Westport

by James Bierce

  "What about their kids?" she asks with a slight tone of anger in her voice.

  "The kids died first."

  She suddenly feels as though she's in a dream, like all of this is a figment of her imagination. Her head spins, her legs feel wobbly, and for a moment she isn't sure if she's going to pass out or throw up — or both.

  "Why didn't you tell me any of this before?"

  "I just found out a couple days ago."

  "And that somehow makes it better?"

  He pauses for a moment, trying to remember exactly how he'd planned on explaining everything to her. "We had to get out of there, we had to leave the city. Would you have left if I'd told you?"

  "Why wouldn't I?"

  "Annie."

  He can tell by the look on her face that she finally gets it, finally understands the determination behind the trip. This wasn't a simple family vacation that their grown daughter was missing out on. They were leaving her behind. As the world fell into chaos around them, Annie was falling with it.

  She stares at Curtis, not really sure what to say. She doesn't know whether to be angry with him for deceiving her, or thankful for protecting her and the two boys. Without saying a word, she turns around and walks back to the pickup, unable to feel the cold dampness for the first time tonight. She grabs the handle on the canopy, then stops and turns toward Curtis again. She speaks, but this time without emotion or volume, still feeling sick to her stomach. "Who else?"

  "I don't think everyone in the neighborhood simply moved away."

  Hoodsport is like most towns on the Olympic Peninsula — overflowing with tourists during the warm summer months, and then quickly turning into something that resembles a ghost town as soon as the first leaves fall. Its a small, picturesque community in Washington State that rests along the shore of Hood Canal, a sixty-five mile long natural waterway that runs north-south, paralleling the Puget Sound. Glacial runoff from the eastern portion of the peninsula flows into the basin through countless mountain streams that wind their way past towering old-growth rainforests just to the west of town.

  At one time it was a thriving logging community, taking advantage of some of the world's largest trees that conveniently grew along one of the world's deepest ports. As the trees were cleared, they farmed the same land, adding another source of revenue to an area that was wild only a few years before.

  Tall trees still surround the area — but are rarely ever harvested. The fields and pastures that once fed the families in and around Hoodsport are still here too, but they mostly sit empty now, waiting for the forest to encroach and take them over once again. The town now survives on one industry alone — tourism. Secretly, or not so secretly in some cases, the locals find the vacationers a necessary annoyance. They fill up the RV parks, hotels and summer cottages, trading their money for tolerance — and for a few short months each year the residents do just that, tolerate them. Most of the tourists leave just before school starts, which was ordinarily still a week away, and the rest clear out when the cold winds make their way down from the mountains a few weeks later.

  Tonight the canal is quiet. One by one people have been leaving, most of them not even bothering to checkout of their hotel or park. Not a single car has been spotted on the highway in nearly three days, and despite their growing curiosity, none of the locals have attempted to leave either — not until tonight that is.

  Marinas are scattered along the shore from one edge of town to the other. Some are home to several dozen boats, and some are private docks with barely enough room for one. The shabbiest of all of these belongs to a man named Larry Gossman. The boat tied to it happens to be the only one in the area with light flickering through its windows.

  Standing in the shadows of the building, shivering from the cold air moving in from across the water, are Jake and Beth Wilson. They're both watching the highway intently, but the only thing even faintly visible is the movement of the windsocks in front of the general store down the street. Aside from a couple of streetlights and a few houses up on the hill, the entire town is dark.

  "Are you sure he's coming?" asks Beth.

  "For the tenth time, yes. He'll be here." replies Jake.

  "What time is it?"

  "Ten to eleven. Are you sure you don't want to wait on the boat with Larry? I'm sure he could use some help getting ready..."

  "He'll be fine."

  She knows he's trying to get rid of her. They've only been married a year, but they've known each other since they were toddlers. Sometimes she wonders if they were better off friends rather than husband and wife, but deep down she knows better. They're both in their late twenties and married to their best friend. That doesn't happen very often, at least in her experience anyway. Larry is Beth's older brother, and is the only person they know that has access to a boat — even if it isn't entirely his. The man they're waiting for is Sean, Jake's friend and coworker. Beth has only met him briefly a couple of times, but had already seen enough to dislike him. She wasn't even sure what it was that she didn't like. He was polite enough, he was a guard at a local prison the same as her husband — but it felt like he watched her when she wasn't looking. It was an uncomfortable feeling she just couldn't shake. And now here they were, about to board a boat with him, bound for who knows where.

  "You're still sure you want to do this?" he asks.

  "Do what?"

  "Take the boat."

  "Of course. As long as Larry is fine with it."

  "And you're positive he's okay with Sean coming along?"

  "He's fine with whatever, you know him. Why all the questions?"

  "I just want to know you're comfortable with everything."

  She rolls her eyes, unsure of whether he could see it. In all honesty she didn't care if he did — he'd been getting on her nerves for days and she was getting tired of it.

  They wait in silence for a few minutes, listening for the sound of a car, or the crunching of gravel under footsteps — but all they hear are the sound of the waves lapping at the rocky beach behind them, and the distant screech of an owl from the forest on the other side of town.

