The Breakers Series: Books 1-3 Page 32

  He laughed all the way down.

  EPILOGUE

  He had it all. Canned ravioli. Bags of spaghetti. A pot and a bowl and a knife and a fork. Lighters, matches, flint. The alien pistol and a hunting rifle with two boxes of bullets. A blanket. Leather gloves. Extra shoes. Three pairs of socks. Fishing line and hooks. A flashlight with a spare pack of batteries. A bigger knife and a second small one because you can never have enough knives. Needles and thread and a lightweight rope. A change of clothes. A box of Butterfingers he'd found in the back of a liquor store. Some aspirin and generic antibiotics and a bottle of Famous Grouse scotch and a bag of Bali Shag with an extra pack of rolling papers. That was it. It was enough to carry. Anything else he needed, he'd find it along the way.

  He'd woken up high on a beach amidst dead fish and great bundles of kelp rotting in the morning fog. He smelled horrible; he'd vomited at some point. He tried to stand up and passed right back out.

  His next try, Walt wobbled to his feet and climbed uphill. The afternoon sun warmed the sand. He soon fell to his hands and knees, crawling until he reached a street where the houses hadn't been leveled by the ship-borne wave. Behind him, its ruined engines bulged above the ocean, still smoking, faint white plumes mingling with the sea's own mist. He smashed in the window of a pretty blue Cape Cod house and shuffled over the creaking floorboards until he found bottled water in the moldy fridge.

  Two days later, frame-rattling explosions jarred him from bed. Smoke grimed the sky above the airport. He went back to bed. In the morning, the skies were clear.

  He got his act together, spent a week gathering up his gear. By then, he felt strong enough to go for runs along the beach, adding weight to his pack every day to rebuild the strength he'd lost recovering from the crash. He took the pistol with him; the smoke of campfires rose from the hills and beaches now. Once, the crack of a rifle had echoed down the streets. He didn't feel forced out by these new neighbors. He'd never been the LA type anyway.

  Elsewhere, it was still winter. He headed south, sleeping under stars that no longer looked so far away. He figured he would stop in a place where it was nice to fish. San Diego was on fire. He went around it.

  On a dry Baja beach, he caught four fat, green-silver fish with scalloped fins. He roasted them on sticks, skins and all. After he ate the first, a man appeared up the beach, waving his hands over his head. He was young and sunburned and hungry. So was his wife. Walt offered the kid a fish. It turned out they had beer, Negra Modelo in thick-bottomed brown bottles. He was named Vincent, his wife Mickey. College kids in a past life.

  They talked for a while about where they were headed (them: Panama; him: somewhere), where they'd come from (Idaho; New York), what they'd seen recently (a pair of aliens hunted down with dogs and rifles; lots of sand).

  "Yeah," Mickey said, tugging the strap of her tank top, "but like how did it even come to that? I mean, did you ever think we'd be taking them down with dogs? Did like one of them get drunk at the wheel Exxon Valdez-style?"

  "Oh, that?" Walt said. "That was me. Me and this Vietnam vet named Otto. He was probably an asshole in the Bush years, but he was a cool guy when I met him." He sipped his beer. "We landed on the ship with a hot air balloon. Blew stuff up until the thing went down."

  "And then what?" Mickey said. "You hang-glidered to safety?"

  "I jumped. From what I remember, it was fun."

  Mickey laughed, white teeth flashing in the firelight. Vincent smiled and put his arm around her shoulder. For a moment Walt bristled, ready to protest, to insist it had happened, that they weren't laughing at a tall tale, but events which had, for the second time in the last year, cost the lives of everyone he knew. But if he'd heard his story from a stranger, he'd laugh too, wouldn't he? A handful of nobodies couldn't save the world. No doubt a hundred better stories had already cropped up around the globe.

  But he wouldn't change his. He owed that much to those who'd been with him.

  Walt left before they woke. It was the wind that spoke to him now, in whispers and urgent hisses; the sea that murmured to itself like it had forgotten something from a list. He walked when he was ready and slept when he was tired. When he had nowhere else to be, he sat beside the waterline and watched the sun go down, listening to the wash of the sand. He thought he heard names, sometimes, but then the waves receded, a scrub of foam and salt, snatching them back before he could be sure.

