by Scott Cramer
“Of course we are,” Abby said, filling with panic. Had Mandy told him about the CDC broadcast? She hoped that Kenny was guessing, bluffing. “Boston is the biggest city around,” she added. “But you don’t know where in Boston.”
“Let’s go,” he grumbled, his dark eyes narrowing at her.
Abby took a deep breath to slow her racing heart. Kenny had yet to step outside his filthy house and he was already making trouble.
She returned outside and looped a piece of rope around Jordan and Jerry’s waists, essentially tying them together. Getting a dirty look from Jerry was a small price to pay for making sure that Jordan wouldn’t fall off the back of the motorcycle.
Kenny chuckled. “Hey, if he falls off, it’ll save you a lot of trouble. He’s not going to last much longer anyway.”
Abby fumed silently, reminding herself that several hours from now she would never have to see his face again.
The motorcycles rode in a column. Kenny, in the lead, turned onto Route 95 and headed south on the four-lane highway. Cars littered every lane, lying angled against the guard rail, some nosing over the embankment, a few had flipped over. Jack-knifed eighteen-wheelers lay on their sides. Some trucks had veered off the highway, leaving snapped trees in their wakes.
Abby wrestled her attention away from this metal graveyard when she spotted five cars driving north on the opposite side of the highway.
She pointed and shouted in Mandy’s ear. “Where are they going?”
She received no response.
Abby didn’t care that Mandy was ignoring her. They were on their way, she thought, the final leg of the journey. That’s all that mattered.
They rode past a concrete embankment which had ‘GOD IS ALIVE’ written in purple spray paint next to an image of the streaking comet. Abby wondered if some kids were worshiping the comet as an all-powerful being.
Further on, they passed over the green iron suspension bridge that connected Maine and New Hampshire, once a landmark for the Leigh family. Their home in Cambridge was ninety minutes from the bridge.
The motorcycles skirted through the Hampton tollbooths. Several miles beyond the tolls, tents and makeshift shelters were scattered in the fields and woods. Abby tapped Mandy and pointed again. Smoke curled up from campfires as curious kids, some as young as two or three years old, gawked at the riders flying by. Hope welled inside of Abby that some kids were living peacefully. As they continued, the number of dwellings increased. Laundry hung out to dry on clotheslines strung between trees. A field had been tilled, ready for planting. All of the motorcycles slowed to avoid chickens scurrying in the road.
Abby’s tears flowed freely as she witnessed what she had always believed existed on the mainland—a community where kids farmed, raised animals, took care of the young, a fledgling society, much like the one they’d started back on Castine Island.
They approached the Merrimack River, the border between New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The river formed in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and emptied into the sea at Plum Island, Massachusetts. As they crossed the bridge over the river, shelters lined both banks for as far as Abby could see. That made sense. The river was a lifeline of fresh water. A flotilla of canoes paddled down the middle.
But why were no other vehicles heading south? Here and everywhere Abby was certain that kids entering puberty were dying by the thousands every week. There should have been a mass exodus to Boston, kids walking, driving, riding bicycles, even crawling toward the pills that offered them life over death.
There was only one explanation, she thought. Perhaps some kids on the mainland knew about the CDC’s efforts, but most did not.
Abby decided that after she and Jordan acquired the pills, she would spread the word to them. The river kids and those camped in the woods and fields could go to Portland in early June, or to Boston if more pills were still available, but first she and her brother had to save their own lives.
About five miles beyond the river, Kenny pulled to the side of the road and signaled the others to stop. “Bathroom break,” he called out.
Abby climbed off Mandy’s motorcycle and untied the rope around Jordan’s waist. As she helped him off the back of Jerry’s motorcycle, his legs wobbled and he crumpled to the ground.
“Oops,” Kenny said.
Abby bit her lip to keep from saying something she’d regret. She didn’t bite it hard enough. “Kenny, you believe babies are too much work to care for? How long did they live? What did you do with them?”
