She didn’t feel all alone anymore.
And then she turned on the radio.
She hit the first two presets on the car radio, getting only static. The third brought a station, either picking it up from the Capital Region they just left, or maybe New York.
But even that station was filled with bursts of static.
She raised the volume as if that would make the few words that did escape the speaker more clear.
“—cautioning that all travel should be curtailed … twenty-four hours. Anyone found …
A long gap as a scratchy white noise filled the car.
Then:
“—report all movements to any … do not, repeat, do not attempt…”
The station dissolved into a steady stream of static.
“What are they saying?” Simon asked from the back.
“I don’t know. Must be about—I guess—the problems they’ve had with fences. I—”
Then another question. Another unknowable.
“Will our fence be okay? When we get home?” Simon asked.
She caught Kate look at her as if wondering how she would respond to that.
“I think so, Simon. I hope so. Only one way to find out.”
Christie looked up to the mirror to see his eyes dart away, and then return to hers.
She had a thought then, a new awareness.
It’s not just Kate who’s changed. Simon too. His questions; all about “What if?”, “What do we do?”
How do we cope, how do we plan?
All good questions.
Now where the fuck were the good answers?
“What if our fence is … broken. What is—”
She felt a spike of anger at her son. Can’t he stop? Can’t he see this is not a good time for questions, not a good time at all.
(And why is that, she asked herself? Because maybe you’ll lose it? Or maybe you are losing it?)
“Simon. When we get there, we’ll see. We’ll do what we have to do. To be safe.”
Silence for a second, then more words from him. This time, not a question, a statement.
“I want to go home.”
Christie took a breath.
“Me too, Simon, me too.”
And the car became quiet as they closed the last hundred miles to the New York City border.
7
Staten Island
But even before they crossed into the New York City border, Christie knew she’d have to leave the Thruway for yet another highway.
In better times, she would have taken the Palisades Parkway, a classic highway that ran along the side of the Palisades, the monumental wall of rock that lined one side of the Hudson.
But she knew that the Palisades had become what was called an “unprotected road.” Could be okay, or could have broken-down cars, with packs of Can Heads waiting to throw things in the path of a car.
It was something you didn’t do.
So she took the ramp onto the Garden State Parkway, which was protected for about half its length and then—somewhere in South Jersey—ended in a final gate. You’d be on your own after that.
Since she was coming from the Thruway, she didn’t have to stop and explain again why she didn’t have any papers.
As they entered the Garden State, Kate said, “We’re close now, Mom. Right?”
“Yup. Won’t be long.”
“I want a shower,” Kate said. “Will that be okay?”
“We haven’t used water for quite a while. So sure.”
A pause. Then Kate again: “I’m tired. Maybe I’ll sleep first.”
Christie wished she hadn’t said that word.
Sleep.
She could be okay if she didn’t think about how much she ached, how everything hurt and how the weariness filled her entire body.
Sleep.
The very word was cruel.
Picturing a bed. A pillow.
Then the thought …
The empty bed.
Simon pulled her back.
“And eat. I’m hungry.”
She noticed that Kate didn’t jump on her brother. Was that gone? Had that changed, after all they’d been through?
And Christie knew something then.
That before the shower, before food, before sleep—she would talk to them.
Or—at least—start talking to them about last night.
And maybe the days and nights to come.
We’re close, she thought.
And she fought to keep any other thoughts, the worries, the anxieties, the fear that swirled around her every moment … she fought to keep them all away, and just keep repeating …
We’re close.
* * *
Then it was time to leave the Garden State, to take the mix of roads that would lead her to the Goethals Bridge, and finally bring them back to their home.
Gas gauge was good. Nothing to stop them.
She repeated Jack’s mantra as she took the exit ramp off.
Sliding behind one car at the gate, talking to the officer, about to leave the protected road.
“Locks down.”
The gate opened up.
Good. Electricity’s on here.
The car left the fenced-in highway, and Christie pulled up.
The Highway Authority officer here wore a pointy trooper hat, an almost comical look, she thought.
“Ma’ am,” he said.
Don’t ask for any goddamn papers, she thought.
He seemed to stand there and study the three of them for a moment.
“You folks okay? Know where you’re going?”
Strange question, she thought.
Know where you’re going…?
Are people just moving around, not knowing where they’re going?
“We’re heading home,” Christie said. “Staten Island.”
The man nodded, and then—amazingly to Christie—started to turn away.
“Er, officer—are things okay there? We heard some—”
The Highway officer stopped and turned back. He hesitated for a moment as if weighing how to answer the question.
“Wish I knew, ma’am. Our communications have been all messed up. The power outages screwed that up too. Can’t tell you much—except be careful.”
