“Wait!” I yell.
“We’re not taking him,” Conner shakes his head. “Come with us now or stay here with him.”
“No, you fool,” I snap. “The ham radio. It still works. We cannot leave it. It’s the only thing we’ve got to communicate with the outside world.”
Conner groans with exasperation, but he knows I am right. He climbs back on the sailboat.
“The fucking thing is bolted down,” Conner grunts as he tries to move it.
“Watch out,” I wield a fire extinguisher and use it to smash the wooden counter apart. Together, we hand the ham radio to Robby on the hobie cat.
We sail back to the resort; I face the sailboat and watch it roll to the side.
“Dawson?” Conner asks.
I do not take my eyes from the sinking boat. “Dead. Like you said.”
Conner tells Robby all about the distinguished man who died in my arms. I watch the sailboat until it sinks from sight.
Chapter Eight
“This is Phillip Crane, Phillip Crane on 14352.6—anyone on this frequency, over?” I speak into the mic on the ham radio. The radio sits on a table in the restaurant.
“No luck getting anybody on that thing?” Bill asks. His white hair seems damp with sweat, and his face is ashen.
“No, but it’s definitely got power,” I point to the battery that comes attached to the radio. “So far as I know, this is the only working electrical device on the island and our best shot at getting help.”
The resort buzzes with news of the sunken sailboat. Many of the guests, especially the British ones, express shocked disbelief that Dawson Hartford is dead. I am probably the only person at the resort who did not know who he was.
A sizable crowd surrounds me: Jonas, Bill, Pamela, Don, Amy, Robby, Alexandra, Conner, and others. Gwen is here, too. We do not speak to each other. Sans make-up, her hair pulled into a low maintenance ponytail, she seems somehow more fragile, like a knight without a suit of armor. With each turn of the dial on the radio, Amy wrings her long, bony hands together and restlessly spins a diamond tennis bracelet about her wrist as though it were a magical talisman. Hunched on a chair, Don leans forward on his cane, closely observing what I am doing. From the radio speaker comes a low buzz.
I drop the mic to my lap and stare at the radio. “I don’t understand. I’ve been at it for two hours. We should have contacted somebody by now. Where is everyone?”
“The damn thing could be broken,” Don suggests.
“I don’t know. It appears to be working as it should, but if that were the case we should hear other chatter,” I stare befuddled at the gauges that show I am getting a good signal. “The internal antenna on this thing is weak, but even with a weak antenna we should hear something. We might not get a clear transmission, but we’d still hear voices… people talking back and forth. There’s nothing. Absolute silence.”
Robby pushes to the front of the crowd. “You’re probably doing it wrong.”
I step back from the radio and offer him the mic. “I’m no ham radio expert. My father had one when I was a boy, so I have a rough idea how it’s supposed to work, but you’re welcome to give it a shot.”
Suddenly uncertain of himself, he takes the mic. “Hello, hello, anyone out there?”
“I already checked on this frequency,” I advise, and turn the dial on the radio for him. “Here. Turn this to check a different frequency.”
Robby tries to reach someone, switching the frequencies without success.
Finally, he puts the mic down. “It’s no use. This machine is broken. You probably damaged it when you removed it from the boat.”
“And if I left it on the boat it would be at the bottom of the sea by now,” I retort.
Robby rolls his eyes and stalks off. The crowd disperses; the excitement of a working ham radio replaced by sullen disappointment. Gwen walks in the direction of our bungalow—probably to change her clothes since she has not returned to our bungalow at all the previous day. I want to follow her there and tell her how fucked up she is for avoiding me as if I am toxic. However, there is no point in following Gwen back to our bungalow to blast her as she rightly deserves. Alexandra is with her. I do not need an audience.
I turn the dial on the radio, lift the mic, and try once more to reach anyone who can get me home.
It is late morning. A few people linger in the restaurant with me—more to be near the meager buffet than out of any expectation I will reach someone on the radio. I halfheartedly turn the dial, calling out into the ethereal void, but most of the time I stare at the stream of white butterflies flitting along the beach.