Mandy’s hand shot to her mouth.
“Do your business,” Kenny growled to Mandy and the others. He spit and said to Abby, “You’re lucky you live on an island. You wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes on the mainland.”
Abby had said enough.
She knelt beside Jordan, who mumbled something unintelligible, delirious with fever. “Hang in there, Jordie,” she said and pushed an Advil pill into his mouth. He coughed it out.
Abby hid behind a bush to pee. She’d only had a tiny sip of soda over the past eighteen hours, but the urge to go was constant. Squatting, she watched with concern as Kenny walked over to her brother. She wouldn’t put it past him to hurt Jordan as payback for her comment.
But Kenny did just the opposite. He signaled Jerry to bring over a bottle of water. He unscrewed the cap and held it to Jordan’s lips. Incredibly, Kenny seemed to have a good side to him. They were having a conversation.
Suddenly Kenny stood and pumped his fist. “Logan Airport!” he shouted. “Let’s roll.”
The gang members scurried to their motorcycles.
Abby realized that Kenny had somehow tricked Jordan into revealing their destination. She pulled up her pants and the ground started spinning. Abby toppled sideways from dizziness. With her heart thumping wildly and her cheek pressed against the dirt, she watched the gang roar off.
* * *
Jordan dropped his chin to his chest and felt a searing pain as his weakened neck muscles stretched. “If my head snaps off,” he said to himself, “so what? I don’t care.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Jordan.” Abby stood a few feet away, staring despondently down the highway.
Her voice startled him, and he wondered if he had spoken this thoughts.
“Just leave me here,” he said, exhausted and depressed.
Jordan cursed to himself for giving up the secret that he and Abby had been guarding so carefully.
“They’re sending the antibiotic by ship,” Kenny had told him.
The words swam around his feverish brain. Antibiotic? Ship?
“Jordan,” Kenny continued, “we need to go to the docks.”
“Docks” he said, confused. “No, don’t go to the docks. We’re supposed to go to Logan Airport.”
Jordan pictured Kenny still laughing at him as the gang had roared off on their motorcycles.
He cursed again for acting like a gullible ten-year-old. Jordan spotted the Advil tablet he’d spit out on the ground earlier, but made no effort to retrieve it. What good was taking it? His chance of reaching Boston, of seeing Toucan, of holding Emily again, had been lost. He’d die on the highway, halfway between his two homes, Castine Island and Cambridge.
But Abby must continue! He had no idea how, but she had to try.
“Please, keep going,” he begged.
“Jordan, I’m not leaving you.”
“Start walking. Someone will pick you up. Get the pills and go back to Portland. You know how to sail now.”
Abby moved behind him and he felt her finger poke between his shoulder blades. White light exploded in his brain. Every nerve ending in his body burst into flames. The tsunami of pain shot from his toes to the tip of his tongue, penetrating bone and eardrum, grinding him to dust. Gradually, the pain lessened, and he huffed to catch his breath.
“Say that one more time,” Abby said, “and I’ll poke you harder. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. ”
“What I said about you being kind—I take it back!
”
“Jordan, we’re going to Boston if I have to carry you.”
From her tone she was serious. He draped an arm over her shoulder and hobbled beside her. After five feet they both knew they had to try something different.
They settled down in the fast lane, Jordan on his side, Abby sitting cross-legged. It was three thirty in the afternoon, the sky clear, a gorgeous spring day on the mainland. Dogwood blossoms shot up like pink fountains in the stand of oak and maple trees growing in the median strip between the north and south lanes of Route 95.
“Go to the river,” Jordan told her, talking in spurts, afraid she’d poke him again. “Get help, come back.”
Abby lowered her eyes. “How long do you think it would take me to walk there? All night?”
“Someone will drive by soon,” he said optimistically.
“If they do, they won’t stop.” Slumping forward, Abby’s posture signaled defeat.
“Now you’re the one feeling sorry for yourself!” he said and waited for a reaction.
Abby slumped lower.
