Ferryman

by Jonathon Wise

  He slammed the entire roll of paper towels against the floor with both hands, but as he raised it above his head for the next swing—he stopped. For the span of two heartbeats he didn’t move or even blink. That stillness gave way by the third pound in his chest when he began to shake so uncontrollably that he lost his grip on the towels. He clamped his eyes shut and began to pull in each deep breath through his nose. With each breath he gained a little more control over the jerky movements of his arms and head, until there was barely a quiver by the fourth. He opened his eyes—and that’s when everything exploded.

  He jumped up in a fury, snatched a cushion from the sofa and started beating the stain on the carpet with it. After the third swing he started pummeling everything within arm’s reach. He took out the ceiling light with one overhead swipe. Without warning, he ran to the television and in one continuous motion took out the tube with one out-of-the-park swing. He spun on his toes and threw the heavy cushion through their picture window. But the sound and sight of the shattering glass only acted to intensify his release. He kicked the recliner over. He grabbed one end of the sofa and with a surge of adrenaline powering his muscles, he screamed like an animal and flipped it over against the wall.

  After destroying the living room he moved on to the kitchen. The refrigerator went down first. He ripped off the oven door and started beating the counter top and cupboards with it. An explosive minute later, the adrenaline finally gave out. He took one last half-hearted swing with the oven door and dropped it on the linoleum as sweat rolled off his face.

  After glancing around at the damage all around him, he dropped his chin and stared at the floor while the rapid rise and fall of his chest slowly returned to normal. All expressions of pain or remorse or anger were finally gone. The only thing left was the empty feeling of someone who had given up all hope.

  It took a while, but he finally found his key ring in the mess on the living room floor. He took the time to slip off the keys to the Cadillac, Chevy Suburban, and the Harley that was laid out in the ditch. Those keys joined the clutter on the floor. All he wanted was his truck. The only other thing he needed was the backpack, but habit was hard to break so he ended up carrying his rifle out to the truck as well.

  He calmly walked back into the garage and went straight for his twenty-pound sledgehammer. He took a batter’s stance next to the first 55-gallon drum of gasoline hooked up in the series to the generator, and with one effortless swing, he knocked off the coupling that hooked into the fuel line to the generator. Gasoline started spraying out as the reservoir began to empty.

  He walked over to his store of five-gallon gas cans in the corner of the garage. He opened the spout on one, positioned it on his shoulder so that it poured out behind him, and walked in through the kitchen door to the rest of the house. He doused a trail of gasoline through the house that he and Becky had spent the last twenty-three years trying to pay off. When he made it back to the door to the garage, he turned around and inspected what he had done with a critical eye. Everything was covered. With a nod to himself, he stepped into the garage.

  There was almost an inch of gasoline on the garage floor and the driveway was soaked down to the street. Gas was filling in the ditch around the Harley and beginning to seep under the Cadillac and Suburban. He backed the Chevy a safe distance down the road and walked back to where he was standing in the middle of the street in front of their house. In a calm and steady manner, he bent over and sparked one of the flares off the street. For a minute he just stood there, holding the flare and looking at their house as gasoline continued to spill out of the first drum. The very next second it didn’t even feel like he was the one throwing the flare into the garage. He heard the dragon draw in its breath as a blue fire rolled down the driveway like a wave washing up on the beach. That was the last thing he saw before the explosion knocked him on his back.

  He clambered to his feet as burning insulation slowly drifted over the fire. The Harley had but a few seconds as it was charring quickly in a pool of fire. Chuck knew it was going to explode—knew that he needed to run, yet he was held there by the strangest feeling that he had watched his house burn before. It was just like the dream he had the morning he woke up on the sofa with Becky.

  He snapped out of it and took off running right before the tank on the bike exploded. The Suburban followed within a few seconds. By the time he jumped behind the wheel of the Chevy a half block away, the dried out grass and weeds in his neighbor’s yards were ablaze and the sky was already beginning to fill with smoke. It wasn’t until sitting there behind the wheel and staring at his creation through the windshield that he realized the whole neighborhood might go up. Even that knowledge didn’t elicit any expression in his face.

  He started up the truck and headed for Michigan Road. There was a place about ninety miles north on interstate 65 calling his name—Indianapolis. He had always wanted to get out of Madison. The dream back in high school was for him and Becky to get married and move to the city. There was nothing he could do about that anymore. In fact there was only one thing that he still had control over. He could choose where to die. He pulled the backpack across the seat to his lap, opened the flap and pulled out the pistol as he turned off SR 62 and headed west on 256. Austin and the interstate were only a half-hour away. As long as he didn’t come across any wrecks blocking the road, he should be inside the city limits of Indianapolis with plenty of daylight left. That’s where he would put an end to this godforsaken pain in his heart.

  Chapter 23

  Chuck had ventured out of Madison more than once since the world ended. He had driven up to Versailles and spent a couple of days in Columbus. In fact he had visited several surrounding areas on both the Indiana and Kentucky side of the river. All the trips were to relatively small towns. If he had gone to one of the larger cities it might have prepared him better for what he was about to see. It wasn’t until he was north of Columbus that it started getting really bad. Then it continued to build all the way up to the Franklin and Greenwood areas on the south side of Indianapolis. That was where he first laid eyes on the ghostly trail of death—a logjam of southbound traffic clogging up both sides of the interstate. It was a lasting tribute to the mass exodus from Indianapolis several months back.

