by Brad Manuel
“It’s certainly high up, but I wouldn’t live here. I’d be in Beacon Hill or Back Bay. There are larger homes, fireplaces, it’s a lot closer to those buildings.” John pointed towards downtown. Solange looked around the monument. The grass was overgrown and full of weeds, like every other location in the world.
“I can imagine how beautiful this area was.” She swept her hand across the mangy hillside. There was trash on the sidewalks and thick rotting leaves covered the ground.
“It is going to get worse. The plants are going to consume everything. It’s another reason we have to make our decision on where to go soon.” He looked around the monument area. “We have two boxes of those starter logs, right?”
“Yes.” She replied.
“Let’s put a fire here, leaving a note to meet us over in the park I mentioned. We can start a fire in the park too. I like this spot for a fire, but we’ll have more luck over there.” He pointed towards the city. “We’re not trying to signal a ship.” He moved his head towards the water. “We’re trying to find people.”
They agreed on the plan, and looked for a way to start a signal fire.
John clapped his hands. “I’ve got it.”
“What?” Solange asked him.
“Let’s get one of the dumpsters that are behind a restaurant or building. We can set it out in the open, light it on fire. The metal will contain the flames, and hopefully there will be enough trash to sustain the fire for a while.”
Solange nodded, smiling as he described his idea. It did not take them long to locate a dumpster. Solange wrapped a rope around the bin and secured it to their tow hitch. John eased the Hummer forward and towed the dumpster the short distance to the bottom of the monument.
“I’m not worried about being on top of the monument hill. The fire is going to smoke like crazy. I want to get it into an open area so we don’t set the neighborhood on fire.” John and Solange worked well together, methodically and intelligently. They knew they did not have a deadline for getting this fire started. It was only 11:30. John siphoned gas from a nearby car, and poured the gas into the dumpster. The trash was from a Bunker Hill museum located across the street from the monument. It contained boxes, wood frames, and plastic. The dumpster lid was shut, keeping out rain and snow. The trash had not decomposed over the winter. Solange lit a singles newspaper from a nearby machine and threw it into the gasoline soaked trash. The gas caught immediately, and the signal fire pumped thick black smoke into the air.
John put his arm around Solange. “Why don’t you get lunch? I’m going to find a few chairs or tables from the museum to throw on the fire.” He made his way over to a nearby building, smashing a window, and unlocking the door.
Solange pulled off her work gloves along with a pair of yellow latex gloves underneath. She tossed both sets of gloves into the trunk. She jumped in the Hummer and started the car. The sun was shining, and the interior was warm. She let the warmth soak into her bones. It may have been 50 outside, but it was still chilly to her. The warm car was a welcome change.
She pulled their lunch out of the backseat, a wicker picnic basket with a leather strap. She unhooked the strap and grabbed the large sausage sandwich made on a baguette. It was already sliced in half. She had a bag of potato chips, a chocolate bar, and two sodas.
John opened the door and got into the car. “Oh man does this feel good.” He said to her. He flipped his gloves into the backseat and squirted sanitizer onto his hands. “Soda? How did you sneak two sodas?”
“The women are controlling the camp. Todd thinks he controls the food. I asked Emily for the chips and soda. It was easy.”
John grabbed one of the plastic bottles. He twisted off the top and took a long drink. He closed his eyes and grinned with satisfaction. “I don’t care that it’s warm, that is delicious.” Soda was a dwindling resource, and rarely used.
“I cannot get used to the U.S. version made with corn syrup. I enjoy the ones I used to have made with sugar.” She popped a chip in her mouth, another soon to be lost luxury.
“Let’s drive over to the other park while we eat.” He put the car into drive. “There are better areas to sit outside and enjoy our picnic.”
“There may be better places, but I am not leaving this warm car. I do not like the cold.” She buckled her seatbelt as they drove lazily towards Back Bay. They took a ramp up to the highway, over the bridge, and onto Cambridge Street.
