by Anselmo, Ray
That was about the list. She’d look in on each of them, at their homes and workplaces, just to be sure. She’d get Sarah’s bullhorn and go around town, calling out to anyone who might be listening. And she should probably go up the trails too.
Like Julius Caesar’s account of Gaul, all Sayler Beach was divided into three parts. There was the beach itself and the points north and east – the beach parking area, the lagoon, the fire department, the Holy Green Zen Farm (a location whose existence let you know, beyond any reasonable doubt, that you were in Marin County, California). There was the residential section, roughly a thousand feet in diameter with winding streets, the houses of the rich and successful and the peons who worked for them terraced and cascading downhill toward the ocean.
And then there was the undeveloped part, wilderness and the occasional copse of windswept evergreens, cut through with a few trails. This was by far the largest part, extending for about a mile up the coast to a local horse ranch and a quarter-mile inland. No one was supposed to be living on that land – it was for camping and outdoorsy activities – but you usually had a few homeless folks parked out there. California and its weather were a lot nicer to the displaced than most states, granted that was a low bar to clear.
So she had a plan – check on friends, get bullhorn, go everyplace she could drive her Accent and talk loudly until she ran out of streets to cover. Simple in concept, gut-wrenching in execution. And it started with the Molinaros.
Where she encountered her first unforeseen problem. The house was locked.
Ordinarily that would not have been an issue – she knew where they kept the spare key, since she had to go in every other day to check things when the family wasn’t around. But since they were present, they hadn’t bothered to leave the key out, since why would they need to? Which put her in the position of not being sure how she’d get in.
First, she tried knocking on the door. If one of them was alive, it would be rude to just barge in. But there was no response, so she tried calling Pete Molinaro’s cell. Voice mail, still. Toni Molinaro’s cell? Voice mail. She walked around the house, hoping for an open window or an unlocked back door. No dice. She double-checked where the spare key would be, and a few other likely hiding spots. Nothing.
Kelly sighed. Nothing for it but to break in if she wanted to look in on them. She figured the odds were that they were inside and deceased, so she didn’t feel guilty about trespassing or damages. She just wasn’t sure how to go about it – she’d never done anything like this before. “Okay, Kel, you’re a burglar. You know you won’t get caught. You’re too small to break the door down, you don’t want to cut your hand on a shard of broken window, and you don’t know how to pick locks. How do you do this?”
The answer was obvious: go back to the Matchicks’ – which she did have a key to – and see what you find.
Ten minutes later, she was in her car with three items she hoped would do the trick. The crowbar was obvious. The little jack that came with her car also had a small prybar. And wonder of wonders, Sandy Matchick – who’d gone on a Marie Kondo kick last year and gotten rid of half the items in the place – still had a glass cutter from her days of dabbling in stained glass art. Between the three, she figured she could get into almost any place in town.
She’d also grabbed a pair of Saul’s work gloves and a cloth face mask she still had from the last pandemic. Just in case.
She drove back to the Molinaros’ armed for bear. The jack’s prybar was all she needed, though – it nicely pried the latch out of the door jamb. She swung the door open –
HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! Bee-beep.
Well, she was under a little stress – it was only natural to forget the security alarm. The Molinaros had it set to arm every night at ten unless Pete was stuck working extra late. She got the code punched in quickly, though, saving herself some hearing damage.
Then she turned to look at the living room and sighed again. There were Pete and Toni and two of their three kids, Sylvia and Julia, sitting together on the couch under a comforter, facing the TV. The screen was showing the DVD menu for Moana. They must have been watching it when they died – and they were all very obviously dead. She closed her eyes and nodded. Quietly and together – if you had to go, that was the best way to do it.
Going upstairs, she found the youngest kid Benny in his bed, looking for all the world like he was sleeping soundly. But the smell told her otherwise, even through the mask.
Somberly she went back downstairs, turned off the TV and video player and left the house, trying to close the front door as she did. But she’d broken it enough that it wouldn’t close, so she left it open a crack and hoped the wild animals didn’t get there before she figured out how to dispose of the bodies. Hmm … there might be hundreds of bodies to deal with. Did she want that hassle? And yet … something in her told her the people here should get that level of respect, even if only she would know about it.
She set the thoughts of why and how aside and drove to “the party of five’s” place over on Admiral Drive, doing her best to set her expectations to “worst-case.” Which it was, aside from the front door being unlocked. Sarah was in her room, under the covers. So was Vivian Pfeifer – Vivi Fifi to everyone at the store – and so were Leslie and Michanne. Only LaSheba wasn’t – she was sitting on that black fake-leather couch that stuck to your legs if you wore shorts. LaSheba was wearing a bathrobe over a Kendrick Lamar T-shirt and sweatpants. No signs of life.
