Pod (5 page)

Round Guy nods. But it’s a careful nod, like he’s not sure whether to agree or not.

Hoodie says to Black Beard, “You believe him?”

Black Beard says, “Nope.”

Hoodie is focused on Round Guy, but Black Beard is
scanning the lot. His eyes settle on this car. I freeze, hoping the shadows make me invisible. He lingers a moment, then moves on.

Hoodie says to Round Guy, “Here’s the deal, my friend. You describe the
con
-tents of this trunk. Then we’ll open it. If you’re right, all we got is the problem of you being where you’re not supposed to be. No one gets hurt—at least not
much
. On the other hand …”

There’s a soft click. It reminds me of Zack snapping a chicken bone. The curved steel of a switchblade appears in Hoodie’s right hand. He spins it twice on his finger like an old-time gunslinger. Then he does some tricky thing where the blade weaves between his fingers, almost like it’s alive. After a few seconds he stops, examines the tip, uses it to dig at a fingernail. Black Beard isn’t looking around anymore. His attention is on Hoodie, dark eyes glued to that blade.

Round Guy’s glistening face is the color of bread dough.

Hoodie says, “On the other hand, if you can’t describe the
con-
tents of this trunk, which I believe to be the case, well then …”

Hoodie flicks his wrist and the blade disappears. He holds his hands out like a magician who just made a rabbit disappear, smiles slow, and says, “Then we got us a bona fide
sit
-u-ation.”

Round Guy gulps like a beached whale. “Look, I don’t want any trouble—”

Hoodie says, “Oh, you already
got
trouble, my chubby little friend. The question is what
kind
.”

Round Guy slides up his glasses. Licks his lips. His mouth opens but nothing trickles out.

Hoodie says, “See, like maybe you got drugs in there? Some illegal
con
-tra-band?”

Round Guy puts his hands up and out like everything’s cool. “Hey, I can do this some other time. I mean I can—”

Hoodie takes a step toward Round Guy, saying, “You can’t do this some other time, my friend. Cause there ain’t gonna be
another time
.”

Hoodie’s fist slams into Round Guy’s stomach, once. I hear the rush of air leave his lungs. Something metal drops out of Round Guy’s hand, clanks on the cement. He sinks to the ground like a balloon deflating. I can’t see him now, but I hear the squeaks of him trying to breathe. Black Beard turns to face the green door, his hands clenched into fists.

Hoodie, smiling down on Round Guy, says, “You gotta work your abs, my friend. Otherwise you’re gonna have some serious back problems.” Then, to Black Beard: “Like punching a feather pillow, man. I think I bruised my knuckles on his spine. Never, ever let your body get that soft.”

Black Beard stares at him. He says something to Hoodie, but I can’t hear what. I think it’s in Spanish.

Hoodie shrugs and says, “Desperate times, desperate measures.” He heads for the green door.

Black Beard lifts Round Guy to his feet. His legs are all floppy like they don’t have any bone. He slings him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and follows
Hoodie across the lot. They disappear inside. The green door clicks behind them.

I wait ninety-three seconds.

I slide out of the car. Round Guy’s glasses are on the ground. I pick them up, start to put them in my pocket, then decide to leave them where they are. I look for that metal tool. It’s under the blue car next to a rear tire—a six-inch flathead screwdriver. Not a tire iron, but it’ll do.

It takes me sixteen minutes and lots of prying, but eventually there’s a click. The trunk of our car pops open. I’m so thirsty my tongue feels like it’s glued to the top of my mouth. I lift out the cooler along with some extra clothes that might come in handy. While I’m doing that I see the clothes Mom wore the night we pulled into LA. They’re folded and tucked into a corner next to the spare tire. It’s her favorite jeans and the Red Sox sweatshirt I bought her for Mother’s Day. My throat gets lumpy. She must have changed into her “interview outfit” in the car while I was sleeping. That was what, a million years ago? The sweatshirt would come in handy against the cold at night, but I think no, when she comes back, she’ll need it more than me. That outfit didn’t cover much skin.