“So that’s why you want to go to Hawaii. You don’t care about anything other than ‘not being cold.’”
“It is a reason, just as valid as any other.” She ate another chip and drank her soda.
46
Dan sat on the balcony of his house reading Dubliners by James Joyce. He tried to alternate his reading between popular less sophisticated novels, and ones he considered classics. The other people he lived with were inside arguing about when to leave Boston for a warmer climate. He wanted a break from the discussion. It was the same fight day in and day out. He excused himself and retired to the second story deck, outfitted with comfortable chairs and a dining table. The sun felt warm as he read. He was in jeans and a thick flannel shirt. He wore a red, white, and blue cotton knit stocking cap, a habit picked up over his last decade in New England.
It was not Dan’s house. It was owned by a friend who died from the rapture while vacationing in Bali. Dan knew it had a half dozen fireplaces, heavy stone walls, and was a perfect place to ride out a New England winter while he and his new friends figured out how to survive the apocalypse.
Dan lost his wife and five children to the rapture. He worked part of the year in Boston and lived the rest of the year in Seattle. He and his family were in Rhode Island when the disease struck. Dan was a man of power and influence, but he could not save his family. His private plane was grounded. The hospitals were closed. When his family died like so many others, he was left to figure out how to survive a Boston winter without food, water, or electricity.
He was a laid back guy from Seattle, but possessed a work ethic that rivaled anyone alive. Blessed with a gift for leadership, and backed by a relentless pursuit of excellence, perfection, and knowledge, his talents and drive brought him unfathomable success, success that died with the rapture.
Stripped of his prestige and wealth, Dan focused on survival. He carefully studied potential houses and locations before choosing his friend’s house in the Back Bay area of Boston. He learned how to fish and catch seafood in the abandoned Boston harbor. He kept physically fit without burning too many calories and jeopardizing his food. Dan managed every controllable aspect of his life.
The other people who survived and currently lived with Dan did not fall into the controllable category.
Dan met Ryan, a lawyer, after the military disappeared from Boston. The men decided to merge their survival operations. Those were the words Ryan used to describe the partnership. Dan, though he did not particularly like Ryan, knew two people had a better chance of surviving the winter than one.
The men met Karen, a pediatric nurse, several weeks later. She was wandering the streets, dehydrated, and hungry.
Lucinda was the fourth survivor. They did not know her last name, what she did, or from where she came. She had a Texas accent, but claimed to be from Medford, Massachusetts. She was sitting on their back steps one afternoon when the group returned from scavenging. She walked through the back door that afternoon, and had yet to leave the house since.
Dan spent most of his time looking for wood, fuel, water, and food. They had lobster traps set in the harbor. He checked the traps and fished when the weather agreed. He tried to stay out of the house as much as he could. When he was home, he read quietly in his room or outside.
He needed his alone time today. Five months cramped into a house with people he did not like was exhausting. Dan did not know what to do, but he would not accept a life with Lucinda and Ryan. He was going to break away. Karen was a good person, a hard worker, and did not bother him. He had alre
ady asked her to leave with him.
Dan finished the third short story in his new book, used a picture of his family as a bookmark, and looked at the city.
He saw a thick black stream of smoke billowing from across the Charles River. It was a clear day. The electricity had been off for months. There was no way a fire started spontaneously.
“Survivors,” he muttered to himself.
Dan dropped the book on his chair and ran inside. “There are people in the city. They just started a fire across the river.”
The group sitting at the table looked at him, mouths agape. Ryan was the first to stand. “Let’s check it out.” He walked to a closet and retrieved his coat and a gun. Karen and Lucinda remained seated.
“Do we know if they’re friendly?” Lucinda asked in her heavy Texas accent.
“I see a fire burning. It might not be people at all, but there isn’t any other explanation. No, I don’t know if they are friend or foe.” Dan told her. “Would you like to stay here while Ryan and I check it out?” It was not a real question. Lucinda was not leaving the house.
