Devastated Lands: A Post-Apocalyptic Adventure

by Bruce W. Perry

  "Do you know how to wash that down?"

  "Of course I do! I had to take medicine once. I had a bug in my ear. It really hurt! My mom…she gave me the medicine…"

  "Did it help? Your ears?"

  "Yeah, they felt okay." She drank from her diluted Pepsi, the bottle tipped up so the bubbles gathered near her lips.

  "Don't forget the pill."

  "I know I know!"

  Same old Amy, he thought. That was good. He took her temperature in a few minutes; 101.1 plus the one, 102.1.

  He got out the food, arranging it on the ground. Cashews, Ritz Crackers, a carefully apportioned chocolate bar. He cut up the sausage with his knife, first testing it himself.

  He removed one of the cans of Blue Buffalo dog chow and opened it with his Swiss Army knife. It was a painstaking operation, with Turk's nose three inches away and the dog panting and desperately licking his chops.

  Finally he pried it open. Having no plate, he wiped off a part of the curb and shoveled the chow out. Turk tore into it greedily and it had vanished in less than a minute. He'd made the dog food seem good.

  Cooper saw no need to try to save the food; they needed energy. He and Amy ate handfuls of Ritz, then made short work of the chocolate bar. Mikaela was still lying on her back after nibbling a few Ritz. Cooper made her drink some more of the diluted Pepsi, but she acted really wiped out, worrying him.

  Mikaela reluctantly stood up, holding on to Cooper's shoulder.

  "This has to be the strangest place I've laid down and chilled in, ever."

  "Yeah, right," Cooper said, glancing around the abandoned neighborhood with its graffiti and looted storefronts and distressingly empty roads.

  "Where are we going?" Amy chirped, making a short-lived comeback.

  "Yeah, what's the target?" Mikaela mumbled.

  "Do you hear that radio sound? That's where. The train plan is out; besides, I don't think you two should travel just yet. We need to sit tight for a day or two, get well. I'm sorry about the train. That was my call. I miscalculated."

  "Don't worry. We got sick Coop, not you," Mikaela said gamely. "Wherever we're going, let's go."

  Cooper gathered their things and what was left of the food and drink. He put on his backpack, then picked Amy up.

  "I can walk!" she shrieked.

  "Okay. I'll take you up on that for now." Mikaela began to cross the road towards the broken CVS, one hand unsteadily on Turk's back. She turned back to Shane.

  "What do you think we have? What's spreading at the camp?"

  "Just some short-term stomach bug," he lied.

  He was no expert, but had some training in pathogens from his wilderness responder course. He knew about giardia, which was something that normally struck campers, not refugee camps. He hoped it wasn't worse, like cholera.

  "How does it feel to walk?"

  "Okay, but I sense an explosion, if you know what I mean."

  "I'll get some paper from that looted store."

  They stopped across the street in front and he dashed in and emerged with some old newspaper. It came in handy when Mikaela had to duck into some desiccated shrubs and unbuckle her pants and squat.

  Cooper watched the road, which had stretched desolately for blocks. Then he saw the horse coming.

  CHAPTER 56

  It was a black horse, riderless, barebacked, galloping hard. It flew past them on the road, oblivious to its surroundings.

  "Wait, I've seen that horse before," Cooper said, staring after it. "The black one that was swimming in the flood, when we were in the boat."

  "Poor thing," Mikaela mumbled. "Poor me."

  "But where's Napoleon?" Amy asked, one palm upturned, the other clutching Millie. They stood in the middle of the sidewalk.

  "Napoleon's probably okay, with Beatrice."

  In the same direction came an on-rushing crowd of panicked people. They ran down the middle of the road, away from the same thing the horse was.

  "Let's go!" Cooper yelled.

  "Where?"

  "This way!" he said, turning up the block gripping Amy's hand.

  The people stampeded up the street, trampling those unfortunate enough to trip and fall into their path. The terrorized crowd spilled over on to the sidewalk.

  "What the hell?" Mikaela said over the screams and yells, not quite sure that she wasn't hallucinating with fever. One man stumbled on to the sidewalk and was about the crash into Mikaela and Turk, who barked and bucked at the end of his crude leash. Cooper reached out and blocked the man, gripping fistfuls of his sweaty t-shirt.

