The Boat

by Christine Dougherty

  “Let’s go into my office, okay?”

  “Uh…sure.”

  Adam followed Toby to his ‘office’ as he called it…that was a laugh. It was just another cubicle, really. The only difference being it had four walls and a door. But the walls didn’t even go to the ceiling for fuck’s sake and they shook any time someone walked past. Some office.

  “I’ll get right to it,” Toby said and then contradicted himself by spending five minutes sneezing and blowing his nose. “Man, this cold is kicking my ass. And it came on so fast! I wasn’t even sick yesterday, but today…bam! Probably got it from my daughter. Her class is a cesspool of germs and…”

  Adam stared at Toby, expressionless.

  “Well, but anyway…we got another complaint about the department,” Toby said and shuffled through sheets of paper on his desk. Adam didn’t say anything, just crossed his arms over his chest. Toby looked up. “About you, specifically, I’m afraid.”

  “Look, if it was that dingbat in marketing, that Carrie or Cassie…” Adam said, but Toby shook his head. Adam tried again. “Teshay? In accounting? Because she was the one who…Alan? Accounts payable?”

  Toby continued to shake his head, but had closed his eyes, a pained expression compressing his features. Adam closed his mouth with a snap.

  He’d ended up with another warning in his file. Had to sign it and everything. Fuck. They wouldn’t leave him alone. But this is what happens when you’re (figuratively) the tallest man in the room, he told himself. It’s jealousy, pure raging jealousy that kept everyone after him, wanting to pull him down. Bastards.

  At home that night, he called his mother and raged to her about how unfairly he was being treated at work. She listened, but Adam got the impression her mind was elsewhere. Well, everyone else was shitting on him, why not his own mom, too?

  “Ma. Are you listening to me?” he said. “Ma?”

  “Yes, I am dear but it’s just…” She paused and Adam listened as she blew her nose. Disgusting. “I’m worried about your father. He’s very sick with this flu and now it looks like I might be getting a bit of it, too.”

  “Ugh, I hope I don’t get it. Did he get sick this past weekend? Cause I was over there on Friday and he was probably still catching on Friday. I wish you’d thought to warn me, Ma.”

  “Well, but…he wasn’t sick on Friday and not Saturday or Sunday either. He woke up sick this morning and he’s gotten a lot worse just in this one day,” she said and then coughed. Adam thought about his supervisor, that asshat Toby, coughing and blowing his nose…he’d left around ten and never came back.

  “Well, I guess there’s something going around. Get rest or whatever.” His mind wasn’t on it, though. He wanted to talk about the warning he’d received. Well, not about that specifically…he didn’t want to tell his mom about that part. He just wanted to express how he was constantly tagged at that place.

  “I think I should change to another industry. Banking maybe, some kind of finance. This pharma shit is for the birds anyway.” He sighed, not hearing his mother sigh on the other end of the line. She never knew what to make of this angry chick she’d raised. “So, can I talk to Dad? If you’ve got nothing to add to this? I know, I know, it’s just my shit, right? But you could at least have an opinion.” Impatient rage was heating up his face. “Is Dad there?”

  “Well, he is, but like I said, he’s in bed and…I really don’t think he should get up.”

  Adam sighed again. “Okay, well, whatever. Take care, then. I hope you feel better. Don’t worry about me at all, okay? Don’t bother yourself.”

  “Oh, Adam, dear…it’s not like that, of course I care, we both care about you but…”

  “Whatever, Ma. I’m hanging up. I have more important things to do than chat with you all night about your problems.” His voice had gotten higher as he spoke, petulant and whining.

  “See you on Friday?” she asked.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” he said, clipped and cold. “We’ll have to wait and see. Goodbye.”

  “All right, dear, goodbye then,” she said and the phone clicked off.

  She’d hung up on him.

  God, his mother was horrible. A horrible monster. So selfish! Sometimes Adam wished he could just take off, move across the country and have nothing more to do with anyone on the east coast. Just start over. A fresh start.

  That night, he watched a wholly unbelievable pay-per-view romantic comedy and went to bed with a very sour stomach.

