Survivor Song

by Paul Tremblay

  On their right, marking an elbow bend in the road and on the corner of Rockland Street is the Ames Baptist Church. If not for the large cross on the side of the building, it could be a sprawling, painted-white New England Colonial-style house, or a converted funeral home. It sits on a sizable plot of land, including a wide, sprawling front lawn and empty L-shaped parking lot, which is being explored by a small flock of turkeys.

  Luis asks, “Should we be worried about turkeys in this timeline?”

  Ramola answers, “Only mammals can get rabies.”

  “Lucky us,” says Natalie.

  They roll past the church. Its white announcement sign at the street corner, near a crumbling, moss-covered stone wall, lists emergency-contact phone numbers and the stark message, “Pray.”

  High-pitched, ululating shrieks, eerily childlike in their voicing, are joined by deep growls that sharpen into piercing, relentless barks. Unlike the distant cries they heard earlier from the edges of Borderland, these unseen, mortally engaged combatants are close, either on the church grounds or within its immediate environs.

  Josh and Luis clumsily veer their bikes into the opposite lane at the unexpected apocalypse of sound and exchange nervous banter.

  Ramola says, “Keep it steady,” takes her right hand off Josh’s shoulder, and turns her head to better look behind them. She doesn’t see any animals charging down Bay Road, nor can she see the turkey flock. Out of sight, the brutish battle cries continue and now include alarmed turkey clucks and gobbles, the heavy whoops of their beating wings. Ramola returns to her fully forward-facing stance, awkwardly pushing hard onto Josh’s shoulder as she does so. Josh shouts a complaint. Ramola apologizes and says, “Nothing coming after us that I can see. We are the good.”

  Luis says, “Cheers. All right, mate.” His accent is fully Australian.

  On their left they pass a residential street called Pheasant Lane. Ramola spies cars in a handful of the driveways, which brings a sense of comfort that not everyone is gone. Although they now must be less than a mile from the clinic, she wonders if they should stop and ask for a ride, particularly if the teens are getting fatigued.

  They pass another residential side street on their left and then round a bend that becomes a long stretch of straight road.

  Josh says, “There they are.”

  About one hundred yards away is the red pickup truck, straddling both lanes, its chrome grille designed to be a toothy, wiseass grin. If it’s moving, it’s going at a speed imperceptibly slow from this distance. Two men walk beside the vehicle, carrying what appear to be shovels, and there are others along the road’s shoulder, one carrying a hunting rifle. The truck honks its horn twice and more people spill out of the wooded periphery onto the road. In the lead, maybe twenty-five yards ahead of the truck, are two large men dressed in head-to-toe camouflage gear, stepping in time, their crossbows held across their chests, a pledge to future violence.

  Luis says, “Jesus. That one dude is big as a fucking tree.”

  “He is the Tree,” says Josh.

  Ramola has to admit this hodgepodge group of men and the manner in which they approach is unnerving if not outright frightening. Having been concerned solely with getting Natalie onto the fabled pickup truck and to the clinic, other questions nag: For what purpose are these men breaking quarantine laws? Why are they, as Josh claimed, going door-to-door?

  She says, “Don’t stop until we are within their number. I will talk to them.”

  “Good luck talking to the Tree,” Josh says.

  The men in front, the ones wearing camo, split from the road’s double lines, each filling one lane. They wear polarized sunglasses and the parts of their faces not covered in coarse hair are smeared with black and green greasepaint. As the bicycles approach they hold up black-gloved stop hands. The pickup truck continues its slow creep behind them. Other men veer off onto driveways in groups of two or three.

  The teens coast to a smooth stop and both Ramola and Natalie step down from the pegs without issue. Luis looses a groan of relief and rolls his shoulders.

  Natalie says, “Gee, thanks, guy.”

  The tallest one—Ramola cannot think of him as anything other than “The Tree” now that Josh pegged him with the nickname—says, “You’re not supposed to be out here. You should go back to your homes. It’s not playtime.” He stares at Josh as he makes the latter statement. “And you should’ve stopped when I said to.”

  The other large man in fatigues opens and closes his hands around the crossbow, clearly enamored with the crinkling leather sound his gloves make.

