Seed

by Michael Edelson

  “No, it doesn’t,” Barbara agreed. “This is getting spooky.”

  “Alex!” Patrick shouted. “Look over here!”

  Looking where he pointed, Alex noticed some color through the well manicured trees near the shore. As they approached, they saw a pile of rubble in a clearing past the trees. It looked like the remains of a house, or perhaps the supplies to build one. Cracked slate roof tiles were scattered over two-by-fours and other building lumber. Assorted paper trash littered the site, flapping in the wind. Everything was covered in a thin layer of dust that extended well past the house.

  “Looks like someone was going to build a house,” Tom said. “But decided to dump the materials in a pile instead.” Alex frowned. It was another disappointment. Not only was this place inhabited and utterly mundane save for a few oddities, it seemed that it was also affected by the ever deepening economic recession. Abandoned building projects were all too common in Barstow, the town in which he had sought refuge from the dreariness of life in Fort Irwin.

  “Hard times,” Barbara commented, echoing his thoughts. “Maybe they stole the nails to save on construction costs before abandoning it.”

  “Hello,” Alex said, noticing some familiar patterns on a flap of paper lodged under a piece of lumber. “What’s this?” He walked over to the pile and extracted the torn half of a map.

  Yael was next to him in an instant. “What is it?”

  “Part of a map,” he said, turning it right side up.

  “A map of what?”

  “Kauai,” he said, reading the legend. “Hawaii. I guess it’s one of the islands.”

  “That’s it!” Tom said excitedly. “That’s where I saw this place before! On a travel channel show about Hawaii!”

  “So we’re in Hawaii?” Barbara asked. “Where is everyone?”

  “Hang on,” Alex said. “Just because this is a map of Hawaii doesn’t mean we’re in Hawaii. Tom, are you certain that this is the place you saw, exactly this place?”

  “Well,” Tom said, scratching his head. “Not like sure sure. It just looks very familiar.”

  “Let’s see then,” Alex said as he studied the map. The topography matched, at least superficially, as did the ocean, considering the fact that Kauai was an island. It was impossible to judge the contours of the coast, but considering where the sun had set and risen, if they were on Kauai then they would be on the north coast. There was a road that circled half the island, and if this was that island, then heading south would take them to that road very quickly. According to the map, the entire island was just over twenty miles in diameter.

  “We can find out,” he said. “By heading inland. If we’re on the eastern half of the island, then there should be a highway less than a mile south of here. If it’s the western half, then there should be some sort of road just through those trees. Let’s move out.”

  “There are lots of trails here,” Yael said. “We should be able to follow one of them to the road, if it’s there.”

  “Let’s do that,” he said, and walked to the nearest southward trail. It led out of the garden and into the jungle, and in about a minute of walking emerged onto a narrow asphalt road barely big enough for two cars to pass each other. A double yellow line separated the lanes, though tire tracks indicated that the boundary was not routinely acknowledged.

  “I’ll be damned,” Alex said. “This could be route 560. We should look for a sign or something.” Suddenly he felt very nervous about their weapons, as though a police car would drive by any second. Of course they wouldn’t get in any real trouble considering their circumstances, but he had gotten used to a certain degree of freedom, and the very thought of police showing up disturbed him. He hoped, though, for Yael’s sake, that they would come. For his parents’ sake too.

  “Which way do we go?” Yael asked him, looking over his shoulder.

  “Good question,” he said. “According to this map, there should be a town of some sort less than two miles east of here, and that would be left.” He noticed something on the map, an asterisk hastily scribbled with a red marker. At the base of the map, also in red marker, were the words “Lanakila Gardens building site.”

  “Lanakila Gardens,” he said. “Weird name.”

  “What?” Barbara said and walked up to look at the map. “Did you say Lanakila Gardens?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “I read about that,” she said. “Or maybe saw it on TV. Can’t remember where.”

