The Post-Apocalyptic Tourist’s Guide to Seattle

by Philip Kramer

  “So how do you propose we get there?”

  “The locks,” she said.

  Resh felt sick at the mention.

  “What are the locks?” Thursday asked.

  “It’s how boats get from the Puget sound to Lake Union.”

  “So why is he so green all of a sudden?”

  Kyli smiled and slapped Resh on the shoulder.

  “Our fearless leader is afraid of water.”

  “I get seasick. That’s all,” he said, grabbing the handles of Thursday’s wheelchair once more.

  They left the market through an alleyway. Thousands of pieces of gum were stuck to the brick wall on either side of him. The range of sizes, shapes, and colors was as remarkable as it was disgusting.

  They exited the alley and turned right, their target a large Ferris wheel on the water’s edge.

  An old and tattered banner advertised harbor and locks tours. While the operators of the boats no longer used it for such purposes, instead hauling freight and passengers, Resh was eager to see the sights from off shore. That was, until he remembered just how nauseated he’d gotten the last time. At least, for a dim moment, the urge to pack up everything and go was suppressed, and Resh sighed in contentment.

  The two boats docked at the pier were steam-powered riverboats, with large paddle wheels taking up most of their sterns. Smoke stacks billowed clouds of black.

  Resh purchased passage for them with assurances that their first stop would be in South Lake Union, blocks away from the old Zymo Genetics building.

  “Is something the matter?” Kyli asked Thursday. His face was pensive and more than a little somber.

  “No. It’s just the last riverboat I was on looked a bit like this. I just… it got me remembering.”

  They didn’t press him further as Resh pushed him up the ramp and onto the boat.

  They stayed on the first deck rather than try to lift Thursday up the stairs, and settled in as other passengers and crates of cargo came aboard.

  Within twenty minutes, a crewman untied the boat and the steam engine hissed into life.

  When they’d left the pier behind, Resh saw Thursday admiring a slender, pointed tower with a saucer set near the top. It was their first good look at it, and it dominated the size of the other buildings just north of downtown.

  “The Space Needle was built for the 1962 World’s Fair, as a depiction of what they thought the buildings of the future would look like. The architects wanted to look like a cross between a balloon and an alien spaceship.”

  “That isn’t what their ships looked like at all,” Kyli said.

  “They didn’t know about aliens back then. They knew there must be aliens out there somewhere, but they had no idea where or what they looked like. Many people believed we were alone in the universe.”

  The look on their faces suggested they wished it had been so.

  “That’s the Edgewater hotel, built at the same time for the fair, though it opened later than it was supposed to, after the fair had ended,” Resh said, pointing at a building sitting halfway out onto the water. A quarter of the structure had collapsed into the bay over the years as the wooden pylons supporting it rotted away. “They use to advertise it as the only hotel where you could fish out the window.”

  Within minutes, five other passengers took an interest in his narration, and began to glance out the windows to wherever he pointed. Resh had become the unofficial tour guide.

  In the last few months, he’d pried every detail he could about the city’s history from a self-proclaimed historian and did quite a bit of research himself. He hadn’t ever been one to concern himself with history, but that had changed, and he couldn’t quite figure out why. It was this more than anything that motivated him to leave the city behind. He’d studied the maps at his old office. The world was so large as to make the city a small speck. He had to see it all.

  He looked at Kyli, wondering when he should ask her to come with him when he left the city. What would she say? She probably wouldn’t understand his urge to leave. Not even he understood.

  As soon as the city disappeared behind the hill of Queen Anne and they exited the bay into the Puget Sound, there was nothing to distract him from the rocking of the vessel.

  He picked up the thread again as they cut through Shilshole Bay and down a narrow channel. A wall came into view around the next bend, seeming to block their path.

  “The locks separate the freshwater of Lake Union and Lake Washington from the salt water of the Sound.”

  They watched as a team of men hauled on ropes attached to pullies, opening a large gate. The captain steered the riverboat into a small space, just wide enough to fit it. When the gates closed behind them, water flooded into the enclosure, raising the boat.

  No longer able to ignore his growing queasiness, Resh bolted to the railing where he added his bile to the waters flowing into the locks.

  He threw up twice more, and when the immediate queasiness passed, he excused himself from Kyli and Thursday in search of something with which to wash his mouth.

  He found it on the upper deck, where a crewman manned a small bar. All he had for sale was a beer from the former Pike Brewery and very expensive bottles of a mint flavored liquor made at the Old Ballard distillery. Considering he was unlikely to hold on to his current wealth much longer, he purchased an entire bottle of the latter. It came in a clear glass bottle and even had a few mint leaves suspended in it. Mint was exactly what his mouth needed.

  Inside a bathroom on the lower deck, hardly large enough to turn around in, he gargled a mouthful of the stuff and spit it into the sink. The next mouthful he swallowed, and winced at the burn of it sliding down his throat. It was strong.

  A candle mounted to the wall illuminated the small enclosure. Thick wax stalactites had formed from the continuous dribbling of candlewax, some stretching halfway to the floor.

