I felt a stab of pain in the palms of my hands. I looked down to see I had four fingernail-sized slits cut into both of my palms. I had squeezed my fists into such tight balls that my unclipped nails had dug into the skin. Before I had realized it, I yelled, “I said, let me think for a minute!”
Aadesh had learned when he needed to back off. He gripped the steering wheel and focused intently on nothing in particular outside the front windshield. That wasn’t going to work. I was spoiling for a fight. Channeling my best Sam, I vented and vented hard. “You know we’re fucked, right?” I paused, hoping for a reaction. When one didn’t come, I continued, “I mean like a hundred-person gangbang kind of fucked. Snot and tears fucked, man. Can’t you fucking see that?”
“Yed you saw someone, did you nod?”
“Does it really matter what I think I saw? Look around and then tell me that it really truly matters. This ain’t fucking normal, dude. Barrow and Prudhoe Bay weren’t fucking normal either. What I think I saw doesn’t change shit.”
“If you saw someone, Id madders do me. Dad is all I am knowing.”
I began raking my stubbled face. I then sighed before taking another stab at communicating. “I saw maybe two people running away from Walmart.” I traced a horizontal line in the direction in which they had run. “But, for all we know, they were Sniffers. There’s no reason to think otherwise.”
“But we need do know for sure. Dad is all I am say… ing…”
I returned his questioning look, and then verbally acknowledged that I had heard it too. “Yeah, I hear it.”
Feint intermittent pops mixed in with louder, more rapid ones could be heard over the noisy-running truck. Aadesh began to cut the engine, I guessed to get a better listen, but I let him know very quickly not to do so. You never knew if the truck was going to start, which is why we left it running pretty much all the time. We heard gunshots. That’s all we really needed to know.
Over the next half hour, there were thousands of gunshots mixed in with at least three audible explosions. One of which lit up the night sky and giving us a pretty good idea in which direction the battle was taking place.
Aadesh and I never once looked at one another during that time. We were caught in a silent reverie, where each seemed to have latched on to a different notion about what the takeaway was from the gunfire. It confirmed for me just how bad things were. My stomach grew tighter, and my head hurt just a little more with each shot and explosion. For Aadesh, it meant hope. It said there were still people in the fight, that we weren’t alone, and that we needed to join that fight.
“I am saying we go.”
“Yeah, where?”
He pointed in the general direction the battle was taking place. “Dere.”
“You’re crazy. Why the hell would we do that?”
“Safdey.”
“Safety? There ain’t no safety over there, man.”
“Well, whad do you dink we should do since you are having answers?”
“I don’t know shit, bro, but that’s a damn war zone over there. No way.”
“You are nod being curious?”
“Curious about what? Don’t we already know what’s happening? The Sniffers are attacking Fort Wainwright. They’re probably being mowed down in droves. If the soldiers have enough bullets, they might even win. There were a lot of people in Fairbanks, so they’ll need a lot of bullets. I really don’t want to be here when they run out.”
“So, we ascertain supplies here and leave?”
“That’s a damn good plan.”
“Whad, I drive while you dake your drugs. I am needing your help here, Jack. Jesus. I am nod knowing whad do do or where do go.”
“Canada. Hell, anywhere besides here.”
“Fuck, man. I am nod even having a clue where dad is.” He sat there, shaking his head, muttering unintelligibly, utterings in Hindi that I couldn’t understand, and I assumed what I wasn’t supposed to understand. He was losing it.
“What do you want to do?”
“Why do you care whad I fucking wand do do?”
“God damn it, Aadesh, I know you’re struggling right now.” I shook my pill bottle that was never far away. “And so am I. I didn’t fucking ask for any of this, either—”
“How can we make any decisions aboud whad do do nexd when we have no clue whad is happening over dere?”
I sighed. “I promise you, Aadesh, if we wait long enough, we’ll find out. I’m not going to drive through a warzone to quench your curiosity.”
He spent a long time looking towards Walmart before finally saying, “I have an idea. We will nod have do drive do dey fort. Nod even close do id.”
“I’m fucking listening.”
“We are needing supplies,” he said, pointing towards Walmart. “You ged dem, and I will ged whad I need.”
I didn’t even ask what he meant. I didn’t care. I was going to humor him as much as possible because I didn’t want to drive. I didn’t want to think much about anything past a certain point. I just wanted to sit back and bake myself to oblivion while everything happened around me. I just needed him to be content and stable enough to drive.
Gunfire still rang off in the distance as we made a couple test laps around Walmart. Nothing or no one seemed to be lurking, so we parked in front of the entrance. We readied our weapons, ran over a mental list of things we needed, and got out of the still running truck.
“Are you good?” Aadesh asked.
“I’m—” It took a moment before I could compute what exactly I was seeing. There was what looked like a red carpet extending the entire length of the main aisle, which obviously didn’t make sense because Walmart didn’t have carpeted isles. That I knew of, anyway.
“De ground.”
The parking lot glinted an ominous red sheen in the dim moonlight. I swiped at the red slush with my boot. Before I realized it, I was stating the understatement of a lifetime. “Something terrible happened here.”
The front doors slid open as Aadesh entered the store. He grabbed a cart and was set to go thru the next set of double doors when I stopped him. “What the hell are you doing?”
“We have a plan. I am gedding whad we are needing.”
I drew a pattern with my boot in the blood. “For real?”
“You know how all of dis works. De Sniffers are going do be drawn do the gunfire. Dey will nod be in or around dis wicinidy.”
I tasted and smelled blood as much as I saw it. It was thick in the cold air. And we had just gone through the first set of entrance doors. We hadn’t gotten to the bad part yet. Through the next set of double doors, I saw things. A shoe resting on the floor. Just a couple feet away was a purse. Not one of Walmart’s either. A shopping cart with a bear riding up front, half-full, and near the checkout for a reason. People stuff everywhere. Just no people.
I paused for a moment, focusing my attention on the far-off sounds of gunfire. Taking one more look at the scene inside before answering, I said, “fifteen minutes. Then, we’re outta here. Got it?”
He didn’t take the time to utter a word or even nod before he had entered the store. I followed quickly behind him.
Aadesh stood at the front of the store. The shopping cart next to him had a couple large boxes mixed in with a few smaller ones.
“Dude, what the fuck did you get toys for?” I said, not sure what he was thinking.
“Dey are nod doys. Dey are drones. We are going do be using aerial surveillance.”
“Huh… That’s not a bad idea.”
“Dad way you can condinue wid your self-desdrucdive behavior unabaded by hawing do surveil de area around de base on food.”
He dead-panned that motherfucker. I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. Considering how bad our relationship had gotten, I assumed the worst, but I didn’t feel like fighting about it. I was generally curious about something, though. “It’s dark, dude. How will we be able to see shit in the dark?”