The Pulse: A Novel of Surviving the Collapse of the Grid

by Williams, Scott B.

  Casey saw nothing but woods and water. She found it hard to believe, but the entire time they had been in the canoe she had seen little else but woods and water, save for the occasional cabin built on the riverbank, and a couple of highway bridges they had passed under. If she had not seen all this for herself, she would have never believed there could possibly be so many endless miles of woods and water along a river course so close to the huge urban sprawl of New Orleans.

  Now that they were in this swamp where even the boundaries of the river disappeared in walls of flooded forest on either side, Casey felt more lost than ever. When Derek turned the canoe off of the broad waterway they had been following and into a narrow bayou barely two canoe-widths wide, she knew that she was utterly and thoroughly hidden away from the outside world and completely out of reach of anyone who might save her from this man who was determined to keep her that way.

  The canopy was completely interlocked overhead on this route, so it was so dark Casey could barely see a few feet beyond the bow of the canoe. Derek slowed down to a drifting pace, using his paddle only to keep them from banging against trees as the current flowing beneath the boat carried it deeper into the forest. When dawn finally came, Casey saw that they were gliding among hardwood and cypress trees of tremendous, primeval proportions. It was a place like no other she had ever seen, with long, wispy curtains of Spanish moss hanging from almost every branch and limb, creating a mysterious, haunting atmosphere that was both beautiful and foreboding.

  The waterway they were following lost all definition in a labyrinth of narrow swift sections interspersed with lagoons where it spread out and surrounded the boles of the giant trees, making it impossible for her to understand how anyone could find their way through it. Derek paddled as if he knew exactly where he was going, though, and here in the hush of early morning in this cathedral-like forest, he remained silent once again, much to her relief, after having heard hours of his indictment of modern civilization the afternoon and evening before. In places the canoe was swept by low-hanging branches, forcing her to duck even from where she was seated in the bottom of the boat, propped up against a duffel bag. When this had happened several times, Derek stopped and cut her hands loose so she could fend off branches before they hit her in the face. She knew he wasn’t worried about her escaping now, as there was absolutely nowhere to go in a place like this without a boat.

  They had been traveling in this manner for a good two hours since they left the main river, when Derek turned off to their left onto yet another branch of the bayou they had been following. This one was even narrower, but to Casey’s surprise, the water was clear and the bottom was white sand instead of mud. Small sandbars, miniature versions of the huge beaches in the bends of the Bogue Chitto, lined the banks intermittently, and at last Derek stopped and pulled the canoe onto one that had a flat shelf at the top just wide enough to accommodate it.

  “We’re here,” he said. “Welcome to my little piece of paradise.”

  Casey said nothing as Derek untied the ropes holding her ankles together and began taking his duffel bags and packs out of the canoe. She climbed out, grateful for the opportunity to stretch her stiff joints, but when she looked around, she saw no sign of a camp. There was a narrow path leading off through the palmettos, though, and she could see that somebody had made it by cutting their way through there. Derek stepped into the path and motioned for her to follow.

  Not wanting him to grab her arm and lead her or touch her in any way, she complied. The terrain rose slightly and the vegetation in the understory changed from the tropical-looking fronds of the dwarf palmettos to a dense thicket of sweet bay bushes, their waxy emerald-green leaves screening from view what might lie ahead at the other end of the path until they pushed their way through.

  “There it is,” Derek said. “My perfect bug-out hideaway.”

  Casey had not expected anything quite like this. When she looked where Derek was pointing, she saw a shelter that blended in so well with its surroundings that it would be easy to miss even from a short distance unless you were specifically looking for it. It was the primitive construction of mostly natural materials that made it blend in so well, though the camouflage tarps that made up the roof and one side certainly did their part to help.

  The most unexpected thing about it was that it was built about 10 feet off the ground, on a platform of poles cut from small trees, lashed horizontally between four much larger hardwood trees, like a much bigger version of a child’s tree house. As they walked closer, she saw a crude ladder going up to it, also made from lashed poles, and then saw that the floor was made up of very old and weathered-looking planks of wood. Rolled up mosquito netting was hung from the edges of the roof all the way around and a tarp formed a single wall at the back, but otherwise the structure was open-sided. She could see that that the only things in there were some camo-colored five-gallon plastic pails with lids on them and a stack of large, square metal boxes, the olive-drab green kind that Casey knew were Army surplus ammo cans.

  Beneath the platform, a heavy wire was stretched on a diagonal between two of the supporting trees. Suspended from it hung several skillets, cooking pots and utensils, and an axe and shovel. A fire pit was dug in the sand nearby, framed on both sides by chunks of heavy logs that obviously had been chopped to length by the axe.

  “It’s built above the forest floor like this to stay above high water in times of flooding,” Derek said. “This is an island we’re on here, though you can’t tell because of all the trees. It’s one of the highest elevations in the area, and it’s rare that the bayou gets over the bank, though I have seen it happen in the years I’ve been coming here. But regardless of floods, there are always plenty of big cottonmouth snakes in these palmetto thickets, and everywhere else in the swamp. It’s a lot better sleeping off the ground, and a lot cooler in the summer too. This is the way the Indians that lived in these parts built their houses, and it makes sense to do the same.”

