by Rob Lopez
He’d see the extensive array of makeup and beauty products in the bathroom and wonder if Lauren was seeing someone else.
The house managed pretty well without him, and as time went on, so did his family. Walking back into Fort Bragg, he’d hit the gym, check the rotas and wonder when his team was going to go back out again. He didn’t want to find out if Lauren was being unfaithful. Didn’t want to investigate why his son barely spoke to him. Afraid to open Pandora’s box, he’d kept the lid shut, knowing he wouldn’t know how to handle it.
Got a dozen useless citations for courage in combat, but was too afraid to peer through the looking glass at home, in case he saw what he’d become. Like an aging vampire, he couldn’t see his reflection in his family any more. Invisible to them, he’d all but vanished.
Rick shifted his position by the wheel, scanning the surroundings with his peripheral vision, checking that all shadows and silhouettes remained in their place. Kowalski’s snoring dropped to a heavy sigh, and he twitched in the undergrowth. Rick wondered what he was dreaming about. Did he think of home? Did he think of anything? He’d mentioned having a girlfriend back in Florida. How much did she mean to him?
If actions spoke louder than words, Rick couldn’t claim that his own family meant much to him. They were in danger now, but he hadn’t prepared them. The children could be alone right now, but he had no idea of their capabilities, of whether they were strong enough to bear the brunt of what may come. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and relying on Lauren. Leroy had been right, she was a determined woman, but if she was unable to make it back from New York, Rick knew it was partly his fault. He knew he’d driven her to take the job and all it entailed. Knew that, without him, she needed a successful career to provide security for the children. He hadn’t liked her choice but had been unable to criticize it.
He wasn’t in any position to say anything. Not without being a douchebag.
As the sky brightened in the east, Rick jumped up from his position and strode over to kick Kowalski awake.
Kowalski stirred, rolled over, then reacted angrily when the kicking continued. “What the hell man? It’s still dark.”
“It’s nearly dawn,” said Rick. “You can take off soon.”
“What’s the rush?” said Kowalski, yawning. “I flew for sixteen hours yesterday. Do you know how tiring that is? It’s not safe to do that much flying. I need to be able to concentrate. I’m not a machine.”
Rick kicked him again. “Quit your bitching. We move in ten.”
“Ten minutes? Are you kidding me?”
“No. Now move your ass.”
Getting home now was more imperative than ever, and he didn’t want to waste a minute.
*
Lauren was trapped in suburban hell. The map said Fairfax County, but it felt like a continuous extension of Washington DC. Whichever way they turned, they encountered leafy avenues and abandoned cars. One car had been rolled across the head of a street, with 'Stay Out’ crudely painted across it. Lauren and April detoured, seeing faces in windows giving them uncompromising looks. Reaching a bridge that crossed the I66, they saw the lanes crowded with refugees, all headed towards Arlington and DC.
On the bridge, a barricade had been set up, manned by armed men: ordinary folks with shotguns and hunting rifles. One of them shouted out, “Turn around. Go back the way you came.”
Lauren and April turned around, looking for another way to cross the highway. Finding a road that went underneath it, they passed families sheltering under its concrete roof, cooking on propane stoves. Lauren glanced at them, seeing the blank stares of the children, the unrolled sleeping bags. A bulked out Latino guy in a vest said, “Keep moving,” thinking Lauren was looking at the cook pot. Lauren said nothing and kept walking.
Two guys attempted to free a bicycle from a coin operated bike station, trying to force the lock. The other bikes had already been released. Lauren and April crossed the street to avoid them. Ahead, a line of refugees trudged towards the exit ramp of the I66, looking to join the exodus. Again, without needing to consult each other, Lauren and April turned aside down another street to stay clear of them.
Permanently weary, Lauren thought they were never going to get out of the urban areas. Cracks of gunfire echoed in the distance. Following the signs to downtown Falls Church, she stopped dead when she saw a body hanging by its neck from a street light. April turned the stroller around so that Daniel could not see it.
