The Pulse

by Scott B. Williams

  Even with their luggage pared down to the minimum, their loads were awkward. Grant lashed the heaviest items on the rear rack of his bike. All three of them wore the backpacks that had been used as book bags in their previous lives as college students. In addition, Grant had lashed the stuffed sleeping bags and rolled-up items of clothing to the handlebars and seat posts of Casey’s and Jessica’s bikes. In the end he was carrying at least twice as much as either of them, but that was only fair, he thought, as he was in better shape for riding, and his bike had a stronger frame and wheelset that could stand up to the load. A brief stop by Casey’s apartment gave her a minute to leave her second note for her father in her bedroom nightstand, where he would find it on the slim chance he made it back to the city and happened to come there first instead of to his car.

  “I sure hope it won’t be too long before we can come back home,” Casey said as she locked the deadbolt on the door and walked back down the steps to the street. Grant led the way as the three of them pedaled north, making their way past the university campus and towards the elevated expressway of Interstate 10. He wanted to avoid the narrow streets and crowded residential areas along the river, and figured there would be little foot traffic on the expressway. This route would take them directly west to Causeway Boulevard. From there, it was just a couple of miles of wide four-lane to the start of the 24-mile-long bridge spanning Lake Pontchartrain. Before nightfall Grant hoped to get well onto the bridge, where he felt the three would be far removed from the gangs of looters in the city and would likely be sharing the route only with others who were wise enough to try to get out while they could.

  He set an easy pace, spinning in one of his lowest gears to stay beside Casey and Jessica, who were having a hard time controlling their bikes with the unaccustomed weight of gear tied on the handlebars as well as in their backpacks. Jessica’s bike, with its cheap components, wouldn’t stay in the gear she selected and made grinding noises as she pedaled, adding to the work she had to do to keep the pedals spinning. Grant knew her rear derailleur wouldn’t last long, but could only hope the bike would hold together long enough to get them to their destination. It was just something else to worry about along with the vulnerability he felt at such a slow pace and the fear that they wouldn’t be able to travel far enough before dark. These thoughts fed his urge to occasionally reach inside his handlebar bag as he pedaled, simply to feel the cold polished steel of the Ruger for reassurance that it was still there. It had proved its worth already, but he still felt suspicious of just about every pedestrian they passed, especially any groups of more than two males, and he imagined them sizing him up and feasting their eyes on his pretty companions and the three laden bicycles that, although slow, would be enticing prizes to many who had no better option than to walk.

  When they reached I-10, Jessica and Casey had to get off their bikes and push them up the steep entrance ramp to reach the elevated freeway. At the top of the ramp they remounted and wound their way among the cars, SUVs, pickups, and tractor-trailer rigs frozen in place in the lanes or parked against the retaining walls, where their drivers had coasted them to a stop when the pulse hit and killed all the engines. All of them were abandoned now, with no one in sight on this shadeless concrete bridge two stories above the offices and stores where people had worked until the power went off. It was obvious that everyone stranded on the expressway the morning before had long since given up on getting their vehicles started and had walked to the nearest exit to get relief from the heat and find food and water. Depending on where they were along the way when their vehicles stopped, getting off the elevated sections could involve a bit of a hike.

  As Grant and his companions pedaled along one of these long stretches between exits, several large black birds hopped to the top of the retaining wall while others took flight at their approach. There was no mistaking what they were—vultures—and they had been crowded around something lying along the shoulder of the right lane, which took shape as they drew nearer.

