Nothing, however, prepared him for the events of that morning not too long ago. He dropped off an emotional man at Providence Hospital. The man was on the phone and involved in a call that was at times conciliatory and at others accusatory through the entire short trip. It sounded like the man’s mother, if Abdul’s English wasn’t failing him, was in distress and likely near the end of her life. The couple of times Abdul looked into the rearview mirror, the man was talking with his head down and his hand up around his face. It reminded Abdul of himself when he endured losing his own mother. He would have shared a consoling look it if wasn’t against his policy of not getting involved and if the man ever raised his head to see it.
In front of the hospital’s main entrance, they sat idling for a few moments before the man realized they had stopped. Abdul waited patiently. He was nothing if not patient.
While sitting there, Abdul thought he heard some sirens and alarms, but he chalked it up to sitting in front of a hospital where such sounds were commonplace. He grabbed the twenty-dollar bill that was handed to him as silently as the rest of the ride had been. The man’s rear door opened and closed and he was gone. No change. It was only one dollar and seventy-eight cents worth of gratuity, but it was that much more to send home. His wife and children counted on every cent, and he wasn’t willing to disappoint. In a couple more years he would either go home, or have them come to him. For now though, Abdul committed himself to being a solid provider despite his absence.
He missed his family. His sons and daughter had grown so much in the months of his absence. They Skyped often and spoke almost daily, but it wasn’t the same for either them or him. He missed them all terribly, especially his wife Nya. Whenever his thoughts turned to her, he felt his breath catch in his chest. She was the reason his world turned and being away from her was nothing short of torture. Soon. Very soon, he would end his workday in her arms once again.
He sat for a second longer, waiting to see if any other easy fares would present themselves. When none showed, he pulled back around the loop, nodding to the Jesus statue standing near the entrance. Abdul’s more colorful American friend and coworker Greg called it the Touchdown Jesus statue because of the Savior’s hands raised up similarly to that of a football referee’s stance after a touchdown had been scored.
Americans and their football.
He came back around and noticed a commotion behind him. He was in the process of deciding what to do when another man leapt into his car’s backseat. He shouted, “Drive! Drive! Just drive!”
Startled and somewhat fearful, Abdul did as he was told and drove them quickly out of the growing chaos, which was starting to engulf the front parking lot. He squealed his tires, hoping that doing such would prove to the man that Abdul had heard him and was complying.
The man in the backseat, out of breath and complaining about something, didn’t look up for a few minutes, and that was fine because Abdul needed to get them to the main road. The man didn’t seem to be threatening in any way, so Abdul relaxed a bit and settled into his role and awaited instructions at the traffic light at the intersection of Providence Drive and Lake Otis Parkway. When the man did look up, he said only, “Whittier. Take me to Whittier.”
Whittier was a long drive; at least an hour and a half and back again. It was a hell of a fare and it was a good way to shake things up a bit. A little deviation from the routine every now and then was good for the soul. Still, Abdul looked at the man who flashed a wallet with a significant amount of cash in it. The man said, “I take cabs down there all the time. I’m not allowed to drive for a bit longer.”
Abdul smiled. A nice long fare would be a great way to end this shift. Maybe the guy would be a big tipper too.
Abdul closed the Plexiglas divider separating him from the backseat. Not many of the cabs in the fleet had dividers. He liked having the option available to him if he wanted a little distance between himself and his passengers. He didn’t close it often, but on longer fares he found people often liked their privacy. Abdul found his iPod in his jacket’s pocket and hit the resume button, sending melodies to the ear buds tucked just inside his jacket’s collar. They weren’t in his ears technically, but he could still listen to his music without drawing a lot of attention or criticism. He loved to listen to tunes that could warm his soul on cold, dark, Anchorage winter mornings and brighten his eyes on melancholy Mondays. Typically, the soulful notes drifting up to his ears were teeming with saxophones, trumpets, guitars, bass, piano, drums, and above it all and through it all was Bob Marley’s voice.
