Authors: Jeremy Laszlo
“Okay, Lexi, I’m going to slide between your legs,” I tell her calmly, trying to keep her less focused on anyone other than the small child getting ready to come out of her legs.
“It’s a mess down there,” she breathes heavily, trying to regain her strength before the next attack her body is inevitably plotting. I smile at her concern that this is in any way going to bother me. I gently lift up her leg and slip between her legs, helping her pull off her boots. “Are you mad at me?” she asks me delicately, like she’s trying to defuse a bomb. I look up at her and smile. “You are, aren’t you?”
“No,” I tell her confidently. Honestly, I’m not. Why would I ever be mad at her? Especially for this? I’m not the kind of person who would ever hold this against her. How would I do that to her exactly? This is my sister, my only sister, the only real person that I can care about in this world anymore without unconditional love. Everyone else is so much harder, but not with her. Not with my sister. There’s nothing she could ever do to make me hate her. I help get her enormous sweatpants off and bundle them up. “Okay, Lexi, the stronger the contractions get, bite down on the cloth. Make sure that you bite down on the cloth, okay? I don’t want you breaking your jaw or teeth.” Lexi takes the pants and bites down on the cloth.
I take her panties off and check her. She’s dilated, that’s for sure. While I’m checking her, I listen to Noah slamming into the door and ripping it open. “Jesus,” he mutters as he climbs into the cab.
“It’s Lexi,” I remind him. “Do you have my gun?” He nods, handing it to me barrel first. Rather than reprimand him right now, I decide to save that little lecture for another time. I take the gun and put the safety on, sticking it in my holster. “Where’s Greg at?” I snap at him as he starts checking on Lexi. I look at him, waiting for an answer. “Noah!” I shout. “Where’s Greg?”
“Oh God!” Lexi shouts as another contraction starts. I look down at her. I can feel her body preparing for this and retract my fingers from within her. There’s not much time.
“Greg!” I shout to him. “Hurry it up!”
Before I can even stop shouting at him, I see him appear in the doorway. He rips open the door of the truck and hops in, slamming the door and firing up the engine. He looks over at Lexi, his eyes terrified. I’m not sure if he has it in him, but he looks somewhere between determined and like he’s about to throw up. Gripping the wheel, he stomps his foot on the accelerator. The truck jumps forward, shifting gears. Everyone braces against Greg’s driving as he flies down the road. There’s panic in his driving, the kind that makes all of us nervous, that makes all of us want someone else driving. He slams into the side of another car and we all jostle to the side, sliding. I look at Lexi, making sure that she’s safe. Comfort is out of the question for her.
“Oh God,” she groans. “Oh fucking God.”
“Hold on, Lexi,” I say to her, looking at Greg who keeps glancing at the rearview mirrors. I don’t know how far behind us they are, but they’re definitely coming, just like this baby.
-End
Book Five
Chapter One
I look out the window and see the growing light of day. I don’t have the maps anymore. I’m not sure where they are, presently. I don’t know how far we can run. Outside the window, the dead earth stares back. Gray and black trees, stripped of all their glory, left naked in their death. I watch what’s left of the trees whipping past and feel a cold sadness dripping down over me. I don’t like the look of them. I don’t like the look of any of this. We should have stayed at the beach house.
Loud pings erupt from the back of the truck. They’re shooting at us. I look at Lexi who is completely oblivious to all of it. Her eyes are pinched shut and she’s twisting in agony, trying to keep still as another contraction plagues her. She’d tried to tell me about this earlier, back when we thought she was dead. How could I have missed all of this? I’m officially the worst sister in the history of terrible sisters. I look at Lexi, suffering now. She didn’t even have prenatal vitamins. There’s so much that she’s gone without. How are we supposed to do any of this while we’re driving and being attacked at the same time? I shudder at the thought of what I’ve been thrust into. I need to remove myself from the situation and focus. I can do this. I tell myself that over and over again, trying to remember that I’m not weak. I’m strong. My dad didn’t raise any pussies.
“Greg, step on it,” I tell him.
