by Dan Padavona
Keeshana sighed, gripping the steering wheel tighter.
“I don’t ever want to go back there again, either. And if I have my way, I never will.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Following Jacy's Map
Goldenrod. I smell goldenrod.
No one is coming to help me. I’m alone.
At 9 o’clock Saturday, as the morning sun devoured the last wisps of fog over the bordering meadow, Lance Benin felt his way from the kitchen into the living room, tapping a white cane against the threshold. The power had failed four days ago, and his ranch house north of Jacksonville grew hotter by the hour. Something terrible, something unimaginable had happened, and he didn’t know what it could be. Jacy, the punctual community worker who arrived at 8:45 a.m. every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, had missed her appointments this week. Jacy had been hand-picked by the Blind Veterans Association to care for Lance, and that included weekly trips to the grocery store to stock his pantry. Forced to consume non-perishables for four days, Lance was running out of food.
The phone produced no dial tone. He had knocked on neighbors’ doors and received no answer. When all attempts to make contact had failed, he had stood on his front porch, calling for someone—anyone—to answer his voice. He wanted evidence he wasn’t the only person alive in the neighborhood.
Another troubling sign—I-95 bordered his neighborhood 500 yards away on the other side of meadow and wetlands. From his back porch, the drone of passing cars was constant, but he hadn’t heard a vehicle since Saturday. The scent of meadow goldenrod was thick. Has the smell always been so strong? Gone was the scent of highway trucks’ diesel. No gas or oil had been utilized nearby in days. The air had never smelled so clean, and while this pleased him on some level, it troubled him greatly. Lance Benin was abandoned.
He found the sofa and sat down. Not expecting to hear a dial tone, he picked up the phone and put the receiver to his ear. Silence. Frustrated, he slammed the phone down and missed, hitting the end table instead. He rattled the receiver back into place and sighed. It had to be 90 degrees outside already, and it wasn’t much cooler inside.
Last night, he had awoken with a throbbing headache, shivering in a cold sweat. He had felt confused, not sure where he was, with an odd feeling that he had screamed. Was he in the Iraqi desert, being treated for the explosion that had burned his face and left him blind? It had been hot enough to believe that that was where he was. But where were the doctors’ voices or the sorrowful moans of injured soldiers around him? In a moment of clarity, he had recognized the signs of heat exhaustion. Fighting against the lethargy gripping him, he’d made his way out to the back deck, where he lay under the night sky. It had been in the upper 70s on the deck, still warm, but that was a fair shade cooler than the house.
“Where is everyone?”
The walls had no answer for him.
A decorated marine, the 28-year-old veteran knew a thing or two about survival. Had it been March or early April, Lance could have waited things out. But it was May. The ascent into summer would be a death march unless he found a way to overcome the heat. He needed help. He didn’t like admitting it. He hadn’t even wanted Jacy’s aid, but the only other choice had been group living, and Lance would have been damned if he allowed himself to be perpetually corralled in a veterans’ care facility.
I have to get to the highway.
Someone was bound to drive past on the highway. Maybe then he could get some answers. Every scenario that he played in his mind, he shot down.
An attack on foreign soil? He would have heard jet fighters and artillery fire.
A local disaster knocking out power and causing an evacuation? Someone would have notified him. Nor would a local disaster have shut down I-95 for several days without him knowing about it.
A major highway accident? It would have been cleared days ago, and the accident wouldn’t have forced his neighbors out of their homes.
The 500 yards between Lance’s neighborhood and the highway was a combination of meadow and wetlands. Snakes of all varieties made the meadow their home. A kid spotted a water moccasin in the wetlands last spring, but those were rare. Once in a while, one of the neighborhood kids saw an alligator, but fortunately the alligators shied away from these wetlands, not liking the steady traffic of the highway. He wondered if the alligators were more bold now.
What if I make it to the highway and no one comes?
Blind and exposed to the elements, he would sign his own death warrant if nobody rescued him.
But I can’t stay here. It’s already too hot.