Kelly found the bullhorn in Sarah’s closet, checked the batteries – they were fine – and was leaving when she noticed an open Moleskine notebook sitting next to LaSheba on the couch. She picked it up and read:
Last one alive. I wish I understood why this is happening. Does God or Nature want us all dead? Did we release something into the air? Is this an enemy attack? No one knows, not the news or anyone in town. So tired. I’m going to rest & when I wake up, if I wake up, maybe I’ll take a walk and see if anyo
At that point the ink skittered off the page in a jagged line. It must be LaSheba’s journal. The last entry was dated Saturday morning, so she might’ve been the next-to-last person alive in town.
Shuddering, Kelly took the journal, wanting to apologize even as she did. But it might contain some clues as to what happened, and her friend no longer had any privacy to violate.
Next stop was Rav and Bilbo’s, then Chandra’s, the fire department and maybe the Spinnaker Inn. And maybe she should check the Ashcrofts’ house – it was her responsibility, or had been, and you just never knew. But she was past expecting good surprises now. Mostly she was going numb.
Rav was dead on the floor of his place. It took breaking into the apartment manager’s office to figure out which apartment was Chandra’s, but she too was dead. Pablo was at the volunteer fire department on Landlubber Way, a wooden building that put the “shack” in “ramshackle,” keeled over onto the floor from the chair he’d been sitting in. The Ashcrofts’ house was clean, spotless and empty.
She frowned. She was 0-for-everybody so far. And she hadn’t heard one automobile engine besides her own, not one motorcycle or bicycle or stereo or voice. The Molinaros had the only television that was on when she entered. Sayler Beach was silent as … it was unavoidable. The grave.
She returned to her Hyundai, started it up, rolled down all the windows and flipped on the bullhorn. “Hello!” she broadcast out the driver’s side window. “Is anyone out there? This is Kelly Sweeney from the grocery store! If you’re alive, please come out to the sidewalk! I repeat, please come out to the sidewalk! I’m driving around town looking for anyone who’s still alive! I’ve got food at the store if you need any! Please come out – it’s safe …”
That last part was a laugh. Who knew if she or anyone was safe? But they were safe from her, was what she was trying to convey. She wasn’t going to go feral and kill them and make a poncho of their skin, if that’s what they were worried about.
&
nbsp; She drove around the residential district, then to the beach parking lot, north to the fire department and east to the Zen farm, calling through the bullhorn all the way for anyone to come outside. Once she was finished she repeated the route and her pleas before taking the Shoreline Highway, the portion of State Highway 1 that marked Sayler Beach’s inland border, north and west up to the horse ranch, which sat at the far corner of the town’s theoretical limits. She drove back along the highway as well, in case someone was farther from the shore.
Finally, for completion’s sake more than actual hope, she walked the trail from Sayler Beach Overlook (which did not overlook the beach, but the town and the sea) to the ranch and back again, a two-mile round trip on dirt. Maybe there was a camper, a hiker, a hobo who hadn’t been affected. By the time she returned to her car at the overlook, it was 1:06 p.m. Less than six hours since she’d first tried calling the store. Less than four since she found poor Chun Li and almost lost her mind. She’d been searching or planning to search almost the whole time since.
And save for some barking dogs, nobody and nothing had answered her cries.
Back at the overlook, Kelly sat in the driver’s seat sideways, her feet on the pavement. She was as alone as alone could be – if not in the world, at least in this community. Between the shock and the lamotrigine, she barely felt anything other than vaguely hopeless.
She tossed Sarah’s bullhorn in the back seat and rested her elbows on her knees, staring east over the lifeless town. “Okay, kiddo,” she muttered to herself. “Any more bright ideas?”
4
PYRE
She had one idea, though she didn’t like it much. It would be depressing, and gross, and a lot of work, days’ worth. But it was A Thing She Could Do, and having A Thing She Could Do had always been good for her mental health, going back to childhood. And she felt it was A Thing She Should Do – a morally good thing – which also tended to help.
So that only left the how and the where.
How, she figured out quickly, was easy, at least in concept. SBN&N had a delivery truck, a decommissioned U-Haul with a 17-foot bed that they usually used to pick up product when it was cheaper than having it delivered. It was a beast to drive on Marin County’s winding roads, but she’d done it before. And it had its own hand truck inside. It would serve.
She drove to the store and grabbed what she thought she could use – a case of heavy-duty lawn-and-leaf trash bags, two cans of Lysol, a case of air freshener, a face shield to go with the cloth mask. Inspiration struck – if she started up at the fire department, she could use one of their suits to keep herself clean. It was August, so she’d probably sweat like a thoroughbred in it, but that was just an inconvenience when dealing with a townwide biohazard. And it would be handy in the last part of the task.
Where would the last part be? She wasn’t sure yet, but she had time to figure that out in the midst of all the physical labor. Where she should start was more urgent – at the fire department, after she got in a suit, or right at the store, where she already was? After some thought, she decided safety was more important than efficiency. Nobody she’d be dealing with was going anywhere.
