by Eric Walters
“You’ve got me and your sister,” Mom said.
“Yeah, her bow and arrows make me feel really safe,” he said.
“Mom has a gun,” I said.
“And Mom sleeps. Who’s watching us then?” he asked.
“I don’t sleep that much.”
“You snore all night long,” Ethan said.
“There aren’t enough of us to take shifts,” she said.
“That’s the problem.” I’d been thinking about this. “Three of us isn’t enough.”
“I have to agree,” our mother said. “But I’m not sure what we can do about it.”
Unfortunately, neither did I. If my father had been here we would have been four. Plus his girlfriend, that would have been five—until my mother shot her. I decided I shouldn’t even joke about things like that—not now.
“I think we’d better turn around,” Mom said. “The winds are picking up and it’s a long way around a whole section of the open lake.”
“I’m good with going back.”
“We can explore the other direction tomorrow.”
That was toward the marina, the ferry docks, and the settlement on Ward’s Island. There would certainly be more to see in that direction.
We started back around, going much farther out from the shore to pass by the airport. We didn’t want to worry those guys with the rifles.
“What’s that?” Ethan asked. “There, sticking out of the water.”
“Probably just some rocks,” I said.
“It’s not rock…it’s shiny…like metal.”
“It could just be garbage or—wait, I see it too,” I said. “Mom, can you steer us to the right?”
As we got closer it was more obvious that it was metal and it wasn’t floating. Maybe it was some sort of navigation buoy marking rocks below the surface.
Then, all at once I knew what I was looking at.
“It’s an airplane,” Ethan said. “The tail of an airplane.”
We stopped paddling but continued to drift. There was no question. The logo of the airline—Frontier—was vividly displayed on the side of the tail. I followed its shape with my eyes, down through the wavy water, until I could make out the blurry, silvery outline of the rest of the plane. We were floating a few feet above a plane wreck.
9
The next morning we got up with the first rays of light, and after we ate, we broke down our site, hiding away our tents and sleeping gear, and got into the canoe. We decided to go to Ward’s and try to find Sam, the guard, and Chris, his grandmother, to see if they had heard anything new. It had been more than a week since we’d met them, and since they had access to a shortwave radio they might know something more.
Ethan couldn’t stop talking about the crashed plane, but I just didn’t want to think about it. I had realized that there were no planes up in the sky anymore, but I hadn’t really stopped to think about the planes that were already up in the air when the power went out. Why would they be any different from cars? Engines stalled and cars rolled to a stop. Plane engines stopped working and planes crashed to the ground…or into the lake.
The plane looked as though it had plunged into the water as it approached the runway. If it had been ten seconds earlier, would it have made it safely? All those people were gone because of a few seconds.
“I can see the marina,” Ethan said.
At Mom’s request, he was using the binoculars to see ahead of us instead of fishing. It seemed like the smart thing to do. Besides, I was getting a little tired of fried fish.
“Do you see many people?” our mother asked.
“I don’t see any people, but there are lots of places they could be hiding,” he said.
That was a chilling thought. We were in a game of hide-and-seek. Most of the time we were the ones doing the hiding, out there on our island, hoping that nobody would find us. Now we were out here in the open doing the seeking.
Closing in, the marina seemed so tranquil, so normal. The boats were still sitting there, bobbing in the water. Farther out was a cement breakwater protecting the marina and the boats from the worst waves of the harbor. We angled to the inside of the wall and instantly the water was calmer.
I scanned the marina looking for somebody—Sam, I hoped—but there was no movement except for the gentle rocking of the boats. Either he had successfully kept people away from the boats or, because it was still early, they were there but still asleep. Sleeping in a boat would have been a luxury compared to sleeping on the grass, or even in a tent. I was tired of sleeping in the tent. I wanted my own bed back—I wanted my own life back!
“I see somebody!” Ethan exclaimed, just as I spotted a man on shore.
The man was quickly joined by three other people. Before we could react further, one of them called out.
“Ahoy, people in the canoe! Ahoy…come in for a docking!” he yelled out.
“What do we do?” I asked.
“Go in closer but we’re not docking. They have the shortwave radio so they’ll potentially have the most information.”
As we paddled closer they were joined by other people. There were now seven or eight of them waiting. Two of them were women—that made me feel less anxious—but then I realized that two of them were carrying baseball bats and another had a knife strapped to his belt, and my anxiety level rose. We came toward the dock, but stopped with fifteen feet of water between us.
“Good morning,” one of the men said.
“Good morning,” my mother called out. “We were hoping to talk to Sam.”
“I don’t think there’s anybody here with that name.”
“He was the guard,” I answered.
“There was no guard here when we arrived three days ago,” the man said.
“I was wondering if you’ve heard anything more about the outside world from the shortwave radios on the ships,” she said.
