Fermata: The Winter: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series (The Fermata Series: Four Post-Apocalyptic Novellas Book 1)

by Harper, Juliette

  “This chick really is nuts,” Lucy thought. A thick board barred the front door. A riot gun sat propped in the umbrella stand. But those open windows really bothered Lucy.

  A fluttering caught her attention. Lucy looked out the glass oval and recognized alternating red and white stripes. The morning breeze was catching an American flag bracketed to the house.

  Silently she moved around the living room. Pictures of people and sailing boats cluttered the shelves. There were tennis trophies and equestrian blue ribbons. She picked up a silver-framed image and frowned.

  “Jack Kennedy was a friend of my father’s,” Vick said, coming out of the kitchen. “That was taken shortly before he was killed in Dallas. Good morning.”

  “The windows aren’t boarded up,” Lucy blurted out.

  Vick walked to a bank of wall switches and threw one. With a slight hum, an automatic shutter began to lower.

  “It’s a security shutter,” Vick explained. “They protect the windows during storms, but they're strong enough to keep the dead out. At night they block all light. There are solar-powered motion detectors in the yard. If anything breaks the beam, an alarm will sound.”

  “What happens if the power goes out?”

  Vick opened a closet door and brought out a long piece of metal with a crooked end. “All the shutters can be hand-cranked into place. It’s slower, but it works.”

  Lucy felt some of the tension drain out of her body. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s just so open here. I’m not used to it.”

  “That’s okay,” Vick said. “How did you sleep?”

  “Good. Real good.” Her stomach grumbled as if on cue.

  Vick laughed. “Come on in the kitchen. I have breakfast ready.”

  Lucy couldn’t remember a day in the last year when she hadn’t been hungry. When Vick put a full plate of food in front of her, Lucy's reticence vanished. While she ate steadily, Vick explained their circumstances.

  “This is my childhood home,” she said. “The house backs up to a rocky cliff. The dead people can’t negotiate the steep terrain. I built barriers at the back of the house. The sand on that side is deep and thick. It bogs them down. They come up to it, but they can't cross. You can walk out on the beach in front of the house without worrying.”

  “How do you have electricity?” Lucy asked, eyeing a jar of jam on the table.

  Vick moved the jar closer. “Go ahead. There’s more where that came from.”

  While Lucy smeared jam on her toast, Vick said, “I was interested in alternative energy before all this happened. It was really just a hobby. Now it's a lifesaver, literally. There’s a wind turbine out back, and solar panels on the roof. The house can run off grid if you don't use too many things at once. There's a schedule for switching everything off and letting the batteries charge to full.”

  “Why the shutters?”

  “I worked in Boston," she said. “This place sat empty a great deal of the time. I installed the shutters to protect the property from storms and break-ins. Now, I put them down at night so the dead won't be attracted to the lights. The upstairs stays dark, so there's no need for the windows to be covered. Besides, the stars are pretty up here.”

  “And the barriers? All this food?”

  Vick laughed. “I’ll show you. I’ve had a lot of time on my hands. I’m the only living person in town. I thought I was the only one in the world until I heard you scream. I have to tell you, I was pretty happy to see you, Lucy.”

  Lucy looked at her plate, slowly putting her fork down and hiding her shaking hands in her lap. Vick waited. Finally Lucy looked up, tears rolling down her face. “I can stay here? With you?”

  “Would you like to?” Vick asked.

  “Very much,” Lucy said, her voice shaking.

  Vick smiled. “By any chance, do you play Scrabble?” she asked.

  Chapter Five

  January 2015: The Cabin

  “When I asked you that question, you didn’t tell me you cheat,” Vick said solemnly, but Lucy knew she was teasing and didn't take the bait.

  “I don’t cheat,” Lucy retorted with mock defensiveness. “I’m creative.”

  Vick sighed. “I was so arrogant back then, thinking I could stop the end of the world with storm shutters.”

  “It wasn’t this bad then. There were still parts of the old world that worked. We had a good run in York.”