  In the meager light, Resh examined himself in the mirror. He leaned closer, noticing that spots of blood speckled his face as they had Thursday’s. It was from the man Thursday had stabbed in the throat with a pencil.

  The faucet of the bathroom yielded no water, so he sloshed his fingers with some of the liquor and scrubbed them over his face and through his stubble.

  The small room became brighter, and he could see Kyli through the mirror, closing the door behind her. Moments later, her arms were wrapping around his torso. One hand snaked into the seam of his shirt and ran through the hair on his chest.

  Face still cool from the drying alcohol, he closed his eyes and savored the warmth of her against him.

  He turned and kissed her. If she tasted any lingering bile on his mouth, she did not mention it.

  He ran his hands over her body and made to take off her shirt, but the belt across her chest, the one that secured her knife between her breasts, thwarted him. He took as much a step back in the confined space as he could, and made to unbuckle the thing. As he did, something caught his eye in the flickering candle light.

  Spots of blood, identical to the ones on his face, dotted the hilt of her knife.

  He brushed one with his thumb, but it had dried.

  His mind flashed back to the elevator, and the man trying to reach inside his defenses to deliver a killing slash. He would have succeeded if not for Thursday. He would bet anything that the spots of blood belonged to that same man.

  “Let me help you.”

  “Kyli.”

  “Resh,” she said, looking deep into his eyes like she had done countless times from in his arms. In them, there was the same hunger he had seen before, but it was not lust. She had never wanted him, she wanted power. She had given the knife to the assassin and retrieved it from the elevator after they’d gone.

  “I think you’ve helped enough.”

  She glanced down at the knife, and then back to him. Whatever she saw in his expression, made her own harden and a righteous fire burn in her eyes.

  “You know,” she said. It was not a question.
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  “Why?”

  “This city was supposed to be yours,” she sneered. “You had ambition once. I should thank you, really. That virus is my ticket to becoming Headwoman. When I show up with your head and a new weapon, no one will stand against me. First the clan, and then the entire city will be mine.”

  A lump formed in his throat. How had he believed she loved him? Why had he ever considered asking her to run away with him? His own inner battles had blinded him.

  She reached for the knife, but he pushed her hard against the wall. Before she’d recovered, he grabbed the bottle of alcohol from the sink and swung it at her head. It shattered, drenching her with the clear liquor. She fell to her knees.

  Their gazes met for a fraction of a second, before the room flared with light.

  The flame from the candle leapt onto the wall and licked down a rivulet of alcohol and onto the floor. Kyli went up in flames.

  Resh stared for half a second before the heat drove him back. He barreled through the bathroom door and slammed it shut behind him.

  A shrill scream echoed from within, and then the door shuddered as she slammed into it.

  Smoke seeped from the seams of the door, but Resh barely registered it. How could those screams belong to strong, passionate, Kyli? But like them, the knife had also belonged to her. She had betrayed him.

  The seed of anger in him grew, and this alone kept him from opening the door, setting her free of the inferno. He could swear his heart was physically splitting down the middle.

  The metal door grew warmer and her screams faded. Resh vanished from the world and into his own private misery.

  It couldn’t have been a minute, but it felt like hours before he heard another sound.

  The crew were scrambling about the ship, calling out orders, and jostling each other and passenger’s around as they made to flee or attempt to put out the spreading fire.

  He stood and approached the railing of the deck.

  They had passed through the Fremont cut while he was in the bathroom, and were now well away from shore in the middle of Lake Union.

  To his north lay a grassy hill with tents and campfires. Beside it sat a several rusty structures and smokestacks. Gasworks park. Further to the east, beyond the arching bridge of the I5 overpass, a tall building with a purple ‘W’ on top marked the University District where the W Clan ruled.

  To the south, he saw another angle of the Seattle skyline, with the Space Needle to the right of the skyscrapers, the inverse of what he’d seen in Elliot Bay. And there, just to the left of it and beside the water, were six smokestacks. Stenciled down the side of the outermost smokestacks were the words Zymo Genetics. All the windows were boarded up.

  The boat puttered to a crawl as the crew abandoned the engine room.

  Beside him, a crewman dove over the railing while others tossed in life preservers or anything else that would float.

  Resh grabbed one of the life preservers and glared down at one of the passengers who’d been about to claim it. The thin, mustached man ran in search of another, screaming profanities once he was out of arm’s reach.

  Inside the main cabin, Thursday waited, his bandaged hands gripping the wheels of the wheelchair. He looked around with quick, frantic jerks of his head, which immediately ceased when he locked eyes with Resh.

  It could have been his imagination, but Thursday’s expressive face appeared to be saying “Not again.”

  Resh went to him and grabbed the wheelchair.

  “It’s time to leave.”

  “What happened? Where’s Kyli?”

  “Dead.”

  Before he could get another word out, Resh pushed him through the gate of the railing and sent Thursday plummeting into the water.

  He dove in after him and almost sucked in a lungful of water as he fell into its cold embrace.

  When he surfaced, Thursday was nowhere to be seen. Had the fool tried to hold on to the wheelchair?

  Resh let go of the life preserver and took a deep breath.