“I’m going as fast as this thing can go,” he snaps back at me.
“Greg, if they catch us, we’re all dead,” I remind him calmly. “Noah, get a gun in your hands and be ready to fire if they come up on the left.”
“The left,” Noah breathes heavily, sucking in breath again and again, gulping down the oxygen that his body is acting like it’s never had before. I stare at him while he nods. “Alright, my left or your left?”
“Yours,” I say, turning my focus to Lexi.
“We need someone in the back,” Greg says in a terrified, trembling tone. “We should have put someone in the back. Why didn’t we put Noah in the back?”
“Me? Why aren’t you in the back?” Noah asks defensively.
“Because I got my ass kicked last time,” Greg shouts. “Damn it, Noah, why do you have to fucking argue about everything?”
“Shut up!” Lexi screams as I attempt to reach inside her, looking past the blood and her body fighting to expel her child. I work as best as I can, given the situation, but there’s too much happening for me to feel comfortable.
I’ve delivered three horses, five litters of puppies, and two of cats. There’s really not much difference, no matter what you are, it’s an incredibly traumatic and horrifying experience. No one gives birth and lets out a happy sigh thinking that they’re ready for another round. No, birthing is a process that exhausts the body and often times, kills it. That’s what worries me right now. We have nothing for Lexi. Even when birthing horses and dogs, I had equipment ready for me to use if things headed south. In fact, I think about how little I have, such as sterile fingers. I look at Lexi, twisting her face and struggling with all of this. I am a pale shadow to her own concern, no doubt.
Lexi screams again and I shift my position, reaching and feeling the top of the baby’s head. It’s crowning. I look up at her and feel my heart racing. How has she made it this far? How is this baby going to make it? I think of all the normal procedures that she’s missed. There haven’t been any ultrasounds or any kind of testing done to see if the baby is healthy and fine. In fact, there’s been nothing done to put Lexi at ease. She must have an ulcer the size of Texas right now. It’s the kind of secret that has to gnaw at a person, destroying them as they go about their business. How has she contained all of the worry and horror that she’s been feeling? I look up at her and realize that she hasn’t. For the past year, Lexi has been an emotional wreck. It might have started out as the terror and the panic that we all felt going into the end of the world, but now, I realize that these last few months, it’s been more. I think about how I treated her with the death of our father. I treated her like she was being a spoiled brat. I treated her like she was just a misbehaving jerk. I should have seen the signs. I should have been more perceptive.
But how could I have known? How could I have suspected any of this? I’m not a mind reader, after all. I knew that all of us in the beach house together, having sex to relieve the tension and the stress—to just have a taste of normalcy—was bound to get one of us in trouble, but I was ready. I know that there are tricks to help the body reject a pregnancy. I’m normally opposed to abortions, but desperate times call for desperate measures, so what do apocalyptic times call for? No child deserves to be born into this horror—this endless nightmare. Or so I thought, I look up at Lexi, watching her scream and push as bullets again riddle the back of the truck and I can’t help but feel like this is all a miracle, that this has to all be a blessing in disguise.
I think about what we’re doing, my eyes watching for the first signs of my niece or nephew coming into the world and I can’t help but feel like this is the new horizon, a dawn that none of us saw coming. We’re going to Dayton to try and find a man with a promise—the promise of salvation. If there is hope for a new world, then there will need to be another generation, there will need to be those willing to take up the torch and continue on into the darkness of tomorrow. People like me were willing to let that future, that hope, die. I can hardly stand to look at myself; thankfully, I have Lexi and my future nephew or niece to look at. God, I hope it’s a girl. I hope to God that it’s a girl. Despite all of the horrible possibilities that being a girl in the wasteland offers, I still would like to think that a girl would be the best. I think of little headbands with enormous bows, tutus, and adorable dresses. These are the phantom dreams of a dead world, but I can dream. I can appreciate what could have been.
“They’re gaining on us.” Greg reminds all of us of the imminent peril that is chasing after us, like wolves in the tundra.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Noah repeats over and over again, glancing over his shoulder to Lexi and then back again.