  Luis laughs, leans left between the bikes, and whacks Josh in the shoulder. He says, “Guy, I take everything I said back. They are the bad.”

  “Facts.”

  “Excuse me?” Ramola announces, and walks in front of Josh and Luis. The two men in camo don’t move. She points to her ID badge and says, “My name is Dr. Ramola Sherman and we are in desperate need of your help. My friend Natalie here—”

  The other man in camo interrupts: “Oh Christ, has the UN landed already?”

  Ramola is dumbstruck by the question. “I’m sorry, the UN?”

  The Tree takes off his sunglasses and glowers at Ramola. “What country are you from? Don’t lie.”

  Natalie sidles up next to Ramola, steps in front of her, and shouts, “Listen, you racist fucking wannabe rednecks. Rams—Dr. Rams to you—lives in Canton, and if you give her any more shit I’m . . .”

  Ramola says Natalie’s name and variations of relax and calm down and it’s all right as she gently pulls her away from the expressionless men. The teens break into giggles, and why not? The whole world has gone mad.

  The red truck pulls up directly behind the two men. A bearded driver steps out and says, “Hey, nice day for a bike ride, right?” and laughs at his own non-joke. He’s a solidly built, early middle-aged white man, of less-than-average height, with a head of coarse hair worn short, coming to a widow’s peak. Distinct patches of white form an archipelago in the sea of his light-brown hair. He wears tan carpenter pants, a blue jean jacket buttoned up to the neck, work gloves, and black boots. Coffee-stained teeth mushroom out of a charismatic smile; his cheeks hide his eyes. “I’m Dan, and—so, yeah, what’s going on? I gotta say you make an, um, unexpected group. What are you guys doing out here?” He steps between the men in camo and stuffs his hands into his front pockets. A move, Ramola assumes, supposed to communicate Aw shucks, I’m harmless and I’m in charge.

  Ramola starts over. “I’m Dr. Ramola Sherman. We desperately need help and we don’t have time—”

  The Tree interrupts, “Do you hear her?”

  The second camo guy says, “Looks like we already have foreign government interference—”

  Ramola says, “For fuck’s sake, that’s it. Natalie, back on the bike. Come on.” She walks behind Josh’s bike and flails a hand in the direction of the other men. “You daft bellends stay out of our way.”

  The camo duo mumble vague none-shall-pass threats, which are less threatening as they sidle and shrink away from Ramola and toward the pickup truck.

  Dan taps each man’s shoulder, and says, “Okay, Richard, okay. Stanley. Hey, let’s calm down.” His “calm” has no l in it, and is replaced with an ah. His Boston accent is so pronounced, like Josh’s British accent attempt, it sounds faked.

  Josh says, “Dick and Stan. Who will ever forget them?”

  Luis laughs. “Ooh, let me guess which one is Stanley.”

  The Tree snarls a fuck-you, though it is not clear if his name is Stanley. Before either teen can guess as much, Ramola makes one final attempt to ask for help. A potential ride to the clinic is only a few feet away.

  “I am a doctor at Norwood Pediatrics. Natalie and I were in an ambulance on our way to the Ames Clinic. A car blindsided us about a mile back. We were not injured. The same cannot be said for the other driver. Our ambulance is no longer drivable, we have not been able to get through to emergency services on our
phones, and no new ambulance has been sent for us. These two young men witnessed the accident and are kindly helping transport us to the clinic so that Natalie and her child can be tended to properly.” As she speaks she walks toward Dan and the two men. “Will you give us a ride to the clinic? It’s in Five Corners, less than a mile away. We’d be eternally grateful and you’ll be back doing whatever it is you’re doing in no time at all.”

  Calls of “What’s going on?” and “You guys all set?” from the other men in their group (five in total) who mass ten to twenty yards behind the truck. Two men wear dark-colored fleece vests over tan button-down shirts with large orange patches on the left sleeve. They are standing too far away for Ramola to read the script on the patches. They carry long, skinny poles with some sort of corded loops at the ends. Unlike Richard and Stanley in camo, two of the remaining men wear typical northeast suburbanite male autumnal garb, designer fleeces and flannels, and they carry shovels. One short, balding man swims in a too-big New England Patriots varsity-style jacket and carries a small-caliber hunting rifle.

