by Mark Scott
Chapter Ten
The days passed slowly. Martin spent most of his day lying about watching the horror of the virus unfold on the news. His YouTube message had over five hundred thousand hits before it disappeared from the site without explanation. But this only fueled the internet blogs. The World Wide Web was abuzz with the news that the virus was not H5N1 but was, in fact, a terrorist biological attack. Martin became a worldwide celebrity while the very fabric of American society seemed to be coming unraveled. The government was nowhere to be seen. The promised distribution of food and medicine had not occurred. The press gave daily estimates of the dead. Over one hundred and eighty thousand succumbed to the virus in the first week. People were panicking and massive riots were happening daily. The frightened populace stormed stores, clinics and hospitals in frantic efforts to get what they could to survive. Roving bands of criminals terrorized entire towns. In many places, including Miami, the Police and Fire Departments had all but disappeared. And then one day the electricity went off and never came back on.
Leah and Martin spent most of their day together. They read books that Father Ryan brought them. They took walks along the bay. Leah collected shells and Martin became quite proficient at using the fire wood in the hibachi. The highlight of the day was the evening meal which now consisted of soups from the church's food pantry as well as bottled water. One evening Father Ryan came to visit and bring some fresh supplies. Martin and the good Father went out onto the porch so that they would not disturb Leah who was asleep on the couch. Martin set upon the rustic railing which framed the old porch while the priest plopped down into a weathered rocking chair.
"Thanks for the food Father."
"You're welcome Bruce,"
"You OK? You look really tired."
"I am really tired. The times are so hard. We were able to bury the dead of our parish. But for the last couple of weeks nobody has come by....the curfew ya know. I don't know what they are doing with the dead. I'm sure the funeral homes are just like all other businesses...so many are dead or sick, nothing is working. How are you and Leah fairing? I think we are all so tired because of a lack of food. Oh, speaking of which there are ten gallons of water up at the maintenance building for you. I'm afraid that I wasn't up to hauling it back here. I have had to start getting it from the pump since the water stopped running. Father Gonzalez is back from his parent's. He will be able to help us some. "
"Thanks for the water, I'll go get it."
"Have you heard of what is going on out there?"
"No...nothing...Leah's laptops battery died a long time ago so we've been in the dark."
"Literally", said the Priest with a mild chuckle. "Literally and figuratively...these are very dark times. Evil is on the move...I'm sure there are forces for good out there, the Church, those gentlemen that you met up at McDill. I'm really curious to know what's going on."
"I've been thinking a lot about how it used to be, back when I had my old life. I long for those days."
"Those days were not days of innocence Bruce. Those days were what lead us to this. Shame on all of us for letting this happen. We sat there and watched the courts ruin our nation. We let lawyers destroy our religious heritage and national identity. Evil was gathering itself and we sat there, fat, dumb and happy and watched it all go down. Shame on us all! And to be perfectly candid with you young man, your profession was the mouthpiece for that dark force."
Martin sat there staring at the Priest fully aware that he was correct. Martin loved being a reporter when it was actually digging for a story. But so much of his profession was now slanted towards an anti-American bias that he had grown weary of all of the political correctness. But like all Americans he was comfortably indifferent. The Priest rose slowly and said, "I think that I'll go get me some sleep. Don't forget about your water. Have a good evening Bruce. I'll talk to ya later."
"Yeah, see ya later Father", Martin said hopping down from the railing. Just then Leah came out onto the porch. "What did Father Ryan want?"
"Oh, he brought us some food and told me that he had some fresh water for us up by the church."
"Oh. I'm going to go and get me some more sleep Bruce. I'm tired."
"Yeah, OK. I know I'm tired too. It's the lack of calories. I figure we're averaging about eight hundred a day. Night Leah."
Martin watched Leah walk down the path back to the convent. He stood on the porch wondering what to do. He couldn't take listening to the radio any more. Besides, each day there were less and less stations on the air. He walked aimlessly down to the shore of the bay. He wondered down the shell and sand path which snaked through green caverns formed by Mangrove trees and Sea Grape plants. Eventually the path mirrored the shoreline. Martin stepped down onto the narrow beach and looked out over Biscayne Bay. A couple of miles to the North he could see the causeway. He noted that not a single vehicle was on it. Normally at five-o-clock on a Tuesday afternoon rush hour would be in full swing. Beyond the causeway the high rises of Miami were visible. The bay was also vacant. Martin stood there half in a daze, while random thoughts lazily wafted through his mind, when he noticed a wall of dark clouds descending from the North. The storm moved rapidly across the bay. The closer it drew the more it became obvious to him that the clouds were furiously rolling and boiling. The wind suddenly picked up and drove the bay before it in a frenzy of leaping, angry waves. The smooth aquamarine waters turned violent and gray. The wind was very cold. Martin was half alarmed by the sudden cold and violence of the atmosphere. "Must be a cold front coming in", he thought to himself in an attempt to allay his fear. Martin began to turn away to head for the cottage when something in the clouds caught his eye. The roiling wall of black seemed to take a form, the form of men on horses. The motion of the clouds mimicked the galloping of horses flying across the tumult that had just moments before been the calm bay. There seemed to be four of them. Martin stared, no longer afraid but now dumbstruck. The vaporous equestrians swept low across the water. Martin strained to see the riders but their form was always shifting so that there were no details but only apparitions of riders. The wall of clouds swept over and past Martin. His body was knocked backwards by a mighty blast of ice cold air. Fear suddenly, once again shocked his body and Martin bolted down the winding path and across the grassy field, back to the safety and comfort of the little cabin. He stood panting on the front porch as the storm flew overhead and released its burden of rain in wind driven torrents. Martin turned and went inside. He lit a fire and plopped down in the worn recliner.
