Flyover Country

We all got used to the waves. Learn to feel ‘em coming like veterans sense the rain in old wounds. Can’t rely on your ears; wait till you hear ‘em and it’s too late. But just because you're used to something, don't mean you gotta like it.

Homestead used to be Boomtown. Folks drifted in from all over. First stragglers were ones who couldn’t get in the bunker downtown, but soon we had them from all the surrounding counties, even some from a couple states over. Benny-boy hightailed it all the way from Illinois with his auntie, but that’s as far as anyone came. No one got too far after the waves picked up steam.

Now it’s just me and Lyla. Her leg don’t work no more, so she don’t get out much. And that’s just as good. Not much out there anyway. I set up the raincatchers in her area. She likes that, let's her watch me work. She calls me handsome. I say ain’t no one to compare me to. She said that don’t matter. She says I shine all the same.

Homestead used to be a proper building, four sides and all that, but there was no stopping the foundation from slipping once it started. Ain’t much more now than a deluxe blanket fort; a sunken roof with crumbled shingles resting over the last few rotten support beams and those are bout to go too.

Strong breeze ought to do it.

I wait till she’s sleeping to work on the logs. She don’t like it. Didn’t like it when Lenny kept them neither, but it’s important. Even if there ain’t nothing to note, someone’s gotta keep a record. Hell, maybe someday it might even make a lick of difference, but I don’t know if them what started the waves are even around anymore.

Figure they left on the arks, looking to live the high-life in their rocket-fueled resorts. Lenny used to say he done the math on that and reckoned they’d be fit to starve or tear each other apart after a couple months. Not sure I believe that, but it’s small comfort picturing those hoity-toity bastards turning on each other the way they turned on us.

We ain’t got much down here, but least we got ground to run to.

I mark the rainfall, the weather, if I saw any critters. But what’s important are the waves. They been getting smaller and coming less often. When it all went down, they looked like thunderstorms, billions of the damn things whirring about below the clouds. Now, it’s just flocks or pairs of ‘em, most missing propellor blades, bobbing and weaving like it’s a struggle.

I’m waiting for the day when they all drop. When their charging stations crumble to rot. When the satellites coordinating their patterns fall out of the sky or fuck up and send ‘em to the bottom of the ocean or…

We’ve been here before.

We had a period where not a one was seen. It was a year, I think, give or take. Homestead got comfortable. We had a garden, a little market, a playground for the little uns. But that was strategy. The first waves were predictable because it was a numbers game. They knew that many of us couldn’t hide or keep out of view for long.

Mowed us down where we stood. Shot up vehicles till they exploded. Filled holes in houses, blew up gas stations, perforated water towers, brought hell down over the bunkers so the poor fools stuck inside couldn’t even open the hatch with a stick of dynamite.

Now the waves come staggered or not at all. They come in the dead of night or early morning. They come sideways, longways, even seen some fly down from cloud cover to surprise us.

Been three weeks since the last wave. At least they gave me enough time to drag the bodies to the treeline and give them proper burials. Not quite six feet under, but at least enough of a dirt blanket to keep ‘em comfortable.

Lyla asked about the smell. I lied. She knew, knew we was smelling our friends, our family.

I don’t mind it. I take it in first thing in the morning. Reminds me of what I got coming to me.

Reminds me that I still got some life in this little body of mine and when that’s gone, then everything else is, fair or foul, so I best get to getting on with it.