She drove the truck up to the fire station, found a suit roughly in her size and put it on – jacket, pants, boots, gloves. She didn’t think she’d need the helmet, and she already had a face shield. The outfit was lighter than she’d expected and not too tough to move around in. And it was so visible with the reflective strips and the like that if anyone was alive but hadn’t answered the bullhorn, they’d spot her right away. While she was at it, she nabbed a fire ax – it might prove useful.
No more stalling – she was here, she was equipped, there was nothing more important to do right now. Time to get to the heavy lifting.
Out of respect for long friendship, she went to Pablo first. She maneuvered his body into a black bag, tied it at the top and dragged it to the back of the truck, which was parked just outside the front door. Pablo was a big guy, well over two hundred pounds with the kind of physique that let you pose shirtless on calendars, and Kelly … wasn’t, so it took a while with a few breathers before she got him settled in the truck. She realized that there was no way she could do that three hundred times, so she broke out the dolly after that.
She got the other two volunteer firefighters into the truck with greater ease, then began searching the adjacent buildings. That was going to be the time-consuming part – having to look anywhere and everywhere a human being could’ve dropped. She knew she wouldn’t find them all, but she also knew she would try. The last thing anyone who was still alive – her, especially – needed was to trip over a decomposing corpse a week or month down the road.
She quickly established a pattern. Open every door. If it wouldn’t open, crack it with the crowbar. If the crowbar wouldn’t do it, use the fire ax. Check every room, every garage, every storage bin or pod that wasn’t locked, and every car or truck. Bag each body, put them on the dolly, haul them to the delivery truck and lay them down. Let loose any dogs, cats or other pets that could walk or fly away. (She wasn’t prepared to deal with fish tanks and didn’t try). Leave the door open upon departure, so you have a visual that you’ve been there.
Most of all, try not to think about how they were your friends and neighbors. They’re not in there anymore, and you’re just the one-person coroner’s office now. Feelings will just slow you down and bust you up. So ignore them and work. You can cry later.
She was ready to stop at sundown, but by then had taken care of the fire department and all the buildings around it, the Spinnaker Inn, the Zen farm, and the Sayler Beach parking lot. Forty or fifty bodies in all – she’d originally intended to keep a tally, but it didn’t seem all that important in retrospect. She was exhausted, both by all the physical work and by keeping the despair at bay.
But from the parking lot, she spotted a few bodies on the beach itself. The seagulls were already landing on them – those flying rats probably saw them as an appetizer sampler. She sighed, knowing that her conscience wouldn’t let her leave them there once she’d seen them. But though she could get a moving van down there – they’d widened the access path to accommodate ambulances several years back – she might not get it out once it was stuck in the sand up to the hubcaps.
Oh, right. She’d just pulled a man out of a Land Rover Discovery, and what was a Land Rover for if not to rove over land? (Well, that and to show your neighbors you’re so rich you can afford the darn thing.) She walked over and – lucky break! – the keys were still in the ignition. She Lysol-ed the driver’s seat to within an inch of its life, wiped it down with a dishrag from the Spinnaker Inn, got in and started it up. Twenty minutes later she had it backed up to the delivery truck and was unloading four slightly pecked-at bodies.
And really, that was enough for one day – besides, it was too dark to keep going. Her phone said 8:20 p.m. Thirteen hours ago, she’d been wondering why no one was picking up the phone at the store. She’d spent the last six or seven doing corpse removal. What a difference a day made.
She returned the Land Rover to its parking space and drove the delivery truck back to the Matchicks’, figuring she’d need it the next day and the day or two after that. It was only when she pulled it into her driveway that she started logging signals from her body. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, or gone to the bathroom since … when, noon or so? She’d been running in manic mode for most of that time, to keep from thinking about how she was surrounded by a mass grave. She needed to care for herself now, or she wouldn’t have a self to care for.
She entered the house and got out of the fire suit, which she tossed into the coat closet in the front hall so it wouldn’t stink up the rest of the first floor. Bathroom next to release ballast and sit for a minute. Shower next, or food? She sniffed, and while she was sweaty it seemed the suit had protected her well enough from the putrefaction. And a shower might relax her too much, so she might not get to the food if she did that first.
The step-by-step work of cooking was soothing to Kelly’s nerves, and she was a decent enough cook that she would be pleased with the results. She hoped she’d still be able to manage once the electricity went bye-bye …
She knew she shouldn’t have thought of that. You couldn’t keep extinction-level-event depression back forever, and at that moment it all returned along with a couple of party crashers. She sat hard on the kitchen tile, cried and groaned for as long as it took to let it out. Once it was done, she levered herself up and went to take her nightly lithium before returning to eat at the kitchen counter. The food was room temperature and she barely tasted it, but the tactile sensations of chewing and swallowing helped a lot.