Abdul loved reggae, having even adapted his own speech to match the tenor and pace of a generic Jamaican accent. Daniel Tosh. Bunny Wailer. Prince Buster. Even Ken Boothe. But Bob Marley was the messiah. His beautiful, soulful rhythms and angelic, soothing voice were how he envisioned Jah’s voice. He could only hope that when his time came and he took that wild ride in the sky that Bob’s voice would help him onto the right path. In Abdul’s vision of heaven, the cherubs were singing backup on Walkin’ Blues and Jah was jamming to No Woman No Cry.
The drive went quicker than Abdul had anticipated. There were a few cars stopped at Beluga Point, their occupants hoping to catch an early morning glimpse of the migrating pods of opaque white Beluga whales.
For Abdul, whale watching along the Seward Highway was neither the best use of his time, unless he was being paid by a curious tourist, nor was it the best way to see Belugas. He had never seen Belugas when he went looking for them. He always had the best luck when he wasn’t even paying attention. On those rare occasions when he did see those pasty heads bobbing up and down in the surf, he couldn’t deny his own wonder. It felt like such a personal accomplishment, as if he had something to do with it. He felt something akin to pride. Maybe this was where he’d like to see his children grow into adults.
Lost in his thoughts and his tunes, Abdul almost didn’t spot the State Trooper barreling toward him on the highway. Abdul had just passed the sign warning him that he had entered a Safety Corridor on the Seward Highway with a lower speed limit and more intimidating penalties. He looked down at his speedometer and felt his mouth go dry. He was going a mile or two over seventy. He’d never gotten a ticket and was normally much more careful and attentive. He looked into the rearview mirror and was relieved to see his passenger drifting off to sleep.
He was trying to prepare himself for the inevitable when the Trooper’s white sedan passed him traveling more than a hundred miles an hour. The law enforcement vehicle was out of sight in little more than a blink of an eye. Abdul thought to himself that something must be brewing in the city, making him all the more glad that he was away from it. Maybe it would be all resolved before he had to return.
Moments later, they passed a bustling gas station on the road to Girdwood. It seemed unusually crowded for such an early hour. Abdul decided that if he couldn’t decide on something to eat in Whittier then he would likely stop at the pizza joint at the end of the strip by the gas station. He’d eaten there before and remembered it to be reasonably good and reasonably priced.
As he slowed his cab, he thought perhaps he saw a person lying on the ground near a parked vehicle at the gas station. There was a crowd around the body, which wasn’t moving. A heart attack maybe. Some poor old tourist just got too excited in his big visit to the Last Frontier, Abdul figured. Not having met the person or even really knowing what was going on, Abdul still felt bad for the poor guy. Maybe it wasn’t anything more than an asthma attack. The scene quickly dropped out of sight, as did the gas station oasis.
The man in the backseat had been oblivious to all of it, though he’d been technically awake to see it all. At one point after the two of them watched a half dozen cars pass them, the man held up his right arm and Abdul could see a nasty looking wound that was unmistakably a bite. Not only was it a bite, but it looked like a human bite mark on the inside of his forearm near the elbow.
The wound wasn’t bleeding badly, but it was bleeding steadily
enough for Abdul to open the divider and pass through a roll of paper towels. Abdul didn’t want a mess. His concern was as much for the man’s wellbeing as it was for the appearance of his cab. He was technically responsible for the cleanliness of his cab, which would also dramatically impact his ability to collect good tips, but the reality was that Abdul was a bit of a clean freak. He didn’t like messes, especially messes that he had to spend any amount of time cleansing. And since his cab was his office, he didn’t want some man bleeding all over it.
He shot the man a concerned look, to which the man said, “Some crazy son of a bitch bit me. Feels like he bit me clear to the bone but it doesn’t look that bad I guess. Probably an escaped mental patient or somethin’. I guess I shoulda seen someone before we left Providence, but I didn’t think it was that bad and I just wanted to get away. Sounded like things were starting to get crazy in there. I think I even heard gunshots inside.” Abdul didn’t say anything and so the man promised, “I’ll try and keep it off your seat. Sorry.”
