The Second Intelligent Species: The Cyclical Earth (15 page)

“Hey, stop it.” Marcos rolled over and pulled more shirts and pants over his arms and head. He tried to go back to sleep, but Adam continued kicking him. Finally Marcos could take no more. He saw I was awake too and got up.

“Shh.” I put my finger to my lips and motioned for him to come over to me. Both the boys stumbled over the uniforms in my direction. “Let’s go see what we can find and we’ll let the others sleep.” I whispered.

Marcos and I left the nest to look around. Adam tripped on the pile of garments landing on Sarah.

“Will you fucking lie down and go to sleep?” Sarah snapped.

I grabbed Adam’s hand. “Go back to sleep. I’ll keep them quiet. Come on boys, let’s go over here. Shh.”

She too pulled more clothing over herself and Eve. They both snuggled closer to each other. Eve whined a little, but immediately went back to sleep.

I could guide the boys with the beam of light, the way an equestrian controls a horse in the ring. We made our way to the other side of the garage. A fifty-gallon drum of motor oil held a hand pump. With some minor alterations it could be made to reach the bottom of the fuel tank. The mechanics had a coffee pot on the workbench. Although there was no electricity to run the device, there had to be a can of coffee somewhere in the cupboards. I looked in each and every one, but no foodstuffs of any kind could be found. Each space contained parts and cleaning supplies, but no coffee. It was only when we cut locks from personal lockers that we found the stash of the person who made coffee. Three cans of the stimulant sat in his locker along with two bags of sugar and two jars of creamer. Another can contained a bucket of money,
mostly change, and useless in this new world. I wanted to look in more lockers, but Adam kept knocking things over or banging on one thing or another. I tried to keep him quiet so the others could sleep.

“Hey, Nick, look. Can we use this?” Marcos held up a work light. The cord was only about three feet long, but could be adapted to work off the battery of the high lift.

“Yes we can. Give it to me so the bulb doesn’t get broken.”

“Please and thank you!” Beth said, coming out of nowhere.

“God damn it, Beth. You scared the shit out of me.” Then I realized my diarrhea had subsided, and I’d never noticed. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough to know we’ll have cheese doodles and coffee for breakfast.” She kissed me good morning. “Boy, it got cold didn’t it?” A blue uniform hung over her shoulders like a sweater. The nametag said “Smyth.” Tara slept with her head on Beth’s shoulder. “She reminds me of Sally. She farted all night long,” she whispered.

I touched Tara’s head, careful not to wake her. “I’ll start a fire to make coffee. We’ll eat, then get stuff together and head for Buffalo.”

“Can we make it all the way with the fuel we have?”

“I doubt it. But we shouldn’t have too far to walk when we run out.”

Beth shifted Tara over to the other shoulder. “Do you think Buffalo is going to be in any better shape than Syracuse? All the cities are going to be exactly the same.”

I snapped the handle of a push broom into three pieces over my knee. “Seen any more brooms?” I asked.

Two brooms and a shovel handle later, the coffee was on.

All the adults surrounded the pot of hot water when the grounds were immersed. Not exactly espresso, but the end result would be the same. The aroma of coffee after so long without it overwhelmed an olfactory system desensitized by the constant smell of death. The perfume from the mountains of Columbia transported us away from reality for a moment. Once again I sat at my kitchen table checking the news online before heading off to kill the neighborhood pest, my third coffee steaming my glasses. I imagined Beth was transported to the dining hall of the hospital. Maria’s and Sarah’s minds seemed to wander as they too inhaled not only the brewing drink, but the can of grounds as well. The smell alone was enough to change our demeanor. Somehow our day brightened even though it was still dark. Some hidden
message in our wiring said this is the way a day was supposed to begin.

