At first the sludge had been a minor inconvenience, preventing them from simply shuffling along the sidewalk and forcing them to step more deliberately to avoid filling their shoes with the slimy concoction of sand, dirt and sea foam. A few blocks into the tsunami zone, they quickly sank to their ankles, removing dry feet from the very short list of remaining comforts. Upon exiting the neighborhood and reaching the stretch of Highland Avenue flanked by the forest preserve, the mud had reached the middle of Kate’s shins, turning the hike into a nightmare.
With the midday sun beating down on her, the past three-quarters of a mile had been difficult physically and mentally. The stagnant sheet of thickening muck had grown deeper, sometimes reaching their knees. The closer they got to their neighborhood, the slower they moved toward their goal of getting to Ryan. Every mud-encrusted, strained footstep stood between Kate and her son.
Standing at the corner of Harrison Road and Highland Avenue, she was thankful to see that all of the houses in the Harrison Hill area appeared intact. With this positive thought in mind, she mentally shelved her grudge against the backpack and trudged forward through the knee-high slop toward their house a few blocks away.
***
Alex watched Kate stop and exhale at the intersection. She stepped off in the direction of their neighborhood, without bothering to glance at the lifeless fire station on the opposite side of the street. He knew what was bothering her, aside from the fact that their son was alone and over a hundred miles away in a heavily populated urban center. She was singly focused on throwing her backpack to the ground on their front steps. He should have known better, especially since he’d humped similar packs for hundreds of miles after 9/11. The assault pack had taken a toll on him as well. The pack he’d chosen had a reputation for extreme discomfort, which he had conveniently forgotten until heaving the contraption on his back at the Coast Guard station.
His shoulders had started to chafe several minutes into the hike, when his sweat-soaked cotton T-shirt ceased to provide any kind of useful barrier between his skin and the thick nylon shoulder straps. Three and a half hours later, he wouldn’t be surprised to see bone protruding from his shoulders, but he didn’t dare show the first sign of wincing or whining. Kate hadn’t complained at all, despite the fact that she looked utterly miserable. For her first “forced” road march, she’d exceeded all expectations, leaving Alex humbled. Kate was living proof that the Department of Defense’s decision to lift the Combat Exclusion Rules had been long overdue.
Amazingly, neither Emily nor Ethan had grumbled about the hike. He hadn’t heard much from them at all, which left him puzzled. They whispered back and forth, but beyond that, they had both gone silent early in the trip. He’d tried to get them talking, but it seemed futile. They appeared slightly catatonic, and their responses were delayed. He was worried that they might be dehydrated, but they’d both consumed nearly three liters of water before reaching the top of Highland Avenue. Kate was convinced they were in some mild form of shock from the morning’s events, which served to intensify their “teen distancing” syndrome. Whatever it was, they kept going, which was all he could ask from them at this point.
“Nobody at the fire station?” he asked.
“I guess not,” mumbled Kate. “How much water damage do you think we have?”
“Based on the high-water mark here and the fact that most small trees have been knocked down, I’d guess that our basement is completely flooded—and our first floor has been wiped clean.”
“There’s a lot more standing water here—and mud. It didn’t look this bad back up Highland,” she said.
“We’re almost a mile closer to the beach at this point,” he said.
“Everything’s been stripped away. This is unbelievable.”
He stared down Harrison Road and saw the proverbial “forest for the trees.” Aside from the houses, larger trees and utility poles, the landscape had been completely denuded by the tsunami, replaced by a foot and a half deep layer of mud and ubiquitous, randomly scattered piles of debris.
Across the street, he spotted another gray, Town of Scarborough trash bin. They’d seen several along Highland Ave over the past thirty minutes, where evidence of a stronger wave surge became evident. He knew the bins hadn’t originated from any of the neighborhoods in Harrison Hill. Trash day was Thursday for this part of town. He’d also seen roofing tiles and splintered sections of cedar siding buried in the mud or stuck in the lower branches of the trees of the forest preserve. A tattered lobster trap lay on the left side of the street, half buried in silt a few feet away from an overturned neon green plastic bucket. The entire landscape was littered with these bizarrely juxtaposed confirmations that humanity had been violently upended further down the line. The tsunami must have obliterated the beach communities.