  Dan turns and holds a thumbs-up and then waves to the group behind him. He says to Ramola, “Oh, okay, yeah. You know that clinic isn’t very big. It’s not like a full hospital. Is it even open, functional? I don’t know. We haven’t gone by there, so I don’t know. But yeah, of course. I’ll give you a ride.”

  Richard and Stanley sigh, spin away, and toss up their hands, generally reacting like spoiled brats whose parents won’t buy them a candy bar at the grocery store.

  Dan ignores them. He cups his hands around his mouth and shouts to the other men behind them, “Go ahead! You can keep knocking!” The other men disperse into two groups, one tan-shirted man with each group, walking up driveways on opposite sides of Bay Road. The man with the rifle remains behind and mills about in the middle of the street.

  Dan says, “It’s Natalie, right? You can ride in the cab with me. The rest of you can sit in the truck bed if you want.”

  Josh says, “Hell yeah. You’ll be getting us closer to home.”

  “Yeah, we’re done out here,” says Luis.

  Ramola thanks Dan, takes Natalie’s hand, and leads her between the silently apoplectic camo pair. As they scoot around to the passenger side, Natalie whispers into Ramola’s ear, “What’s in the trailer? Can’t be good.” It wasn’t visible until they walked around the front grille, but there’s a small rectangular, two-wheeled trailer hitched to the truck. Its four side panels are metal, painted black, and maybe two feet in height. A large green drop cloth is draped over whatever its contents may be.

  Ramola rises up on her tiptoes but only sees more of the lumpy canvas. “I don’t know.” Questions of what these men are doing and why they are knocking on the doors of local homes are neon warning signs flashing in her head, but she isn’t going to ask them. All she wants is a ride to the clinic. She tries the truck door handle, and it is locked.

  Josh and Luis walk their bikes to the truck saying, “Excuse me” and “Beg pardon” and “Right-o” and “After you” and “I insist” and “Hardly” and other random acknowledgments and apologies using obnoxious and dreadful British accents.

  The Tree steps in front of the teens, preventing them from lifting their bikes into the cargo bed. He whines to Dan, his voice increasing in pitch as he talks impossibly fast and without a pause for a breath. “Did you read the Reddit I sent about the UN conspiring with the deep state to manufacture and spread the virus so they can swoop in and save the day with new vaccines to fool the public into thinking the other vaccines they force on us are safe and how they dropped the green bait packs and used veterinarians and pediatricians to spread this virus and continue to monitor the progress in hospitals?”

  From his jacket’s deep pockets, the other camo man pulls out a couple green rabies vaccination bait packs, ones the Wildlife Service has been dropping locally for weeks now. He says, “We’ve been telling you, Dan. These damn things even have French instructions on them. This is global biological warfare.” He steps toward the teens and shakes the packs inches from Josh’s head.

  Luis says, “Watch out, he’s gonna give you the government rabies.”

  Dan shakes his head and says, “Guys, come on.” Ramola notices a physical resemblance among Dan and the camo men beyond their bearded middle-aged white-maleness. If they’re not brothers, they’re cousins. Regardless, Dan now seems less like their leader than a person with a truck, a hitch, and a trailer. He adds, “I’m not arguing with you over this. I’m giving a pregnant woman a ride.” He walks around to the back of the truck.

  The Tree says, “And she just happens to show up with a foreign doctor—what are you doing?”

  “I’m unhitching the trailer, leaving it here if you need it. We’ll reattach when I get back.”

  Natalie says, “Let’s go. We need to go.” She yanks on the door handle. “It’s locked.”

  Dan pauses his work with the trailer to unlock the door with two chirps from his key fob.

  Natalie opens the door, and as Ramola helps her into the car seat she talks to herself. “You’re okay, you’re still here, this is happening, out of the woods, over the river, through the woods . . .” and her mumbles deteriorate into repeated words that don’t build into phrases. Stray words further devolve into throat clearings and hard, empty swallows.

  Ramola says, “We’re almost there. I promise,” and remembers what Natalie said earlier about the value of promises.

  “I’m really tired.” Natalie’s slow head nods morph into palsy-like shakes. She stares out the windshield.