The children were fed, the wagons were hitched, and supplies were gathered. We were Buffalo bound. Five stainless steel bathtub-looking things being towed by an ancient work horse, all used to make fake food to feed the masses, was a sight to behold. Two cars could hold passengers. The occupants would rest comfortably on bedding made from several layers of company uniforms. Assorted snacks were at the reach of each guest, though the littlest guests were not allowed to reach them. Each car had its own water supply in the form of plastic water jugs (twenty-three in total). The third car in the train held the whole oil tank, estimated volume: two hundred gallons. Lifting it was no problem considering the engine of the train was a forklift. We filled the fourth vat with wood. Some of the bathroom walls in the garage were sacrificed. The caboose held assorted tools, extra batteries, more uniforms, water, and the fifty-gallon drum of motor oil.

“C’mon everybody, we’re going on a hay ride!” Beth set Tara down in the first portable vat.

“No, here!” Tara squealed, then immediately ran over to the other side of the trailer.

Marcos jumped onto the wagon, without asking the “Queen of the wagon’s” permission.

Tara ran over and hit him on the back. “Nooooooooooo. Mine!” Then she utilized every centiliter of air in her little lungs to force out a shrill scream that lasted so long she nearly passed out. After “The scream heard around the world,” as coined by Sarah, Tara got all quiet. She just stood there quivering with a surprised look on her face. We all broke out in laughter. She started to cry and catch her breath at the same time. It wasn’t working. The rapid in and out movement of air through those little vocal cords made a sound that Sarah also described as, “a chipmunk on acid.” That made us all laugh louder.

Beth decided it was time to intervene. “Don’t you pick on my baby,” she said. “C’mon, honey, you come to Ninny. Those meanies. They better leave my baby alone.” She picked up Tara and hugged her. The toddler instantly stopped crying and wrapped her legs around Beth’s waist. I couldn’t see, but I’m sure the old crocodile tears were flowing.

We were ready to travel.

The antique fired up without hesitation. “Is everybody holding on?” I put the lever into the forward position. I could feel the transmission shift through my seat. The clunk of the pin that held the trailer was a sign we had begun to move.

More laughter came from the wagon as we began to roll. It was short lived because the engine’s
pistons slapped like a metronome and put the little ones to sleep like a recording of white noise.

Traveling along the thruway proved difficult due to cars piled up near underpasses just like the trip down to Syracuse. This time we could use the high lift to move them out of the way, bodies and all. Another thing I wasn’t counting on was how badly the trailers whipped side to side the faster we went. To prevent this we could only travel at half throttle. Though it took longer, safety was more important than speed.

While riding, Beth and the others sorted the uniforms. Those that wouldn’t fit any of us were cut into diapers, toilet paper cloth, and torch fuel. They also made torches. The specifications I described were followed to the letter.

After spending long hours riding, everyone needed a break. We stopped along an area with water on both sides of the road. If any danger approached us, we would see it coming. I started a fire, and then shut off the truck to check the fuel and oil. After adding both, I walked with the others to stretch my legs.

Marcos sat at a culvert tossing pebbles into the water. I walked over to him while the smaller children were being tended to. “Would you like to drive a while when we get going again?” I asked.

He stopped tossing stones. “Are you serious? Yes. Do you think I can?”

At the speed we were moving, I could intervene if he should get into trouble. “I’ll be sitting right beside you.”

“If I do good enough, can I drive a car someday?”

“Sure.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that even I might never drive a car again.

He picked up a couple more stones. “Think I can hit that animal out there with a rock?”

“What animal?” I looked where he threw last, but nothing could be seen. “Wait a minute, let me listen.” A chewing sound could be heard about thirty yards out in the water. I couldn’t see anything on top of the surface except thousands of cattail shafts. Only an inch stood above the water line, resembling the stubble on a man after five days without shaving. I shined the light towards the sound just in time to see a muskrat break the surface. “I see it. That’s a muskrat. If I could catch a few, we could have fresh meat for supper.”

“But Sarah said she wasn’t going to eat rats.” Marcos said.

