After: The Shock by Scott Nicholson

smiled, nodded, and
went back to her drawing. Jorge wondered if she would ever go back to school,
or ever again have the normal American life he had wished for her.
    He
drew back the deadbolt and paused by the front door. He wasn’t sure whether he
should be afraid. He didn’t know enough to be afraid.
    Jorge
didn’t want to retrieve one of the guns from the closet, because that would
scare Marina. He fastened his work belt around his waist as if he prepared to weed
the landscaping. The machete hung from his belt as it always did.
    “Lock
up behind me,” he said to Rosa before slipping outside.
    The
day was bright, the sunlight made even fiercer by the amount of time he’d spent
inside. He stood on the porch, looking out between the high white columns.
Birds chattered in the trees, but their chirps and whistles were spread across
the surrounding woods, eerily sparse for late August.
    So,
not all the birds have died .
    The
trees were still, and the pastures vacant. The corn swayed slightly in the
garden, the tassels just beginning to turn golden. Whatever had killed people
and animals didn’t seem to have affected the vegetation.
    Jorge
stepped off the porch and walked past Mr. Wilcox’s silver SUV. The vehicle
probably cost two years’ worth of Jorge’s salary, but now it was worthless.
Jorge had found the keys in Mr. Wilcox’s pants when he’d searched the man’s
body, but the SUV was just as dead as his boss. Jorge had even swapped out
batteries with the tractor, but the engine hadn’t turned over.
    Jorge
wasn’t as skilled a mechanic as Fernando Detoro, but he was convinced that
whatever had killed Fernando had silenced the engines as well.
    He
surveyed the road as he continued his trek to the barn. Mr. Wilcox often had
visitors from town, fat men wearing ties who never set foot in the fields. Rosa said they were bankers and lawyers who used Mr. Wilcox’s money to make more money with
no work. Jorge wanted Marina to have that chance one day. He’d been saving cash
buried in a jar under the trailer. It was Marina’s college fund.
    If
she ever went to school again.
    He
entered the two-story barn. Jorge had lied to Rosa. The tractor had no hope of
starting. The engine was in pieces, the radiator removed, spark plug wires and
hoses arrayed on a greasy drop cloth.
    “Willard?”
he called.
    On
the day of the deaths, Willard White had been mixing chemicals to spray on the
shrubs. Willard was the only one whose body hadn’t turned up, and Jorge wanted
to be sure his family was alone on the farm. He also didn’t want Marina stumbling across a decomposing corpse.
    Perhaps
Willard is as afraid as I am. Perhaps he is hiding.
    Willard
was a local man, a gringo , even if he was unkempt and smelly. He also
talked constantly, which is why Jorge couldn’t imagine him hiding for days.
Willard ranted about “my old bitch of a wife, Bernice,” “the guddam
government,” “guddam sun in my eyes,” “my bitchin’ back acting up again,” “that
cheap bastard Wilcox,” “guddam milk thistles taking over the pasture,” and a
long litany of life’s constant miseries.
    Jorge
checked the barn stalls, where a row of horses whinnied uneasily. Mr. Wilcox
liked to show off his horses, even though he never rode them. Horses were a
luxury, taking valuable pasture and providing no food in return, unlike the
cows and chickens. But Jorge liked the horses, because they treated him as an
equal, unlike the men.
    He
patted each on the nose and promised them grain. Unlike the llamas, they had
survived the sun sickness.
    Jorge
entered the cluttered tack room, where Willard liked to take breaks and drink
brown liquor called Old Grand-Dad’s. Metal trash cans full of sweetened grain
stood in one corner. Harness dangled from one wall, and a row of saddles were
perched across three sawhorses. One of Jorge’s duties was to ride the horses
once a week to keep them all trained and in shape, but the leather gear was far
from broken