RUNAWAY MOON

by Howard Brian Edgar

  “We need ten good logs each cut ten feet long,” says Rachel.

  “Try to find logs of equal thickness,” adds Ankur. “We need to bind them tightly together so our valuables don’t fall through cracks.”

  What valuables? Deuce thinks. Except for several wedding bands and Marcus’s gold neck chains, there are no valuables at Emerald Bay. It takes him a moment to realize that Ankur is being facetious. He laughs politely.

  Marcus, who volunteers for every activity involving Rachel, bursts into obnoxiously loud gales of laughter. It takes him a few seconds to realize he’s laughing alone. Prompted by their sudden blank stares, he turns sheepishly silent.

  “By valuables, he means food,” says Rachel glaring at Marcus. “We also need eight thin logs cut ten feet long.” She uses her stick to draw a rough diagram in the wet sand, starting with four parallel lines.

  Her crude sketch reminds Deuce of a tic-tac-toe grid. The grid has a bottom layer consisting of four thin logs pointing north to south and spaced about two feet apart. The second layer consists of ten thick logs, crisscrossed over the first layer and pointing east to west, with no spaces between them. The four remaining smaller logs form the top layer, parallel with the bottom.

  Hannibal, Alex, Matias, Diego and Marcus begin identifying and gathering the big logs while the others collect the thin ones. Rachel barks instructions from the beach. Within minutes, the area is bustling with activity.

  “Drag those big logs down here first! We need them sticking partway out into the lake!” yells Rachel. “Make it easier to get the finished raft in the water.”

  “Go for the aspens,” yells Deuce, remembering something he read online, pointing to a nearby log and suddenly missing his computer. How would he know anything about wood density if he hadn’t researched it online for an eighth-grade earth science project? The heaviest woods like mahogany or cherry won’t float at all, while the medium woods would gradually absorb water until they sank. Aspen, balsa, fir and pine, however, can float indefinitely, and there’s an abundant supply of aspen and pine already felled, ready to be selected and cut.

  Deuce and Mateo help Eric, Donnie and Ankur collect the thinner logs. Except for Rachel, the women and female children are off collecting edibles.

  Sam and Julia decide to go fishing.

  “You didn’t tell me about your hike up to Sugar Pine Point,” says Julia.

  “Not much to tell. My old legs got a real workout, though.”

  “Oh stop it,” scolds Julia. “You’re sixty-nine. It’s the new forty-nine.”

  “I wish,” chuckles Sam.

  “So, what were you doing up there?” Julia presses.

  “Just a little science project with the boys,” says Sam.

  “That’s a long walk for a little project.”

  “I know. I thought the exercise would be beneficial,” Sam lies.

  The raft-builders enjoy a productive first day collecting all the logs they need for the basic structure and setting them out in place on the beach. By dusk, they position all eighteen logs to see how they fit together. After some adjustments and repositioning, they number the logs by carving notches on the end of each one. The first log gets one notch the second log gets two notches and so on until all the logs have numbers. Next, they cut wider, deeper notches into the big logs, making them just wide enough to fit snugly with the thinner logs for stability and support. The way they fit together reminds Deuce of Alex’s old Lincoln Logs collection, one more thing Deuce will never see again.

  “Tomorrow we’ll gather everything we can possibly use to lash these puppies together. Rope, string, cord, wire, sheets, anything that might help us bind the logs into a solid vessel that will safely carry us across the lake. Once we have the binding materials, we’ll begin tying it all together good and tight,” says Rachel.

  Deuce is already thinking ahead to the moment when the first raft is finished and he must convince everyone that one raft will not suffice. Not suffice for what? How will he inspire them to build five or six more rafts without telling them the real reason behind his sudden interest in raft building? Will five or six more rafts even be enough to carry the last known twenty-two people on Earth to safety during a flood that may or may not come?

  Building one raft is fun. Building five or six is backbreaking work for people who not exactly flush with binding materials. Necessity could force them to scavenge through more crushed homes and stores, every structure for miles. Worse, Hannibal and Satin have already torn through all the closest ones.