  "Why the fuck is everyone running?"

  "Rats! Millions of them!" Cooper let him go. He looked up the road behind the people, but saw nothing.

  "Total panic, based on a rumor," he said under his breath.

  Back into a heavy plodding gait, the man looked back over his shoulder, "You better get your asses out of here!"

  A hundred more panicked people stumbled past on the road.

  "What is it Shane?"

  He looked at Mikaela. "Nothing."

  They were walking beneath weather-beaten split-level homes a few blocks past the looted pharmacy. Then he reached the one he was looking for, with a second-floor window open and the radio music softly playing. The old black transistor sat upon a window pane.

  "Anybody up there?" Cooper called out, hands cupped over his mouth. Only an organ solo played on the radio, he thought it was The Doors. No other sounds came out of the apartment.

  "We need a place to flop, get collected. Let's go!" Cooper strode to the front door and tried the latch, pausing on the stoop. He heard a familiar fluttering, as if coming from a rooftop level. First he looked to the sky, but he saw no birds.

  Then he saw large groups of gray, squealing rivulets of fur spread out along an adjacent side street, just behind screaming, running people. The gray rivers moved as if they were one thing.

  He tried the next door; locked. He sprinted down the steps and grabbed Amy's and Mikaela's hands and they ran.

  "We'll have to try it around back!"

  Something had turned the volume up on the fluttering noise. He heard a hideous, deep-throated scream from the street.

  An alleyway led behind the building. They ran as fast as sick people could, and when they arrived they found a worn exit door partially ajar. Cooper all but shoved them all inside, where it was dark and musty, and slammed the door shut. Mikaela found a seat on a staircase and put her head in her hands.

  "What the fuck was that!"

  "Disasters have a way of coughing up the unexpected."

  "Sounds like me," Mikaela said, lightly.

  "It's gone now. We can try the apartment."

  They headed upstairs, Turk now off his leash and leading the way.

  They went up a flight of wooden steps; Shane had to carry Amy. The climb was exhausting and painstaking for Mikaela. They reached the second floor; he could hear a muffled, disc jockey's patter from behind a locked wooden door. He called out again, but all the apartments appeared empty.

  Cooper smashed the wooden door to the apartment down with the blunt end of a rusty axe he'd found near the rear entry.

  They went in and shut what was left of the smashed door behind them. A humid wind blew from the open window; simple furnishings, an empty but swept kitchen. The bathroom still had water in the toilet, but only a trickle came from the faucets. The fluttering, squealing noise had stopped; Shane pulled in the radio and closed the window.

  He handed out the rest of the water and diluted Pepsi. They drank quietly. Mikaela had found an upholstered chair and knitted blanket, which she wrapped herself in, even though it was warm and humid. Amy lay on a small couch and guzzled down her Pepsi and then closed her eyes, dolls laying across her chest.

  They seemed safe, for the moment. Out the window, the street was nearly empty again. One trampled man stood up unsteadily from the gutter, brushed himself off, and staggered away toward the water.

  Shane took Amy's temperatur
e and it had climbed to 104.

  CHAPTER 57

  "We really have to start taking the antibiotics," he said.

  "Yes."

  Mikaela looked pale and weak and almost jaundiced. Her eyes were bloodshot, she was collapsed in the chair, and she spoke just above a whisper.

  "The problem is, we have only one bottle. And one person is supposed to take all the pills in the bottle. A complete regimen. I think we should try to split it up anyways. It probably will work to kill the bug quickly."

  "Give them all to Amy," she whispered. The sun was going down outside, and the apartment had no working lights. The city's electricity was still out. He heard one report on the radio about a hospital vessel and emergency warships and cruisers entering Commencement Bay, and a million refugees in Tacoma, but the batteries finally failed.

  Whomever had left the apartment cleaned out the refrigerator. He found Morton's salt on a shelf, with an old bag of brown sugar, and a can of sardines.

  "Help will come soon. I saw a helicopter." He did, flying past quickly toward the camp. He still didn't feel good about going back to the camp; Amy and Mikaela were too weak. They'd never make it without wheels. And then there were the rodents; too many risks. They were stuck, for the moment.