  “Until we didn’t anymore,” Vick said bitterly.

  “That wasn’t your fault. None of this has been your fault. Without you, we’d all have been just like them a long time ago.”

  Vick patted the edge of the bed. “Sit down here for a minute.”

  Lucy perched beside her. They sat in silence until Vick finally said, “I am in pain.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t think we can move on before spring.”

  “I know that, too.”

  “I need to have a talk with Abbott.”

  That afternoon, the old man obliged her by drawing a chair beside the bed. “Lucy said you wanted to speak to me,” he said.

  “Mr. Abbott, I appreciate all you’ve done for us.”

  “It’s just Abbott.”

  “No first name?” she asked, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

  “Would you want anyone calling you Percy?” he snorted derisively.

  Vick laughed, “No, Abbott, I suspect I would not.”

  “How are you feeling, my dear?”

  “My chest hurts,” she admitted. “Every day it’s a little better. But I’m tired. We all are.”

  “From the things Lucy told me, you have every reason to be.”

  “She doesn’t think you believe her,” Vick said.

  He scratched his beard. “I didn’t say that to her,” he said carefully. “But, you have to admit, it’s a difficult tale to believe.”

  “It’s been a difficult tale to live,” Vick said soberly. “If you're willing to listen, I'd like to tell you my story as well. Maybe that will help you decide.”

  He took out his pipe, gesturing in question. “Will this bother you?”

  She smiled. “No. Actually, I’d rather enjoy it. My father smoked a pipe.”

  Striking a match against the sole of his boot, Abbott held the flame inside the bowl, drawing in air to ignite the contents.

  “Where do you get the tobacco?” Vick asked curiously.

  In between puffs, he said, “I grow my own during the warm months.”

  “This far north?”

  A grin split his seamed face. “My dear, shall we just say that as a younger man I had experience growing a different variety of plant under concealed conditions.”

  They both laughed, and Abbott gestured again with his pipe, “I believe you were about to tell me a story.”

  July 2010: London, Vick

  After a grueling six-city tour, Vick delivered a flawless final performance with the London Philharmonic. That pleased her. The email she was reading on her iPad didn't. Yet again, her producer was trying to tell her what to record.

  She hit reply and typed quickly, “The next album will be Scriabin. I do not like Mozart. I have never liked Mozart. I am not playing Mozart.”

  Never liked Mozart. That was an understatement.

  When Julie was a baby, everyone raved about the Baby Einstein series. Vick listened just long enough for her anti-Mozart meter to red line, then she banned the recordings from the household. Brahms. Her child listened to Brahms. Vick refused to contribute to the cult of St. Amadeus.

  She sat on the steps of the British Museum, balancing her iPad on one knee and a sandwich on the other. It was a rare perfect day in England; no rain and few tourists.

  When she visited England, she came to the museum to focus and still her mind. She imagined herself a kindred spirit to the stallion among the Elgin marbles. He strained against his stone prison, rearing toward freedom, hot breath flaring in his frozen chest.

  Before she left on the tour, she had told Maurice, “We’re do
ne.”

  He stood behind his massive mahogany desk at the concert hall gazing at her imperiously through his antique gold reading glasses. “Then I hope you are prepared to be done with your daughter as well.”

  In his public persona, Maurice conducted the symphony. Vick didn't ask his real business. As one of his more visible acquisitions, she performed her appointed roles. Concert pianist, elegant social ornament, mother of his child, and wife — essentially in that order. She watched politicians and power brokers defer to her cool, enigmatic spouse. Why he frequently disappeared behind closed doors with these men, she did not know or care.

  He entered her life a charming, middle-aged man. His ambitions allowed her dreams to come true. She soon learned, however, that dreams can turn to nightmares on the current of a thought. Her career was nothing but a well-crafted scene in the script Maurice wrote for his life.

  Victoria Ellingsworth-Eidson was a character. Vick Ellings was a woman who wanted to be in charge of her own story again. She wanted to find out if there was anything left within her of the child who touched a piano for the first time and discovered magic in her own hands.

