Pillbug
Should’ve left earlier. Car is making that sound again. I’m tired.
Thing is, they don't warn you. They turn up where they like, take their pick, and move on. Only thing to do is keep an eye on the news and head out soon as a report comes in. If it’s more than two- or three-day’s drive you may as well stay put because they don’t wait around. I’ve wasted too much gas—too much time—not to know that.
I hang right a few blocks from downtown and almost hop the curb when I find a spot. Douse the headlights. Recline. Listen to the radio for a while. All the local stations are talking about the lightshow, but I don’t want to hear it, bitter as I am. So I flip through until I catch coverage of, I don’t know what, a baseball game? It doesn’t matter. All I need is the sound of talking. If I’m smart, I’ll remember to shut them up before I doze off and run my battery down. But it wouldn’t be the first time I forgot.
All around the houses are dark. It’s three in the morning and distantly, quietly I hear a train whistle. Freight making its way faster than I ever will. I zip my coat to the chin and turn up the collar. Jam the last pair of handwarmers deep in my gloves. Turn off the heat and watch my breath clouding out in front of me, caught by the streetlamp. Not winter breath, high and solid and white, but spring breath. Pale steam in amber light.
….
The first lightshow was two years ago, off the coast of China. It hung around there for a few days (longest of any of them) and nearly got a war going. I remember this neighbor of mine—guy with stringy hair I used to buy weed off—going on and on about drones. But within the month things got too weird for the usual stories. They were everywhere, flashing in and out, sometimes in hundreds of places at once.
I was back in Indianapolis then, working my uncle’s landscaping business. Still telling people I’d go back for that last year of school. Eventually, the lights started taking people. Once, a plane went down in Nebraska or one of those other big, empty states. At first the news said equipment malfunction, but there weren't any bodies so everybody knew that was bull. Pretty soon after they downed and canceled most flights. I'd never been on a plane, and now it was too late.
….
I wake up.
Knocking next to my head. A badge. Blotchy red face.
I roll down the window.
“Sir,” he says. I can see a piece of myself in the passenger-side mirror, curled up around my stomach like an animal.
“What’s up?”
“No sleeping in cars.”
“Sorry. Didn’t know.”
“Sure. You have business around here?” He braces himself against the door. His arm is shaking.
“Yeah, my, uh—my brother. But I got into town late. He wasn’t up to let me in.”
“Sure. Well. Keep in mind the travel restrictions, right? You did hear about those?”
“Oh. Don’t go anywhere you don’t have lodging. But I do have it. Lodging, I mean.”
“That’s good. If it's true.”
“It is. I'll clear out soon.”
He backs off, boots slopping around in the river of melt outside my door. “Don’t let me catch you again. Wouldn’t be the first I’ve brought in this weekend.” I lose sight of him as he moves back along the car, hunkered down, vanishing into the milky glass.
Usually I'd've slept in, the ideal being to sleep days and walk nights. But that’s out of the question now; too many eyes on me. Going out after sundown is also illegal, of course, but there’s no enforcing that. Not with a town’s population doubled, tripled maybe, and everybody in the streets. They’d have to move every officer in the state around like whack-a mole. Not that they don’t try. I’m tired. Maybe to lots of people twenty-seven is young. It doesn’t feel like it. What the hell were you thinking, not booking a fucking room? Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.
….
Walking now. Ends of my pantlegs all wet with muck and crusted up with road salt and palms sticky from the dregs of the handwarmers. Everywhere there are leaves. Left over from last season’s raking and sapped of their reds and oranges long before the thaw, in soaking heaps along the road. The first daffodils are here, too, and just like my grandma’s. This could’ve been my town—if I wasn’t looking closely. I can remember her daffodils in a bed set off with old, rotted logs. I remember…pillbugs. Little grey pillbugs skittering when I turn the logs over. That wormy, musky smell in the air. Rain smell. Her in a candy-striped lawn chair with the nylon bleached and fraying. Tapping her cigarette in an ashtray full of rainwater. All of it is still there somehow, even if the edges are fuzzy.
You know, this might be the first time I’ve kept at something I’m so bad at. I haven’t even kept at a lot of stuff I was good at. People think I’m lazy, but would a lazy person live like this? I don’t think so. A lazy person would take real advantage of times like these; just kick back, and eat microwave dinners, and jack it. They wouldn’t be sleeping out in the cold. I imagine lazy people have smooth insides that hang loose. My insides are bunched up all the time. I can barely eat anymore.
