Red Memories

He’d long stopped crying. That was for the saddest things.

“Who are you! What’s happening?” She screamed, writhing against her restraints, her eyes twitching between his face and the car mirror. Three days ago she could still remember his face, but now? A whistle pierced the air of the burnt down city, marked by a new streak of red smoke in the sky.

“Shhh. It will be over soon.” He covered her mouth, holding it against her wide eyed objections. He was lucky the windows were glassless, one less thing to worry about. At his touch her eyes rolled back as her breathing returned to normal. He counted, letting each number pass as another silent prayer. Ten seconds. A boom in the distance marked another bomb, vibrating the metal shell around them. He kept counting. Eleven, twelve, thirteen. With a crack the van launched up in the air and back down along with everything else in the ruined town. He wrapped an arm around her frail form and another around one of the seats, ignoring her whimper as they were thrown around inside the old car like bull riders at a rodeo. It pitched up again and again, finally settling on its side.

“You okay?” He asked, her blank stare the only response he needed.

“Ten more miles, love. We’re already halfway through south county if you can believe it.” He shielded his yellow eyes with bony fingers, straining to make out the street between the collapsed buildings.

She didn’t respond, and he knew better than to expect her to. But he owed it to her to talk, at least a little. It would make all this easier.

He pulled her creaky cot out of his poor excuse for a shelter, laughing at his jumpiness. What good would the wheelless camper have been against one of their bombs? Still, he would do it again in a heartbeat, something he was beginning to think were running in short supply.

His old bones groaned as he laid her down, raw skin peeking out from under the ropes around her wrists and ankles. It was going to be a long day. His fingers went to adjust his foil helmet out of habit, the worn leather clasp something he was particularly proud of. Even he didn’t expect the fold to work, but in the end it was the one thing that made the difference.

But instead of the clasp all his fingers found was open air.

He shot back to the camper, crashing into the steps as he fumbled with the rail. A small, crumpled piece of tin foil with a leather strip lay in a crushed pile on the floor. He snatched it up, pulling it back apart and dropping his heart into his stomach. A two inch gash marked where his head hit the wall. He patched it with tape in an instant and smashed it back on his pounding head, his mind racing.

It had only been off for a minute, that wouldn’t make a difference right?

His hand started shaking, a rogue tear forming in his eye. They were so close, why now? What would she do without him?

He took a deep breath, they could still make it. And he could be cured just like she could. She was with him, and that’s all that mattered.

Her helmet was loose like it always ended up. He tightened it, avoiding the ache forming in his chest. If only she’d worn it like he did, or like he used to. But of course not, she was stubborn as a mule, doing the opposite of anything he told her to. Usually it was for the better.

Wrinkled, coffee colored eyes stared back at the sky with an unblinking resignation. She was as beautiful as ever, the reddish hue of her skin and perfectly arched nose the envy of many a young woman. He still couldn’t believe she chose him all those years ago, when Ben Abbot had her in his sights.

A hot wind blew rogue strands of hair out of her loose bun, laying them against sightless eyes. He brushed them off, tying them together once more, marveling at how the grays were winning the war against the browns at long last. Something he couldn’t have imagined when he’d first given her that heart shaped locket, even now clinging to her chest like an old friend.

Their fire was small enough to heat the small pot of mint tea. Smokeless of course. He used to not risk even that much, but today was a special day.

“I never understood why you liked mint so much.” He said, mixing the last of their sugar with the steamy liquid, “Its like drinking toothpaste, and there isn’t even caffeine to make it worthwhile.” He chuckled to himself, “Not that what I said ever changed your mind.”

“Where’s Harold?” She said, tugging at the ropes.

He took out a tin spoon, dipping it in the tea and blowing off steam from the top, “Drink up.”

He held the back of her head, pouring a spoonful into her open mouth, letting it dribble down the sides of her wrinkled cheeks and onto her favorite blouse.

“Ah! Look what I’ve done!” He cursed, using the patched edge of his shirt to soak up the driblets around her mouth.

“There we go. Now, all you have to do is relax, we will be there in no—“ He hacked, drops of blood disappearing into the red floor.

She didn’t move, and he didn’t bother to finish his sentence, a subtle chill working its way up his spine. One he pushed down before it had a chance to reach his sense of alarm.

He took the edges of the stretcher in his calloused hands, throwing a makeshift harness over his broad shoulders. Curtain rods and bicycle parts were screwed together in a way she’d be proud of, another one of his handy inventions. Even so, the bicycle wheels he’d salvaged fell off yesterday, leaving his wife’s feet dragging along the ground, each step biting more bits from the heels of her boots. Not that it would bother her, she stopped feeling pain a week ago. One of the few blessings that came with the sickness.