  He decided to walk to the end of the southern world, the cold hills of Patagonia, where no people had lived even when people lived everywhere. Maybe the breakers would speak clear names there. Maybe he would find something to make him stop.

  He intended to live along the way.

  I:

  PANHANDLER,

  REDUX

  1

  Even after the plague hit, the worst thing in Ness Hook's life was his brother Shawn. Shawn returned to their mother's house without warning on a Sunday afternoon while Ness attempted, for the third time that week, to stop his fiddler crabs from escaping their tank. Shawn lugged a mattress over the threshold to Ness' bedroom, fabric hissing over the shine-worn carpet.

  Ness stared. "What are you doing?"

  "Returning to the homestead. Get your shit out of the way."

  "Why do you have a mattress?"

  Shawn glanced down at the stained bed clamped under his armpit, mock-surprised, as if it were a piece of gum he'd just discovered jammed in his sole. "Is that what this is? That's handy, 'cause I plan to sleep on it."

  "You can't bring your bed into my room."

  "You gonna stop me?"

  "What are you even doing here?" Ness said. "Did you leave your house in your other pair of pants?"

  Shawn's face went dark. He shoved his mattress against the wall and kicked the clothes massed on Ness' floor. "Get your shit out of the way before I shovel it out the window."

  Ness set down the wire mesh he'd been gluing around the aquarium filter and stepped over the Burger King wrappers bulwarking his computer desk. He grabbed the mattress, grunted, and heaved, inching it back toward the door.

  "You think so?" Shawn laughed. Casually, he shoved Ness to the ground. Ness' knee scraped the gym-style carpet. Shawn booted a crumpled shirt across the floor, flopped the mattress to the ground, and wiped his hands on his jeans. He wore Wranglers, a red flannel over a ribbed white wifebeater, and a new and stupid mustache. "Great to see you again, little brother."

  Panic, anger, and baffling shame flooded Ness all the way to his neck. He scrabbled out of the bedroom and dashed to the double-wide's living room, where his mom sat at the breakfast nook mumbling at her Facebook game, a block-shooter that would have looked primitive on an original Nintendo. For once, the quaintness of her game didn't bother Ness.

  "Shawn's in my room," he said.

  His mom blasted another block. "Get used to it."

  "What happened to his house? Did he try to drink it?"

  "Lost it. Couldn't pay for it. You even know what a mortgage is?"

  "Mom," he whined. "He can't be in my room."

  "Your room?" A falling block crushed her cursor. She swore and swiveled to face him. "If you've been paying rent, the checks have been lost for five years now."

  "I pay for my food."

  "That just leaves the roof, hot water, your cell phone, the electricity to that computer—"

  The screen door banged. Shawn trundled down the hall, a cardboard box in his arms. Their mom turned away and started up another game.

  "What am I supposed to do?" Ness said.

  "Get used to it," his mom said. "Shit's tough. You think he's any happier about this than you?"

  Ness watched her play her stupid backwards game, waiting for her to come to her senses, rise from her cat-shredded office chair, and banish Shawn from the house. She did nothing. Ness returned to his bedroom, not quite daring to go in. Shawn thumped down a box and yanked off the tape. He wadded the tape into a lumpy silverish ball, lobbed it into the corner, and began unpacking sma
ll green boxes of ammunition.

  Shawn didn't look up from his work. "Did you just run off to tell Mom?"

  Ness knew the lie was foolish—Shawn had been coming in and out, he'd probably snooped the whole conversation—but couldn't stop himself. "I was helping her with her computer."

  Shawn chuckled. He jerked his head at one of the aquariums, a ten-gallon freshwater flickering with a school of tetras, their blue, red, and silver scales flashing under the tank light. "Can you use those things for bait?"

  "Don't touch my fish," Ness said.

  "Look like the perfect size for a hook."

  "I said don't you touch my fish."

  "Tell you what. Why don't you set up a new tank with all the ones you don't like?"

