the simple trap: 9

It was pretty clear to him that he had lost a lot of blood. He knew for certain he was dying, and kept saying so over and over again. Lena kept telling him otherwise. He was lying in Cory’s bed. The bed smelled like ancient old spice. He was alive nonetheless. Nobody else in the whole world, he had seen the bodies. Just Lena, Lena’s children and him.
“I’m out,” he thought, and though he couldn’t smile, the thought crossed his mind.

the simple trap: 8

The only light falling on Karl’s face was the skull glow from the stove. They had managed to haul it all the way from the neighbors shed to the spring house. They slid it across the whole yard, opening two long scars in the grass, like a giant arrow to the cellar. Karl imagined it showing up on satellite imagery, a television show. God he missed theatres, like a missing tooth. He noticed he was wringing his hands. He put them down beside him.
There were a few of the samples sitting in the dirt beside him that Darryl had managed to toss in the car, back at the greenhouse, that were already germinated. It seemed to Karl as if the little tendrils were crawling towards him in the wavering orange light. It was already too warm. He peeled off his coat.
Jagged chills ran down his spine, over and over again, at ever flicker, every scraping rustle through the forest around him. He had never felt so outside of the orbit of humanity in his life. It was as if he was going to die of loneliness, of the feeling of being so ultimately unfamiliar. He thought of cosmonauts, set adrift; he thought of angry animals, seeking his prey-smell, just outside the door. He thought of chicken, and of sex.
And then, he thought of his father, and the pool of blood he had been laying in, when he saw him last.
He’d done well so far, keeping that image suppressed. He had closed the door in his mind every time it threatened to surface in the car. Keeping it back was damming a lake. The whole scene flooded his mind, in surprising detail, vibrant, as if to make up for the dark in this hole he was buried in.
Karl let the whole scenario wash over him, like a tepid bath.
They had a good thing going; the only good thing among the waste after the world began to cool precipitously. Luke had noticed some of Darryl’s produce on the barter market that had sprung up after the wars.
It was that simple. Luke had connections with everybody, as a bartender. He was a market facilitator after the wars, getting the right thing for the right person, for a price.
The food Darryl had been growing in the old greenhouse was perfect. Plus Darryl hated leaving the place. He had real trouble with any people. The apocalypse was part of it, but Karl suspected epic disaster wasn’t the sole cause. Lucky Luke; otherwise, Darryl might have traded it through other means.
And then somebody had the bright idea to get Karl involved. Luke wanted to make sure his cash cow, Darryl, was properly under his power. What better way than to send the son. As soon as he got involved, essentially as Darryl’s gopher, he saw what the real opportunity was.
Karl had almost left his experiments die in the biology lab at the Richmond college, and the ones at his house had long since become something less than scientific. But there were a few samples of the best strain of cannabis sativa that he had ever grown left over, still alive in a fish tank, a few stalks and a five year old gecko that should have been dead. Years ago, he started growing strains, and originally, he had strongly disliked the taste. It had grown on him. He still liked to think of himself as the Pot-leaf Mendel.
They started to grow on Karl’s insistence. It made sense to him. The country had been addicted to psychological drugs at the dawn of Armageddon. What better way to supply that need than with a little ganj, right? Little galang goes a long way when you’re getting paid with gasoline, eh? He remember saying those words to his dad, dismissing the arguments about what the rival militias might do to get a hold on that kind of production.
And his father, he had been right and wrong. Darryl called him down to the greenhouse, to deliver 12 pounds. The biggest haul they’d ever had. But there was no 12 pounds. Darryl shot Luke in the belly with an ancient .22 pistol. Then he leaned over and apologized. Karl saw it play over and over, Darryl leaning over, pained look, the thread of saliva.
Then the guys walked in, all wearing the stinking catholic rosaries. It sort of sunk in. Darryl had betrayed Luke to the Rosaries. And of course, the Rosaries took the opportunity to kill both Luke and Darryl off.
That’s what all the shooting was for. By a fluke, Darryl was in the only corner that was distant from a door. Darryl was shouting something, and then Karl was tackled to the floor, and his hands bound behind his back with a ziptie. Darryl held him to the floor with his knee.
It had been a simple double cross. Why hadn’t Darryl missed that in all his overwrought planning? Why couldn’t he have seen it coming?
Karl wondered what time it was.
He lifted his head up before he had registered any sound. Then he heard the cars roll up like all Armageddon. It wasn’t that they were driving fast. It was that they hadn’t seen cars the whole way up to West Virginia. They were still miles away, when he heard the first crunching of gravel beneath tires. A list of names flew through his mind, a list of the possibilities, some options, a bit of psychology. He realized that at some point, he’d picked up the thirty-ought-six, and he was gripping it as if to keep the crunching tires away by dint of hand pressure alone.
It struck him as a true indication of his own will. Suddenly, he knew that he did not want the cars to come, no matter what. He knew he was going to burst out the doors, and attempt to shoot at the tires, and the engines, but not the windshields. Could his father be alive?
Karl stood up, and pressed his shoulder to the door. He had to pee, suddenly. The cars were so far away. He wondered if he could make it to the house without them seeing him. Was that the right course of action? What time was it? Would Lena be walking across the yard, coming to relieve him? He creaked the door a hair, and attempted to look down the road. He was looking into flat black, like a new blackboard.
Then he saw headlight reflecting, bouncing along from a great distance away. But he had gravely misjudged just how far they were. He wondered if the rest of the people could hear the cars too. It was very possible that they could not, he thought. That was why they needed him.
Karl was caught in the headlights of the Jeep and the CRV when they came crashing into the Cory’s clearing, his little hilltop. He couldn’t see any of the people in the car, but he dove out of the way, to the left, rolling down a few feet towards the creek.
