“The Soulless

 

 

I’m lying on the cot. Claudette is under my bed playing with her leopard print elephant. Anya is humming softly and I want to tell her that I’m sick. She peels away the webbing from her orange, she eats the bitter fruit. Bitter. 

“Number 924!” A voice calls from the phone area. 9…2…4… My number! I rush to the booth, close out the chaotic mashed noises of the main room. I dial Billy. 

“Yes?” He asks intently. 

“Bill!” I shout into the phone. His voice is so familiar. So much like Dad’s, it’s remarkable. 

“God damn, Tom, are you alright? I hear the whole city’s gone to hell. Dammit.” 

“Yeah, yeah, sure, I’m fine. I’ve only got ten minutes. I’m in the stadium. Like when the hurricanes hit, the super dome, that sorta deal. It isn’t bad. Not bad at all. Are you okay?”

“Fine as I’ll ever be. We haven’t got power up here but there hasn’t been one damn siting of those little shits up here. None! We’re doing great- it’s like they never even came. Boy, I’m glad to hear you. What about Ma, have you talked to Ma?” 

“Oh no no. Well she called me- before- once. But, is she okay, Billy?” 

“I dunno. Well I talked to her three days ago. She said she was leaving for Fort Drum- said it was safe there.”

“Good, good. I’m glad you’re okay.” 

“Tom. Tom, do your best to get out of there. I have a feeling- I dunno, take the next train out.” 

“Yeah, yeah… I know. I was in this camp before.” 

“Listen, you may feel safe. Take the next train, bus, whatever it takes. Come here. You’ll be safe in Anchorage.” 

“Oh right, right.”

“I’m not kidding, Tommy. Get yer ass up here first chance you have. Honest. Safe in Northern regions. You see the news?” 

“No, I haven’t.” 

“Dammit, haven’t they go any TV’s there?” He yells. 

“Yes, they do. I haven’t watched, always crowded ‘n stuff.” 

“Oh,” he sighs. “First chance, you hear me?” 

“I do. I will. I am. Okay?” 

“Yes.” 

“By- Bye, Billy.”

He sighs heavily. “Tom.” 

Then a click. Hardest goodbye of my life. It’s one of those good-byes that leaves you staring at the receiver blankly- as if it were the person. Its black shine shows my reflection.

Pound. They’re knocking on the door.

“Times up! Times up! We got a whole list!” Shouts a man from the other side of the door. I could of said I love you. I kick the chair before I turn to walk out. Hardest goodbye of my life. Right up there with Dad. Fuck. Fuck. Now I’m tearing up. He was a bastard, too, and Billy’s my brother- and here they are dying and I never said I love you. I’m such a fucking ass. Anya, I still have a chance to tell Anya.

But she isn’t at my cot when I return. So I stare at the orb lights wishing I had something like a cigarette to cure my aches.

“The Soulless” XII

The breakfast rush wakes me up. Anya has left her cot all crinkly with night movements. I stretch and yawn and scratch myself. No shame. Why bother? The fat lady with the horrible cough lays in the cot beside me, she’s still asleep. Curled into her breast, almost disappearing between sheet and bosom, is her daughter, Claudette. 

When we first met, I was lying on my bunk, watching the big orb lights stare at me. Suddenly the wide face of a little brown girl, with egisma blotched skin, fell into view. She stood over me queerly with a perplexed look on her face. 

“Wharrya doing!?” She squealed. This question, I could tell, had been on her mind since the hour I had begun it. Her voice was wavy and uneven, very comical and endearing. She had short, brown hair, bobbed at her earlobes, and these wacky animated eyes. She was enjoyable- for a six year old. She talked endlessly but I was never bored of her. When I walked away from my bunk, she’d leave me alone. If I was talking to Anya, she’d lay silent as mouse on the floor between our beds listening with exceptional interest. She kept her bottom lip puffed out as if at any moment she might interject with an intelligent and interesting statement, yet she never did- she’d lay, her hand gently scratching pink alligator arms. 

Along with her interesting stories about Florida: riding dolphins, porcupines eating her shoes, salamanders in jars and sometimes bed mates, she has a collection of little stuffed animals. They’re pink tigers and fluffy purple dragons and a leopard print elephant. They were made by her grandmother in Florida, each handmade, the fabric carefully selected. 

“My granna makes goo’ aminals don’ you think, TOM?” She always said my name really loud- just incase I didn’t know she wasn’t speaking to me. 

“Yes, I think so, Claudette, very nice.” 

I’m in line for breakfast. Today, it’s barely edible french toast sticks. They’re these over processed, over manufactured, reconstituted bread bits. They’ve come right from the freezer of an elementary school. The sugary syrup comes in little plastic containers, the milk comes in tiny fuzz-filled cartons, the cereal comes in cold boxes. Today we get canned peaches. They’re all smothered in their sticky confectionary yolk. Then the wrinkled oranges are piled up in a cone shape. A lady with a blue plastic glove hands me an orange. It’s dried and cracked, brown and green on one end. I’m going insane in here! I’ve got to get out! When will they have this situation under control?

“The Soulless”

We’re at a makeshift camp. It’s a safe place, guarded by armed men- soldiers. The food isn’t bad, we all line up with our little styrofoam trays- like in school- and get equal servings of chicken, or pork, potatoes, gravy. We get a crumpled little apple- sometimes, a bottle of water and Jello. If there is one thing that is certain- we will always get Jello. Personally, I hate the shit. So I give my Jello to the little boys who play games and bet their Jello, like men do with cigarettes.  