  The next morning, he was awakened by pounding on his apartment door. His heart raced in his chest. He’d never even had a visitor here, save his parents…why would someone be pounding on the door?

  “Please, let me in! I need your phone. Hello?” Pound, pound, pound. “Hey? I need your phone! Do you have a cell?”

  Adam peeked through the peephole. It was a girl he vaguely recognized as having the apartment under his. She was crying and jittering in an impatient way. Probably a junkie, a meth-head, planning on robbing him.

  “What is it?” he yelled. Her head snapped up at the sound of his voice.

  “Thank god! Can I use your cell phone? I need an ambulance!” Her eyes were huge blue marbles, wet and frantic. She wasn’t very pretty.

  Adam hesitated and then unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door. She started in but he blocked the doorway with his body. She pulled up sharply and shock crossed her features. It made him feel powerful. Plus, he didn’t want her to see his apartment. He knew the jokes people made about adults who collected action figures. His apartment was full of them.

  “What’s this about?” he asked, his voice impatient. Chicks like this thought the world was their oyster. He knew her type. Well, he, for one, wasn’t going to jump through her hoops.

  “It’s my son…he’s very sick and the landlines aren’t working. Can I use your phone? I only want to call an ambulance.” She shifted from foot to foot, more tears welling up in her eyes.

  “Yeah, okay, I guess so.” He dug his phone out of this laptop bag that sat on a table by the door and handed it to her. He watched as she dialed and then stood, a shaking hand over her eyes. She was skinny, but older than he’d thought at first. She was probably close to his age. No ring–probably lived on child support and goofed off with her kid all day. Women had it made in the shade.

  She flipped the phone closed. She stared at him, confused. “No answer? At 911? Is that…how is that possible?”

  He sighed. “I’m sure you dialed it wrong. Here, let me.” He took the phone from her, shaking his head. He punched in the numbers. Obviously this chick was too stupid to work, she probably never had a job in her whole life. He shook his head again.

  The phone continued to ring. No answer. He pulled it from his ear and checked the screen. 911, right there. He hadn’t misdialed.

  He put the phone back to his ear, but the call had dropped.

  He dialed again, but this time he only heard a series of clicks and then the call dropped.

  “That’s weird,” he said. “Something must be wrong with the towers in this area causing a service disruption.”

  Irritation flitted across her features and she lifted the phone in his hand to her face and then turned it to his. “Five bars. It’s not cell phone service that’s out; it’s 911 that’s out.”

  His face colored with embarrassment.

  She’d turned away and was trotting down the steps that would take her back to her apartment.

  “Hey, genius,” he called after her. “Why don’t you just drive him if you’re so concerned?”

  She’d stopped and stared back at him in disgusted astonishment. “I don’t have a car. We’ve been neighbors for five years, Adam. You’ve never noticed that I don’t have a car?” She shook her head and continued down the stairs.

  He was taken aback by her use of his name. How had she known his name? And had they really been neighbors for five years?

  He went to his kitchen to start the coffee. It was earlier than his norm, b
ut he might as well stay up now.

  A muffled scream came from below him. Then another.

  Fear slipped around him, pulling his skin into gooseflesh. He flipped open his phone and began to dial 911 before he remembered.

  The scream came again. Was she screaming his name?

  He slipped on sneakers, tucked his phone into the waistband of his pajama pants and descended to her apartment. The door stood open three inches.

  “Adam, help me! Please help! Can you hear me? Adam!” Her voice was a frantic sob.

  She was somewhere in the back of the apartment, where the bedroom was. He went in, noting the swirl of blankets on the couch–is that where she sleeps?–feeling creepy and oddly ashamed.

  “Uh, hello? I’m here.”

  “Oh Adam, oh thank god,” she came down the short hallway, sobbing, a child bundled in blankets in her arms. He looked way too big to be carried. “Can you take us to the hospital? He’s not…he’s unconscious, I think, and…” She stumbled as she got closer to him, her arms giving way under the weight of her ten-year-old son. Adam stepped back and the boy nearly fell between them before she recovered herself, hefting him more solidly against her chest.

  “Is he sick? I don’t want to touch him!”