  Ramola drags the cranky seat belt across Natalie’s front, making sure the lap belt is below her belly, and buckles her in. Instead of another verbal check-in, pep talk, or feckless well-wishes, Ramola quickly backs out of the cab as though being chased. She shuts the door. She’s tired too.

  Dan has dragged the small trailer to the road’s shoulder and he and the camo men are in the middle of an argument.

  The Tree says, “You act like you’re above us all. Treat us like we’re dumb and crazy.”

  “That’s because your conspiracy theories are dumb and crazy,” Dan says.

  “So your Twitter guy is better than our Reddit?”

  Dan walks away from the trailer and yells, “I am better than your goddamn Reddit.”

  The other camo man says, “You’re wrong, Dan. Head in the sand like always. This is just the beginning of an attempted overthrow. But an army of patriots is on their way to stop it and keep the virus from spreading. They’re gonna do what needs to be done and we should be doing more to help them.”

  Josh and Luis take advantage of the argument to climb into the truck and stow their bikes. Standing in the truck bed, each with one foot up on a side panel, the teens push themselves up higher for a better view of the other men approaching the houses. Luis calls out, “Hey, Dr. Ramola, those guys in tan shirts are animal control.”

  Why is Luis telling her this? She doesn’t need to know that; she needs to get Dan in the truck and get the truck turned around. The rest of whatever fascist fantasy nonsense these men are up to can go on without her and Natalie. She says, “Dan! We must get Natalie to the clinic, now. She’s overtaxed, dehydrated—” She pauses. What if Dan offers Natalie water in the truck cab? She won’t be there to prevent him from doing so. And there are Josh and Luis with their water bottles still hanging around their necks. What would these appalling men do if they witnessed Natalie’s hydrophobia? Ramola stammers to a pleading finish. “She needs an IV and care. We simply must go without any more delay.”

  Dan says, “Yes, I’m coming,” and jogs away from the camo men huddled near the trailer. He passes Ramola and rounds the truck’s front end to the driver’s side.

  The Tree says, “Why don’t you tell your new pals what we’re doing? Tell them those are your animal control shirts the other guys are wearing, and all this is your idea. See if they still want a ride.”

  Ramola taps the passenger window
twice. Natalie doesn’t turn her head and continues staring out of the windshield.

  The other camo man lifts a corner of the drop cloth in the trailer and says, “Say hello to my furry friends.” Richard and Stanley laugh.

  Ramola doesn’t look. She runs to the truck’s rear. Placing both palms flat on the rear gate she simultaneously pushes down and jumps up, lifting her right leg, and gains a foothold. She scrambles onto the gate despite the two teens grabbing at her arms, their dangling water bottles knocking into her head, making the climb more difficult. Once fully inside the truck bed, they quickly rearrange the bikes and gear. Ramola shuffles over to the cab’s rear window so she can see Natalie.

  Muffled but loud barks explode from the house to the truck’s right. Men shout: “Hey, we got one!” “It’s pissed!” “He’s a big one.” “He wants to dig right through that door.”

  Standing on tiptoes, Ramola is able to see over a row of hedges to the modest Cape-style home, painted yellow with white trim, single-car garage attached. Two dormers rise out of the charcoal-black shingle roof and a single redbrick chimney splits the home in the middle. An American flag and a yellow Gadsden flag with its coiled snake flank the front door. Also on either side of the front door are two of Dan’s men, their faces pressed against the sidelight windows. A third stands on the brick front landing.

  Dan is half-in, half-out of the truck. He asks, “Are people home?”

  “No one’s answering! Car might be in the garage.” The man in the tan shirt bangs on the door with an open palm and shouts, “Hello, this is Animal Control. We’d like to have a word. Hey, anyone home?” With his other hand he holds the pole with the loop at the end.

  The dog’s barks are heavy and deep, varying in rhythm; quick staccato yaps mixing with longer, haunting bays.

  Dan steps back from the truck then stops, unsure of where to be. He says, “Okay, if they answer, be up-front. Don’t lie to them. It’ll go better. If no one answers, um, just wait. Wait until I get back. I’ll make this quick.” He ducks into the cab and shuts the door.