  But Maurice, shrewd bastard that he was, held the trump card. Julie.

  Heathrow Airport

  Vick stared at the surgical mask in the gate attendant’s hand. “For the entire flight?” she asked incredulously.

  The woman was American, a Southerner by her accent. “Yes, ma’am,” she said. “The whole flight.”

  “So the news stories about some kind of epidemic are true?”

  “Well,” the woman drawled, leaning forward conspiratorially, “I’m not supposed to say, but I think it’s that bird flu they’ve been talking about all these years.” She handed Vick her boarding pass. “Better to be safe,” she intoned solemnly.

  Dutifully Vick put down her carry-on bag. She donned the mask before walking down the ramp. As she settled in first class for the long flight home, she quickly did a search on Amazon for something to read. On a whim she bought, Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918. Ironically, as the book downloaded, a flight attendant came down the aisle coughing. She held a tissue awkwardly wedged under her mask.

  Behind her Vick heard another of the crew say, “Sheila, that cough sounds awful. Why don’t you try to sleep a little. We can handle take-off.”

  Vick heard more coughing. She slipped on her noise-canceling headphones and started to read, “When the plague came, on those chilly days of autumn, some said it was a terrible new weapon of war. The plague germs were inserted into aspirin made by the German company Bayer . . .”

  Two hours later, a voice came over the intercom. “Ladies and gentlemen, one of our crew members has taken ill. If there is a doctor onboard, we’d appreciate some assistance.”

  Several rows ahead, a balding gentleman stood up and made his way to the service area at the rear of first class. Vick slipped off her headphones, momentarily taken aback by the roar of the engines, and instantly heard violent coughing.

  After a couple of minutes, a flight attendant hurried up the aisle and disappeared into the front of the plane. Within seconds, she was back, with the first officer on her heels. There was more ruckus, and then Vick heard a woman crying.

  The first officer walked back to the cockpit slowly, and the senior attendant came out of the crew area, stopping at each row of seats and speaking a few words to the passengers.

  When she reached Vick’s row, she said, “I’m sorry to say that one of our crew members has passed away. She had an upper respiratory infection. The doctor believes the coughing triggered a heart attack. We’re going to move her to the front so as not to alarm the other passengers.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Vick said sincerely.

  Tears came into the woman’s eyes, but her voice remained professional. “Thank you. That’s very kind.”

  After a few more whispered conversations, the attendant gestured toward the crew area. One of the male attendants and the doctor carried the blanket-draped body forward to the floor space ahead of the first row. The doctor shook the attendant’s hand and returned to his seat.

  Two hours later, Vick was asleep over her book when it happened. The scream awakened her. It was high and shrill, filled with terror. She opened her eyes on a scene from a mad house. Passengers frantically scrambled over their seat backs to escape what was standing in the front aisle. The dead flight attendant.

  Dried blood covered the front of her blouse and clashed with the ashen pallor of death on her face. A milky film covered her eyes. She seemed sightless, shifting her head from side to side, sniffing the stale cabin air. Growling noises gurgled up from her throat.

  Another flight attendant spoke to her in soothing tones, apparently backed up by the onboard air marshal who stood with his automatic pistol pointed upwards.

  “Sheila, honey, we’re so sorry. We couldn’t find a pulse. I know you must be so frightened. It’s the fever, honey. You’re delirious. We need to get you settled down so the doctor can check you out.”

  The attendant started forward, but the marshal put his free hand on her shoulder. “Lady, I really don’t think you ought to get near her.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” the woman said, “she’s obviously ill. She needs help.”

  She continued to speak softly as she inched closer, extending her hand in a placating gesture. It seemed to be working, because the growling stopped and Sheila grew still.

  “That’s it.” The woman carefully removed her mask. “See? It’s me, Barbara. You’re going to be fine. Just give me your hand.”

