by Brad Manuel
Matt checked to make sure the gun was loaded and the safety was on. He handed the weapon to his father. Matt was driving the SUV to the museum, and could leave his weapon in the back until they arrived.
“May I go with you to the art?” Solange asked Todd. “I believe there are some Matisse’s and Picasso’s. I would like to keep some.”
“I would enjoy the company, Sol. Thank you.” Todd put on his winter cap and gloves. He grabbed a headlamp, two flashlights and some snacks, all of which he stuffed in a day pack slung on his back. He grabbed one of the shotguns from the Suburban. Todd walked to Emily and the kids, giving each of them a hug and a kiss.
“I’ll see you in a few. I love you.” He told them.
“I love you too. Pick out some nice art.” Emily smiled and hugged him.
“Peter and I will hold down the fort, start the tire signal fire, maybe have dinner ready.” John announced as the groups departed. He held the shotgun in his hands while wearing his pistol on his belt. “Be safe.” He said to Emily.
Todd and Solange headed north on Fifth Avenue. They were offered a ride, but opted for the cold spring stroll to the museum.
The sidewalks of New York were filthy with old leaves and trash. The snow was black with dirt and grime. The ground was half melted ice and half snow. It was slippery as they stepped gingerly and made their way. The once majestic park was on their left and large expensive apartment buildings towered over their right.
“What were you studying at VCU? You know, before all this happened?” Todd had not spent time with Solange. He wanted to get to know her.
“I was an engineering student. I loved electrical engineering and mechanical engineering, playing with things until they worked.” She smiled as she thought about a time when she studied with joy.
“I was never that put together. I’ve always been someone who studied English Literature. I didn’t focus on college as a means to a career, which was a mistake. I looked at college as a time to have fun and learn some things, maybe take a trip to Italy or something. I should have taken it more seriously.” Todd regretted his approached to education.
“I like to tinker with things, so my choice is similar to yours. I picked electrical engineering because it is what I enjoy. If you like to read books, then it makes sense that you would study literature. It is the same thing, is it not?”
“It is, I agree, and I have enjoyed my life. Regretting decisions that brought me here, well, it’s silly, but still. I look at how I could have approached college, how I could have been more serious in my studies, and if I’d done things differently I could help get the power going when we find a place to settle. Maybe I could help keep a car running. Right now I can read the owner’s manual, tell you how well it’s written.” He laughed at the thought of how useless he was.
“Unless we can refine oil, I do not see us using cars for very much longer. I will be interested to see if we can generate electricity when we choose where to live.” Solange stopped and pointed towards a building. The windows were broken and streaked with black smoke burns. “It seems New York might be a little bit like Philadelphia after all.”
The aroma hit them at 71st street. It smelled like rotting animals or decomposition. They could see birds, carrion, crows, vultures, eagles, circling one section of the park. The smell grew stronger as they walked closer to the museum.
A buzz came over the walkie talkie.
“Todd, is there a horrible stench near you?” It was Emily. She was at the Natural History Museum. “There are flocks of birds, circling something like they would a dump. It smells horrible, I don’t think we can see the museum, the kids don’t want to get out of the car.”
Todd pressed the button on his walkie talkie. “We smell it, and we see the birds. Do you have any idea what it is?”
“We don’t want to know. We’re leaving. It can’t be good, and I don’t want the kids to see it.” The walkie talkie popped off, then back on. “See you back at the camp. Let me know if you want to get picked up.”
“Okay, will do. See you soon.” Todd clipped the walkie talkie back to his belt and turned to Solange. “Do you want to head back?”
“I would like to see the museum. It might not smell inside. If it gets too bad, we can turn around.”
Todd nodded. “The scary thing is, the wind is coming from the south. It smells this bad and the wind is at our backs.” They continued to walk north on 5th Avenue.
The destruction they noticed on the first apartment buildings escalated as they moved further north in the posh upper east side neighborhood. The city looked abandoned and untouched at 59th. By 68th street there was fire damage on every building. There was evidence of looting. Trash cluttered the opposite side of the street from the park. Black car skeletons littered parking spaces, obviously left burning so many months before. Some of the cars were crashed into the lobbies or against the sides of the large buildings.
Above 75th street New York City looked like a post-apocalyptic war zone, and the stench was almost unbearable. Todd and Solange were too curious to turn back. They wrapped scarves around their noses and mouths for relief from the horrible smell.
When they arrived at the museum they had little hope of recovering art. There were four large green army trucks parked in a semi-circle on the front steps. Dead bodies littered both sides of the vehicles. Rotted corpses of men in fatigues lay between the museum entrance and the trucks. Bodies of men and women in normal clothes were scattered on the opposite side of the street. There were guns on the ground around the dead. The bodies rotted, froze under the snow, and beginning to thaw and rot again.
Solange pointed to a large white sign with black block letters that read ‘Food, Water, Provisions.’ “I think the people wanted the provisions, but did not want to wait.”
“This is unbelievable.” Both of their voices were muffled behind their scarves. Todd was impressed that Solange could look at the violence without shock and horror, or at least not express her shock and horror. He was rattled, and used her strength to keep moving.