He tried not to breathe as the jeep in front pulled an e-brake. The car ground to a halt in the gravel, not a dozen feet away. He picked up a handful of rocks and threw it into the trees behind him, as three men leapt out of the jeep, and another two with a young woman in the Subaru. He saw them turned their heads. He realized it had been a terrible idea.
One of the rocks hit a tree, but the others landed in leaves, nearly noiselessly. He imagined the sound as a glowing arrow pointing back to his location on the sod. They had certainly seen him regardless. The men turned on their flashlights, beams like railroad ties of light, bludgeoning the darkness.
A few moments later, a bent silhouette clambered out of the jeep into the grass.
Hs face was pressed against the wet, cold grass. He had left his coat inside the cellar, and the cold had already begun feeling up his bone marrow. He stayed rigid, knowing they’d shoot him. They’d shoot him over and over. In the day light, he’d be able to see them, they were so close. He wrestled with the urge to find out whether the man struggling to stand up was his dad. Suddenly, a flash light beam spotlighted him. Problem solved.
“Hey, hey! Who the fuck are you? Are you okay?” asked his dad, Luke. A wave of relief washed over him. He was surprised. His voice sounded exhausted.
“It’s me dad. It’s Karl.” He rose to his feet.
Someone turned on the trailer floodlight. Karl was blinded for a few seconds. He shielded his useless eyes with his wet sleeve.
“Stop right there, freeze…you bastard,” said his dad.
“You know, that’s a funny thing for you to say,” said Karl. There was a hint of laughter in his voice. He lowered his hand. He notice his father was clutching his stomach. He looked terribly old haloed in the bright light.
“You had me killed. I mean bastard when I say it. I got something for you. Don’t fucking move, son.” Luke spit a bullet into his hand. He held it up. The small piece of brass and lead glimmered in the light. “This is yours, son, take it back.” He snapped the bullet at his son. The bullet hit Karl in the hand. He grabbed his right hand with his left, cursing and spitting. Two or three of his Dad’s men were yelling for him to freeze.
He felt like the damn thing had burst a blood vessel, one of the big ones in the back of his hand. It occurred to him, that relatively speaking that must have been a lucky shot. He wondered for a brief second just how much slower the bullet was when it hit his hand, than when it lodged wherever his father had retrieved it from.
“You might as well have pulled the trigger yourself,” said Luke. It sounded like he was wincing from the effort. “Hit me in the stomach. Sure Darryl thought he got me back there at the greenhouse. Sure he thought the Rosaries would have let him stay there. But they didn’t. They been indebted to me since two weeks after the apocalypse,” Luke had both hands over his belly, as if holding his organs in place. His voice was getting weaker, but he continued. Karl noticed that Luke’s entourage were all wearing rosaries except for the woman.
“Did you know that? No, you didn’t. He thought he was betraying me for whatever fucking honorable reasons, and you fucking helped him every step of the way.” Luke walked over to his son, and slapped him across the face. Karl fell on the ground, a trickle of blood where his dad had opened up his eyebrow a little. It shocked Karl, with the finality: it seemed like it might be the last that the big man might have in him.
One of Luke’s men had to wrap his arm around Luke’s ribcage to keep the old man from falling. The rain was already mixing with the blood, getting it all over Karl’s face. “I’m not going to fucking kill you, but I’m putting a bullet in Darryl’s face. Where is he?”
Karl didn’t respond.
“Look, Karl. We’ve had our problems, but” said Luke. He swallowed. He pushed the man holding him up away. “I didn’t want it to be like this though. You’re my son. I love you. I just can’t let this go down. You betrayed me. Now you gotta earn the right to be my son again.”
Karl laid there on the ground for a second. Darryl had bound him up, in the back seat of the car, didn’t stop to let him be carsick, and that’s not even considering the thousand indignities he’d put Karl through when they were establishing the greenhouse. His eyebrow throbbed.
“Fuck you old man,” said Karl, who was crying, “You don’t know, but I had nothing to do with any of this. I can’t seem to escape this shit though. You might as well just fucking shoot me.”
Luke’s old face cracked into a grin, slowly. It grew like plants in a dark cellar. “You know I’m gonna shoot you, all familial sentiment aside? Why did you have to,” he shot Karl in the arm, “say something like that.”
Karl screamed into the grass and mud, and rivulets of rain moving towards the creek. He screamed like a rabbit in a steel trap, high, animal, ululating. It echoed like it was bouncing down every declivity within fifty miles, repeating, perfectly harmonizing with the continuing original. It didn’t sound like it was coming from where Karl was lying on the ground, Luke standing over him, haloed in flashlights.
He could feel his mind shutter into shock. He heard his father turn, and mumble something to one of the other men. Someone tried to pick him up. He felt bones shift. He screamed in such a way that the man let him lie there.
As soon as they got him off the ground, the shattered arm hanging there, Darryl kicked open the front door. But nobody was standing in the light from inside. Suddenly a twelve gauge belched from the bottom right corner of the door.
Three of the men had guns in their hands, and they ducked behind the jeep. Karl could see where they were shooting because of the holes that opened up near the door. There was no chance that Darryl had survived the first volley. It looked like at least five bullets would have passed through where he must have been lying on the floor to shoot through the door like that.
Silence descended into the little valley. One of the men opened up hatch of the jeep. Karl fell onto the ground, writing in a pool of agony. Two of the men picked him up and roughly tossed him onto the floor. He could smell the stink of their rosaries.
Automatic Klashnikov fire perforated the noise of the rain. Both men were blown off their feet. Karl tried to lift his head. An odd clearness descended on him. Philosophy and chemicals. He couldn’t move. He tried hard to breath calmly. He wanted to see who was dead, where Cory was shooting from.
Everything was silent. Burned gunpowder bent up his nostrils. And then it stopped.

