This is a story about hope . . . and despair.

Evening’s coming on and it’s so nice to be out here. It’s been so long . . . kuhh . . . since I’ve felt the evening breeze on my skin. I can see dust devils dancing down at the end of the arroyo and the sun, touching the horizon, . . . kuhh, kuhhf . . . is a great golden ball, amber lambency through scattered westerly clouds.

We’ve got a little fire going and the mesquite smoke smells wonderful. Brian’s just staring at the fire and Angela, wrapped in an old Indian blanket and rocking back and forth, is too. We scraped enough wood off to last a while . . . kuhh . . . and I’ve been feeding the flame enough to keep it burning nicely.

Evening is such a wonderful time, magic and all, when the world changes from light to dark. The world changes all the time, you know. Sometimes the change is good and sometimes bad. Sometimes we even learn our lessons, learn from our mistakes. Most of the time, though, we don’t. We have to keep going over and over the lesson until finally, after some miracle or something, we finally learn.

I wonder what we’ll learn from our latest lesson. Maybe we shouldn’t play . . . kuhh . . . with matches until we know how to keep from being burned?

It’s like a small child playing with razor blades. I remember the experience myself. As I was in the bathroom investigating these thin, bluish metal items with weird holes cut in them, my fingers got sticky with this red sticky stuff. It took me a while to realize I was leaking; thin, oozing little lines appeared . . . kuhf . . . on my fingertips. It took a little . . . kuhh . . . longer to realize it was something I didn’t want to happen. It dawned on me I was hurting myself; it was the first time I had seen my blood.

The sun’s sinking down below the horizon now. I can see it through the thermal ripples out there across the desert. I can’t really look at it directly yet but it’s neat how it kinda breaks up as it goes away.

The firelight is beginning to make the shadows dance as the general light volume diminishes. Brian’s shadow-nose is flickering from one side to the other and there’s what looks like five-o’clock shadow . . . kuhh, kuhhf . . . growing on his cheeks and chin. It seems to be getting darker as I watch it.

Brian was going to burn the house down but I stopped him. I mean what’s the point, anyway? Just because we won’t be using it anymore, why destroy . . . kuhh . . . kuhf, kuhf . . . a perfectly good house? Brian’s like that, he’s a hothead.

Like those people who came through here in the black Chevy Suburban about an hour ago. The vehicle is still sitting in the drive and of no use to us; face it, there’s nowhere to go. And I can understand why Brian wanted to kill them, especially after he found out who they were. It couldn’t be allowed of course, especially in light of who they were.

We had all decided to go outside and build a fire. Angela and I gathered some mesquite and picked a good spot for the fire right in front of the porch. Brian was piling cardboard boxes, chairs, a couple of tumbleweeds and the like on the porch.

“What are ya doing that for?” I asked.

“Gonna light up the house before it’s too late,” he said.

“Huh? Why?”

“Why not?” he said as he smashed one of our kitchen chairs into bits.

“Because maybe someone else can use it after we’re gone,” I said.

“Oh yeah, sure.” He went on making his pile.

. . . kuhh . . .

Angela was coughing pretty much but she was holding up. We scraped the puffballs off the wood we collected, it was dry underneath and burnable and then we built our little fire.

“I like campfires,” Angela said. “They always remind me of our trips together.”

“Up in the mountains,” I said.

“Yeah. Those were some really good times.” She let out a ratcheting cough, all phlegmy and sloppy from deep within her chest, and shook her head. “All gone now.”

I knew what she was saying, “yes, all gone now.”

. . . kuhh . . . kuhf, kuhf . . .

Brian, coughing worse than Angela, said, “that’s right, all gone because a bunch of moron rocket scientists had to screw around with shit they didn’t know anything about.” He smashed another chair.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” I said. “I can’t believe you’re doing that. We made those chairs with our own hands and now you’re destroying them.”

“Yeah, wait’ll you see what I’m gonna do next!” He came down off the porch and pulled a burning branch out of the fire.

I got in his way. “Oh no, you’re not!” He tried to push around me but I grabbed him and held him back.

. . . kuhh . . .

“Why’n the fuck not?” he yelled. “What the hell difference does it make? It’s all shit anyway.” He coughed and a trickle of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth. “Look at this crap. It’s growing everywhere.”

He tried to push me backwards up the steps but I had a good foothold and when I pushed back he fell. He came up swinging the firebrand and I jumped back. After his swing I lunged and with a hard chop knocked the branch out of his hand. We rolled around a little but I got the better of him and eventually locked him up.

. . . kuhh, kuhff . . .

He started crying. Big-ass, hard-ass Brian was weeping. “This is really fucked up,” he said between coughs. “Why does this have to be so fucked up?”

I couldn’t blame him; I’ve cried too but I was plumb out of tears at the time. “It’s fucked up, Bri. But what can we do about it? Time’s up. We’ve had our shot. Game over. Let’s try to take it like men,” I said.

Meanwhile Angela was wrapping a blanket around herself. When most people hear the word desert they think ‘sheik of the burning sand’ stuff. Our fire was practical as well as whimsical. The high desert gets really cold really fast.