  Ness' neck was hot and itchy. In a moment, he would either start screaming or hit Shawn, and either way would end in tears. He darted into the room, grabbed his shoes, and ran for the door. Shawn laughed.

  Ness ran down the driveway past Shawn's truck, gravel jagging his socked feet. He sat down where the road turned in to the drive and laced up his shoes. He didn't have the first one tied before an orange bolt burst from the knee-high grass and leapt onto his shoulders, purring. He shoved Volt away and she jumped right back up.

  Once his shoes were on, he headed straight up the mountain. Volt trotted beside him, flinging herself at the moths that staggered from the grass. It was spring and the sky was cloudless but it would have been cold if he weren't moving. Behind him, Moscow, Idaho filled the shallow valley, a hive of naive undergrads and fearful locals. He reached for his iPod, but he'd left it on his desk.

  The road ended. A pheasant spooked in a blast of wings and Ness threw his arms above his head. The bird settled in a pine, clucking like a car that's just been shut off, tail angling from the branch. Volt put back her ears. Other people said exercise made them feel good, even high, but Ness took walks to vent the tension. This time, the climb wasn't helping. Back in his room, Shawn was unpacking his things—his shotguns in their cloth camo cases, his subscriptions to Guns & Ammo and Soldier of Fortune, his rap CDs with their cracked cases—leaving oily fingerprints on the aquariums and saturating the room with his stink of beer sweat, engine grease, and Winstons.

  He couldn't believe his mom had done this to him.

  His feet crushed weeds just released from winter, stirring chlorophyll, the scent of milky sap, and one repeated thought: unfair, unfair, unfair. He reached the thicket of pines along the ridge. Volt had disappeared sometime in the last half hour. On the other side of the mountain, the trees gave way to another grassy slope that leveled off into the Rogers' farm, winter wheat rising in a short green blanket. Widget barked from the front steps, saw it was him, and wagged her flaggy tail.

  Mrs. Rogers let him in to Tim's room. Tim sat on the carpet, shooting Germans on his 21" TV. Ness frowned. The landline was choppy as ever. He grabbed the second controller, waited for the match to end, and joined up.

  "Shawn moved back in to the trailer," he said.

  "That sucks," Tim said.

  "He's in my room right now."

  "Why? He has that sweet house. Who wants to drink beer with their mom?"

  Ness' avatar was shot by a sniper and fell into the fields of France. "The bank took it. You know he drank up all his money at the Plant. That's his problem."

  Tim paused to mash buttons until he died. "Well, what do you want? He can't just be homeless."

  "He's been talking about 2012 since Y2K. He can live in the hills and stab grubs for breakfast. That's what he wants."

  "He's your brother."

  "He's a dick."

  "Well, what are you going to do? Get a job? Move out?"

  Ness' neck itched. He shot a German in the head and swung his view to the body, then emptied his clip into the fading pixels. "He should just leave."

  "Yeah, but he won't, will he?" Tim died again—lag—and swore. He threw down the controller and shut off the PlayStation. "Well, I have to eat dinner."

  Ness left. By the time he got home, Shawn's truck was gone from the driveway. For a minute, he let himself hope his brother had gone for good, but his bedroom was still full of unfamiliar clothes and magazines and Shawn's stained mattress. He fed his fish and scrubbed their tanks and logged onto his game.

  Shawn returned after midnight, letting the screen door slam. He swayed up behind Ness. His breath stunk like beer. "How long have you been on that thing?"

  Ness didn't turn from his laptop. "How long were you at the bar?"

  "You never even been drunk."

  "It kills brain cells."

  Shawn leaned over his computer, breathing sour liquor. "Does it take a lot of brains to live with your mom and stay up all night shooting your fake faggot friends? You ever want to shoot a real gun, come out with me to the range some weekend."

  "It smells like you ate an outhouse," Ness said.

  Shawn went to the bathroom, which shared a wall with the bedroom, exposing Ness to every rattle of the medicine cabinet and echoing bout of flatulence. Shawn hawked phlegm, flushed the toilet. He came back to the room, flopped on his mattress, and inhaled deeply.

  "Your cat pissed my bed."

  Ness didn't look up. "No she didn't."