  “Travel channel,” Tom said. “Same show. It was some controversial development, condominiums and such. They based the design on those self contained communities they’re building for the middle class in India. Like a miniature luxury city. Locals couldn’t stand it, fought it in the courts and all. I think they finished it late last year.”

  “Okay then,” he said. “That settles it. We head east until we get to where the map says this thing is. Should be pretty big, right? Hard to miss?”

  “Totally,” Tom said. “We should see it long before we’re anywhere near it. Some of the condos were ten stories or more.”

  “Perfect. Let’s go.”

  They started walking east, the ocean still to their left, though they could no longer see it through the trees. Although the turns the road took seemed to match the map, there were no signs of any kind, and they didn’t see or hear any cars.

  “Really, really spooky,” Barbara muttered.

  “Yeah,” Sandi agreed.

  “How are you holding up?” Alex asked Yael as he adjusted his pace to match hers.

  She shrugged. “Okay, I guess. I’m more scared than ever, but I’m not going to fall apart if that’s what you mean.” She grinned at him. “Wouldn’t want to get shot.”

  “Har har,” he said. “So…why scared?”

  “You ever watch the Twilight Zone? Or Outer Limits?”

  “Of course. I love those shows. Old and new.”

  “Me too,” she said, and smiled briefly. “People are always giving me grief for liking the new ones. But anyway, there are a few episodes, I think mostly the old shows, where people wake up and find they’re all alone in the world. There’s also the one where they land on an alien planet but it looks like a town in the middle of America, except there’s no one there.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I feel like that too. I don’t know much about Kauai, but it’s too small to be this deserted. We should have seen at least one car by now. And I don’t think there are any empty beaches when the weather is this nice.”

  “Well there is the dog,” she said.

  “Yeah, there is. But that just means there are some people here, not that this is Hawaii.”

  “Or were.”

  “What?”

  “Were people here,” she explained glumly.

  He didn’t say anything, but he continued to walk next to her as he eyed their surroundings warily. They passed a few more abandoned construction sites like the one they had found at the first clearing, but there was no sign of Lanakila Gardens.

  “Hold up,” Alex said. “We should be there by now.”

  “If so,” Yael said. “We should have been able to see it for quite a while now.”

  “So this isn’t Hawaii?” Tom said, sounding disappointed.

  Alex looked at the map. “Route 560 isn’t very big. The part before the town is only a mile long, and we’ve walked at least that far. It may be Hawaii, but maybe not Kauai.”

  “What the hell do we do now?” Tom asked, sounding irritated.

  “We keep going,” Alex said. “Until we find something.”

  “I think we just did,” Yael said, pointing south towards the jungle. Alex looked where she indicated.

  “Holy shit.”

  They had found Lanakila Gardens, at least what was left of it.

  Chapter 12

  The debris was just visible around a bend in the road up ahead. Everyone started to run until Alex ordered them to slow down and spread out. He approached with his rifle at the ready, swee
ping the area with the muzzle. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he didn’t want to get caught with his pants down.

  As soon as they cleared the bend it came into full view, a massive pile of concrete rubble that stretched for several hundred meters off the right side of the road. More debris littered the left side all the way to the edge of the beach, though not nearly as much as the main pile. The outlines of the foundations were vaguely visible, though the buildings had collapsed in a haphazard pattern, spreading rubble all around the site. Definitely not the work of a demolition crew.

  “Wow,” Tom said. “Guess the locals got really pissed off.” It was an awe inspiring sight. So much destruction, yet the trees and bushes that surrounded it weren’t affected except where a few were struck by falling debris. It was a surreal vista, a juxtaposition of disparate realities—urban disaster meets tropical paradise.

  Alex relaxed and lowered his weapon. “Let’s spread out in groups of two or three, see what we can find. Don’t climb too much, I don’t want anyone breaking a leg. And keep those weapons handy.”