  "I think we'll be here for half a day, drinking the water, taking the medicine. I think I made a shitty decision back at the camp. It was my fault. I'm sorry about this, Mikaela."

  She shook her head vigorously, "no."

  No one came past their building anymore. He heard some dogs barking in the distance and Turk stood by the window, listening.

  "I'm going to leave you here with Turk and go back to that CVS. Scavenge what I can scavenge. Are you okay here, for just a short time?"

  "Yeah," she whispered. "We'll watch a movie on Netflix." She smiled weakly.

  "Jesus, I thought you were serious," he said. "I must be going crazy."

  Mikaela closed her eyes again and pulled the knitted blanket back over her head.

  He went back to the battered pharmacy. Everything in the store had been rifled and looted. He found more water bottles in a cracked dairy case far in the back, but nothing he could use amongst the medicine, just vials of indecipherable medications.

  He returned to the apartment and gave Mikaela two more ibuprofen and some of the new water.

  "All I found was the water. I wanted to get medicine for you…"

  "I'll be alright…feel better…" she whispered, downing the pills through what was a swollen, sore throat.

  "I feel bad," he said. She patted the back of his hand, then lightly gripped it, before falling back against a pile of throw pillows.

  He started Amy on the antibiotics. I can control Mikaela's fever, he thought. He was grateful that Amy would take pills, without putting up a fight. Both of their foreheads were afire.

  He wished it was him and not them.

  He had to move them down to the water where the rescue vessels would dock. But that would take a vehicle or ambulance.

  He went up to the rooftop the following morning, scanning for private vehicles he could flag down. Mikaela had spent most of the night in the bathroom. She was running out both ends. She'd be badly dehydrated by now, dangerously. He fed her more water, most of it, but they couldn't keep up with what the pathogen did to her. He was afraid she needed an I.V., couldn't move anywhere.

  She would roll her eyes at him gamely, coming out of the bathroom and staggering back to the couch. Turk sat next to her, his tail flipping meekly on the floor.

  It was a long day and night. He had a Bic lighter he'd found at the looted store. He attached a rag to the end of one of his arrows and dipped it in propylene glycol. He kept it on the roof; he planned to alert vehicles with the projectile, an admittedly blunt force way to do that.

  He went down to the street for long stretches, but the road remained empty.

  No fuel or electricity yet, he thought. It was taking forever to restart the city.

  Mikaela was not doing well when he went back inside at the end of the day. Amy was sitting next to the armchair crying.

  She looked up at Cooper. "She won't answer me. She won't talk. She won't open her eyes. Is Mikaela going to die? I don't want her to die! Is she?" Tears ran down her cheeks, her hair soaked with fever.

  "Mikaela's just sleeping. She needs to sleep, just like you. Now come on, back to bed we go. You and Millie have to take more medicine in an hour. Mikaela's going to be okay. Just you see."

  Amy will be furious with me if I'm wrong. She'll blame me, he thought. For my inadequacies. For my decision.

  He went back to Mikaela after he'd tucked Amy in. She lay on her side heavily, a trickle of vomit coming from a corner of her mouth. He used his sleeve to wipe it away; she smelled sourly, like sickness and rot. She truly was unresponsive; he had to hold his hand in front of her mouth to detect breathing. He took her pulse; it was faint and racing.

  He held Mikaela's head in his arms. The other sound was Amy breathing deeply. She'd fallen asleep.

  "Don't die on me Mikaela. You can hang in there. I know you can. I love you, Mikaela. Don't leaves us! Don't leave us now! Not now." He lowered his head and exhaustively sobbed.

  "I wouldn't have made it if it wasn't for you. Then I said, leave the camp. Goddammit I'm sorry. I'm sorry I made us leave. Please. Don't die."

  He stayed there and cradled her head as the sun went down. He dabbed her forehead with a wet towel and tried to revive her with a water bottle held to her mouth. Once, her cracked lips moved as if she was talking to him from far away.

  "That time my dad was missing, I kept praying that they'd find him. Sitting alone praying in my room. This feels like back then. Then they told me he was dead. Well they owe me one now. They owe me. You're not going to die. You're not."

