Ferryman

by Jonathon Wise

  He took a few seconds to admire the beauty of his wife stirring on the sofa. Then while she began to stretch and wake up, he headed for the kitchen to get the coffee going. A moment later, when he was grabbing a mug out of the cupboard, daylight suddenly flooded the kitchen. He spun around and saw Becky pulling the drapes open. “Stop!” he gasped. “What are you doing?”

  Becky was still half asleep when she turned toward him. “Letting some light in―”

  He hurried over with the mug in his hand and started to cut her off, “We can’t take a chance on anyone looking in here and seeing what we—” when suddenly a dark object fell outside the picture window and stopped him in mid-sentence. It was nothing more than a flicker in his peripheral vision, but it was enough to steal his train of thought. His mouth dropped open as he stopped a few feet from the window.

  Becky froze solid. “What is it?”

  He heard her, but he was too busy running possible explanations through his mind to answer. He was praying that it was an illusion or just a coincidence and that it had nothing to do with the outbreak. That hope ended when he saw another bird hit the roof across the street. The mug slipped from his lifeless grip, fell to the floor and slung coffee across the carpet.

  Panic hit Becky as she glanced back out the window and demanded, “What is it?”

  Chuck swallowed hard. He didn’t know how to answer her. They were just beginning to work out their marriage. How could he destroy that hope by telling her that the outbreak was in Madison? But he knew that he had no choice. They had to be prepared for the worst. After a moment of deliberation, he tried to convey the dire implications of what she was about to see in the subtle shake of his head as he took her hand. The air of the moment already had her trembling as she followed him out the front door and onto the porch.

  He squeezed her shoulder and whispered, “There,” as he pointed to two doves flapping their wings in the tall grass of their weed filled lawn. Then in as calm a tone as he could muster, he said, “They’re dying,” as he pulled her next to his side.

  She looked across the street and pointed at a small, lifeless lump of feathers on the gray-shingled roof. In a shaky voice she said, “Honey…” It was the same bird Chuck saw fall just moments ago.

  A soft thud hit behind them and then a black bird rolled off their roof and fell to the sidewalk. The thud was followed by a more familiar sound—that of a door opening. A neighbor three houses down on the right stepped outside. A second later another door opened. “Baby, I want you to go back in and gather my rifles and bring them along with all the shells to the living room.”

  She searched his eyes for answers. “Why?”

  He had to wet his lips and swallow before he could talk. Then without taking his eyes off his neighbors, he lowered his face, and whispered, “When people start seeing the birds fall from the sky, they know the end is coming. There won’t be any more rules or laws…from here on out we’re on our own.”

  Becky hurried inside without saying another word. He raised his head and stared defiantly at the two neighbors who had come outside. An undeniable thought suddenly bubbled up in him with the gravest of urgency. He should have taken the time to drive by the store last night and grab the shotgun he kept behind the counter.

  Chapter 10

  Under normal circumstances, the modest ranch home on the north side of Indianapolis would have been brimming with joy and hope as the day of the young couple’s marriage drew closer. Unfortunately other matters had come to the forefront. Jason pulled his fiancée against his side as they stood in front of the television and stared at the horrible images of bodies littering the streets of downtown Los Angeles.

  Leslie cringed. “Can this really be happening, with all our doctors and all our medicine?”

  Jason was unable to answer. He’d spent half his life wondering whatever happened to her and whether he would still feel that same warm feeling in his chest if he ever got the chance to see her again. For this to happen less than a year after finding her again—it simply wasn’t fair. He looked into her eyes. “We’re going to be alright.” A warm feeling surged through his chest, just like it did when he rescued her from that awful teasing in the school cafeteria when they were twelve. And just like then, she looked at him with admiration in her heart. It was no different now. He would always be there to protect her.