“Sweet Jesus, what is happening around here?” she uttered.
Lauren didn’t know, but she took it as a warning. They detoured again.
Walking down a once pretty street with gabled houses and picket fences, she saw what appeared to be a barrier of garbage up ahead, cutting across the road. The houses grew increasingly blackened the further they progressed until they came across the charred stumps of homes that had burned to the ground. There was nobody around, and the garbage seemed surprisingly colorful. It wasn’t until she drew closer that she saw it wasn’t just a pile of trash.
Curved white panels lay around, like giant pieces of egg shell. A serving trolley lay upside down. Bags and suitcases torn open. Airline seats were scattered across gardens and lawns. The tail fin of an airliner leaned over against a smashed tree. Deep furrows had been dragged across the ground. According to Lauren’s map, they were a few miles from Dulles airport. This was one plane that hadn’t made it.
The seats were still occupied, clouds of flies hovering around them. Crows picked at the remains. April turned the stroller around again.
*
Josh walked slowly down the street, dragging his nine iron disconsolately along the sidewalk. The houses were eerily silent. Drapes were drawn, like the occupants were just away for a vacation, but Josh wondered how many of these houses were actually tombs. A couple had notices pinned to the door. He suspected they’d been put there by the chairman, warning people of what might lie inside. The chairman was gone now, and his status had likely gone with him. He would be just another refugee on the road, though Josh could imagine him still trying to keep people together as a group, fussing over them, urging everyone to help each other. Josh hadn’t wanted to go and was glad Grandma had stood her ground, but he started to wonder now whether that had been wise. Bereft of support, it suddenly felt lonely in the house, even though Josh had never given a second thought to anyone outside it before. They weren’t eating much anymore, and his stomach was growling. The futile shopping trip yesterday laid bare the reality that there would be no more food coming from anywhere.
He still didn’t want to leave, and it wasn’t because he was thinking of his mom coming back. He was thinking more of Skye, though thinking wouldn’t be the right word to describe the powerful sensations that drew him back to the creek. He was aware that morning that he should have felt more frightened, more worried, about the current situation. He could see it in Lizzy’s eyes, and in the lines of Grandma’s face, but instead he felt what could only be described as an all consuming addiction. Skye was all he could think about. The thought of her made him feel all mushy inside. Any idea that she might have lost interest in him was like being stabbed in the stomach with a hot fork. Feeling such sharp edges from his emotions disturbed him.
It also invigorated him. Walking quickly, then running, he arrived at the creek in a torment of anticipation. Failing to see her, he walked along the bank, peering anxiously through the foliage. When at last he saw her, his heart took a leap.
Skye leaned at the back of a tree, hugging herself tight. At the sound of his voice, she turned. The plaintive look she gave him twisted his tormented emotions further.
“Skye, what happened?”
Her face was heavily bruised. She bore livid scratches on her neck, and her clothes were torn. She hid herself behind the tree.
Josh entered the creek and was stopped dead by her cry: “Don’t come any closer!”
“Skye...”
“Leave me alone! Just get your water a
nd go.”
“But...”
“Please! Just go.”
Confused, Josh took another step forward.
“I don’t want to see you anymore, okay?” she shouted. “Get out of here.”
Breaking cover, she dashed away through the trees. Pinned by her words, his feet in the water, Josh watched her go. He wanted to chase her, but her rejection burned like a slap. He couldn’t work out what just happened. Tears pricked his eyes. He wanted to call out to her, but the words died on his lips.
Unable to bear it any longer, he turned away, forgetting to get his water. Stumbling, he looked at his empty bucket, returned to the creek and then stared at the trees for a good while, waiting for her to materialize, to apologize, to be happy to see him again.
None of these things happened and he returned home, his bucket heavy with water and his heart heavier still. In a state of shock, he dropped the bucket by the bathroom, dragged his feet to the bedroom and fell onto the bed.