“People are good, right?” he said. “That’s what you believe.”
“Not anymore,” she said grimly.
Two hours passed. Once it looked to Jordan like blood was dripping from Abby’s freckled cheeks. He wondered if he was hallucinating. Should he tell her? He reached out, and thankfully the blood disappeared before his hand brushed her cheek. She remained motionless. Abby, he realized, had given up.
At that moment they heard a car approaching, but it was heading north, on the other side of the median strip. Jordan was too weak to stand, and Abby didn’t even try to signal it.
In the powdery gray of dusk, Jordan pointed out a car about a quarter mile away. No doubt it had sat there for a year, since the night of the purple moon, and held one or more corpses. “Abby, maybe you can start it and we can drive to Boston.”
He thought the odds of her starting the engine were slim. No, the odds were zero. “Never give up,” he whispered through gritted teeth.
“Jordan, the space dust killed adults at night. If they were driving, they had their headlights on. The battery is dead.”
He was exhausted and it killed his parched throat to speak, but he drew on his well of stubbornness and kept arguing. “Some batteries last a long time.”
She shook her head. “Not that long. Anyway, kids probably siphoned the gas form the tank.”
“I bet they skipped over that car.”
“They didn’t,” she said and lay on her side.
The sun set and the temperature dropped. Jordan couldn’t stop shaking. He huddled close to Abby and put his arm around her. Searing pain radiated from his rash, but he suffered in silence, feeling less afraid when he was next to her.
“They have plenty of food,” she said.
“Who has food?”
“They can fish from the rocks. Soon the garden will produce vegetables. If they get over their squeamishness, they can eat the rabbits Emily and Tim are raising.”
Jordan had never seen his sister act like this. She was ready to die. Fighting sleep, he tried to think what to do. The car was their only hope. Slowly, an idea slowly took shape.
He pointed toward the dark shape in the distance. “Abby, if that car has a standard transmission, you can pop the clutch to start it.”
“Ninety-nine percent of cars have automatic transmissions,” she replied in a lifeless tone.
“So there’s a one percent chance it’s a standard!”
“How am I supposed to roll it? I can hardly move you.”
“It might be on a hill.”
“The highway is flat,” she said. “You’re hallucinating again.”
“Maybe I am. But I’m not giving up like you are!”
With blank and tired eyes, she said, “I’m just being realistic.”
“Okay, then do it for Toucan!”
He’d hoped that would stir her, light a fire, encourage her to fight on, but she just looked right through him.
“Emily can raise her,” she said. “Sorry, Jordan, I can’t.”
“Abby, I’m going to start that car.” Preparing to stand, he assumed a crawling position. But his elbows gave out and the ground came up quickly. No, the other way around—his face plowed into pebbles and grit. His head started spinning. Too dizzy to walk and too weak to crawl, he’d move on his belly like a worm. He pushed his arms forward, dug his fingertips into the dirt, and pulled.
“Jordan, what are you doing?”
“Get out of my way, Abby.”
Each torturous effort gained him mere centimeters. He had made it about six inches when she crouched beside him.
“Jordan, tell me how to pop a clutch.”
TWO DAYS LEFT
It took Abby more than two hours to reach the car, now past midnight. She thought of the car as ‘Jordan’s fantasy.’ But her brother had been right about one thing. She had given up. Had he not made an effort to crawl here, she might have closed her eyes for a final time.
Moonlight glinted on the door handle. She opened the door and reached tentatively into the pitch blackness until her fingers came in contact with a wool sweater. She felt the driver’s bony shoulder beneath it. She couldn’t tell if it were a man or woman. She fumbled her hand down the driver’s side and to the leg, continuing until her fingers tangled in a pant cuff. It was a man. Then she found the gas and brake pedals. Sadly, there was no clutch. This car was an automatic. She turned the key in the ignition just in case the battery was still good. As she had expected, the battery was dead.
