Work Text:
July 2023
The sun beamed down on the open plains. White feathery clouds stretched across the wide, deep blue sky in long lines, reaching from all the way beyond the mountains to the west to the east where they grew fainter and dissolved over the foresty hills in the east.
The ragged peaks of the Grand Tetons mountain-range were still covered in white in large parts. The snow didn’t melt up there until mid-July – if at all.
On the left of the half-overgrown road a creek meandered through the high grass, that rippled and waved in the breeze like an ocean. The rustling of the grass blended with the gurgling of the water rushing over the rocky creek bed and the songs of the birds.
Joel's horse tried to make a beeline for the juicy grass along the creek – for the third time today – and Joel counteracted it by holding the reigns tighter and giving the horse a command with a gentle squeeze of a thigh. The horse snorted in protest and shook his head, stirring up some flies that had settled on his chestnut-colored coat, but it followed his command easily and fell back in line behind the others.
Joel was on a mission north with Tommy and four of his guys to look for supplies. They usually didn’t venture out far anymore, but the radio and the radio tower slowly started showing signs of wear and tear and most ranger stations were equipped with radios and antennas that could be a replacement or cannibalized for parts.
Some of the men spoke quietly amongst themselves but Joel was comfortable riding in silence. His brother Tommy rode beside him but seemed to be content with not talking as well.
Joel’s eyes drifted to the vast grass plains to the east. Somewhere in the distance roamed a herd of Bison, without human intervention the only thing that kept their numbers in check were the wolves and cougars and the occasional Grizzly bear. One of those Bison cows would feed the town for a few days and provide leather. Joel caught himself wondering if hunting one every now and then would be feasible.
The path led them over a dried-out creek bed and - after a three-way junction – past a little wooden building on a traffic island in the middle of the road. The windows were broken, the roof caved in, and it was half overgrown with moss and weeds. The first sign of former civilization after miles of a landscape that – barring the remnants of paved road – looked like it must have looked centuries ago.
From there on the road was lined with conifer trees, small saplings filling in the gaps between the older more mature ones. After a while RV campers started to appear along the roadside half overgrown by the surrounding wilderness abandoned by the wayside, the first eerie reminders of what happened twenty years ago.
More and more RVs and campers appeared along the wayside between the undergrowth and conifer like ghosts from a different world, pale, the colors and logos washed out and faded.
“This all here used to be a national park. The Grand Tetons,” Tommy, who had noticed Joel's expression, said.
Harley, the grey bearded leader of this expedition signaled with his hand and the small group led their horses to follow him off the main road down a smaller, more overgrown one. A tall post with some wooden plates nailed to it – an old guidepost. Some of the signs were broken, had fallen off or were so weathered the letters on them were barely legible anymore.
Joel letting his eyes drift over what clearly used to be a huge former campground to their left. Nature had reclaimed a lot of it, but the traces of the frantic departure of the campers were still visible. Towels, clothing, dishes strewn about, like people dropped them wherever they stood. He spotted some colorful tent panels, tattered and torn, upturned camping gear and empty coolers – the local wildlife had probably done the rest, sifting through the deserted clutter in the years since.
“Why is there no infected?” Joel asked, looking at the numbers of tents and RVs. There must have been hundreds of people here, thousands maybe.
“The contaminated food never made it here. Something about the long distances. And everyone who brought food with them bought it long before the infected stuff hit the shelves. When news of the outbreak reached here the rangers evacuated the parks.” Tommy’s answered.
Joel nodded. He had noticed the absence of cars as well.
“People left everything behind except their cars, trying to get out fast, but …,” Tommy interrupted himself. He didn’t have to say it. They all had seen the cities south of Jackson. Most likely very few of them made it very far. The irony of the evacuation was that they all would have been safer here than anywhere else.
One of the parts of the campground showed signs of a fire many years ago, some burned out RVs and tents and scorched trees that were now slowly being replaced by new growth. Maybe a campfire that got out of control in the chaos of the evacuation.
