The Pulse

by Scott B. Williams

  The coffee had run out a few days ago, and following more than a year of caffeine addiction in graduate school, he suffered headaches for a couple of days, but now seemed to be over it. He doubted he’d get another cup of coffee any time soon, even if they had not been combing the swamp looking for Casey. Coffee was one of those luxury commodities imported from afar that simply would no longer be available after the collapse of the power grid and easy transportation. He knew that a lot of things wouldn’t be available, but he still felt that if they had made it to the cabin according to their initial plan, they would have been better off than most. With enough canned foods to last a few weeks and the pistol for hunting, as well as a better selection of fishing gear that his father had left there, he felt they could have hung on long enough. And though it might have been difficult, the difficulty would have been nothing compared to trying to survive with hardly any equipment while paddling and searching for someone day after day, always on the move.

  With what would soon be two weeks of fruitless searching behind them, Grant had to admit to himself that they might never see Casey again. He still felt guilt for letting the abduction happen to begin with, but he also told himself that he had done everything that anyone could reasonably expect in his efforts to track down the man who had taken her. He knew that they couldn’t go on like this, and that he couldn’t provide for Jessica indefinitely with so little equipment. He knew it was time to start thinking about their future, both in the long term and in terms of what they should do next. One thing he was sure of—it would be out of the question to turn around and travel upriver all that distance they’d come and then some to try to reach his cabin in the canoe. If they were well fed and had their full strength, that would be one thing, but before they could even contemplate such a journey, Grant knew they had to try to find some supplies and equipment. He didn’t know if that was within reason or not, but it seemed that if they traveled on downriver, closer to the coast, they might find people in some of the rural areas who were in a better situation than most and could help them. The other option was to try to find more uninhabited weekend camps like some they had seen on the Bogue Chitto, where they might be able to pillage some canned goods or other groceries. He knew that if the owners of any such retreats had been unable to get to them by now, they likely never would, and would not need them anyway. Thinking about this, he realized it was just as likely that some desperate refugees might have taken up residence in his own cabin and made use of the goods stored there. If so, going all that way would prove a waste of time and effort. Considering all this, he didn’t really know what to do.

  Another consequence of the long days of being completely alone in such close proximity to Jessica was a growing attachment to her that he could tell was mutual on her part. He supposed it was inevitable, considering the situation into which they had been cast, but the more time he spent with her and got to know her, the more he liked what he discovered. Though he had felt they were as different as two people could be just a couple of weeks ago, the challenges of life in the woods brought out a part of her he hadn’t seen before, and he liked it. He thought her chances of adapting to life in this altered new reality were slim when they had first been preparing to leave New Orleans, but here on the river, she surprised him as she quickly conquered her fears of the dark and the local wildlife and even overcame her reluctance to try new foods.

  The realization that he was feeling something more than mere friendship towards her gave him a twinge of guilt and brought nagging doubts that he was really as committed to finding Casey as he had been when they started out. On the one hand, he felt he had done the best he could and had put Jessica in even more danger by bringing her deep into this swamp on a fruitless chase. Continuing on to the cabin without trying to find Casey wasn’t an option he had considered for even a minute, and he knew Jessica wouldn’t have either. But after all this time, it was becoming clear how hopeless the search really was, and each day that went by with no sign of her at all made that realization all the more evident. He couldn’t help but think about what the future would bring, and right now Casey simply wasn’t in that future and he had to accept the fact that she might never be.

  Whatever it was he was feeling towards Jessica, he had managed to keep it well in control, and did his best not to let her know. He certainly didn’t want to discuss it, as he wasn’t even sure if it was real or just a natural reaction to the stress of the situation. Not only did he feel bad about it because of Casey, but he knew that Jessica must be going through her own wide range of emotions considering how close she was with Casey as friends and roommates. And in the beginning, he had been much more attracted to Casey than to Jessica, as they seemed to have mutual interests that were apparent when he first met her at the freshman anthropology field trip he attended as an assistant.

  But night after night, as he shared a camp with Jessica, and she slept close to him in their sleeping bags against the canoe or under the tarp, depending on the nature of the campsite, he felt a growing desire for her. It had started that first night when she wrapped her arms around him in terror at the shriek of an owl. He couldn’t deny that it felt good to comfort her then, and that he took comfort in the closeness of their embrace as well. The whole world had changed practically overnight, and they were only human, after all—a young man and a young woman—trying to survive without any of the systems or structure that had always been a part of their lives until now. As he steered the canoe from the stern, guiding around the twists and bends of this new bayou, he pondered the implications of these things as he watched her wield her paddle with the new skill she’d mastered so quickly.