the simple trap: 6

“So how much did you get done today?” said Cory, “I got three rabbits, don’t know how those bastards survive out there. Guess the fuckin’ animals are all doing a little better without us.” He shook his head.
They were all sitting in the living room, a few steps away from the kitchen. An old TV sat on a lazy-susan in the corner, blank, a mirror. Karl could see himself in there. He looked terrible. Suddenly pictures of Australian rabbits with myxomatosis slid through his mind.
“Not enough. We’re figuring we can probably grow enough food for a year with about 6 to 10 acres underground,” said Darryl. He was staring at his hand, doing some last minute calculation.
“Jesus Christ, man. How you planning on doing that? That’s like the whole underside of our yard,” said Cory.
“We’re going to be careful. I mean we can do this a little at a time. All we need right now is about quadruple what you got in the little cellar,” said Darryl. He caught Lena staring at the dirt caked on the bottom of his boots. “Oh, I’m very sorry, Lena.” He took them off, and put them out side. Then he opened it again, and put them inside. Cory chuckled.
“We were talking about doing it in chambers. And we’re going to need timbers to shore the thing up as we go along. We’ve got the shelf material,” Karl said. A sense of dread had built in him over the last five hours of digging. He didn’t know if they were going to be able to do this after all. The logistics, this tightening in his throat, the thread of raw skin around his wrist that was like a live strong bracelet, it was all wrong.
“What we need to do by tonight is set up some test plants, set up a bunch of different varieties, and let them settle. Of course that won’t be a real big temptation to anybody, but we were thinking we should set up some kind of watch,” said Darryl.
“We?” said Karl, snapping his head up, “I mean, shit I have no idea what’s going on here. Why don’t you let me in on these things before you just tell us all what we’re going to do.” He saw himself standing in front of the dark door. The thought was repellant. He shivered, finally, hard.
“Look, I’m just telling you, we’ve got to set up these plants,” Darryl looked at him funny. “If we do that, someone is going to have to guard them tonight. There are thieves who already know where this godforsaken place is –“
Karl interjected, “It’s not like whoever took the first preserves plan on coming back for seconds, it’s not like preserves grow.”
“So you’re willing to take the risk of losing most of our seeds?” Darryl’s voice was rising, “Did you think about that, Karl? Karl, what’s going on with you? Do you even know where the seeds are? No you don’t, do you, you ungrateful –“
“Whoa there boys!” Cory said way too loudly. It startled Darryl to silence. “We ain’t gonna do that shit. That shit don’t help nobody. I mean, I’ll throw my weight around. This is my house, and I ain’t having none of that. We’re gonna have some semblance of order, or ya’ll gonna get the hell out.”
“Don’t you think you’re overreacting a little bit, hon?” said Lena, she was sitting in a la-z-boy, facing the blank TV.
“No, no, it’s cool,” said Karl, “It’s cool man, we weren’t really arguing.”
“All right, I’m just warning you, we gonna nip that shit in the bud. I don’t know where you came from, or what kind of history you brought with you, but you can leave that history at the door, or at least don’t show me none,” explained Cory. He had his hands on his thighs, gripping them as if he was about to spring up.
“All right, look, Darryl, you gonna take the first watch? Are we gonna do it by night, or shift?” said Karl, pretending to relax. He shifted his shoulders around.
“I think we should do it by shift, Karl,” said Darryl, he was rubbing the back of his neck, looking any way but Karl’s, “And I’m gonna need to be planting the samples. You know I have more experience Karl, and this is just too important. And I don’t think we should ask Cory into the rotation, at least not yet.”
Karl looked up at Darryl, an intense little smile chiseled on his face. He nodded his head a little.
“Well, what about me?” asked Lena.
“You really think you can get across the yard with a bunch of gun toting hungry folk shooting at you?” said Darryl.
“You must not know my wife,” mumbled Cory, smiling.
“Well, I think I can probably do it as well as you or Karl,” said Lena, smiling, “Cory on the other hand? Well, he’s a bad motherfucker.”
Karl laughed loudly. Everyone turned to look at him. He didn’t notice since he was still smiling at Darrl.
“So okay… Okay, you’ll relieve Karl. You’ll get in there, change with him around 11:00 tonight. I think Karl should take the first samples we can get planted with him, as soon as possible. What do you think, Cory?”
“I think we should give him a rifle to go with that nine,” said Cory, “That is, if we think he can handle it.”
“Oh, and one last thing. I saw the potbellied stove in your neighbor’s yard. That would, um, be perfect for getting that climate right for tomatoes,” said Darryl.
“I guess that’s what you were widening the door for earlier. Great,” said Karl, “just great.”