At 9:15 am, Lance filled a canteen with water and exited his house onto the back deck. Upon his head he wore a retro Brooklyn Dodgers baseball cap emblazoned on the back with the number 42—Jackie Robinson’s number. While growing up, many of his fellow black students idolized sports figures like Michael Jordan and Bo Jackson, but Jackie had broken baseball’s color barrier, and that revolutionary courage meant more to Lance than NBA championships and sneaker contracts.
He stood listening. No engines. No distant lawn mowers. Just buzzing insects and birds. Nature had never sounded so loud.
The scent of goldenrod grew stronger outside. When the wind blew into his face, he caught a wet grass smell—the wetlands.
He walked down the deck steps. After twenty-seven familiar paces, his truncated backyard ended with a waist-high picket fence. He touched the fence, feeling along the rough texture. The fence needs repainting. A second voice in his head answered. Once you cross this fence, you’ll never come back.
Carefully, he extended one leg over the fence. His thumb caught a sliver. He thought—
Lance Benin
Decorated marine
Traverses alligator-infested swamp
Dies of infection from sliver
Now straddling the fence, he brought his second leg over and pulled the sliver out with his teeth. Ahead of him stretched the swamp and meadow, and he saw none of it. Furthermore, he only had Jacy’s word to go on. She had sat upon the deck many times and patiently described the terrain to him. He pictured a rough map of the swamp and meadow in his mind. First meadow, then progressively soggy terrain that mutated into swamp. At the back of the wetlands, the land ridged into a knoll topped by slash pines. Beyond the pines stretched the highway.
As the wind whipped past him, meadow grass brushed the shins of his pant legs. If he continued on this ill-conceived journey, the grass would soon be up to his chest. The shrill ringing of grasshoppers and crickets grew louder. He did a quick calculation in his head. There were approximately three careful steps in a yard and 500 yards of travel ahead of him. In 1500 steps, he’d reach the highway.
He took his first step.
Tapping the cane in front of him, he walked slowly forward. The meadow grass, growing in dense clumps, pulled at his boots as though it wanted to grasp him. A grasshopper landed on his arm, and he flicked it away. Something buzzed around his head, closing in on his ear.
A bee? A wasp?
He remembered stepping on a ground hornet’s nest when he was fourteen. The hornets had stung him seventeen times. Had he not run away, the hornets might never have stopped stinging. The buzzing came closer. Was it a curious buzz, or a warning buzz?
Am I walking into a nest?
The insect flew away. The cane clicked something hollow and hard. He stopped and flicked the cane forward. Bamboo shoots. Not many. He walked laterally, tapping the shoots for five paces. When the cane touched air, he stepped around the bamboo and continued forward.
He already felt hot, but the sun did not blare on his shoulders. Had the sun clouded over? He hoped so. The air felt heavy with moisture, but it didn’t feel like rain was on the wind. Still he listened for thunder. Storms popped up without warning this time of year, yet he was not so far into the meadow that he couldn’t turn back.
Ten minutes into the meadow, the grass grew taller, brushing at his arms. A thin blade of flowering grass caught his bare forearm and
sliced through his skin. He knew to respect how sharp the sticky grass blades could be—it was like walking through a field of razor blades. Hacking at the grass with his cane, he cleared a path.
He jumped as a field mouse scurried across his boot. Lance realized he was in no man’s land, far enough into the meadow that if he turned around now, there was no guarantee he would find his house.
His unease grew. How could he be certain he was still headed in the right direction? The cacophony of insect songs swelled around him.
Take it easy. Listen.
A frog croaked.
Lance smiled. The wetlands were directly ahead.
Rattle.
He froze. A rattlesnake threatened him from somewhere off to his left. Heart pumping, Lance stepped backward.
The rattle continued, louder now. Trying not to panic, he took a second step back. The rattle faded.
Holding his breath, he edged to his right, continuing to sidestep until the rattling ceased.
He stood, breathing heavily. Where the grass ripped across his arms, he felt cuts and welts across his skin—a small price to pay for avoiding the rattlesnake.
