A few motor vehicles, still fueled and uninfected, passed them the first day, but none the second day. They would greet the people they saw and tersely exchange basic information: where are you from? Where are you headed? Best way to get through? Run into any trouble? The people they saw were mostly traveling on foot, and some shied away from them, though others sat and had a conversation. Most seemed to be couples, with or without children, some groups of friends in twos or threes, and a few larger bands.
On the third day, they heard lone gunshots, five of them, a few seconds apart. “Probably hunters,” Jeremy opined. How can you know that? DD thought. Lawlessness, roving mobs; isn’t that what happens when society falls apart?
In the absence of any electronic communication, rumors swirled. Everyone they met offered an opinion: it was a terrorist attack; it was the Muslims; it was the UN getting ready to invade us for Agenda 21; rich white people’s things weren’t affected; it was an alien invasion and they’d be swooping in with their flying saucers any day. DD kept silent about her role in causing the catastrophe, and Jeremy wordlessly observed that silence and kept it. Partly, she was afraid that people would believe her, and would attack her for destroying their lives. Destroying everyone’s lives. Partly, she was afraid that they wouldn’t believe her and think her insane. Sometimes it all seems like a vivid hallucination.
On the fourth day, they stopped just before dusk to bathe in a cattle pond. There was a farmhouse nearby, and having learned their lesson, they shouted from a long way back as they approached, then banged on the front door, but no one answered. The cows in the field herded up to the fence, lowing pitifully about their neglected state. The house was locked up tight, but there was a screened back porch with a flimsy latch-lock, easily forced.
They washed themselves head to toe and rinsed and wrung their clothing in the dark water of the pond, standing on pea gravel that the absent farmer had dumped along one patch of shoreline. DD wrapped her feet in the wet wool moccasins and they walked to the porch. After their bath, as Jeremy put band-aids on the few remaining cuts on her feet, he ran his hand up her leg, and she responded by leaning forward, taking his hand, and pulling him on top of her. He came forward eagerly. His mouth tasted good but his bristly beard stubble burned and she turned her head away. The warmth of his body felt delicious after the chilly water. They slid their hands over each other’s sides, his hand trapped in between them toying with her breast, until she wrapped her legs around his waist and abruptly pulled him in place to slip inside her. The rhythmic buffeting worked the tension out of her buttocks and belly, and the fullness of him inside her fed her in a way that she didn't know she'd been hungry. She didn’t come, and they didn’t talk about it, but afterwards he propped himself up on his elbow and smiled into her eyes, and she smiled back. Easy. Comforting.
Late in the morning of the sixth day, they approached the entrance ramp to I-10. DD was pedaling. She’d gotten into the rhythm of it and almost didn’t stop, but something caught her eye. She was suddenly off the seat of the bike and had sprinted off like a shot!
“What the hell? Come back here! DD, what’s wrong with you?” Jeremy called from his station atop the coiled rope.
She was dashing across the road towards an abandoned moving van, her sore feet forgotten. Abandoned and disabled vehicles were strewn everywhere, so much a part of the landscape they didn’t even register anymore. But she leapt with joy onto a burgundy sofa sitting on the shoulder; she sprawled out.
“My stuff! Jeremy, this is my stuff!”
“No shit?” He stood over her, amused.
“They said they were going to send a replacement truck for it. This must be it! Didn’t make it to Houston, though, did it?” She got up and peeked over the rear bumper into the truck. It looked like an explosion at a rummage sale. “Looks like they put it in with someone else’s stuff.” She looked a while longer. “But it looks like most of mine was probably in here. I wonder...”
She scrambled up inside the cargo area and located a leather storage ottoman. The lid was tossed aside and the contents had been emptied, but she grabbed a seemingly random scrap of yarn and pulled up, and the false bottom came out. “Yes!” she exulted, “my revolver!” She pulled out a silver Smith & Wesson K-frame revolver. She tilted the cylinder out.
“Five shots?” Said Jeremy. “Keeps the weight down.”
