Long Voyage Back

by Luke Rhinehart

  Washington. There were no cities along the Chesapeake northwest of Crisfield. The first city northwest of Crisfield was way inland - Washington. A hundred miles away. A hundred miles away. Holy Sweet Jesus. The light glowed more brightly. Frank staggered out of the wheelhouse.

  Captain Oily was dozing in his faded and worn overstuffed chair, the television set gleaming in front of him, the sound turned down low, though still audible. Hours before, his son had gone out to a Smith Island bar, but 0lly had decided to stay home, bushed as usual.

  The face of a newscaster on the screen was intoning in tense, anxious tones but Olly didn't hear. Then with a gentle popping sound the screen went dark and the lights Olly had left on behind the set and in the kitchen also went out. Olly stirred, awakened by the change, and opened his eyes.

  `Chris?' he said into the darkness.

  He began feeling for the thin blanket that Chris sometimes put over him when he'd fallen asleep in his chair and Chris didn't want him to wake up. But his lap was bare. It didn't feel like he'd been sleeping that long but if Chris were home and had turned out all the lights it must be damn late.

  He shuffled slowly to the bathroom and, without bothering to turn on the light, pissed into the sink - no problem with aiming at such close range. Then he shuffled off to his small bedroom at the rear of the house. He hesitated for a moment at his bedroom door, a vague feeling of uneasiness nagging at him. In years at sea and in the bay he'd learned to be responsive to such intuitive twinges of concern, but he was in his own little house, anchored solidly to Smith Island which was anchored less solidly to Chesapeake mud. It was the moonlight streaming in the bedroom window that bothered him, but he couldn't tell why.

  He was old and he was tired. He fell on to his bed fully

  clothed and closed his. eyes. Something was wrong but damned if he could think of anything that wouldn't wait till morning. Soon he was asleep in the empty house, the half-moon not yet risen in the east, but light streaming in his window from the northwest. Jeanne was driving the stationwagon through the darkness on Route 5 south towards Point Lookout, having already travelled more than forty of the seventy miles from Washington. Lisa was sitting silently beside her in front, Skippy sprawled asleep in the rear with the dog, when a flash of bright light filled the car from the rear as if a vehicle with its headlights on had suddenly come up fast behind them. When Jeanne glanced in her rear-view mirror the brightness was more like a gigantic diffuse searchlight on the horizon aimed at her. Lisa turned to stare back out the rear window, and then, her face glimmering in the light, looked fearfully at Jeanne.

  `What is it, Mother?' she asked.

  Jeanne, following fifty yards behind .a blue pickup truck, didn't reply. The inexplicable and terrifying brightness had numbed her mind.

  Then her car was suddenly out of control, picked up by an invisible giant hand and flung forward at ten or fifteen miles faster than she'd been going, the rear end swinging sickeningly to the left then gliding back as if they'd hit a patch of ice. The pickup truck had swerved into the ditch on the right, then careened back on to the two-lane highway and across it until finally, wobbling as if all four tyres had gone flat and still speeding forward at sixty miles per hour, it steadied in the centre of the highway. Jeanne followed it, almost oblivious of what was happening to her own car. When the pickup's brakelights glowed, she began to brake her wagon, both vehicles quickly slowing to fifty, then forty, then driving on at that speed.

  Jeanne glanced at Lisa who was staring speechlessly at her in wide-eyed horror. Still not thinking, she slowed her car, letting the pickup disappear ahead of her into the eerily lit night. When she saw a pulloff space in front of a fruitstand she pulled the car off the road and stopped.

  I'm trembling, was the first thought she had, and she gripped the steering wheel more tightly, trying to control her shaking hands. Yes, 'trembling' was what it was called, she thought stupidly.

  Òh, Mommy, Mommy, what's happening?' Lisa cried and Jeanne felt her daughter press against her, clutching her arm, her face against Jeanne's shoulder. The rear-view mirror was filled with light. Two cars sped by, lit by the eerie brightness from behind. Then Jeanne turned to look back: a light was ballooning outwards and upwards into the sky, the central brightness becoming dimmer, but the area of light growing. Lisa's fingers dug into her still trembling arm and Jeanne thought simply: A nuclear bomb has struck Washington. There was no conscious terror or fear, only the bland fact. And this is what it's like forty miles away.