The set-up isn’t too bad, the government really pulled through for Ole Philadelphia; according to the news, which is all up with safe reporters, other places aren’t so well off. This place is at the big sports stadium- where the Eagles play. There’s beds lined up, everywhere, and little children run up and down the aisles. The only time it’s quiet and I have time to think is when it’s night. Everything slows down. It’s almost so still I think I’m alone. Someone will cough- but it’s distant. No one is sleeping easy, everyone is on edge. 

What gets me, at night, like right now. I’m in this cot, with this warm blanket, I just ate a soggy piece of chicken, but I’m satisfied- warmed and happy. But some family that just came had to be turned away. There isn’t any room, this stadium has reached its capacity- and more, like a little  pot filled to the brim. I’ve never felt so bad.

There are TV’s everywhere, giving us these reports and I wander the halls, checking the doors, locked. The locker rooms were turned into hospitals. People who were bitten are shipped away, the doctors spend hours checking people for various things. The first thing that happens to a person when they come to the stadium is get a check-up. They search you down really quick because there is a long line of people who need medication or something. This place is pretty solid but it isn’t cozy. It’s like living in a poor mental institution. There are even sick old Grandmas here, like my Grandma. I haven’t even thought about her. 

When I first came, they allowed us to use the phones, to make one call, like in prison. The phones are so valued they give out tickets, but people who come in get to use them. One ten minute call, then you have to grab a ticket. I called my mom and I didn’t get an answer. So I grabbed a ticket and left. It was no good calling her, it was stupid to waste my one call on my mom. I’m calling Billy next shot I get and if he isn’t there- Joel, because I haven’t got anyone else to be concerned with. I think that’s pretty damn sad, too, on top of everything else, I haven’t got a soul to be concerned with. 

It’s easy to lose people in this place. Frank is gone and I don’t know where. He’s probably out somewhere because he’s a police officer and they asked him that when we first came. Jeb is sort of lost in this big place, he keeps to his cot or tries to find a TV without too many people around it. He mostly wanders the halls, I’ve found, kicking the old cement floors, he likes his echo. Anya, I haven’t lost her. Her bunk is beside mine, purely by coincidence. In the night, sometimes, if I don’t feel like pretending I’m asleep, we’ll talk for hours- or until someone tells us to  “shut up”.

Then, she falls asleep, facing me. I feel weird when I just sit there and watch her. She glows up in the dim light. The cafeteria-like din turns into a music and the motley of night time smells is like walking through a garden. All that sharp rose and lily. She makes things serene and beautiful- why, in all this time she hasn’t complained once. 

She’s all illuminated right now, glowing like an unearthly thing. I think I might tell her that I’ve always liked her, that she always made the days worth living. I might. Tomorrow.

“The Soulless” XI

 

 We’re bundled up on the couches, Jeb tends to the fire. It’s silent except for the snaps and pops from the fireplace. The fire is really pretty. This soft blue and yellow glow, a golden, buttery glow. The logs are all black and shimmering. I want to look at it, but the heat bothers my eyes- like it’s something very special, something  you can’t look at, something sacred.

Frank is cursing at the radio, punching the table with frustration. 

“You’re not gon’ get it to work, Frank,” Jeb says as he smacks on a piece of stale, frostbitten bread. He sticks it over the fire to toast it and blows on it to cool. 

“Shut up, would ya?” Frank hisses without turning from the radio. He switches with the knob intently. Off. On. Off. On. Nothing. 

I hear Anya humming in the kitchen. Then the soft clapping of a helicopter. She drops a pan. A fucking helicopter. I hear them so often I hardly noticed its significance. 

“Guys! Guys! Tom! Frank! Look!” She, without hesitation, runs out of the porch, onto the front lawn. 

“Get ‘er back inside!” Frank yells coarsely. He grabs his gun and rushes to the porch. He climbs a pipe onto the roof and begins to wave. 

“They’ll never see him out there, damn fool. Here!” Jeb stretches a stick into the fire, it lights and he waddles to the porch, adjusting his pants. I run after him and grasp Anya’s arm. The helicopter has seen us and they’re dropping altitude. 

“Oh! oh!” Frank cries and runs inside to gather his things quickly. The helicopter whips around our hair and our clothes, I shield my eyes from the viper sharp wind. The ‘copter drops a rope ladder and it sounds musically as it hits the tree branches and the porch. I push Anya to it and she clings to it as if she were hundreds of feet in the air. They raise her into the helicopter and drop the rope again. 

I’m on the helicopter now, then Jeb and Frank. The helicopter sweeps over the dark land, rocking and singing, clapping. Anya holds onto me, she’s deathly afraid of heights. She creeps to the window, a little round one, and looks at the stars- brighter than I’ve ever seen them. 

“Good, eh!?” Frank smiles happily and grabs my jacket’s arm. He’s overjoyed. His brilliant smile and jubilant laugh fill the cabin, high over the engine’s squeals. 

“Who are ya?” Asks the copilot, turning to us: all bare and dirty. He’s wrapped in a tight leather jacket, protected by a shiny helmet and beetle-black glasses. His industrial face is almost too perfect, too clean amongst all this machinery. We say our names and he smiles. “We’ll get  ya there safe.” 

It all seems too good to be true. Safety, warmth. Yes, finally. Safety. But, I felt safe before, we were secluded in our little box, our little brown, basic box, with the crispy bacon and salty corned beef. I liked my chewy stash of old Oreo cookies I found in the back cabinet. I hid them from everyone and ate them in my dusty, cardboard hide-out. I liked all that, it was safe. Now, I have the feeling that I will never be safe again. We just left safety- we’re on our way to Hell.