  He kissed her softly and asked, “Will you be okay for a little bit? I don’t think Mrs. Conner has done anything to prepare and I doubt her kids are going to help. Not that she’s really going to need anything―but just in case—it’ll make her feel better.” They had only known Mrs. Conner since moving in last winter, but that was plenty of time for Jason and Leslie to build a close relationship with her. He was always helping her out, doing whatever needed to be done. He had shoveled snow, raked leaves, mowed her lawn, and carried in groceries. Jason never thought of it as any big deal. It was just who he was. Whenever he saw anyone in need, he was always the first to jump in and help.

  Leslie knew how uncomfortable he was with compliments, so she never told Jason how proud she was of his giving, even though it was one of the reasons why she had never forgotten about him in all those years. With that understanding, she kept the alarm in her voice under control and said, “You go on honey and help her out. I’ll stay and watch the news―see if there are any updates.”

  Her bravery brought a proud smile to his face. “I may have to run to the store for additional supplies, but I should be home before dark.”

  “Be careful!” she said, as her weight shifted to her toes.

  He smiled, said that he would with a nod, and started to leave, but before he opened the door she asked, “Will there still be enough time for us to get the food and supplies we need?”

  Jason smiled and nodded. “Oh yeah. You’ll be surprised by how everyone pulls together at a time like this. We’ll be okay.”

  Chapter 11

  Except for the distraught voice of the local news anchor on the television, the house was fairly quiet. Becky was filling up Tupperware and plastic jugs at the kitchen sink. A simple distraction meant to keep her mind off what was happening. While she bottled up water, Chuck sat on the edge of the sofa and cleaned his rifles. It was a chore made so routine over the years that it left him time to reflect. Surprisingly, his thoughts weren’t on their current situation. Instead the smooth feel of the steel barrel and the warmth of the wood stock, made him think about the day his father brought home the rifles.

  Like most boys in town, Chuck started going to the woods to shoot as soon as he was big enough to carry a rifle. Sometimes he went with Stan or some of his other friends, but mostly he went by himself. But up until the day his dad brought home the two matching Winchesters, he had never actually hunted anything.

  It was an early Saturday morning in mid-January when his father walked him through a fresh snow into the deep woods. His dad despised tree stands—said that any damn fool could set up in a tree and wait for a deer to come to him. Real hunting was about being on the same level, tracking a deer through the brush and being quiet enough not to spook him before you got the shot.

  That day he and his dad tracked a buck to a sheltered patch of tall grass and brush. They approached downwind under the cover of a sycamore that had fallen along a creek near the patch. His dad would take the shot, or at least that’s what he figured until his dad motioned that it was time for him to become a man. He could still remember the chill he felt when he lined up the buck in his crosshairs. Chuck pulled the wire brush from the rifle barrel he was cleaning, and took a second to rub his thumb against the tip of his right index finger. He could still remember the feel of the trigger against his finger. He remembered how nervous he was until his dad whispered, “Make it clean. You don’t want the creature to suffer.”

  He pulled back to the present and started to inspect the barrel he just finished. That was when the first shot echoed up from the distance.

  Becky ran out from the kitchen. “What w
as that!”

  He looked at her without as much as a flinch. “It’s starting.”

  “What’s starting?”

  He lowered the rifle to his lap and made room for her on the sofa. “Sit with me.” She hurried over and sat down next to him, still holding a two-quart Tupperware container and the dishtowel she was cleaning it with. He took her hand, and said in a soft, calm tone, “It might get pretty bad, and if it does we’re probably going to hear some things that we’re not used to hearing.”

  “Like what?”

  He nodded toward the window. “Like that gun shot.” Becky was scared. He could see it in her eyes and sense it in her posture. He squeezed her hand for reassurance. “We’ll be fine in here. We’ve got enough food and water, we’ve got guns and plenty of ammo. We’ll just sit it out. They’ll have this outbreak under control in a few days and then folks will start calming down. Things will return to normal. After it does, then you and I can get started on making up for all the time we lost.” He smiled as he paused to rub the back of her hand. “I’m looking forward to that.” After a moment to let that thought sink in, he continued, “You mentioned the other day about how we used to go driving. You remember that?”