“Do you want me to take you somewhere to have that looked at?” Abdul asked.
“Nah. I can just go to the clinic in Whittier. ‘Sides, it doesn’t look that bad. Hurts like hell though,” the man said through gritted teeth.
Abdul returned his eyes to the road and didn’t see the man lay his head down. That was the last interaction the two of them had before arriving in Whittier. Abdul retreated into his thoughts and Bob’s voice for the remainder of their trip.
Arriving at the Anton Anderson Tunnel that led to Whittier on the other side of the mountain, Abdul was pleased to be able to climb onto the tail end of a line of cars already queued to enter the tunnel. It didn’t appear that he was going to have to pay the twelve-dollar toll in order to use the tunnel. He peeked into his rearview mirror and was surprised not to see the man’s head pop up. That eventuality unfortunately forced him into a bit of a moral dilemma. He was forced into deciding whether to tell his passenger or not about their luck with the toll charge. He could not tell the man and pocket the extra twelve dollars, or he could be honest and hope the man would consider that when figuring his tip.
The long, dark drive through the two and a half mile long tunnel was loud and malodorous, with foul diesel fumes and car exhaust finding their way into his closed windows and vents despite his best efforts. Finally seeing the literal light at the end of the tunnel helped him tolerate the noises and smells for the final several hundred feet.
Once out in the open again, Abdul relaxed considerably and again allowed Marley’s warm lyrics to lift his spirits. The sky was great and heavy with the threat of rain, but then again, he was in Whittier, which had a reputation for having predictably bad weather. People typically didn’t travel to Whittier for the weather. Right away, Abdul recognized that something was not right though.
A police or perhaps a security officer of some sort was guiding cars and trucks to a fenced parking lot immediately to their left. The Anton Anderson Tunnel was unique in that it was constructed for both rail and road traffic. It was also unique in that it was a narrow tunnel that allowed traffic for either trains or cars in a single direction at a time. As a result, there was a strict time schedule to allow for the changing of traffic patterns into and out of Whittier. Both trains and cars had to wait there for their scheduled turn to move based upon their hourly schedule.
The area to which he was being directed was typically used to stage cars, trucks, buses, and other highway vehicles to make the trip out of Whittier. It had been converted into an ad hoc parking area with a temporary chain link fence wrapped around it. They were cordoned off for God only knew what purpose and they had to comply.
The orange vested authority figure was not saying anything to anyone despite the numerous questions from drivers and passengers as he pointed them to their parking spots. His face full of worry and doubt did betray quite a bit of concern though.
With no options but to comply, Abdul followed the directions given to him and parked his cab on the far edge of the lot with the larger vehicle area immediately to his left. He hoped to get in a spot where he could easily get back out onto the road, not wanting to be forced to stay in Whittier any longer than he chose to be there. Unfortunately, he was hemmed tightly in on all sides by other vehicles. He wasn’t going anywhere until a bunch of other people moved first. He was stuck.
Using a gentle voice so as not to startle his passenger, Abdul announced, “Hey, we’re here but I t’ink somet’ing must be going on.”
There was no response. The man didn’t stir a bit.
Abdul said, louder this time, “Sir. We’re here. Time to wake up.”
Still nothing, which was beginning to worry Abdul.
“Sir? Are you okay? Can you hear me?”
His concern mounting, Abdul pivoted in his seat to get a look from a better angle. The man was lying face down on the back seat in a very awkward position, so Abdul was unable to see the man’s expression. He couldn’t tell if the man was in distress or was sleeping very deeply.
Finally, Abdul reached through the Plexiglas window and touched the man’s back. He didn’t appear to be breathing. Approaching a near panic, Abdul jumped from his seat and threw open the cab’s rear door. Sure enough, after Abdul rolled him onto his back, he found the man cold and lifeless. His face was devoid of color except for some very dark crescent moons below his eyes and some equally dark spidery veins on his cheeks and forehead.