  "Its strange isn't it, how quiet everything is?" asks Jake. "If everything is going to hell you'd think there would be some activity to stop it."

  "Maybe there is. We certainly wouldn't see it here in Hoodsport."

  "Yeah, maybe so. It feels like we're hunkered down though, waiting for a storm or something."

  Beth points toward the road, where a pair of headlights can be seen turning off the highway and down the driveway in front of them.

  "That must be him." she says.

  "I guess we'll have to make a decision about where we're going." says Jake.

  She turns toward him with a cold look in her eyes. "Listen, he's along for the ride, but he's not one of us, and he certainly doesn't get a vote." She turns around and walks back to the boat, leaving her husband to greet Sean alone.

  As Beth climbs onto the deck of the boat, which has the name 'Larry's Obsession' plastered onto the side, she sees Larry himself digging through a box in the pilothouse. As rough as the boat looks on the outside, its surprisingly clean and well-kept on the inside. It was originally a 45' fishing boat that served most of its years operating out of Sitka, Alaska. Today its in a constant state of repair and upgrades, all of which are time consuming, and most of which aren't necessary. Larry is a lot of things, but organized and ambitious are not among them. He talked his friend into loaning him the money, went to Alaska to pick it up, and then quickly lost interest in it altogether. His 'obsession' lasted nearly three weeks. Now he spends part of the day fixing imaginary problems on the boat, and the rest of it drinking beer at the local tavern — a habit his business partner isn't aware of. As much as she loved her brother, and as much as she wanted to be with him right now, Beth worried about pinning the survival of herself and her husband on him — especially in his current state of mind.

  The idea of this expedition wasn't sudden. It started soon aft
er the outbreak began, when Larry's neighbor developed a nagging cough — something that would have been dismissed as allergies not so long ago. Larry and his wife, Jennifer, decided they would take the boat the following day to her parent's house in Poulsbo — returning only after the virus ran its course. The trip, however, was delayed when Jennifer came down with the same cough later that same night.

  She was dead five days later.

  That was nearly two weeks ago — an agonizing two weeks that's been filled with the fear, or hope, that he would suffer the same fate.

  Climbing up the ladder that reaches the bridge, Beth can hear Larry before she catches sight of him. He's overweight, breathes heavily, and seems to be incapable of buying pants that completely cover his ass — a look he's become famous for locally.

  "How's it coming?" asks Beth.

  "Its coming. Did your friend ever show up?"

  "He just got here, and he's not my friend. He's Jake's friend."

  Larry glances up at her, noticing the hint of hostility in her voice. "Anything I should be concerned about?"

  "No, he's just not my favorite person."

  He stares at her for just a few seconds, then goes back to digging through the box.

  "What are you looking for in there?" she asks him.

  "Charts, although it might help if I knew where we were going."

  "I figured we'd get away from town first, then decide."

  "Whatever works, as long as we're out of here tonight."

  Looking around from this high up, she's amazed at how empty and lonely the town looks. Granted, at this hour it usually doesn't look all that different — but there's a feeling that wasn't there before. It was either fear or sadness, she couldn't tell which. Maybe it was both. The fog is just beginning its slow roll in from the north, an event seen year-round in this area, but this time she can see the faint glow of headlights through it, and for a moment she finds herself nervous at the site of activity in town.

  "Do you have your gun with you?" she asks Larry.

  "Yeah, its around here somewhere."

  "Maybe you should find it, just in case." Hearing Jake and Sean walking onto the bottom deck, she leans toward Larry and whispers... "Don't let anyone know you have it."

  He looks back at her with a look of concern, but its clear she doesn't see it. She's too busy watching her husband and his friend loading suitcases and duffel bags on-board.

  Without saying a word, Larry reaches into a side compartment next to the wheel and pulls out a .38 revolver and places it into his jacket pocket. Then he leans over the railing of the flying bridge, finally seeing Sean for himself. Usually he's conflicted about the people his sister finds offensive, or the people she finds attractive for that matter — they've always been incompatible when it comes to friends or enemies. If this were any other day he'd probably greet Sean with open arms, but this isn't just any other day. All things considered, he's not completely comfortable having someone on his boat that he's never met, and he's not sure why someone would volunteer to board a boat with no set destination either. Even he's uncomfortable with that.

  "If you guys are ready, go ahead and untie us." he tells Jake.

  Behaving as calmly and rationally as a teenager about to drive for the first time, Jake manages to fumble his way out of the knot, nearly leaving the rope laying on the dock. "We're good to go!"

  As the sleeping town of Hoodsport grows smaller with every passing mile, the group slowly makes their way through the thickening fog and rough waters, eventually losing sight of the shoreline completely. Ahead of them to the north is the Strait of Juan De Fuca, and to the west of that lies the Pacific Ocean. Once the lights of the town disappear altogether, Larry shuts down the engine and joins his passengers on the outside stern deck. They're all seated on a wooden bench that surrounds the entire deck. It looks out of place considering how nicely made it is — one of Larry's proudest accomplishments.

  "All right, where are we going?" he asks.