The doors to the museum were open. There was a body hanging half in and half outside. The man’s top have was busting through a pane of glass in the swinging doors. All of the museum’s glass doors were shattered, riddled with bullet holes and shotgun blasts.
“What happened? How did this devolve into a gun fight?” Todd said, half to Solange and half aloud. He watched as birds flew around the bodies on the other side of the street.
“Do you want to go inside?” Solange asked through her scarf. “Do you think it will be worse inside?”
“I do not want to go inside, and yes, I think it will smell worse and be worse inside.” Todd looked at her. “We have to go inside though, don’t we?”
“I think we have to go inside.” Solange acknowledged. “If it makes you feel any better, I do not want to go inside either.” He could see the edges of her eyes crinkle with a smile.
“I can smell some of the bodies, but that isn’t the big smell. There is something else, not in the museum, but somewhere around here. It’s bad. It must be where all those birds are.” He pointed over the museum where hundreds, if not thousands, of birds circled in and out of the area.
“If this is what happened in New York, I do not think we will meet many people. I would not have stayed if there was this much violence and destruction. I would have left for a suburb or small town.” Solange spoke as she and Todd walked around the trucks and fallen soldiers. They climbed the steps to the entrance of the building. The ice and snow made it treacherous, and Todd instinctively grabbed Solange’s arm to help her.
The large arched windows on the second story were shot out, and the building was marred with bullet damage. “I visited East Berlin when I was a child. I remember this is what the buildings looked like. They hadn’t made repairs since World War II, and all the buildings had bullet holes and chunks taken out of them.” Todd’s head was moving in circles as he surveyed the damage. Even the stone steps th
ey walked up had pieces missing.
“It is sad that such a beautiful building is ruined. I fear all of the art is destroyed or gone.” Solange pointed to the damage as she walked.
At the top of the steps two glass doors flanked a revolving door entrance to the lobby. A dead soldier’s body hung out of the door on their left. His face was down, touching the stone entrance. A helmet was still strapped to his head. He held a large rifle. Todd did not know guns. He assumed it was an M-16. That was the only ‘army type’ assault rifle he knew.
“He was shot from behind.” Todd said, pointing to the tears in the back of the man’s shirt. “There was a fight inside too.” They walked through the broken glass door on the right side of the revolving door. It was dark and cool inside, cooler than it was outside. The stone walls and floor of the museum held the winter cold like ice blocks in an old refrigerator.
Todd put his shotgun down and unslung his backpack. He took out two headlamps, handing one to Solange while slipping the other on his head. He pulled out two flashlights, giving one to Solange. He slung the backpack, stood up and asked “where to?”
Solange looked around the room. “It looks like there are temperature stations there.” She pointed to a bank of tables near the entrance. “The people were moved into two areas for provisions.” Her flashlight highlighted signs posted over two doorways. One sign read ‘healthy’ and the other ‘sick.’
“I suggest we ignore this and head to the European Exhibits.” Todd was more interested in locating art than solving the mystery of the gun fight.
“I do not need to see more death. I would like to see a Picasso.” Solange focused her flashlight beam on the stairs to the second floor.
“Let’s grab a museum map and try to steal some art. I hope we can salvage something out of this mayhem. What a waste. They all would have died anyway, but they would have died at peace. What could they have been thinking?” Todd shook his head as bent down to pick up one of the hundreds of museum maps scattered around the lobby. His headlamp provided reading light. “Looks like we need to go up the stairs and to the left. European art, here we come.”
The cold museum interior acted like a morgue freezer, and protected the bodies from decomposition. Todd and Solange stepped over a solider whose body blocked the top of the stairs. There were bullet holes and marks all along the staircase. The dead soldier was shooting down at the front doors. He had bloody spots on his back where he was shot from behind. His body fell to the top of the landing.
“Poor bastard.” Todd said as he stepped over him. “He thought he was holding the line, and whoever was attacking came in another door and hit him from behind.” They continued to the top of the stairs, his flashlight leading the way. They entered the first gallery and their hearts sank.
“It is destroyed.” Solange said sadly. Bullet holes filled the walls and pictures. Frames lay on the ground, smashed and ruined. “The fight took everything with it.”
“Europe is pretty far from the center of the museum, maybe the wings did not see as much fighting.” Todd said hopefully.
The destruction to the art and building decreased as they moved away from the stairs and main hallways. Bodies, however, were scattered throughout the museum. Blood, long since dried, left black circles on the floors and smears against the walls.
Solange and Todd entered the first room of European art.
There were knife cuts through most of the paintings. “My god, these are Monets. Who would do this? Why? Why would you do this?” Todd lost his composure. “It seems like they were fighting for food and water. Fighting for their lives, but then to come in and cut up the art? This shows contempt for humanity.”
They walked around the first two rooms. Todd stopped in front of a Monet haystack. His eyes dropped and he shook his head. There were crude rips through the painting made with the nose of a rifle or gun. Several spots on the wall were vacant. Art thieves had beaten Solange and Todd. Todd wondered if the paintings were taken before, during, or after the attack.