Abdul stepped back, not sure what he should do. He rubbed the tight, dark curls on his head pensively but came up with no options. He’d never had anyone die in his cab before. He had a woman almost deliver a baby in his cab once, but thankfully he’d gotten her to the emergency room in time to save his cab from the mess. He looked around and finally saw the man in the orange mesh vest. Leaving the door open, Abdul ran toward the man in hopes that he would be able to get his passenger help, if such a thing was still possible. Really, he just wanted the man out of his cab so he could head back to Anchorage and put all this behind him.
Explaining the situation to the distracted man in the vest who happened to be a police officer, Abdul was barely able to contain his worry. He nearly dragged the man by his collar back to his cab. They came to the car’s open door, but found the back seat empty. Scattered across the seat and on the floor were piles of blood soaked paper towels and the man’s jacket. The rain soaked ground meant there were no tracks to follow and no way to know for certain where the stricken man could have gone.
Not sure whether to believe the frantic cab driver or not, the policeman looked around doubtfully. He tilted his head and spoke into the radio attached to his uniform. There was an exchange via radio, during which the officer glanced repeatedly at Abdul and cocked a suspicious eyebrow.
It wasn’t until a terrified woman’s shriek pierced the wet air that Abdul was taken seriously. The police officer told Abdul to stay where he was, but there was no need. Abdul had no intention of following to watch whatever was happening unfold. He had no curiosity about it whatsoever. He closed the cab’s back door and sat himself down in his seat, shutting and locking his door in the process. Still smelling his passenger’s cologne and leather jacket, Abdul closed the divider again, hoping to close himself off from the morning’s events. Through all of it, Bob Marley belted out heavenly melodies that had gone unheard, ignored, and unappreciated.
Moments later, there were more screams and then gunshots. Abdul checked the back seat again to ensure that it was still empty. He felt anything but alone, like he was being watched. From the corner of his eye, he spied the man’s wallet on the seat this time. He thought to himself that maybe he would get paid after all. What did a dead man need with a wallet full of cash? He’d turn it in back at headquarters but take out his fare first. He wouldn’t rob the man, but he would take what he was owed.
Thinking about headquarters, Abdul decided it was probably a good time to check in. He hadn’t been in contact with his dispatcher since he departed Providence o
n his way to Whittier and the routine would help ground and calm him. He braced himself to deliver his bad news about his passenger. He hadn’t done anything wrong but he knew he’d be put through a bracing investigation by the authorities and his employer for the death. He wasn’t looking forward to it at all and feared that it could threaten his continued employment. He slowly keyed in on his radio and waited. There was nothing other than static. He tried again and still received no response. He picked up his cell phone and dialed the number for the office. Immediately, a soothing female voice answered and told him that the network was down and to try his call again later.
With his hopes of getting away quickly gone, Abdul tried to get himself comfortable with the fact that he was stuck in Whittier for a bit. The commotion to his left was leaving him anything but comfortable. It was getting louder by the moment, causing his anxiety to build and grow like a kettle on a hot stove.
Rubbing his forehead with his sweaty palms, Abdul wondered what he should do. He didn’t know anyone in Whittier and, perhaps more importantly, no one in Whittier knew him. He felt like he was on his own, but knew enough to go somewhere else. Another bloodcurdling scream shook him from his seat and into action.
Running while stooped like he was dodging bullets, Abdul got away from his car. His retreat had him pass many other cars, some with scared drivers locking the doors and closing their windows at the sight of the very black man running near their cars. They didn’t know it, but the locked door would spell doom for many of those motorists.
Abdul cleared the fence separating the car lot from the rest of Whittier. He found himself well away from Whittier proper, which sat on the opposite side of the Whittier Creek and connected by a pair of short bridges and a fairly long stretch of the highway. Whittier was actually divided into two large sections lying on opposite sides of a bank of railroad tracks that bisected the town into the residential and commercial seaside sectors of the city. Lined on both sides by barrier walls topped with chain link fence, the wide swath of railroad tracks was like a moat cutting its track through the center of the castle.
Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 4): Resolution Page 4