I’m not paying attention to any of it. I can’t. I’m beyond all of it, watching my sister’s body spread wide, welcoming a new child into the world. It’s a horrendous and beautiful sight. For the great miracle of life, it’s truly messy and terrible. There’s something about ripping a woman open and bringing a new life form into the world that makes me wonder why evolution didn’t find a less destructive process of birth. I think that the philosophers can debate the power and the symbolism behind it, but evolution doesn’t give a damn about philosophy or symbolism. Evolution is about efficiency, and I can’t see the fingerprints of efficiency and smart adaptation in this. I thought the same thing the first time I helped deliver puppies for a French bulldog. It’s amazing that anything ever survives, the mother, the children, all of them. I look at it and it makes me so terrified for everyone involved that I can’t help but want to scream.
“Keep pushing, Lexi,” I tell her as I realize that she’s beyond exhausted. Everything is soaked, whether it’s amniotic fluid, blood, sweat, or urine, it’s all soaked. I know that it’s not much farther. I slide my fingers between Lexi and the baby’s head, feeling around the head to make sure that the umbilical cord isn’t around the neck and won’t strangle the baby. I sigh with relief that it’s not. Aside from it raining bullets, we’ve got blue skies right now and I hope that it keeps it up that way.
“Greg, talk to me,” I say as I feel my niece or nephew’s head. Whatever it is, it’s almost out. Lexi needs to muster the strength for another push. I thank God that everyone seems to be doing okay right now. “What do you see? Any signs, anything that you can use to lose them?” I hear the ping of another bullet hitting the back of the truck.
I realize that the bullets are hitting sporadically now, not coming in massive quantities, just coming one at a time. Whatever they’re trying to do, they’ve changed to doing it with a gun that isn’t automatic. They’re probably using a hunting rifle or handguns to try and stop us. I thank God for that too. I hope they’ve run out of ammunition on their heavier artillery.
“I don’t know,” Greg shakes his head, panicking and sweating as much as Lexi is. “I don’t see a damn thing. It’s just fucking gray hills and dead trees everywhere.”
“Okay, just keep driving as fast as you can,” I tell him patiently. “Noah, give me your sweatshirt.”
For once in his entire life, Noah doesn’t try to argue with me. I watch as he puts the pistol he’s holding between his legs, and I pray that he remembered to click the safety on. He shrugs off his hoodie in the small space that he has and hands it to me. I think that he’s the only person left in the world who would wear a The Flash hoodie, but I’m grateful that it’s still a faded resemblance of red. I take it and turn it inside out, waiting for the baby to come. As if she had been waiting for this very moment, Lexi groans out in agony and bears down before I even have the chance to tell her to push.
When I get the first glimpse of a bruised, tiny face. I look at the shut eyes and the pale, blue skin and I feel my heart flutter. I don’t notice the slam of the gunshots or the screams from Greg, all I care about is that I’m looking at the quiet, peaceful face of an angel. It slips out of Lexi and I wrap it in the sweatshirt, bundling it tight and looking at its tiny face. I act as quickly as I can, opening the baby’s mouth and cleaning it out, the same with the nostrils, getting everything I can get out. I clean the babe up the best I can. I look down, past the umbilical cord and look to see that I have a little nephew. I smile and hold him tightly, looking into his swollen and bruised face and can’t help but feel the tears running down my cheeks. I’ve done the best I can so far, but the dark, painful truth is that there’s not a sound coming from this little guy and unless he starts screaming and breathing, he’s not going to make it. I need a sign of life, of hope, but none is forthcoming.
He lies still in my arms with no rise or fall of his tiny chest.