  A quick check at the community supply shelter tells Deuce that they are in deep trouble. The two most prolific scavengers in the community, Hannibal and Satin, have donated most of the odds and ends. There are a few paddles and a pair of mismatched oars they can definitely use, but there’s only enough binding material for a second raft. Unless …

  Deuce picks up a thin pine branch and bends it easily between his hands. It flexes without splintering. Perhaps they can make their own twine by peeling the smallest of tree branches into strips of bark, like string cheese. Deuce works the bark with his fingernails until he’s able to pull it apart into strands. He ties the ends of the strands together using the only knot he knows, the square knot then tests them by trying to pull them apart. He pulls with all of his strength, but the knots hold. He studies the homemade twine, smiles proudly.

  “There, problem solved. I’ll call it pine twine.” Deuce realizes he is alone, talking to himself.

  They won’t have to spend precious days scouring the countryside after all if they can make what they need using materials they already have. Now if only Deuce could solve the bigger challenge so easily. He still has to persuade them to build several more rafts.

  April 15

  It is close to Dark by the time the first finished raft sits proudly at the water’s edge of Emerald Bay with its bow protruding a few feet into the water, ready for its maiden launch. It’s large enough to carry six or seven adults comfortably. The only thing missing is a sail. According to Sam, a sail could destabilize the craft and possibly capsize it in windy conditions. Better to paddle with their bow pointed in the right direction.

  Rachel turns to Deuce. “Why don’t you and I test its seaworthiness?”

  You mean take it out on the water? Deuce thinks, fearing he might have a stroke as he stammers, “O...kay.”

  He grabs one of the long oars, hops onto the raft and assumes a ready position, trying to look brave and, at the same time, trying to hide his crushing anxiety about being out on the water.

  “Not so fast! We need to make sure it floats first,” warns Rachel.

  Relieved, Deuce hops off and stands aside while Hannibal, Alex, Matias and Diego stand shoulder to shoulder on the beach and prepare to push the rectangular vessel out into the bay.

  “Okay,” says Diego, “on three. One, two, three push!”

  They give one mighty shove and push the raft into the bay. The front immediately dives underwater and drenches itself before bobbing back to the surface and floating. The men respond with a hearty round of cheers and fist bumping while Rachel grabs the other long oar and wades into the cold water.

  Deuce swallows hard, takes a deep breath and follows her in. Despite the protection of his nanotech suit, the bay water feels like ice against his legs. They quickly hoist themselves onto the raft, butts first. Once the raft steadies, they swing their legs up and stand, balancing themselves with their oars.

  “Should we stand or sit?” asks Deuce hoping she will choose the latter.

  Rachel bounces up and down a few times, making the raft bounce with her. The raft remains stable.

  “Your idea, your choice.”

  “I think I’d rather sit.” In truth, Deuce would rather sit out the whole ordeal and watch from the shore. He hates being on the water. Yet he cannot admit that to anyone now. What would they think? Why would someone who hates the water so much want to build a raft in the first place? Rachel’s bouncing makes him more than a lit
tle queasy so he sits, readies his oar and glances at his dad. Acutely aware of his son’s fear of water, Alex shoots him a quick wink and a little thumbs-up for encouragement. Deuce forces a weak grin even though he feels like barfing.

  With Deuce seated on one side, Rachel on the other, they put their oars in the water, and begin rowing forward while the men cheer from the beach. They make it out to the middle of the bay when Deuce realizes he is losing his battle with nausea. “Okay, Rachel, the raft works. We can go back now.”

  “I thought we’d take it out for a spin on the lake,” says Rachel.

  “As far as I’m concerned, this is the lake.” Deuce is already spinning. “I think maybe we should go back and add a handrail in case the wind kicks up.”

  “You’re afraid of the water,” says Rachel straight away. Even in the near darkness, she can see that he’s white-faced petrified. He sits tightly on the side of the raft, his hands death-gripping the oar, frozen like a Greek statue.

  “Can we just turn around, please?”

  “You should feel good. You got this far. You faced your fear,” says Rachel.

