by Eric Walters
I knew that wasn’t good.
“I hope that idiot doesn’t fire his gun again,” Sam said.
“Do you know him?” my mother asked.
“Unfortunately, I know them both. I went to school with both Johnny and Jimmie. At least until they were kicked out in eleventh grade.”
“I think the bigger idiot would be the person who let him have a gun,” I said.
“You have to understand that things are different out here on the island,” he said.
“You mean there are lots of guns?” I asked.
“You can get a gun, but it’s not like there are that many people with guns. It’s just that the rules are different.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” I said.
“It’s hard to explain. People are just more free to make their own decisions. There are city rules and island rules.”
“You make it sound like it’s another country,” my mother joked.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Sam said. “It’s like a different country. As long as you’re not harming anybody you can pretty well do whatever you want.”
My mother looked skeptical. Marines liked rules even more than mothers and nurses.
“I see you’re carrying,” my mother said.
“I’m trained and licensed.”
I noticed that my mother didn’t mention that she was carrying as well.
“There’s no way those two idiots should be carrying that many people over open water in that little dinghy…Come to think of it, neither of them even owns that boat.”
“I don’t think I’d want to get into that boat with them,” my mother said.
“Smart, but don’t you have to get back to the city as well?”
“We have our own way back,” my mother said. “We came over by boat.”
“I understand people wanting to go home,” Sam said. “It couldn’t have been easy sleeping in the open. I wish I could have let them in to sleep on some of the vacant boats, but I have my orders.”
“I understand following orders. So you’re from here too, right?” my mother asked.
“I’m an island boy. My grandmother raised me. She has a place here on Ward’s Island.” He gestured off to the east. “I hope she’s doing okay but I can’t leave my post to find out.”
“Do you want us to check in on her?” my mother asked.
He looked unsure.
“We’ll see how she’s doing and come back and tell you if there’s a problem.”
“That would be great. Thanks.”
“Are there any police on the island?” my mother asked.
“There’s a marine detachment that comes over from the city now and then, but they aren’t here now.”
I thought that explained why the rules were an option here.
“Right now it looks like I’m as close as you get to law enforcement around here,” he said. “There is a volunteer fire department, though. You pass by the fire station on the way to my grandma’s. Her house is a little gray cottage two doors down from it. Her name is Chris.”
“Sure. And if there’s any problem whatsoever we’ll let you know right away.”
“Thanks. She’s almost eighty but she doesn’t miss a trick. Just tell her that Sammy sent you.”
“We will.”
We angled our way around the crowd. It was still noisy, but the shoving and yelling had basically ended. Three people were already on the boat and, as we left, we could hear negotiations continuing to see who would fill the remaining spots.
6
The streets were more like paths. The houses were almost all small and wooden and cute, and I almost expected to turn a corner and run into Hansel and Gretel nibbling on a gingerbread cottage. These homes seemed to be from another time and place—fairy-tale land.
“There are a lot more of these houses than I thought there were,” my mother said.
“There’s the fire station. So that must be Sam’s grandmother’s house…right there,” Ethan said.
It was just as cute as the others.
“Remember, she’s old, so you’d better knock really loud,” I said.
My mother raised her hand to knock, but just then the door opened and an older woman appeared.
“Hello, are you Chris?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I’m Ellen. Your grandson Sammy sent us to check on you.”
“That’s so sweet of him. I was going to send somebody to check on him. And he’s doing well?”
“He’s just fine.”
“Would you like to come in for a glass of lemonade?” she asked.
“That’s a lovely invitation but we really have to get going,” my mother said.
“Going where? The world seems to have stopped. Please, join me for that lemonade, or even a cup of tea.”
“Please, Mom?” Ethan asked.
“I guess we could stop for a while, and lemonade would be nice.”
She ushered us inside, and as she did so she put down a baseball bat that she’d been hiding behind the partially closed door.
“Were you expecting a baseball game to break out?” my mother asked.
“One cannot be too careful right now.”
“I understand,” she said. “Better safe than sorry.”
The little cottage was small and very tidy and crammed with framed photographs, on the end tables and walls. She had us sit at the table and she hurried off to the kitchen.
“So, how are you three holding up with all these problems?” she asked when she returned, carrying a tray with four glasses of lemonade.
“We’re doing the best we can,” my mother said.
“You must be anxious to get back to the city.”
“We’re staying over here,” my brother said.
“Here, on Ward’s Island?” Chris asked.
“No, elsewhere,” my mother said.
“I didn’t think it was here. I know everybody, and I would have heard if anybody had been taken in…not that people haven’t been approached.”
“So, is it just you and your grandson who live here?” my mother asked.