Christie took a breath.
Not bad news, she thought.
He didn’t say that anything bad lay ahead.
He just didn’t know.
That’s all.
“Thanks.”
A nod from the officer as the gate opened, and they left the highway, and onto the streets that led home.
* * *
She followed the route that Jack had planned and picked for the outward journey. Sticking to the more wide-open roads, like Route 46 lined with the closed franchises that now seemed as ancient and forgotten as the pyramids of Egypt.
Lowes. Walmart. Staples.
Glass and stone monuments to another time.
Along the way, she spotted the occasional patrol car here, an army truck there, a few other people moving slowly along the road.
But no Can Head activity.
“They like the cities,” Jack used to say. “Lots of places to hide. Better for them to hunt, to trap—”
She’d often stop him there.
Enough!
She didn’t need to hear the details of the Can Heads.
Like everyone else, she wanted to forget they existed, forget that this was the world they lived in now.
Now she wished she had listened more carefully. How they act, the way they hunt … how to stop them.
Might just need all that, she thought.
She stayed on 278 as it turned into the Staten Island Expressway.
So close.
She used to think it was the cities that were dangerous.
Now she knew.
Not just cities.
The Can Heads were everywhere, and could do perfectly fine in the woods, the small towns, the mountains. Anywhere.
/>
“Mom…” Simon said. She heard how his voice shook.
Christie turned to see where he was looking, off to the left.
She saw two figures, and as she passed, they broke into a run.
But the car—too fast—left them behind.
Can Heads? People needing help? Somebody in trouble?
Who knew?
All Christie did know was that she couldn’t stop … wouldn’t stop.
She thought of Martin, who had stopped, who had helped them. The good Samaritan.
Dead for helping someone.
I can’t do that, Christie thought.
But now, as she drove past small towns close to the bridge, she looked down each side street, into each boarded-up storefront, down the alleyways, her head pivoting right and left, the tension nearly insane.
A gauntlet, she thought.
This highway’s fence looking so small after the Thruway.
Though she saw no one. This, another ghost town. Everyone gone … somewhere.
Outside of those two—
(People? Can Heads?)
—she had passed.
* * *
Tightly gripping the top of the steering wheel, her knuckles looked like an extension of the steering wheel with its ridges. Her hands—glued to it.
Kate said something, perhaps trying to break the mood.
“I don’t like it here.”
Christie nodded. “Me either, Kate. Me either.”
Then, with the afternoon sun turning the streets and stone buildings they passed into a blurry image of some burned-out deserted hell, the road curved, and ahead lay the Goethals Bridge to Staten Island.
“Almost there. Across the bridge. Past the toll—”
(With yet another gate. Gates … everywhere.)
“—and we’ll be home.”
The words—even as she said them—didn’t sound real.
She turned left, and joined a merging road from the south, that led onto the ramp, onto the bridge, straight onto the island, this once sleepy borough that, back before everything happened, people didn’t think much about …
While for Christie, for these desperate hours, that place, and home, had become nearly all she could think about.
8
The Turn Back
But as Christie drove over the bridge, she noticed something that made her tired, achy body stiffen, tighten even more.
Cars all going in the other direction.
Not a mass line of cars backed up, but definitely a steady flow.
And joining her, heading to the other side?
Not a single other car.
Kate may have sensed her stiffen. Or she might have simply seen the line of cars.
“Where are they all going?”
“I don’t know. Looks like—” She hesitated saying the next words.
But I’m past that, she thought. Past the time to keep Kate in the shadows.
“Looks like they’re leaving.”
Kate said nothing.
Guess the implications of that are pretty clear.
Then, as she hit the high arch of the bridge and started down to the other side, to Staten Island, she saw something else odd.
At first, it looked like an encampment.
Cars parked in a near circular ring on a patch of empty land near the bridge entrance. She spotted some cop cars—NYPD.
NYPD, she thought.
Just like the patrol car Jack drove.
And a few camouflaged army trucks. Then closer, she saw soldiers, and another police car with officers standing outside, directing people to the open patch of ground encircled by the cars, and trucks.
As she got closer, she saw an army truck ahead, blocking her path forward, and a soldier with a gun slung over his shoulder making a steady gesture for her to pull off the highway, to cut across the lanes, and head to the circle of cars and trucks.
“What are they doing?” Kate asked.
A deep breath. Then: “I don’t know.”
She slowed as she entered the area.
* * *
It wasn’t a cop or a soldier who walked over to her, but a man in a flannel shirt, a bushy moustache. A baseball cap with a patch. NRA. A member in good standing apparently … his gun over his shoulder.
He walked up to the car.
Of course, these days everyone had a gun. That battle was over.