I lug the cooler back into the car and open it up. There are lots of treasures, but my first move is to twist open the only bottle of water. I drink it so fast it spills out the sides and soaks my T-shirt. Half the bottle is gone before I think maybe I should save some. I cap it, then look at what I’ve got. Four cans of beer, one can of Mountain Dew, a half-gone package of pepper-jack bologna we stole from
a Safeway in Bakersfield, eight soggy hot-dog buns, a handful of mustard packages, and some stinky yellow cheese sealed in a Ziploc bag. There used to be ice, but it’s all melted so the mishmash is floating around in a brownish, lumpy glop. It looks like soup to me. I figure the beer will last the longest, so that means it’s bologna and cheese and Mountain Dew now. There’s an empty water bottle on the floor of the car. I fill it with the soup. Squeeze some mustard on the bologna. Wrap it around a piece of stinky cheese. I’ll have a hot-dog bun later. Call it dessert.

Mom would be proud, wherever she is. I fixed lunch all by myself.

Taking out the Trash

I’m having a dream about Mom. She’s making her famous oat-bran pancakes and telling me about a game she played as a kid, something about hiding from monsters. As long as she was very, very quiet, she could hide anywhere and the monsters would never catch her. She says now it’s time for me to play. I ask her why. She puts a finger to her lips and whispers, “Because they’re here,” and then she starts counting, one, two, three … I tell her she needs to hide, too, but she doesn’t listen. The front door starts shaking, then blows open. An intense blue light fills the entryway. A big shadow writhing like a ball of snakes stretches across the floor. Mom keeps flipping pancakes and counting, ten, eleven, twelve … I scream. All that comes out of my mouth is a cloud of blue vapor.

That’s when I wake up. There’s a huge wind. It’s like
an invisible hand pressing against the walls and glass. I hear shingles peeling off the roof. My mind is too full of the dream to let me go back to sleep. I stay in bed and wait for Dad to get up while the hand shakes our house like a toy.

I want to tell Dad about the dream, but I know it would be a mistake. All I’d get would be another Sphere of Influence speech. Even if things were normal I wouldn’t tell him. Mom and I, we talk about our dreams all the time. Even though they’re random and crazy she still thinks every dream, no matter how stupid, means something. Dad tolerates the discussions, but he never contributes. He says he doesn’t dream. How is that possible? I guess that means he doesn’t have nightmares, which is a definite bonus these days.

I find him in the kitchen making breakfast. But it’s not oat-bran pancakes. We’re talking fried eggs in olive oil, which I hate, and bacon, which I love. He’s closed the curtains, shutting out the view of the backyard—and, of course, of the PODs. With the curtains closed, the house feels cold and small, but the breakfast smells are good. I sit down, my back to the window. The notebook is open on the table. Today’s entry reads:
May 18 / 8:57 a.m. – 120 PODs. Visibility down. Clouds may account for reduced inventory.

“You hear the coyotes last night?” he asks.

It was bizarre. We occasionally hear coyotes in the distance, but never like that. It sounded like they were yapping right outside my window. Maybe that was part of my dream?

“How could I not? Dutch went nuts. He spent the rest of the night licking his balls.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t let him sleep in your room.”

“Maybe,” I say.

He says, “This is the last of the eggs.”

“Fine with me.”

“You won’t be saying that in a couple of weeks.”

“Yes, I will. I’ve been meaning to ask you, how do you make your eggs so rubbery?”

“It’s one of life’s great mysteries.” He slides the greasy pile onto my plate. “I added extra rubber, just for you.”

The olive oil gives the eggs a greenish brown color. Vomit comes to mind. He smiles and sits down across from me. It’s the first smile I’ve seen in forty-eight hours. There’s one egg and two slices of bacon on his plate. I have three eggs and six slices of bacon.

“Do I really have to eat all this?”

“It’s going to spoil if you don’t.”

“You can have my eggs.”

“I’m on a diet.”

I stab at an egg. Thick yellow fluid oozes out. For some reason my stomach is churning. Every time I eat something I’m wondering if it’s my last meal. I don’t want the world to end when I’ve got a belly full of Dad’s oily eggs.

“Josh,” he says. “We need to talk about our situation.”