Suddenly, the unmistakable sound of a voice crackles from the radio speaker. I bolt upright in my chair. “This is Phillip Crane on 14352.6. I don’t know what my call letters are. This is not my radio. Can you hear me, over?”
The people within the restaurant, and even some nearby on the beach, surround me. The voice on the radio—a man’s—crackles and pops. A few words in English are clear: “medic,” “rescue,” and ominously “all gone.”
The crowd around me murmurs with excitement. I repeat my name and my frequency.
The man speaking to us stops suddenly, as though he is as astonished as I am to reach someone.
“Hello?” He asks.
“This is Phillip Crane on 14352.6 from Isla Fin de la Tierra. We have lost all power and need an emergency generator.”
Long pause and then, “This is Romeo Kappa Nancy Delta Mary. My name is Paul Morgan. You are unhurt?”
“Yes, we just lost power. We need a generator.”
“But no one is injured?” Paul asks.
I exchange a dubious glance with Jonas. Why does he think we are injured?
“Where are you, Paul?”
“Redstone, Australia. The storms haven’t hit you yet?”
“Storms?”
“Poison clouds. Radiation—” we lose contact beneath a wave of static. “—Major population centers—no survivors—dying.”
I grip the mic so tightly that my hand aches. The serene image of the nearby sea and surf contrasts with the adrenalin rushing through my veins.
“Paul, what happened?” I nearly shout. “What are you talking about?”
“The war!” He yells, and then chokes on a vicious coughing fit. When he finally returns to the mic, his voice is low and exhausted. “They finally did it. They killed us all.”
I am stunned, as is everyone around me. For several moments, no one speaks and the only sound is the lonely buzz of the radio. Then Paul continues, “Not sure who launched first. The Pakis or the Americans. Maybe the Chinese. Within an hour it was all over.”
“Nuclear war?” Dizziness sweeps over me.
“The big one. I’m in the middle of nowhere, halfway across the Outback. The missiles landed far from here, but it did not take long… The next day the storms came. We saw them on the horizon…red, boiling, blocked out the sun. Took cover. Everyone took cover…no use. Can’t keep out the radiation. All dead now…I’m the last…won’t be long…”
Wild with panic, Jonas takes the mic. “We need a generator! Tell someone to send help to Isla Fin de la Tierra.”
Paul gives a bitter laugh that immediately devolves to a hacking cough. An eternity passes until he has enough strength to say, “Everyone is dead. The whole world—dead. Watch the skies. Look for the storms…good luck.”
I take the mic from Jonas. “Paul? Paul, wait.”
Paul does not respond. I dropped the mic.
“Is this some kind of twisted joke?” an incredulous Brit asks. “That’s got to be it. It’s a hoax.”
I run my hand over my face and through my hair, still trying to grasp the enormity of what Paul Morgan said.
“He said ‘Everyone is dead’,” I say aloud to no one in particular.
“Get him back on the line. Have him explain himself,” Jonas orders.
I set the mic on my chair and back away from the radio. “I think he’s dead. It explains why
no one has come to help us. They all died—if not from the initial detonation then from the nuclear storms that followed.”
Jonas surveys the horizon. “There are no storms.”
“They are out there. Dawson Hartford sailed into one,” I say as I pace the floor. “It could be that the storms just haven’t reached us yet.”
“Or it could be that help will arrive at any moment,” an older guest counters.
“Maybe. I hope you are right, but I don’t think so,” I reply.
“Where are they going?” One of the guests points to the few remaining staff members, including Lorenzo, who walk towards the bridge spanning the lagoon.
Jonas hustles after them and practically begs them not to leave.
Clearly unnerved by the news over the radio, Lorenzo speaks for all of the staff when he says, “I need to be with my family in Rio Galera.”