  Two more cars sped past towards Point Lookout. No one was now travelling back towards Washington. She closed her eyes and slowly lowered her head to the wheel.

  `Mommy . . . Mommy . . .' Lisa pleaded beside her, but Jeanne couldn't seem to function, couldn't seem to think anything. She had a sudden image of the house in Alexandria being shattered into tiny pieces by some blast but she felt nothing. The wheel was cold against her forehead. From the back seat the dog barked twice nervously, apparently disturbed by the light.

  Jeanne raised her head and straightened up, staring forward. She turned the car's engine back on. She shifted into forward, swung the car in a U, and began to drive back towards Washington.

  Beside her Lisa began to whimper. 'Where are we going, Mommy?' she gasped out between low moans.

  Ahead of them a bell-shaped clump of light expanded into the sky, its upper parts rising but growing dimmer, the lower parts spreading out horizontally and retaining their brightness. When the car headed straight towards it Jeanne had trouble seeing the road. When an oncoming car honked its horn at her and she swerved to the right, her right wheels slid off the shoulder, skidded, then climbed back on to the road. Òh, Mommy, Mommy!'

  How long it's been since Lisa has called me Mommy, she thought, driving unthinkingly onwards.

  And then she saw a fire: two cars tangled off the opposite side of the road, one of them engulfed in flames. She slowed as she passed them and then after a minute brought her car to a halt off the side of the road. They were on a slight rise overlooking miles of land ahead. She could see several other small fires burning in the half-darkness of this night, whether cars or houses she couldn't tell. Off to the right a whole village seemed to be burning. The landscape was otherwise dark.

  you're in shock. Get the children to safety. You're in shock, get the children to safety, you're in shock . . . Her mind was like some alien machine functioning mechanically and improperly, she herself dumb, helpless.

  `Mommy, let's go the other way,' Lisa whispered against her shoulder.

  `Yes, sweetheart,' she found herself saying calmly, her arm still trembling. 'We'd better get down to Point Lookout.'

  She swung the car a second time in a U, almost colliding with a van that was already speeding southwards and which she had seen and yet not seen. Then she was in line with the other vehicles, speeding through the night away from Washington. Neil ran down the dock and began untying Vagabond, feeling vulnerable, naked. Leaving the Tangier bar he'd seen the glow to the northwest and known what it meant, but had not broken stride towards the boat. As Jim leapt on to Vagabond and ran aft to descend into the inflatable dinghy tied off between the hulls, Neil could sense that now that Jim's nightmare had come true he was acting with unpanicked calm. With the wind still light out of the east Jim would have to tow them out to the bay before the ship would have a proper slant to sail to Crisfield and pick up Frank. But even as Neil acted to get the boat one way, a part of his mind was focused on getting the boat south, out of the Chesapeake into the open sea.

  When Jim came sliding between the hulls in the dinghy Neil dropped him the towline. The glow to the northwest was worse, and a surge of panic forced Neil to steady himself, holding on to the forestay and staring at the glow on the horizon.

  `Get going,' he said sharply and ran aft to raise the sails. Five minutes later Vagabond was out of the cove and sailing northward behind her dinghy at almost four knots. Neil knew Frank might be on some late ferry coming to Tangier, s
o he was keeping his boat in the buoyed channel. As they moved through the night he became aware of the total darkness on Tangier and Smith Islands and on the eastern shore. The battery-operated buoy lights were working but the rest of the world was in darkness.

  Some twenty minutes out into the bay he spotted the ferry, the lighted launch closing on them fast and bearing away. He put the spreader lights on so that Frank, if aboard, would be certain to recognize his trimaran. When he trained his glasses on the passengers, some of whom were visible in the launch lights, he saw Frank standing on the stern waving his arms at them like a drowning man.

  Neil signalled Jim to drop the towline and get over to the launch. When he looked back through the binoculars he saw Frank standing on the ship's side, a dufflebag in each hand; after staring dubiously at the widening gap between the ferry and Vagabond and then at the water, the tall, gangly figure stepped awkwardly off the boat and disappeared into the blackness, the ferry speeding on to Tangier. While Neil watched - feeling both fear and, admiration for Frank - it took Jim only a half-minute to reach Frank and another two to bring them both back to the trimaran. As Neil let Vagabond come up into the wind and rushed over to the port cockpit, Frank tossed his two wet bags aboard and prepared to swing himself up.