“There were no radios. A lot of things were stripped away before we took over the boats.”
“Took over?” my mother asked.
“We needed a place to sleep. We’ve come together, about fifty of us—”
“Fifty-three,” a woman said, correcting him.
He didn’t look happy.
“Did you all know each other?” my mother asked.
“We came alone, or in pairs, or groups of a few,” the woman answered. “It’s better to be in a group…safer.”
It would be safer. I wondered if they had room to make it fifty-six.
“And were you stranded out here on the island, or did you come from the city?” my mother asked.
“A couple of guys were from out here. Others came out after everything collapsed,” one of the women said.
“Where are you coming from?” the man asked.
“We just paddled over from the city ourselves,” my mother answered.
“What’s it like over there?” one of the women asked.
“Not good. We’ve basically been sleeping under our canoe,” my mother answered.
“Just so you know, there’s no room here,” a man snapped, and three others nodded.
So much for that fleeting fantasy.
“And even if there was room, it’s not like we have any food.”
“We just want information, and it sounds like you don’t know anything more than we do. We’ll get going.”
“Wait!” one of the men called out. We turned.
“Those binoculars you have are pretty nice,” he said.
“They are,” my mother said. “Military grade.”
“I bet you can see the city well, even from here. And that’s why you should leave them.” He pulled back his jacket and revealed a pistol.
Before I could even think to react I realized that my mother had her pistol in her hand. I reached down and pulled out my bow, slipped an arrow onto the string, and brought it up to aim directly at the man’s trunk. I’d hit smaller targets from farther away than this.
“You should stand completely still,” my mot
her said. Her voice was so calm, so quiet, like she was asking him the time rather than threatening him. I felt terrified.
The entire group froze. One, then another put his hands in the air until the whole group had their arms raised.
“I’m hoping I don’t have to shoot you,” she said. “But I will if I have to.”
“My gun’s not even loaded!” he exclaimed.
“I actually don’t care if it is or isn’t. I’m going to ask you to take two fingers of your left hand and remove that pistol from your belt,” she said. “I want you to hold it by the barrel and you need to do it slowly. If I get concerned, I will shoot.”
The man did what he was told.
“Now I want you to drop it into the lake,” she said.
“You have to be kidding.”
“Does this gun make me look like I’m joking around? Do it now. You can dive down and get it later.”
“But it’ll be ruined!” he protested.
“If it doesn’t have bullets it won’t make any difference. Do it now, or I start shooting.”
“Just do it!” another man said. “I don’t want any bullets flying around me!”
The first man cursed under his breath but released the gun, and it dropped into the water with a plunge and a splash.
“We’re going to go now,” my mother said.
I lowered my bow and arrow and placed them back in the bottom of the canoe, grabbing my paddle.
“You made yourself an enemy here,” the man—now without a gun—said.
“I didn’t make anything. My friends don’t usually threaten me with a gun and try to rob me,” she answered.
“That was his idea!” a woman protested. “We didn’t even know he was going to do that,” another man added.
“If he’s with you then what he does comes back on all of you. Keep in mind anybody stupid enough to pull an unloaded gun is going to get somebody killed before too long.”
She lowered her pistol to her lap and picked up her paddle and we started away. I dug in my paddle and we pulled away quickly. I wanted to look over my shoulder but I knew that would only slow us down. I started counting the strokes in my head. Every stroke brought us farther away. They couldn’t get us. And even if they came after us, we still had a gun and they didn’t—or did they?
“Mom, what if they have rifles?”
“They don’t have rifles.”
“How do you know that?”
“They were standing guard with bats and knives. If they had rifles the guards would have had them out. Not just to use but to let people see so they’d be discouraged from launching an attack,” she explained.
“That makes sense.” I felt as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
“Well, at least that’s what I figure. We should still get as much distance from them as possible.”
So much for lighter. I dug in deeper, while at the same time I slumped in my seat to hide behind the gun wall as much as possible.
“Get down,” I hissed at my brother, and surprisingly he did.
10
Rounding the point, we lost sight of the marina, and more importantly they lost sight of us. Now we were safe. And then a man appeared on the shore—and he was holding a rifle! “Mom,” I gasped.
“I see him. We have to get closer to the shore.”
“But, I don’t understand.”
“Up close we can talk to him. Up close I can use my gun. From this distance he has us at a disadvantage.”
“So we’re just going to paddle up to him?” Ethan asked.
“Paddle and wave and smile. I want you both to act really friendly.”
She turned the canoe toward the shore and straight toward him. I was in the bow of the canoe so if he was going to shoot somebody it was going to be me.
As we closed in he was joined by a second man. He also had a rifle.
What we were doing was crazy. But what was the choice? I was certain they could have picked us off just as easily from out there if they’d wanted to. We closed in until I could see them clearly, the way they were dressed, even their expressions, which were partially hidden behind beards.