Fifteen excruciating minutes later, they had reached Everett Lane, one street from Durham Road. Everett ran parallel to Durham and led to a small park nestled into the forest preserve abutting the neighborhoods. Alex wondered if a less conspicuous approach to their house might be a better idea under the circumstances. He didn’t feel like parading down the street, attracting everyone’s attention. Most of the neighbors would look to him for advice, and he couldn’t afford to get bogged down.
If his suspicions were correct, he faced an extremely tight timeframe to rescue his son. In less than a microsecond, this morning’s EMP burst had permanently disabled the United States’ essential services infrastructure, far exceeding the damage and impact caused by the slow burn of the Jakarta Pandemic. In 2013, it took several weeks of food and water shortages before the riots spiraled out of control, and most people still had electricity! Cities burned, and hundreds of thousands of deaths were attributed to the violence and chaos that ensued. For New England, the extreme winter weather had been a blessing and a curse. The cold undoubtedly killed thousands, but it drove all but the most hardcore to seek shelter, extinguishing the civil rampage that burned entire cities to the ground in the south.
He predicted a forty-eight to seventy-two hour lull in the tightly packed urban and city areas. The pandemic of 2013 had taught the population a thing or two about survival, which would delay the chaos long enough for him to execute a search-and-rescue mission deep into the heart of Boston. “Prepping” took off on an epic scale in the wake of the Jakarta Pandemic, but like every other morning-show-fueled craze, it faded from the greater public consciousness and vanished from the everyday lexicon of most Americans. Thirty-day food and water stashes were slowly incorporated into the household grocery regimen, and sealed buckets of dehydrated food were raided for family camping trips or backyard tenting adventures. Even with this erosion, nobody could deny the fact that the nation was collectively better prepared today than in 2013. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be enough to weather the storm gathering on the immediate horizon.
The “grab and go” survival buckets and two-week stockpiles were designed to alleviate the pressing demands on the food supply system. To bridge the gap, giving the government and food supply distributors time to reallocate current inventories and direct the release of strategic food reserves. Based on the fact that Alex had seen a grand total of five cars on the road in three hours, he wasn’t optimistic about the immediate future.
He gave it two days until the collective masses realized that nobody could flip the switch and turn America back on. When this realization took hold, memories of the suffering and misery endured during the darkest hours of the Jakarta Pandemic would flood to the surface, fueling the greatest breakdown in United States history. He wanted to be far from Boston, or any urban area, when that started.
“Honey, let’s turn on Everett and sneak in through backyards. We’ll pass fewer houses that way.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Kate said, taking a step forward and stopping.
“Mother ffffffuuuuh,” she hissed.
Alex saw that her left foot had emerged from the mud without the shoe. At least she couldn’t blame him
for the shoe selection. He’d suggested packing waterproof hiking boots for the sailing trip, but she’d overruled his decision, opting for more comfortable running or cross-training shoes. Her choice made sense, if you didn’t have to fight through knee-high mud. He took her right arm and steadied her while she dug through the muck for her shoe.
“These things are useless at this point,” she said, leaning against him to use both hands to retie the shoe.
“They’re protecting our feet from a puncture or cut. That’s about it. We’re almost there, my love. Twenty minutes,” he said.
“More like thirty at this rate,” she said, finishing with her shoe.
He kissed the back of her moist neck, tasting her salty sweat. “You’re doing an amazing job. If it weren’t for you, the kids would be sitting in the mud on the side of the road a mile back,” he whispered.
She turned and kissed him briefly on the lips. “That’s all I needed to hear to keep me going for the rest of the day,” she said, flashing the first genuine smile he’d seen from her all morning.