That said, I find a place. A kind of breakfast place with laminated menus, where the air is so rich it turns your stomach. I’m keeping my head down because there are news people here. Some are wearing those bright-colored jackets with logo patches. Others aren’t wearing anything special, but you can tell anyway from how loud they talk. Something prickling at the edges of their eyes. At the corner of their lips.
A man plops down across from me in the booth, sliding right up against the window.
“Mind? Sorry. Place is packed.”
“No.”
“No? No like it’s fine or no like ‘leave me alone.’” He smiles a big one with his stained teeth.
“No, you can sit. Go ahead. Sorry.”
Whips off his hat and rakes thinning hair across a tight, shiny scalp. Leans in. Vibrating in his seat. Trying very hard to hit it off. Come across light and conversational.
“So, you here for the lights?”
“I don’t know anything about that. I’m here visiting my brother.”
“Is that so? Hope the traffic hasn’t been a problem for you. My crew had a hell of a time getting into town. Finding beds, too. Word is that California and some other states are gonna try to shutter hotels, restaurants—hospitality whatever—in places where the lights turn up. Try to cut down on this type of shit.”
“Crew? Are you like a reporter or something?”
“Yeah, the Dispatch. Isn’t it crazy? Never thought there’d be one so close. I’m scared, mind you. I mean, I never thought—it’s a big chance is all. I’m really curious about these moths. You know that’s what they’re calling themselves now? Some of them anyway.”
“Yeah, did you hear about that one who drove his truck through a barricade? Three people died in that.” Make it unpleasant. Put him off.
“Sure. Chicago, right? But these aren’t violent people. Mostly. I’m not curious in, like, a ‘look at the freaks’ way.”
“How are you curious then?”
“I don’t know. They're like storm chasers. Like they’re playing pretend scientist or something. But I don’t buy that. Something else going on with em.’ It’s a solid article, anyway.”
The waitress comes over and takes our drink orders. Coffee, no cream. And a water. Something else. Something else. Something else.
We talk for some time, actually. He tells me he interviewed some kid just half an hour back who looked “way too young to be doing this.”
"How is some kid just running around unsupervised? Under a curfew, no less?"
“I don’t know,” I say. And mean it. Plenty of people younger than me and smarter than me chase them. The lightshows are on social long before any broadcast people pick them up; long, long before the newspapers do.
“You see that?” He’s showing me these pictures. People showing off the bruises they’d gotten from cops in Philly. No live rounds there yet, but who can tell when the claws will come out. Things are getting uglier the longer it goes on. The clearer we all see that things aren’t going back.
“Nah, I don’t have a profile.”
“Seriously? I would’ve thought—never mind. Actually, maybe that’s better. Stuff rots your brain.” He’s busy cleaning some stray egg off his watch so I take another bite of toast. Hate people watching me eat. I don’t even have a phone anymore, but I don’t tell him that.
“Yeah, I’ve got a profile for work. Awful. Used to be that when someone wanted to complain at me they’d have to leave a message at the office. But now? Anyway, there’s this lady my friend interviewed who thinks she has some kind of thing going on with our visitors. She’s got thousands of people following her on—.” He snaps his fingers, eyes on the ceiling. “Whatever. Anyway—she thinks you can call them down, with intentions.”
“Like, just wanting them badly enough?”
“I guess. Maybe pass me some of that creamer? Thanks. And yeah, it’s anyone’s guess. Probably just trying to sell vitamins or something.”
….
It was a bitter day in January when the curfew came down. Only a few months after flights were canceled. I’d quit coming to work before they pivoted to snow removal and I’d basically stopped answering calls. Hey kid? You know, it’s pretty shit of you to just drop off like this. And it’s not even about the replacement; already got one. You know how worried your parents are? They keep calling, and what am I supposed to tell them?
My roommate, Kev, was late getting back from work so I held off on starting dinner and sat around, half-watching the news. The bags under the governor’s eyes. Humvees idling in the road. Boots splattered with road crud. A news panel with a meteorologist, an aerospace engineer, and some natsec guy. The meteorologist apologizing, saying “we just don’t have any solid data to predict these things, or even say for sure what they are.”
I almost miss him coming in. “Hey, you hear they’re not letting people out after eight? Is your store just gonna close early or what?” Nothing. He tries throwing his coat over the back of the couch, but it slides down to the floor in a wet pile. Without stopping, without even looking, he heads up the stairs. Must’ve been a bad shift, right? But no, that wasn’t it. Kev’s sister had went for a weekend trip at her boyfriend’s, parents’ cabin and never came back. Parents hit up her school two weeks later and no dice.