“I know, right? It’s a great ‘girl’ gun. Fires .38 Special or .357 Magnum. I’ve got it loaded with the .357 now, and these two speedloaders are .357 too.” She put the speedloaders in her pocket. “Unfortunately, the rest of my ammo was in that dresser.” She nodded at a six-drawer bureau on the other side of the truck. All its drawers were missing and nowhere to be seen. She stood up and began nudging through the debris on the floor with her toe.
Half an hour later, she’d a shoulder bag full of miscellaneous items, including family photos, first aid items, and candles. They had a tent (nylon, but it might last a night or two). They had a hammock, cotton, brought home from a trip to Cancún. They had two-thirds of a bottle of vodka and even, after a little scrounging, the lid for it. She had two pairs of rugged leather walking shoes and some rigid-soled hiking boots. She looked around and started to cry.
“We can’t possibly take any more of this on the Pedi cab,” she sniffled. “But these are all my things. That armoire was my mother’s.”
Jeremy put a hand on her upper back, unsure what to say. DD took a deep breath. “Let’s just go,” she said decisively. “Now. Standing around here feeling sorry for myself isn’t going to make that armoire fit on a bicycle!”
Just at that moment, a new voice came from the square of light at the end of the truck. “I don’t think you’re going anywhere right this minute!”
Rather than raise her revolver, DD left it holstered and ran to the entrance. “Jessica?” She asked.
“Mom!”
XXXVII.
Not Bad for An Old Guy
Amit sat at his breakfast bar, typing furiously and reading intently on his laptop, an empty plate and cup at his elbow, as the light of the rising sun streamed in through the sliding glass doors. There was still electricity in the apartment building, but the internet was cutting in and out. He’d no idea how the cables were routed, but the internet had told him, during brief diversions from his primary research aim overnight, that random buildings, blocks, and entire neighborhoods, were haphazardly going down; phone, internet, power, cable TV. Electrical fires were also breaking out, small ones and large, suggesting short circuits of insulated wires large and small, high voltage and low, AC and DC, throughout the system. He was uploading his notes to his cloud server in India, and pulling down published microbiology papers via VPN whenever he noticed the “Connected” icon come on in his encrypted interface. His initial breakthrough had come around midnight when he opened a new browser tab and typed, not for the first time, “OHCB AND pseudomonas putida AND mutation,” without realizing he was in the browser search bar, instead of in the biomed database search window. The results popped up as he realized his error, and just as his cursor was on the “X” to close the window, he hesitated. At the bottom of the page, the last one of the results was a Power Point presentation from an Amrencorp meeting in Baton Rouge. He clicked on the link and read the first slide: Bioremediation. He uploaded his notes to the cloud while he flicked through the slides, growing more excited each moment. This could get him started looking in the right direction!
India was apparently lagging behind in the spread of the problem, and BBSs there were fairly crackling with news and rumors. China was said to be overwhelmed, but no one knew, since they’d cut off all electronic communication earlier in the day. Japan’s entire population was inside their homes, obediently awaiting further news. Jakarta, and all of Indonesia, was completely unreachable. The affliction had reached Australia, Iceland, Ontario, Russia, Poland. Estonia was blithely free of problems for the time being, and the rest of Europe was still connecting spottily. As the nig
ht wore on, the time of the last posting on bulletin boards and social media was the only way to estimate when a country or region had gone dark. The mass media ceased broadcasting or posting online around 10:00 p.m., but no one was paying any attention to their scripted speculation at that point anyway.
As silence descended, rumors proliferated among the few remaining connected: it was drones with focused EMPs! It was the global Communist revolution! It was the Kurdish militia and ISIL joining forces! It was the Rothschilds! He refrained from sharing his near-certainty about the bacterial nature of the devastation, sure no one would be convinced anyway.
Amit knew he’d little time, perhaps just moments, until he lost connectivity as well. He heard the stairwell door open out in the hallway. He heard heavy footsteps…two big men? Three? He lifted his head. The footsteps stopped outside his door. He closed his computer and slipped it into its case, stuffing the cable in after it. His doorbell rang.