  Becky nodded as she bit down to settle the quiver in her jaw.

  “I tell you that sounds pretty good right now. Why don’t you start putting together a list of all the places you’d like to visit before it gets too cold out. Can you do that?”

  She nodded and forced a smile. A moment later she began to relax her grip on his hand. Another shot rang out and she clutched his fingers. This shot sounded closer. Too close in proximity and coming too quickly after the first shot to be from the same gun.

  He squeezed her hand once and said, “Go on, fill up anything else you can find. And start putting that list together.”

  She let go and drifted on back to the kitchen with her head hung low.

  He waited until he heard the sound of the faucet before he finished cleaning the rifle. He was setting it back down on the floor as the female anchor at the CBS affiliate out of Indianapolis broke away from her coverage on the national front to get a live feed from one of the local reporters out on the street. With dark circles showing through the makeup around her eyes, she sighed once and said, “We’ve got Jim Hanson reporting from the street outside Circle Center Mall.” She waited in dead silence for a second before prompting, “Jim…Jim are you there?”

  “Marie, we’re having some problems with the video feed.”

  “Go ahead, the audio is okay, but speak up—there’s a lot of background noise.”

  “I’m standing here just outside what used to be the commercial heart of downtown. I say used to be because now it looks more like a war zone. Looting has been going on for several hours. There’s no sign of it letting up or that the local police have the manpower to put an end to it.”

  “Can you describe the atmosphere―what do the people—” She paused and tilted her head to the side, then said, “Hold on…we’ve got video now.” The broadcast flicked away from the stable picture of the exhausted anchor to a shaky view of the field reporter’s back as he stood and watched a small mob bust out a storefront window a half block away. “Jim, is this going on everywhere?”

  He turned toward the camera. “I don’t believe so Marie. It appears to be localized in a few small pockets around the city. Most people are leaving. I don’t know if we can get a shot from our live eye in the sky, but the interstates should be interesting right about now.”

  “Are people just looting or is it worse?”

  The reporter cupped his hand to his ear, as the rioting in the background grew louder. “I’m sorry Marie, could you repeat that?”

  “Is it more than just looting?”

  “Ahh…” the reporter stammered for a second, “…yes, before we tied in we did see a fight break out and—”

  Marie broke in as a car suddenly shot around the intersection behind the mob. “Here comes a car—are they letting vehicles through?”

  The camera swung over and focused on a Buick as it veered toward the mob.

  “Oh shit,” Chuck mumbled, as he watched the car ride up onto the sidewalk. A few dove out of its path. But the majority never saw it coming. Chuck pushed back against the sofa as a man smashed against the windshield and flipped over the Buick’s roof while another body disappeared beneath the undercarriage. For a horrifying second he could see a man being crushed and dragged under the rear axle. Then the Buick sideswiped a brick building, veered back off the sidewalk, and crashed into a light pole.

  “Jesus Christ!” the reporter gasped as he started to run over to the wreck. Thirty feet from the Buick, the driver’s door popped open and the shaky image of a man who looked to be in his mid-twenties stumbled out. The reporter sounded less like a professional newsman and more like a regular guy who just witnessed a vehicular manslaughter, when he pulled up and yelled, “Hey! Where are you going?”

  The image stabilized as the driver slowly hobbled along the fender toward the front of the smashed hood where he stared at the camera crew with the blank look of a lost child. Chuck leaned toward the screen and watched as the man teetered like a drunk and screamed, “Help me!” Then he managed one last wobbly step before he stumbled backwards and fell out of view.