  An awkward silence falls over the boat, which is further accentuated by the rhythmic lapping of water against the hull. They've had this discussion before, on several occasions in fact — but they could never agree on where to go. Beth wanted to go to Vancouver Island, in British Columbia — to take advantage of its vast natural resources. Jake had his mind set on the San Juan Islands in the northern Puget Sound, an area only accessible by boat or plane. Larry wanted to go to California for reasons he couldn't, or wouldn't, explain.

  "Are you sure you want to do this?" Larry asks after no answer.

  "Obviously we're doing this. We can't stay here, not after what happened." answers Beth, sounding more assertive than she meant to.

  Jake sits down next to her and places his arm around her waist. "I guess the question is, do we go someplace familiar where we know people, or do we hide out?" He looks at Sean, who has been quiet ever since his tour of the boat. "What about you, Sean? Any thoughts?"

  Beth gives Larry an annoyed glance. Of course Jake would ask him that.

  "I'm just along for the ride, whatever you guys decide is fine with me." says Sean.

  "Your family are from out of state aren't they?"

  "Yeah, Colorado."

  "Have you heard anything from them?"

  "My Dad lives in Denver. I talked him a couple days ago."

  "And...?" asks Beth.

  "He was sick."

  In that instant Beth felt sorry for Sean. Not sorry enough for her instincts to change, but rather something resembling sympathy. "Can I ask you a question, Sean?"

  "Sure."

  "Why are you coming with us when we don't even know where we're going?"

  "Where else would I go? Shelton is practically a war zone at this point." He looks directly at Beth, his voice just the right balance between grateful and confident. "I think I'd rather take my chances with you guys."

  "Do you remember Aunt Jessie's house in Astoria?" Larry asks Beth.

  "Yeah, what about it."

  "What about going there?"

  "Astoria? In Oregon?" Jake asks Larry.

  "What's wrong with Oregon?"

  Jake is baffled by the suggestion. "How long would that take? How much fuel would we burn through getting there?"

  "We should have plenty of fuel."

  "And if we don't...? The fueling stations are gonna be closed."

  "Even better, we won't have to pay."

  Jake turns to Beth, waiting for her to call Larry an idiot, or worse. Instead she shrugs.

  "He's right, the place is kind of perfect. Its right on the water, it has a dock of its own, and its kind of isolated from the rest of the neighborhood." she says.

  "What makes Astoria any better than Hoodsport?" asks Jake.

  Beth glares at her husband, who of all people should know better than to ask a question like that. He knew how desperate Larry had been for the last couple of weeks. He was there the night Larry had called for an ambulance — the night Jennifer died. He watched him endure fifteen minutes of busy signals and dropped calls until he finally reached somebody, an actual person, only to be told they wouldn't be sending anyone to a home that had already been infected. People were terrified, and rightfully so — this was an epidemic like nothing the world had ever seen. Even now, some eleven days after her death, her body is still lying on the bed where she fell asleep for the last time. Whether it was by himself, or surrounded by family, Larry was leaving town — and he had no intention of ever coming back.

  Larry notices the glare — and part of him even appreciates it — but as much as he hates to admit it, Jake has a point. "Astoria probably isn't any different, you're right... but maybe it is." he says. "All we know for sure is that Hoodsport is disappearing, one person at a time, and we're next if we stay here."

  For a moment nobody says anything. Jake is embarrassed about what he said, Beth feels embarrassed for him, and Sean hasn't had much to say since he boarded the boat.

  "So, Astoria?" Beth asks everyone, including Sean
.

  "Sounds good." says Jake.

  Sean just nods in approval.

  Larry stands up and walks to the ladder leading up to the bridge, already out of breath and red in the face for his efforts. "Okay, at least that's settled. Jake, why don't you and Sean go down below and organize everything. Make sure nothing can roll around or fall over if the water gets rough."

  "What about me?" asks Beth.

  "I want you up top with me."

  The boat, which was made sometime in the 1960s, has three levels to it. There's the pilothouse where the controls and navigational equipment are located, the main cabin directly below it, and finally the engine compartment below that. Although perfectly seaworthy, it looks like an absolute mess. Part of the outside has already been stripped and sanded in preparation for its next paint job, and the decking outside still hasn't been finished since it was prepped almost three months ago. Inside the main cabin, however, most of the surfaces are already done. There's new paint, new hardwood flooring, mostly new appliances in the primitive kitchen, and a retrofitted bathroom complete with a marble counter-top. Larry was sure to spare none of his friend's money in making sure the boat was ready for his own personal comfort.

  Once he makes his way up the ladder, he wastes no time in starting the engine and getting underway. In only a few minutes they're pushing their way through the fog and light mist and into the deep waters of the central canal.

  "I take it you can see where you're going...?" asks Beth.

  "More or less. I seriously doubt anyone's out here anyway, not on a night like tonight."

  "How long do you think it will take us to get down there?"

  "A few days maybe, if everything goes okay." He motions for her to come closer, then says quietly... "Does Sean know about Jenn?"

  "I don't think so. Did you want him to?"

  He begins running his hand through his hair, a nervous habit he's had since childhood.

  "Maybe he has a right to know. I can't be certain I wasn't infected."

  "None of us are certain. That's one of the reasons I'm not comfortable with a stranger on-board with us."