  “How can you plan to live in a place like this?” Casey asked, tears starting to roll down her face as she slapped at the mosquitoes that were buzzing around her head and neck. “There is nothing here but trees. You can’t even see the canoe from where we’re standing, and it’s just a few yards away. I feel like I’m going to suffocate.” She slumped to the ground and sat with her head in her hands, gripping her hair with both hands and trying to resist the urge to yank it out as hard as she could. She was so frustrated, terrified, and exhausted. Every day since her alarm had failed to go off that morning that now seemed so very long ago, her life had gotten harder and scarier with each new passing day. Now that she saw this place that Derek had been planning to take her, the prospect of coming up with an idea for escaping his clutches and finding her way out of this nightmare seemed truly hopeless. And here at his camp, their journey on the river done, she feared time was running out before he would try and force his way on her.

  TWELVE

  ARTIE’S MIND WAS RACING with worry as he and Scully quietly paddled the kayak out of the dark canal to the open waters of Lake Pontchartrain. Had Casey and her friends left New Orleans early enough to avoid the horrors they’d had a vivid glimpse of today? If they had left in time to get ahead of the worst of the panicked exodus from the city, what would they have faced on the other side of the lake, and along the highways leading north? Was the cabin really in a safe enough location, or would they be in danger there too? Most of all, he wondered how he was going to get there and how long that would take. If they had to walk, traveling 90 miles would take days. And if things had deteriorated a lot more in the days since Casey and her friends made the trip, what dangers would they face trying to follow their route now? Artie had lots of questions; what he didn’t have was answers to any of them.

  The map Grant had drawn was just a simple sketch, with highway numbers and turning directions. It was hard for Artie to grasp what the journey would really entail without seeing a real map, and he was anxious to get back aboard
the catamaran so he and Larry could study the Louisiana state road map that Craig had given them. He was unfamiliar with the towns along the north shore of the lake, and especially with the countryside north of that. His route in and out of New Orleans had always been Interstate 10, which crossed over to the north shore at Slidell, but then continued east through the Gulf coast cities of Gulfport and Biloxi and on to Mobile. He hoped Larry might have some ideas, but doubted he knew the area to the north either because his only visits to New Orleans in decades had been a couple of yacht delivery trips in and out by the route they’d just sailed on the Casey Nicole.

  Larry was waiting anxiously on deck for them when they paddled back alongside the boat. “Did you get your pistol?” he asked.

  “She left,” Artie said, as he climbed aboard. “She and Jessica and their friend Grant. Grant left a note from her in my car. He borrowed my gun as well, and I’m glad he did, I just hope he hasn’t needed it and hope he never does.” Artie helped Scully pull the kayak back on deck, and when they’d secured it, he sat down with Larry to tell him about Casey and her friends’ plan to ride their bicycles to a cabin in Mississippi.

  “Wow!” Larry said. “That’s quite a trip, but you know, it also sounds pretty smart to me. If this kid Grant had enough sense to lead them out of here that soon after the grid went down, I’ll bet they made it just fine. You know most people would just be confused and disoriented, not knowing what to do or where to turn in the first few days after an event like this. Chances are all the real problems and violence didn’t crop up until about four or five days into it. They probably got across the Causeway ahead of all that and made it to that camp with no problem. I’ve never heard of that river, the Bogue Chitto, but let’s check it out on the map….”

  Crowding over the chart table in the starboard hull, the three of them looked at the official state road map of Louisiana and compared it to Grant’s hand-drawn sketch. His route made sense and seemed to be the most direct way to reach the state line while avoiding as many major highways and urban areas as possible. The level of detail on the road map showed only highways, because of its small scale, though there was enough overlap in the coverage area across the state line to include the corner of Mississippi where Grant’s sketch indicated the cabin was located, but none of the county roads or unpaved roads leading to it were shown. They would have to rely solely on his drawings to find their way the last few miles, once the route left the highway.

  “There’s the Bogue Chitto,” Larry said, tracing it with his finger. “Look at that, it’s a tributary of the Pearl. See here, it empties into the river there, just downstream from this Highway 21 here.”

  “So?”

  “So that means we might be able to get a lot closer with the boat. I’ve heard that some of the shrimpers and other boat owners in the area sometimes use the lower reaches of the Pearl for a hurricane hole, so at least part of it is navigable. I don’t know how far up it we could get, but it looks like a big river to me. Let me get my chartbook and see what it shows for the entrance.”

  “Yeah, but we could only go up it so far, right? Wouldn’t that take too long and wouldn’t it be better to try to follow the same route Casey and her friends took on the road?”

  “How you goin’ down de road, Doc? You gonna walk 90 mile wid all dem hungry people? How you gonna take enough to eat an’ den keep it safe from a thief? What you gonna do den, mon, if you find dat place? You gonna want de girls to walk back all de way dem come, when t’ings more dangerous now?”

