Thy Eternal Summer (8/15)

A missile had struck, throwing up the earth around it in waves. Several trees had been thrown and now hung, securely it seemed, over the lip of the crater. The result was a sort of overhanging shelter. It wouldn't hold up if the rain started pouring, but it provided a feeling of security, at least.1

Uncle Will, Jezebel's uncle but apparently everybody called him that, had indeed set up camp out of the back of a Jeep. Jack had seen pictures of Jeeps in textbooks; the army used them in the colonial wars. He had learned that they were scrapped after that, as dangerous and unnecessary utility vehicles. 2

There was a fire in the middle of the encampment. Jack had seen this sort of thing in movies, and of course there were the burners in Chemistry lab, but never had he witnessed something like this. It was a huge dancing pile of log and flames. The light cavorted and bowed and leapt before his eyes, turning and pirouetting for his sole amusement. It threw off sparks, glorious stars that flared for a moment before falling and winking out. The warmth, as he drew near, was another thing he had never experienced. It was like a wild, alive thing, something that served him for the moment but could easily turn on him, rend him, tear him, burn him. He gloried in its presence.3

Uncle Will was a slightly younger man than Jezebel's father, with a more closely kept beard. He was slightly taller, but much thinner. He leapt spryly to his feet when the group approached.4

“You got one!” he exclaimed.5

“Yes,” said Jezebel's father. “I'm afraid he could use a couple days of rest and recovery before we move on.”6

Uncle Will nodded. “Well, I'm prepared for that.” he pointed to the west. “See that hill? Used to be a bend in the road over there. Food truck got hit, scattered canned goods all over the place. Some of 'em actually usable, too.” He gestured to the spit he was holding. “Figured I'd cook rabbits tonight, haul the rest of that back home for winter.”7

Jezebel's father nodded. “As much as we can carry, yeah.” He glanced around. “Well, have a seat, all. Jack, you must have realized by now, this is uncle Will.”8

The man came toward Jack, who extended his hand to shake. Uncle Will handed him the spit. The meat on it glistened. “What it sounds like, you're the worst off here. Eat, boy, eat.”9

Jack looked at the rabbit for a minute. It bore an uncanny resemblance to live rabbit. He thought of White Fang, biting into the warm flesh of living creatures. Suddenly, with the pit in his stomach paining him more and more, he realized the attraction that bore. 10

Jezebel leaned over to him, moving close enough that he could feel the warmth emanating from her. “Just bite it,” she said. “Tear into it like a... like a wolf.”11

Jack smiled. He followed her instructions. The meat was soft and tender, and its juices sprayed over his face. Instinctively he reached up to wipe them away, but he let his hand fall, enjoying the pure rugged sensation of an uncleaned mess on his body. The meat itself tasted of the wild and the hunt and all the things he'd read about, and never hoped to experience. A wild grin split his face.12

Jezebel looked at him and smiled broadly. She reached up and wiped the meat juice from his cheek, licking it from her fingers.13

The rest of the party seemed to be ignoring the kids. Jezebel's dad, Peter, was talking to Uncle Will about their plans. 14

“Is Blake still out with the four square?” he said. 15

“Yeah,” said Uncle Will. “I assume so, at least. I haven't heard from him for days.”16

“Oh, he's fine. He knows how to take care of himself,” said the mother. Her tone of voice was less confident than her words.17

“That he does,” said Peter, more than a hint of admiration in his voice. “That boy's a better wild man than I am. It's almost like he was being prepared for this.”18

The mother snorted, a skeptical look on her face. “He was. Or else what were you preparing him for all these years?”19

Peter nodded. “I concede the point to you, ma'am.”20

Jack stared into the fire, and listened to this old married couple. He thought of his own parents, and thought that a mundane conversation like this might have been the deepest—and kindest—they'd ever had in their lives. Then a horrible thought struck him. He turned to Jezebel's dad.21

“Did they hit every town?” he said, a little shakily. He could feel her stir behind him, but he didn't care.22

“What?” said the man, interrupting his conversation with uncle Will.23

“Did the missiles hit every town around here?”24

Peter shrugged. “They had enough to systematically cut up every acre of road. You better know they got every town. Probably several times, for the ones that were of any size at all.”25

Jack nodded, swallowing against a sudden stone in his throat. He looked back at the fire for a moment; it popped, and suddenly he saw it again, the blinding flash of white. He thought of his parents, screaming and buried and buffeted by shock waves and dead. He lowered his head to his knees, but the tears wouldn't come. He felt a cold chill rattle through his body, and following it a numbness unlike any he'd ever felt. He began to shake. The rabbit dropped to the ground, and he heard it thump in the dirt.26

“That was a good rabbit,” came uncle Will's complaining voice.27

Jezebel's voice, from next to him, was more comforting. “Poor kid,” she whispered, and she put her arms around him and held him. He laid his head on her shoulder, and continued to shake.28