Are you comfortable assuring the American people that these, uh, events, are not of military origin? Yes, I can assure them that these are not of foreign—domestic, for that matter—military construction. Well, that begs the question, then, of where all these people are going? You know, I think that, um, strikes our viewers as potentially hostile activity.
I could hear him from downstairs. “How should I know?! She’s an adult, isn’t she? She can skip if she likes. Probably just fucking around. Like last time.” He took a long shower that night and went straight to his room after.
….
Something would’ve felt bad about going back to the car. Instead, I find a bench downtown and work on my notes. Doug, the man from the breakfast place, gave me his card and a pocket notepad with the name of his job on it. Friendly? Or maybe I just look like a kid. A tall, gaunt, slumped-in kid. In it, I begin to work up to-dos and suggestions for myself. The waitress’ pen is low on ink, but if I press hard enough the letters come out in fits and starts. Number one is to check my oil, because the car is making that sound again.
Number two is all about getting up to speed. Lots of things aren’t in my life because I could never have had them, or never did, or they would stick me down when I need to keep moving. An apartment? That would cost rent and rent’s money you can’t spend on gas and gas I need to keep moving. So you can understand my reasoning for not having those things. But a phone? A person in my position should really have a phone. I wouldn’t have to rely on the radio and library computers, then. It would also be a good idea to get some canned food; restaurants use too much money and time and talking.
A woman is crossing the lot near me, one hand busy with her daughter and the other lugging what might be groceries.
“Help with that?”
Her eyes dart over me, up and down.
“We’ll be fine. Thank you.”
Jesus. What do I look like? I head over to this little clothing boutique a few stores down. Wouldn't it be weird just to use their mirror and leave? Without trying something on? But it's a women’s store full of things I shouldn't wear, so I just grab some sunglasses and take those to the changing room. Nobody seems to notice, but I feel my throat tightening anyway. It’s hard knowing how to act anymore. We’re all so out of practice.
Honestly, I don’t look all that bad. Shirt’s wrinkly, but that’s what you get for wearing what you slept in. I do keep clean. Wear deodorant. Even when I sleep in the car. Little things I hold myself accountable for. After Kev left it got hard to do that. Or pay rent. But it got easier to be light and fast. It gets so easy it’s scary. And even then—not enough.
….
Hey bud, haven’t heard from you in a while. Your mom and I just want you to know that if things didn’t work out with your uncle you still have a place here. All we’d have to do is get the boxes out of your room. Is everything okay? Wh–what’s that honey?—your mom says she found this big box of your old school papers you might want to go through. It’s getting pretty crazy out there, isn’t it? You wouldn’t believe the Zimmermans. They actually headed up to see family in Michigan and we haven’t heard from them in weeks. Anyway, please, please don’t leave us in the dark. Don’t mind your uncle. Anyway, room’s hear if you want it. You know we love you!
End of messages. Press one to rep—
“Are you getting those?”
“I don’t think so. I do like them. But I already have a pair. I do like them, though.”
….
So far, there's no way of telling how the lights work. Random? Maybe. Planned? Maybe? Somewhere in between? Anybody's guess. Could be that they chose where to go and who to lift a long time ago. If that's the case I'm wasting my time, I guess.
When I was twelve or something, maybe, I used to ride around at night on my bike. Sometimes with a friend, sometimes alone. One night, alone, I rode out so far on a county road that there were no more cars. I laid down and stretched out against the asphalt. Little shards of rock bit at my palms and wrists, and the asphalt was still warm from the sun beating on it all day. It was a bean year, not a corn year, and above their leaves the fireflies wheeled around.
It was so dark you could see the galaxy’s long arm stretching out into the black, pointing or beckoning. You never realize how much is out there until the lights are turned off. A murmuring glow older than any car or road, or the town behind me. Waiting, all along. Looking at them is almost like sinking. Holding your breath until things get quiet and still.
….
It’s getting near dusk.
There are people all around now. A policeman on a megaphone announces that the main roads in and out of town will be barricaded; anyone with no good business being here should get out before the arrests begin. A sweat-smelling man next to me throws a cup of soda at him and is brought down and his hands tied behind his back. That eager, animal smell is everywhere. I remember the bus jerking under me on school trips, sweat gluing my pale legs to vinyl. Crowding into the basement when the sky bruises and buckles and the leaves show their silver underbelly. Something is going to happen. Something, anything must happen.
….