“Afternoon, miss.” A look in the back. “Kids … hi.” He smiled, his walrus moustache rising high on his face with the smile. “Where you folks going?”
Christie wanted to ask him what the hell this was all about.
“I’m—we’re going home. We don’t live far from here. What is this?”
The man started shaking his head. Then scratched the back of his neck as if that was part of his process of forming ideas, words.
“You see all this?” He gestured at the cars parked in the open space, drivers standing out, talking to cops, to other people. She saw that some of the people had maps out, opened on the hoods of their cars.
Everyone depending on maps, as if GPS had never been invented.
GPS. Useless technology these days.
“Yes. What’s going on?”
“Guess you haven’t heard. The power failures, the outages? What they did? People getting out, that’s what this is. Some of us helping the cops, the army … trying to make sure people have some damn idea where they’re going.”
He leaned close as if sharing a secret.
“Not that anyone has a good goddammed idea about where a good place is to go.”
He looked back at the kids. Then: “Pardon my French. Bad habit. Still, we’re trying to keep things calm. Give the people what information we have. Roads to avoid. Towns to steer clear of. And any good places we’ve heard of. Safe places. I’ll get someone over here to talk to you in a few—”
“But…”
She looked over at Kate. Then Simon. Both watching so carefully.
They had one parent’s voice to listen to.
One person … in charge.
And that person is me.
“But we’re going to our home. I don’t know where else to go. It’s a safe development, protected—”
The man interrupted. “Not too many people in the city believe in that word. Not after the past few days.”
She thought of Paterville. The madness there.
This was supposed to represent a return to sanity.
(And—she thought—home had other things. Needed things.)
“Look ma’am, this is still the United States of America. You can still go on. I’m just sayin’ … maybe you want to think twice about that.”
She looked at Kate.
Counsel. That would be good.
Advice.
And not from a volunteer.
“Can I talk to one of the cops?”
“Sure—and you can see, we have this area guarded. Men, few women, too—with guns all around. It’s been quiet here. So—get out, stretch your legs. Talk to one of them. I’d just say—take your time and think about it.”
The man backed away, the late-afternoon sun making his orange shirt turn golden, the light also catching all the gray in the wisps of hair popping out from under his cap.
“Okay.”
* * *
“Come on, kids,” she said. “Let’s walk around.”
They followed her as she opened the door, and for a moment, they stood close by the car. After the attack on the highway, the car represented an island of safety.
Christie looked at the other people walking around … the mood tense, but a lot of them talking, some pointing at the large folded maps while young soldiers nodded, cops talking on radios.
The whole scene—surreal.
But Christie knew that surreal was … the new real.
Better get used to it, she told herself.
The place looked safe enough.
“Okay—I’m gonna find someone to talk to, all right? You two … st
ay near here, near the guards, the other people.”
They nodded. Neither moved.
She walked away.
* * *
Christie went up to a cop on a walkie-talkie.
He nodded as the voice on the handset speaker said things, words not clear to her at a distance.
“Okay, roger that. Just tell them … we need those damn lights soon. Real soon.”
The cop put the handset back into the car.
“Excuse me,” Christie said.
The cop turned. She saw his eyes, a deep blue but surrounded with dark, puffy patches. Lack of sleep? His lips tight. No smile, no human warmth.
Then Christie remembered what she looked like.
Not just from fatigue. Not just the hours and hours of driving in the predawn night, this long day.
The flecks of blood that dotted her clothes.
If it shocked the officer—
(Officer Ramirez.)
He showed no sign.
“A man told me … I shouldn’t be going home.”
The officer said nothing.
She repeated her description of her development. The fence. The fortified houses.
Unlike the volunteer in flannel, the cop said nothing sarcastic. No reaction at all.
Only when she finished, when she stopped and there was a pause, did the cop finally unlock those pursed lips and talk.
“You can do that. Don’t recommend it. People are leaving. They thought they were safe. Maybe—” he looked away—“maybe … they’re overreacting. Hear that things are getting under control. In some places.”
Then those blue eyes on Christie.
“Maybe where you are—”
He paused for a moment.
“—maybe it’s okay. But maybe not. You have someplace else to go? Other people? Family?”
Family?, she thought. There was no one. Some aunts, uncles somewhere. But families … especially the extended family … became an early casualty of this—
(She thought of a word. First time she thought of it like that. With all these trucks, the soldiers.)
The word.
War.
She shook her head.
Officer Ramirez didn’t have any words of advice. He broke eye contact. If there was someone more tired than she was, it had to be this young NYPD cop.
She wanted to tell him that her husband had been a cop. That he probably did the same kind of things.
But for some reason, it suddenly seemed so irrelevant.
He did look back for one more question.
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