Crossroads of the apocal.., p.16
Crossroads of the Apocalypse, page 16
With the Boomer tied off, Jerry stepped onto the dock and spread his arms wide. “Welcome to Cairo. The Crossroads of the Mississippi. From here you can go just about anywhere, but unless you’re going back to Hannibal, it’s time to get off my boat. Especially you two,” he said, and pointed to the older couple. The mastiff barked. “Blue and I thank you for riding with us. Now if you will all please hand me your luggage.”
Lana handed her bags over. Jerry set them on the dock and helped the young woman out of the boat. Caine followed. Dalton offered to help unload the older couple’s luggage. Andy nodded while Laura made one final plea.
“Won’t you please reconsider, Captain? It really isn’t that far.”
“No, ma’am. The only place the Boomer is going is back up the river to Hannibal.”
Eve snorted and grabbed a handle on one of the steamer trunks that held the rifles. She told Andy to grab the other end and then pushed her way onto the dock. She stared at Jerry but didn’t say anything to him. She clicked and called to the dogs. “Fidge. Satch. Come on.”
The dogs joined her and sat patiently on the dock as the passengers unloaded the rest of the weapons. A porter from King Tut’s saw an opportunity and raced forward with a luggage cart and his hand out.
They loaded the trunks and followed the porter as he led them through the marketplace to their lodging.
Eve let them go on ahead until she and Jerry were the only ones left. She stood on the dock above him.
He could feel her judging him from up there.
“Are you him?” she asked.
Jerry returned her gaze, “Am I who?”
Her eyes didn’t leave his. “Chewy?”
The mastiff had settled back into a ball and dozed off, but snapped alert and looked up at the woman. Her tail started to wag.
His confusion must have been plastered across his face.
“When we were on the houseboat, you forgot you renamed her,” she explained. “You’re him.”
Jerry took a deep breath and faced the accusation head on. She’d already seen through it. “I used to be.”
She looked into the marketplace, back to the Librarian, then huffed and walked away. Sasquatch trotted after her. Only Fidget said goodbye.
19
King Tut’s was a great place to grab a meal, but in the year that he’d been running passengers up and down the Mississippi, both Jerry and Chewy had grown accustomed to sleeping on the Boomer. It had taken some getting used to. The boat’s rocking had a calming effect at first. Perhaps it unlocked some hidden memory of being swayed to sleep during infancy. The soothing sway didn’t last, however. It shifted from soothing to uncomfortable and then from uncomfortable to sickening. But, somewhere just past hurling, it became expected and familiar, and sleeping in a still bed on dry ground no longer felt right. Oddly enough, whenever he tried, it felt as though he was rocking.
His thoughts had kept him awake his entire life, and he had been pleasantly surprised that the lapping of the river against the hull provided a nice distraction to whatever panic or embarrassment his brain tried to present to him just before he fell asleep. But the water wasn’t always powerful enough to override his subconscious.
Memories haunted him whenever he closed his eyes. The ones that were only brave enough to show themselves when the lights had gone out. To silence them, he opened his eyes, but then the Ketchums’ story played over and over in his mind. He turned over with enough angst to alert Chewy. The mastiff lifted her head, quickly surveyed the situation and collapsed back into a deep snore, completely unconcerned with her friend’s inability to sleep.
He should help them. Shouldn’t he? Helping people was what he did.
No, it was what he used to do. And he had done enough. He had done his part and more. For the first time since everything went to shit, people were really starting to look out for themselves and come together to address threats like the ones facing the Ketchums. And that was how it needed to be handled. They needed to do it themselves. And they were more than capable. They didn’t need his help.
His place was here on the river. He’d spent years helping people and moving on. Oftentimes, never to return. He had forsaken a thousand relationships—true, it was mostly because he wasn’t a huge fan of people—but the world had changed once more, and he took a great satisfaction in bringing people back together. Either in person or by mail.
This was his place now. The river. He was still helping people. It wasn’t right for the world to ask any more of him than it already had. He pulled the sheet over his shoulders, turned over once and tossed them off. Then he stood up and went out onto the deck because he wasn’t going to get any sleep that night.
He dug into a cabinet and pulled out a liquor bottle that was more than half full. He poured himself a glass of whiskey and settled in to watch the people that still lingered in the marketplace. It was late but there was still activity in Cairo. It never truly died here.
He checked his watch. The post office would be open in a few hours and he could check in with the postmaster, pick up his passengers for the return trip and be on his way. He hoped they would be early. He wanted to be gone as soon as possible. He’d leave the Ketchums and their problems in the Boomer’s wake.
And what about Eve? Would she keep his secret? He thought so. It would be easy enough to deny it. The lie was second nature at this point. Or almost second nature.
Chewy joined him on the deck just as he was cursing himself for calling her the wrong name in front of someone.
He swallowed hard and examined the glass. It was post-apocalyptic whiskey. And it wasn’t half bad. As good as any Jack or Jim he could remember. The world was putting itself back together.
