They were sitting outside the shelter remains, both propped up against the dirt edges of hill where the door frames used to be. The sky was growing dark, not from storm clouds, but the natural progression of day into night. If there wasn’t so much dirt and ash in the sky, they might’ve been able to watch the sun set.
Jake leaned forward and started pulling the shirt off of his back. What was left, peeled away sickeningly from his flesh. Jake didn’t seem discomforted by it; he was far removed from physical pain anymore. He balled the cloth up and threw it between them. “I want to have a fire… nothing huge, just a few little flames to watch. You know, just like when we were growing up as kids, sitting around a little campfire with our friends.”
“We didn’t grow up together, Jake. I graduated from school before you entered junior high.” He wanted to add that they had never been friends either, but decided against it.
“So you’re seven or eight years older than me. Doesn’t mean you never sat around a campfire.”
Hayden looked over his shoulder to see if Nicholas was still sleeping. The little form was only a few feet away, silent and unmoving, but it was impossible to tell in the gathering shadows if he was sleeping or not. Trixie wasn’t in there with him. Hayden had let her wander off into dusk. If she was going to die from radiation sickness, there was no stopping it now. Better to let her go off on her own. Maybe that nose of hers would sniff out the river; the poor animal deserved a drink of water as much as any of them, possibly more.
“Fire’s a bad idea, Jake. We have to save what’s left.”
“What, like this?” He threw a chunk of torn two-by-four onto his shirt. “I found about six more pieces just like it while you and my son were eating beans. Come on, Hayden… quit being such an asshole, and start a fire. I got nothing left, no fight in me… you won. Give me this.”
“This isn’t some kind of competition. And even if it was, there sure as hell weren’t any winners. We all lost.”
“Mandy,” Jake rasped. “We lost Mandy. Both of us. Light the fucking fire.”
Ready flame was one supply Hayden always carried on him. He pulled a lighter from his front pocket, shoving the other two deeper down with his fingers so they wouldn’t fall out. Hayden hadn’t smoked a cigarette since the bomb hit; he had forgotten the open pack on his kitchen table and the full carton in his garage. Like his pillow, cigarettes were a comfort he’d have to do without for the time being. Jake was trying to strip smaller slivers away from the larger pieces of wood with his nails. His fingers cracked open and started to bleed.
“Let me,” Hayden offered. The wood was jagged on one end, and it didn’t require much strength to pull some smaller pieces away for kindling. Jake crawled off into the dark while Hayden arranged the shavings into a pyramid shape over the shirt. Jake returned a few moments later dragging eight feet of splintered two-by-six under one arm.
Hayden took it from him. “This was the faceplate on the upper part of the door frame. Where did you find it?”
“Tried to take a leak a few minutes ago and tripped over the corner of it. The rest was buried under dirt.”
“Good thing you’re clumsy.” It was easy for Hayden to break the board into smaller pieces. Those left too thick to break over his knee were set one end on the ground, the other end against a rock. His heel slamming in the middle did the rest. Hayden lit his little pile and within minutes it was crackling and sparking with flames.
“Aaahhhh… that’s nice,” Jake said, pulling himself in and crossing his legs. He raised his hands and spread his bloodied fingers close to the fire. “Smells just like the fires my Dad used to build in the back yard.”
“Can you even feel the heat?” Hayden asked with concern. “You’re sitting awfully close.”
“Nah, can’t feel a goddamn thing anymore.”
Hayden took a piece of splintered wood from their small supply and stirred the fire down until the flames weren’t jumping so high. “Better if we burn it slowly, make it last.”
“So now you think the fire was a good idea?”
“I never said it was a bad idea.”
“Yeah, you did.”
“It might get cold sitting outside like this. We have to make it last.”
Jake started laughing again. Hayden could see the side of his tongue wiggling against his teeth. The dim orange light flickered off his mottled forehead and blackened nose. “What’s so funny?”
“I’m pretty sure… you wanted me… dead a few hours ago,” Jake said between hitching gasps. “Now here you are… wanting to spend the night together.”
Hayden had to look away from the ruined face, but he started giggling as well. “This is crazy. The bomb, losing everything and everyone. And then the last man on earth shows up, and it’s the man whose wife I was having an affair with.”
“I think it’s called karma.”
They both burst out at the same time. Hayden laughed so hard he started to cry. After they’d settled down, he threw more wood into the fire, and they shuffled back on their rear ends until they were resting against the shelter opening walls again. “I’m sorry, Jake… I’m really sorry about Mandy.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think we’re going to get any crops planted this spring.”
Jake was too tired and weak to laugh. “Good. I never liked… farming all that much anyway.”
“So why’d you do it?”
His shoulders hitched up half an inch. Hayden took it for a shrug. “My Dad was a farmer… so was my Grampa… it’s one of those… things you’re born into.”
“Well I’ll miss it,” Hayden answered after a long pause. “I’ll miss getting up early and watching the sun rise. I’ll miss walking along the edge of a healthy crop of wheat, and I’ll miss the smell of cow shit. I’ll miss it all.”
There was a longer pause. Much longer. The flames winked out and the embers left smouldered a comforting orange. Hayden went to throw another piece on, and Jake stopped him.
“No more… looks nice like it is.” Jake settled down further into the ground. “You’ll take good care of him? You promise?”
“Yes. I promise.” Jake’s breathing sounded more laboured than it did before the fire. “Can I get you some water now?”
“Maybe just a bit.”
When Hayden returned with the bottle, Jake was dead.
“Are you ready?”
“I guess so,” Nicholas answered. Hayden lifted him onto the horse’s back. “Where we going?”
He climbed up after him, settling in behind the boy. “Trixie knows where the river is. She’ll take us there now, and we’ll follow it southeast. There should be cities that way… or whatever’s left of them. We’ll find somebody to help us, I’m sure of it.”
There had been no sunrise to speak of, but it wasn’t quite as dark as the morning before. The air didn’t seem so dirty. Maybe the wind and twisters had sucked most of the ash and crud along with them. It wasn’t a beautiful morning, and it wasn’t the worst Hayden had seen. The truly ugly mornings were yet to come. They set out away from the hole in the hill.
“What happened to the scary man that sounded like my Dad? Isn’t he coming with us?”
Trixie trotted by a mound of loosely packed dirt and rocks. Hayden looked down at it and grimaced. He should have told Jake the entire truth—that the affair had resulted in so much more. A part of Hayden figured Jake already knew. Maybe it wasn’t worth mentioning at the end. He kissed Nicholas’s head and whispered. “No, he isn’t. And I’ll be your dad… now.”