“Let’s keep going and think positively.” Todd encouraged. He moved towards the room on his right. He and Solange relied entirely on their flashlights and headlamps to make their way through the pitch black and windowless gallery. Todd pointed his flashlight beam on a picture as soon as he walked through the doorway. A Monet, Water Lilies, hung without damage. Pristine as it was before the rapture.
“This is going to sound pretentious, but I’m not a Monet person. I get why people love his work, but I am not a fan, and if I have limited ability to carry, I’ll stick to other works.” Todd felt funny passing on a Monet.
“If one of the others would like it, they can come back through and pick it up.” Solange said. “Still…” She walked to the painting, studying the work. “I like it. I will start with it. I will see if something else is in good condition. Maybe this Monet is all we will be able to save.”
“Good point, we can always leave it if we find something else.” They continued through a door to the next room, not hesitating to enjoy the gallery. They came for Picasso’s and Van Gogh’s. The violent deaths robbed them of any desire to gallery stroll, as did the smell of rotting death. The odor was weaker in the building, but still present in the air.
Todd’s light beam pointed at the first painting in the room. It was the Van Gogh Todd wanted. The one he dreamed about since seeing it 10 years earlier during his first visit to the Metropolitan. Todd rushed ahead, almost tripping over the large wooden benches bolted to the floor. The art label read: Wheat Field with Cypresses, Vincent Van Gogh, 1889.
Todd never enjoyed or paid attention to art. 10 years earlier he visited New York with Emily while she was on a business trip. Stuck by himself while she was in meetings for the day, he went into the Metropolitan to kill time. He strolled through the galleries, nodding at some pieces, walking briskly passed most. When he saw the Van Gogh he was floored. The colors and textures, always muted by photographs in books, were incredible. They were alive and unlike anything Todd had seen before. He sat on the bench in front of the picture, Wheat Field with Cypresses, for fifteen or twenty minutes. He could not get enough of the painting. He yearned for other Van Gogh’s, visiting exhibits in any major city he knew had works by the artist.
Todd reached out and touched the frame. It was flush against the wall, not hanging from a wire or nail in the wall. Todd put the flashlight and shotgun on the bench facing the picture. He grabbed the frame on each side and pushed up. The picture began to move, kept on the wall by a tongue and groove system.
“That is the one we came for?” Solange asked.
“Yes.” Todd said, looking at the large picture with the light of his headlamp.
“I am going into the next room. If we do not find a Picasso, I would like to leave. The stench is too much for me. It is getting stronger in these rooms.” Before she turned to go through the archway to the left she held up the Monet she was carrying. “May I leave this here?” She asked.
Todd was lost in his new treasure, but snapped out of it to answer her. “Oh, yeah, of course, sorry. I’ll bring it.” She set the painting down next to him, leaning it against the bench as she left for the new room.
Todd prepared for the walk back to the RV. Solange was correct, the smell was unbearable. They found and collected some art, it was time to call it a day. He was eager to report to the group about the fire fight and destruction.
Todd set his painting down, leaning it against the Monet. He turned off his flashlight, deciding to use his headlamp the rest of the way, freeing his hands to carry paintings. He put the flashlight into this day pack, and put the pack on his back. He used the shoulder strap on the shotgun, and slung it behind him. He tightened the scarf around his mouth in an attempt to block out the smell before joining Solange into the next room.
Her flashlight beam was focused on a painting, a man at a table feeling for a pitcher. The imagery was powerful.
“It is beautiful. It is more than I expected. I would lik
e to take this one and the Matisse I already pulled off the wall.” She moved her flashlight beam to a picture of flowers. “My father loved Matisse. It will remind me of him.” She turned the beam back to the Picasso. “This will remind me of what the world was like, when we were able to enjoy art. Maybe it will inspire a survivor to become an artist, if we reach a time when we can be idle again, and the world can create artists.”
“You are one serious young woman, Solange. We’ll have idle time again. It might not be in the next few years, but when we’ve found a place to live, when we’ve found other people, when the engineers of our new world, people like you, help to rebuild some of the mechanics of society, people will paint again.” They admired the Picasso. “Until there are painters, these pictures will get us through.”
“I agree.” She nodded and her headlamp beam bounced up and down on the wall. “Let us follow my bouncing ball and get away from this horrible place. I cannot stand the smell any longer.”
Todd laughed at the bouncing ball joke. Maybe Solange was not as serious as she let on. She carried the Matisse, and Todd managed with the other three frames.
According to the map, they were near a back emergency exit of the museum. They walked through several archways until they saw daylight peaking through the bottom of a door. A sign above the door read ‘Exit.’
Todd turned the handle and walked into the stairwell. The powerful smell almost knocked him back. “Oh my god.” He said, as he held the door open for Solange.
“We might have to go back through the front.” Her eyes squinted from the smell, as she came through the door sideways with the large painting.
The window at the top of the stairs was shot out. Glass lay on the ground. The smell came through the hole. Solange walked to the gap and looked towards the park behind the museum. Leafless trees should have displayed softball fields and open spaces. Instead, Solange saw a large hole in the ground. Flocks of carrion swirled around and on top of the pile.
Solange turned her face away from the image. Tears formed in her eyes.