Eve would keep his secret, he decided. Of course she would. She understood the life. Maybe better than anyone he’d ever met outside of Lucas. She got it. She knew what it took.
It was obvious that she was good at it. He could tell. Eve could help the Ketchums.
And he had no doubt she would see them through the conflict. She really was something else.
He did his best to stop the line of thought there. But his mind was doing its best to draw comparisons between her and Erica. His best wasn’t good enough to stop it. So, he took another drink and prepared for the onslaught of emotions.
They had a lot of the same qualities. The same resilience. They never hesitated to act—a rare enough trait before the world became a more dangerous place and still surprisingly hard to come by now. They were both more attractive than anyone who had lived through the end of the world had any business being. Natural beauties that didn’t miss spa treatments or makeup counters.
He stopped the train of thought with another drink and focused on the concern that made him open the bottle to begin with. Eve would help them. Her heart was still in the game. His wasn’t. It was as simple as that. He was helping people here and that was enough. She would go with them. She would lead an uprising, kill raiders, or whatever it took and everything would be okay.
She had a reputation as well and he’d heard the stories. And he knew well enough how myths worked to separate the hype from the actual history. She could handle it. Everything would be okay.
With that settled, he poured another drink and began to wonder if he’d ever see her again. Would she ever find her way back to the Mississippi? And if she did, would she book passage on the Boomer knowing what she knew now? And if she did…
He abandoned the thought when she came walking down the dock with the two dogs close behind her. He could tell from the look on her face that this wasn’t going to be the kind of visit he had been thinking about imagining.
Chewy stepped out onto the deck and watched the trio approach. Her tail began to wag at the sight of the Great Dane. Sasquatch leapt onto the boat and the two giant dogs began playing around.
Jerry tried to meet her at the lip of the boat, but moving around the frolicking dogs was difficult.
“Chewy, get down…Stop it. Sit…oh would the two of you just get a room?” He opened the door to the cabin and the three dogs raced inside and downstairs.
By the time he shut the door and turned around, she was standing in front of him with her arms crossed and a look on her face that he would have really enjoyed if it wasn’t directed at him.
“So, it’s Chewy, now?”
He shrugged. “You have no idea how long it took me to get her to respond to Blue.”
“How could you?” She was fuming.
“Well, I thought they sounded pretty similar and I used a lot of bacon.”
“You know what I meant.”
“Of course, I know what you meant, but I’d rather not talk about it so I’m playing it off as a misunderstanding, now do you want to hear about the bacon or not?”
“How could you fake your death?”
“Oh, that. It’s easy. First, you throw yourself off a national landmark in front of thousands of witnesses. Broadcast it if you can. I find the Jumbotron works well. Then you find a boat and call yourself Mike. Though I don’t know if you’d be able to pull it off. You look like more of a Michelle, if you don’t mind my saying.” He poured her a drink and passed it to her. “It’s the hair, I think.”
She made no move to take it. She just stood there staring at him.
And he stood there holding two drinks. Now that he’d evaluated things, he realized he’d been in worse situations.
“You used to help people.”
“I’m still helping people. For example, I made you this drink.” He pushed it her way once more and she took the glass.
But she didn’t drink. “How could you give it up?”
“Which part do you think I miss? The constant peril or the lack of appreciation?”
“You know what I mean.” It didn’t sound as accusatory as he expected. There was an excitement in her voice that grew as she continued. “The thrills. The adventure.”
“The bullets,” he added.
“The cheers,” she countered.
“The bears,” he said, and held up his hands and roared.
She ended the litany with, “You’re the Librarian.”
“And you are wasting that drink.” He took the glass back from her and filled his own with the contents.
“Everyone loves you. You’re the freaking Davy Crockett of the apocalypse.”
“Stop it,” he said quietly.
“Kids everywhere run around pretending to be you.”
“Stop it.” He didn’t want to sound angry or mean, but he wanted it to end.
“Hell,” Eve passed a hand over herself to highlight how she was dressed. “I’m basically running around pretending to be you.”
“Oh, really?”
“I mean.” She lifted the hem of her shirt to expose the gun she kept at her waist. “Yeah.”
“Do you pretend to lose the love of your life because standing up for others drew so much attention to you that the most powerful warlord in the land put a bounty on your head and chased you halfway across the country when all you wanted was what everyone else had?”
“No. I don’t do that.”
“Oh?” He poured the drink down his throat and took a deep breath. “I’ve done my part. And paid my dues, okay? Maybe I did help the world get back on its feet. Now, it’s up to everyone else to keep it there. Besides, the world doesn’t need me. They have you.” He filled his glass and hers and tried once more to get her to join him. He took a breath and did his best to make sure he had lost the anger and the sarcasm. He wanted to be supportive. “I’m hearing some pretty great things about Eve of the Apocalypse.”
She offered a crooked smile and finally took a drink. “You can’t believe everything you hear.”
“That is very true. But I’m pretty accustomed to peeling back the myth and getting to the real story.”
Eve took another drink and sat down on the bench behind the table.
