by Scott Cramer
By noon the line had moved about four hundred yards. At this pace, they would not reach the tower until midnight. Heat waves shimmered off the black tar. Abby closed her eyes. She took a gulp of air and slipped beneath the frigid waters of Castine Harbor. Her feet burned before they turned numb, and her temples pounded from the most delicious ice-cream headache. Running out of air, she resurfaced. She opened her eyes to the blazing oven of the present moment.
Hours later—only one-hundred yards closer to the tower—above the sporadic noises made by the kids in line, who were still pleading, Abby heard the throb of a motorcycle, several motorcycles.
“Timmy, give me your hand,” she said. “Help me up.”
The little boy grunted and turned beet red, his determined effort to lift her giving more of a boost than his limited strength.
Abby recognized the motorcyclists immediately. They were riding in single file on the other side of the line of kids who had the antibiotic. Kenny, Mandy, Jerry, and Sam. They obviously had the pills.
“Wait here,” Abby told Timmy.
She stumbled forward and stood in their path. Against her wishes, Timmy followed her and clung to her leg. The way Kenny swerved around them, Abby wondered if he had recognized her.
Mandy did, and she stopped and dismounted. Jerry and Sam stopped, too, but remained on their motorcycles.
“What are you doing?” Kenny shouted, discovering the other riders lagging.
Mandy turned sideways, away from the throng, and removed a plastic bag from her jacket pocket.
“Mandy!” barked Kenny.
Mandy pinched a white tablet from the bag and handed it to Abby.
Abby put the pill in her pocket. “It’s for Jordan,” she said.
Mandy narrowed her eyes and jammed her fingers into the bag and produced another tablet.
“Thank you.” Abby said, accepting it. Mandy’s mixture of anger and generosity puzzled her.
Abby briefly considered giving the antibiotic to Timmy, but he was too young for the germs to attack him. Her priority was Jordan. Abby needed whatever strength the pill might give her to reach him. The tablet dissolved on her tongue.
Kenny rolled up beside them. “Why did you do that?” he said, addressing Mandy in a menacing tone.
“What’s it matter?” Mandy fired back.
He turned to Abby and snickered. “Guess your bro didn’t make it?”
Abby clenched her fist, but she would not waste her breath on him.
“Who’s your friend?” Mandy asked, referring to Timmy who was clinging to Abby’s leg tighter than ever.
Abby told her the boy’s name, surprised by the softness in Mandy’s tone.
Kenny spit. ‘Let’s get out of here.” Sam and Jerry revved their engines.
Mandy’s gaze darted from Timmy to Kenny and back to Timmy. She stared wistfully at the small boy. Something about Timmy touched her. Mandy fished another tablet from her bag and held it out to him. “Put it on your tongue.”
Kenny’s nostrils flared. “What the…”
“Shut up, Kenny,” Mandy hissed.
Abby had no idea what was happening or why, but she saw hatred in Mandy’s eyes, directed toward Kenny.
In one quick motion, Kenny dismounted and snatched the pill and ground it to powder between his fingers. “Let’s roll!” he growled. “Now!”
“You roll,” Mandy said.
“That’s cool,” he said, dismissively. But quick short breaths revealed his true feelings. “Give me your pills,” he added and lunged for the bag.
Mandy was too fast for him and she stuffed the pills into her pocket.
Kenny pulled the gun from behind his back and aimed at Mandy. “I’ll count to three.”
Mandy glared at him.
“One, two …”
Abby thought he was bluffing. She peeled Timmy from her leg and stepped in front of Kenny, the barrel inches from her face. She maintained eye contact with him. “Mandy, I need your help,” she said in a calm, measured tone. “Take Timmy and go to 1124 Pearl Street in Cambridge. Jordan needs the antibiotic. Hurry up. He can’t last much longer.”
Kenny squinted at Abby. “You won’t last much longer, either.”
“Eleven twenty four Pearl Street, Cambridge,” Abby said. “Ask for directions. Keep asking. You and Timmy can sail with Jordan to Castine Island.”
“Shut up,” Kenny said, waving the gun.
She saw Mandy pick up Timmy out of the corner up her eye. Still holding Timmy, Mandy held out the bag of pills to Kenny. “Take them and go,” she said.
Kenny grabbed the bag, but kept the gun trained on Abby.
“Mandy, leave now,” Abby said.
Kenny stole nervous glances to Abby’s left and right, over her shoulder, then left and right again.
“Get out of here!” someone shouted behind her.
Abby twisted her head slowly, not wanting to make any sudden move. The voice belonged to the girl whom she had helped to her feet hours ago, when she had offered her hand in the human chain.