the simple trap: 5

After lunch was over, the plastic plates scraped off and cleaned, and returned to their plastic bag, Cory led Darryl and Karl down to the springhouse. They walked down across the browning yard, towards the creek. They crossed the road, and then down the bank by the creek that ran down the length of the road.
Karl saw that the clasp on the door was twisted and dented. Darryl put his hand on the door, and pushed, but found that it swung outward. He opened the door, and Karl saw three steps down, into deep black.
The doorjamb seemed to bend a little to Karl. Must be the dim sun, the steel clouds, he thought. He looked up at the sky, at the shiny clouds. No sun for more than a year.
“Just walk down in there. With the door open, you can see well enough,” said Cory.
But Karl didn’t follow Darryl down into the spring house; he stood in front of it, clenching his jaws. He swallowed a rubber ball in his throat. There was enough room for the two of them, among the shelf – lined walls. Shit.
“Can we pull the shelves out of the back wall?” Darryl shouted out at Cory.
“Yeah, sure man. Sure ain’t anything down here worth preserving at this point.”
“I can’t believe nobody’s tried to raid this yet,” Karl said, looking right at the twisted latch.
Cory said, “What? Well, they did. I should have slept out here every night. You’d have seen the broken glass on the floor, if you were in there.” He gestured towards the door with his forefinger, and contempt.
Karl picked it up like a magnet, and took a step towards the door. Then he stopped again. Darryl rustled beyond the door like a fox in leaves.
“You need me down there?”
“Yes, Karl. Come down here for a second, help me get this shelf,” said Darryl.
“All right, well, I’m going to go see if there’s anything in the trap line. Would’ve gone out a lot earlier, but then again, y’all came along,” said Cory. He turned to walk back across the road to the trailer.
Karl put his hand up against the doorjamb, and looked down into the mouth of the cellar.