“Ha,” Brian blubbered in my arms. “Take it like men. What about that Angie? You gonna take it like a man?”

“I’m not going to burn my house down, if that’s what you mean, Brian,” she said. “Besides,” she brushed a lock of her auburn hair back behind her ear, “it was men who made this mess so we’re only getting what we paid for.”

With an enormous push Brian tried to break my hold on him. I had him pinned though and after several more pushes, which got weaker each time, he ceased his struggle and launched into a hacking fit. One particularly violent cough sprayed my face with sputum and blood. He was still crying after it was over.

. . . kuhh . . .

“Are you going to behave?” I asked. “Or am I going to have to sit on you all night?”

“I’m all right,” he said. “Let me up.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah, I wanna go sit by the fire.”

I released him and stood up. He lay there until I offered my hand, which he accepted, and helped him up. He started toward the porch. I moved to stop him but he held his hands up and said, “It’s okay. I just want the sleeping bag.” Which he got and took to arrange a seat over by the fire.

That’s about when we noticed a vehicle coming down the highway kicking up a cloud of dust. We’re up in the foothills of the Sierra Madres and can see a pretty good stretch of the highway. It was coming from the LA direction.

“Man, those guys are hauling ass,” Angela said. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone chasing them.”

Geez, it was the first vehicle we’d seen in about three months and all she could think of was how fast it was going.

Brian stopped coughing and watched the steadily approaching vehicle. “Wow,” he wiped his mouth. “It’s about time. Maybe they’ll have some fresh filters.”

. . . kuhh . . .

“Fat lot of good that will do us now,” said Angela and she started hacking.

In about ten minutes the vehicle was close enough to see clearly. It was a big black SUV. You know, one of those big-ass SUVs that only rich people and government types can afford. It made the turn into our lane, about half a mile away, and the dust cloud behind it tripled. The lane’s just gravel. We were going to pave it one of these days but never got around to it.

The thing, a Chevy Suburban, slowed and came through the entrance to our yard. It stopped about twenty feet away from the fire. There was a blue and white government license plate on the front. Two people wearing environment suits got out. One was taller and heavier, carriage masculine and the smaller was probably a woman. They held their empty hands out wide and I motioned them over.

“We saw your fire,” said the man as he approached. He stopped, held out his arm and stopped his companion. “How long have you been exposed?” he asked.

“Our last filter gave out this morning,” I said. “We’ve decided to make a fire and watch the sunset. We’re okay otherwise.”

“Some people get a little crazy,” he said.

. . . kuhh . . . kuhf, kuhf . . .

“We’re just into watching the sunset,” I replied. I motioned toward the house. “Take anything you want.”

“Thanks,” he said, “we could use a little fresh water.”

“It’s in there—fresh spring water filtered by about a million tons of earth.”

They began to approach again but I could see they were still a little wary. “Thank you. We’ll take you up on it,” the woman said. “We have some drugs that will make you comfortable, if you like.”

Angela looked up from the fire. “Yeah, what do you have?” She coughed.

“We have some liquid Delauden. It’s a synthetic opiate and works really well to relieve pain,” the woman said.

Brian and Angela both said they’d take some. I said no; I want to be awake as long as possible. Heh, somebody has to tell you what happened, huh?

The man went back to the Suburban. The woman said, “my name is Naomi. Naomi Fairchild. My friend is Timothy Welkin. We’re on our way up to Sandman labs.”

Something about those names was clanging around in my head. “I’m Bill Smith, that’s my brother Brian and my wife, Angela,” I said.

“We saw your fire,” she said. Brian started hacking again and left some more blood on his hand as he wiped his mouth. “You guys aren’t doing too good, are you?” she said.

“No shit, lady,” Brian said. He suddenly looked up at her. “Did you say Naomi Fairchild? Timothy Welkin?”

. . . kuhh . . . kuhh . . .

She backed up a step. “Yes . . . unfortunately.”

“Holy shit! Hey bro, you know who these people are?” he said. “These are the rocket morons that created the puffballs! She’s the fungus lady!”

“Yeah, I got that,” I said. He was right. Drs. Fairchild and Welkin were the genetic researchers who, after mapping and decoding the puffball fungus genome, for which they won the Nobel Prize by the way, used recombinant RNA to “improve” it. They improved it all right.

Welkin was on his way back from the Suburban with a small bottle in his hand. “Here,” he said, “take a couple sips of this. You’ll feel better.”

Brian got up from the ground and went over to the suited couple.

. . . kuhh . . . kuhf, kuhf . . .

Welkin hesitantly handed him the bottle, “take it, it’s yours.” Brian uncapped it and took a swig. “Not too much,” Welkin cautioned.

“Yeah, yeah,” Brian said and he walked over and handed the bottle to Angela who also took a good slug. She passed it toward me but I waved it off. She sealed it and put it down on the ground. Brian started walking toward the house. His cough had seemed to ease a little, that stuff worked fast. I was glad, he was having a rough time of it. We all were.

“Where are you going?” I asked him.

“Just inside,” he said.

“I don’t have to bird dog you, do I?”

