Ferryman

by Jonathon Wise

  He looked back at the television screen and saw another frozen image. This one was a young, pretty female reporter standing in front of several thousand dead cows at what looked to be one of those bigger-than-life ranches in Texas. The bottom of the screen read, ‘Leslie Anne Wilson, you will be missed’.

  Chuck sat there and stared at the poor girl’s face. She was young and full of ambition. She had her whole life ahead of her. Or at least she did. Now she was dead. He felt himself sink down into the sofa as his eyes started to water up. There was an unfamiliar pull on his heart as he started thinking about the children playing on the sidewalk in front of his store, the very ones that he always chased off. But those pleasant mental pictures quickly turned into the horrible images of them dead. He closed his eyes and tried to push the images away, but they persisted. He saw the soft, peaceful face of the little blond haired boy that called him a mean, old man last week. His innocent face pretending to be asleep, but it was a sleep that he would never wake from as his small frame laid lifeless across the curb in front of Chuck’s store.

  Burying his face in his hands did help. It was too much. He suddenly pushed off the sofa and started to yell, “No!” But as soon as he stood he felt the blood rush out of his head.

  Becky ran back in from the kitchen, “Honey―” Before he knew it, she was there with her arms around him.

  A cool flush filled his temples that made his eyes feel like lead weights about to roll back. “No! No!” he stammered, as his head fell backwards.

  Becky caught his weight as he started to collapse. “Come on honey!” she screamed, as she shoved her shoulder under his arm.

  His head rolled forward as he started panting for air.

  “You can’t die on me!” she cried, as she propped him up against her body.

  Then his entire body jerked once as he sucked air into his lungs and raised his chin from his chest. After a moment, his vision returned and he saw his wife’s face.

  She looked at him through a steady flow of tears as she put a hand to each side of his face and cried, “Can you see me?”

  He grabbed her shoulders to keep the room from rocking like a ship at sea. “I…I’m okay…I just stood up too fast…that’s all.”

  She slid her hands down around his back and pulled in tight to his body. “I’m here for you.”

  Chuck closed his eyes and squeezed his wife as he took several deep breaths. “I’m okay. Really.” He pushed back and followed up the statement with as best of a smile as he could muster. When she finally returned it, he said, “I better get down to the shop.”

  The smile left her face and a questioning look came over her. “What do you mean?”

  “What?”

  “You remember what’s going on, don’t you?”

  Unwilling to admit his uncertainty, he stared at her for a second and then forced out a laugh. “Of course I do baby, don’t you?” But it was all bluff. He was operating on instinct. Something was scaring him, but he couldn’t quite remember what it was. The only clear thought in his head was that he needed to get the shotgun from the store.

  She grabbed his face again. “You remember the plague don’t you?”

  “Of course I do.” But it was only as the words came out of his mouth that he actually began to remember. While still facing her, he shifted his eyes to the supplies boxed up on the floor and he remembered breaking into the Wal-Mart the night before. “Yeah baby, you know with all that food and the way things are, I thought I better go to the shop and get my sawed off.”

  She continued to search his eyes. After a few seconds she seemed to be satisfied with what she saw and let go of his face.

  He took a step away from her as bits and pieces of his mind came back on line. “Seriously, we can use another gun for protection.”

  “We’ve got both your hunting rifles and plenty of shells―isn’t that enough?”

  “Those are great if they’re not right on top of you.” A few more circuits flicked back on line. “But if someone is breaking in through the door I’d rather have something that has a little more scatter power to it.” He took another step back and found the keys in his pocket. “I won’t be gone long.” He blew her a kiss and started to turn.

  “Wait! You’re going to take a rifle aren’t you?”

  He tried to act like he was embarrassed about forgetting it. But truth of the matter was that he wasn’t sure why he would need a rifle. Then he remembered the images of the mob up in Indianapolis and what happened to that poor reporter. He smiled and nodded as he walked back past her and grabbed the rifle and a few shells off the sofa. That was why he needed to get the shotgun.

  As he walked back by her she grabbed his arm. “You sure we need it?”

  He smiled and placed his hand over hers. “Yeah…I won’t be gone long. Just do like you did last night and keep the other rifle at your side.” There’s one in the chamber and three in the magazine. Anyone other than me try to come through that door, you shoot first and ask questions later. You got that?”

  “Yeah.”

  As soon as he stepped through the door he knew that it would be the last time they would venture outside. The yards in the neighborhood were littered with the still bodies of fallen birds. Scattered among them were several dead dogs and cats, pets that had been left out to die by owners who were fearful that they might bring the plague in with them. There were a couple of thick columns of black smoke rising up somewhere to the west of his house. Surprisingly, he didn’t hear as much distant gunfire as he heard earlier.

  After another momentary lapse, he found himself sitting in the middle of the street with the truck running. He gave it a little gas and then had to hit the brakes as the truck went backwards. He put the transmission in drive, looked over to make sure that Becky wasn’t watching from behind the drapes, and slowly gave it some gas. He passed the open front door to an abandoned house two yards down from his. At the stop sign on Michigan, he looked over at the house on the corner and saw the front door kicked in. Across the street from it, there were two open suitcases and a week’s worth of clothes scattered across the yard.