  `Thank God we found you,' Neil said, grabbing Frank's hand to pull him aboard.

  `There's a war, did you know?' Frank shot back. `Yes,' Neil answered.

  `You got a towel for me? I'm freezing to death.'

  Neil carried the two dufflebags into the wheelhouse and found a towel Jim had left on a settee. As Frank began undressing and vigorously drying his body, Neil went back to speak to Jim.

  `Come back aboard,' Neil shouted to him. 'We'll tow the dinghy and sail.' As Jim began to obey, Neil went back to the wheel to get Vagabond turned around and headed down the bay towards the Atlantic Ocean.

  `Where the hell are you going?' Frank asked, pausing in drying his legs to look up at Neil winching in the mainsail.

  `We've got to escape this madness,' Neil said, taking Vagabond off the wind on a starboard tack. 'The Chesapeake will soon be nothing but a saltwater burial ground. The whole east coast is probably doomed.'

  Frank stared at him.

  `We've been at war less than an hour,' he snapped back to Neil. 'Are you surrendering already?'

  The question startled Neil. He was ready to surrender in some sense, not to an invading army - that he'd be willing to fight - but to the invisible anonymous destruction which he knew was being unleashed.

  Jim had made the dinghy fast and now appeared in the wheelhouse, looking uncertainly at the confrontation.

  `You may want to run immediately,' Frank went on angrily. 'But I've got a wife and daughter thirty miles outside of New York City who may still be alive. I've got Jeannie and Bob to pick up.'

  `The Foresters can't have survived what happened to Washington,' Neil said.

  `They may have come down to Point Lookout earlier this evening,' Frank explained. 'In any case it's damn certain it's our job to go over and see.'

  Àll right,' said Neil. 'But then we've got to get out into the Atlantic - before we're blown up or buried in radioactive ash.'

  `Don't give me any more crap about an ocean voyage,'

  Frank shot back. 'We're at war! We have to stay here!' `There may not be a here much longer,' Neil insisted. `Neil's right, Dad,' Jim broke in. 'We've got to get out of the Chesapeake.'

  `Shut up! Both of you!' Frank shouted. He paced past Jim out into a side cockpit and then, after staring at the ballooning glow on the horizon, returned. Èven if New York's already been hit, no one can be certain how wide the destruction is around each city.' He paused. 'I'm going to try to fly north. I've got to get to Norah and Susan.'

  Neil stared at him in disbelief.

  Ì figure there's a chance they're still alive,' Frank

  continued huskily. 'I can charter a plane in Salisbury to fly to Oyster Bay and bring them back.'

  Neil searched Frank's anguished face.

  Ìt's madness, Frank,' he said softly. 'That whole area has probably been hit. If your wife survived she's already fled out the island. There's no way . . Ì'm going,' Frank interrupted sharply. 'If there's only one chance in ten I've still got to try.'

  Ànd what are Jim and I supposed to do?' Neil asked, brushing roughly past Frank to adjust the mainsheet. 'Sit here for two or three days waiting for the fallout or the next explosion?'

  `You try to get the Foresters over at Point Lookout.'

  Àll right, we'll do that,' Neil said. 'But then what?'

  `You pick me up in Crisfield tomorrow night.'

  Neil grimaced and turned away, shaking his head.

  `We'll sail to Crisfield now,' Frank went on, 'and I can get to Salisbury by eight or nine in the morning.' Both he and Neil watched Vagabond sail past a red buoy, both instinctively noting the ship's speed. 'I should be able to get a plane by ten or eleven. New York by noon. If I give myself six hours to find her and Susan that'll get me back at Crisfield by .

  . . nine tomorrow.'

  Neil stared at him. 'Look, Frank,' he began, glancing at Jim who was listening with grim attentiveness. 'Not many people are going to survive what's happening. Those that do are those that act fast and . . . ruthlessly. Those that know enough to cut their losses and run. Don't go. We can go over to Point Lookout to check for the Foresters now and then ride the tide down out the bay later tomorrow morning.'