Here we go. I put down my fork. “A
situation
? It’s an
invasion
, Dad. Call it what it is!” Then I do it again. I drop the F-bomb.

He stares hard at me for a moment. I’m not sure which
bothers him more, “invasion” or the swearing. He takes a deep breath and says, “If you feel the urge to use profanity in front of me, please choose a different word.”

“A different word. Like what? ‘Banana’?”

“I suggest ‘freaking.’”

“Freaking?”

“That’s my preference.” Dad looks at his plate, forks the last of his egg. We’re being invaded, life as we know it is about to end, and he’s stressing over my vocabulary.

“Okay, then. Back to our little ‘situation.’ What’s your
freaking
point?”

“We’ve been living high on the hog too long.”

“Meaning what?”

“It’s time to start rationing food.”

He waits for me to say something. I chew on a piece of bacon, wait for the flood.

“All right. First we cook the perishable goods, then the items that taste better heated, like soups and pastas, because we don’t know how long the electricity or running water will last. When that goes, we’ll cook using the camp stove until we run out of fuel. Then we’ll burn furniture until it’s gone. Then we eat the canned fruits and vegetables in the pantry, and then it’s down to your hoard of potato chips and candy.”

“Wow,” I say, “someone’s been busy making a plan.” Dad thumbs through the notebook, looking for something. I slip Dutch a piece of bacon under the table.

Dad finds what he’s looking for. He tears it out of the notebook, hands me a piece of paper with a list titled
Survival Priorities
. It’s numbered from one to twenty-five, the important stuff bulleted and underlined with a red pen. It says things like fill every container with water, including the bathtub, take inventory of all food items and medicines, figure out what we can burn if the power goes out, break down furniture, recharge batteries—even floss our teeth and keep up with my studies. It all sounds reasonable in a post-apocalypse sort of way. At least it’s something to do. But there’s a couple of issues with the food-rationing plan that bother me.

“What happens when we run out of candy?”

“We reevaluate.”

“Reevaluate, huh? What about him?” I ask, nodding to Dutch. His sad eyes watch my every move, hoping for another tasty piece of bacon.

“We have ten pounds of dry dog food left. Normally, that would last about ten days. I had hoped to pick up more food for him this weekend, but obviously that’s not happening. We can feed him, or,” he says with a pause, “we can eat it ourselves when our food runs out.”

“You’re saying we should starve Dutch?”

“Dutch is a dog, he’ll fend for himself.”

“Can people even eat dog food?”

“Dogs eat people food. I’m sure it works both ways.”

I look at Dutch. He’s a big, fat, lazy yellow Lab with gray whiskers and a bad hip. The only way he’d catch a rabbit is if it jumped into his mouth.

Thinking I’d rather die than take Dutch’s food, I say, “Do we have to make that decision right now?”

“There are lots of tough decisions we’ll have to make. You need to realize—” Dad starts, then changes his mind. “Okay, let’s hold off on that one for a couple of days. But beginning tomorrow, he doesn’t get any of our water.”

“Where’s he going to get it?”

“The creek behind the house.”

Our house borders a swamp. Dad calls it a “wetland sanctuary,” but it’s really an algae-covered stinkhole filled with sludgelike green water and plastic waste. It’s closer to a sewer than a creek. When I was younger I used to catch frogs in the reeds bordering the creek, but one year they all floated to the surface, bellies yellow and bloated. There weren’t any frogs after that.

Barely able to keep from screaming, I say, “Why don’t you just kill him now and—”

There is a loud
pop
, followed quickly by two more. Then nothing.

“Gunshots,” Dad says, standing up fast. “From the apartments, I think.”

We run to the living room window, just in time to see a door open across the street. Two men hold up a slumping body. It’s a big guy, naked and hairy, pale chest and fat stomach streaked with red. They push him out the door. He’s standing on the sidewalk, barely. In that moment I recognize him. He yelled at Dutch last summer for peeing on his new truck. Two beats later and there’s a flash of light. The guy is gone. A wave of nausea sweeps over me. It’s like hauling out the garbage. As long as it’s human, they’ll take it.