by Ike Hamill
Tim sighed and let the canoe drift toward the center.
It was deep in the center. He couldn’t see anything of the bottom, even though the water was clear.
He glanced up at the sky. It was the wrong time of day to fish, but it was worth a shot. He put a spinner on his line and let it drop until he figured it was down into the darkness. Fishing helped to calm him. The sun was too hot to stay in the center of the lake though. He paddled over toward the shade and found a spot to drop his line where the bottom seemed to drop off. Eventually he made a bobber out of one of the cork stoppers he had pulled from a jug.
Tim sighed and leaned back in the canoe. For some, this would be heaven. He had a quiet lake, a sound canoe, a fishing pole, and nothing but time. His bad foot was propped up on the edge. As long as he kept it still, it didn’t ache too badly. There was some bitter powder in one of the bottles from the attic. He thought it might be pain reliever, but he was too chicken to try a substantial dose. Back at the Outpost, one of the chemists had come up with a decent tea that would cure any headache. Aspirin was just as good, in Tim’s opinion. He had a bottle of it in his backpack, wherever that was.
Some people said that the salicylic acid in the bottles of aspirin had lost its effectiveness over the years, but Tim didn’t think so. Either it worked fine, or it was just a placebo. Honestly, he didn’t care which was true.
When the first fish struck, he was finally thinking about nothing at all. The fish he had caught the evening before had been tiny. The thing on his line now was dragging the whole canoe. Tim fought it until he saw the scales flash. He had an urge to cut the line. The fish reminded him of the river monsters that they had battled. The idea of having those gnashing teeth in his little canoe was unsettling. When he saw it again, he realized that it was only a trout. He reeled it in eagerly and then scooped it up with the net.
It looked like a trout, but it wasn’t. The fins and the mouth were right, but it had a one bright green and one blue circle behind the gills that he had never seen before. Instead of turning for shore, he put the fish on a stringer to see if he could get lucky again. The first fish was big enough to smoke and dry. He wasn’t so hungry that he needed to eat the whole thing right then—it would be good to store some provisions for later. Dried fish could be stored for quite a while.
His instinct was right—Tim caught another before long. This was even bigger than the first. When he had caught his third, he figured it was time to head back.
He cleaned the fish on the dock and wrapped up the fillets in a cloth so he could carry them with one hand. The trip back to the cabin seemed almost easy compared to his efforts at dragging the canoe. There was some twine in the attic. He hadn’t brought it down at the time, but now that he thought about it, it might come in useful. With his knife, he thought that he could whittle down some pieces of wood to turn his walking stick into a crutch. With it wedged under his armpit, he would be able to put more weight on it. Maybe he would even be able to walk downhill through the woods.
Tim looked up at the cabin as he walked.
He caught his breath when he looked up at the open door to the attic. The ladder was slightly askew from where he had left it. There was something moving around up there.
Chapter 52: Robby
They had all the trucks lined up in the center of town. Under floodlights, everyone worked. Carrie had a clipboard and she was making note of all the supplies as they loaded them. Most of the town was working to pack food and provisions into the crates. Robby watched his kids work together to lift and carry a crate full of zucchini to one of the trucks. They wouldn’t eat the stuff unless Lisa shredded it and baked it into bread but at least they were helping out by carrying it.
Carrie came over to Robby.
“So, we’re a ‘yes’ on pets, but what about large animals? Are we going to be able to effectively house them, or should we put them out to pasture?”
Robby sighed and put his hands on his hips. “I’m not sure. We haven’t heard back yet from the guys. Let’s leave them where they are for the moment and make the decision after the first loads are taken.”
Carrie nodded. “Logistically, I think you’re right. I’m wondering if it sends the wrong message psychologically?”
“Hmm,” Robby murmured. “Yeah, you have a point. Some people are really attached to their animals. I’ll see if Mike can round up some trailers and we’ll take them to the old ranch, okay? There is shelter there and plenty of grazing. They’ll be safe there.”
“Better,” Carrie said. “I’ll send people your way. A piece of advice though? Try to act like you believe it. Your poker face is a little thin tonight.”
“Got it,” Robby said.
He moved quickly to find Mike so he could start the conversation before any of the animal keepers caught up with him. They had assembled their herds slowly and bred them meticulously over the years to try to recover lost species. They now had cows, horses, sheep, and a few goats. Back in the early days, each time they found a live animal, they were almost treated with more care than people. Dr. Matthew was called away from more than one sick bed to go tend to a cow that someone had just rescued from an abandoned pasture. If they gave up on the animals now, people might panic at how desperate the situation had become.
Robby didn’t want to risk that. Panicked people were unpredictable. He needed everyone working together in a predictable way.
“We’re going to be okay, right?” a man asked as Robby walked by the truck he was loading.
He gave only a nod and a thumbs up and kept moving.
Mike was near the head of the line, talking about potential fuel stops with a driver who was studying maps.
“You’ve heard something about the destination?” Robby asked Mike. The two moved to the side so they could talk in private.