Chapter Two
I look at him and I feel my heart swelling in the dark, cold world that surrounds me. Everything around me is dead or dying. Everything is on the decline, but that’s not acceptable for this tiny, magnificent little boy who is silently resting in my arms. I look at him and I feel my heart thumping against my ribs, filling every crevasse in my body, every dark, hopeless hole is being filled with swelling pride, joy, terror, and absolute, undying love. This little boy is the next generation of my family. This little boy is everything that it means to be human. The idea that we can have hope, that we can push forward, that we can find a way, that’s what this tiny boy means. I look at him and I can’t help but feel like all the darkness isn’t as terrible as it feels. For every night, there’s always a dawn. For every midnight, there’s always a noon.
But he’s not moving. I look at him and feel my excited heart pounding faster, fighting against the terror of seeing such a tiny person not moving at all. I want to scream with joy and terror at the same time. I’m horrified that a small, tiny human can cause so much worry and fear inside of me. I look at his slack face and his limp body in my arms and I can’t help but feel absolute terror. I hold the body, looking down at it and worrying that he’s a still-born. I’m not ready to accept that. I’m not going to let that happen. I don’t know what I can do, but if I have to adjust the laws of nature and the mystical veil beyond life, then so be it. I will not let my nephew die. I refuse.
Pulling the hair tie off my wrist, I work as quickly as I can, trying to do as much as I can by myself, still supporting my nephew’s head while I work. I realize that I’m breathing really heavily, really rapidly while I work this out. I’m not sure if I’m going to have any kind of help here anyways. I don’t know how far those fanatics are behind us, but they’re going to be confronting us any moment now, so I can’t expect Noah to help me. I can’t expect him to be there for me when I need him to hold off those fanatical bastards. After all, I’d rather all of us be alive than me be a little more comfortable. So I work with what I’ve got, not what I wish I had. I tie off the umbilical cord as tightly as I can, pinching it off like a garden hose and wrapping it again and again with my hair tie, but I need clamps. In any kind of medical facility, I would have been able to find the clamps to work with, but I’m not there. I’m here. I’m in a moving truck that’s being pursued while my sister tries to catch her breath and regain her strength.
“How you doing, Lexi?” I ask her, finishing up tying the umbilical cord.
“Fine,” she says with an exhausted tone. “Why… Why isn’t it crying?”
“Oh him, don’t worry about him.” I look at my nephew’s battered face. “He’s just got a little stage fright.”
“He?” she asks me with a beaming smile on her face. “It’s a boy?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I smile back at her. “We’ll get him talking in no time,” I lie.
I give my nephew’s foot a pinch, trying to get him to wake up. I’m worried that something happened in the birthing process and right now, time is of the essence. I’ve still got to get the placenta out of her and then there’s plenty more to do after that. I look at her and feel her concern wafting off her, radiating like the heat of an oven. I don’t blame her. I’m scared too. I look at him, counting his tiny little fingers. He weighs maybe five pounds. I make a mental note of it, the old training kicking back in, knowledge that I had abandoned all hope of ever using. I unwrap his feet and count his toes, counting ten little piggies along with the matching five fingers. No extra fingers, no extra toes, and nothing missing. I look back up at his little face and give his foot another pinch. Stillness. Pale blue skin. Nothing.
I contemplate hanging him upside down like they did when our parents were born and slapping his bottom, but not yet. Not in front of Lexi. After a second, I realize I’m still pinching him, and afraid I’ll break his tiny bones, I release the foot watching the white prints from my fingers turn blue once more. Then the small world within the cab of the truck changes. I hear something that sounds like a quiet little whimper and his face contorts, his lips part and I hear a tiny, fragile little wail and I know that he’s awake. He’s alive. I look at his little face and I smile at his little angry reaction. It’s hard for people to understand the bond of family when it’s so immediate. It’s hard for them to realize all of the surging emotions until they’re thrust into that situation, but I get it now. I understand completely. He whimpers again and I hear another cry, brittle and reedy as he pushes all the air out of his little lungs. I smile at the sound, relishing it and drowning in the depths of my nephew’s cries. I hold him close as his little arms flinch and he begins to curl up, pulling his legs and arms close to his shivering body. I wrap him tightly, drawing him close to me.