Grandma emerged from the garden with a plate of barbecued tortillas. “Dinner’s ready,” she said curtly.
Lizzy came into the bedroom. “Josh?” she said.
Josh didn’t move. Face down, his tears seeped into the quilt.
Lizzy came closer. “Josh,” she whispered. “I’m worried. I haven’t seen Grandma eat. She’s making us food but she’s not eating.”
Josh didn’t move.
“Josh, please. This is serious. If she doesn’t eat, she’s going to die.”
32
The little Cessna flew over the Austrian Alps. Barely able to get over the snow dusted peaks, Kowalski was forced to detour round the bigger mountains, flying through lush alpine valleys and over picturesque lakes. The sky was no longer clear and blue, and as the cloud base lowered, the plane was forced lower still, unable to take the risk of flying in the clouds lest they smack into the side of one of those beautiful slopes. Hugging the ground and leapfrogging transmission towers, Rick gazed out upon idyllic scenes of pastoral life. With cattle, mountain streams, and forests, he figured that people here might do okay. What it would be like trying to make it through a winter, Rick didn’t know. The ski resorts this year were likely to be pretty empty.
As they left Austria and crossed into Germany, the population density increased dramatically. The autobahns were choked with refugees, and sprawling camps littered the banks of the Danube, small boats ferrying supplies for hungry mouths. Rain streaked the Cessna’s windshield and Rick thought of the UN refugee camps he’d seen in Africa; in Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and imagined the same scenes with the addition of mud and a colder climate. He wondered how long it would take for warlords to rise, staking a claim to resources and carving out a territory. Chances were, even those idyllic pastures in the alps would become part of someone’s fiefdom. It was tempting to think of Europeans as being soft and peaceful, but Africans preferred to live in peace, too. Everybody did, no matter where they lived. It only took a hardcore of ambitious groups who reveled in violence to dominate them all. Rick had seen them rise in every power vacuum, in every social breakdown. Failed States grew violent groups the way dung heaps grew mushrooms. There might not be as many guns out here to arm those groups, but Rick had witnessed first hand the atrocities that could be committed by a small band with machetes. Bullet, blade or club, the result was the same. No ideology required: simply hunger, self-interest and will. The rest could be made up on the fly, and often was.
Only one thing was certain: a lot of people weren’t going to make it. Old tractors could be hand cranked to keep plowing the fields, but when the fuel ran out, as it eventually would, the complex agricultural system that kept the cities fed would break down. Harvesting would need to be done by hand and horse, and Rick doubted there was enough expertise, nor horses, to make that work any time soon. In the Hundred Years War, famine, disease and roaming armed bands killed off two thirds of Germany’s population. In France, half. And that was before the industrial age, when peasants were hardier and more manually skilled than modern populations. It didn’t bode well, and Rick felt overwhelmed by the implications.
He just hoped he was being too pessimistic.
“Do you want to fly?” said Kowalski.
Rick snapped out of his thoughts. “What?”
“Do you want to learn to fly?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I disagree. I’m getting tired. If you want us to fly non-stop, you’ve got to pitch in.”
Rick looked down at the ground, suddenly thinking of the mysterious forces that were keeping the plane aloft. Mysterious to him, anyway. In a big plane, and even a helicopter, it was tempting to think of reliable, brute-force technology being the only reason he could fly. In a tiny plane with a buzzsaw engine, that idea wasn’t so credible. Not from the cockpit.
“I don’t want to screw things up,” he said.
“You think I do? All I want is for you to learn to hold the controls and let her fly.”
“I bet it’s not that easy.”
“No, but it ain’t that difficult, either. Now landing, that’s difficult. Taking off is a challenge too, but I won’t ask you to do that. Just hold her straight and level. She’s trimmed and stable. Put your hands on the controls.”
Gingerly, Rick wrapped his hands around the vibrating flight controls. Kowalski took his hands off his.
“Hey!” said Rick, “what the hell you doing?”