  “Oh my God!” Jessica said, turning her eyes away as soon as she saw the figure clearly. It was the body of a very obese man, with graying hair, sprawled belly down on the hot pavement. He was dressed in business clothes, a tie around his neck, but his jacket was missing, probably discarded somewhere along the way as he walked in the sweltering heat. His sweat-stained Oxford shirt was untucked at the waist; one leather shoe was lying a few feet behind him, the other still on his right foot. His head was turned so that his missing eyes were unavoidable as they passed, as were the flies that swarmed around his open mouth. Grant felt a wave of nausea and dizziness sweep over him, and he got off the bike to push it to the far side of the left-hand lane and past the horrid sight. Casey and Jessica did the same; then Jessica turned pale, bent over, and puked. Seeing this, Casey couldn’t hold it back either. Three of the vultures still sat on the low concrete wall just a few feet from the body, watching them with beady black eyes, reluctant to fly away from their newfound meal unless seriously threatened.

  “What do you think happened to him?” Casey asked Grant as she spit and coughed, trying to get the awful taste of vomit out of her mouth.

  “Probably a heart attack or stroke,” Grant said. “It looks like he was trying to get to the exit like everyone else, but he was in no shape for that kind of exertion in this heat.”

  “His eyes…did the…?”

  “Yes, the vultures,” Grant finished for her. “They fight over them, from what I’ve seen of dead cows and such.”

  Casey pushed her bike faster. She just wanted to get away from the scene as quickly as possible.

  “Why did they just leave him to lie here like that?” Jessica asked.

  “Who would have moved him? It’s not like anyone could call for an ambulance. The other people stuck here on this bridge would have been concerned with their own safety. He might have died before he even hit the ground. He’s too heavy for anyone to carry or drag very far, so where he fell is where he stayed.”

  “That poor man,” Casey said, trying to visualize him as a living, breathing human being rather than the gruesome thing that she knew would be an image forever burned in her memory. “He probably has a family somewhere in the city, wondering when he’s coming home.”

  “I’m afraid we’re going to see more of this,” Grant said. “The Causeway will probably be worse. There’ll likely be a lot of live people still stranded there too. Some of them will be too old, too young, too out of shape, or too disabled in some way to walk the long distance back to either end, especially if they were unlucky enough to be caught in the middle when the pulse hit. Others will probably already be dead. I wish we didn’t have to see that, but be ready for it. Just try to remember, we have to focus on our own survival. We probably can’t help them, and there’s probably not anyone who can really help us either.”

  FIVE

  “WHO CAME UP WITH the stupid idea that these islands are some kind of paradise?” Artie yelled as he shook the water from his hair after another frantic plunge into the harbor. Incessant attacks from the tiny biting sand fleas that plagued their beach worksite in the otherwise calm early morning were driving him insane. They swarmed around his eyes, ears, scalp, and every exposed part of his body, biting with infuriating persistence that could only be relieved by diving underwater to wash them away, which was essentially futile, as it seemed a million more were ready to take their place as soon as he resurfaced.

  Larry laughed at his brother’s antics. “You get used to them after awhile. Just learn to ignore them.”

  “How am I supposed to ignore them when they are all over me? Damn! This is worse than being out there on the boat, throwing up day and night.” The passing of several days had pushed the memory of his miserable mal de mer far enough back in his mind that it now seemed like a minor inconvenience.

  “Not’ing to be done ’bout de no-see-um,” Scully said. “Dem always on de beach when de air be still. Dat’s why a mon needs dreadlocks. Shake de dreads �
�round an’ de sand flea, he got nowhere to stop. Keep de herb pipe handy too. Dem can’t fly in de smoke, mon.”

  “And if they did, you wouldn’t feel the bite, right, Scully?” Larry grinned.

  “Dats for true. A mon need de ganja smoke here in de island.”

  Despite all the talk about Scully’s ganja smoking, Artie had only seen him light his pipe in the evening around the campfire they built on the beach near the boat shed. During the day, he was a tireless worker, which came as a surprise after all Larry had said about the Rastafarian philosophy, religion, or whatever it was. He was still confused about the unlikely friendship between his brother and this islander, but they certainly both knew boats, and their progress on putting Larry’s big catamaran together was astounding.