the simple trap: 4

“Lunch is ready, if you like canned pork and beans,” said Cory. He sat down at the table, and it shifted under his weight.
“That’s good. Karl, you like pork and beans?” asked Darryl.
“I’ve gotten to know them,” said Karl. He tried control his little frown.
Karl and Darryl followed Cory over to the little table. Karl shoved his 9mm gingerly into his pants. It fell out of his jeans as soon as he sat down at the table. It clattered across the floor, spinning a little before coming to a silent stop. Every fiber of interest in the room was suddenly fused to the black plastic and metal, still as a painting on the floor.
Suddenly Lena got up. She laughed a clipped “Hah!”
Karl watched her reach into the cupboard, while studying the wood lines in the table top. While her shirt pulled up over her belly, he removed the gun from the floor and placed in on the table.
Cory looked at it, shaking his head, smiling at Karl. Lena pulled two cans out of the cupboard. She prepared and served the two cans after heating them.
“Cory, I’ve got a little deal for you,” Darryl said, when Lena put a plate in front of him, and then one in front of Cory, “What if I said we can set you up with crops man, real crops.”
“Ain’t no crops gonna grow in West Virginia man, its way too cold. First frost, and most plants die, man.”
“That’s why we are going to grow all kinds of varieties underground, in a series of cellars. We’ve done it before. We know what we’re doing. We just have to get it started somewhere. What do you think about that?”
“Man, you are just full of ideas aren’t you. Thanks for that too. That’s what we needed, around here, exactly what will help us survive. Some more fuckin’ ideas. Well, what’s the risk, man? I mean besides you,” said Cory. He had an unpleasant look, like a carved mask.
Darryl shifted in his seat, preparing to smooth the discord Cory kept introducing, “There’s no real risk. Much less risk than if we were planting outside. We can control the climate easily underground.”
“I’m listening. There gotta be some downside. There’s always a downside,” Cory said, leaning forward intently.
“Well, if you, if you feed us up front. The deal would be that you feed us while we tend the crops, then you get a full third of the share, until we leave. After that, you get to keep what’s there. I’ll teach you how to keep this whole thing moving right along before we go, if you still want us to vacate after we get the ball rolling,” said Darryl.
“For what it’s worth, I think that sounds like a pretty good idea, I mean, somethin’ like that might actually have a chance of workin’.” Lena said.
“Well, I’ll take that into account, but I still gotta think this all through. We gotta do whatever’s the best for the family and all,” Cory said.
“Yeah, but this could mean you wouldn’t have to spend most of the fall sitting beside deer trail. You could even get to know the kids or something,” said Lena.
“I said I’d think about it.”
“You give us three months, the tools to excavate some cellars, and we get you sustainable crops.” Darryl paused to think for a split second. “Most plants take a long time to grow. Except tomatoes. In the right heating conditions, they are relatively fast. Do you like fresh tomatoes?”
“Hell yeah I do,” said Cory. The words came out clear despite a mouthful of the gooey hotdog.
Karl pondered Darryl’s rhetorical sleight of hand. They might be staying with Cory for a while after all. There was no better place Karl could think to go on the fallow planet. He noticed that his hand was resting on the gun on the table. And it was shaking a little. He withdrew it under the table, at a moment when everyone was paying attention to food.
“Okay then, imagine that. You feed us for two months, and then everyone feasts,” said Darryl.
“Two months?”
“We’ll help feed ourselves, but we gotta dig somewhere around here. You got a springhouse or something by the creek.”
“In fact, we do,” said Cory, with a small smile, “In fact, we do.”

the simple trap: 3

They slept through the next morning. There was no breakfast waiting for him when Karl rolled himself off the couch, and pulled his hoodie back on. He felt horrible.
Cory clanged through the front door, having heard Karl get up and yawn.
"Morning sunshine," he said.
Karl just looked up at him through his internal morning fog with squinty eyes.
“Look,” said Darryl, still lying on his sleeping bag, “There was one thing especially I was wondering about. You still got any guns? Because you don’t got enough trigger fingers here. The last time I was up, you had six semi automatic weapons or more. You didn’t sell them all did you?”
"Christ, man, where you just asleep?" said Cory. Karl was wondering the same thing.
"No, I've been awake for some time now. I figured I would take the time to think things through. And the gun question came to mind. I meant to ask you last night."
“I got them guns still, man. In fact, if Lena will get off her ass for a second, I’d show you where they were. You might need ‘em sooner than you think, and you’re right, I got more guns than bodies,” Cory said, moving towards the couch.
Lena shifted off the couch, and Cory laid his hand on one end of the back of the couch. “Mind giving me a hand,” he said.
Karl was standing, wondering whether they had any coffee. Vain hope. Cory was motioning him to help, so he moved to the other side, and said, “What exactly you want me to do? Sliding it forward?”
Cory demonstrated that he was going to tilt the couch forward. When they lifted it off the ground, Karl realized the front legs where hinged to the floor, and the pea green carpet had been torn out from underneath the couch. The bare plywood underneath was also hinged. Cory knelt and stuck a stubby finger in the hole. When he opened it up, a moth fluttered out. Karl flinched.
The hole opened up in the floor, making it seem to Karl like the whole trailer had been torn apart, with the couch, and the trap door tilted at crazy angles. It struck him how fragile the trailer was.
Cory started pulling out guns, stacking them against the underside of his couch. Karl stood there, staring at the fluffy little bags of spider eggs attached to the corners of the underside of the couch, watching the armory pile grow.
“So which one you want, man?” asked Cory. He was looking over his shoulder at Karl.
“Which one is easy to use?” asked Karl, keeping the hesitation out of his voice.
“Well, none of ‘em really. Cause none of ‘em are exactly military grade. I got most of these from local pawn shops. They had to sort of follow the law, so I got only one fully automatic, the rest are semi. So it doesn’t really matter, just pick what looks nice.”
“I don’t know. I’m choosing the gun that’s gonna kill me. I don’t know.” Karl said.
“Pistol then? May I cordially recommend the Sig Sauer 9 millimeter, compact edition?” Cory’s scorn rang off the plywood. He had done a good job of impersonating Karl’s light southern accent.
As Cory handed Karl the gun from the pile, he had a hard time moving his hand to accept it. He felt like it was going to snap on him somehow, bite him. He couldn’t shake the feeling. Then he composed himself, and wrapped his hand smoothly around the grip.
“Sure, man, sure. Got an extra clip?” said Karl, bravely.
“In case of extra bad guys?” said Cory.
“All right, never mind. It’s cool.”
“Just ribbing ya. They’re over in my bedroom, with all the ammunition, if I can find the goddamn lock.”
“You got a lot of experience shootin’ folks?” Cory was looking at Darryl.
“No, not really,” said Darryl.
“Well, that’s a shame, could use some old vet or something.”
“Nope, I was a gardener, not a fighter,” Darryl said.
“But you have seen some fighting, sure, right?”
“Well, yeah, I guess,” said Darryl. Karl marveled at how coolheaded Darryl could be. Only a bead of sweat belied the real story. Maybe it was time to shake him up.
“I saw him shoot a man once,” said Karl. He watched Darryl out of the corner of his eye. Darryl’s constantly anxious look didn’t change a bit.
“Awesome. Did he kill him?”
“Hell no,” spit Karl. He could see the muscles in Darryl’s jaw clench. Success.