“Just us. It’s been that way for a long time. His mother—my daughter—died when he was only five.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” my mother said. “It must have been very hard for—”
Suddenly there was a loud noise and the front door flew open. Two men came rushing in and—
“It’s all right!” Chris exclaimed.
The two skidded to a stop. They were big and bearded and looked as much like a couple of grizzly bears as they did men.
“I invited them in,” she explained.
“Okay, good. We were just checking.”
Chris went over and gave each of them a hug. “I appreciate it. You are both wonderful friends and neighbors. Do you two want a glass of lemonade as well?”
“I think we’re going to pass for now, but thanks. We’re going to stay on watch.”
They were gone as quickly as they’d appeared.
“It seems like a lot of people are checking on you,” my mother said.
“We have a few people out walking, sort of a community watch. We’re a very tight-knit community of about eight hundred people. Some of us have family connections out here going back almost a hundred years. I myself was a little girl when my family first set up a tent right on the spot where we now sit.”
“This was a tent?” my brother asked.
“Oh no, but we lived on this lot in a tent at first. Soon my father built our first little cottage right here, and over the years things just kept getting added on. So, you said you were staying elsewhere. There really isn’t much elsewhere on these islands,” she said. “So where exactly are you staying?”
“We’re in a tent too,” my brother said.
I glanced at my mother. I knew she wouldn’t want Chris to know that. There was a reason we were hiding out.
Before my mother could say anything, Chris reached over and hit a switch and a li
ght came on over our head.
“It’s over!” I exclaimed. “The power is back!”
My brother shrieked excitedly.
Chris put her hands up, as if to calm us. “Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry. No. This is solar power. I have panels on my roof.”
I felt deflated.
“There are often power failures here on the island, especially in the winter months, so many of us have solar panels and batteries. I’m afraid whatever is happening out there is still happening. Do you have any news?” she asked.
“We left the city when things started going wrong. We paddled out and stayed in a tent last night,” my mother explained. “We thought it would be safer out here.”
“It’s strange how we can see the city but we’re so separate from it.”
“Your grandson said it’s like a different country here,” I told her.
“A better country. I guess because we know and depend on each other, we behave in a more civil manner.”
That made sense. It was the way it was when we lived on military bases, too.
“I haven’t been to the city for over a year,” Chris said.
“Really?” I said. “How do you shop for food?”
“We have people who make grocery runs and we stock up. Everything else I need is right here. So, you have no more idea about any of this than we do?” Chris said.
“We don’t know much. Your grandson told us he’d heard that it’s an extensive and long-range problem. Sort of like a big power failure.”
“A power failure wouldn’t explain the failure of cellphones, Internet, airplanes, and all motor vehicles,” she said.
She obviously knew as much as we did.
“It sounds like something that might take some time to fix,” she added.
“It might. I hope you’ll be all right,” my mother said.
“Oh, dear, I’ll be fine. We grow most of our own vegetables out here, and water is free for the taking. And as you’ve seen, we do look after each other. I’m more worried about you.”
“We’re all set,” my mother said.
“I’m sure you are, but it’s important that you take care of your children…which I imagine is why you’re carrying that pistol.” She pointed to the slight bump under my mother’s sweater. It was hardly noticeable, even though I knew it was there.
“It’s my service revolver. I’m a former Marine.”
“I suspected you were former military. You just have that way about you.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” my mother said. She tipped back the glass and finished her lemonade. I knew I should do the same because I was sure she wanted to leave.
“Thank you so much for your hospitality,” my mother said as she got to her feet. We joined her.
“It was my pleasure. Please come again. If this doesn’t pass in the next few days, I need you to come back so that I know that the three of you are all right. Can you promise you’ll come back?”
“We’ll come back. I promise,” my mother said.
7
After letting Sam know that his grandmother was all right, we went back to our little island and stayed put for the next day and a half. My brother caught our lunch and dinner, and it was still pretty cold but we even went swimming. We were working hard to pretend that nothing was wrong and that we were just at a strange campsite overlooking the city.
Of course, just looking over at the mainland we could tell that things weren’t right. My mother spent a lot of time with the binoculars staring at the city—as did I. From what we could see the only changes were for the worse.
We didn’t need binoculars to see the fires burning—especially at night. That first night there had been just one, but on the second night we’d seen three, and last night I’d counted at least half a dozen. Now, during the day, there was still a bit of smoke rising up into the air. Mostly the wind was blowing in off the lake, but when it shifted and came from the city we could smell the fires.
We’d originally brought food for four days, and my mother was working to make it last. My brother was also having luck catching fish, and Mom had been digging up some roots and dandelions and other greens and using them to create meals. She explained that Marines were taught how to “live off the land” when they were in hostile territory. Was that where we were, in hostile territory?
