Part 2, Chapter 6 (Second Half)

Here's the second part of Chapter 6. I'll begin posting Part 3 on Thursday. Enjoy!

Dave

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6 (Continued)

I walk back along East Carson, towards the Birmingham Bridge. I’ll collect the snowmobile that Hank, James, and I abandoned on the bridge several days ago and I’ll ride it north, back to my parents’ home, in Bramble, Pennsylvania. Maybe, just maybe, there’s somebody still there.

A few other men walk along East Carson: the living dead. I pass them without making eye contact. I don’t bother to guess what they’re planning. A few of them cluster together, in groups of three or four, no doubt heading to old hideouts or other well-kept secrets.

The snow now falls hard, blustering in thick sheets, oppressive and burdensome. This flight feels like both heaven and hell swirled together in a metaphor-burdened marble cake. I’m confused and disorientated, but happy, in a way, to be free.

And ahead, the snow is gathering in virgin plots. A vast plain of white before me; a blank canvas in which to plot my journey to wherever I feel.

Twenty minutes later, I round the corner of East Carson and Brady Street and ascend to the Birmingham Bridge. My hands ache from the cold, so I pull a pair of gloves from my bag and, using my teeth and juggling the crowbar, tug them tight over my fingers.

As I arrive at the top of the shallow incline, I peer across the bridge, over the cars, to where Hank, James, and I had abandoned the snowmobile. A momentary bluster of wind clears the snow from view and ahead I can see a figure. From here, it’s only a shape, but a shape with the same green color as Hank’s ski jacket.

A few minutes later, as I approach Hank, I notice that he’s toying with the snowmobile’s engine. He’s brushed the snow from the vehicle and dropped his collection of things nearby. His hands are covered in oil. With his back to me, unaware of my approach, he swears in frustration, but I don’t catch any words though through the blustering wind.

Above me, the silent black birds have returned. They wheel in the sky, and stare with their beaded eyes as I pass below.

“Hank,” I call. He jumps slightly, and cranes his neck to catch me in the edge of his vision.

“What do you want?”

“I need the snowmobile, Hank. I’m heading up to Bramble.”

“No. No, Matt. I’m sorry.” He turns back to the engine and shouts back a few seconds later, “Leave me alone, Matt. The snowmobile’s mine.”

I watch him tooling with the engine for a while. I find myself thinking of the crowbar in my gloved hand and the reassuring weight of its cold steel.

I need to get the snowmobile and go back to my parents’ place. If they’re home, if anybody’s home, I need to be there.

Nobody has to know what I did and nobody will care.

Only the black birds will see.

Hank turns to look at me again. “You’re still here? What?” He stutters for a moment, trying to find words of adequate force. “Fuck off, Matt. It’s over, so just fuck off.” I see tears welling in his eyes.

And he turns and continues to study the engine.

He tinkers with the mechanism for a while longer, ignoring me, hoping I’ll go away.

But I don’t go away.

Nobody will care.

He reaches over the snowmobile and turns the key in the ignition. There’s a churning noise and he yells triumphantly, “Yes!”

Nobody will see. Even he’s forgotten I’m here. Only the black birds will know.

The weight of the crowbar allows the weapon to swing gracefully through the air. Falling snowflakes fill the space between the hard steel and my staring eyes. The snow looks like a beautiful white noise. A detuned TV. The curved point makes contact with Hank and he caves, crumples, and falls amongst the static. Oil covers his hands and red fills the snow and covers the crowbar, and Hank, and me. I’ve lost peripheral vision. I only exist in this immediate space and this immediate time.

Hank lies to the side and I step around him, strap my backpack to the snowmobile and climb aboard. My hands are numb and my mind is numb. My hands work of their own accord and make the engine rev, loud and sputtering. I look above me and the birds still stare, impartial, perched on trucks and wires, silent. I push them from my mind as the snowmobile turns one-hundred and eighty degrees and moves towards Forbes Avenue. I notice the blood on my coat. I crane my neck and spot Hank in the snow, now only a green clump on the ice, the same green as his snow jacket. A black-green clump becoming a black-green dot, a black-green speck, and then, as I hang left on the snowmobile, there’s nothing at all.

I feel nothing. I’m numb. But then, why are tears running down my face? Where did they come from?