Others in the crowd were moving closer, fanning out to surround Jerry and Sam.
“Yeah, leave,” the Chinese boy shouted at Kenny.
“Get lost,” said another.
The chorus of angry chants grew until Kenny waved his gun at them. That silenced them briefly. Soon the crowd grew louder and swelled in size, inching forward, as if tightening a noose around the motorcyclists.
All of a sudden Timmy squiggled from Mandy’s arms and marched up to Kenny. He puffed up his chest. “Nobody likes you. Go!”
Kenny pointed the gun at Timmy’s head, eliciting gasps from all.
Mandy moaned and said in pleading tone, “Kenny, don’t do that!”
Abby’s knees wobbled. She didn’t know whether to plead, yell, or remain silent. Instead she spoke sternly to the boy. “Timmy, come to me.”
Timmy ignored her.
“Come on, Kenny, let’s split,” Jerry said in a shaky voice. “We have the pills.”
These reactions seemed to embolden Kenny, evidenced by a small smile playing on his lips. “Everyone back up,” he said and took aim directly between the boy’s eyes.
Timmy stood taller. “I’m not afraid of you,” he squeaked. “Get out of here.”
Kenny pulled the trigger.
“No,” Abby shouted and lunged. With leaden legs, her feet remained planted, and she pitched forward. The gun discharged before she hit the ground. Her face scraped on the blistering hot tar, ears ringing from the loud explosion.
The crowd charged forward. Abby saw a trample of legs and heard the cries of fright from Kenny, Jerry, and Sam. Then she heard Mandy sobbing.
A part of Abby died, and she no longer had the will to continue. She pictured Jordan where she had left him. They had tried their best. It was both amazing and tragic close they had come. “Never give up,” Abby whispered, but the words sounded hollow and failed to summon any desire to live. Finally, she thought of Toucan, imagining her sister’s tears when she and Jordan never returned to the island. Not even that stirred Abby to move.
Abby blinked. Mandy was clutching Timmy, who appeared fine. “Are you okay?” she asked, hesitantly.
Mandy sniffed and nodded. “When you shouted, Kenny flinched. The bullet missed Timmy’s head by inches. It whizzed by my face.”
The frenzied crowd was now grabbing Kenny’s pills scattered on the ground.
“We have to go to Cambridge,” Abby said.
“There’s something I have to tell you,” Mandy said, words falling rapidly from her mouth. “I had a three-year-old brother. We left him to die. I left him to die! That’s what we did to the babies. We left them all to die.” Mandy buried her face in Timmy’s chest and sobbed.
Abby put her arms around both of them. “Please, let’s hurry,” she whispered.
FINAL HOURS
Abby gave directions to Mandy from the back of the motorcycle, pointing which way to go. Timmy was sandwiched between them. It was a st
raight shot through the tunnel and across the Zakim Bridge, all the way to the Cambridge exit off the highway. There were many lefts and rights to take in the city, and Abby worried that one wrong turn and they might not get to Jordan in time.
When they arrived at Pearl Street, Abby jumped off the motorcycle, made sure the pill was still in her pocket, and willed her heavy legs up the steps. She stopped abruptly on the porch, puzzled. Two garbage bags sat beside the door, each bulging with trash.
More mysteries greeted her inside. A scent of lemons filled the air, and the kitchen was spotless. She stared in amazement. Someone had cleared the floor of the cans and jars and broken glass. There was a can furniture polish on the kitchen table. That explained the lemon scent, but not who had cleaned the kitchen, carried the trash outside, and apparently polished the furniture.
Suddenly it all made sense. Mel had seen Abby’s note and stopped by. Her friend was somewhere in the house. “Mel,” she called. “Mel.” Perhaps Mel had brought pills and had already given one to Jordan.
Abby found her brother on the couch. One of his hands was clutching a sheet of paper to his chest, the other hung over the side of the couch in mid-air. He appeared to be in a deep sleep. She rushed to his side and now saw the sheet of paper was the photo of Emily he carried. She also noticed a model shipbuilding kit by his side. A picture of the ship was on the box of parts. Abby nudged his shoulder. “Jordan, I’m back. I made it. I have a pill for you.” When he didn’t respond, she shook him and shouted in his ear, “Wake up, sleepy.”
He didn’t appear to be breathing and his face, she thought, was turning bluish-gray before her eyes.
Timmy and Mandy rounded the corner. “Oh, my god!” Mandy cried.
“My friend is here,” Abby blurted to Timmy. “Go find her!”
Timmy disappeared.