the simple trap: 2

Karl watched the signs pass, many still legible, slumped in the back seat. It felt wonderful, after being forced upright, when his wrists were bound. He took off his glasses, and tried to clean them. It failed, he could still see the smudges, blurring things a little, so he pulled his hair back in a curly, short pony tail, and settled. They had driven past Charleston, down in its long valley, to a sign that said Amma and Clio. They drove around a huge pot hole right in the middle of the exit ramp.
“It hasn’t gotten worse than the last time I was here. That was four years ago, before the war,” Darryl said, shaking his head.
“Not surprising. This is West Virginia,” said Karl.
“The last time I drove down these back roads, my wife and children were alive. It was just after Cory and his wife Lena had their third daughter.”
“Cory?” said Karl.
“Cory is my former brother in law. He’s got guns,” Darryl said, glancing in the rearview at Karl. “I have a plan, Karl. I’ve got a couple plans. And now we’re here. So, can you help me? I understand that you might have some reasons not to help me. I know what happened at the Greenhouse was tougher for you than perhaps anyone. I didn’t know what else to do. Everything was out of control. But I’m gonna need you. We’re gonna have to cooperate. God, I’m sorry, Karl.”
Karl took a deep breath, his mouth open for a long moment, but then he closed his mouth, crushing molars together. Chemicals. They were following the tiny winding gravel along a creek. Karl saw a trailer in the distance.
“Where’d you get that picture?” Karl asked suddenly.
Darryl flipped down the visor, and pointed. This had been one of Luke’s cars. Suddenly the car was crushing Karl.
Darryl pulled the car into a gravel patch next to the trailer, and got out of the car. Karl wished he was back in college, sitting in a lecture hall, sipping a bottle of water. He would have graduated in the fall semester. That was a year ago. More. This was now August. He opened his door. It was cold under the trees.
Standing in the short driveway, Darryl expected Cory, his dead wife’s brother, to sort of jump out of the trailer. Their car had crunched into the driveway, surely enough noise to alert these backwoods boys that somebody had arrived unannounced. But there was no welcome wagon. Karl saw the worry written all over Darryl’s face.
Karl watched Darryl ring the doorbell. A woman opened the door. She was wearing an old tee-shirt that said “SCREW THE YANKEES”, and sweatpants, but she was the most beautiful thing Karl could remember ever seeing. She was big, tall, and Scandinavian. She had freckles, and blond curly hair, like a halo, cropped short along her jaw line.
“Oh, fuckin’ Christ,” she said, then leaned back inside the house, and shouted for Cory.
“Lena,” said Darryl. He stuck his hand out. She looked at it.