  “No, you won’t have to touch him. Just drive us. I’ll hold him…in the back…please just, please drive us to…” Her sobbing overcame her words. Mucous ran freely over her top lip. Adam felt his stomach turn.

  “Fine, okay. He’s not gonna puke, though, right? I don’t want anyone puking in my car.”

  ~ ~ ~

  The emergency room at the hospital was bedlam. Eighteen people waited in the line to sign in and the chairs were all full. People were lined up against the walls. Everyone seemed to be coughing. And vomiting. Nurses ran back and forth, handing out kidney shaped pans to the heaviest pukers, their faces tight with fatigue.

  Adam was about to turn around and leave when his neighbor shoved the boy into his arms, her face a white mask of determination. “Hold him. I’m going to find someone to look at him right now. Just stay right here.” She spun away before he could even voice a protest.

  The kid was heavy; dead weight heavy.

  Adam searched for an empty chair but there were none. He shifted the kid and scanned the waiting room. It was like a crazy version of hell–all that vomit! He decided to wait outside. It wasn’t too hot or too cold and he’d be able to see inside to the waiting room when his neighbor came back. When this was all over, he was going to give her hell over making him wait like this. Some people needed to be reminded that the world didn’t revolve around them.

  The doors whooshed open before him and the fresh air was all the sweeter for not having the tang of vomit in it. And it was so much quieter, he’d never realized how loud the sick were.

  He put the kid down by the wall where he’d be out of the way of anyone coming by and then scanned the parking lot. There was an ambulance parked at the curb about sixty feet away. How come they were parked there and not out retrieving sick people? It was obvious now that something was spreading like crazy, some new epidemic.

  He looked down at the kid. No movement. Adam felt a twinge of unease. Well, but…he was just asleep. That’s all. It’s not like the kid’s dead or anything. It’s just the flu. Nobody dies of the flu, not really.

  He decided to jog over and check out the ambulance. The emergency room entrance was at the back of the hospital and relatively secluded. No one would bother the kid and if his mom came out, she’d see him lying right there. He’d be back in a sec. The uneasiness rolled through him again like distant heat lightning. He ignored it.

  He jogged quickly to the ambulance and peeked in the back, through the windows. No one in there. He went quickly to the front. He was so strongly anticipating two paramedics sitting in the front seat that for an instant…he saw them. Then he realized it was just EMT jackets slung over the backs of the seats. Maybe they were in the hospital. Helping out. He scanned the dash. Man there was a lot of extra shit in there. Big radio. Some kind of screen, maybe GPS or something. Huh.

  He turned at a light, scraping sound from behind him.

  The kid was up and coming toward him. Adam’s first thought was, geez, he’s an ugly fucker. The kid’s hair was plastered down on one side and sticking straight up on the other. His tongue was swollen and peeking out between blistered lips. The worst were his eyes: they were glazed looking, almost as though he’d already developed cataracts.

  His second thought was: Kid looks dead!

  That thought stuck and began to swirl like a slowing accelerating tornado. Once that thought got its full strength, it would be the only one left in his head.

  “Yo, kid,” he said. “Your mom is right inside. She’s coming back for you, okay?”

  The kid never hesitated, just kept coming toward him at a shambling walk. His eyes never left Adam’s face. Adam watched in surprise as the kid’s bare foot went right over the curb edge and his ankle twisted with a snap, but still he continued his sluggishly steady pace.

  “Kid, you better lie down,” Adam said and the tornado was accelerating, accelerating, kicking up wind and beginning to fan the flames of his panic. “Stay back, man, I’m telling you.”

  He wasn’t aware of his switch from ‘kid’ to ‘man’, wasn’t aware that it was part of his mind leveling the turf. All he knew right now was that his stomach had tightened and his legs were telling him to move!

  But he didn’t and then the kid was on him.

  At first, Adam was able to bat him back, pushing roughly at the kid’s shoulders. He wasn’t aware of a high-pitched yelp that was coming from his mouth every time he shoved. Panic was wrestling the blinders down over his conscious actions, readying him for the unthinkable…should the unthinkable occur.

  The kid’s efforts doubled and re-doubled; his arms like pistons, he kept coming on. He was snarling and chomping and Adam saw that he had bit off the first half inch of his own tongue. There was no blood, just a blackish jelly that slicked the kid’s lips.