“I need a knife,” I tell Noah. He looks at me with a dazed, pale look. He hasn’t quite grasped that at this very moment I’m holding his son. I’m holding the little child that is the fruit of his loins, and all he can do is stare at Lexi and out the window at the men hunting us. He looks down at me with purple lips and an ashen face.
“A knife. Now!”
He nods to me but doesn’t move.
“I’ve got one,” Greg says to me, reaching behind his back and grabbing his utility knife. I look at him as he hands me the knife. I grab it from him as quickly as I can, pulling out the knife’s blade. I hold the umbilical cord and grip it firmly. I take a deep breath, steadying my hand, knowing that most people would expect Noah to do this. This is the job of the father or a trained, licensed professional. Here goes nothing. I take the knife and I make the quick movement. I cut the umbilical cord. Blood gurgles from the severed end which I quickly clamp off with my hand, dropping the knife to the floor. I look at it, my nephew severed from his mother, and I feel my heart leap a thousand times in my chest in that fraction of an instant. My nephew continues to mewl and wail weakly as I hand him, wrapped oh so tightly, to Lexi.
“Meet your son,” I tell her with a prideful smile. I feel like I have a grin that’s a mile wide on my face.
I watch Lexi’s eyes illuminate from a billion different sources within. I smile for her, for her son, for this moment, and for everything that it means to me. I love it. I love her. I love him. It all seems so perfect, until I hear two more bullets smacking against the back of the truck. Everyone is staring at my nephew until that shattering moment. We all flinch, ducking, praying that we’re not hit. I look over to Greg who is checking the rearview mirror, as well as the other mirrors too. He’s nervous, focused on the car behind us. I hope it’s still just one car.
“Lexi,” I tell her calmly, “we’re not out of the woods yet. We still have to get the placenta out of you.” She looks at me and nods understandingly. “It’s going to be a lot of gravity’s business, but you’re going to have to give a few more simple pushes. You understand.”
“He’s so beautiful,” she says, nodding to me. I love that she’s boasting about her little boy. This is not where I thought we’d be sharing this exact moment, but I’m not in control of the world. I take what I can get. I take what’s given to me. With my hands free, I tie off the severed end of the umbilical cord, watching the blood drip from between my fingers. Wiping them as clean as I can on my jeans, I reach up her shirt and begin massaging her stomach. I look at her and wait for the placenta. I say a prayer in that moment. I’m not sure who I’m silently praying to. I’m not sure God is still out there, if He ever was. I pray that whatever is responsible for everything that they’ll keep my nephew and my sister alive above everything else. I pray that my little nephew will be given a life that’s full and difficult, but a wonderful life nonetheless. I look at Lexi and hope that she’s there with her son for a very long time, longer than me if it’s what needs to happen. Even though I’ve sworn myself to keeping Lexi alive no matter what, I’m more and more determined that I will do anything to keep her safe, to keep her alive. This isn’t even something that I question anymore. I will gladly give my life for her and my nephew. After all, that’s what family does for family.
The placenta finally slithers out with a sickening speed that catches me off guard. Bloody and slimy, it splatters to the floorboards and I hide the disgusted and horrified look on my face as the surprise makes me flinch suddenly. I look at it and stare at the blood and the gore between my legs. I’m basically wallowing in the filth that looks like I’m in an infirmary during the Civil War. Thankfully, my sister isn’t paying attention to any of this. Her eyes are on my nephew and I wouldn’t have it any other way. As for Noah and Greg, they’re too preoccupied with the men behind us. Poor Noah, he keeps looking over his shoulder and then taking the few moments of respite that he’s given to admire his son. Honestly, I can’t stand Noah, but I hope he’s there too. I hope he’s going to be there with my nephew as long as Lexi is. After all, my father was incredible.
The thought makes my heart plunge. I wish that my father had been here. I shake my head at the darkness of the idea. He was literally days from finding out that he was a grandfather. It’s a cold chill that wafts over me and I try to hold off the thought. He was such a powerful, wise, and charismatic man that I can only imagine what kind of a grandfather he would have been. He would have been so incredible. Oh God, why couldn’t he have survived? I think of everything that we might have learned from him. I think of all the knowledge of the outside world that he had that he might have told us. I think of everything that we all might have been able to know and he might have been able to experience, if Henry had just kept his finger off of that trigger. I shudder at the thought of all of it and try to keep myself from letting the tears of sorrow and hate fall down my cheeks. No, I have to be strong. I have to be happy. I have to keep it together, just for a little while longer.
