do it in the movies. I felt something tiny tick under my fingers, like a bug under a picnic blanket. She was cooling off. I tried to hold her up and slapped her face a little. No reaction. I pulled at the cord and the placenta gushed out with another bucket load of blood behind it. How this skinny kid could have so much blood to give up, I don’t know. With it out, I could see that the kid had ripped her wide open. I couldn’t tell what was what down there, she was just shreds. I packed shop towels between her legs and laid them together to the side. There was nothing I could do.
I told Aaron she was going to die from blood loss. He looked at me, holding the baby that had never breathed. They all stood around, staring. Nobody knew what to do or say. After a while, Aaron laid the baby down in Shawna’s arms and we left them there together. Melissa got hauled up by her elbow, still holding two cans of those awful chips. The chains went back on. Nobody talked about Shawna or the baby. Two days later I got to wash the blood off me. Things were pretty much the same after that until we ran into you.”
Back to me
Wish I hadn’t read her story. Felt that sick rush I had always felt after a bad birth. Adrenaline and disappointment = sick. Pity. Held back a thousand medical questions about the birth. She probably wouldn’t know the answer and it’s not like it mattered. Couldn’t stop thinking about the hospital where I saw it all fall apart. Every baby dead. Almost every mother dead. Creeping fever that came from nowhere, we never even really figured out how it spread. No tourists from Asia or Europe. No planes overhead. Maybe not just this country, maybe everywhere. Maybe the world.
Almost dawn now. Going to sleep for a while. Morning I’m going to suggest we skip Pocatello, there’s likely people there. We should swing south and raid in the small towns, maybe head for Colorado. Lots of nice cabins that way to hide out in. Maybe make camp for a while.
Mid July
Hot as shit and sticky every day. Found a sporting goods store a few days back that had good bug spray. It smells like death and probably causes cancer but I don’t give a fuck. Mosquitos beware. Also found a couple of water filters and filtering canteens, small expensive ones. Incredible = not carrying gallons of bottled water. Just drop and filter in any lake or stream or puddle we find. Huge load off my mind. Filters won’t last forever, but at least now we know they work and how to find them.
* * * * *
Roxanne and Alex had some good nights. They played checkers in an old diner while they ate a whole can of strawberry pie topping, sugary glaze and all. They talked about where they would go, what they would look for in a place to make a stand. Alex sang a little and Roxanne said she missed the piped-in music of the casino. Roxanne read trashy romance novels that she found along the way, sometimes reading passages aloud.
“His throbbing member aroused her, though she had never known the touch of a man before!”
They giggled like girls and rode along an old highway, not another living thing in sight. Roxanne told terrible jokes she had learned from customers while she worked. Alex told her the standard nursing jokes and apocryphal stories of men with their dicks stuck in vacuum cleaners, in coke bottles, in improvised cock rings. The legendary drill to remove the champagne bottle from an unwise asshole.
They raided a little cul-de-sac of houses. Corpses were drying out all over. The smell wasn’t as bad as when they were wet, especially when they opened the windows. Alex found a full bottle of Oxycontin and kept it for trade. Roxanne looked for a gun of her own. She searched the hidden places in those houses, under beds and high in closets.
One house had a wall safe in an office and she was convinced there was a handgun in it. They slept in the den, on big soft couches laid out on a sunken floor. In the morning, Roxanne was in the office
I told Aaron she was going to die from blood loss. He looked at me, holding the baby that had never breathed. They all stood around, staring. Nobody knew what to do or say. After a while, Aaron laid the baby down in Shawna’s arms and we left them there together. Melissa got hauled up by her elbow, still holding two cans of those awful chips. The chains went back on. Nobody talked about Shawna or the baby. Two days later I got to wash the blood off me. Things were pretty much the same after that until we ran into you.”
Back to me
Wish I hadn’t read her story. Felt that sick rush I had always felt after a bad birth. Adrenaline and disappointment = sick. Pity. Held back a thousand medical questions about the birth. She probably wouldn’t know the answer and it’s not like it mattered. Couldn’t stop thinking about the hospital where I saw it all fall apart. Every baby dead. Almost every mother dead. Creeping fever that came from nowhere, we never even really figured out how it spread. No tourists from Asia or Europe. No planes overhead. Maybe not just this country, maybe everywhere. Maybe the world.
Almost dawn now. Going to sleep for a while. Morning I’m going to suggest we skip Pocatello, there’s likely people there. We should swing south and raid in the small towns, maybe head for Colorado. Lots of nice cabins that way to hide out in. Maybe make camp for a while.
Mid July
Hot as shit and sticky every day. Found a sporting goods store a few days back that had good bug spray. It smells like death and probably causes cancer but I don’t give a fuck. Mosquitos beware. Also found a couple of water filters and filtering canteens, small expensive ones. Incredible = not carrying gallons of bottled water. Just drop and filter in any lake or stream or puddle we find. Huge load off my mind. Filters won’t last forever, but at least now we know they work and how to find them.
* * * * *
Roxanne and Alex had some good nights. They played checkers in an old diner while they ate a whole can of strawberry pie topping, sugary glaze and all. They talked about where they would go, what they would look for in a place to make a stand. Alex sang a little and Roxanne said she missed the piped-in music of the casino. Roxanne read trashy romance novels that she found along the way, sometimes reading passages aloud.
“His throbbing member aroused her, though she had never known the touch of a man before!”
They giggled like girls and rode along an old highway, not another living thing in sight. Roxanne told terrible jokes she had learned from customers while she worked. Alex told her the standard nursing jokes and apocryphal stories of men with their dicks stuck in vacuum cleaners, in coke bottles, in improvised cock rings. The legendary drill to remove the champagne bottle from an unwise asshole.
They raided a little cul-de-sac of houses. Corpses were drying out all over. The smell wasn’t as bad as when they were wet, especially when they opened the windows. Alex found a full bottle of Oxycontin and kept it for trade. Roxanne looked for a gun of her own. She searched the hidden places in those houses, under beds and high in closets.
One house had a wall safe in an office and she was convinced there was a handgun in it. They slept in the den, on big soft couches laid out on a sunken floor. In the morning, Roxanne was in the office
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