“Look, I’m not sure it would be real good for y’all to stay here. I mean, I’m not sure why you’d want to,” he said. His wry smile rose, then faded.
They were sitting around a little table in the single-wide trailer. Cory was pushing his chair back, raising up the front of the seat, flexing his legs, his shaved scalp pressing against the wall.
Karl rubbed the red welts on his wrists. The movement drew Cory’s eyes.
“And what the fuck happened to him,” said Cory, nodding his head towards Karl.
Karl looked at Darryl. Darryl looked at Karl. A long silence filled the room.
“Well, he bound my wrists with a ziptie,” said Karl.
More silence.
“Ya’ll can’t stay here. I don’t know what’s been going down, why you’re here, nothing. I can’t see why you think I’d let you. Damn, it’s just arrogant for you to come here bringing your bad shit riding up behind you.”
Karl was guessing that Darryl probably didn’t have a truckload of former brother in laws who collected guns that lived in the mountains, who were still alive. There would be no where else for them to go, except to try to stick it out together. At least if they could stick it out in this hell hole, he would have somebody else to talk to. Still Karl resisted the urge to appear engaged in the conversation, or to what was left of his hopes up.
“Look, Cory, we can provide protection and food. We got something you need. We got nothing following us. And I got something better even than that. But I can’t even let you know what it is, tell you let us stay a night here. I’m going to buy a night here with you with something you want,” said Darryl, wringing his hands under the table.
“What could you have that I want?” asked Cory.
“I’ve… Look, man. I’ve got a dime-bag for you if you let us sleep here. Let us talk to you. Let us in. A whole dime-bag,” said Darryl.
“Let me see it,” Cory said, narrowing his eyes.
“No. Let us stay. I give it to you in the morning,” said Darryl.
“I can’t believe you smoke,” said Cory, shaking his head.
“Cory, I never touch the stuff. But it trades for a lot these days, and… Let us stay. That’s all I’m asking,” Darryl said. At the end, his voice wavered just a hair.
Karl was pretty certain that whatever Darryl had planned was about to come crashing down. He glanced at Cory, and thought he saw the dawn of a smirk.
“You must think I’m a real son of a bitch. Man, I’m not really gonna turn you out to the bears. I never really liked you, but you’re family, more or less, yeah?” said Cory, leaning forward, smiling like a dog. “But let me tell you what. You bring down any kind of trouble, something bad coming after you, whatever you’re traveling this far for, and I’ll field dress you, then turn you over to whomever is interested. You got me?” Cory laughed.
“You got nothing to worry about, just gain. I got a little plan I want to let you in on. That’s why I came here. I knew this would be the only place where my little plan might have a chance of working,” said Darryl. He was a little giddy with relief.
Karl was wondering what Darryl had up his sleeves. He was beginning to wonder if Darryl really intended to set up another grow house like the one they had on the outskirts of Richmond. The thought made Karl’s mouth clench even harder. An annotated list of why it wasn’t going to work quickly compiled in his mind. But he didn’t say any of that. He just said, “I’m Karl, by the way,” and Cory crushed his hand, nodding his Mr. Clean skull.
“Cory, we’ve been up for about 24 hours. I am in need of some sleep, badly. Would you let us sleep here?”
“Course man. But the kids have the only spare room in the house. You guys won’t mind sleeping on the floor in here would you?”
“No, no, that sounds wonderful.”
“Hey, Lena, would you get out the old sleeping bags?” said Cory.

A few minutes later, Lena laid two ancient sleeping bags on the floor in the middle of the living room. Heinous smell expanded in the room. Darryl looked up at Karl, shrugged his shoulders, and grabbed one.

