loved ones had toppled in the lurch,
but he was able to put himself between them and a rack of
M-60s.

“We might be able to…” Oz says.

“No,” Dan counters. “Step on it!”

Cross Lake, which resulted from the backed up
Charles River,
is
already swirling. This is what it has been waiting for since the
obstruction went up nearly forty years ago. The manmade body of
water is starting to fill in the cracks, about to exploit the
weakening structure in the name of freedom.

Again using his body like a human seatbelt,
Dan protects the other Williamsons against the inevitable
somersault. A quick 180 degree turn points them up the rough dirt
mountain pass. The road dips at the middle; they need to be
speeding up the other side before the dam finally gives under the
strain.

Oz can’t see the Parson’s Dam, but he can
only imagine that it is about to lose its battle against the
immense pressure at any second. He negotiates the bends and curves
of the path, darting glances at his rearview for what he fears, and
will have no defense against should he see it. Should the impending
wall of water overtake them, there’s no hope, no stopping the
destructive power.

A rumble forebears the horrible sight that
appears before his widening eyes in the mirror. It uproots trees as
it chases the survivors, a monster of ever-changing shape. The van
crests the hill mere seconds before the surge reaches the end of
the trail. The flood leaves the ground off the incline, becoming
airborne. Water cascades down in sheets of rain as far as the eye
can see as the torrent settles back into its original bed, altered
now as a result of its vicious revenge. The droplets dissipate,
surrendering to gravity and leaving behind a fading rainbow. The
beauty of the display can’t lighten the truth; there will be no
reclaiming New Castle now.

Like looking at a fresh wound, the survivors
have trouble taking their first glance of their beloved town from
the top of the hill. The Charles River has chosen a new path
through New Castle, and the sight weakens their knees. The entire
town is submerged, and the hill that the witnesses stand upon has
become an island.

All but a handful of the higher placed homes
have been lost to the surge. Dan Williamson collapses upon a
granite bench that looks out over the ruins, and also serves as the
grave marker for his Uncle Bruce. He can’t believe it’s all gone.
Carla and Oz have walked to the road that just moments ago could
have brought them into the town; they look down the length of
asphalt with scoped rifles to ensure the dead didn’t make it above
the flood waters.

After the grievers’ have a quiet wake for
their loss, they proceed into the ranch. No one eats, or talks.
Dan’s wound is dressed; he is watched closely as a precaution in
case he has become infected by the odd girl on the dam. Though the
night is still young, everyone finds a place to retire. The weight
of the day has exhausted them. With the exception of the two young
Williamsons that play together happily, everyone sheds tears for
New Castle and worries about those who have departed. Without the
dam to make power, their radio is out and they cannot get in touch
with the others. Carla’s private line to Sid is out of range.

The sunrise casts golden hues over the land,
but the majesty of the sky seems unbefitting of the carnage below.
Striated swirls of clouds hang motionless, as if they are the,
brush strokes of a great painter whose masterpiece lays unfinished.
The brilliance above is reflected off of the river where Main
Street once was, and the theater, and the school. The large plaster
cow has been washed away from where it had stood outside the
creamery longer than Dan can remember.
It’s
gone
.
It’s
all
gone
.

The king looks over his realm, having had a
restless night. Unable to lie in bed any longer, he came out for
some fresh air. From his vantage he thinks of the place that
thrived, despite the adversity that had claimed the world beyond
their walls. The very adversity that came knocking for them
yesterday. During the night, when they realized they had no
electricity and were forced to use candles to see, Dan had an odd
thought about his uncle’s stint in the navy.

Often referred to as his ‘brief’ time in the
navy, Bruce had only been enlisted for less than two weeks. He
never quite made it through boot camp, which is meant to break a
man so he can be built back up ‘the Navy way.’ The problem was you
just can’t break a man like Bruce. From the day he stepped off the
bus at the Recruit Training Command as an eighteen year old, he was
in trouble. The Division Commanders, tired of threatening a punk
kid they couldn’t intimidate, deemed him ‘un-trainable’ and had him
administratively separated.