  He swerved around a southbound Dodge sitting in the middle of the northbound corridor with its doors open. The weathered remains of the passenger lay strung out on the asphalt under one door. Beneath the driver’s side door there was nothing more than the faded marks of a blood trail. Vehicles backing up behind the Dodge must have hit the driver and dragged him in their desperate attempt to escape the bug.

  Chuck had to slow down to a crawl as he wove his way around car after car and body after body. In some places the graveyard of metal and flesh was so dense that it forced him onto the shoulder, and in a few places that wasn’t even far enough. But as bad as it was on the northbound side, the southbound corridor was worse. There were dozens of pileups where someone must have died at the wheel and started a chain reaction of screeching tires and bodies flying through windshields. He saw cars sitting in fields and ravines several hundred feet off the interstate. Some of them were probably cases where the driver felt it was his only way to avoid a potential pile up, while others probably occurred because the driver simply lost consciousness and veered off the road. In either case their death was more peaceful than most of those who stayed on the road.

  He had to stop in the midst of all the death when he saw a family of four in a Mazda. They couldn’t have all died at exactly the same time, yet they were all there. Their shriveled, desiccated bodies were still sitting as if they were ready to go for a Sunday drive in the country. He wondered if they stopped because the driver died, or because they gave up the fight against the inevitable.

  He lived his entire life with the illusion that everything would have been better if he and Becky could have gotten out of Madison. That illusion made him feel trapped and stole any chance of being satisfied
with his life. It might have even been partly to blame for the troubles in his marriage. And it was definitely the driving force behind his trip today. Yet as he looked at the death on the highway, he realized it for what it truly was—only an illusion. The dead on the highway had been no better off than him. They were scared during their final days. They mourned the loss of their loved ones just like him. Their marriages had trouble just like his. It was too late to be of any benefit, but he finally realized that it wasn’t Madison holding him back. That had been his own doing.

  After breaking his stare from the family in the Mazda he pulled his pistol out and studied it. It’s still the right thing to do. He couldn’t take being alone any longer. But this isn’t the proper place. He slipped the pistol inside the backpack and gave the truck some gas.

  The median was jammed with cars at Southport and started to thin back out as he drove over the bypass that circled the city. That was his first opportunity to take his eyes off the obstacles in the road and study the approaching skyline. At first it didn’t seem that much different than it did when he drove up to buy items to sell in his antique store. But the closer he got and the longer he looked, the more he was able to see that it was different. He nearly scraped the side of the truck along the guardrails of more than one overpass as he slowed along each exit ramp for a better view. When he finally hit downtown, he had to stop and get out.

  He bumped the guardrail with his knees as he stood in a daze and stared at the city streets. “Dear God,” he mumbled in shock as he looked at all the bodies. There weren’t that many cars littering the streets, but of the ones he could see, most were burnt out. Same held true for many of the smaller office buildings and warehouses. If arson hadn’t claimed it, then the windows were broken out. But looting had nothing to do with the broken windows near the top of some buildings. Chuck didn’t have to see the jumper smashed against the sidewalk to know what had happened there.

  He stood and stared in disbelief for several minutes before finally pulling himself back to the truck. The thought of walking out to the fifty-yard line on the football field and ending his life in the Colt’s stadium first crossed his mind back at Southport. Though not as strong as it was, the thought was still there as he took the next exit and headed for the stadium. He slowed to ten miles per hour as he started driving over shattered glass and pieces of broken metal and wood. He passed a burnt out car and noticed the remains of a woman on the sidewalk. He didn’t know what it was, but something about her kept his eye for a second as he drove by. When he finally turned back around, the desire to end the pain was no longer the only thing on his mind. Three blocks later he came up on the steps to the stadium and parked.

  The lone sound in the city was the wind blowing between the buildings. It made an eerie whistling sound that kept him on edge as he cautiously walked over to look at the bodies strewn over the steps at the main gate. The first thing he noticed was the differences among them. He could still see signs of the bluish tint on some of them—in their lips and eyelids, and along the tips of their fingers. But there were some that didn’t show any signs. It might have been because of the state of decomposition, but his gut was telling him different. There was a revolver clutched in one man’s hand. Apparently some of them must have ended their life on their own terms. He nodded. Given the situation, there wasn’t any shame in that. Hell, that’s what I came to do.