  Deuce’s nausea chooses that precise moment to get the better of him. He hurls the entire contents of his stomach explosively over the side. A second much weaker heave is just bile and water. He spits the last of it out, satisfied that he’s done polluting the bay and turns to poor shocked Rachel.

  “Looks like fear won.” He quickly rinses his face with bay water, fakes a smile.

  “Are you okay?” Rachel eyes him with pity.

  He watches his vomit sink into the lake, grateful that none of the others will have to ‘face his fear’ as it washes up on the beach. If the bay did that to him, how seasick would he get on mighty Lake Tahoe, easily a thousand times larger than Emerald Bay? Even worse, how sick would he get while adrift on an endless sea of saltwater twenty million times larger, with no land in sight?

  Ever?

  Chapter 14

  Emerald Bay

  Rachel promises not to tell anyone about Deuce’s seasickness and phobia. The raft, meanwhile, is an instant hit with the other survivors, none of whom share his unnatural fear of the water. Not even the little girls, though he wonders how Mia and Lily and Mia and Sofia would feel about spending the rest of their lives dining on raw fish and recycled urine.

  “When can we ride the raft? We want a raft ride.” Lily and Mia look up at Meg with their big, innocent, hopeful, expectant eyes.

  “When this wind stops,” says Meg. She sits with the girls staring out their front-door opening at the churning lake.

  The light breeze has erupted suddenly into gale-force wind, turning the usually placid Lake Tahoe into an angry, seething maelstrom. Within minutes, near hurricane-force eighty mph winds howl across the landlocked lake, pushing waves as high as ten feet. All the survivors can do is huddle together in their shelters and hope that their makeshift shelters hold up against the relentless buffeting.

  It’s been two weeks since the Jacks and Guerrero families abandoned Emerald Bay South and moved into the caves at Emerald Bay Colony. A powerful wind gust had toppled Diego’s van, crushing the three trikes and destroying the former Jacks family shelter that had stood for hundreds of years. The steady, sometimes heavy rains have raised the water level so the bay is now lapping at the Jacks’ ‘living room’ doorstep.

  They had no choice but to move their remaining supplies and consolidate with those in the North. The Guerrero families had grown especially tired of hiking back and forth, five miles round-trip daily for community campfires, trading, school, friendship and, most recently, raft-building.

  The crude homemade shelters along the northern bay have been wrecked by the powerful winds and heavy rain, except for Meg and Rachel’s. No one is inclined to rebuild, so they take to the caves instead. As the only remaining non-cave dwellers, the only survivors still on the beach, Meg and Rachel watch over the raft, now sitting twenty feet from the shore threatened by raging torrents sweeping off the storm-battered lake.

  A few hours later, the monstrous wind dies almost as quickly as it began. The Guerrero females, who have been suffering from cabin fever, take advantage of the calm, leave their cave to visit Meg. They sit in a tight semicircle around the teacher, Mariana holding Mia in her lap while Isabella sits close to Sofia, her hand draped over her daughter’s shoulder. They have come to play Meg’s favorite game when the kids are shut in by foul weather.

  It’s the ‘make-up-a-story’ game, a game Meg used to play with her eighth-graders at the end of each school year. Unlike most of Meg’s pre-Crash students, who often portrayed victims in their stories, these four girls depict themselves as heroes and demigoddesses, as if their very survival in the post-Crash world has empowered them. They slay dragons, burn witches and tame wild beasts to save the people they love. They tell of epic battles on alien worlds using laser spears strong enough to blast the biggest alien ships into dust before they can hurt anyone. They create weapons light enough to be held and shoulder-fired like RPGs or rocket launchers. Lily’s crossbow fires explosive darts that change direction as she moves her laser aiming point. Sofia builds a doomsday cannon powerful enough to obliterate dwarf planets the size of Ceres, Pluto or Diablo. They follow the same themes: life, death, loss and survival against seemingly impossible odds, they have used before.

  After each story, Meg repeats some variation of the same message to the student storyteller. “Look how strong and brave you are. Look how you overcame your problems, survived your losses, conquered your fears and defeated your enemies. How fortunate you are to be alive, abundant with food, water, shelter and people who love you.”