Paralyzed with fear, Rick clung to the controls, not daring to move a thing.
“See?” said Kowalski with a smirk. “It flies itself.”
“Yeah, okay. Great demonstration. Now get the hell back on the controls!”
“You’re doing okay. Let’s get a little more adventurous.”
That wasn’t what Rick wanted to hear.
“Without pulling or pushing on the yoke, turn the wheel slightly to the left,” said Kowalski.
“No.”
“Come on, you can do it.”
“This isn’t necessary.”
“If you want to help out, it is. Turn the yoke.”
Taking a deep breath, Rick turned the yoke a tiny fraction.
“You can turn it a little more than that,” assured Kowalski.
Rick turned it a little more and felt the plane tilt slightly.
“Now that might not seem a big deal to you,” said Kowalski, “but if you look at your heading on this dial here, you’ll see we’re turning left. The artificial horizon also shows your angle of tilt, if you like. Now turn it back the other way until the horizon on this ball-reading is perfectly level.”
Relieved that he hadn’t sent the plane into a spin, Rick turned the yoke the other way, eyes fixed to the artificial horizon.
“Okay, that was simple enough. You’ve turned the plane a few degrees to port, and you’ve leveled out. Now I want you to turn the other way, taking us back to our original heading. Keep your eye on the compass reading.”
For the next hour, Kowalski put Rick through his paces, telling him what to do and instructing him in the hazards to watch out for, like hills and low cloud. After practicing the gentlest of maneuvers and handing the controls back over, Rick sagged back in his seat, sweating, mentally exhausted, but, though he was loathe to admit it, invigorated by the experience. He turned to see what Scott thought of it, and discovered that his comrade had slept through the whole experience.
Which was probably just as well, as Scott wasn’t the keenest of flyers.
Dropping back into a light sleep himself, he woke when Kowalski put the plane into a steep bank.
They were over a coastline, with a gray sea under gray skies stretching away to the horizon. Running along the coastline was a massive berm. Picturesque windmills dotted the landscape, and canals crisscrossed the green fields.
They were in Holland, and Rick wondered how long he’d been asleep. He had to find a way to keep from snoozing.
Kowalski was angling to put the plane down on a perfectly straight stret
ch of road. It could have been a runway were it not for the fact that a canal ran right next to it. Along the bank of the canal were a line of wind turbines, and they looked uncomfortably close to the road as Kowalski brought the plane in to land. Rick watched them flash by, glad that he wasn’t at the controls.
As the plane braked to a halt behind an abandoned Volvo, he looked out at the incredibly flat landscape. The objects he’d mistaken for wind turbines were actually wind operated pumps that kept the land from being flooded, extracting the water from the fields and depositing it in the canal. With all the major pumping stations out of action, this ancient form of technology was the only thing preventing the sea from reclaiming most of Holland.
In the distance, an actual wind farm with turbine generators turned out to be less useful, the solar storm having fried the generators and set them alight. They looked like a field of burnt matches.
Rick and Scott set to work siphoning the gas out of the Volvo, filling one can and running to pass it up to Kowalski on the wing as the tube drained into the next can. Dripping the last of the gas into it, Rick took the barely filled can over. “We’re going to need more than this,” said Kowalski. “Especially if we’re going to go across the sea. That’s the last place I want to run out of fuel. I was hoping our course would take us closer to northern France so we wouldn’t have to cross so much water, but I miscalculated our heading. I’m too used to GPS.”
“That don’t make me feel good if we’re flying to Greenland,” said Scott. “You know I’m serious about feeding you to the polar bears.”
“It’s not ideal,” admitted Kowalski. “I need better charts. The maps in the plane don’t extend this far.”
“That’s information we could have done with earlier. What were planning to do? Ask the penguins for directions?”
“There’s no penguins in the Arctic,” said Kowalski phlegmatically.
“So what are you going to do?” asked Rick.
“I’ve got some ideas. Have a little faith. Go get me some more gas.”