“No, I’ll be good, Mommy.”

He went up the steps and into the house. I didn’t try to stop him. I turned to our guests. “Thanks for that,” I said.

The woman said, “we haven’t seen anyone since we left LA. How did you folks survive for so long?”

. . . kuhh . . . kuhh

I ratcheted a little and spit out a gob of black looking mucous. “It’s been rough. We’ve been living inside that house, all sealed off and all, for close to ten months. When all this started we stocked up—as much as we could anyway—because, of course, everyone else was doing it too. We had a leg up, though. This place was built over a fallout shelter so there was plenty of food and there was already a filtration system in place. We didn’t think it would get this bad, you know. Just figured you scientist types would figure the thing out and we’d be all right if we could just hang on.”

Angela put her hat on, the pushed out cowboy hat with the feathers sticking out of the headband on the right side. With the blanket and all she looked like some Indian squaw. She started rocking back and forth. “Just what did you people think you were doing?” she asked.

Welkin put his hand up to his head. “Jesus Christ, don’t you think we’ve asked ourselves that about a million times? We’ve killed the world. The stupendous, incalculable enormity of that is more than we can bear. How do you think we feel?”

. . . kuhh . . . kuhf, kuhf . . .

“How do you think we feel?” Angela shot back at him, punctuating it with a rasping, spasmodic cough. “Why in hell haven’t you fallen on your sword yet?”

“Because,” said Dr. Fairchild, “we are mankind’s—no—the world’s only hope. We’re the only ones who know exactly what we’ve done and the only ones who have any chance to undo it. In spite of the overwhelming guilt, and believe me, I’ve wanted to end it all so many times, in spite of the guilt we had to go on, had to find the answer.”

“What answer,” I said, “everything’s dead.

“Not everything,” said Welkin. “South America, Africa, Australia, Indonesia, a lot of places are still uninfected.”

. . . kuhh, kuhf . . .

“So why didn’t someone come and get us out of here?” Angela said.

“The risk of contamination was too great,” Welkin said. “The entire North American continent, as well as most of Europe and a good part of Asia is covered with the spores.”

I’d known it was bad. After the first three months the satellite stations were dropping off two and three at a time. It wasn’t long before there was nothing but fuzz on the set. “The way this stuff grows, Doc, it’s just a matter of time before the whole planet becomes a big, giant puffball!”

“Up until last night I would have agreed with you. Naomi did it. She found an aerial transmitted virus that attacks the fungus genetically and should, according to the projections, completely destroy the fungus worldwide in about three months.”

“You mean . . .” Angela trailed off .

“Yes,” Fairchild said, “it’s finally over.”

“Over for you,” I said.

Welkin took Fairchild by the hand. His head wagged slowly from side to side. “We’re so sorry,” he said.

. . . kuhh . . . kuhf, kuhf . . .

“Not sorry enough, you bastards,” said Brian from the porch.

I turned in time to see Brian unload his Remington semiautomatic 12 gauge shotgun into our two guests. Christ. Nobody said anything. After a while Brian dropped the shotgun, walked over to his place by the fire and sat down. He motioned to Angela who . . . kuhh . . . unscrewed the lid off the bottle of Delauden, took a swig and handed it over.

For some reason I don’t remember being all that horrified by all the grisly blood and gore. He hit the woman square in the faceplate and blew Welkin’s left arm completely off, among other things. It’s like I wasn’t even in my own body, like I was watching it all in some movie or something.

I mean this whole trip has simply . . . kuhh . . . blown my mind—to use an antique idiom. It’s appropriate, I think. I mean, you start out thinking everything will be all right. It might be hard right now at the moment but sooner or later it’s going to be all right. You try to keep your spirits up in spite of the difficulties. That’s what we do, that’s what we are. You hope . . . kuhh . . . and pray and do all that dancing around and, when everything does work out, well, chalk it up to a benevolent God or some such.

But things don’t always work out. Sometimes things just keep getting worse and worse. How can you keep up? I’ve tried to be positive about all this but I just keep getting the ass. When Brian blew that lady’s head off I thought, well, that’s just about right, right? When it rains it pains.

So now I’m watching the sunset over the high desert. The sun’s completely gone now, only a red-orange nimbus bleeding all over . . . kuhh . . . kuhf . . . the distant stringy ass clouds out at the horizon. It’s kind of beautiful in a way, you know. Even though everything’s covered with puffballs smoking out their endless clouds of spores.

The firelight flickers over Brian’s face; it shows multiple angles of the pain he’s suffered. There’s a little blood dripping off his chin and the growth on his cheek is starting to look more and more like a patch of puffballs. At least he’s finally stopped . . . kuhh . . . coughing. Angela’s not rocking anymore, just sort of slumped over. She’s not coughing anymore, either.

I’m still coughing, though. Didn’t think it would end like this. Thought we’d get out of it like we always seem to do. If we could only hold out long enough. I think I’ll have a swig of that stuff. Then I think I’ll burn the fucking house down.

. . . kuhh . . . kuhh . . . kuhfff . . .

Copyright © 2014 H. Robert Schumacher, Jr.