  He looked both ways and suddenly forgot where he was going. A second later he slapped his palm against the steering wheel as he remembered. With a nod and a smile, he turned right and began the winding descent to downtown. Main Street brought a truer picture of what had been going on over the last twenty-four hours. Many of the storefront windows were broken out along the street. He could even see the taillights of a late sixties Impala several feet inside the pharmacy where it had come to rest after crashing through the front wall. He smiled as he thought about how somebody must have taken the pharmacy’s advertised drive-thru pickup a little too literally.

  But the smile vanished quickly when he saw the first body. Until then he had only seen dead animals in Madison. With all the talk and hype about a plague sweeping over the world, he had not yet seen any human casualties in Madison. That blissful ignorance was now over. He stopped and fought down a hard swallow as he stared at the body of an older man slumped across the curb of the sidewalk. Further down the street there was another body—perhaps someone he knew. He started shaking his head as the reason why he hadn’t seen any bodies until now finally dawned on him. It was because most people were dying in their homes with their families. The realization sent a shiver up his back as he pictured someone finding him and Becky dead on their sofa.

  It wasn’t an image that he wanted to dwell on. He pushed away the thought and gave the truck some gas. Movement at the next intersection caught his attention and he glanced over at a man and a woman fighting. He drove on past, but as he started to slow down in front of his store, his mind made the connection about what he actually saw. He didn’t see a man and woman fighting. As he stopped in front of his store, he realized that what he saw was a man raping a woman. He sat there for a moment, squeezing the wheel as he looked at his shop. Not too surprisingly his store was one of the few not broken into. That’s the thing abou
t antiques—in a time of crisis, they’re not a priority with anyone.

  As he stared at the ‘Closed’ sign hanging in the front door, he picked up the rifle, loaded it and chambered the first round. Whether it was instinctual or done with thought, he got out and walked back to the intersection. The man had the woman pinned down on the other side of the street, but was having trouble undoing his pants and keeping her under control at the same time. Chuck steadied himself and raised the rifle to where the guy could see it. “Hey! You! Get off her!” The impact of yelling was felt immediately. His head dipped and rolled, and he had to grab on to the parking meter to keep his balance.

  The man across the street paid no attention to the warning. The poor woman – that was a different story. She let out a blood-curdling scream for help.

  Chuck licked his lips, pushed away from the parking meter, and fired a round at one of the oversize terracotta pots that served as giant planters underneath the streetlights. Half the pot shattered and fell to the sidewalk. The assailant didn’t even flinch.

  Chuck’s head started to swim as he sucked in a deep breath and chambered the next round. He slumped up against the parking meter and used it to steady his aim as the shrill of her screams pulled at his nerves. But as he tried to stay calm and hold the sights on the man’s head, he started to lose the feeling in his index finger. At the same time the back of the man’s head started to blur. Chuck closed his eyes for a second before trying to focus again. He slowly exhaled as the numb belly of his finger settled in on the trigger. Then in that second of calm, he squeezed off the shot.

  A white puff kicked off the asphalt a half block past the man as the shot echoed through downtown. The man had the woman’s hands pinned behind her head and was driving freely into her as Chuck quickly chambered another round. Chuck half mumbled and half slurred in disbelief, “How could I miss that son-of-a-bitch?” He settled back against the parking meter and found the man’s head in the crosshairs again. This time the disbelief of missing the first time helped steady his aim and took away the shock of actually shooting another human being. A second later he gently squeezed the trigger. At the same instant that the shot echoed out, he saw the man’s head lurch forward and his blood splatter across the asphalt behind him.

  Chuck wanted to run over and help, but he couldn’t even maintain a straight line as he walked over. She was still screaming when he stumbled up to her. In fact it seemed like it had been one continuous scream since he shot the man. As soon as she saw Chuck bending over, she started pushing and kicking in a desperate attempt to roll the dead weight off her. She was still hysterical even after Chuck pulled the body off. Like a mouse exposed by a young boy who turns over an empty crate, she looked up with the wide eyes and pale, clammy face of someone near shock. She scuffed the butt of her palms against the asphalt as she frantically kicked and tried to retreat away from him on her ass and elbows.

  He looked at her and yelled like a drunken idiot as he swayed back and forth. “What are you doing down here, you trying to get yourself raped?” He waited for the stars to clear in his vision, and then he lurched at her. “Now go on, get out of here and find yourself someplace safe to stay.”

  A glimmer of gratitude broke through the look of fear on the woman’s face as she finally clamored up to her feet and took off running.

  As he zigzagged his way back across the street to his store, his field of vision started to constrict while his other senses began to deaden. He saw the broken glass from the looted stores on the sidewalk as he plopped one foot down in front of the other. He knew that it had to be crunching and snapping under the weight of his boot. He didn’t hear it or feel it. A moment later he slammed into the door of his store. Exhausted and not even sure what he was doing, he dug the keys out of his pocket and started fumbling with the lock.