“I’d like to go.” Karen stood, “but I understand if we leave Lucinda behind, you know, to be safe.” Karen went to the closet. She was in her late twenties. Nine months ago she was a morbidly obese nightshift nurse at Boston Children’s Hospital. Today she was down 120 pounds, and excited for an adventure with Dan and Ryan.
Lucinda was scared.
“Lucy, stay here, we got this.” Dan grabbed a walkie talkie from the table next to the door, turned it on and set it in front of Lucinda. “We’ll keep you up to date.”
Lucinda’s shoulders, tense with worry, eased slightly. “You don’t mind?” She asked, calming at the prospect of staying in the house.
“We’ll go, you stay here. I’d ask you to watch for more activity, but whatever.” Ryan used a tone of derision and shame towards the woman. Lucinda barely stepped out on the balcony let alone the house.
They left Lucinda behind and headed to Dan’s truck, a four door Ford pickup parked behind the house. It was four wheel drive, could haul or move anything, and the cab warmed faster than any car manufactured, at least Dan believed it warmed faster than any car he ever owned.
“I bet it’s tourists. I could swear the fire is at Bunker Hill.” Dan joked. He pulled the gear on the steering wheel and they drove towards the smoke. He headed onto Storrow Drive. The road gave them the best view up the river and the source of the smoke.
Ryan was looking towards the fire when he noticed a neon green vehicle on the highway bridge going south.
“Holy shit! Dan, Karen, it’s a Hummer, a bright green Hummer.” Ryan swore like a sailor.
Dan slammed on the breaks, swung the truck around, and tried to keep the glowing green vehicle in his sights. His truck was headed on an intercept pattern at North Station. Dan leaned on his horn, accelerating to get ahead of the slow moving Hummer.
Solange and John drove casually down the highway, enjoying their conversation, chips, and soda. “Did you hear that?” Solange asked. Her ears were younger than John’s.
“What?”
She rolled down her window. The sound of a car horn blared. John slowed the Hummer to a stop. He was about to enter a tunnel, but stayed outside of the mouth and in the sunlight. He did not see another car, but he heard the horn.
“Do you see anyone?” He asked Solange. They were in an artificial valley, a walled part of the highway just before the tunnel. They had two ways to look, up or back.
John sat down in his seat. “Well, I’m going to eat my sandwich. Let’s give them a little while. They saw us. They signaled us.” He shrugged his shoulders and took a bite of the hoagie.
“It is delicious, right? Todd is becoming a master at the bread.” She continued to enjoy her half of the sandwich. They ate their lunch in silence, waiting for whoever honked the car horn to find them.
Dan stopped the truck. Ryan stood in the flatbed looking over the edge of the road that entered the tunnel. Ryan’s face appeared in the open driver’s window.
“They’re stopped at the entrance to the tunnel. I could swear they are eating lunch or something. If I had to guess, they heard the horn and are waiting for us.”
“Get in and let’s go meet our new friends.” Dan looked at Karen as they waited for Ryan to get back into the truck. “Are you ready for this?” He asked her.
“I was getting a little tired of the three of you. It will be nice to meet new faces.” She smiled.
Ryan got into the passenger’s seat. He pulled a handgun from his jacket pocket and made sure the safety was off and a round was in the chamber.
“Seriously?” Dan asked him.
“I don’t trust anyone.” Ryan did not look at Dan when he replied, he continued to check his weapon. “We have food, water, heat. Those are things people might want to steal. They aren’t taking them from me.”
Dan shook his head. “What an idiot” he thought.
Dan put the car in reverse and drove backwards across the causeway. He went up the exit ramp for 93S and hung a sharp right. He could see the green Hummer idling just outside of the tunnel. He accelerated to a moderate speed before parking next to a man and a woman eating sandwiches and drinking soda.
“Are they having a picnic?” Karen stuck her head between the front seats. She faced away from the green car so her lips could not be read. “I swear to god, they’re having a picnic.”