Unable to dissuade them, Jonas nods that he understands and watches them leave. In a daze, I stumble from the restaurant and onto the beach, dropping to the base of a swaying palm. Resting my back against the trunk of the tree, I close my eyes and listen to the sea, breathing slowly, trying to still the thoughts that collide within my head.
News of the nuclear devastation travels through the resort with the speed of a highly contagious virus. Those who learned the news firsthand pass it on to those who were absent when I made contact with the dying Australian. People gather in raucous groups, some wailing in misery and needing several people to calm them down, while others ridicule the news and demand more information. Unfortunately, I am the person from which they demand that additional information.
“What’s this nonsense that you’re telling everyone about a nuclear war?”
The interrogation comes from a bald headed Connecticut doctor who looms over me where I still sit, eyes closed, by the palm tree. I open my eyes. The doctor is not alone. Two other anxious guests stand beside him to form a ring around me.
“I only know what the dying Australian told me,” I reply.
The bald headed doctor scrunches his face into a frustrated knot. “Maybe you heard him wrong.”
“I heard him right.”
I should be indignant, but I am oddly unperturbed. Wrestling with the likelihood nearly everyone I know just died leaves little emotion for an angry stranger. Rising, I dust sand off my backside. The bald headed doctor yells something about “Just because the lights don’t work doesn’t mean the world came to an end.” Ignoring him, I walk away. As I walk up the wooden steps from the beach, a woman shouts in the restaurant.
“No, don’t say that! Nothing has happened to my family.”
Alexandra grips the ham radio mic and points an accusing finger at Jonas and a few other people who warily try to approach her. Jonas steps forward and gently pries the mic from her grasp.
Lip trembling, eyes brimming with tears, she looks into Jonas’s eyes. “My family is waiting for me. They’re going to take me home. I know it.”
Undoubtedly, suffering from his own familial losses, Jonas summons the compassion to nod tenderly, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. Alexandra spies me standing at the back of the room and her face lights up as if she were a drowning woman tossed a life preserver.
“Phil! Phil, please help me reach my family. I need to get back home. The others tried using the radio after you did, but they couldn’t get hold of anybody.”
I do not want to encourage her false hopes.
“Where’s Conner?” I ask.
She snatches the mic from Jonas. “I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. The people we love—they are not dead. I’ll show you, then you’ll see…you’ll see.”
With one hand outstretched, warding us off, she speaks into the mic. “Hello? I am trying to reach my family in Scarsdale, New York. Is anyone out there? My name is Alexandra Gilroy. Al-ex-an-dra.”
There is no reply save for the eerie buzz of deserted frequencies.
Jonas whispers in my ear, “Someone is fetching her husband now. We’ve got to keep her from damaging the radio.”
“Alexandra, hey, look,” I hold up my hand mimicking the shape of the mic. “You’ve got to press this button here…on the side…for anyone to hear you.”
She follows my example and repeats her plea into the mic with the same disheartening result. Her shoulders sag and a heaving sob wracks her body, but she tamps it down, swats a tear from her cheeks, starts punching random buttons on the radio, and repeats her plea over the airwaves.
Conner dashes up the steps from the beach. Sweat lines his brow. It seems he sprinted here.
“Baby, what’s going on?” He walks toward her and she crumbles into his arms.
“I’m not giving up, Conner,” she sobs. “I’m going to keep trying. I’ll get hold of my family, and then they’ll get us out of here.”
He takes the mic from her and places it on the table. “I know, baby, I know. C’mon, let’s go lie down.”
She squirms in his arms. “I don’t want to lie down. We’ve got to reach my family.”
He grips both her arms and looks earnestly into her eyes. “And we will, but now we need to rest. Look,” he taps the radio. “The radio’s not going anywhere. We can try again later, or maybe even let someone else try for you, huh? Now c’mon.”
Alexandra’s resolve washes away. He leads her from the restaurant. I shut the radio off.