  Frank flushed.

  Ì'm going,' he said. 'And you're not using my boat to escape your responsibilities.'

  `What responsibilities?' Neil exploded. 'Tell me, what in God's name you think any of us can do now against

  incoming missiles except-try to survive. Every second you delay us you're risking me and your son and the Foresters.'

  Ì have to try to save my family and there may be other things to do,' Frank went on. 'We can't just run.'

  `We can't help anyone dead,' Jim blurted out.

  `Jim's right,' Neil said.

  Frank leaned against the wheelhouse shelf, put his face in his hands, and rubbed his forehead. When he looked up, much of his colour seemed to have drained away. Ì'm going to try,' he said softly. 'Get Vagabond turned around. If I'm not back by nine tomorrow tonight ... by ten . . . that's when the tide's high . . . you can leave without me.'

  As Neil stared forward past the mainmast and across the water he felt resentment at Frank's putting him in the villain's role of running. During the last crisis three months before, he'd considered what he would do if a nuclear war broke out and decided he'd probably have it easy because he'd be on a boat at sea or on the coast and thus could flee the explosions and fallout. But the holocaust had actually found him becalmed without an engine seventy-five miles up a bay in the middle of dozens of prime targets, owner and guests and family scattered to the winds. Frank's effort to find his family in the north complicated things further and was insane: every moment they remained in the Chesapeake decreased their chances of survival.

  `Don't go, Dad,' Jim said after a long silence. 'Please don't go. We can't help Mom now.'

  Ì've got to go,' Frank replied, turning to walk out into the port cockpit. 'I could never forgive myself if ... I didn't try .. .

  Neil turned the wheel over to Jim, told him to bring Vagabond about, and walked after Frank.

  Àll right,' he said, standing near him and looking at Frank's frightened, determined face.

  'If you've got to go, so be it. We'll take you to Crisfield and then go to Point Lookout to try to help the Foresters, then back into Crisfield. tomorrow.'

  Ànd you can leave without me at ten,' Frank concluded. Ì plan to sail south at no later than ten, tomorrow night,' Neil agreed without expression.

  Frank nodded gloomily. As Vagabond swung about to take Frank back to Crisfield they all stared forward at the terrifying glow on the horizon. On every other side the world was dark.

  `Be back on time, you fool,' Neil said softly to Frank. 'We
need you.'

  `Yeah,' said Frank huskily. can't let you steal my boat.'

  1 0

  By the time Jeanne was within a few miles of Point Lookout she was out of her state of shock. Point Lookout, she knew, was a dead end: a small town at the end of the huge Vshaped peninsula bordered on one side by the wide Potomac River and on the other by the Chesapeake. The nearest bridges were almost fifty miles away and might have been destroyed by the blast over Washington. She would meet Vagabond in Point Lookout or have to get herself and the children on to another boat. Hundreds, thousands of survivors from the destruction to the north would be funnelled south to this tiny town, and everyone would be seeking a boat.

  She knew that Vagabond might not come for her, that Frank might conclude that she and her family had been killed. She could only hope the trimaran was already in Point Lookout and would wait a few hours at least.

  Lisa too had regained control. She seemed to need to talk, so Jeanne nodded and grunted while her mind worked along in its own channels. Mostly Lisa recited what she could remember from reading pamphlets about radioactive fallout, a subject Jeanne already knew well. Neither of them mentioned her father, dead, Jeanne assumed dully, in Washington. Her strongest emotion when she emerged from shock was anger: anger at the Russians and Americans who had created this war that had killed Bob and was threatening to kill Lisa and Skip.

  As they neared Point Lookout it struck Jeanne as strange that she could see other drivers, like herself reacting to the largest crisis of their lives, yet say nothing to them. Each vehicle was its own separate island, its occupants shipwrecked alone. And something else was strange: there didn't seem to be anyone at home along the road. The area was deserted. Then she realized: there's no electric power. The lights are out. Forever.

  The thought 'forever' chilled her even as she recognized it as melodrama; she shook her head to get rid of it. But she felt her anger rising again to see on either side of the road the dark houses, as if already everyone inside of them were dead. The stupid, thoughtless life-haters were doing it: they were blowing up the world.