Sixteen Small Deaths (21 page)

The rocks sturdy beneath my boots, I edge further until a blanket of mist wraps around my legs. Chelsea stays behind, standing with her arms crossed, eyes now two slits of green.
When we first found the house the sounds of crashing waves below us put our minds at ease, as if our destructive present was offset by an inkling of normality. We noticed the waters of the rivers start to evaporate only a month ago. Everyday the fog rising from the base of the mountain grows thicker and it’s only a matter of time before yet another aspect of our world fades into nothing.

It’s amazing to think that we haven’t seen the sun in months yet the surface the earth hasn’t frozen over. I know it’s somewhere behind the blanket of obsidian, afraid to shower its old world with healthy streams of light.

Chelsea calls out to me, the trickling of her squeaky voice reaching me as I find my last step on the rocks. A gigantic breath of misty air and my lungs soothe with a comfortable taste. It’s all I needed this morning. I walk back to the trail and Chelsea pulls my hand until we’re pacing on the dirt. “I don’t like it out here,” she says.

“Neither do I.”

Before we reach the house, I look back to the lifeless woods surrounding the trail. A path of fire shoots across the horizon like a scarlet laser, piercing a constellation of stars. Chelsea puts a hand over her mouth and looks at me. We stand in awe for a few minutes, the next comet shooting across a coverlet of cobalt green, its tail withering into tiny sparks and silent explosions. I hold Chelsea’s hand in mine, squeezing her fingers with each flare. The only sounds I can hear are the purrs of the remaining stars and our disparate breaths.

We walk into the house and close the front door behind us, the dead of silence greeting us with open arms. Chelsea removes her sweatshirt and tosses it to the floor. I stand behind her and rub her arms, trying to warm her skin with just my fingertips. My lips find the back of her neck, giving her a few quick kisses before she pulls away. She turns around and smiles, returning the kisses with her own.

“I love you,” she says. “Every day I wake up and think I’m dreaming. I think I’m in a recurring nightmare.”

“Me too.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know, Chelsea. All I’m thinking about is staying alive.”

She sighs and shoves her hands into her front jean pockets. “I have a horrible feeling that this isn’t the right place for us to be.”

I close my eyes, trying to funnel the warmth from my heart into the rest of my body. “We should be dead right now. We’re lucky that we’re here. We’re lucky that we’re both breathing, sleeping, eating and spending time together.”

“I know. I’ll just never get used to this place.”

A shiver slithers up my legs and creeps into my spine. Cold dominates the room, a swoop of electric frost sticking to the windows. I look outside and the lightshow has ended, the night skies just an infinite coverlet of black.

#

Los Angeles was buried under a mile-high wave of water. Planes fell from the sky like birds hunted on a crisp autumn day. We were lucky enough to be on the road after visiting Chelsea’s parents in Salt Lake City. We kept driving north until we couldn’t hear the screams anymore, the chilling voices of a dying race. I can’t remember the last time we saw the sun, the last time I sat outside with a smile.

#

The radio stopped broadcasting noise three weeks ago. Until then, I’d spend every morning scrolling through the frequencies, eager to hear even the most subtle of human voices. The FM stations were mostly all static, a few transmitting barebones
silence. Chelsea would sit next to me, biting her fingernails and hoping to hear any signs of life beyond our own private world.

What startled us even more than the lack of existence was on the AM frequencies: each station played the same odd hum that fell from the stars. Its drone almost hypnotic, we sat close to each other as I fumbled through each frequency, the only sounds sneaking from the speakers making our skin crawl with terrible delight. I didn’t want to know what the sounds meant, didn’t want to decode the throbbing waves recoiling on each side of my brain.

I switched the dial back to FM and felt an abnormal comfort with the resonance of static.

I haven’t looked at the radio since. I sit with a plastic cup filled with vodka and warm cranberry juice, staring at the dusty shelves around the basement, each adorned with cans and cans of vegetables, fruit and beans. I know that at some point down the road we’re going to run out of food, but my mind hasn’t thought that far ahead into our future. I don’t want to know what’s going to happen the day we need to leave the house to find food and water.

Chelsea jogs down the stairs, her boots clicking against aged wood. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just wanted to sit somewhere for a bit where there were no windows.”