  He'd found a candle and stuck it in a can and lit it. It flickered in the shadows, illuminating Turk curled up next to Amy. From outside, he heard crickets, and engines in the sky.

  The next morning, the sun rose over the rooftops. It was clear. A large flock of birds, white gulls, flew towards the sea. He hadn't slept much. He'd heard a couple of cars pass through nearby neighborhoods in the night, but never reached them. If I ran now I could reach the water and get help. But I just can't leave them, he thought. I can't.

  Mikaela was warm, pale, and blue-tinged; barely alive. He went up on the roof and saw three helicopters making their way along the bay. There's still a chance, he told himself. He picked up the bow and lit the end of it with the lighter.

  The sun blazed over a brick roof and blinded him.

  Minutes later an old blue-metallic car, a luxury jalopy, rolled down the street. He raised the bow and fired a flaming arrow. It slammed into the right passenger fender; the startled driver stopped the car dead.

  "Hey," Cooper screamed, waving his arms, one hand clutching the bow. He waved them using the common distress signal, like he wanted to show he wasn't crazy.

  "Hey over here! We need help!" The car idled for a moment. A woman with sunglasses turned her head, the passenger window came two-thirds down. She's looking up in the sun, he thought, she sees me. I know her.

  The driver sped up and began to move away as Cooper waved his arms and screamed at the top of his lungs, "Beatrice! It's Cooper! Beatrice!"

  CHAPTER 58

  They wrapped Mikaela in a sheet they tore off the couch, and Drake took one end. Then they started to carry her down to the street.

  "She's heavy," Drake said.

  "She's really sick."

  "What do you think it is?"

  "Something everybody's got at the Red Cross camp."

  "Well they say they have a hospital ship docked."

  "You're going there, right?"

  "Might as well."

  "Can you take all of us?" Now they were lugging her down to the first floor and they stopped talking at the first floor landing, until they'd gotten out to the stoop. They put her down for a second. She was dead weight.

 
; Drake had his hands on his hips.

  "Well, everybody but the dog I'd say. She can lie across the backseat over a few people, but the dog, I don't know."

  "What If I ride in the trunk?"

  "You'd really do that?"

  "Yeah, if you can take the dog too."

  "Well then, I guess we're only going a couple miles, maybe five, ten. Let's pile in then. It is a Cadillac."

  When they'd first pulled the car over to the sidewalk, Cooper had met them. He'd embraced Bea, then brought them upstairs. Bea seemed good.

  "Drake took good care of me," she said. "He was wonderful."

  "We rode fast ahead of the flood for several miles, then got rained on," Drake said, climbing the stairs. Inside the room, Bea hugged Amy, who led her to Mikaela on the couch. Bea felt around the sick woman's forehead while holding her hand, then she shook her head grimly.

  "We need to get her to a doctor, quickly. Now."

  Soon, they'd all piled into the car and were moving, windows down, to the piers.

  They'd convinced Turk to ride in the trunk. They kept the lid lightly open with the rope they'd used as a leash, and he seemed content to lie down on the floor of the trunk and let the air blow over him.

  "I have to ask you, where's Napoleon?" Shane said, from the backseat.

  Mikaela lay across his and Amy's lap, as still as death itself. He stroked her sweaty brow, and kept praying, praying to himself.

  "Yeah, where is Napoleon? How come he's not here?" Amy added, pushy and insistent.

  "We'd gotten soaked riding in that thunderstorm, and the lightning strikes all around really spooked the horse," Drake said from the driver's seat. "We couldn't take it anymore. I thought Napoleon was going to throw us–they'll do that, you know, if you ride 'em through thunder and lightning," he said with emphasis, glancing back at Amy.

  "So I offered to pay this old feller for this car. Just for temporary use. He was holed up in his house. It's a Cadillac Eldorado, you know."

  "What year?"

  "1985. Banged up and dirty engine-wise, but it still drives. It'll get us to the bay. Anyways, if he doesn't just up and lend me the wheels for nothin' but a little cash for the gas, and a promise to return it. The acts of generosity you'll find during disasters, still amaze me."