The memories of the chaos of that night were still so vivid in Joel's memory he could almost see what could have gone down here. People rushing to their cars, pushing others out of the way, stumbling, falling over. Someone accidentally knocking a camping chair into a campfire, flames starting to eat the fabric of the camping chair, going higher, consuming a second nearby chair, jumping to the awning of the camper, the camper itself ...
“There it is!”
Harley pointed at something about half a mile ahead between the trees, a dark wooden structure of some sort and the small group started heading for it.
Upon closer examination the building was in pretty rough shape. Most of the windows were broken, dark gaping holes in the wooden front, staring at them like creepy eyes. Glass shards were strewn on the ground both on the inside and outside of the building.
Harley was the first to dismount his horse and hitch it to a piece of railing of the buildings front porch that had not been destroyed and the other men followed suit.
Guns drawn the men made their way up to the large front door. It had been broken down what looked like a long time ago. Huge claw marks on the wood and strewn about candy wrappers, chewed through and full of bite marks indicated bears had explored the place.
Harley made a hand gesture towards the others, telling them to be quiet and vigilant, while they cleared the building. But in the end, everything turned out to be abandoned, save some squirrels and mice that scattered when the men entered the rooms.
After securing the building the group split up, Harley and another man went off to find the radio, Tommy announced he was checking for any left-over medical supplies and the other two men made off trying to find any remaining food. Staying behind was Joel who promised to keep an eye on the horses just outside the door. There were mountain lions in the area who would no doubt consider a horse a welcome, easy meal.
While he waited Joel wandered about the dimly lit room, that at some point had been part gift shop. The shelves on the walls once held books but most of them had been knocked over and torn up by the rodents. Remnants of plush animals were scattered on the floor, half covered with dead leaves blown in from outside, most of them torn to shreds by the animals too, probably for nesting material.
He kicked away some dirt with his foot, sifting through the muck without aim, when something caught his eye. A rectangle that stuck out of the dirt and dust, small, but colorful, maybe the size of what a credit card used to be. He looked closer and realized it was a picture – no, pictures – several of them on that small surface. He bent down, frowning, and picked it out of the dirt, wiping the surface clean with his fingers.
It was a fridge magnet.
The pictures showed old faithful, grand prismatic spring and the famous lower falls and at the bottom in bold letters it read ‘YELLOWSTONE”
The memory hit him right out of the blue, like a punch to the gut and he almost doubled over.
“I’ll put it right here on the fridge, dad, so you don’t forget it.”
Paper rustling. The clack of a magnet latching on to the surface of a fridge. The smell of coffee and eggs.
“Okay!” he heard himself reply with a laugh.
“Dad! I mean it! You can’t forget this one, it’s important.”
Sarah leaning against the countertop, crossing her arms in front of her chest, giving him a stern look. The morning light flooding through the window landing on her face, her unruly curls.
Joel shook his head trying to drive the pictures out of his mind. His hand closed forcefully around the magnet, so the edges dug deep into his flesh.
His legs suddenly buckled beneath him, and he collapsed to his knees and drew in a sharp, audible gasp, only now realizing that he had stopped breathing. His head was pounding in his chest, the blood rushing in his ears. He had blocked out this memory for so long that it almost physically hurt, now that it was coming back.
Fridge magnets – from every place they went to they had to bring one. She would not relent until he bought her one and then carry it home where she would proudly put it on their fridge with the other ones like a trophy.
He swallowed hard, trying to wrestle down that lump that had started to form in his throat accompanied by a sharp burning in his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing back the tears that started welling up. He could not start crying. Not here. Not now. But it didn’t matter.
A sound escaped his throat, half sob, half wail, that he tried to stifle with his fist, the magnet still firmly in his clutch. So many emotions broke their way inside him this moment. Emotions he had pushed aside and hidden away from himself for so long, wrestled down and pent away for so many years because he needed to push on, keep going, survive, keep fighting. First for Tommys sake, then for Tess. But despite him entombing those emotions deep inside they never left him, never lost their intensity and now came back unrelentingly.