He always thought it would be bombs, or famine or nukes that got them in the end. But the invaders didn’t have to try nearly that hard. After the fanatics, after all the shelters and food shortages, the only thing they had to target was their memory. Signals from their satellites fuzzed your brainwaves and poof, you forgot everything. Cars crashed, people starved, and friends attacked each other. Of course they still used the bombs, though he could never understand why and didn’t want to try. They were animals. Monsters who wanted what he already had.

With a grunt he started the lone walk out of town. Much of it was quiet, save the rush of the wind picking up amber dust, whipping it into small devils that circled and taunted him. He ignored the ache in his shoulders, instead noticing the pleasant shade of the sun through the smog or the funny patterns of dust thrown about by people’s feet.

“Remember when we let Ben use the mower?” He said, passing a pile of torn papers caught on some rebar. She stayed quiet, her breathing hard to hear over the crunch of his feet. “Poor kid ran over his wallet, covered our lawn in his month’s savings. And then you had to go and pay it all back to him, no matter what I said.”

“Where’s daddy?” She said, voice fainter than a few minutes before. “I want to go home.”

“Soon enough, love.”

She groaned, twisting against the restraints as he kept walking, clenching his teeth and trying to sing an old bar song in his head to drown her out. He’d long stopped crying. That was for the saddest thing, and he had yet to see that.

__________________

“… Then after I fixed the heater the damn water tank bro—” He stopped midstep, his eyes drawn up from his feet for the first time in hours. His chapped lips opened without a sound as his eyes fell on the town, just peeking over the sandspit road. A dozen picture perfect houses crested a red, dusty hill, picket fences stained with mildew from years of watering. The national flag waved high above, filling his chest with a pride he’d nearly forgotten.

“You’ll never guess what I just found.” He couldn’t stop smiling, the creases in his leathery cheeks aching under the unusual expression.

She was quiet, not bothering to waste breath. Good, he thought, save it for your recovery.

He followed the footsteps through the red dirt, each step faster and lighter than the last, every crunch of the sand like the drumbeats of victory.

Until his feet began to slow as if on their own, like on their first date when he forgot his wallet. He stared at them in disbelief, then back to the town.

A town?

What were they doing here?

The thought flashed in his mind like a flare. Doing here? Of course they were… they were… damn it what had they come for? His back hurt. A lot.

He pulled something soft yet heavy off of his shoulders and set it on the ground. That was better.

With a yelp he jumped back, why was there a body on the ground? He crept closer, letting his eyes run on her hair pulled back into a bun, a rusted heart shaped locket around her neck. She was beautiful. Why would someone tie her up? He checked her pulse, but she was cold and empty as his cooler in the summertime. Probably dead for hours. He pulled the locket off, clicking it open, maybe it would tell him who it was.

A couple, young and too in love, stared back at him.

Where was Eres? She would know what to do right now. He touched his head out of instinct, leather straps tight. Too tight to be comfortable.

He took off his helmet, turning it over in his blistered hands “What in the world is this?” Foil flashed in the fading sunlight, a large tear crossing where his forehead would have been.

What an odd thing.

He dropped it on the ground next to the crumpled body. He had to get away from here. He didn’t like dead things, not since his sister put that dead lizard in his pajamas.

With a sigh he sat down in the dust, rubbing the sores across his shoulders. Where did these come from? And where was his bed? He would love to sleep right now.

Two people, human people, approached him. They seemed fuzzy, and nothing like the pictures. Why had he been so scared of them? A small tear escaped his eye, falling down his cheek and into the red earth.

_______________________

A man in a blue uniform nudged the kneeling martian with a rifle, still grasping a heart shaped pendant in white knuckled hands. The reddish creature swayed before mumbling in a language he couldn’t understand.

“I told you it would work.” The man said, adjusting an electronic instrument on his wrist, “A rumor was really all it took. They’ll come straight to you.”

“I owe you a drink.” Said a lean woman in a blue uniform, writing something on a holopad. “How many have come today?”

“Over a hundred.”

“Then it’s worth repeating. I’ll tell headquarters to make the same rumor near the other cities. And of course I’ll give you some credit.”

“Thank you m’lady.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“See you on the U.S.S. Lincoln?”

She nodded.

The woman walked back into her ship just as the man cocked his rifle and pointed it at the small, reddish creature sitting in front of him, its eyes as soft and wet as his tea stained shirt.