The shore was marked by stretches of boulders, some breaks, and a beach covered with stones. Behind that were the peaked roofs of houses. The men had now moved down to the beach and we moved toward them. Finally, we got close enough, and my mother spun the canoe so that we were parallel to the shore and she could see them.
“Hello,” she called out. “We were wondering if—”
“I’m really sorry, but there’s no room here!”
“Yes, could you please go back to where you came from!” the second man called out. “We’d appreciate it.” They were no more welcoming than the marina people, but they certainly were more polite, and a little bit pleading, like they just wanted us to go away peacefully.
“We will go back,” my mother said. “But we were asked to drop in to see somebody.”
“Who?”
“Chris,” she said.
“And her grandson, Sam,” I added.
The two men turned toward each other and they were talking, but we couldn’t hear what they were saying.
One ran off then, and the second man called out to us, “You can put in to shore right here, but I want you to basically stay right by your craft.”
We paddled in until the canoe grated against the rocks on the bottom. I climbed over the side and sloshed into the cold water and a shock went up my legs. I should have taken off my shoes first but I didn’t think about it. With me out, the canoe lightened and I pulled it forward until I skidded it up the beach. My brother jumped out without even getting his feet wet.
“You were at Chris’s cottage a week or so ago, right?”
“And you were one of the men who came to check on her,” I said.
“That was me. We take care of each other around here.”
“Are the people at the marina part of that?” I asked.
He snorted. “Not likely. They just took over those boats. Us here, we belong here. This is our place, our home.”
“They tried to rob us,” my mother said.
“Figures. Some of those people can’t be trusted.”
“Does that include Johnny and Jimmie?” she asked.
Those were the two guys who had been selling boat rides back to the city. I’d forgotten about them until now. Were they the “couple of guys from out here” that the marina people mentioned?
“Yeah, I heard the two of them are living at the marina. You do know a lot of people.”
The second guard returned, along with Chris, who rushed over to us. She moved incredibly quickly for somebody her age. She gave us all a big hug, like we were long-lost friends. I noticed my mother had tucked her gun away out of sight.
“Please come up to my house,” Chris said. She turned to the guards. “Could you bring their canoe off the beach and secure it?”
My mother looked unsure.
“They’ll make sure it’s safe,” Chris said, reading her expression. “It will be fine.”
Ethan still had the binoculars around his neck. I considered reaching into the canoe to pick up my bow and arrow, but thought better of it.
“I was hoping that you’ve been doing well,” Chris said, as we started walking.
“As well as can be expected under the circumstances,” my mother answered. “Is there any news?”
“We have family members who have returned to the island with stories about what’s been happening in the city, and farther away.”
“We know about the fires,” my mother jumped in, “and our condo was broken into and things stolen.”
“I’ve heard stories about robbery, assaults, and even murder. There are things happening that I never thought people could be capable of doing to each other,” Chris said.
That was the “fourth dimension” my mother had talked about. I was starting to understand the concept better with each passing day. Even scarier, I’d started to wonder
what I was capable of doing.
Chris shook her head slowly. “There have been reports of people—mostly men—coming together in gangs and taking advantage of the situation, taking what they want and doing what they want.”
“I was afraid that it was going to get much worse if things didn’t get better quickly,” my mother said.
“What about the police?” I asked.
“They seem to have disappeared, from what I’ve heard.”
“They’re probably busy taking care of their own families,” my mother explained. “Besides, with no communication and no transportation there’s not much they could do to control the situation. And how are things out here?”
“Things have always been different out here. You’ll see.”
We turned down one of the little paths that led between the cottages, some with laundry hanging out on clotheslines. Two kids—younger than Ethan—rolled by on their bikes. They both said hello to Chris. There were other children out, and people sitting on front porches. An older couple was gardening, and another couple was drinking from mugs and having a discussion over the fence. Almost without exception they waved to Chris, and she waved back.
“It seems so normal here,” my mother noted.
Chris laughed. “‘Normal’ is a word that has hardly ever been applied to this community. I think we pride ourselves on being different.”
“Right now, isn’t ‘normal’ actually pretty different?” I asked.
“Point taken. We really are a community here,” she said.
“We’ve lived on military bases so we know what it’s like to live in a community,” my mother said.
“But in important ways, we’re the farthest thing possible from a military base. Many of the people here are sculptors, painters, writers, actors, woodworkers, jewelry-makers, musicians, weavers, and potters. And we have a rather strong collection of yoga instructors, Buddhists, and pacifists of all sorts and kinds.”
I could imagine my father’s response to that. He didn’t have much time or tolerance for people who weren’t prepared to fight for what they believed in.
“There’s a goat!” Ethan exclaimed.