My thoughts kept whirling about: no power, wanting to be home, not wanting to be home, and wondering if this was happening to my friends back in our old city, or even to my father overseas. If something like this happened where he was, well, there was no place better to be than stationed with hundreds of Marines.
My mother had remained calm, but that meant nothing. That combination of Emergency Room nurse and Marine meant that she was trained not to panic, and certainly not to show it, no matter how bad things were. She had been relentlessly cheerful, upbeat, and positive. Maybe that was what worried me the most.
Out here, things had become so calm it was boring. We sometimes heard voices from over on the bigger island but we hadn’t actually seen another human being. Realistically, unless we were on the edge of our island we couldn’t see anybody on the water or walking by on Main Island. We were isolated and pretty well hidden from view.
Today was going to be different, though. My mother had decided that we needed two things from the city—food and supplies from our apartment, and to talk to people and find out what was happening. It wasn’t enough to stare at the city through binoculars from across the harbor.
I walked along the little path that we’d worn down from the edge of the beach to the edge of our campsite. I was surprised to see her breaking down the tent.
“Are we moving home?” I asked.
“Not moving, just making our site less conspicuous.”
“What do you mean? Nobody can see us.”
“Unless they come out here to our little island,” she said.
“Why would they do that?” my brother asked.
“For the same reason we did. I want to make sure nobody stumbles across our cache of food or our camping gear.”
“What are we going to do with everything?” I asked.
“Put it all back in the packs. And we’re going to hide the packs in the thick brush down at the west end of the island.”
Part of me thought she was being paranoid, but another part of me understood. We had tents and sleeping bags and camping gear—what would it be like for us without them? I didn’t want to find out.
—
We weren’t alone crossing the harbor. There were other canoes, a couple of old motorboats, some sailboats, and, strangest of all, a paddleboat that looked like a big swan. Had that come from the amusement park? Some of the people on the little vessels waved to us, and we waved back. It was like we were part of a special little club made up of only those who had a way to move over the water. I thought back to those two guys charging people to get across and figured they must be out of business. By now, everybody would have either paid to cross or found another way back to the city.
We paralleled the shore, wanting to come in as close to our building as we could. As we came near, I was reassured to see that our condo was just as it had been. In fact, all the towers looked just the same. The whole city looked the same. Except it was all frozen in place and—
“Look, there’s a truck!” my brother yelled out.
An old panel truck moved along the road that paralleled the shore. It was slowly weaving around the abandoned vehicles that littered the street. It was the only thing moving.
As it drove along it was the focus of everybody’s attention. People seemed to materialize out of the buildings and the side streets and they stared at it, or ran toward it, or tried to wave it down. It kept moving, sometimes swerving over to the wrong side of the road, and finally it raced away, leaving the gathering crowd behind.
“That was an old truck. That’s the pattern,” my mother said. “Old things, whether they’re trucks or cars, seem to be working.”<
br />
“I don’t know what that means,” I said.
“Everything new has computers, or at least digital chips,” she said.
“So you think this is some sort of computer virus?”
“I hope so.”
“Why would you hope that?”
“If it’s a virus then they will find a cure that will potentially work just as quickly. Everything might just turn on in a second.”
I could only hope that was true.
As we paddled even closer, I started to notice how many people there were. They were everywhere, sitting on benches, sleeping under makeshift tents made of tarps and pieced together chunks of wood and plastic. The park along the lake had become a shantytown. I suddenly appreciated the value of our tent and camping gear and the need to hide it all.
“Why are these people out here instead of in their homes?” Ethan asked.
“They may not have homes, or those homes could be far away,” she said. “Think about all the people who drive a long way to work, and those who would have flown into the city on business. They could be from anywhere and have no way to get home.”
“Or they could be from one of the buildings that was set on fire,” I added. Instantly I wished I hadn’t said that.
“But why are they all right here, all together?” Ethan asked.
“Partly because there’s water, but partly because we’re herd animals,” my mother said. “They’re together because they feel safer when they’re together.”
“Safe from what?”
“Other people,” I said, answering for Mom. She nodded.
“Maybe we should just go back to our camp,” Ethan said. He had that anxious going-into-an-elevator look about him.
I was thinking the same thing but didn’t want to say it.
“We’ll go back, but first we have to stop by our place and gather more things that we might need.”
We continued paddling past the camp. A couple of people called out to us but we were far enough away from the shore that we could just ignore them and pretend we didn’t hear. Past the shantytown, we came up to the shore right across from our building.
“I was thinking that we’d pull in to land just long enough for you to drop me off, and then the two of you would push off and go back out into the harbor and wait for me to come back,” my mother said.