Conner would love that—his own little harem. “Or Pamela—she is alone now, after all,” I snidely suggest.
“Fine, I’ll move in with Pamela,” she shoots back.
I have to get the last word. “Fine, then it’s agreed. I’ll keep the bungalow.”
Tense silence settles on the room, and then Gwen shakes her head and with a bitter chuckle says, “One good thing about the rest of the world getting blown off the map—at least we don’t have to go through a long, expensive divorce.”
Like scurrying mice, we sneak from Dellas’s home. Clutching Rhodesia to her chest, Dellas leads the way. Acrid smoke drifts from the black, charred ruins of smoldering buildings. Dellas sticks to the shadows, hugging the walls, moving swiftly. I bring up the rear of our column. Pamela walks ahead of me, eyes darting everywhere, looking, I suspect, for the remains of her husband. Thankfully, we do not pass his body, but I see others, sprawled on the street, slick with blood, swarmed by flies in the morning heat.
We come to a point where we must cross an open space. Atop a nearby hill, two men stand on the corner, drinking bottles of beer and laughing.
“Are they one of the thugs?” Pamela asks.
“What udder men would stand outside so easy-as-you-please?” Dellas mutters. “All de good people are hiding in dere homes or ran off into de hills.”
Crouching in the alleyway, completely exposed should a thug suddenly emerge from nearby, we wait for the men to turn away. A bead of sweat slides down my side. Every muscle tenses, ready to sprint.
The men leave the corner and wander out of sight. Without a word, Dellas bolts across the open space and we immediately follow. Safe on the other side, we slip down other alleys until we reach a cracked and twisting road that snakes out of town. A rusted guardrail runs along the other side of the road, and beyond the rail lies a rocky gulch dotted with scraggly bushes.
“Dat is de way we go,” Dellas points to the gulch. “De won’t see us if we take dat way.”
We clamber over the guardrail, but climbing into the gulch is no simple matter. Loose rocks skitter from our feet. Each step requires great care to avoid tumbling head first to the bottom of the gulch. I reach behind to guide Pamela down while Gwen assists Dellas. Our movement is distressingly slow. The clattering stones sound as loud as firecrackers in the early morning stillness. Any moment I expect to look up and see murderous thugs standing above us. Progress is not any easier by the fact that the people of Rio Galera use the gulch as a convenient garbage dump. Busted appliances, broken bottles and the rusted out hulks of old automobiles litter the gulch.
Pamela accidentally kicks an empty liquor bottle. It shatters and we freeze. Voices—men’s voices, from the streets above, grow closer. We look at each other, panic on everyone’s face. No time to dawdle, we jump the last few feet to the bottom of the gulch and dive behind the nearest rusted automobile.
My head is near the ground. The men’s words are indistinct, but there is no mistaking their nearness. I peek around the tire of the car and see the dark skinned bare legs of three men. There is no doubt they have come to investigate the sound they heard. Pamela grips my arm like an eagle’s talon. We dare not speak or even breathe. The men do not move. Suddenly, not far from us, a flock of chickens comes forth from behind a bush. Two of them squawk and fly at each other. The men above us chuckle, assuming, I pray, that the chickens are the source of the noise that drew their attention.
The men wander off. Several minutes pass without hearing or seeing the men. I chance standing up for a better view; the men are gone. We head east, the gulch taking us away from Rio Galera into the hills.
Hunger saps my strength. Overhead, the rising sun bakes my skull like pottery in a kiln. The tree cover is sporadic. The sky is a cloudless, blue bowl offering no protection from the sun. The rest of my ragtag group plods onward, feet dragging, heads bowed. Dellas slows to a crawl. I volunteer to carry Rhodesia for a while. The little girl cannot be more than thirty pounds, but she weighs on me like a stack of bricks. We tread across deserted roads and fields of golden grass as high as our knees. The trickling sound of water has us stumbling and running to a tiny stream in a small gully. The water pools in pockets before disappearing into the parched soil. A clump of trees shades this spot. In all my life, I have never seen any place more beautiful.
We sink to our knees and greedily scoop up what little water remains, running our wet hands over our oily, sunburned faces.
Gwen slurps up the water and sits back with an exhausted sigh. “Shit, this is wonderful. If I die, bury me here.”
We linger in the shade, enjoying the feeling of water evaporating on our skin as the breeze blows against us. With renewed energy, we resume our trek. A tangle of bushes and sharp edged grass lies in our path. Pushing our way through, we find an abandoned papaya farm on the other side. The papaya trees have thin trunks, standing around thirteen feet tall on raised rows of soil and hay to allow proper drainage. Wide leaves fan out from the tree tops. The trees are barren—the fruit probably picked and shipped to far off places that no longer exist, but amongst the rows of trees, fallen papayas lay.
The fallen fruit is spoiling, much of it covered in ants and dust, but we fall upon it with the zeal of children at an Easter egg hunt. It takes time, but each of us finds a papaya that is not too spoiled or covered with insects to inhibit us from tearing into it. Gulping down chunks of fruit, I hear the sound of rustling shrubbery behind me. We freeze—every eye on the wall of bushes, waiting to see who followed us. Hiding is not an option; the rows of trees offer no cover. A mongrel dog bursts forth from the bushes, runs several yards towards us, then stops. Barking vociferously, it comes no closer.
“Get out of here!” I hurl a rotten papaya at it.
The dog scurries back, barks some more and receives another hurled papaya for its trouble. Tail between its legs, the mutt vanishes into the bushes from which it came.
“Our brave hero,” Gwen jests, to which, grinning, I bow elaborately.
We resume scavenging for edible fruit; the bushes rustle again—this time much louder than before.
A look of dread on all our faces, we watch the bushes violently sway from the movement within, and then, as swiftly as it started, the movement ceases. There is no rustling—no sign that just a second ago the row of bushes shook as though rocked by an earthquake. There is complete silence.
“What the bloody hell?” Pamela nervously looks to us and then back at the bushes.
Then the bushes seem to explode, belching forth something from my worst nightmares: a pack of wild dogs, ravenous and coming our way. A German shepherd, fangs bared, leads the pack.
“Run!” Gwen screams.
On the far side of the farm lies a hill that leads to a roadway. Sprinting for the hill, legs pumping furiously, I look back to see the pack closing the distance. I am the first to reach the hill. It is not an easy climb. Clumps of long grass dot the hillside interspersed with patches of dried dirt that crumbles beneath my feet, making it difficult to ascend. Gwen is right behind me assisting Pamela. The dogs are so close I can see the muscles ripple beneath their skin, their fangs gleaming white, eyes locked on their target.
“Oh, Jesus! Oh, Jesus!” Dellas races, Rhodesia bouncing in her arms. The frightened wails of the child are nearly as loud as the voracious growls of the pack. Rhodesia is right to wail, for looking backward, she sees what Dellas does not: the lead dog is about to bridge the gap between them with a final leap.
Scrambling on their hands and knees, Gwen and Pamela reach the top of the hill.
“Hurry, Phillip!” Gwen cries.