Thinking of Joyce’s father, Olivia reached into her backpack and withdrew her phone. She’d powered it down last night, after charging it during the later afternoon at Little Learners. She still had forty percent power in the battery but the data bars and WiFi symbol all told her that she had no service at all. Still, undaunted, she tried opening up her internet browser, only to get a screen that read Service Unavailable.
“I doubt you’ll see a change for a while,” Paul said. “If this bridge and what we heard on the radio last night is any indication, I don’t know that Jersey is going to be any different.”
“Were you able to talk to your grandfather before we left?” Olivia asked.
“No. I didn’t even think to call him, really. There was too much on my mind, and I was in a hurry. But I assure you, he’ll be glad to see us.”
“Us?”
“Well, yeah. Even if we have to go all the way to Minnesota to get Joyce to her dad, West Virginia isn’t at all out of the way. Besides…if we’re being honest, the entire plan might blow up in my face when we get further out. If the roads don’t clear up…”
He stopped here, and Olivia was glad he did. What if the roads didn’t clear up? What if the Blood Fire Virus had already consumed the entire east coast and beyond?
“But even before all of that,” Paul said, “do you want to know the thing that’s really sticking out in my mind?”
She wasn’t sure she did, but she nodded. “What?”
“That woman was right…Lindsay. If you look around, the majority of these people are wearing masks. Not all, but most. It makes me wonder if masks are ineffective against this thing.”
“We’ve been wearing them the entire time, though,” Olivia said. “And we’re not sick.”
“True, but we’re three people out of about eight million. The guy we ran into last night, and then Lindsay. Five people out of eight million. And if the five of us survived, I’m sure there are more. But all the masks on the faces of these people…” he said, gesturing to the cars to their right, on the other side of the pedestrian walkway. “It makes me think it has nothing to do with masks.”
“So how did we not catch it, then?” Olivia asked.
Paul shrugged. He peered ahead and she followed his gaze. The New Jersey side of the bridge was very close now—no more than a two-minute walk for sure. “When COVID-19 reached its peak, I read a lot about how viruses are spread. And you know how it is when you get online—it doesn’t take long to go down the rabbit hole. From what I read, the entire human population could never be completely wiped out. There would be a few random people that would either be immune to the virus, disease, or whatever. No rhyme or reason…just some genetic fluke.”
Olivia chuckled nervously. “So you’re telling me we should feel lucky?”
Taking a few steps closer to New Jersey and seeing the same sort of wreckage they’d left behind them in New York, Paul shook his head. “No. I’m not saying that at all.”
They walked on, Joyce between them, idly holding Olivia’s hand. And as they crossed into Jersey, they all left their masks on—just in case.
***
When they stepped off of the bridge and into Fort Lee, New Jersey, it was more of the same. Wrecked cars, bodies on the road and sidewalks, a city that had lost its power and the vast majority of its residents. Though it was disheartening to see, they did not stop to absorb it. They walked on, Paul leading and keeping them as close to the edge of the Hudson as he could. He figured staying close to the river would keep them away from the thicker congestion elsewhere in the city. The Hudson was eerily quiet; no boats in its choppy waters, and no honking horns back out on the bridge. He did see a few gulls swooping down into the water, looking for breakfast, but that was the only activity. Seeing the gulls, he wondered how long it would be before the birds realized what had happened to the humans—how long it might be before they started coming down to get their meals from corpses on the streets.
He was relieved when Joyce’s voice interrupted this gruesome train of thought…though what she said was grossly fitting.
“I’m hungry,” she said. “Can we eat?”
“Oh my gosh,” Olivia said, stopping in her tracks. “With everything that happened this morning, I didn’t even think about eating. Not that I have much of an appetite. But yes…let’s find somewhere to stop and eat.”
Another block brought them to an undeveloped lot where construction on a small cinderblock building had started but would now likely never be finished. Paul intentionally led them to the side of the construction site and plopped himself down on a small stack of lumber. His back was to the city, his sights back out over the Hudson and into New York. He’d positioned himself in such a way so that Joyce would not have to look at the devastation that was Fort Lee, but the sight across the Hudson wasn’t much better.
Several little streams of smoke were rising into the air, lazily ascending. The larger one seemed to be coming from the direction of Queens, the smoke thicker and much blacker. There were no planes in the sky, no daily news helicopter swirling to keep time with traffic reports. And then there was the silence of it all; it was downright eerie.
But as luck would have it, Joyce was far more interested in breakfast than the dismal sight across the river. Olivia took several items out of her bag and distributed them in a way that made it easy for Paul to envision her working at a daycare. Breakfast consisted of applesauce pouches and dry Cheerios; without thinking, Olivia unscrewed not only Joyce’s applesauce pouch, but Paul’s as well. As she handed it to him and realized what she’d done, she shook her head, embarrassed.
“Sorry,” she said “Habit.”