  Thursday was just feet below him, his arms clawing through the water. Without his legs to aid him, he could not swim to the surface.

  Resh clasped hands with Thursday, and as he dragged him to the surface, he spotted the faint silhouette of an alien ship. It bulbous shape was reminiscent of the smooth, broad head of the alien above his desk. Its surface was scarred and battered by its rough landing. Over the years, scavengers had pried open hatches on its exterior in search of alien tech, filling each compartment with the cold water of the lake. It would never fly again.

  They gasped as they broke the surface. Thursday sought out and clung to the life preserver as he coughed.

  “You alright?”

  “I… I was having trouble breathing before,” Thursday wheezed. “The water isn’t helping.”

  “We’ll be out of it in no time,” Resh said and started their long swim to shore, pulling Thursday limply behind.

  They swam into a small dockyard, with half of the docks rotting away. Moss and leaves blanketed a rusty blue seaplane with a bent wing sitting beside one of the docks. The docks belonged to a just-as-neglected building with signs advertising seaplane tours.

  Resh dragged Thursday out of the water and onto a floating sidewalk. The man sagged to the pavement and lay there like a wet and dirty, discarded rag. The bandages of his hands and knees were red again.

  “It’s okay. We’re here. It’s just across the street.”

  Thursday looked up at the cloudy sky, Resh wondered if the man was giving up. He couldn’t, not when he was so close.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What? Why?”

  “The Travelogue. It’s… I couldn’t hold on to it. The pack was dragging me under.”

  Resh’s stomach fell, and he sat down on the pavement beside the man. He knew he should never have come back to the city. If he had taken the book from the weary and broken traveler from the start, learned to read it later, he could have been well beyond Tacoma by now. If he hadn’t come back, Kyli would still be alive.

  Thursday wore the same dejected look he imagined he did, the look of a man who’d lost everything.

  Resh couldn’t let this pitiful wretch of a man die just yards away from his destination.

  Resh found his feet again and held out a hand.

  “Let’s see this through.”

  “But the travel—”

  “I’m not going to stand in the way of a man who plans to destroy the swarms and save the world.”

  The traveler smiled and reached out to grasp his hand.

  Resh lifted Thursday’s withering frame into his arms and together, they left the water’s edge and crossed the street to the old steam plant.

  They could not enter the front of the building, in fact, there was about a meter gap between the sidewalk and the front of the building. Between the building and the sidewalk and several feet below was the water of Lake Union. It ran below the elevated street and right up against the side of the building. Resh guessed the old steam plant was designed to run off water from the lake. They ended up circumnavigating the building until they came to a thick metal door.

  “You sure about this? I mean, these guys almost killed you once. They might not have any intention of curing you.”

  “And where else would I go?” Thursday asked, then shook his head. “They made the virus. They’ll have the cure.”

  With his hands occupied, Resh nodded to the door and Thursday reached out to knock.

  They waited for over a minute, and Resh’s arms grew tired of holding the full weight of his companion. He was just about to ask Thursday to knock again, when the metal door eased open a crack.

  The barrel of a machine gun poked out, and just above it appeared an eye.

  “What is your business?”

  “I got a message to come here,” Thursday said, his gaze fixed on the gun.

  “A message?”

  “From Synapse Sentries of Seattle.”

  “Let me see
it.”

  Thursday paused with a hand to his shoulder, as if preparing to shrug off a backpack that wasn’t there.

  “I can’t. I lost it. But I can tell you what it said. I read it often enough.”

  The door opened wider to reveal the man entirely. He wore an old camouflage jacket and black pants, the latter held up by a belt heavy with a knife, baton, and additional ammunition. In a world where bullets were as rare as gold, this man was a walking treasury, a one-man army. He lowered the weapon and looked at them like he was only just now seeing them.

  “Wait. This message didn’t arrive on a black balloon?”

  Thursday nodded slowly, and the guard’s uncertainty vanished.

  “Well then you’re one of us. Welcome. We didn’t think anyone from the trial would make it. The day we released the balloons an unexpected storm came through. We figured they were blown too far away.”

  “They were,” Thursday said. “I barely made it here alive. I had to travel over two thousand miles.”

  “Two thousand? My god. I’m sorry. That wasn’t our intention.”

  “What was your intention?” Thursday asked. His voice becoming more heated than Resh had ever heard it. “Why did you try to kill me?”

  “We don’t want anyone to die. If we hadn’t made it life threatening, nobody would have come. Here, come with me and we’ll find Doctor Zelickson. He’ll explain everything.”

  Resh made to enter, but the guard stuck out a hand.

  “And you? Why are you here?” His eyes were narrowed.

  “I…” Resh began, but remembered the boy from the market. He’d said they sent everyone away who recovered too quickly from the disease. Resh looked at the gun and wondered if he would be shot instead. “I got a message too, on the balloon. The two of us met on our way here.”

  The man didn’t look convinced. Thursday looked at him quizzically, but didn’t contradict him.

  “Please,” Resh continued. “I can barely feel my legs anymore. Do you have a place I can set him down?”

  All trace of suspicion disappeared, and the guard backed in through the door, gesturing for them to enter.