“No,” Mike said, “but I figure it has to be north, so we covered a couple of possible routes. All the good bunkers that Merle found were north. Why would they do that? Why wouldn’t they put the bunkers so close to the border?”
“Away from the city,” Robby said. “If they were fallout shelters.”
Mike nodded.
Corinna jogged up. “Any word?”
“Nothing yet,” Robby said.
“Is all the wheat bagged and loaded?” Mike asked.
“Yeah,” Corinna said. “The last of it is going on now. Am I going south?”
“I can’t ask you to,” Robby said. “I’ve queued the message. It will be delivered as soon as the Outpost restores the connection.”
“Assuming that they can,” Mike said.
“I’ll go,” Corinna said. “You know how I hate to stand around waiting for something to happen. I’d rather be riding south.”
“I would go with you if I could,” Robby said. “But the kids.”
“Don’t worry about it. Hey, as far as we know, you guys are going to be crushed under tons of dirt to die a horrible death, right?” Corinna asked with a merry smile.
Robby and Mike were both silent for a bit. The image was too real for Robby—he had been in one of the government bunkers under the ranch.
Mike finally broke the silence with a laugh.
Robby smiled eventually.
“If you find them, tell them about what we’ve seen here and that it might be safer underground?” Robby asked.
“Sure. I’m going to leave right away,” Corinna said.
“You have the most recent map?” Mike asked.
Robby walked away from the conversation. He climbed the little hill in the yard of a nearby house and turned to look at the line of trucks. In a moment’s notice, they had rallied all the residents and explained the emergency. It wasn’t something they had practiced for, but the efficiency of the response was staggering. One thing these people knew was how to act in an emergency. They had been selected for it. Maybe it was random chance who had survived the first calamity, but all the people who had survived the decades in between then and now were capable, hear
ty people. They could adjust and recalibrate, and the children that they had raised were of the same ilk.
“Hey,” Corinna said, climbing the hill to stand next to him.
“I didn’t want to say goodbye,” Robby said. “I didn’t want to formally say goodbye.”
“It’s going to be okay,” she said, “I’m going to be fine. I’ll get the message down there so when Ashley and Lisa come back they’ll be fine as well.”
Robby looked down from the headlights of the trucks. His swimming eyes had turned the lights into glittering diamonds.
“You’re the one who is taking all the risk,” he said. “I should be comforting you.”
“This is my thing,” Corinna said. “I thrive on this. That’s one thing I have always missed about living in the city. I always missed the sense of menace. It would drive me crazy to go hide out underground, waiting for this bullshit to pass.”
“I hope we’re just waiting,” Robby said. “Listen, once you deliver that message, don’t try to get back here, okay? They’ll put together a plan quickly. There are good limestone caves down that way, and I know that they’ve scouted them already. Get yourself safe and stay put, no matter how bored you are.”
Corinna laughed at him.
Robby barely heard the sound. He was focused on the truck at the end of the line. The headlights shut off. A moment later, he saw someone fall to the ground.
“Go. Now,” Robby said.
Corinna understood immediately. She ran away from the line of trucks. Robby hoped that her motorcycle was in that direction. He didn’t have time to make sure that she was going to be okay. As Robby ran down the hill, the headlights of the second truck were extinguished. His kids were carrying a box toward the fifth truck from the rear.
Someone screamed.
All around him, people were going down. The line of trucks shut off one by one. The outage started from the back and picked up speed. Jim and Janelle were so focused on carrying their box that they didn’t see the unfolding calamity around them.
“Kids!” Robby yelled as he closed the distance to them. “Run!”
They both looked up at him as the lights of the truck behind them went out. They were in darkness. It wasn’t clear what Robby should tell them to run toward. The wave of collapsing people was going to overtake them regardless of what direction they moved.
There was just enough light for him to see it hit them. Janelle’s hands let go of the box and moved up toward her throat. He could only imagine what she was feeling. The thought of his daughter in pain hit him deep in the gut, making Robby want to collapse himself. He kept running, hoping there was something he could do to help. Jim dropped the box and lurched backwards. He was trying to run, but he was too late. Whatever had dropped the others had taken him down too.
Only a couple of paces away from his children, Robby was hit as well. The feeling came on like a vice squeezing down on his head. His ears popped and his lungs wouldn’t work to take in another breath. The strength ran out of his legs. That part was the same sensation as what he had felt in the abandoned house with Corinna. The other symptoms felt new.
His momentum carried him forward as the world began to dim before his eyes. Robby felt his knee smack down on the curb and the numb jolt shudder up through his leg before his senses completely shut down. The last thing he saw was Janelle. She had collapsed with her hands to her throat. Her bulging eyes were focused on nothing at all.
Robby came back to consciousness to the sound of shouts and screams. The engine of the truck behind him roared to life. The lights came on, blinding him for a moment. Just out of reach, Jim was sitting on the pavement, slowly picking up onions and dropping them back into the crate. His eyes suggested that there was no thought behind the action. Jim seemed barely aware of what he was doing.