He pulled the strap of the laptop bag over his head and across his chest. “Open up! Police!” from the hall. In three steps he was by the terrace door. The doorbell rang again, followed by three pounding bangs on the door itself; he used the noise to mask the sound of the sliding glass door opening and then gently gliding shut behind him.
He walked over to the waist-high brick planter which comprised the partition dividing his terrace from the neighbors’. He pushed a plastic lawn chair to the wall, stepped up on it, and gracelessly plunged through the thick shrubs planted on top, pulling his computer bag after him. He hit the terrace floor fairly hard but got up and dusted himself off. He was pretty sure there was no one home; these neighbors traveled a lot and it’d been several weeks since he’d heard any sound from them. He picked up a wrought-iron patio chair and flung it through their sliding door, setting off their alarm system. It began to beep every three seconds. BEEEP! He was dashing through their apartment. BEEEP! He opened their front door. BEEEP! He closed the door silently behind him. He trotted down the hall to the stairwell entrance. By the time the alarm’s deafening siren went off, he was clattering down the stairs onto the fifth-floor landing.
He heard shouts coming from the seventh floor and redoubled his speed, ignoring the knife-like jabs under his kneecaps. He reached the second floor, and instead of heading to the ground floor and out through the lobby, he’d the presence of mind to duck out of the stairwell—he thought his pursuers were still too high up to see him—and slip around the corner to the gym entrance. As he’d hoped, the exit to the gym balcony was unlocked (he knew the building custodian smoked out there on his breaks). Amit straddled the rail. He dropped his laptop case into the bushes below, which broke its fall. He hesitated, realizing a ten-foot drop was too far for a man his age to attempt. But subtract his 5’7” height, and he should be okay. He swung his other leg over, then crouched. He dangled by his hands from the bottom of the balustrade, and then he let himself drop. He hit hard, jarring his arches and his back even though he tried to let the bend of his knees take the force. Then he fell on his butt. But when he caught his breath, he found himself, astoundingly, entirely unhurt. He looked around and discovered himself to be apparently unobserved as well. He smoothed his hair, tidied his jacket and shirt collar, strung his laptop case across his body, and strode off down Racine. The general chaos of running, walking, crying people in various stages of undress had barely subsided since the previous evening, but they were intermingled now with a less-colorful and generally calmer stream of individuals. These were serious-faced, carrying light luggage or pushing little carts or strollers, many carrying some sort of stick or club. He saw some families with small children: refugees who’d seen the chaos the city streets were descending into and knew they wanted to get out. He did his best to lose himself among them.
He was seriously tempted to try to reach his car, but he knew better. It was a shame. It was most likely not infected because he’d last filled it up two weeks ago. He'd then parked it in his rental garage space and barely driven it since. He had a pretty good working hypothesis now about exactly what had happened. He’d seen his name in DD’s presentation; he guessed that the men who were in his apartment, contaminating it with p alkanivorax—no, p davisii—that very minute, were after him because they’d seen his name there, too. Amit was no wet-behind-the-ears neophyte; he’d spent his whole life wrangling with corrupt, inept, self-important, bureaucrats of one sort or another: Indian government officials, academic administrators, wages-and-hours inspectors in his role as supervisor, and high-level executive directors in NGOs who only allowed lives to be saved if it enhanced their authority. He’d no desire to become a manipulable implement for them and their blank-eyed lackeys in such a time of emergency. Fingers would certainly be pointing, enmities avenged, and favors called in at premium rates of exchange. Amit had made his career by nimbly and silently evading their grasp; now he just needed to do so literally as well as metaphorically.
XXXVIII.
Unconditional
DD almost hurt herself, so eager was she to jump out of the truck and throw her arms around Jessica. She kept repeating her daughter’s name over and over again, tears streaming down her face. She’d release her, take her by the shoulders, look at her face, run a hand over her short blond hair, break into tears afresh, gibber, “Jessica! Jessica!” and engulf her plump body in a new embrace. This went on for several minutes.