“For example,” Jerry said as he joined her at the table, “I heard you once fought off twenty men with nothing but a stick and two wolves. But my guess is that it was really six guys, the stick was a sword and the wolves were Bigfoot and Chatty Cathy down there.”
She raised her glass in salute and they both took a drink. She studied the drink in her hand and said, “I heard that you once ran twenty miles through a metal storm to save a child from a group of marauders.”
“I’ve heard that, too,” Jerry said.
She looked up from the drink and made her guess. “Two blocks, a light sprinkle and the group of marauders was this crazy old guy named Isaac that liked playing hide and seek with the kid.”
“Not even close. His name was Arturo.” They shared a laugh and another drink.
They traded tales back and forth for half an hour and drank most of the bottle.
“Okay, my turn?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. But he couldn’t be sure. The alcohol was making it difficult to keep track.
“Okay,” she said. “I heard you rescued a princess and prevented a war between two kingdoms with the help of a band of merry men.”
“That one did happen,” he said as he reached for the bottle.
“So you’re Robin Hood, too?”
“The men weren’t that merry.” He chuckled at his own joke, but the story had stirred the wrong memories. Colorado had been the last time he and Erica had been safe. The last time they had been together. He poured a larger drink than had been the norm and tried to move the conversation along. “How about you? What story have I heard about Eve of the Apocalypse that is just too weird to be made up?”
“I killed a Swampsquatch and found a talking dog?”
“Get out!” he said with a slap of the table.
She held up a hand to swear by. “God’s honest truth.”
“A talking dog? I don’t believe it!”
“Yeah. I can’t believe it myself.”
They talked about the strangest things they’d seen. The nicest places they’d been. The best and worst parts of being a post-apocalyptic nomadic warrior. He had known several and could honestly say that he had not found one of them as much fun to talk to, or even remotely as attractive, as her. He complained about having to overcome the stereotype of the scarred and rugged, gruff loner.
“At least you never had to hear, ‘But you’re just a girl.’”
“They called you a girl?”
“Well, they usually trailed off around ‘just a’ and left the rest for me to infer.”
They laughed together and refilled their glasses a few more times and found themselves at the door to the captain’s berth.
She had kissed him first.
Maybe. Things would be hazy in the morning and they weren’t much clearer now, but he couldn’t see himself making the first move. The more he tried to remember, the more he liked the idea that she had kissed him first and he decided to adopt it as fact.
It didn’t really matter at this point. They were both in there with the kisses now and each was doing their best to pull the other’s clothes off without setting off any of the concealed weapons they were carrying.
It was definitely her that grabbed the handle on the cabin door and pulled it open. Sasquatch and Chewy burst out of the room and scrambled up onto the deck. The giant dogs almost knocked the two drunks over on their way up. But the drunks managed to fall into each other and moved to the bed. They laid down together and Jerry was suddenly aware of the eyes on him.
They were big, brown and vacant.
Fidget was perched on a shelf near the bed. His eyes were wide and fixed at some unknown spot in the distance. He wasn’t moving.
“Eve,” Jerry said. “Is your dog okay?”
“Fidget?” Eve asked.
When the dog didn’t respond, she grew more concerned. “Fidget, are you okay? I can’t believe I’m saying this, but talk to me, Fidge.”
The beagle drew a slow and shuddering breath. He never broke his stare with the mystery spot in the distance. “What the hell did I just see?”
“Fidget!” Eve scolded the beagle. “Language!”
This brought the dog’s focus back to the present. “Oh, hey, Eve. Hey, what happened to your shirt?”
“Fidget, please leave.”
“Right.” The beagle hopped onto the bed and put his nose in her face. “Do you want me to find your shirt?”
“Now!” she snapped.
The beagle leapt back and bounced off the wall. He hit the fiberglass deck and his nails clicked as he scrambled up the short flight of steps.
Eve shut the door behind him, turned back to Jerry and rolled her eyes.
He burst out laughing once more, and she followed suit as she crawled back onto the bed with him.
They had barely started kissing when the scratching at the door interrupted them.
“What?” Eve said with more than a little annoyance.
“I couldn’t find your shirt, but I think I’ve got that guy’s pants.”
“Fidget! Go lie down!”
They both laid in silence for a moment, waiting for the nails to click their way up and away from the door. They listened quietly, without breathing, to make sure they weren’t coming back.
They shared one more giggle at the beagle’s antics. Then they were done laughing for the night.
20
The dogs were barking. But it wasn’t so much a “Get up, come see this and bring something heavy to hit it with” bark and more of a “Hey, I think I know these people and I have to pee a little bit but I don’t want to get out of the boat because I might fall in the river and OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod I DO know these people and, oh no, now I have peed myself and a little on this thing, what is this thing…Oh, hey, Eve, I found your shirt and I’m sorry.”
Eve pulled the pillow over her face and screamed into it. “That dog is going to be the end of me.”
Jerry got out of the bed as Fidget’s visitors stepped up to the berth door and began knocking on it like it would disappear if he didn’t hurry.
“Eve?” It was Andy. “Eve? Are you in there?” he shouted, and his pounding intensified.