“Dinner’s ready. Why don’t you come upstairs and eat with me?”

I force a smile and finish my drink, crumbling the paper cup and tossing it to the floor. It lands next to a lawnmower covered with grime. I follow Chelsea up the steps, closing the basement door behind me and locking it.

We eat a mix of baked beans and creamed corn, each of us filling our glasses with one of the many bottles of wine that were hidden away in the kitchen cabinets. Chelsea’s cheeks fill with red spots and I know that she was drinking while she cooked
dinner. Her eyes are watery, broken emeralds shimmering with a thin layer of tears. I don’t ask if she’s okay. I finish my plate and split it in half, paper snapping us out of our quiet trances.

Chelsea still at the table, I leave and open another bottle of wine. A big gulp flowing down my throat, I head into the living room, plopping down on the couch like I’ve worked a twelve-hour day. Long sips and long gazes before I’m lost somewhere in the fuzzy confines of slumber.

#

Chelsea’s scream floats from the corners of a dream world, clouds hiding urgency. My eyes open to the reality of her desperate pleas and before I realize it I’m on my feet and running into the kitchen. Chilly air flows freely from the broken kitchen window, angora curtains shifting from side to side in a violent motion.

Chelsea is huddled in the corner, hair draped over her face like she’s hiding from the outside world. I grab her by the arm and pull until she’s running behind me. We run into the bedroom and slam the door. “Stay in here. I’m going back out there.”

I pull the closet door open and snatch the gun on the shelf, clicking the safety off and glaring at Chelsea before leaving her. She reaches for the shotgun under the bed and crawls into the corner of the room. It all happens in slow motion. I ease my steps from the hallway into the kitchen, careful to not let my boots squeak against the wooden floor.

The gun aimed in front of me, I swing into the kitchen and see a black figure hop from behind the table and into the living room. My breaths panicked and heavy, I follow it until the shadow disappears. All I can see is a figure draped in black, not an inch of skin peeking from its clothing. A quick burst of red and I’m on the floor, pain wriggling the nerves in my face, gun thrown too many feet away from me. Through hazy vision, its
legs scuttle past me and I hear the breaking of glass.

I roll over and onto my feet and hurry into the kitchen, leaving the gun on the carpeted floor behind me. Nothing but the hurried stream of air sliding against my face, I lean over the sink and look out the broken window, careful not to scrape my chest on the battered glass. The night whistles with uncertain glee, the intruder long gone by now. The blood dripping from my nose leaks into my mouth and it tastes like tinfoil.

I knock twice on the bedroom door, Chelsea barely opening it. I see a bit of dirty blonde hair, fingernails digging into the door. “Stay in here,” I say. “I need to board up the kitchen window.” I can’t hear what she says before I turn the knob to me and pull with all of my force.

Two markings are engraved into the kitchen table. A silver streak crosses a longer stripe of red, making an upside-down ‘V.’ I shudder and force myself to walk away.

The basement is darker than the skies outside. I stumble down the stairs, nearly tripping over my own feet. Fumbling through the trash on the floor next to the generator, I find a piece of wood much larger than the size of the window. I don’t have time to keep searching so I throw it by the bottom of the stairs and find the toolbox we keep on top of the refrigerator. Another crash upstairs, not nearly as loud as the one before. A gunshot rings and blows past the silence of the basement. I let out a muffled scream, the moan of a frightened child.

I reach the top of the basement stairs and see my love covered in blood, crimson spots dancing on her white t-shirt. Smoke glides from the hot barrel and disappears into the ceiling. Chelsea falls to the floor, dropping the shotgun. The sound of her crying is the loudest noise I’ve ever heard in my life.

The body is crumpled against one of the kitchen chairs, its legs curled. I can see that it’s an older man with hair the color of polished brass. His eyes are open and his chest is absent of breaths. Black and torn fabric reveals multiple patches of freshly
penetrated skin.

“He pushed open the bedroom door,” Chelsea says. “I shot him, Konrad. I had to shoot him.”

I reach for her hand and she grips it harder than she ever has before. Holding on to her, I reach for the man’s wrist. His heart has stopped beating and his cold, dead body left this world with a filthy stare at my wife.

