“You said to wake you in two hours,” she protested. He nodded gravely at her, his eyes dropping in defeat. He turned back toward Jake.
His eyes fluttered open. Cooper’s heart broke watching him transition from the boy, peaceful in sleep, but growing stiff as he stumbled toward alertness. Cooper watched the transformation with growing despair. Jake’s lips drew tight. His jaw muscles tensed. His eyes reduced themselves to narrow slits. His breath grew shallow. In seconds, it was complete.
“You ready to go?” Jake asked. His voice was flat, but it cut Cooper’s insides to ribbons. In vain, he brushed a lock of hair from Jake’s forehead. Jake’s face remained hard as he shook his head to free himself from his father’s touch. Cooper grunted, sat up, turned away, and his feet fell heavily to the floor. They sounded like weights being clattered to the floor by an exhausted weight lifter.
Cooper and Jake stood in the living room, equipped and ready to go.
“We’re going to survey a few houses I saw as we were coming in. We’ll see what we can find. I’m hoping fuel. We can never have too much of that.”
Dranko nodded, “You know where the siphon is, right?”
“Yup. I’ll fuel our vehicles with one of our five gallon cans and see if we can refill it. I’m sure we burned at least that much in our slow going so far. We’ll move back to the west, no more than a mile. We’ll have our radio. Call us if anything happens back here.”
“You do the same,” Dranko responded.
He turned to Jake, “You ready?”
He shrugged his shoulders, “Got nothing else better to do.”
After refueling the vehicles and finding the siphon, they were walking down the driveway toward the main road. Cooper had his rifle at the ready, while Jake carried the jerry can. His Ruger .22 rifle was slung across his shoulder.
Cooper noticed the deep silence all around them. In Portland, the clamor of city life had declined enormously within a few days of the plague’s outbreak. Still, the noise from vehicles of various kinds and generators could be heard at most times. Here, the stillness was pervasive. It reminded him of times he’d been in the forest hunting. Things were so quiet he heard not only the calls and whistles of birds, but the buzzing of insects flittering about, as well. He drank it in as their footfalls thumped along the asphalt road. He and his son walked like this for several minutes.
They came to the first house. It was a white mobile home, the joints stained by rust. An old pickup truck was parked in the driveway, its left front tire flat. Cooper hoped the vehicle has some fuel inside it. He further hoped that the place was deserted.
“I’m going to approach the place, slowly. You cover me from…”
Cooper hadn’t finished his sentence when the metal can clattered to the ground and fell onto its side in the dirt next to the road. Jake had taken off at a full run toward the mobile home, unslinging his rifle as he did so.
He stifled his urge to call after him, fearing that it could alert anyone who might be residing there. Instead, he ran after him, keeping his rifle at the ready. Inside, he cursed his son’s recklessness. Within seconds, Jake arrived at the door to the home. Cooper scanned the windows in a frenzy, looking for any sign of movement.
His heart leapt into his throat when Jake reached the door, yanked it open, and disappeared into the dark inside.
“Damn,” he cursed and strained to run faster.
He crashed into the doorjamb and ran his eyes over the interior, while flipping his flashlight on. It revealed a living room with a rundown couch, a brown leather easy chair, and a wooden coffee table. A huge flat screen television dominated the room, made larger by the small room it occupied. He heard Jake slamming doors open down a hallway to the left, presumably where the bedrooms were. Cooper crossed the room and looked into an empty kitchen, with dishes and containers scattered across the yellow Formica countertop. He ripped the curtain off its rod and peered out into the backyard. It looked similarly deserted.
Satisfied, he returned his attention back to the living room, just as Jake sauntered back in. He wore a wide, cocky grin. Cooper’s face flushed red and he closed the gap between them in giant strides.
His open backhand slammed across Jake’s left cheek. “What the hell were you doing?” He yelled, as spittle flew from his lips.
Jake fell to one knee, and Cooper did not know if it was from shock or the force of his blow. His cheek glowed red and bitter tears cascaded down his face.
The blow had sapped his rage. He’d never struck his son before. Remorse raced in to fill the empty space. He dropped to one knee, so he could look Jake in the eye.
“Why did you do that, son?”
He struggled to find breath in between his sobs, “I… didn’t… want… to be… afraid.”
“You coulda been killed!”
Jake’s eyes went cold, “So?” Cooper recoiled in horror, his eyes going wide. His rifle fell from his grasp and bounced on the floor, its metallic ring filling the room. He grabbed Jake’s cheeks with both hands.
“What do you mean? So?” His face pleaded along with his words.
Jake’s eyes fell to the ground. “I mean. I mean,” he stumbled as he looked back up to his father. “I’m going to die, dad. Everyone’s dying. What does it matter when?”
Cooper’s eyes stung and his heart joined his rifle, lying on the floor, “Oh my Lord, Jake. You just can’t think like that.”
Jake’s response was cold, unyielding, “Why not?”
“Because it isn’t true. You survived the plague.”
“Brushfire didn’t kill that boy back there. That boy with the Pez dispenser. It was bullets, dad. Bullets!”
Cooper’s hands fell to his son’s shoulders and he shook them, “That boy didn’t have me at his side. Or, Dranko or Calvin. There are a lot of people here to protect you. Don’t you see that?” He pleaded.
Jake paused, thinking. “Dad, I’m just tired of being scared. And, I don’t know what I’m living for. The world is gone. It’s gone,” his last words rising to a shrill scream. A new round of sobbing shook his small body.
It was Cooper’s turn to think. “You live for your mama, son. You live for her. She’s in you. Yes, the world has been turned upside down. But, as long as you are alive, you live for her legacy, you hear me!”
Jake’s eyes were impassive, his jaw set, “She’s dead.” His words dripped with a bitter finality that no eleven year old should ever know.
Cooper’s heart felt like it was being sawn in two by a dull, rusted blade. It burned in pain. Tears piled down his face and he pulled Jake into a tight embrace, “Then, live for me, son. Live for me. I can’t lose you, too. Please.”
The seconds ticked by as Cooper clutched to pull Jake in tighter still. His mind raced to find words that he could not. His breath came in ragged gasps, as desperate as his heart. He felt it before he heard it. It was a tension in Jake’s belly that moved up his chest and erupted in a long wail of despair and grief. Cooper felt as if the mobile home’s walls were shaking under its fury. Jake’s body rocked back and forth as the agony was unleashed. When it ended, Cooper’s ears rang in the silence.
“I miss her,” Jake rasped in a silent whisper.
“Me, too,” Cooper breathed into his son’s ear. “Me, too.”
Minutes ticked by as they sat holding one another, both crying.
Jake broke the embrace by drawing back, “I’ll try.”
“Try what?”
“To live. For her.” He paused, as a fresh round of sobs enveloped him. He squeezed his father even harder, “For you, too.”
Cooper’s heart skipped a beat. He breathed it in. Then, he cupped his son’s chin with his right hand until their eyes met, “Thank you. Someday soon you will see that you can live for yourself, too. There will be a future worth living in, son.” Jake’s unmoving face told him he didn’t believe him. Once again, he recalled words of wisdom from his own father. Sometimes you can’t get everything you want in one conversation. If you get halfway there, accept it. Wait for another day. With that, he fought his compulsion to argue with Jake about it.