  Yael followed Tom towards the smaller pile by the water while Sandi, Patrick and Ryan headed to the main area. That left Barbara with Alex.

  “So what do you think?” he asked.

  Barbara shrugged. “Earthquake? I saw a show on demolitions and they always get the buildings to collapse straight down, so the damage doesn’t spread. This doesn’t look like that.”

  “Yeah,” Alex agreed. “I was thinking the same thing. Maybe the aborted house sites we passed weren’t aborted.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You build the foundation, then the wooden frame, then put a roof on it. It looks like maybe they got to the roof part and then boom. Earthquake or something.”

  “So you think they were all new developments?” she asked, looking around uncertainly.

  “I guess. Then again, Kauai is a small island, maybe the government just took it over and demolished everything.”

  “Hey Alex,” Tom called from the ocean side of the road. “Take a look at this.”

  “Come on,” Alex said to Barbara. “Let’s go see what he found.”

  Tom was standing on the edge of the debris, holding a chunk of concrete. Yael stood next to him. Her hands were dusty and she was holding two smaller fragments.

  “What’s up?” Alex asked. He didn’t see anything unusual about the concrete.

  “Watch this,” Yael said, motioning with her hand. At her signal, Tom dug his fingers into the concrete, trying to break it. It crumbled easily, disintegrating into dozens of small chunks and dust that fell at Tom’s feet.

  “So much for building codes,” Alex said. “Either that or I want to know what you’ve been eating.”

  “Yeah,” Tom agreed. “I wonder what made it like this. It couldn’t have been built out of this crap or they couldn’t have stacked it more than a single story before it collapsed. It feels like dried up packing foam, but it’s obviously concrete.”

  “I dunno,” Alex said. “If it had a good steel frame they could have built it out of Play-Doh. This stuff might just be insulation or exterior décor, like stucco or something.”

  “I guess,” Tom agreed, though he didn’t sound convinced.

  “We’re thinking earthquake,” Barbara said. “Though who knows what could have caused it.”

  “Yeah,” Alex agreed, then noticed something in the distance. “Check that out,” he said, pointing. There were three boats about fifty meters off the beach, moored to floating balls. One was a ratty sailboat, mastless and with a patchwork hull and boarded cabin windows. A bit further out was a big motor boat, probably an old cruising vessel. It was about fifty feet long, run down and in desperate need of a paint job. Closest to shore was a power boat with two outboard motors, apparently new and draped in a canvas boat cover. It floated on some sort of inflated cushion that kept the hull dry.

  “Those are the first normal things we’ve seen,” Barbara said, staring at the boats.

  “What are those balls they’re tied to?” Alex asked.

  “Mooring buoys,” Barbara explained. “They’re attached to anchors on the bottom. Boats tie up to them. It’s a cheaper way to store your boat, safer too. See those pylons?”

  Alex looked and saw wooden pillars sticking out of the ocean. They started near the edge of the rubble and extended about thirty feet into the water.

  “Yeah, I see them.”

  “They’re what’s left of a marina. There were probably floating docks attached to them. Whatever it was that destroyed the condominiums got that too.”

  “There are a lot more balls,” Alex said. “They look ratty though.” The three buoys with the boats tied to them looked new, while all the others were so frayed they were barely visible above the water’s surface.

  “I guess those didn’t make it,” Tom said.

  “Can an earthquake do that?” Alex asked. “Destroy floating docks?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” Barbara admitted. “I don’t know anything about earthquakes. Anyone else maybe?”

  “Not me,” Tom said.

  Yael shook her head.

  “So much for that,” Alex said. “You think that little one will run?” he asked Barbara, pointing to the twin engine power boat. “It looks new.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I see no reason why not, as long as it has gas. Why, do you want to go somewhere?”

  Alex nodded. “Now that I’m pretty sure this is indeed Kauai, I wanna go to Honolulu. I’m not sure which island it’s on, though. Maybe one of those boats will have a map or something.”