After a while, he felt a broad hand clap him across the back. “What's the matter with you, young man?” The words might have been harsh, but the gravelly voice that spoke them emanated nothing but kindness. 29

Jack shook his head. “My... my parents. They were... they were real morons, but nobody isn't a real moron, and my parents... my parents are dead.” The last word was a whisper, a syllable too awful to give true voice to.30

The man sighed. Jezebel tightened her grip around him, her arms warm and soft against his cheek and neck.31

“Son,” said the man. “What is this life? I've watched you; you've looked at the secret the past few days, but I think you had inklings of it before. This life is nothing but suffering, nothing but sadness, nothing but goodbyes. Why weep for those who have passed out of it?”32

Jack put his head up, and looked the old man in the eye. Jack's cheeks were wet. “I know the answer to that, sir. I weep from selfishness. I weep because I want them here, where they can help me. I weep because I did not get to say goodbye, because I do not want to say goodbye. I weep for me, and me alone.”33

The man bowed his head. “You know too much. But take heart. One short sleep past, and we wake eternally.”34

“Then death,” Jack said. “Shall be no more.”35

“Death,” they said together. “Thou shalt die.”36

Soon uncle Will pulled sleeping bags from the Jeep. They slept close to the fire. Peter and his wife slept together, and Jack and Jezebel were close on either side of uncle Will. They were arranged this way for warmth, of course, and knowing this and being in his own sleeping bag Jack didn't find it awkward.37

In the morning the mother and father left to look for more survivors; uncle Will went with them, leaving Jack and Jezebel to care for the camp. She rolled up the sleeping bags, and began clearing out the fire pit. Jack rose and began to help, but she gestured to him to sit down. 38

“You've been through a massive ordeal,” she said. “You need to rest and not strain yourself.”39

Jack glanced around; he was about to protest, but instead he sat and rested against the Jeep's wheel. She finished with the fire pit, and went to the Jeep and opened the back, pulling out a pair of vacuum sealed containers. She pulled the tops off, and handed one to Jack, settling against the tire next to him. 40

“Ah, this is more like it,” said Jack. “This stuff I know how to eat.”41

She laughed a little, and moved so their shoulders were touching, very lightly. They sat in that way for a little while, eating tasteless gruel that was supposed to be good for them. Jack looked out across the desolate landscape, and he began to see order. There was none in the piles of earth, no, but there was a great natural order that the strange attack had not disturbed, an order of light and shadow, sunrise and sunset, the occupations of the few birds and insects who remained. The missile attacks had blighted it only as a mild scratch on a beautiful cheek. Jack shook his head, thinking he needed to work on his metaphors.42

Jezebel cleared her throat. Jack looked at her. “Do you want to talk about your family? Would that help? Or would it only make things worse?” She shook her head at herself. “I'm no good at this kind of thing.”43

Jack shrugged. “My dad was... an asshole. He drank himself silly, and when he was drunk he was clumsy, and he yelled at people, and tried to hit them. And when he wasn't drunk, he yelled at people, and he tried to hit people, and he wasn't clumsy. And my big plan was to turn eighteen and thrash him. Which I think now is...” he stopped, and gestured at the shocked look on her face. “Yeah, I know, really awful. Just... bad, and he's my dad, and I shouldn't... yeah. But... yeah, that was him.44

“My mom... well, I suppose she fell in love with him somewhere back then, maybe before he discovered the joys of the bottle, or whatever. And she felt obliged to him or she was afraid to leave me or something, so she stayed with him.”45

“Or maybe,” said Jezebel softly, “She still loved him.”46

Jack looked at her. “I've... read stuff like that, a couple places. But I thought... I didn't think that would actually happen.”47

“What did your mom do, when your dad would yell at her?” she said, quietly.48

“She... she cried, or sometimes she ran away and locked her door and then she cried,” Jack said, and the memory pained him.49

“Why do you cry?” she said.50

“I... Um, I guess when something.... when something hurts, mostly.”51

“Yes,” she said. “Your dad hurt her. And how do you get hurt by someone or something that you don't care about? So she had to have cared for him, if he was able to do that to her.”52

“But...” Jack said. “But, I always thought...” he turned his face toward hers, and his was stricken. “How?” was all he could say.53

She smiled. “Humans, in case you haven't noticed, are mysterious strange ethereal unpredictable creatures. And love, the deepest and most complex of human emotions, is more mysterious still.”54

They heard the sound of a motor, far away but growing rapidly closer. Jezebel stirred. “That must be Blake. I wonder if he's found anybody.”55

Soon there approached a cloud of dust, which soon resolved itself into a four square, a riding vehicle with four wheels, designed for traveling over hostile ground. Riding it, standing up in the stirrups, was a boy of about nineteen, a couple years older than Jack. He circled the camp once, going fast, throwing a cloud of dust across them. He turned and drove toward them, slowing now. He stopped a few feet from the Jeep, cut the engine, and hopped off, pulling off his helmet. He had a broad face with chiseled features, small intense eyes like his father's that were always probing and searching and observing, and a wide mouth which smiled easily. However, it was not smiling when Jack first saw it.56