  Meg calls it hero therapy. Hearing the girls’ stories beats watching old movies. They are fresh, imaginative, quirky, uplifting and wholly original. They confirm Meg’s long-held belief that if Hollywood really wanted original material, they would have hired adolescents instead of accountants.

  Sam and Julia Hayden are visiting the Jacks family in their new cave when the killer winds kick up again. Deuce has already grown particularly fond of the cave because it doesn’t force him to look at the lake like their old shelter on the beach, which had a one hundred-eighty-degree view that made it impossible for him to avoid the sensation of being surrounded by water and overcome by nausea.

  At least their “new” cave is over a hundred feet above the beach. Even in these horrendous conditions with the hillside looking more like a giant mudslide every day, Deuce sleeps better at night knowing the cave is carved into solid bedrock.

  Alex, Sam and Deuce keep the conversation light, since neither Jessa nor Julia has any inkling about the potential disaster brewing just over the mountains.

  “My great-grandfather built the Hayden Planetarium in New York City about a hundred years ago,” says Sam proudly.

  “Was he an astrophysicist, too?” Deuce only hears “Hayden Planetarium.”

  “No, he was a wealthy businessman and philanthropist. When I was about your age, he took me to the planetarium. I got hooked, so we ended up returning several times each year. But I never worked there.”

  “Why not? You already had the name.”

  “To me, NASA was much more enticing. Tracking asteroids in real time, studying the universe with the latest telescopes, satellite technology and space probes was challenging and fascinating. Besides, the Hayden already had a great curator. My esteemed colleague, Neil deGrasse Tyson.”

  “Isn’t he that Cosmos guy?” Jessa perks up suddenly. Once, at Alex’s insistence, she binge-watched the entire series with him, ten hours’ worth, in one day. She learned more than she ever wanted to know about planet Earth and astronomy. “He’s a good teacher.”

  “A great teacher,” says Sam wistfully, “and a great friend.”

  “He came to our house a few times when I was in my twenties. A very charming, bright, funny engaging man,” adds Julia.

  “I wish I could have met him,” says Alex.

  Deuce, utterly preoccupied
with his thoughts about the raft situation, has tuned out the adults. Unconsciously, he changes the subject. “Well, at least we got to build one raft before the weather went nuts.”

  “Speaking of which, did you know Matias and Diego are planning to build their own?” Alex knows his son will welcome that news.

  “Awesome!” That’s one less raft Deuce will have to persuade them to build.

  “The more the merrier,” says Sam. “If it keeps raining, we’re all going to need rafts.” He winks at Deuce. It’s exactly the right reason and motivation they need to start a raft-building frenzy without raising any suspicions. It is perfect. Deuce winks back at Sam knowingly.

  “I agree with Sam. When this weather stops, Deuce and I will build one for us, too,” says Alex. “We can’t afford to take any chances.”

  Already up to three rafts and Deuce hasn’t had to convince anyone. This is much easier than he thought it would be. Helping the others build more rafts will be much easier than persuading them to build more rafts.

  “What about Meg and her girls?” Julia asks. “Someone should build them a raft. Maybe we can get Donnie, Eric and Ankur to help.”

  “I think I can arrange that,” says Deuce with conviction. That makes four rafts and zero suspicions. Deuce feels an enormous weight lifted.

  Three days later, the wind and rain are gone, so the Emerald Bay survivors assemble for a rare evening campfire, the first gathering since the Jacks and Guerrero families relocated to Emerald Bay North.

  Even though they had taken precautions and kept a supply of campfire wood stored safely under a huge tarpaulin compliments of Hannibal and Satin, moisture had seeped underneath and invaded the spongy pine, making it hard to light and, once lit, slow to burn. Hannibal curses as he tries to light a sliver of bark and waits an eternity for that first thin column of smoke to rise and reward his impatience. Diego leans in and blows lightly on the glowing bark until it erupts into a steady flame. Isabella then fans it with a broad leaf while her daughter, Sofia, lights several dried twigs off the burning bark and places them strategically between the logs. The three of them work together in perfect concert as if they’ve done this a thousand times before.