From a bench beside the lagoon I observe a long legged white crane stalk amongst the reeds of the lagoon. The crane moves with careful precision, moving only when necessary, and then waiting—every cell in its body fixated on the one simple objective of catching a fish. Whether the world as we know it has ended or not does not matter to this crane. No, to the crane the only thing of any importance is the difference between eating a fish or the fish slipping away. Poised for the kill, it strikes. The reward: a slender, wriggling fish.
To think I will never see my mother again, hear my father’s voice, or feel the security of their presence, causes my lungs to tighten as if a python enfolds me in a crushing embrace. Two nights ago, while I argued with Gwen on the beach—focused only on my petty emotional suffering—everyone I knew and loved—mother, father, and friends—died, incinerated in a flash. What if they did not immediately die instantly, cremated before they even knew what was happening? What if they are still alive, blistered and poisoned with radiation, wracked with pain so agonizing that death would be a welcome relief? Are they thinking of me, wondering if I am all right?
I feel a soft hand on my shoulder and do not need to turn to know it is Gwen.
It does not surprise me that she sought me out. Our marriage might be over, our love battered beyond repair, but she shares a history with me that no one else on the island can match. Any anger I felt towards Gwen disappears.
“Is it true?” Gwen asks. “Is everyone really dead?”
My tone is flat, shell-shocked. “I think so. I want to believe that it’s not true. But then I think about the man on the sailboat. I think about what he looked like—what the radiation did to him. Something has happened in the world, something awful.”
Gwen kneels before me, her eyes haggard and imploring. “It can’t be, Phillip. It just can’t be. If my sister died, if my mother died, I would know. I would feel something. They can’t be dead because I don’t feel anything.”
I know what she wants from me. Gwen is powerless to change things if everyone we know is dead. She cannot prevent what has already happened. But if she can convince me that possibly, just possibly, everyone back home is alive and that maybe things are not as dire for all of humanity as the evidence currently before us leads us to conclude, then she will be justified in clinging to unrealistic hopes.
As she desperately tries to construct a different reality than the one we are living, a pink flush tinges her cheeks and her hands flutter like frightened birds. “I feel the sun on my face. I feel the wind off the ocean. I even feel hungry, but the one thing I do not feel is that my family is dead.”<
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She sits beside me and begins to weep. I pat her back. The crane finishes its meal and flies away.
The last trace of sunlight slips from view. I stand alone before the sliding screen door of my bungalow. Gwen went her separate way after we left the lagoon. I invited her to accompany me; she politely refused. Perhaps, any remaining link to each other vanished when the world we once shared incinerated. Now, I am simply a man, and she a woman, with nothing to tie us to one another. There is no communal property to divvy up. The very concepts of marriage or divorce become pointless.
I rub the grainy stubble on my jaw and prepare for another long night in an empty room. The candle provided to me remains unlit; it does not seem wise to let it burn for hours since it may well be the last candle I will have. Ghosts and memories fill the room. I recall the day I walked home from elementary school, plucked roses from our neighbor’s yard, and gave the bouquet to my mother. A song was playing on the radio; she sang the words to me. I fooled around and fell in love. I blushed as red as the roses. One winter brought an especially heavy snowfall. Perhaps it only seemed like a heavy snowfall because I was just knee high at the time. In any case, I tromped into the snow and my father chased after me, grunting and growling, pretending to be the abominable snowman. When he caught me and scooped me into his arms to carry me back to his imaginary lair I squealed with glee. I think of my friends, the handful of people with whom I could laugh and confide in. They were the people I turned to when I realized my wife was cheating on me, and not once during that horrible time did they make me feel embarrassed or ashamed.
It is hard to fathom that I will never see them again. A strong urge pulls at me—to ignore the facts as Gwen begged me to do, to cling to the hope that none of the people I love back home were harmed and that soon a plane will arrive to rescue us. Having held Dawson Hartford as he died in my arms, and having heard the ominous silence on the airwaves via the ham radio—airwaves that should have teemed with chattering voices but instead yielded only one, and that one was the last transmission of a poisoned, dying man—it is impossible for me to carry much hope. Still, the heart wants what it wants regardless of the facts.
Last Resort Page 9