Abby pressed her ear against Jordan’s chest. His heart had stopped. She thrust her hand into her pocket and found the pill and crushed it between her fingertips, thinking the antibiotic would enter his blood stream faster if it were a powder. She pried apart his lips and pushed the powder all the way to the back of his throat. He didn’t gag or respond in any way. His tongue was slightly warm, offering a flicker of hope.
Abby placed her two palms flat on his chest, one hand on top of the other, and pumped with all her strength. “One one-thousand.” She pushed down. “One one-thousand.”
She’d done this only once before during a CPR demonstration put on by the Red Cross at her dad’s library in Cambridge. Jordan’s chest was much squishier than the mannequin’s was.
As Abby tried to start her brother’s heart, she instructed Mandy how to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. “Tilt his head back and pinch his nostrils. Put your mouth on his and blow. Make sure you seal your mouth tightly around his.”
Abby pumped Jordan’s chest three times and then Mandy blew air into his lungs once. They stuck to this rhythm.
Timmy leaped down the stairs, landing with a thud, and rushed to her side, wide-eyed and breathing fast, frightened by the frantic struggle to save a life. He had two wrapped presents and he spoke in spurts. “I couldn’t find your friend. There’s a dead person in bed upstairs, a lady with long red hair. I found these.” He held up one of the presents. “Abby, this is for you.” He held up the second. “This is for someone named Toucan.”
Abby gasped, knowing that Timmy had seen her mother. She remembered her mom mentioning the presents in the email she had sent right before the night of the purple moon. She had planned to bring them to the island.
Abby realized that Mel wasn’t in the house, nor had she ever been. Jordan must have gone upstairs and seen Mom and opened his present, the ship building kit, and somehow managed to clean the house before he returned to the couch to die.
“No,” Abby screamed and pumped harder.
With each compression, she pictured his heart pumping fistfuls of blood. The blood passed through his lungs, which Mandy kept inflating with her breaths, and carried oxygen and antibiotic throughout his body, attacking space germs by the millions.
Abby kept an eye on Jordan’s cheeks, hoping to see a blush of pink, but they remained ashen. Soon it was impossible to distinguish colors in the darkening shadows.
The rhythm of CPR hypnotized her. Nighttime arrived and stimulated her senses of touch and hearing. She ignored cramped fingers and achy arms and sore shoulders and fought through brutal exhaustion. Hearing gulps of air told her that Mandy was keeping pace. Together they were a team that wouldn’t quit.
She wondered how much longer they could continue.
“Never give up,” Abby said.
“I won’t,” Mandy replied.
Abby had spoken the words to nobody in particular.
Just then Jordan coughed. Several choking inhalations followed.
“He’s breathing!” Mandy cried, out of breath herself.
Abby placed her ear on Jordan’s chest. Her pounding heart nearly drowned out the faint, but steady lub-dub of his heart echoing inside.
“Aaaa…” His attempt to say her name faded into a raspy croak.
She placed her hand on her brother’s cheek. Neither could see the other. “Jordan, I’m here. I’m going to give you some…some beer.” Abby patted her hand on the table top and found the can of purple beer she had left for him. She popped the top and dribbled some into his mouth.
“Abby,” he said faintly.
She moved closer. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“You never gave up,” he said.
The challenges she faced suddenly overwhelmed her. They had to go back to the airport for more pills and then they would likely face many obstacles and dangers trying to return to Castine Island. How would all four of them get there? The skiff was too small. Abby looked further into the future. Puberty was no longer a death sentence, but there were so few adults alive. How would they survive in the months and years ahead?
She startled when Timmy gripped her finger and she felt Mandy pressing closer. Mandy also had Timmy in her arms. For this one moment, all of them were together and safe and that’s all that mattered.
“We never gave up,” Abby whispered back.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’d like to thank my readers. They include friends, family, online buddies, and a few others. I’ve learned a great deal about writing, grammar, and story structure from their advice. Thank you Otto Ball, Bonnie Ortelt, Carolann Ritz, Roland Stroud, Cheryl Dale, Prema Camp, Big Don, Perrin Dillon, Natasha Fabulic, Richard Jones, Will Obendorfer, Ed McKinnon, Carol Richard, Molly Knox, Dennis McHale, Albert Sabal, Mrs. Gray, Phyllis Kutt, Eileen O’Neil, Ant Nancy, Mim Bonn, Paul Murphy, Katherine Boyle, Helen Powers, Erica Fairchild, Craig Tenney, Richard Seltzer (for ePub advice) and Virginia, Meghan, and Johannah. And to Misty-Duck who has been at my side for almost every sentence.