He felt the first tear fall from his eyes onto his hand, then another – and another, until there were too many to count anymore, while for the first time in a long time – maybe ever – he allowed himself to mourn, allowed himself to finally feel the pain and the grief and the loss and he cried like never in his life before
When the sobs finally subsided, and he was able to catch his breath again he looked up. Face still wet, eyes still cloudy from the tears, he saw a figure quietly sitting by the far wall of the room, watching him.
It was Tommy.
Joel wiped his eyes with his sleeve and undid the bandana around his neck to use as a handkerchief to blow his nose and cleared his throat.
“When did you walk in?” Joel croaked; his voice hoarse from crying, trying to
“Just a few minutes ago,” his brother calmly replied.
Joel picked himself up from the floor, his knees aching from kneeling on the ground. He dusted off his pant legs and stuffed his now dirty handkerchief in his pocket.
Suddenly he remembered the fridge magnet that he was still clutching in his fist. Carefully he loosened his grip around it and looked down on it resting in his palm. The colorful little pictures, the white letters. In his anguish he had squeezed the little object so hard it had left red imprints on his palm.
When he looked back up, he saw Tommy staring at it too.
“I … I just …" Joel attempted to speak but failed. He had now words to even begin to convey what had just happened. But the pained look in Tommy's eyes told him that he didn’t have to.
“I know.” Tommy said quietly. “I see things that remind me of her all the time.”
Joel swallowed hard, fearing for a moment, that the tears would return. But they didn’t. It was as if he had shed all the tears he had in him, but at the same time it felt oddly cathartic.
Joel took a deep breath before finally looking around the room. Nobody else was there but Tommy and himself.
“The other guys are outside, loading the stuff we found on the horses. They didn’t come in here.”
Tommy didn’t need an explanation why Joel was looking around, he knew his brother well enough. Joel nodded, relieved that nobody else had seen him like this.
“They wouldn’t judge, you know?” Tommy added, “Everyone in Jackson has lost someone and had a moment like this at some point.”
Again, Joel just nodded. Tommy didn’t have to say it, but Joel knew what his brother wanted to say. You would know that if you bothered to get to know people, if you would let other people in.
Sometimes he envied Tommy for being the well-adjusted man he had become. He had found a place where he not only felt physically safe but emotionally. He had found a way to open up to the people around him, whereas he, Joel, had been shutting everyone out for twenty years.
He had walled himself off from the world like he had walled off his feelings inside of him, kept everyone at a distance after Sarah’s death, even Tommy. He had shut his feelings off, his compassion for other people. He had hurt others because despite him trying to lock it all away he had been hurting. He had taken his anger at the world out on the innocent people they encountered, justified his deeds by reasoning that nobody had shown his daughter any mercy either, so why should he?
He had driven away his own brother over this and held Tess at arm's length because it was easier to shut her out too and not let himself feel. And today all of his walls had come tumbling down by the sight of a little fridge magnet.
He looked at his palm again, where he still held the innocent object that had set all of this off and suddenly the memory of Sarah’s magnet collection made him smile. He gave the magnet a little squeeze and then safely stowed it away in one of the pockets of his Jeans.
He would hold on to this in memory of Sarah. Maybe he would put it on the fridge in his house in Jackson. Maybe he would even tell Ellie about Sarah one of these days, when he could face the memories of her short life.
He didn’t have any illusions that it would be easy - it would not. It was going to be painful and hard, but it was time for him to start dealing with his memories and his grief.
Taking a deep breath again he squared his shoulders and gave his brother a quick glance. Tommy rose from his seat on an upturned bookshelf and slowly walked over to him, where he put one hand on Joel's shoulder and gave it a reaffirming squeeze.
Joel nodded briefly, a gesture that Tommy quietly returned before both of them turned their back on the dreary room and stepped out into the afternoon sun.