Robby spun to find Janelle. She was coughing and gagging. He tried to reach a hand toward her and realized that his arm was pinned beneath himself. Flopping and rolling, he woke up his limbs and pushed himself up. The truck was rolling forward, right toward the kids.
He screamed. Words wouldn’t form, but he screamed.
Robby grabbed Janelle’s shirt and Jim’s outstretched leg. He pulled until they came with him. The three of them spilled back onto the grass as the driver ground the gears and the truck lurched forward. The truck smashed the crate of onions and veered out of line before it roared off.
All around them, people were coming to life and fleeing. Some people gained their wits more quickly than others. They barked orders, trying to get everyone back to the job of loading the trucks so they could escape with their provisions. It wasn’t working. Most of the people that Robby saw were simply running away. They were survivors. When things got truly desperate, survivors fled. He hated them for it, but he couldn’t blame them.
“Come on,” Robby said to his kids. “We have to get in one of these trucks and go north.”
“The onions,” Jim said.
“We’ll grow more. Let’s go.”
He got the kids up, inspected them quickly for injuries, and started to move toward the head of the line. Up front, several busses were parked. Next to those, they had passenger vans that were outfitted with CB radios. Robby could use one of those to contact Jackson and Merle, if they ever came up from underground. If he couldn’t get in touch, he was just going to have to find one of the emergency bunkers on his own. Mike had given him a map, circling the areas where he thought Merle had been searching.
Up ahead, Carrie had managed to calm some of the people down. She was doing her best to coordinate the rest of the effort with the remaining people.
“Don’t worry,” she said to Robby as he approached, “we’ll get everything back underway once people calm down a bit.”
“I’m not sure we should,” Robby said. “If it happened once, it can happen again. Maybe we take what we have and move out?”
“To where?”
“North. If we get closer to where Merle is, maybe we can get in touch,” he said. It was an optimistic version of what he actually believed.
“Yeah, okay,” Carrie said.
“I’ll lead the way,” Robby said. “We don’t all have to take the same route. We can stay in touch by radio.”
“And if we’re not all on the same route, it could reduce the risk,” she said.
Robby nodded.
At her signal, the remaining group began to close the backs of the big trucks and pile in. They were somewhat orderly in their exit. A couple of minor accidents—dented corners and grinding bumpers—happened when impatient drivers tried to jump the line. Robby herded his kids up on the lawn of a nearby house until it was safe to go back to the road. He checked Jim and Janelle again, to make sure they were okay. They were so quiet. Their wide eyes took in all the panic around them.
His notion of leading the way was shot. Half the trucks were already gone.
When he saw a safe opportunity, he pointed to a van and they ran. They piled in and waved over Mike and Sariah, who had been left behind.
“Thanks,” Mike said. When the door was shut, Robby took off. They could have fit a couple more people, but Robby wasn’t willing to wait any longer.
“We were supposed to ride in the truck with all the equipment, but Phil took off,” Sariah said.
“There are enough vehicles. I think everyone will make it out,” Mike said, spinning in his seat. “Take a left up here.”
Robby followed the directions from the back seat. Mike guided them through a series of turns down questionable roads. In a few places, Robby had to veer up on dirt tracks that led through lawns in order to navigate around bad sections of roads. The shortcut worked though. When they reached the highway, there was nobody in front of them even though they had been slow getting out of Donnelly.
“I hope they’re going north,” Mike said. “A lot of those people keep safe houses up in the mountains. I hope they’re not being stupid.”
“Safe houses?” Jim asked.
“
Donnelly has a history of people being frightened by communicable diseases,” Robby explained. “Back when the community was first started, the first flu that ran through made people think that the world was going to end again. A lot of people ran away, living alone until they could be convinced that they were stronger staying together.”
“Mr. Burkhart said that’s why we have school vacation in the winter,” Jim said.
“He’s right—it used to be,” Sariah said. “They would take a winter break and it would slow the progression of any viruses that spread through the students. I don’t know that it helps now though. Seems to me that all the kids get together regardless of whether they have class or not.”
“Try the radio, would you?” Robby asked Janelle. She was sitting in the passenger’s seat.
His youngest daughter loved to use the CB back at home. She would contact the house and let Lisa know when they were coming home. She would call when Romie was out on one of her long bike trips, even though Romie never bothered to answer. Now, she turned it on and set it to scan. She paused it on nine, fourteen, and nineteen. When they didn’t hear anything, Janelle shook her head and punched it back to channel nine.
“You want me to call?”
“No,” Robby said. “Put it on thirty six.”
“That’s just junk.”
She was both right and wrong. In the communities, they used channel thirty-six as a slow backup channel for data. Tuning a radio to listen in was like listening to an earful of constantly breaking glass. It was not somewhere that people paused. Now, as they moved away from town, the sound was diminishing as they got out of range.
“I’m pretty sure that Merle will have a link in his truck. If it’s running, we might pick it up,” Robby said.
“He does,” Mike said from the back. “Merle likes to stay in touch even though he pretends to be out of touch.”
“It will be crude, but maybe we can use it to tell when we’re getting closer to them,” Robby said.