“Who's this?” he said to Jezebel. 57

She and Jack both rose to their feet.58

“This is our survivor,” said Jezebel ostentatiously. “You could be nicer to him. Jack, this is Blake.”59

Jack held out his hand and Blake shook it, his eyes probing deeply into Jack's. His hand was firm and strong and calloused, and made Jack's seem weak and soft. “Where'd you come from?” he asked.60

“A town, up yonder. He doesn't know the name,” Jezebel answered for him. 61

Blake nodded. “Help me unload the wood.” He turned and went to the back of the four square, which was filled with branches and limbs from trees. Jezebel looked about to protest Jack's being put to work, but she kept silent.62

It felt good to use his muscles, to help the people who had saved him in some small way, to be active rather than lying on the ground recovering the strength he didn't think he'd had in the first place. 63

“Did you find anybody?” Jezebel said, dropping the pile next to the one Blake dropped.64

Blake shrugged. “A few vehicles, so blown apart there was no telling if anyone was in them. A few bodies, a bunch of parts of bodies. I think I got to one guy just after he died; he was still warm. Made me feel like...” He stopped, and looked upward as if appealing to the heavens. Jack thought he knew exactly what Blake was talking about. 65

They piled the rest of the wood by the fire pit. Blake took a water bottle from the back of the Jeep, opened it, and sat down by the ashes of last night's fire. Jack and Jezebel sat down on either side of him. Blake snorted, apparently thinking of something.66

“Found a truck, the kind of dog cage they transport juvenile delinquents in, upside down by the side of the road last night. Two government bastards dead in the front, and nobody in the back.” He grinned. “What irony.”67

Jack and Jezebel exchanged glances, and secret smiles. Neither of them said anything. 68

Blake got up. He began taking supplies, food and water mostly, out of the back of the Jeep and loading them on the four square. He looked to Jack and Jezebel. “I'm going back out for the rest of the day, maybe the night, depending. You two got anything to do?”69

Jezebel shook her head. “Just watch the camp here.”70

Blake gestured to the south. “There's that overturned food tanker down there that uncle Will and I discovered. You could start hauling the cans back, if you wanted.” He paused, and some internal conflict played out over his face. “You know what?” he said suddenly. “I'm older here. I'm in charge. I'm giving orders. Go pick up those cans and bring them back here.”71

Jezebel laughed, apparently finding this very funny. “Yes sir, captain sir. We'll do that, sir.”72

Blake grinned, then scowled. “See that you do then.” He looked at Jack, scowling a little more. “You're in charge of her. See that she stays alive, and comes to no harm.”73

Jack threw a tentative salute. “Yes sir... captain sir?”74

Jezebel laughed, and Blake rolled his eyes. “Great. That's... just great.” He climbed onto his four square and drove away in a cloud of dust.75

She looked at him and grinned, gesturing softly. “Come on.”76

Jack and Jezebel set off across the hills and craters, climbing and stumbling on the uneven ground. They climbed down the side of a crater—Jack held out his hand to balance Jezebel's fall—and there was the truck, lying on its side with its trailer skewed at an odd angle, like a great beast shamefully slain. 77

There was a rift in the top of the truck, and all the neatly ordered rows of canned food had spilled out and lay strewn over the ground, like the great beast's innards. Jack picked up a can; green sledge oozed over his hand, sticky and disgustingly sweet smelling. He threw it away in disgust. 78

Jezebel called to him from the back of the truck; she had managed to pry the door open. Jack went to her and helped her into the cavernous mouth. She disappeared, swallowed up by blackness. 79

"Ouch!" she said, after a bit. 80

"You all right?" Jack said, straining to see into the black.81

She laughed, a high musical sound. "Yeah, I'm fine," she said. A series of cans came flying out of the dark space toward him. Jack tried to catch them, but had all he could do to simply dodge them. 82

Her face appeared, an impish grin blazoned across it. "Did you get them?"83

Jack, a little shamefaced, gestured to the ground around him, where the cans she had thrown were strewn. "Yeah, uh… there."84

She laughed, and vaulted from the back of the truck. "Weakling," she said, and began gathering up cans. 85

Jack stood for a minute, farcically debating with himself. "Weakling… Weakling. I'm not sure I like being called a weakling." He turned toward her; she was cheated away from him, still gathering up cans. He ran and tackled her, pinning her to the ground by the shoulders. 86

"Who's weak now?" he said, triumphantly. 87

She twisted, and locked her legs around his back, then threw him off. Somehow he landed on his back, with her on top of him. She looked him in the eye, opened her mouth as if to say something. She closed it, and just arched her eyebrows at him.88

Jack laughed. “I surrender.” As she climbed off and he got up he murmured, “Stupid farm kids.”89

She tackled him again.