Martin sat staring into the fire, mesmerized by the flickering flames, hypnotized by the hissing and crackling. He was disturbed by what he saw, or thought he saw, in the clouds. Martin chalked it up to a hallucination brought on by extreme boredom and a barely adequate diet. True to his American upbringing it was not long before Martin became bored. He piddled around a bit before coming across a Bible. Martin reflected on his conversation with Father Ryan's belief that these may be the end times. So, Martin flipped through the pages until he came upon the book of Revelations. After reading for a while he came upon the four riders of the Apocalypse. He was keenly interested in the fourth rider: "When the lamb opened the fourth seal I heard the fourth living creature say 'Come!' I looked and there before me was a pale horse. Its rider was Death and hell followed. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague and by the beasts of the earth." Martin closed the Bible and sat contemplating how the virus fit into this. Pigs and birds initialized the virus nearly a hundred years ago. War spread it. The virus brought famine and it was certainly the greatest plague in history. Was this actually what the priest called "The End Times"? He stood up and tossed the Bible onto the well-worn recliner. Martin walked out onto the front porch and stared across the open field towards the bay. There was no moon and the darkness was nearly absolute beyond the shifting, shimmering glow of the fireplace. Once again Martin was disturbed by his "hallucination". This was Martin's church, the
church of his youth. As an adult Martin towed the line of the press and never attended church. Bruce Martin viewed religion as a crutch for the ignorant and a tool of fanatics. Martin had been reflecting on his faith, what there was of it, since the beginning of the plague. Martin wondered if the horsemen that he saw so vividly in the clouds were those infamous riders released upon the world. Was it a hallucination or was it an actual religious event. His mind wondered through the topic. First analyzing it one way and then another. He contemplated whether the characters of the Bible were crazy or had actual visions. Even if the events of the Bible were tricks of the mind, it was real enough to those who saw it. Was this how God talked to humanity? Did God even bother with the trifle matters of man? Martin had never been much for religion or matters of faith. No, Martin was an obedient servant of the secular press. The topic of the end times was far too intense for the tattered mind of Bruce Martin. He sat down once again before the fire. The embers faded and so did Martin's consciousness.
In the following days Martin fell into a comfortable routine. He typically rose around eight and prepared himself a bowl of cereal, as this was pretty much all that was available. Every morning he walked along the bay to count the boats that had anchored there. Each day brought more boats. There was a virtual armada afloat on Biscayne Bay and every day brought new arrivals. Vessels of every description populated the bay. There were large motor yachts and small houseboats, one hundred foot schooners and twenty five foot sloops, charter boats, party boats, battered old coastal freighters and even a tugboat.
It became a morning ritual for Martin to take the twisting path along the bay. He sat on an old and weathered bench that looked out over the bay. He would count all of the boats to see if any new arrivals had come. It took a considerable amount of time but Martin had nothing but time. One morning Father Ryan was walking the shore. Spotting Martin he smiled and joined him on the bench.
"How's it going this morning Father?"
"Oh, about as well as can be expected.
"Every day there's a few more boats out there", said Martin as he motioned towards the bay. "I figure that it's a self-imposed quarantine, well kind of like a reverse quarantine ya know, trying to get away from the bug."
"Yeah", said the Priest "it's actually pretty smart, away from the bug and all of the mayhem and crime, not to mention fresh food, fish, shrimp and such. Do you fish Bruce?"
"I used to, all of the time when I was a kid."
"Back in that old barn, ya know the one out by the cabins, there is a bunch of poles and I think some tackle and an old beaten up kayak. Ya can use them if ya like", said the Priest as he rose to his feet.
"Cool! Thanks", Martin said smiling.
"Just don't forget us when ya bring your catch home", said the Father, slapping Martin on the back.
Martin spent the next two days busy in the old barn. He stripped the reels of their old and rotten fishing line and replaced it with some new line that he found in a tackle box. He gathered old and rusting spoons and battle worn jigs. He drug the kayak out onto the grass and cleaned it up. On the evening of the second day he loaded his little craft with all that he would need on his fishing trip.