  “Scully’s right. I think it would be crazy to try and hike it from here, and besides, that would take days, one way.” Larry pointed on the map, “Look, even if we sailed to the north shore and started here, you’d have to get through all this urban sprawl for miles and miles—Mandeville, Covington, and then more small towns to the north. And besides that, what would we do with the boat? We couldn’t all go and leave it behind, and I think it’s a real bad idea to split up for a long time like that, especially since we have no way of knowing how bad things are inland. If you go wandering off on the road, either alone or with Scully, I won’t have any idea when to expect you back and no way of knowing if something happened to you or if you just got delayed. And likewise, you’d have no way of knowing if I would even still be here with the boat when you get back. Someone could kill me and take it if I just sat here anchored in the lake that long. You heard what Craig said was happening in his marina, and I don’t have to remind you about Puerto Rico. Would you want to bring the kids through all that danger to get back to the north shore, only to find out that you didn’t have a ride when you got here? I don’t think it’s feasible at all to do it that way.”

  “Well, what are you proposing then? It’s not like we can sail all the way to cabin, can we?”

  “No, but with our extremely shallow draft, our working outboard motor, and our untouched fuel supply, not to mention the ability to easily lower the mast to go under bridges, power lines, and other obstacles, we may be able to get a hell of a lot closer to it than we are here.” Larry pulled out his chartbook for the northern Gulf coast and flipped through it to the appropriate page. “Here it is. Look, the main mouth of the river is here, this easternmost entrance. This chart doesn’t show it, but you can see on the road map how the river splits into two major branches, the West Pearl and the East Pearl, way upstream but below the place where the Bogue Chitto empties into it. The nautical chart doesn’t cover that part of the river, but you can see that there is a marked channel on the East Pearl, and it shows enough water even for much bigger boats than ours all the way north of Interstate 10. So we know we can get that far. It’s impossible to tell from the road map, of course, but I’m betting we could motor on upstream for quite some distance beyond the marked channel, maybe to here even, where Interstate 59 crosses the river. That’s almost halfway to the mouth of the Bogue Chitto. The closer we can get to that cabin with the boat, the easier it will be to get to them and get them all out of there. Once we’re that far upstream, you can see that there’s nothing but a few small towns and hardly any development along the river. The map shows that most of it is a national wildlife refuge.”

  “What good would it do to go all the way up there and only get halfway to the Bogue Chitto? That still leaves a long way to go, and then it looks like even farther on the Bogue Chitto itself to get to the state line.”

  “Well, in the worst case, from that point, it would probably be feasible for you and Scully to strike out on one of these smaller roads that roughly parallel the course of the river and go overland the rest of the way. That’s far from ideal, but much better than leaving from here. We could tuck the boat into one of these smaller bayous or oxbow lakes and I could stay with it and hope no comes along that far out in the swamp who would realize the potential of a boat like this. I think it would be much safer there anyway, as anyone we encounter up there on the river is likely going to be more self-reliant and probably not desperate like all these folks here in the cities. But as I said, that’s the worst case. Here’s what I’m hoping: on all these Southern rivers, aluminum johnboats are everywhere. All the locals in the area use them for fishing, and you see them tied up or pulled up on the bank everywhere there’s a camp or cabin. I’m sure that given this situation, most people who have one are not going to want to let go of it, but we might find someone who will. Whether we’re able to borrow one, barter for it, or buy it outright, if we could get hold of a 14- or 16-foot johnboat, it would be a simple matter to mount our 25-horse outboard on it, and then you and Scully could probably reach Grant’s cabin in a day. We’ve got enough fuel on board to do that, and you’ll use less coming back downriver. Anyway, that’s the best plan I’ve got, and I think it’s our best shot. What do you say?”

  “How long do you think it will take to get to the river mouth, and then motor up it to that point?” Artie wanted to know.

  “You can see on the chart that it’s roughly 50 miles east of here to the mouth of the Pearl. W
e passed it yesterday on the way here to Lake Pontchartrain. We could be there tomorrow morning easily if we sail back to the eastern end of the lake tonight, and at least get to the other side of the Twin Span Bridge. We can get a few hours of sleep, then get up and go. We should be within the mouth of the Pearl before noon. We can then assess the situation better and make sure the outboard is ready for the trip upriver.”

  “We could run into delays and obstacles on the upstream part, of course, but I figure, if the Pearl is typical of the rivers that empty into the Gulf, the current won’t be very strong. The outboard ought to push us at least three knots—maybe five if the current’s real sluggish. And if it proves to be slower, maybe we’ll get lucky and find a johnboat before we have to go that far. I mainly just want to take the big boat upriver far enough up to get it out of sight of anyone who might see it as a grand opportunity to sail the hell out of Dodge, and that mostly means getting inland of the coast.”

  “So it looks like all day tomorrow to get the Casey Nicole situated, and then if we’re lucky and find a boat, the day after that Scully and I might make it to the cabin. I guess that’s not bad at all.”

  “No, and even if we lose an extra day, you’ll still get there faster than you could walk from here. Even if you could walk 20 miles a day, which you probably couldn’t given the conditions, it would take you four and a half days to get there from here, and at least as long to get back.”