He walked forward slowly, jumping every time something scurried through the grass or flew past his face. Several minutes later, when he again began to doubt where he was, his boot splashed into mire. The wetlands.
Did Jacy say how long the wetlands stretched? If her 500-yard estimate is accurate, the wetlands are at least 150 to 200 yards across.
My boots can handle the water. But once the water rises past the boot tops, I will get soaked.
He sloshed ahead, stepping on clumps of weed and grass, the pungent swamp air enveloping him. All around him, frogs hopped into the water. A sparrow called. A larger bird, probably a gull, skimmed the water ahead of him.
Apparently the clouds had broken, because the sun felt hot on the back of his neck. With his ranch a few hundred yards behind him now, he imagined the house shrinking with every step he took into the mire. The scent of wet grass was cloying, making it seem as though his head was submerged in a bucket of waterlogged weeds. Although he felt water splash his arms and face, it never rose past his ankles.
This isn’t too bad. I can do this.
His leg plunged into deep swamp water. His knee buckled, and for a second he was certain he would lose his balance. After he steadied himself, he used the cane to test the water depth to the left and right. The swamp was just as deep on both sides of him. For all he knew, he walked within a thin strip of swamp surrounded by ample dry land. Without the ability to assess the terrain with his eyes, he had only Jacy’s vague description to work off of.
As he walked forward, he sank thigh-high into murky water. He started to worry again about water moccasins. Things continued to splash into the water, and some of them sounded too large to be frogs. Sweeping the cane in front of him, he struck something solid. He stopped and tapped it again. Running his hands along its rough surface, he identified the object as a dead tree. Based upon his recollection of swampland, he guessed the swamp was full of thin, dead trees reaching out of the muck like skeletal fingers. Wading forward, he encountered two more trees.
A low, growling noise startled him. Lance went still, his left hand grasping a dead tree for support. He heard the growl again. The sound reminded him of an old lawn mower sputtering to life. Or maybe it was closer to a motorcycle low on gas. The open acoustics of the swamp fooled him, making the growl seem to come from everywhere at once. Water splashed to his right, and he heard birds taking flight, squawking warnings to one another.
Alligator. A big one.
As Lance stood frozen, he listened to the water ripple. Was the alligator swimming toward him? He imagined the monster’s jaws clamping down on his submerged legs, imagined himself being pulled under the water and devoured, unable to see his attacker. He didn’t dare breathe; he just listened. Every time the water gurgled and burped out an air bubble, he flinched.
He may have stood in place for minutes or hours without hearing the alligator again. In his mind, he saw the gator right next to him, its eyes poking out of the water like twin periscopes, waiting for him to move. Something stung his neck, and it was all he could do not to make a sudden movement and slap the insect away. A whining buzz moved past his ear. The mosquitoes found him.
The longer I stand here, the more danger I am in.
That thought sounded logical, but his legs felt encased in ice. As soon as he moved, he was certain he would hear the rumbling growl of the alligator. But he couldn’t stay here. He was already soaked to the thigh and would need to remove his boots and socks once he made it to dry ground. If he made it to dry ground.
As if to drum home his need to move, thunder rumbled distant like a dinosaur awakening from its slumber. Getting across the swamp became a higher priority than waiting out an alligator, especially since he didn’t know if the alligator was still nearby. He clenched his teeth and strode through the water, listening for growls. Thunder rumbled again, and he quickened his pace. His thigh hit a large object. He barely stifled his scream, thinking about alligators. But as he reached out with his hands, he felt the bark of another dead tree.
He walked faster, the cane sweeping the air ahead of him, occasionally clicking against trees. The sun baked his left cheek, and although it probably burned him, he was thankful for the sun’s rays. The sun told him the thunderstorm hadn’t yet arrived. It also served as a compass. As long as the late-morning sun stayed on his left cheek, his direction was west. West would eventually lead out of the swamp and up to the highway. Driven by his fear of the alligator lurking behind and the promise of the highway ahead, he trudged through the water as fast as his legs would allow. His heart rate increased and his leg muscles burned, but each step brought him closer to the highway, closer to escaping the swamp.