“All right then, let’s bring this crazy train home. Kids, I want you guys up here,” said Alex, motioning with his hands for them to fill the gap between him and Kate.
“Why?” said Emily.
“So I can watch over you. Come on. Let’s go.”
“It’s just our neighborhood,” she said, with a hint of teen condescension.
Alex faked a smile and mumbled under his breath, “Yeah. That’s what I’m worried about.”
PART II
“DURHAM ROAD”
Chapter 14
EVENT +08:37 Hours
Scarborough, Maine
Alex held the rucksack over his head with both hands and pushed through the chest-high mess that filled the water runoff ditch. A similar ditch ran parallel to his backyard on the other side of the neighborhood, emptying into the same retention pond east of the loop. He could only assume that the retention pond had been instantaneously filled by the initial tsunami wave, rendering the entire runoff system useless. He climbed out of the soupy mud, trailing thick strands of seaweed. Neither Kate nor the kids looked eager to step down into the light brown slush. He dropped his pack in the mud at his feet and slid down to the edge of the water.
“There has to be a better way to do this,” Kate said.
“You can walk around to the front of the neighborhood and say hi to everyone on the way in,” said Alex.
She shook her head and swung her backpack around, hesitating to take the plunge.
“Don’t worry,” Alex said, smiling, “the water’s warm.”
“Very funny,” Kate said, then mumbled, “I’ve heard that before.”
She stepped down into the water, quickly sinking to her waist, then the top of her neck. She teetered trying to keep the rucksack in the air, nearly toppling into the water. Alex really hoped that didn’t happen. Normally, he might find the idea of Kate falling unexpectedly into water utterly hilarious, and if the circumstances were right, he’d consider facilitating the situation. This wasn’t one of those times. She didn’t look the least bit amused with the situation.
“Are you going to stand there and watch me sink in to my eyebrows, or maybe help me with this pack?”
“I hadn’t decided yet.” Alex smirked. After a short pause, he waded into the water and grabbed her pack.
“That’s yours now, by the way. I’m done with that piece of shit,” she said, scrambling up the side of the ditch.
He broke into laughter. “You’re lucky I don’t throw you back in the water.”
“You can try.”
“I’ll ferry the rest of the packs across,” Alex offered. “I didn’t realize the water would come up so high on you—though I was really hoping there for a second.”
“If I had fallen in, you would be in the deepest shit you’ve ever been in.”
Alex heaved the last pack up to Kate and helped Emily out of the water, pulling her with both hands. He was surprised by the difficulty the group experienced crossing the small ditch. The five-mile hike in the blistering sun had pretty much sapped all of their energy, turning the simple act of crossing a waist-deep ditch into a chore. The water had felt good, though he had never once considered jumping into any of the standing water seen along their route. Hiking in wet pants and shoes was a recipe for disastrous chafing and blisters. Only the promise of dry clothing at the very end of their hike had drawn him across the ditch. He felt a pair of hands on his back.
“You wouldn’t dare,” he said, without turning around.
“Maybe another day. The water felt good, though,” Kate said, pulling him by his left hand.
“It did feel good, even though my pants are filled with mud.”
A minute later, they stepped onto the mud-swept street. The storm drain in front of the Murrays’ old house gushed dirty water onto the street, creating a shallow swamp that covered the street in front of several houses and crept up the driveways. Between the houses, the entire neighborhood resembled a mudflat, littered with downed trees, seaweed, and persistently scattered debris, complete with a small lake forming at the northeastern edge.
He didn’t see anyone standing outside, which struck him as odd. For some reason, he’d expected more activity, but the neighborhood was quiet except for the excited chatter of several birds. He kept forgetting that the wave had hit them over six hours ago. By now, most of them would be exhausted from a combination of fear, stress, heat and humidity. He hoped they stayed inside for the rest of the day. By tomorrow, he would be long gone.