Paul studied the little pouch. He’d never eaten applesauce out of a bright green pouch that you had to slurp from. He felt a little silly eating food clearly intended for a child and as he sucked at the little tube at the top of the pouch, it occurred to him that he may be eating many things like this in the coming days. He knew there was no way they could walk to the little mountain town of Able Hills, West Virginia. But he also knew that walking might very well be the only way to travel until they found another route that would take them off of the main roads leading out of New Jersey. He looked to Joyce and, though he hated to think such things, figured she might be like a little walking time bomb. She hadn’t yet reacted in any certain way to the insinuation that her mother was just as dead as the bodies she’d seen this morning. That and constant walking without any time to relax or play would certainly catch up with her. He could only hope that Olivia knew the girl well and how to handle any tense situations. Paul liked kids just fine, but he had never had any hands on experience with the nurturing part.
As they ate in silence, their masks pulled down to their chins or the sides of their faces, Paul looked back behind them, up the congested street, thinking. When he gulped down the last of his applesauce, he said: “Olivia, are you much of a bike rider?”
“I’m not a cyclist by any means,” she said. “But I know how to ride one. I take it you’ve also been thinking of how to avoid walking all day?”
“You, too, huh?”
“Yeah, and I figure a bike is really the only way. I guess it’s just a matter of finding some. We’d also need a carrier sort of thing for Joyce—one of those little canopied bike trailers.”
Paul nodded, opening up the little pre-packed Ziploc of Cheerios Olivia had given him. “That shouldn’t be a problem, so long as you aren’t opposed to stealing them.”
“You’re a cop,” she said. “If you don’t have a problem with it, I sure won’t.”
He wasn’t sure how to feel about the ease in which she was following him and not questioning his ideas. While he was more than happy to accompany her and keep her safe, he felt ill-equipped to do so. What did he know about protecting and caring for a four year-old girl (aside from putting a bullet in anyone that tried to do her harm)? And, if he was being honest with himself, there was a fear of failure that came with escorting
Olivia and Joyce. If it was just him, he could be reckless and hurried. Now, he had two others to tend to—to consider when it came to risk and overall decision making.
But that was fine with him. Running for his life to survive this unexpected tragedy was a simple goal. But the idea of delivering this little girl to her father was much more noble and purposeful.
As they sat there eating their meager breakfast, Paul habitually pulled his cellphone out of his pocket. His battery life was down in the red, at eleven percent. The clock told him that it had somehow already gotten to be 9:07, and his service indicators told him that there was no service of any kind. He’d forgotten how spoiled he’d become with technology. Just a day and a half ago, he could have run a Google search for bicycle shops near me to know where to go. He’d been on this side of the bridge a few times before but didn’t know the streets very well. He also didn’t know the rest of the state all that well. What he did know was that they needed to find smaller roads that would wind around larger cities like Newark. He felt like if they could get in smaller two-lanes, they may have a shot at not only easily driving the bikes, but in finding open roads in which they could maybe even use cars.
But first things first…bikes. They needed to find bikes. But even before that, there was one other thing—something he felt needed to be said.
“You know…there’s no guarantee this will work,” he said. “I hate to be the voice of doom, but if we’re really going to try this…”
“I know,” Olivia said. “There’s no telling how quickly this thing has spread. And even if it’s been stopped somehow, the roads aren’t going to be forgiving.” She then looked to Joyce, currently sipping on a small bottle of water taken from Olivia’s pack. “But I had to at least try. And I’m thankful to you for letting us tag along…for keeping us safe.”
“It benefits me, too,” he said, getting up from the pile of lumber. “If I had to traverse all of this by myself, I’d lose my mind. Now…you girls ready to go find some bikes?”
“I don’t know,” Olivia said, putting a spark of joy into her voice for Joyce. “What do you say? You want to go for a bike ride?”
There was the smallest glimmer of excitement in Joyce’s eyes, but it was nothing compared to what had been there yesterday at the thought of adventure. She’d seen the state of the world and was processing what may have happened to her mother. There was something very adult in the little girl’s eyes now, and it chilled Paul.
Still, she did manage a small smile when she said “Sure.”
With breakfast done, they looked back toward New Jersey. The number of cars and visible bodies was daunting, but Paul had to hope that things would be different further up the road. He adjusted his mask and when he did, the band on the left side snapped. It hung limply from his right ear. He panicked for only a moment before he thought of Lindsay and the conversation he and Olivia had shared on the bridge.
Feeling very strongly that they’d already be dead if the virus was going to take them out, Paul slipped the broken mask off of his head. He watched it flutter to the ground and then started walking forward with his two travelling companions following close behind.
Chapter 21
Terrence stared at the laptop screen in the gloomy confines of his bunker. His mind was in a million different places as a morbid sort of adrenaline still tore through him from having taken out the agents. His fingers were trembling, his pinky jerking of its own accord as he tried several times to write to his contact, George Kettle. He’d tried three different times to explain what had happened but never felt it was quite right.