  Most of the work consisted of installing hardware and fittings that Larry had previously purchased and had been planning to install after all the final painting and other cosmetic work was completed. With no time to worry about aesthetics or even the proper drilling and marine bedding techniques for long-term protection against rot in the wooden structures, these installations went fast. Scully drilled the holes with a manual brace and bit Larry had bought at a flea market years ago, and assorted hand chisels were used where mortises were needed to install flush fittings. Larry said the hardest part of building a boat from scratch was all the detail work that went into the final sanding, fairing, and painting to get a perfect finish, and since they were skipping all that, it only took a day to finish these installations. Then they were ready to assemble the major components—two hulls, bridge decks, crossbeams, and the mast—that as a whole made up the catamaran.

  The second morning of work was consumed by this assembly. They used jacks and timber skids to move the hulls inch by inch out of their supporting cradles and slide the keels apart, and then aligned them fore and aft at the correct spacing so that the four massive connecting beams could be fitted. With the beams in place, Artie could see that Alegria was a much bigger vessel than at first it had seemed. The deck space was enormous. The central cockpit area between the two hull cabins was fitted with seats with storage lockers under them, while other deck areas fore and aft were made up of slatted wood planking or fabric trampoline material to allow breaking waves to quickly drain off. The cockpit area where the helm station was located was shaded by a curved, rigid Bimini cover, which Larry said he had molded from foam-cored fiberglass. The cabins inside the hulls were narrow and tunnel-like, but deep enough to allow standing inside without the need to duck. The forward area of each cabin featured a four-foot-wide, wall-to-wall double berth, with lots of locker space under for storing provisions. An additional single berth was fitted into a separate section of the port hull, forward of the main cabin area. The port hull also contained the galley, with a countertop, sink, and alcohol stove making up the area aft of the bunk. This same space in the starboard hull was taken up by the navigation station, which included a chart table, electrical circuit panels, and now-useless electronics such as the VHF and SSB radios, XM radio and MP3 player, and laptop with navigation software.

  The bulk of the internal wiring was left undone, as they couldn’t use most of the electrical equipment anyway. Larry said it was just as well, as he had expected to take at least a week to do a proper job of the wiring. Like most sailors, he had amassed quite a collection of flashlights, LED lanterns, and other gear such as portable navigation lights that could run off of disposable batteries. He made it a point to always keep a fairly large stock of these batteries stored for his voyages. This way, he said, at least they would have lights when they really needed them.

  The main propulsion system for the Tiki 36 was an aerodynamic mainsail that fit over the round aluminum mast by means of a sewn-in sleeve. Larry said the sleeve was like that of a windsurfer sail, providing a clean air flow and functioning like the much more expensive rotating wingmasts found on million-dollar racing catamarans. Headsails of various sizes could be fitted on the forestay, which, like all the standing rigging, was made of a high-tech synthetic rope, rather than heavier stainless-steel wire, which Larry said was now passé in the performance sailing world. Auxiliary propulsion for maneuvering in harbors and through calms was supposed to be provided by two Yamaha 20-horsepower four-stroke outboards, fitted in motor wells under the cockpit decks port and starboard. Larry said that since theYamahas were brand new and over-reliant on technology, with electric starters and alternators, and electronic fuel injection, they would be leaving them behind. In their place, he mounted in the starboard motor well a single Evinrude 25-horsepower two-stroke that dated back to the late 1970s. “It’ll be enough to get us out of a tight spot if we need it,” he said, “and it’ll usually crank after a few pulls. But you’ll see, this boat will sail so well I doubt we’ll ever bother. Losing the weight of those two Yamahas will help too.”