“I’m sure she’ll turn up. I used to be like that. Just disappear for a while.” Cold comfort, I know. Kev also knows, and says nothing. He says very little anymore. For the past month I have only seen him when he crosses from the front door to the stairs, eyes straight ahead. Something must be different today. He has lingered in the living room with me. Heated up some rice. Pretended to watch the news sputtering on in loops. Waiting, I guess, for me to cross over.
“You ever do something like that? When you were a kid. Just gone for six whole weeks?”
“No. I guess I never really did that kinda thing.”
He turns and I see his wide, wet eyes. He picks at his arm.
“You know what? If they’d stop running around trying to corral everyone maybe they’d actually get somewhere. Like, they can’t find her because they’re too busy keeping track of everybody else.” He wipes the snot away from his nose and keeps chewing. It takes him a long time to chew, like he doesn’t really want the food to go down. “Like, why even fuck around with that? They can’t stop them, you know? What a waste.”
I put my hand on his shoulder and find it stiff, almost too stiff to be flesh. He gets up, eventually. He’ll be gone in another week. I’ll help his father carry out the very same couch we’re sitting on, leaving wounds in the thin carpet. His father will look down and toe at them, ask how I’m holding up while Kev finishes packing. Then, they’ll shrink away down the street. With half the furniture gone the house seems to balloon around me, a too-big prop I can only hide in until I'm discovered.
….
Night is here. The streetlamps are lit, but towering sodium lamps have outdone them, igniting hundreds of teeming heads. Underfoot are leaves and trash and discarded signs. A carpet of soiled cardboard and tracked-in filth. They have stumbled across the barricades. They stand on cars, mailboxes, and stolen lawn furniture. A group of ten or more have climbed atop the diner with a case of beer and they hurl their empties down at the cops. A beanbag hits one in the chest and he is still grinning when he falls and his leg breaks under him. I am in the crowd, and they brush me with their shoulders when they pass, but I am not part of all this. The gap between us has only, temporarily, shrunk.
The sky above us is a flat blackness. More than clouds. The light which presses so hard into us just can't make a dent in it. Those sodium floods cower, feral and small, having met and recoiled from the edge of their territory. More police roll into the intersection with some kind of truck but they, too, shrink back. We can try, but it is out of our hands. Something, anything.
“Hey! You.”
Doug is here again, hat long gone.
“Just visiting your brother, right? Knew you were holding out on me. You seeing this shit?”
“Sure.”
“Well?!”
“Not tonight.”
“What are you talking about? Come on. Still time to talk before the show, right? What brings you?”
“Not tonight. I know it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I should’ve moved earlier.” There is something warm on my cheek. Against the bridge of my nose. In the hollow of my neck. He looks sorry. “I should’ve moved, but I’m not fast enough. You can only go so fast.”
He does not stop me when I leave. Over and behind us, the show is beginning. The lights glint on and begin to school. They dip and weave, and when they dip the whole dark of the sky comes down with them. Pulled downward and inward. A tendril seeking its bride.
….
“Can we go to the pool?”
“Pool isn’t open yet sweetie—till June. Anyway, I don’t believe your parents would want you there with only me to watch over. You gave them quite a scare last time.”
Grandma. Tapping away the ash. Rubbing her knee, and then her calf, blotched with age.
“What’ve you got there?”
A pillbug, is what I have. I have stolen its cover and exposed it to the sodden, grey sky. It has frozen in place. Is it waiting for me to make some kind of decision? I wonder how often it sees any light at all. I pick it up delicately and it curls in on itself, in surrender. A small life giving itself over to chance.
…..
The people surge forward and backward, unsure of their want. And anyway, it doesn't matter. The tendril found whoever it was looking for.
Somewhere, distantly, a gun fires. And somewhere, something is on fire. The warm stings my eyes and glues them shut. My legs carry me back to the car, over something pale and bent-in on the ground. And I drive. Up in the grass around the barricade. Out and way.
I drive in no particular direction for no particular amount of time. If the car makes any noise I don't notice. My limbs quietly perform what little movement is required while mind and stomach turn over and over and over.
Above, the dark breaks up. Becomes layered and familiar. When color begins to show through I pull off at a rest stop.
The salt of my face runs into my mouth. There is a shred of daffodil on my front, left tire. My handwarmers, damp with sweat, are still in my gloves. Pull them out.
I am crying and the sky, pink and open, will sometime soon be blue. And I will get new handwarmers. And I will wipe off my face. And if I am not too old, too tired, too slow, I will turn back on my radio and listen for them.
I have been picked over. This time.