  The image bounced up and down again as the cameraman and reporter raced over to the wreck ahead of the mob. There was a blur as the view swung past a brick wall to the sidewalk behind the Buick. A split second later Chuck caught a quick flash of the driver going into convulsions before the image jumped as the mob rushed in. A torn shirt flashed across the television right before the lens crashed against the sidewalk and the screen went blank. The video feed was gone but he could still hear the audio. And what Chuck heard caused his breath to stall. It was the sound of the reporter pleading as he was being bludgeoned to death. “It wasn’t me! It was him!” Chuck pulled back from the television as a thud came over the speakers. After that there was nothing but static.

  Chuck was still staring in disbelief when the broadcast switched back to Marie in the newsroom. The anchor crumpled up a fistful of bulletins and started shaking her head. “Fuck this bullshit!” She yanked out her earpiece, threw her chair back, got up and walked off screen.

  For over a minute the only thing being broadcast was silence and an empty desk. Finally a young kid who couldn’t have been but a year out of college, dressed in blue jeans and a Colts T-shirt, fidgeted around the desk, sat down and took the earpiece. With a shaky voice, and fighting to be heard over the emotional release of others in the background, he snatched up one of the bulletins and began to read. “From yesterday…the Center for Disease Control has confirmed that the first contact with the pathogen was a student from the University of North Carolina. As a member of an Extreme Adventures group touring San Luis Potosi, he came into contact with the pathogen while exploring a vertical pit, newly created by the earthquake which devastated that region May fourteenth.” He paused and looked through the pile of bulletins, grabbed another and started to read again. “The office of the President has announced on his behalf, that the deployment and use of temporary morgues by the National Disaster Medical System has been authorized.”

  While the boy shuffled through more bulletins, a tingle washed over Chuck’s skin as he made the connection between the last announcement and that semi-truck he saw. Temporary morgues—TM unit C61, the CDC was sitting up a temporary morgue in town. A prolonged silence drew Chuck’s attention back to the broadcast. The boy was digging through the bulletins and by the way he kept cupping his hand to his head, it looked like he was being directed by the voice from his earpiece to find a particular sheet in the pile.

  He watched the frustration build in the boy’s face until the broadcast suddenly switched over to what looked like a live feed from Florida. An older voice simultaneously broadcast that this was a tape from yesterday. A distinguished looking man strolled toward the camera with a backdrop of high-rise condos
to his rear, and said, “Florida, sandy beaches and fun in the sun. Well not today. Not here in Palm Beach, not anywhere.” The feed switched to a camera angle 180 degrees from the first, to where the crashing surf replaced the condos as the backdrop behind the reporter. At first it looked like seaweed washing up around the reporter’s feet. Then slowly, Chuck’s mouth started to drop open as the camera tightened in on the debris. It wasn’t seaweed. Dead fish were washing up on the sand. The gray-haired reporter looked down as he walked along the fish and said in a solemn voice that truly sounded genuine, “It appears that the oceans are dying too.” The picture froze with the reporter staring down at the loss of life. Words started to scroll across the bottom of the screen, ‘In memory of William “Bill” Tourney’.

  The screen went black and Chuck started shaking his head. These guys were still trying to do their job while the world around them was going to hell. The broadcast suddenly popped back on and he jerked back toward the television. That’s when it hit him—a sudden, dull pain between his eyes. He winced and muffled a low moan as he shut his eyes and grabbed his head.

  “Honey! Are you okay?” Becky screamed as she ran in from the kitchen.

  When he first looked up she was nothing but a blur. But after a couple of quick flexes of his face, his eyes finally focused on the crisp lines of his wife’s body. “Yeah baby…I’m okay…just watching the news. You cooking supper?”

  She studied him for a second. “No silly, I’m filling jugs with water just like you told me.” She paused to study him a second longer before finally disappearing back into the kitchen.

  He glanced down at the rifle resting on the sofa next to him. The casual glance turned into a stare for several seconds before he finally looked around the room at the boxes of shells and canned food. What am I doing? He lowered his head for a moment and it suddenly came back to him. “Yeah!” he said with an air of discovery and a hard nod. He was cleaning his rifles.