  “Why Honolulu?” Yael asked. Alex heard the hope in her voice. If they were going to find people anywhere, it would be Hawaii’s biggest city.

  “You know why,” he said. “I don’t even want to speculate about anything until we see what’s going on over there. There are like a million people living in Honolulu, it’s not some remote ass island like this one.”

  “Alex, what if…” Yael started.

  “Don’t,” Alex said. “No point. If that boat runs, we’re going there, and we’ll see soon enough.” He turned to Tom and Barbara. “Now then, let’s see what the other group found, shall we?”

  They made their way back to the road, where the others were standing together, looking at something one of them was holding.

  “Whatcha got?” Alex asked. Sandi turned and handed him a dress, red flowers on white. It was torn, dirty and blood stained. The blood was dark brown, turning gray in places.

  “We found this in the rubble,” she said.

  “Fuck,” Alex said. “Now we know there were people in these buildings.” He looked around, a bit less comfortable than he was a moment ago.

  “The dress isn’t damaged,” Barbara said. “We don’t even know if that’s human blood. Or even blood at all. Though from what I can tell, it is. Blood that is. I can’t tell from what.”

  “Good point,” Alex said. “Maybe you can run some tests once we get back. In the mean time, I don’t want to stay here any longer than we have to. Who wants to go for a swim?”

  “What?” Patrick asked. “A swim?”

  “Those boats,” Barbara explained. “We’re going to take one to Honolulu.”

  “No time to babble about it,” Alex said, eager to leave this place and what he now knew to be buried in the rubble. “Someone needs to swim out there and get that boat to shore. Any takers? I’d go, but the only thing I know about boats is that they are wet on the bottom.”

  “I’ll go,” Barbara said quickly. “I’m good with boats. If it runs, I can get it started and off that float.”

  “Good.”

  They went down to the debris littered beach and waited while Barbara stripped down to her underwear. Alex tried not to stare, but it wasn’t easy. She was in very good shape. As she walked into the water, he hefted his rifle and scanned the ocean nervously, looking for sharks. Alex loved to swim, but growing up in Upstate New York he didn�
�t get to spend a lot of time at the beach. He was a lake and river man, and salt water and its accompanying vastness made him nervous. Objectively he knew it wasn’t very deep where she was, but with the ocean one never knew for certain.

  She made it to the boat quickly and climbed onto the flotation cushion. Seeing her next to it put the boat’s size into perspective, and it was bigger than it looked from shore, maybe thirty feet. Alex watched her unzip the tarp and climb inside, where she spent several minutes looking around and checking things. There was no cabin, but the open deck surrounding the enclosed central console was quite big, more than enough for all of them. She lowered both outboard motors into the water with the push of a button. Alex heard the whine of hydraulic motors over the gentle lapping of the waves. The ocean was calm and the sky a clear blue with a few white clouds rolling lazily southward.

  Barbara let loose some lines and did something to the float that deflated it half way, then stood behind the control console. Alex heard the twin Yamaha motors turn over, hesitate a bit, then finally start. White smoke drifted on the breeze, accompanied by a noxious smell. The motors gurgled and grumbled noisily, stirring up the water. After waiting a few minutes, Barbara pulled back on the throttle and the boat shuddered and started to move backwards, and within seconds it slid off the float and was drifting on the water, rocking gently.

  “I forgot about the rocking,” Alex said glumly, putting a hand on his stomach. “I hate boats.” Rowboats on placid lakes were about the extent of his experience, and his tolerance.

  Barbara pointed the boat at the beach and approached slowly. As the hull touched the sandy bottom, she cut the engines and raised them out of the water.

  “All aboard!” she shouted.

  Alex sighed. “Let’s go. Take off your boots and socks and roll up your pants…keep your footwear dry.” There was no way into the boat without walking into the water, but at least she had gotten it close enough to the shore that nothing above their knees would get wet, unless a large wave managed to make it to the beach.