John waved and rolled down his window. The situation was surreal. John made the universal ‘roll down your window’ signal by twirling his hand in a circle. Ryan obliged, as did Karen from the rear seat.
“Hello. My name is John and this is my friend Solange. We came from New Hampshire looking for survivors. We represent a group of twenty some people.”
“And a dog” Solange said behind him.
“Oh, and a dog, and we are hoping to meet people like you to invite you to join us.” He took a quick bite of his sandwich. John had a feeling he would not have the opportunity to finish his lunch once they got out of the Hummer. He was starved from the morning, and wanted to eat as much of his sandwich as possible.
Karen spun around again. “Did he say they have a dog?”
Dan turned off the truck and opened his door. He walked around the front of both cars and towards Solange’s side of the Hummer. She saw him coming to her door. She opened it and got out. John put his sandwich down. His jaw was on the floor when he recognized who was walking around the front of his car.
“Hello, my name is Dan.” Solange accepted his handshake.
“Solange Wright. Very nice to meet you, Dan.”
“You don’t sound like you’re from New Hampshire.” He gave her a quizzical look.
“I am from Ecuador. I was studying at Virginia Commonwealth University and became stranded in Richmond, Virginia. I met John and his family as they made their way to New Hampshire.”
“Well, again, my name is Dan. I have two friends, Karen and Ryan talking to John through the window. We have one more survivor named Lucinda. She is a shy, and decided to stay in our house until we discovered the source of the thick black smoke.”
“We lit the fire. We were finishing our lunch and driving to Beacon Bay to start a similar signal fire.”
“It’s Back Bay or Beacon Hill.” Dan corrected her with a smile, “Although I guess it’s not really anything anymore.” Dan took a step back, shook his head, and continued to smile. He was suddenly overwhelmed by the situation. “You’re real, you’re actually survivors, and there are over twenty of you?” He touched his fingers to his eyes. “I know it’s not over, I know this is still a nightmare, but,” Tears rolled down his face.
Solange opened her arms and stepped into the tall man’s grasp. “So many times we debated leaving, debated trying to make a break for Florida or back to my home in Seattle.” He squeezed her tightly. “But we stuck to our guns. We knew there have to be other people, and we gave it until May.”
He stopped tal
king. Solange was a good judge of character, and she liked Dan instantly. She knew he needed a moment, a few seconds to absorb the realization that he was saved. She had been rescued herself, she knew the feeling. She understood his elation and relief.
Dan let her go. “Let’s get you back to our house. I can jump in with, John is it? Ryan can drive the truck.” Dan looked over the hood of the Hummer. “Hey Ryan, slide over and drive the truck back. I’ll jump in here and get them over to the house.”
Ryan grimaced.
“Well, John, I will see you in a second.” Karen said to her new friend.
Solange got into the Hummer after waving to the truck.
Ryan had yet to say a word to John or Solange. He sat in the front seat, his eyes narrow. “I look forward to talking about options and making some decisions.” He told John before rolling up his window and moving to the driver’s seat. Karen waved from the back window.
The rear door of the Hummer opened and the tall man got in. His hand shot through the gap in the front seat. “John, very nice to meet you, Dan Couples.”
“Hi, Dan.” John tried to keep his cool as he shook the man’s hand. “I am a big fan.”
Solange gave John an odd look. “What do you mean?” She asked him, looking back at their passenger.
“Dan is a pretty famous person. He is the quarterback of the New England Patriots.” John did not let go of Dan’s hand. “Seriously, I’m a huge fan.”
“Thank you, I appreciate it, but none of that means very much now. I’m just a survivor like the rest of you.” He nodded at John, acknowledging the compliment.
John finally let go of Dan, turned around and caught his breath. He took a moment to compose himself. “Dan Couples! I’m in a car with Danny Couples!” He screamed in his head. John was like a little kid meeting one of his idols.
He calmed down enough to ask his new passenger, “Um, where am I going?” John tried to sound collected, but his voice cracked a bit from excitement.