“These are a different kind of rat than what she was talking about. These only eat plants and are very clean. I think she’ll eat anything if she gets hungry enough.” Figuring how to catch them would take a little thinking. As a nuisance wildlife trapper, I seldom received calls to trap them. They caused little damage and seldom invaded
households. When one did get into some old lady’s house during the spring breeding season, it was easily shooed out the door with a broom, never to return.

Catching them here required a different tactic. Finding where the aquatic rodents crossed under the road would be crucial to my success. Once the culvert was found, a trap could be designed. “Let’s go back to the train. You and I have a lot of work to do.” I started jogging back to the others. Soon a race developed.

I had a shadow in the dark, and he was gaining. Now my jog was turning into a full-blown sprint. We were only about fifty yards from the others. The fire showed a clear path down the track. Not one burned vehicle cluttered the road. They’d all driven off into the water when the fires came, choosing a death by drowning over burning, in the same manner jumpers escaped the flames of a burning building.

Only one thing stopped me from beating him back to the others, and that was because Marcos was a fifth my age. I still had a breathless twenty yards left to walk when he skidded to a halt in front of Beth. “Me and Nick are going to catch some rats.”

“I said I’m not going to eat those filthy things,” Sarah said.

I couldn’t hear all Marcos said as he explained the difference between the two rats due to my heavy breathing and pounding heart.

“I don’t care what kind of rat they are, they’re still rats,” Sarah said. “I’m not eating them.”

“That’s good,” I said, still trying to catch my breath. “I’m not sure I can catch very many anyway.”

“More for the rest of us,” Beth murmured.

Sarah’s sneer was highlighted by the flickering light of the fire. The glares and the temperatures were getting colder.

I escaped to the solitude of the wagon train, emptied the drum of motor oil into five of the empty water jugs, and dumped the remainder into the ditch. The environment was fucked at this point. I didn’t feel any guilt.

Using a screwdriver and hammer from the toolbox, I slowly and loudly chiseled the cover off the metal drum. The sound echoed and I was sure could be heard for miles. I was concerned the noise might draw unfavorables, yet I continued. First the top, then the bottom was cut out and discarded; chicken wire along the road would funnel the furbearers into the drum where they would drown before escaping. Marcos helped me lower the contraption into the water in front of the culvert. “Four or five hours should be enough time
to trap enough rats to give us all a taste of fresh meat,” I said, as we walked back to the others.

While I waited for supper to find its way into my fifty-gallon pantry, I swapped batteries out in the fork truck. As long as it was running, I could unhook the charged one and replace it with a dead one. As the vehicle ran, the new battery charged, leaving the charged one to be used as a power source for the drop light.

I needed to rest awhile. I was starving and out of energy. I watched the kids from the ground. Keeping them away from the fire was chore number one. Maria hovered over it ensuring their safety, and tending a pot of boiling water. Filling the empty water jugs with potable water every time we built a fire was the new protocol. Each time the water in the pot would reach a rolling boil for fifteen minutes or so, she would pour it into an empty container and put more filtered swamp water on the fire.

“We’re almost out of food,” Beth said while changing Tara. “We’ve only a few cans of tomatoes left.”

“Marcos, give me a hand to check if we caught anything yet.” We walked to the culvert to pull out the drum. Once we got it up to the road, we found three dead muskrats in our trap. I showed Marcos how to clean them. I tossed the guts and fur into the water.

The pot we had taken from the coffee locker held the boneless meat. After searing it to a golden brown over the fire, I dumped in a can of tomatoes.

“What to hell is that?” Sarah couldn’t talk without swearing.

“Salisbury rat.” I tried to say it without snickering.

She came over to sniff. “You know that doesn’t smell too bad.” After going without for so long, her fussiness seemed to be lessening. “Come on everybody. Supper’s on.”

No leftovers remained in the bottom of the pot. The texture of real meat was as welcome as the aroma. Nobody missed Phony Bologna.

Chapter 21

Dazed and Confused.