I grab the crank and roll down the window, feeling the rush of air jetting into the cab. Gathering up the placenta I throw it out the window, hearing it splatter against the side of the door, the umbilical cord slithering out after it, flicking blood everywhere as it goes. I look at Lexi and watch her for a moment before I reach up and start pushing on her stomach, trying to get everything out of her that I can. I need her to get as much of this gore out of her so that I can later monitor if she has any internal bleeding. As the oozing slows, I wipe away what I can with my bare hands, something you could only truly do for someone you love. Cleansed of her labor as best as I am able, I turn my attention to the small wriggling body in her arms.
“Can I see him for a moment?” I ask her.
Lexi looks at me cautiously for a second before she willingly surrenders my nephew over to me. I take him and look at him. He’s awake and he is very unhappy with all the noise and the movement. He groans, grunts, and wheezes angrily. I check him over, inspecting him to make sure that everything looks normal, that everything looks right. He needs a proper bath, but I find it unlikely that it will happen anytime soon, if ever at all. Behind us, the shouts of angry men remind me that none of us may ever bathe again.
Inspecting the small bundle in my arms I see a small, possibly premature baby, and I think that he looks lucky to be alive, but I’m not an expert in such things. He’s breathing, I can feel his pulse under his armpit and I know that he’s definitely slightly jaundiced, but if he’s as strong as the rest of our family, and a fighter like both his grandmother and grandfather, he’s going to be fine. He’s going to be okay. I smile at the sight of him. He barely opens his eyes, but it’s too bright for him. He lets out a loud shriek at the light and I wrap him tightly, handing him back to Lexi to hold.
“Keep him close,” I tell her. “Rock him and hold him tightly. Until we find a pacifier or something, let him suck on your pinky.”
“I got it,” Lexi nods with a smile.
I turn now to Noah. He’s staring at his son and I admire the look on his face. For the first time, I can see the love in his eyes. It’s mixed with the awe and wonder that I want my nephew’s father to have. I want him to have that look of absolute adoration that he has on his face right now for the rest of my nephew’s life. I want him to look at him and see the little prince that he is. “Noah,” I say to him calmly. “I’m going to need your shirt.”
“You got it,” he says immediately.
I watch as he instantly rips off his shirt, tearing it off, over his head and handing it to me in a wad. I look at him, leaning over toward Lexi, touching his son’s head and smiling as he lets out a lovestruck laugh. I love the look in his eyes. I can’t help but smile at them. Grabbing Lexi’s underwear, I stuff Noah’s shirt between her legs, right at the gaping wound that is now her vagina. I help her pull on her underwear while they admire their baby, kissing each other. I grab her enormous sweat pants and help her into them, sliding them up her legs and leaving them for her to hitch up around her waist. I put her socks on and her shoes next. There’s no time to waste. I don’t know how much time we have left and I certainly don’t know how we’re going to get out of all of this. I look over at Greg who is focused on the road, looking to the rearview mirror, watching our pursuers. Slipping her boots on I tie them for her, lacing them up and making sure that they’re as tight as they can be. I’m not sure how long we can go until we’re going to need to move. Oh God, she may have to run. I shudder at the thought of it.
“Guys, I hate to be that guy again,” Greg says poignantly. “But we’ve seriously got to lose these guys somehow. I need ideas.”
“Just keep them behind us until we find buildings,” I tell him. I have no idea what it looks like outside the windshield, but from the look Greg gives me, I’m worried that it looks more like a barren wasteland than it does a sprawling metropolis. I shudder at the thought of what we’re going to have to do if they catch up with us. We’re going to have to fight. We’re going to have to make a stand if they don’t relent, and soon.