Though Uncle Bruce would often talk of his
time as if he were a salty sailor, Dan recalls one thing the man
had spoken of--the smoking lamp. When a ship is out to sea, during
the dark of night, they tell their crew when they can, and can’t,
smoke. The reason for this is because a cigarette’s cherry can be
seen for miles away across the black ocean, and may give up the
ship’s position to the enemy.
That’s
how
they
found
us
, Dan determines.
They
were
drawn
to
our
lights
at
night
and
eventually
locked
onto
our
location
.

From the corner of his eye in the morning
glow, he sees a figure sitting on the granite bench that shouldn’t
be there. He feels compelled to say something, to make amends for
his failure, but is at a loss as to what he can possibly say. The
seated man just raises a hand up to silence his nephew.

“Sit.”

The elder slides over just enough to make
room for Dan on the bench that had been made long ago from granite
taken out of the Williamson quarry. Like a child caught coloring on
an important document, Dan blurts his excuse, “Bruce, I can
explain…”

“Don’t bother. I saw the whole thing,” the
true king says with a shrug. “Don’t blame yourself. Who knew a
Camaro could be so explosive? It’s too bad Chevrolet is out of
business, this would have been a nice lawsuit. There’d at least be
a massive recall. I blame those damned kids. And, maybe, Mother
Nature.”

“This again?”

“She’s had it in for us Williamsons ever
since we scarred the earth to make our quarry. Then, I had to go
cum in her mouth by making my dam. It was just a matter of time
till she spit, right?”

“Aw, Bruce!” Dan says out of frustration,
laying his face in his hands. “What the fuck are we going to do?
We’re stranded here, the rest of us are out there. There’s no way
to regroup that I can see!”

“What’s this ‘we’ shit? I’m just visiting,”
Bruce says. “I’m taking my ass back upstairs in a minute. Your old
man and I have a pool game scheduled. Grudge match between Ben
Franklin and Jesus. They’ve been talking all sorts of shit after
besting us one time. Wall and I are going to mop the floor with
those douchebags.”

“Your skin cleared up.” Dan notes that his
uncle’s face is now intact and not the ruined visage he saw when he
was brought home.

“Yeah, they like to keep appearances up where
I am. I keep telling the Big Guy he needs to get on his kid about
wearing some gloves, cover up that garish stigmata… There’s just no
trusting a guy who can cheat at a game of peek-a-boo.”

The diversionary exchange loses its power.
The king without a realm is exasperated and asks, “What am I going
to do?”

“Something will come to you,” the dead man
stands. “I’m just a figment of your imagination. Try to calm down.
The stress is causing a cerebral blockage, making it hard for you
to brainstorm. Do what I do, curl up with a good book. I prefer
magazines actually. Relieve that tension.”

“Are you telling me to jerk off?”

“No need for such vulgarity. I’m just saying
you need to take a little ‘me time.’”

##

Dan opens his eyes in the dark. His dream of
the morning had been so vivid he feels jetlagged; it’s still the
dead of night. He rolls out of an empty bed, forgetting the wound
given to him by the strange girl. The bandage shifts, separating
the fresh scabs and making it sting.

His visitation from his uncle has given him
an idea. So he rushes through the quiet ranch to the den, using a
candle to see. He must hold a hand before the flame lest his haste
extinguish his light source. Heather and Carla are sitting at the
chessboard table by the hearth, playing cribbage by lantern
light.

“Hi, honey,” his wife says. “Can’t sleep
either?”

Dan doesn’t hear her, because he’s too busy
searching the room for what he has been inspired to find. He darts
from the bar to the gun cabinets trying to locate it.

“Looking for something?” Carla asks the
obvious. She knows that he is and simply wants to be helpful.

Dan halts his furious inspection, feeling
lightheaded. It isn’t simply the time change between now and his
dream. His body is hot though he feels chilled. “Have you guys seen
a big box of porn anywhere?”

“What?” Heather inquires, her shock is
evident in her voice.

“Magazines,” he explains. “Penthouse,
Hustler, Swank…”

“I heard you! Why are you looking…” she
attempts to ask, but he is off again, re-searching places he has
already been.

Carla attempts to use humor to diffuse the
awkward and potentially explosive situation. “My dad, before he ran
off, always said ‘it doesn’t matter where a man gets his appetite,
as long as he’s eating at home.’” She fails to ease the tension,
but after a nervous laugh she takes another stab at it. “Of course,
he always seemed to opt for takeout. You know, something cheap and
easy he could pick up. I think I’m going to go.”