Alex looked up the northern side of the Durham Road loop toward the top of the development. Water pumped less forcefully from the other storm drains he could observe, creating rivulets through the mud that fed the street pond. He stared in awe at the new landscape. Aside from the obvious orientation of the houses, there was nothing to indicate he was standing on a road. Something shifted in the pond, catching their attention. He knew what it was before anyone spoke.
“Is that…a body?” asked Kate.
“I think so. Let’s keep everyone moving. Don’t stop for—”
“Alex! Alex! Thank God almighty you’re here!” yelled Charlie Thornton from his front porch a few houses away.
Dressed in Vietnam-era, tiger-striped camouflage, clutching an overaccessorized AR-15-style rifle, Charlie sprinted down the granite stairs leading off his farmer’s porch. He grazed the light post to the left of his red-brick walkway with his left shoulder, nearly tumbling into the mud, and stomped through the slush across two lawns. He screamed their names, along with something about Chinese paratroopers. So much for a stealthy entry.
“I need this like a hole in the head right now,” mumbled Alex. “Take the kids home, and start filling containers with tap water. Bathtubs, glasses, coolers, anything that’ll hold water. I’ll be right there.”
“You’re alive! You made it! We’ve got a fucking invasion on our hands. I’ll get you a rifle—hold on. Bring everyone up to the house. We’re totally screwed, Alex. This is what we’ve been preparing for! Christ, what the hell happened to you? Looks like you stepped on a landmine. Hi, Kate,” said Charlie in a rapid-fire, adrenaline-induced stream of words.
“Hey, Charlie,” she responded and immediately turned to Alex. “I’ll see you at the house, honey.”
“Wait! Let me get you some weapons,” said Charlie.
“I think they can make it to our house without an armed escort. I’ll be right there, honey. Is the safety engaged on your rifle, Charlie?”
“Why does everyone always ask me about the safety?” Charlie asked, furtively thumbing the safety switch.
Alex put a hand on Charlie’s right shoulder. “Because I could see from thirty feet away that it wasn’t on, and you just bounced off a light post with your finger on the trigger. Good to see you, by the way. Is everyone all right in your house?”
“Uh, yeah, everyone is fine. The wave scared the shit out of the girls, but it didn’t tear through my
house like the rest,” said Charlie.
“Anyone we know?” said Alex, motioning to the body stuck in the street pond.
“I don’t think so. Nobody in the neighborhood is missing. That one must have been completely buried in the mud until the water dislodged it. It’s not the first. We cleared a few out of the drainage ditches, and I hear that the Carters found one against the back of their house.”
“We saw bodies in the harbor, but none on the road. How is your basement?” Alex asked, knowing the answer.
“Completely flooded,” Charlie replied. “Came in through the shattered cellar windows in back. I hauled a lot of stuff up when I saw that glow in the sky to the west and our cars wouldn’t start. Mostly weapons and our bug-out bags. We’ve been hit by an EMP blast. That’s why I’m running around with my rifle. Chinese jeeps could come tearing through the neighborhood at any second.”
“I highly doubt we’re facing a Chinese invasion. We’ve definitely been hit by something, but I don’t expect paratroopers to appear in the skies above Scarborough any time soon,” said Alex, starting to walk on the sidewalk toward his house.
“That’s the problem, Alex. Nobody knows what’s happening. The radio is dead silent. No emergency broadcast. Nothing. We have to assume this is a full-scale invasion until proven otherwise. Where’s your pistol?”
“Taken by the Coast Guard. There’s really nothing being transmitted?”
Charlie shook his head. “Nothing at all. Hey! What do you mean taken by the Coast Guard?”
“Things are changing rapidly. Give me about an hour to assess the situation at my house; then we’ll meet up to figure out a game plan.”
“You’re going to Boston to get your son, right?”
“Yeah. I may leave tonight if it’s feasible. I’ll grab Ed’s kid too,” said Alex.
The Perseid Collapse (The Perseid Collapse Series 1) Page 10