  This particular route was proving to be one of the most interesting yet. They had followed a series of dead sloughs that led them off of one of the main branches of the Pearl River. The route led through several still lakes, connected by sections of running water flowing generally southward. Paddling through this deep swamp, he’d almost overlooked a tiny channel that split off in a clear-running branch. They’d had to backtrack a few yards upstream to check it out, and at first it didn’t even look big enough to accommodate a canoe. But there was a strong current flowing into the entrance, evidence enough that it was indeed a bayou and not merely a slough. It had to come out again somewhere downstream, so Grant suggested they push on through a little ways and see if it was passable. Once they’d followed it for a few bends, it opened up a bit, and surprisingly, the water was clear enough to see the white sand bottom anywhere from a few inches to three feet below the surface. It was one of the many unexpected surprises of the swamp and one they would have completely missed if they had relied on first impressions. The little bayou led them into a magical stand of old-growth cypress and Tupelo gum, with huge flaring buttresses and almost solid sheets of Spanish moss hanging like curtains from their lower branches, nearly touching the water.

  “This is magnificent,” Grant said. “This is a glimpse of what this entire river basin forest would have looked like back before they logged most of it over a hundred years ago.”

  “It’s kind of creepy too,” Jessica said, looking around at the moss-draped giants in awe. “It has an otherworldly quality or something.”

  “I know what you mean. It’s primeval, that’s what it is. Most people today have never seen anything like it, because in most places there are only tiny remnants like this scattered here and there. But a lot of the jungle I saw in Guyana was very similar.”

  After that exchange, they drifted on in awed silence down the narrow bayou, staring up at the huge trees and only occasionally dipping their paddles to avoid hitting something. Being in this place made Grant think about the Wapishana people again. Their lifestyle would be totally unaffected by this solar event that had disrupted the world for everyone else. For them, life would be the same today as it was before, and they would likely be unaware that anything had happened. He was snapped out of his contemplation of this by a whispered, excited cry from Jessica:

 
“Grant! Look!”

  He saw that she was focused on the bank to their left, where there was a small sandbar in the inside bend of the bayou, maybe four feet wide and several yards long. The edge of the sandbar, sculpted into a smooth-faced bluff by high water the last time the river level had been up, was collapsed and broken, and piles of it had fallen off and slid down to the water’s edge. At first, Grant thought maybe an alligator had pushed itself off the bank into the river, but the tracks that were everywhere on the sandbar were no reptile tracks—they were human footprints! And not only that, as he looked closer, he could see that what had collapsed the edge of the sand was the weight of a canoe being pulled over it, into the water. There was the unmistakable area of smooth, flattened sand that could only be made by the hull of a canoe or the belly of a big gator, but the sharp, central groove down the center of the slide mark told him for sure that it was the keel of an aluminum canoe. And he was certain the mark was just like the one at the place where Casey was taken and the last one they’d found so many days ago.

  He was shocked, almost unable to believe what he was seeing. He immediately motioned Jessica to silence as he quietly jammed his paddle into the bottom to stop their forward motion. Stepping over the side of the canoe, he hung onto the gunwale while he pulled it closer to the bank and bent over the disturbed area for a closer look. There were many tracks in the sand, some old and shapeless and impossible to decipher, but the more recent ones made it clear to Grant that they had been made by two different people—a large man wearing moccasins and a person with significantly smaller bare feet! The latter could be Casey’s, and they could mean she was still alive! Furthermore, the barefoot tracks seemed to the be the most recent, as several of them were superimposed over the top of the moccasin prints, including a few that were alongside the slide mark made by the canoe. He wondered what that could mean as he crouched down beside the canoe and told Jessica that he was sure Casey had been here, and recently.

  Looking beyond the sandbar into the dense undergrowth of palmettos and bay trees, he saw that someone had cut a path leading away from the bayou. Moving as quietly as he could, he stepped ashore to get a closer look. Some of the cut stems and saplings had turned brown and died long ago. Other cuts were fresh, with dripping sap and green pith showing inside. Someone had used the path both recently and sometime well before the pulse event. Could it be that this was the place Casey’s abductor had planned to take her all along? If so, where were they now, and why were Casey’s tracks the only ones visible where the canoe had been pulled into the water? Grant trembled a bit to think that the man might be nearby, and likely armed to the teeth as well as intimately familiar with the area. He knew it was extremely dangerous, but he had to follow that path and see if he could find any clue to this mystery. Though he was reluctant to expose Jessica to the possibility of running right smack into this man who had taken Casey, he had learned his lesson before and was determined not to leave her alone or out of his sight, even for a few minutes. He tied the bow of their canoe to a cypress knee near the little sandbar and took her hand in his, his machete in the other. Warning her to silence, he crept forward along the path with Jessica in tow, stopping to look and listen every few steps, just as he’d seen the Wapishana do when they were stalking game in the jungle.

  There were more tracks in the deep carpet of leaves covering the ground along the narrow path, but none were clear enough to decipher or even to tell if they were made by Casey or by the man in moccasins. The presence of so many tracks made it all the more likely that the two of them had been here for much longer than just an overnight camp. Grant knew for certain his hunch was right when he emerged on the other side of the thicket into an open area of forest with little undergrowth. There, on the far side, was a platform hut built between four trees, not unlike those he’d frequently seen along the rivers of Guyana. A mix of man-made and natural materials, the hut’s log support beams and plastic tarp roof were an unusual combination he hadn’t seen before. A few feet away, hung upside down from a rope stretched between two trees, was the skinned carcass of a small deer. He froze at the sight of the camp, watching and listening to be sure no one was in the vicinity. Thanks to the fact that the tree house itself was open on all but one side, he could easily see that there was no one hiding inside it.