the simple trap: 1

As the ziptie began cutting into Karl’s wrist, he wondered if his situation, bound in the backseat of a car, might have its roots in philosophy, or the chemicals that make up emotion. Those chemicals, that philosophy might be the hinges, the teeth, the steel jaws closing down on him.
A wave of sickness crashed over him. “Darryl, stop the car, I’m going to throw up again,” he moaned. He had been violently ill into a plastic baggy on the floor. He had motion sickness whenever he didn’t drive.
Darryl kept his fists white against the wheel. Darryl had thick leathery hands, with calluses. He had been a gardener before the ice age started, before the bombs, before the crops failed, before the little wars.
“Darryl,” he half moaned, “Stop the car, I’m gonna be sick, Da-.” Karl didn’t make it to the end of his quasi-captor’s name. But it hadn’t been the first time he had begged to vomit on solid ground. He had been begging from the backseat for about an hour.
The plastic cutting into his wrists: that was not philosophical.
But in a way, he guessed, it was chemical. He wished he could have chuckled to himself. It would have made him feel a lot better. He couldn’t really move his diaphragm that well with his head between his own knees, sort of aiming at the bag, hitting his shoes.
“Okay, flashlights, batteries, three gallons of gasoline, matches, four lighters, a .22 pistol, five bullets,” Darryl said, running down the inventory of what they had in the car again. Darryl was trying to organize the things they could trade, the things that in his mind would save their lives.
“Darryl, stop doing that, please. You’re going to kill me with that shit. What are you obsessed about what we’ve got with us? Where are we going, Darryl?” Karl’s voice was hoarse. He was having a hard time not thrashing around hysterically in the backseat.
“Karl, it sounds terrible. I’m sorry. It sounds like it hurts, and I very much hope that is not the case. I am trying to figure out what we’re going to do. I have a good idea, but I can’t tell you yet. You know we can not stop though. They are going to catch us before the Virginia border if we do.”
Karl sat up in the seat in the back after some length of silence.
“Darryl, I am going to piss in your backseat. You can drive the rest of the way to wherever you’re going with the smell of piss clouding your mind. That’s choice A,” Karl said. He was furiously angry; he hadn’t considered saying it beforehand.
“Choice B is to cut me loose so I can piss in your water bottle. Choice C is to stop the car. Choice C is clearly the best answer,” Karl said, enunciating every word. He bit his lip, and arched his back against his hands behind him. “I’m just trying to roll with the punches here, okay? But man, I’m losing it back here. I just don’t know. You can’t keep me caged here like this.”
“We’re going to die, Karl. Choice C is death,” said Darryl.
“Is it certain death, man?”
“Well, no, but it lowers our chances of long term survival, don’t you think?” Darryl’s voice sounded like wood.
“There’s something wrong with you, and I’ve got to pee really badly. The ball’s in your court, Darryl. You’re going to have to either cut me loose, or unzip my pants, man,” said Karl, voice tightening with his bladder.
“So, an ultimatum, Karl? All right, we’re gonna stop the car. But we got a little ways to go before we can stop. I know there aren’t going to be that many people on the roads, but it would make sense to pull off on one of the exits. You’ve got to plan ahead,” Darryl glanced back at Karl in the seat, and grey light bounced off his thinning grey hair. He reached up and tapped the side of his head.
“But before we stop, I found this,” he leaned back, reached around the seat, and laid a wallet sized picture of Karl’s dad, Luke, in his lap.
It struck Karl like a blow. Karl recoiled, but he couldn’t pick it up, and it just stared at up at him, smiling a tight, toothy grin. It looked like the picture of a bad man. Maybe it was just Luke’s mustache that made him look like a murderer, like Stalin. He was standing there with Karl’s mom.
“Everyone who wears a mustache like that must be a murderer,” said Karl.
“Not today, Karl. We better just hope he’s dead.”
Karl watched Darryl’s eyes in the rearview. Darryl couldn’t hold his eyes from looking back, checking the rearview, over and over. Karl squirmed in the backseat. .
“I’m pissing now! I’m now pissing in your backseat.” Karl shook the picture off his lap. It fell face down into the plastic baggie.
“No, wait!” yelled Darryl, half over his shoulder, swerving at 95 mph. The car threatened to fish tail. “I’m pulling over now, I’m - now, don’t!”
They scraped along the fence, crunching through the gravel, halfway up Afton Mountain. Karl had not peed himself much, by the time Darryl got around to opening his door. The chilly air hitting his face as he pushed himself out of the door helped him stop the stream.
“Oh Jesus, unzip me, Oh Christ, pull it out, man, you got to.” Karl heard the snick of a knife.
“You die if you run, right? Not by my knife, but hunger,” said Darryl. There was no conviction in his voice. Karl’s hands were free.
The feeling rushed up inside his chest, sparkling in his guts, shivering up his spine. It was glorious. It was like pushing steely jaws back off his neck: the rabbit rises from the snapping metal.
The other side of the road dropped into the Shenandoah Valley.
Karl’s eyes slowly came to focus; he raised his head, while he zipped his pants. He was staring into the gaping maul of death. Where the fog was being burned off by the dim sun, he could make out tiny, distant buildings, collapsing, falling into themselves.
There were many short trees, and a few tall pines, invading like twisted armies, tearing up the perfect lines of farms that used to be. Everything human would be erased within a year. His eyes opened wider. It made him choke, made his eyes burn. He stood there, fog rolling across his feet, and rubbed his bloody wrists, getting it on his hands.
There was no escape from what he was looking at, no way out. All traps, every direction.
“A decade, that’s what science says. We have to survive, just one decade, then, we can set those lines aright,” said Darryl, pointing into the fog.
“What if they’re wrong, man. What if the coast of Africa isn’t enough salt to get the ocean density back up. Where the fuck are we going man?”
“Somewhere defensible and we’ll start all over again. Just you have to come with me, now. We have to get going. Okay?” said Darryl. “If it’s all right, would you sit in the back?”
“I see,” said Karl, and he pulled the door handle.