  As Vick watched, the dead woman's hand shot forward, closing on Barbara's throat with an iron grip. She managed a strangled cry that ended in a wet rattle as her flesh was torn away. A shower of blood shot over her killer, who hideously licked her swollen lips.

  Barbara sank to her knees, clutching her throat. The instant he had the shot, the air marshal fired, centering two bullets in the attacker’s chest. Enraged, the woman shoved her dying friend aside and charged.

  The marshal held his ground. The back of Sheila's head exploded outward. A deafening silence filled the plane for a few seconds, only to be replaced by pandemonium. Vick registered the words “terrorist” and “9-11.” A woman wailed in anguish, “I don’t want to die!” The surviving attendants scrambled to restore order. Vick and the air marshal were the only two people left in first class.

  He moved forward, gun at the ready and kicked at the body. Satisfied that Sheila was dead, he sank down on the arm of a seat and ripped off his face mask. He sat gulping in ragged breaths until he saw Vick. They held each other’s eyes for what seemed an eternity.

  "Mother of God, lady," he said finally. "Did you see that?"

  All Vick could do was nod. She had seen it. But she couldn't believe it.

  Chapter Six

  Vick remembered nothing about the rest of the flight. She came to herself when they reached the terminal. A horde of Homeland Security and FBI agents streamed into the cabin. Agents took the passengers out the secondary entrance, but an agent asked Vick to remain in her seat in first class to be interviewed.

  As she gave her statement, the crime scene techs took Barbara’s body out first and then lifted Sheila onto a gurney. The body's right hand fell from beneath the sheet — and twitched. Startled, Vick glanced upwards. The sickening spray of brain matter offered gory testimony to just how dead Sheila was this time. Vick shook herself. All she needed was for her mind to start playing tricks on her.

  When the authorities released her, Vick found her driver waiting anxiously on the other side of the yellow crime-scene tape. She dismissed his questions curtly, “There was an incident on the plane. I’m fine. Get me home.”

  She didn’t remember that she was arriving in Boston on July 4th. The drive from Logan to Commonwealth Avenue should have taken 15 minutes. It took an hour. Vick fidgeted in the backseat of the limo. The confined space agitated her. She longed for the cool safety o
f their apartment.

  A terrified need to see Julie consumed her. She wanted to hold her daughter and feel for herself that her child was alive and safe. When Vick finally turned the key in the lock, however, the welcome she found was only a note penned in Maurice’s precise hand. “We have decided to watch the fireworks from my office window. You may join us if you like.”

  Hot anger flared in Vick’s eyes. “I may join you, Maurice?”

  She walked to the kitchen and opened a bottle of red wine. She needed to calm her nerves. She didn’t know what had really happened on the plane. The woman couldn’t actually have been dead the first time. That was ridiculous. She must have lapsed into a fever-induced coma and then awakened in an hallucinogenic state. That was the only reasonable explanation.

  Vick flipped on the TV. Almost instantly the wine glass slipped from her fingers and shattered. A picture from Larz Anderson Park filled the screen on WBZ. But the perspective wasn't a shot of fireworks over the Charles River from Brookline. The camera lay on its side on a gravel path, the lens focused sharply on a pool of something dark and shiny.

  Screaming people ran in all directions in the background. Suddenly a set of shoes crossed the screen and sent the picture spinning. When it stopped, a horrifying tableau filled the screen. Three men crouched over a police officer lying spread eagle on the grass. They tore at his entrails with their bare hands, stuffing ropey bits of intestines into their blood-stained mouths.

  Vick backed out of the kitchen. Her heart pounded wildly in her ears. She hit every light switch she passed, flooding the apartment with light. She stopped when she hit the side of the Steinway sitting by the front window. Then she heard the rising panic in the street below. She shrank against the wall, pulling the curtain aside a fraction of an inch at an angle that kept her invisible.

  People filled the streets. Some ran full out. Others staggering along holding themselves at odd angles. Their legs dragged on the pavement, arms swinging aimlessly at their sides. As they passed under the streetlight, Vick saw their eyes; they were covered with milky film, just like the woman on the plane.