Finally, DD calmed down enough to turn to Jeremy. “This is my daughter,” she began.
“...Jessica.” He wryly finished. “I’m Jeremy. Pleased to meet you.”
“How...why...” began DD.
Jessica gave her the condensed version. “I was living in Austin, working at a blood bank, when the machine sickness hit, Mom. I’m an LPN now. I thought I’d lose my job when the plastic bags of blood and plasma started bursting, so I just walked out the door and kept walking.
“Later on, I figured out what was happening. Once I saw how bad it was everywhere, I headed east. I was going to Tallahassee. I needed to find out what’d happened to you.”
“Why now? Why did you care? After so long?”
“I know it’s been a long time, Mom, and I’m sorry. I've thought so many times about calling you, but I didn’t think you’d want to see me again after everything that happened.”
“Oh, honey! You’re my little girl! You’ll always be my child!” DD shook her head in disbelief. “I admit, I was mad when you disappeared with that low-life. So mad! That is, when I wasn’t worried sick. That was possibly the worst time of my life. I never knew if you were telling the truth or if he was making you say things. I never knew where you were...”
“He was there every moment I was talking to you on the phone. I’m sorry for those things he made me say. I'm sorry I told you—he told you—I hated you and told you to leave me alone, Mom. I’ve thought about that a lot.” Her face twisted with regret. Oh, God, I so want to believe that’s true. The girl can lie, though. All addicts are expert liars. Is she really a licensed practical nurse? Who knows.
“That bastard! Is he...are you still...”
“No, I got away from him about four years ago, a few months after you and I last talked. I went to some friends’ house in Denver and called the cops; he was wanted for breaking probation. He won't be out for a long time.
“Well, so now you’ve found us. What now?” Jeremy sounded a bit reluctant.
Jessica looked from her mother to Jeremy and sized up the situation. She tilted her head and gave her mother a look which said they would have a private discussion later.
DD said, “We’re going to Sutokata. Do you want to come?”
“Where?” Asked Jessica.
“Sutokata. You remember the community I told you about where we used to go when you were very little?” She squatted and scrambled in her shoulder bag on the ground.
“Oh, yeah, I remember. The picture of me...”
“On the goat!” finished DD, popping to her feet and brandishing a faded Kodachrome print of a blond
, pigtailed toddler sitting astride a fat nanny goat and grinning.
“I don’t remember it; I was too little. But sure. It sounds like a good place to be right now.”
Jeremy interjected. “I hate to be a party pooper, but two won’t fit on that bike cab. Especially since we’ve just loaded up with a few more things.”
“Oh, not a problem,” said Jessica perkily. “I’ll wait up for you two to catch up every now and then.” She nodded at a scooter nearby.
“Is it running? Where’d you find gas for it?”
Jessica giggled. “Mom, did you forget who you’re talking to? I modified it to run on ethanol! The carb is a little leaky and I’m not happy with the idle yet, though...”
“Hunh. My daughter the mechanic!” She turned to Jeremy. “She worked as a lawn mower mechanic all summer between her sophomore and junior year of high school.”
“That’s nice, but the liquor stores are starting to look pretty bare,” Jeremy pointed out.
“At least I can always make more ethanol,” said Jessica.
“Your great-grandpa the moonshiner would be proud.” DD grinned.
“I’ve got enough Everclear in the saddlebags to make it a long way, anyway.”
Jeremy, resigning himself to the inevitable hitched his thumbs in his belt loops and touched his baseball cap. Putting on his deepest Foghorn Leghorn, Texas drawl, he said, “Ma’am, it looks like we’ve got us a convoy!”
XXXIX.
Door Closes, Window Opens
Amit was quite exhausted by the time he reached the Walgreen’s at the corner of Roosevelt, a block from the river. He’d gotten no sleep that night, except for brief drowsing-off at the keyboard, and he was acutely aware that a man in his late 60s shouldn’t treat himself this way.
Eupocalypse Box Set Page 14