The next morning broke clear and chilly. Martin drug the little boat down to the water's edge. He waded out into the bay, the water shockingly cold on his bare legs as he floated the boat into Biscayne Bay. Clambering in Martin awkwardly arranged himself and fumbled for a bit with the paddles. But in a few minutes he had mastered the propulsion of the Kayak and it swiftly slipped across the glass smooth water. He made his way towards a distant shore thick with mangroves. The sun was climbing into the sky as Martin approached the trees. He slowed his pace and approached the shoreline with a stealthy paddle so he would not spook any fish in the area. The water before him was a kaleidoscope of shifting, shining diamonds. As he slowly drifted closer to the mangroves the smell of the saltwater mixed pungently with the heavy odor of mud. It had been decades since Martin had been fishing. In his childhood he was an excellent fisherman. Now all of the old skills and knowledge, so long locked in the deepest of memories, came rushing into his mind, thrilled by the familiar smells, sights and sounds that surrounded him. All around him the water was disturbed by swimming fish. The occasional pop of fish at the surface told him that they were feeding. Martin slowed the boat and quietly paddled towards what appeared to be a creek mouth. Suddenly the water erupted with a silver curtain of finger mullet leaping over one another in a panicked escape from some unseen predator. "Yes!" Martin said to himself. As he edged slowly towards the trees a great egret was disturbed by his presence. The large white bird took to the wing, croaking a protest as it glided over its mirror image on the water. The bird panicked the mullet. which once again exploded from the shallows in an eruption of silver twisting bodies. The fleeing bait excited larger fish to pursue them. The still water was transformed into a churning writhing mix of fish and foam. Martin was awestruck by the abundance of fish. He quickly grabbed his rod and reel from the bottom of the boat. He snapped a rusty spoon onto the leader and cast past the action. He slowly retrieved the lure. There was the unmistakable tale tale wake of a large fish following the spoon. Martin worked the spoon. He felt a violent jerk on the line. He set the hook and instantly the line on his reel began to pay out.
He played his quarry for several minutes before landing a large redfish. The thing flopped across the bottom of the kayak with loud thumps, its golden body shining in the morning sun. Martin removed the spoon and cast to the same spot once more. Nothing. Again he cast and retrieved only the spoon. He decided to try his luck a little further down the shoreline. He cast toward the trees over and over to no avail. He then turned his attention to the open water before him. He could see the bottom had white sand with large areas of Manatee grass. He switched his lures and used a top water plug. The very first cast with his new lure he saw the white flash of a fish rising from the grass for the lure. It knocked the lure up off the water's surface. Martin paused, letting the lure sit motionless for a moment before working it again. This time the fish hit the lure and pulled it below the surface. Martin began to reel the fish in carefully. He soon had it in the boat and saw that it was a nice sized sea trout. In the expanse of an hour Martin had two more fish in his boat. He strung them onto the stringer and allowed it to pay out behind the boat as he made his way back to the shoreline of his sanctuary.
The paddle back brought him very near a large yacht. "Good morning!" the greeting startled Martin. He looked up to the yacht's deck, bracing his eyes against the brilliant white hull illuminated by the sun. "Good morning", returned Martin.
"Any luck?" asked a man who was little more than a silhouette in the blinding light.
"Yeah, actually. Got a red and a couple trout."
"Great! If you go over there, in the shallows there are tons of oysters that I've been collecting. They're actually quite good." The man now came into a clear view as he had moved onto the vessel's stern and Martin had paddled aft to see him better. He was around sixty years old Martin guessed. He had brown curly hair with graying temples. The man was deeply tanned. The Bermuda shorts and polo shirt, along with his confident manner and very large yacht conveyed to Martin that he was most probably an executive.
"My wife and I came out here to get away from the insanity ashore. I was a banker. The banks collapsed of course, along with everything else. Once the panic set in people started roaming the more affluent neighborhoods looking for food and revenge. Bankers, lawyers, journalist all were targeted as traitors. Our neighbor was ruffed up. That along with the flu scared us, so here we are. Wish I had a sailboat I'd get out of here and head for the islands."
"I hear ya, thanks for the tip."
"Sure. Take care of yourself."
Martin nodded to the man as he paddled off in the direction that the stranger had indicated all the while mulling over in his mind what the man had just said. "Journalist were targeted? Geez, I wonder if Dave and everybody is O.K.". Soo
n he was floating over a large oyster bar. He reached down and pulled several clumps up into the boat. He paddled back towards the church property, glancing around to make sure that he was not being watched. Satisfied that nobody had monitored his movements he quickly pulled the kayak ashore and dragged it up onto the grass.
Martin worked feverishly cleaning the fish and oyster clumps. He started the hibachi, using oak and some orange wood. Martin ran into the woods behind the cabin and began pulling shoots of palmetto up from the black dirt. He washed them, diced them and threw them into a skillet with some olive oil and a few scallions from a victory garden that the priests had grown. Finishing all of that, he proudly marched down to the parsonage to invite the good Father to dinner. He did the same with Leah and Sister Loretta. They all followed Martin back to his Cabin where he served them his "Cracker dinner." His guests complimented him repeatedly on his skills of fishing and culinary prowess. The rest of the evening was spent very pleasantly with them all sitting around a roaring campfire, drinking wine and reminiscing of the "old days". The terror that cast a shadow over the world seemed a million miles away.