Or, if he was being totally honest with himself, he wasn’t at all certain he wanted to tell Kettle what had happened. If he knew Homeland Security was actively looking for him, there was no telling how Kettle would react. It was a panic that he was familiar with, something that had always itched at the corners of Terrence’s mind over the past eight years or so. He’d always had a suspicion that a day like this would come—when the first stages of the collapse of society would occur. George Kettle had assured him of this over eight years ago. And now that the time was here, Terrence couldn’t help but feel that Kettle was likely the most important person in the country. If anything happened to George Kettle in the coming days, there would be no way to stop the maelstrom that was on the way.
Terrence knew that Kettle had been living in hiding ever since he had been released by the government all those years ago, allowed to walk for reasons kept mostly classified but mainly because it was assumed Kettle was mentally unbalanced and not a true threat to national security. Terrence doubted Kettle’s life had been easy from then on and, from time to time, wondered why Kettle had not simply killed himself. It was something he’d tried to do twice while in federal custody back when Terrence had been a Homeland Security agent. The fact that Kettle had settled into survivor mode and made a point to stay in touch with him made Terrence wonder if Kettle wanted to be an object of importance. He’d known this day would come and he knew that when it did, there would be people in power that would come looking for him—wanting his help. The mistake he’d made, though, was underestimating the lengths the US government would go to in order to extract information from him. It was not going to be the mild-mannered interrogations Terrence and Kettle had taken part in eight years prior. No—given the state of New York and the spread of the Blood Fire virus, Kettle would be in for a world of hurt if he was captured.
And that’s exactly why Terrence did not want him captured. As far as Terrence was concerned, it was his responsibility to make sure George Kettle remained in hiding. It was that thought that finally allowed him to write what he thought Kettle might want to know, but in a way that would not cause him to act out irrationally.
Might be a little too late for that, Terrence thought, recalling Kettle’s last communication with him. Stop it? Why would you want to stop it?
With his pinky continuing to tremble and a sensation very much like having swallowed a brick, Terrence typed a simple message: Be advised. HS came by my place this morning. Had to take them out. Be on your guard.
Terrence hated to write out what he had done, but he figured it might help Kettle feel that the world was not out to get him—that he had an ally.
“An ally,” Terrence said, smirking as he looked to the unsent mail they’d been using as a communications board.
With the history between them, thinking of himself as Kettle’s ally seemed ridiculous. It was a series of scenes that played themselves out in his head at least once a month. They weren’t faint traces of memory, either; Terrence could recall them with startling accuracy almost right down to every word Kettle had spoken. This was made easier by the fact that he’d later listened to the audio recordings of the interrogation sessions nearly one hundred times as the years progressed—after Kettle had been released and Terrence had been fired.
Before the interrogations, there had been the manhunt. It had all started from an anonymous tip from a parking garage attendant in Atlanta regarding a white van that had been parked there for a week, though the attendant had seen two men coming and going from it on occasion. The van’s records were pulled and after a few weeks of groundwork, it was discovered that the van belonged to the nephew of a North Korean sympathizer wanted for inciting violence and threats against the President. While no hard evidence was found in the van, the apparent abandoned nature of the vehicle was more than enough to go after the nephew—a man Terrence now knew quite well as George Kettle.
From the start, Terrence felt the abandoned van had been a ploy. To Terrence, it seemed like Kettle had wanted to be caught. This was made all the more apparent when it took very little pressuring to get him to open up about a vast network of local terrorists and financiers that were putting together a doomsday scenario, something he referred to as Chaos Dawn. Kettle had mentioned Chaos Dawn during the first interrogation while Terrence and his partner—a man named O’Brien that died shortly after—listened intently, not buying a w
ord of it.
But it hadn’t taken much longer before Terrence had started to believe. He’d fallen hard for the line Kettle had been selling even without much strong evidence and—
Terrence’s train of thought was derailed by what he saw on one of the other laptop screens. This one was a news feed broadcast out of Washington D.C. It showed a large group of protestors standing in front of the White House. There was a commotion from somewhere within the group as several people began to fight. Terrence focused on the monitor and turned up the feed, watching as things got out of hand. He caught the newscaster mid-sentence, as she did her best to explain what was happening.
“…you’re seeing is footage taken outside the White House early this morning. What has been a peaceful protest since late last night evolved into a melee as several members within the group began fighting. While no one has confirmed anything just yet, there were reports of gunfire within the group and at least three are dead, with another six injured. This event occurred moments after it was officially announced that the first cases of the illness being called the Blood Fire Virus had been reported in Philadelphia. Hospitals in the Philadelphia area are already claiming to be overwhelmed by it and…”
It Falls Apart Series | Book 1 | It Falls Apart Page 18