  He swallowed and his entire body mimicked the movement. He opened his eyes and saw the sawed-off twelve-gauge on the seat of his pickup. “What…” he slurred out in wonder of where he was and how he got there. He jerked at something hard in his left hand and almost hit the sidewalk. It was the door handle of his truck, and it was the only thing that kept him from falling. He bent over and put his nose to within inches of the chrome handle as he tried to focus on it through eyes that he could barely hold open. While threads of spit drooled from his mouth he began to giggle as he climbed back behind the wheel.

  Chapter 12

  Infrastructures around the world quickly crumbled as the plague took its victims. Communication systems were left unmanned. Ships, railcars and tractor-trailers loaded with food and supplies were left to spoil when crew, linemen and drivers fell dead. Rumors spread like wildfire and ignited a mass hysteria across the country. Everyone’s fear was that if you survived the plague, you would likely starve to death because so much of the available food would be locked away and rotting in the house of someone who didn’t.

  In the local fight against pillaging and stockpiling, the Mayor enlisted the National Guard to patrol the network of food distribution centers that had been setup overnight around Indianapolis. Their sole purpose was to ensure that everyone had an equal chance at a minimal food ration. Each household was allowed one hand-basket and given ten minutes to shop as entire neighborhoods were cycled through the makeshift supermarkets. While one group searched the half-empty shelves for staples, the next group waited their turn outside under armed guard. It was society’s last hope for order in a growing state of chaos.

  Jason grabbed Leslie’s arm and froze at the sound of the first gunshot. The sound of crashing glass immediately followed as several plate glass windows along the front of the makeshift supermarket shattered. The screams from outside came next. In a sudden gasp, he yanked his fiancée to the floor and shielded her with his body as he watched one of the guardsmen run past the end of the aisle and open fire.

  Everything happened so fast. They covered up and flinched as the exchange of gunfire sounded all around them. A guard stumbled back against the shelves at the end of the aisle and dragged down several cans of food as he slumped to the floor. Jason was nearly in shock as he stared at the guard’s blood pooling on the tile floor. And that’s when he noticed it. For several seconds there was no noise at all. No screams, no gunshots, no murmurs of panic or anguish. The store was completely silent. He looked down at Leslie and for one fearful heartbeat, their eyes shared the terror of the unknown.

  They heard a man several aisles over bark out orders. “Quick! We don’t have much time!”

  A second later they heard other voices along with the sounds of grocery carts racing up and down aisles. They were ransacking the place.

  Jason looked under his arm at Leslie. She had her eyes shut and face pressed against the floor. While she maintained her clutch of his hand, he glanced up and down the aisle. No one was going to do anything. He whispered, “They’re going to take everything!” Then when he saw a mother shielding her two children against the floor twenty feet back, he knew what he had to do. He pushed up on one elbow and looked at the pistol resting in the dead guard’s hand. “I can’t let that happen.”

  Leslie clutched his hand and pleaded, “Don’t! Don’t go―stay here with me.”

  “Somebody has to stop them.”

  “No Jason! Please…not you!”

  Her nails dug into the skin of his arm. A heartbeat later, he pulled away and started crawling cautiously toward the dead guard at the end of the aisle. Another gunshot sounded from a few aisles over—somewhere near the bottled water and pop. He glanced back and saw Leslie shaking her head and urging him to stop. But everyone deserved a share of the food and water.

  He was almost there when he heard a man yell for someone to get the guard’s gun. In a mad panic, he scrambled over and lunged at the dead guard just as a man with a rifle appeared from behind a display of crackers. Their eyes met and for a split second they both froze in a moment of shock. Then Jason grabbed for the guard’s pistol.

  His fiancée’s scream was cut short by t
he rifle shot as a can of tomatoes exploded on the shelf behind Jason’s head. He yanked the pistol out of the guard’s hand, swung it around to where the tip of the barrel nearly clanged off the steel barrel of the man’s rifle, and pulled the trigger. He felt the tingle of adrenaline and the kick from the 45 caliber at the same time he saw blood splatter across the display of crackers behind the man. The man paused and blinked once—like he didn’t understand what had just happened. With a bewildered look on his face, he began to reel as he struggled to hold the rifle steady.

  Jason jerked back against the shelf as the barrel wavered in front of his face. At the last second, the impulse from his brain hit his hand and he yanked the barrel to the side just before it discharged. A can exploded and soaked the side of his face in tomato puree as the man finally collapsed and fell backward.

  Barely audible above the ringing in his ears, Jason heard one of the other men yell, “Frankie…Frankie!” Dazed and feeling like the whole ordeal was a nightmare that he would soon wake up from, he climbed to his feet and stepped out into the open in front of aisle seven. An older man with a shotgun was running toward him while screaming and crying. Jason glanced down and saw that the man he shot was barely more than a kid. But that fact had no impact on him. He felt nothing. A heartbeat later, he found himself staring at the charging man, as if trying to understand what the man was screaming. He watched the man raise the shotgun and fire in mid-stride. As he heard the muffled blast, he felt the pull of the searing air blow by his left side.

  Jason was operating on blind instinct as he raised the pistol and pulled the trigger again. The charging man looked like he slipped on a patch of ice—one foot slipped out from under him and he spun around and went down.