  Shawn sniffed harder yet. "I can smell it. Right here."

  "Maybe it was you. Volt is trained."

  "Whatever." Shawn fumbled with his alarm until it beeped once. For a while, all Ness could hear was the soft burble of the aquariums, the gentle clatter of his keyboard, and his friends joking over chat. His guild was waiting on a respawn; if they could loot it fast enough, they'd go raiding after.

  "Will you turn that thing off?" Shawn said. "I can't sleep over here."

  "Have another beer."

  "We're out." Sheets rustled. "I said turn that fucking thing off."

  "If you don't like it, go back to the house you couldn't pay for. The bank probably won't shoot you."

  Shawn rushed from bed, stomped across the room, and slammed the laptop shut.

  "What the hell!" Ness yelled.

  His brother grabbed the back of his chair and tipped him over. Ness' head hit the carpet. On his back, he swung for Shawn's balls, but Shawn bent his knee and dropped it onto Ness' chest with all his weight. Pain shocked through Ness' body. He shouted.

  Shawn slapped his face. "What are you gonna do about it?"

  "Get off me!"

  Shawn slapped him again. "I told you to turn that fucking thing off. Some of us got jobs. I'm not gonna wake up tired 'cause you spend all night whacking—"

  "What are you two idiots doing?" The lights flashed on. Their mom stood in the doorway, face puffy with sleep and red with anger.

  Shawn eased his knee from Ness' chest. "Trying to sleep."

  "You tried lying down instead of beating your little brother's ass?"

  "Does that work for you?"

  "He hit me," Ness said.

  Their mom tucked her chin to her chest, gazing down at him with wide and skeptical eyes. "Would you like to file a formal complaint?"

  She left the room. Ness unplugged his laptop from the wall. Shawn buried his face in his mattress and breathed. "I smell piss."

  Ness went to the living room and plugged in his laptop and logged back in, but his guild had already entered the instance. He shut down, went outside, and called Volt in from the fields. She licked his face until he fell asleep.

  Shawn had picked up a wiring gig the next day, and between that and the bars, Ness didn't see much of him for three days except when he came home for his lunches. Then, he complained about Volt, who he insisted had peed on his bed again. When he left, Ness bent over the mattress and sniffed, but all he smelled was ashes and sweat.

  The gig ended. Ness suspected that was why Shawn had become an electrician in the first place—it paid well enough to let him sit around and drink through the frequent days off. But jobs had been scarce lately, and faced with the choice between Natty Lite and a mortgage, Shawn had gone with the one he cou
ld pick up from a gas station at one in the morning.

  The day his gig was done, Shawn slept later than Ness, only rousting himself when their mom fried bacon and eggs. After his morning routine of repeatedly spitting into the toilet, his nasal honks cutting through the thin walls, he took the last of the coffee and poured his mug full of cream.

  "I been thinking," he said, seating himself.

  Mom twiddled with her phone. "Oh boy."

  "I've been thinking about you, Mom. You know I'll start paying rent next month after the house is cleared." He jerked his thumb at Ness. "But what about this guy?"

  "What about him?"

  "He's 25. I had a job at 15. Don't you think he's about nine years past pulling his weight?"

  "I bought the eggs," Ness said.

  Shawn smiled. "And I'm sure both dollars are going straight to Mom's retirement."

  She tucked her chin and gave Shawn her look. "Good luck prying him from that computer."

  "I just don't think it's fair that I pay rent and I have to share a room with someone who doesn't."

  "You don't pay rent," Ness said.

  "I'm about to."

  "You sure you can fit it into the beer budget?"

  Shawn held out his palms, beseeching their mom. "Do you think it's fair?"

  "Tell you what." She set down her phone. "You start paying rent, I'll make him, too."

  "Mom!" Ness said.

  "What? What's your plan, anyway? Squat in your room until I die of shame? How you going to pay to keep this place up? You ever heard of a thing called property tax?"

  "I'll invest."

  "With what money?"

  Ness' neck itched. "Dad's insurance."

  She snorted. "You can hardly pay for Cheerios. Figure it out, kid. You want to live under this roof, you got to find a way to pay for it."