  When the time came to launch, on the third day after they’d arrived in Culebra’s harbor aboard Celebration, they dismantled the temporary tarp shed on the beach and cleared away the workbenches and ladders from the hulls. They stepped the mast by hoisting it up with a temporary gin pole lashed to its base and hooked to a block and tackle system. Then Larry rowed out into the harbor with the main anchor and set it at the limit of his longest rode, which was three hundred feet. It was Artie’s job to climb up into the cockpit and man the big manual winch that doubled as an anchor windlass “…since you did such a great job hoisting Celebration’s anchor,” Larry said, while Larry and Scully worked at each keel, maneuvering the jacks and shifting skids from the sterns to the bows as the big cat slowly inched down the beach to the water. When they were within a foot of the wet sand above the tide line, Larry said they needed to stop to officially christen the boat before she went in. He disappeared into the starboard hull and came back down to the beach a minute later with a bottle of golden 10 Cane rum. “Trinidad’s best! I’ve been saving it for this moment. Here’s to the Casey Nicole,” he said, as he splashed most of the bottle on the dull gray primer coating the twin bows and then offered the bottle to his brother. “Drink up, for a safe and successful voyage!”

  Artie was surprised at what he heard. “I thought you were naming her Alegria.”

  “That was then, this is now. My niece is the reason I’m launching today. Otherwise, I probably would have dragged on another year, piddling with this and that, trying to get everything perfect. Now I’m going to sail her today, and when we get Casey on board, everything will be perfect. Until then, I don’t think there’s going to be much alegria aboard anyway, especially not for you, Doc, and I totally understand.”

  They took turns sipping from the bottle, Artie offering it to Scully only to learn that he wouldn’t touch alcohol. “A Rastaman don’t to drink, mon. Dat’s not I-tal. Only smoke de herb of wisdom. De rum is poison to de brain an’ not put on de Earth by Jah like he put de the ganja plant for a mon to use.”

  “You’re full of shit, Scully, you know that?” Larry said as he took another pull from the bottle.

  Once again, Artie was baffled by the strange ways of this character, Scully, and his confusing version of the English language. What kind of religion advocated smoking dope while prohibiting alcohol? He was learning something new about his brother’s friend every day. Despite that, he knew Casey would be thrilled to learn that her uncle had named his pride and joy after her. He couldn’t wait to see her face when she found out, and he asked Larry if they were going to paint the name on the sides.

  “Absolutely! Normally I wouldn’t launch a boat without doing that first, but since we’re kinda in a hurry, I’ll paint it on temporarily from the dinghy tonight when we’re anchored. This gray primer will get covered up later with topside paint, and then I’ll do it right.”

  “So, we’re not going far today, you said?”

  “No, I want to shake her down, make sure everything’s sorted out enough for the voyage. There will still be work to do all along the way, but as long as we have good weather, I can do most of
that at sea. Today we’re going to get the rig tuned and work the stretch out of the stays and halyards, then tighten up the beam lashings and everything else before we head offshore tomorrow. There’s a pretty little island you’re gonna love just a few miles off the east coast of Puerto Rico. We can be there by late afternoon, drop the hook and make our adjustments, and still get a good night’s sleep before we head out.”

  Back on deck, Artie cranked on the windlass handle while Larry and Scully maneuvered the jacks and skids. The newly christened Casey Nicole slid across the wet sand, sliced into the gentle chop of the harbor, and floated free, sitting nicely on her lines, with just a couple of inches of bottom paint showing all around. Larry and Scully high-fived it and jumped up and down cheering. Artie couldn’t contain his grin as the big platform beneath him glided away from shore, hovering like a giant magic carpet over the sandy bottom that seemed close enough to touch through the crystalline water. He had to admit he was pretty impressed with his younger brother’s handiwork. It was simply amazing to him that anyone could build such a vessel from scratch under a makeshift tent on the beach.

  They spent the remainder of the morning loading the rest of Larry’s tools and spare parts on board. This included just about everything needed to maintain and repair any component of the boat, and even to fabricate broken parts. Larry said that all Wharram catamarans were designed to be built and kept shipshape with simple tools and easy-to-find materials, and that even in normal times many had been built without the benefit of power tools.