  Adam felt his gorge rise. “I’m warning you, man, stay the hell back!” He pushed again and the kid stumbled, the weakened ankle snapping again. Adam shuffled backwards but then the kid was on him again, his foot turned under, the skin scraping off onto the rough sidewalk.

  “What the fuck?” Adam demanded; his voice both loud and weak. How could this be happening? That kid looked dead, he looked dead but he was still coming, still coming on. “Stay the fuck back; I’m not telling you again.”

  The kid’s hands were on his arms and then on his stomach. Adam tried to hold him back, but his arms turned in his hands like muscular snakes and slid forward. The kid was reaching for his shoulders, reaching for his neck. His little hand made a grab at Adam’s windpipe and squeezed and for a brief second, Adam had no air. Reflexively, he kicked out, connecting with the boy’s stomach, sending him back and over. The kid’s head hit the big side mirror of the ambulance with a sound like a melon hitting concrete.

  He crumbled silently to the ground. Adam put his hands on his knees and leaned over, a panicked whistle in his throat, trying to catch his breath.

  “Danny!” A scream, high and despairing came across from the emergency room doors. His neighbor running over, an EMT running behind her. Adam’s mind cleared and he saw the sad bundle under the mirror for what it was. A little kid, he’s just a little kid. And I killed him, he thought. Now what was he going to do? Get arrested? Go to trial? Go to jail?

  No. No way.

  As his neighbor fell to her knees at the wreck of her son, Adam said, “Some guy…he came and…he tried to get your kid.” He heaved in a breath. His eyes skittered from the EMT back to his neighbor. Her eyes were big as tennis balls, it seemed, swimming with watery blue tears. “I stopped him, but then he, he pushed your kid and–”

  To his horror, he saw the bundle of kid twitch, and then one of his arms lifted, swaying. Shit, oh shit, the kid would tell them the truth, the kid would tel
l everyone that he had kicked him and then…

  His neighbor looked down, smiling in relief. “Danny! You’re okay, oh baby, oh my baby, mamma’s here honey and everything–” The kid reached both arms up as if for a hug and she raised him to her, to her neck, and then she must have seen the eyes and the tongue and a shadow passed across her face. But it was too late…the kid’s mouth was on her neck, tearing. A great gout of blood welled out around his questing mouth. Her eyes shifted to Adam’s in mild shock and then they rolled up to show only the whites. The EMT said, “What the fuck?” and leaned forward to try and get his hands on the kid’s head. But the kid turned his head, snake-quick and he had the EMT’s hand in his mouth. The EMT screamed in mingled shock and pain and Adam’s neighbor fell over backward, blood jetting from her throat, raining down on the EMT and the feasting boy.

  Adam ran.

  ~ ~ ~

  Adam clicked off the power on the walkie-talkie.

  The despairing screams went on behind him.

  Mohammed was the first time he had publicly and forcefully overrode Steve in a decision and now this had happened. Not good.

  Mohammed was thirteen and the third youngest person in the group. He was here with his aunt. She had saved him. Very few children had made it, and everyone knew why but rarely discussed it. Everyone knew that children and the people with children had been more vulnerable at the time of the panic. Very few had made it through; none with families intact.

  Mohammed had wanted desperately to go out on one of the scavenging runs. Two months on a boat was a long time, plus, he didn’t consider himself to be a little kid. He thought he should be on Big Daddy, with the men.

  Steve had said that Mohammed was too young for a scavenger trip and he’d put a hand on Mohammed’s shoulder, giving him his Big Daddy smile. Adam, seeing that look of certainty in Steve’s eyes, the way Steve didn’t even bother to check with him…Adam had said that Mohammed could go. That in fact, he should go. He was hardly a kid and, after all, shouldn’t everyone be involved in the group’s survival? Mohammed’s aunt had been very uneasy but Adam–who’d made himself over to some degree since the panic–had convinced her otherwise. He’d been very pleased when she had come around to his way of thinking. He mistook the concern in Steve’s eyes for jealousy. Jealous of Adam’s position and place on the largest of the boats.