“Go get a towel and clean off.
Now
.”

She runs to the bathroom. I push the man’s eyelids down, flaps of skin covering the coldest stare to grace this lonely house. His arms are as heavy as tree trunks and it’s tough to pull him out of the kitchen. I let the body fall down the basement stairs, watching the skull smack the concrete wall, bits of blood smearing the marine blue stone. I trot along the steps, finding the toolbox and sheet of wood.

Running back upstairs, I drop it on the kitchen floor and slam the basement door behind me. Chelsea is in the bathroom, wearing a lacy pink bra. She sits against the sink, head down and solemn. Her soiled t-shirt is crumpled in the trash barrel amidst a mess of wet paper towels. I put my arms around her and press my lips against her forehead. Her sweat is sweet, like sugar water.

It only takes me five minutes to board up the window. When I’m done, I take a swig of wine and drink until it spills out of my mouth and drips on my shirt and the floor. It takes me a few moments to collect myself and realize what happened over the last ten minutes. I ease into one of the kitchen’s chairs and finish the bottle of wine before letting my mind calm to the tune of the nighttime’s ambient melody.

#

Chelsea stands next to the living room window, the hands of a woman gracing the shotgun like it was a sleeping child. She
watches the trees sway back and forth, waiting for any sign of movement in the darkness surrounding the house. I drift in and out of consciousness, eyes following Chelsea in the silent filmstrip of my mind. Before long, I sit up and she’s gone, leaving me with a square portrait of absolute black. The wine leaves pulses of tenderness beating just behind my eyes, the remains of a violent evening.

I slip out of the living room, ignoring patterns of candlelight dancing against the hallway floor. Footsteps are gentle and slide against the linoleum floor in a seamless motion. I stand before the basement door and take a deep breath before opening it. The steps come slowly, my boots lending weight until the wood creaks with an awkward moan.

The intruder’s body is slouched at the bottom of the stairs. His eyelids are still closed, the fury once raging in his arms and legs now dormant in insipid skin. I poke his chest with a bitter finger and wince, part of me expecting that the corpse will return to full life. His pants are thick and soiled and smell like fresh dirt. I search his two pockets and find nothing. The head tilts to the side when I remove my hand. I jump back in reaction, each thud of my heart nearly popping through my ribcage. I stand up and notice the black marks on the left side of his neck. Leaning down, I see the amateur tattoo scrawled into the skin. It’s a sideways V and at this very moment all I can picture is Chelsea crying in her room, clutching the eggshell white blankets while trails of veins fill with anxious blood.

I kick the body once, twice. It doesn’t move. Curses fill the room and my eyes start to water. I wipe away the discharge, running up the basement stairs and letting the cool indoor air graze past my cheeks as it shoves the door shut behind me. Ovals of light my guide, I follow them until I reach the bedroom door. Chelsea sleeps on the very edge of the bed, like a frightened dog. I’m careful not to startle her as I kick off my boots and fall into the mess of pillows and blankets.

The world rages on outside of our house and all I can do is let the tears flow as I nestle my head next to the golden curls of my wife’s hair.

#

Two days have passed and neither of us has ventured outside. It’s only now that I’ve learned to accept the radiance of noise crinkling in the night sky, its mellow drone sliding into my ears in hypnotic fashion. Chelsea lies naked under the sheet and says that she can’t hear it anymore.

“How?”

“All I can hear is the shotgun blast,” she says. “The weight of his body slamming against the kitchen chairs.”

I nod and understand that to kill someone is to accept seeing the person’s face every time you close your eyes. Chelsea turns to me with the look of desperation, eyes eager to confess their sins with only a single glance. The bed sheets barely cover her body up to her chest.

“This isn’t going to last forever,” she says.

I won’t answer her. Instead, I stare at the collection of stains on the bedroom ceiling, follow the collection with my hand as more words creep out of her mouth. I say nothing and get out of bed, waiting a moment before putting on my jeans and t-shirt.

“Please listen to me,” Chelsea says. “We have to think about leaving. I don’t want to die.”

Head down, I let my toes curl against the carpet. It takes all of my willpower to stay silent, but only a phrase escapes my lips. “We’re not going anywhere.”