The swamp floor dropped out from under him. He plunged into the murky depths, choking on swamp water. He lost his grip on the cane, and as his hands grasped blindly through the water, he touched slimy weeds. The canteen floated off his shoulder. He swam to the surface, thrust his head out of the water, and coughed out viscous muck. He kicked his legs to stay afloat, belching out swamp water like a leaf-clogged pond fountain. He gasped, sucking in air.
Stay calm. Breathe. Breathe.
A minute later, the coughing ceased. Flipping onto his side, Lance sidestroked his way across the swamp. The sun shone warmly on his face, encouraging him to keep moving. Not long after, his shoulders collided with wet grass and muddy ground. He scrambled out of the water. He rested on his hands and knees, panting. His right hand was submerged in muck to the wrist—he was still within the swamp but out of the deep waters.
The rumbling of thunder got him moving again. As his boots sloshed through ankle-deep waters, he swept his hands out in front of him, searching for obstacles. The water continued to splash around him, but he didn’t hear anything heavy enough to be another alligator. That didn’t mean that an alligator wasn’t watching him in silence or that he wasn’t walking right into one’s path, but he was more concerned about disease and infection. He slogged through water and bounced off dead trees. He was so immersed in his desire to reach dry land that he hadn’t noticed the soil firming under his boots. His boot struck rising land, and he stumbled forward onto a dry hillock. As he felt along its surface, his fingers encountered dry meadow grass. Above the fetid swamp water, he again smelled goldenrod.
Half-laughing, half-crying, he lay his back against the hillock. Jacy’s description of the meadow and wetlands couldn’t have been more accurate, rivaling the high resolution terrain maps from field ops. He thanked her audibly, wherever she was. The sun remained strong to his south, but now he prayed for rain to wash the swamp off of him. As he lay catching his breath, he heard a distant motor from the north. He sat upright, disbelief etched across his face.
It couldn’t be a vehicle, could it?
Miles off, the approaching motor sounded like a faraway wind meandering through a mou
ntain passage. Lance rolled over and ran up the hillock, rustling through weeds and bouncing off thin trees. His feet slipped out from under him, and he scrambled back up, climbing and climbing.
How tall is the hill? How close am I to the highway?
Now he could hear the motor clearly as the vehicle roared down I-95. Pain rocketed through his shoulder as he collided with a larger tree. The air felt cooler—had he moved into the shade?—and sweet pine intermixed with the fading goldenrod. His lungs burned. His legs felt like rubber bands. The motor came closer and closer.
At 10:35 a.m., Beth Tranor was in the passenger seat of a Honda Odyssey minivan, excitedly asking Mitch Bloom about the implications of the sign from outside of Savannah. Who made the sign, and what was Florida Bliss? Were other people like them beginning to organize, and would they have any answers to what had caused so many people to vanish? The late-morning sun shone directly upon the windshield, and as Mitch squinted and answered Beth’s questions as best as he could, he saw a shadow stumble out of the trees and fall over the guard rail on the northbound side of I-95.
“Stop the van, Mitch. That’s a person.”
The van lurched to a stop, jolting Melody awake from the backseat. He pulled the van onto the left shoulder, and together he and Beth ran across the median toward a man who lay face down on the far shoulder.
When they rolled the man over, his eyes stared blankly into the morning sky. The man, whose face was visibly scarred and likely partially reconstructed, coughed and panted. While he moved his hands over their arms as they knelt next to him, Mitch realized the man couldn’t see.
“Don’t leave…ran up…the hill…”
“Shh. Stay still. Nobody is going to leave you,” Beth said. “Are you hurt?”
“No. Not hurt. Heard your vehicle coming. Almost didn’t make it in time.”
When Mitch placed a hand on the man’s arm, Melody’s shadow drifted over them. As uncomfortable as it made Mitch to ask a stranger if he was blind, he didn’t see any way to broach the subject. “Can you see, my friend?”