  After seeing all the bodies on the steps, he began to wonder how bad it would be inside. It would be easier to forget about the fifty-yard line and just do it on the steps. Chuck sat down next to the man with the revolver and pried the gun out of his hand. Initial inspection didn’t show the revolver in too bad of shape, but when he checked the cylinder—all the shells were spent. Maybe the man didn’t end his life on his own terms? Chuck pushed off the cement step and was headed over to the truck to get the pistol out of his backpack, when something about the partially burnt out car at the next intersection looked out of place. He headed for it, and the closer he got the more he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  It was the charred remains of a man, slumped over the scored asphalt outside the driver’s door. He stopped in front of the body and looked at the rest of the car. Only the driver’s side of the car was burnt. The rest of it didn’t look too bad—so it wasn’t the tank that exploded. He bent over and poked his head partially through the door where the window had been. Something about it wasn’t right. As he started to pull back he noticed something hanging just inside the door. He glanced down at the burnt body and then slowly jerked the door open. As he did, something small fell from the liner down to the half-melted driver’s seat. It looked like a melted piece of nylon rope. He picked it up, shut the door and looked at the man on the ground.

  Why didn’t he run? You would think that a man on fire would run off screaming in pain. But not this guy. He studied the side of the car and the scorched mark on the road. The fire was contained to such a small area. Why didn’t he try to get out of it? Chuck squatted and watched the burnt skin flake off the corpse as he poked it. He slid his hand around the neck of the corpse and pulled him forward. He was heavier than he should have been. This man hadn’t been dead near as long as the others. He let the head fall back against the door as he began to get an idea of what happened. He grabbed the man’s left hand and looked at it. He rubbed his thumb along the burnt forearm and watched the skin flake off. The same thing happened when he rubbed the back of the man’s hand. But when he rubbed the man’s wrist, nothing flaked off. It had a completely different texture, hard and waxy. He rubbed the piece of rope between his fingers. It was the same.

  Chuck dropped the rope and stood as he cupped his hand over his mouth. Someone had tied him to the car and then set him on fire—and not that long ago. He backed up a couple of steps and quickly scanned the area for any recent signs of life. As he hurried back to the truck, he looked at his watch. It was just past five. There was still a good hour of daylight left. He could look around, see if he could find who did this. There was no confusing this with thunder—he wasn’t the only one that survived the end. He felt the spark of hope light again in his heart as he retrieved the rifle and backpack from the front seat and headed out on foot.

  He worked his way around burnt-out cars and trash along the sidewalk, being careful to keep as close to the storefronts as possible so that he wasn’t exposed for any significant amount of time. As he slowly inched his way along, it was strange how much it reminded him of deer hunting. The real difference wasn’t the environment. It didn’t matter to him that the trees and bush were replaced by broken glass, mangled cars and bodies. What did feel different, what kept him alert and his heart pounding quicker than normal, was the distinct feeling that there was more than one hunter and more than one hunted. He could feel himself cast in both roles. Strangely, for a man who had come there to die, he had no intentions of going out like the man tied to the burnt car.

  The sun continued to set as he made a zigzagging sweep through the heart of downtown. He passed in front of a bagel shop and had to stop to stare at the floor. It was so loaded with roaches and ants that it looked like it was moving. Apparently looters didn’t clear out all the flour and sugar in the store.

  He was tempted to call out a couple of times, but then thought wiser. Before he let anyone know he was there, he wanted to see them first. If he thought they were the ones responsible for setting the man on fire, he would slip away unannounced. Not that he was judging what they did. It wasn’t his place. After all he had taken a life too. The man he put down across from his shop. He wished that he could remember why. As it stood, he had nothing more than a prayer that there was a just reason for what he did. Perhaps the man back at the burnt car deserved to die. Just the same, he no longer felt like today was a good day for him to bid his final goodbye. Not with other survivors around.

  As the presence of the once mighty towers fell victim to the dusk of night, he suddenly heard a sound that he didn’t think he’d ever hear agai
n. He caught his breath, froze and listened. It echoed across the night air like a beacon of hope cast out between the failing giants of concrete and steel. It was the murmurs and rumbling of people—several people, a group…a mob. With that sound, everything that he’d finally come to accept—changed. He sprinted to the next cross-street and the wonders continued. This time it was visual. At the intersection four blocks to his right, shadows flickered across derelict cars and shattered storefront windows. This was no hallucination. There was no mistake. Actual living people were gathered somewhere around that corner. Part of him, which came from that deep need to grasp and clutch another living soul, wanted to breakout in a headstrong, glorious rush and dive into the crowd the way a rock star leaps off the stage. Yet the wiser part of him, knew it best not to dive headfirst into an unknown situation. Like a hunter stalking prey, his run down the middle of the street quickly slowed to a steady and deliberate approach under the cover of whatever ruins the city had to offer. He pressed against the brick at the corner building, stepped over a weathered body that looked like an old woman, and peeked around the wall to his right. There were several bonfires burning and movement from dozens of people in the street three blocks down.

  He crouched low to the curb and shuffled over to the rear of an abandoned car parked along the street. As he slowly rose to spy over the trunk, his heart jumped at the wonderful sight of those survivors. He started shifting his weight from one foot to the other, urges and desire sparring with planning and caution.

  They were too far off for him to clearly understand what they were saying, even the mumbles sounded like fine music to his ears. He snatched the binoculars out of the backpack and got a better look. There were three men standing in front of the flickering flames of a burning car. He quickly focused on the clump that was burning on the ground in front of the driver’s door. Just as quickly he pulled the binoculars away and told himself that it could be anything. It could have been a pile of clothes they used to get the fire going.