Abby clambered up and began walking toward the exit ramp, away from Jordan, with one goal: take a step forward. She stepped forward. That goal accomplished, she set her next goal. Take another step.
She was searching for an improbable set of circumstances: A car with a standard transmission on an incline. Oh yeah, and with a full tank of gas, too, or otherwise she wouldn’t get very far.
Deathly ill, she was on a wild goose chase that offered their last and only hope… step, step, step.
Before she had left Jordan, she made him promise that if a car stopped for him, he was to go with them. Secretly, Abby hoped that Mandy would return. Kenny, Jerry, and Sam had definitely forgotten about her and Jordan. She still carried the hope that Mandy was different.
About an hour later, now off the highway, the sweet perfume of grass pulled her to an overgrown lawn. Standing in grass up to her knees, stars above, a tingly sensation moved from her fingertips to forearms, toes to calves, forearms to shoulders, calves to thighs. Warmth filled her to the core and poured into her extremities. An incredible sense of peace radiated out from her heart. Abby curled up in a nest of tall grass and felt her body melting into the earth.
Abby pounded the ground with her fists and made an ugly, primitive sound deep in her throat. She raked her fingers across her face and pictured Toucan. She fought to get to her knees and finally made it to her feet.
She moved on. Step. Step. Step. Never give up.
Her swollen tongue crowded her mouth like a sock. Abby desperately needed water. Remembering Kevin’s crazy idea, she entered a house and found the bathroom, but over the winter expanding ice must have cracked the porcelain. She stared at the shattered toilet. It was bone dry.
On the move again, the woods seemed to come alive with the buzz of spring peeper frogs. Perhaps her fever was making her ears ring.
The temperature was dropping fast, and she hoped Jordan had covered himself with the ferns she had picked for him. Abby forced her brother from her mind. An empty mind was best.
Abby passed four more cars, all automatics, before the miracle appeared. As her heart thumped wildly, her fingertips grazed the smooth, sleek shape of the sports car. The windows were up, and opening the driver’s side door was like cracking a coffin lid. She clamped her mouth shut against the immediate gagging. Praying silently, Abby sought out a stick shift.
Yes! This car had a standard transmission! A clutch!
The sky lightened. Ahead, halfway up a steep hill, Abby spotted a shape she recognized well—a Volkswagen Beetle. Her small steps shrank to tiny shuffles up the never-ending incline. She struggled to keep her eyes open. Dawn revealed so many inviting places to rest.
To stop, she thought, is to die.
The sun was up when she reached the yellow VW Beetle. She peered through the window and sighed in joy at the sight of the stick shift, this time keeping her emotions more in check. Something—no, ten million things—could still go wrong.
Abby opened the door and took a step back to let fresh air inside. The driver wore a blazer with a tag pinned to the lapel. HELLO, MY NAME IS… He had printed WILSON in primary blue magic marker.
“Wilson,” she said, an exhausted smile breaking over her face, “I need to borrow your car.”
* * *
Jordan stood in the fast lane, fearing that if he sat down he would never regain his feet again. A car might pass by and the driver wouldn’t see him.
His heart pounded when he heard a car in the distance, and once more he rehearsed what he would say. First he’d inform the driver about the antibiotic distribution. Then he’d ask him or her for a ride, as well as to search for Abby before they drove to Boston. If the driver wouldn’t help look for his sister, he would stay put. Despite the pact he had made with Abby, he could never abandon her.
The car was heading north, the wrong way. He tried to shout, but the only sound he made was a pathetic croak. He watched the flash through the trees. Dejected, Jordan collapsed on the ground.
* * *
This time gravity was Abby’s friend—Wilson’s car was on a steep hill. But she had another problem. To pop the clutch, the car needed to be rolling forward. Yet the nose of the Beetle was facing uphill. For her to turn the car around, she would have to spin the wheel hard left, roll back until perpendicular to the hill, and then get out and push the vehicle. If she could inch it forward, gravity would do the rest. If she failed, she would keep Wilson company forever.