  After waiting for what seemed like at least five minutes, he crept out into the clearing with Jessica’s hand still in his, his machete upright and ready for action in the other. There was something lying on the ground not far to one side of the tree house, opposite the side on which hung the deer carcass. He let go of Jessica’s hand to walk a little closer, giving her a look that told her not to follow. Even before he was close enough to really be sure, he heard the buzzing of flies and then could see them swarming by the countless hundreds. The object on the ground was the body of a man, sprawled face down onto an animal skin that had been staked out next to a fire pit. When he walked closer, Grant saw that next to the dead man’s head, bloody and thrown aside on the ground, was a full-sized axe with a weathered wooden handle. The man’s skull was split from a blow to the back of the head that surely must have been delivered by the nearby axe, and the thickest congregation of the flies covered the oozing mess that spilled out of the wound. Looking over the rest of the body, Grant’s eyes were immediately drawn to the man’s feet, which were clad in crude, handmade deerskin moccasins.

  Grant took a couple of steps back, feeling a touch of nausea and shock at the violence of the man’s death. Though he couldn’t see the face to be sure it was the man they’d passed on the Bogue Chitto that day, the moccasins left no doubt in his mind that it was him. But who could have done this? Was it even possible that Casey could have done such a thing herself? To spare Jessica from the gruesome sight, he turned around and warned her to stay back, speaking in a normal voice now that he knew the man with the canoe was dead. Then he began calling Casey’s name, yelling at the top of his lungs, joined by Jessica, until their voices were hoarse. When they finally stopped, there was no answer, only the indifferent stillness of the swamp gradually replacing the fading echoes of their shouts.

  Grant quickly scaled the primitive ladder to the platform floor, looking for clues among the duffel bags, backpacks, buckets, and ammo cans scattered around the floor. He searched through all the bags looking for the pistol that belonged to Casey’s father. It was gone, and there were no other firearms to be found, though upon opening the military surplus ammo cans he found that two of them were still packed with individual boxes of ammunition in three different calibers: .22 Long Rifle, .357 Magnum, and 7.62 x 39 steel-jacketed Czechoslovakian military surplus.

  The plastic five-gallon buckets stacked along the one tarp wall of the shelter were empty except for one. Opening that one up, Grant was delighted to find that it was packed with cans of tuna fish, vegetable soup, chili beans, and one-pound bags of rice. If Casey had been the one who took out her abductor with the axe, it appeared she had the presence of mind to take all of the weapons and most of the food supplies in the shelter before leaving in the canoe. Grant resealed the bucket and the ammo boxes and carried them all down the ladder and over to the edge of the clearing where Jessica was waiting. Then he returned to the fire pit, trying not to look at the corpse beside it. He put his hands on top of the dead coals in its center and felt for heat. They were cold on the surface, but when he dug into the pile with his fingers, he found warmth just a few inches deep. He didn’t know how to estimate for sure how much time might have passed since there was a fire here, but he figured it couldn’t have been much more than about 24 hours at the most, and maybe a good bit less. It was clear that Casey had left the scene of whatever had happened here in the canoe, and the tracks they’d seen when they first got here made sense now. There was only one way she could have gone, and that was downstream. Since there was no one here who could have kept that fire going after she left, Grant was hopeful that she wouldn’t have had time to go very far.

  He r
ushed Jessica back to the canoe and quickly loaded the supplies and ammunition he had taken from the tree house into the bottom of the hull with their own gear. He had been so hungry before they got here that, if not for the sight of the dead man, he would have surely wolfed down some of the soup, beans, and tuna right out of the cans to replenish lost calories that had been so hard to come by in the swamp. He would have also eagerly thrown most of the deer carcass in the canoe for later too, but right now, he was still feeling queasy from what he had seen and had completely lost his appetite, especially for meat.

  They followed the current downstream as it twisted its way out of the old-growth forest and back into hardwood bottomland forests more typical of the rest of the river basin. Visibility was limited to a few yards, as the banks of the stream here were overgrown with head-high palmettos. They had paddled less than an hour when Grant spotted a sign that the canoe had been pulled up in the mud. He stopped and got out, and immediately noticed a small pile of charred wood on a patch of ground where the leaves had been cleared away. There were faint footprints, but the harder surface on the top bank did not leave clear impressions.

  “I’ll bet this fire was from last night!” Grant said to Jessica. “She must have stopped here after she left the camp because it got dark. If that was the case, she wouldn’t have left here until daylight this morning, and can’t be too far ahead of us. Come on, let’s go!”

  They worked their way around the twists and turns as fast as possible, but by the time the bayou emerged from the forest and rejoined one of the main branches of the Pearl River, it was late afternoon, with little time left before sunset. Grant was at a loss as to what to do next, but he had to assume that if Casey was indeed alone in the canoe, she would head downstream, as there was simply no way she could retrace her route back upriver against the current. He and Jessica paddled into the middle of the river and had only gone the distance of one big, sweeping bend, when she stopped mid-stroke and pointed at something in the distance ahead.