by Laeser, Nico
We made our way on foot, checking the vehicles for supplies, but most had already been picked clean, and none would start. Mostly charred skeletal remains, still smoldering and smoking, now stood where the town had been. I convinced Powell to circle around and into town to see if my dad’s truck was still there in the hardware store’s parking lot where I had left it. The hill I had described, and plummeted down, was no more than eight feet high and not as steep as in my retelling. The car with the full-length scrape was still there, and so was my dad’s old truck, although a thick film of ash and soot now covered both.
It started on the first try. I let it idle while Powell made a list of nearby clinics and while the fans worked to exhaust the acrid smell of stale smoke from inside the cab.
“We’ll try the clinics and pharmacies, whichever ones are still standing. If the hospital survived the fires, the staff will probably have their hands full, dealing with the remaining population,” he said. “I dread to think how they’re dealing with the blackouts.”
The thought of a fire at the hospital was more than I could bear, but as quickly as I pushed the notion from my mind, it was replaced by images of those kept alive by machines. “The hospital must have backup power, generators, and battery banks for the machines, right?”
“I’m sure they do, but ...” Powell trailed off.
But for how long.
“We’d better get going,” he said.
The roads were peppered with glass and debris. Abandoned vehicles lined the roadside, pushed aside by rescue parties to make way for the makeshift emergency transportation. The vehicles we passed were in varied condition. Some appeared perfect at first glance, but a quick look back in the rear-view mirror showed their caved-in hoods and red spider webs where the windshield had once been. Some of the cars we passed had been reduced to gnarled, black framework and lumped, melted interior I tried desperately to convince myself was only seating.
We bumped over medians and detoured over grass and pavement to get around obstructions on stretches of road that now resembled rust-less junkyards. The first clinic on Powell’s list was no more than ruins, identifiable now by the odd blackened steel carcass of a crutch or wheelchair. We trudged through the ashes, between half-melted shelving, to see if anything had survived, but what the flames hadn’t touched, the heat had sealed in tiered plastic stalactites.
We returned to the truck empty-handed. Powell climbed in behind the wheel. On the way to the next location, I kept my eyes on the passenger dash, not wanting to look upon another wrecked car with a baby-on-board sticker, and not willing to risk a glance at what could be inside on the back seat. I kept my mind away from the morbid meanderings by making mental shopping lists, picturing the aisles lined with canned food and dry packaged goods.
Over the past few days, the topic of conversation in the church had revolved around the rationing of food. There were complaints about our supplies being spread thin and thinning farther with every new addition to the shelter. Gary tried to calm the group, saying the more people we had, the more people could be out searching for food, supplies, and survivors. That was met with shouts of more survivors, more mouths to feed, followed by the red-faced retort from the relatives of those still missing, demanding to know what made the more outspoken more deserving of charity than their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, or daughters.
“You okay?” Powell placed a hand on my arm.
I realized we had stopped and nodded in response to his question.
“It looks like the clinic’s still intact, and there’s a convenience store at the corner,” he said, pointing beyond the three dead cars welded together in the middle of the road.
Powell climbed over the hood of the truck, embedded through the clinic’s double doors, and disappeared inside the building, while I continued on to the convenience store on the corner. Small cubes of safety glass crunched under my feet as I tried the door. As I reached through the broken lower pane and fumbled with the lock, I tried to ignore the rising guilt, telling myself what I was doing was for the benefit of the group, for survival, but my conscience offered terms like looting, theft, and robbery.
I filled bags, baskets, and boxes with non-perishable foods, hygiene items, and anything else that looked to be of use and stacked each package by the door. After loading the bed of the truck with all I had been able to carry in a single trip, I opened the truck cab and retrieved my bag from behind the seat. I pulled out all the money I had before returning to the store and my waiting loot. The money I tucked under the cash register was nowhere near enough to cover what I had taken, but it was enough to pay down a little of the guilt. I knew the money was unlikely to end up in the rightful recipient’s hands, but the gesture had been more for my conscience than for goods and service rendered.
I made several more trips, back and forth, from the store to the truck. While adjusting my grip on the last few remaining bags, a hand reached down over mine.
“Here let me help you with those.”
My heart skipped, and I spun to see Powell.
“Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you,” he said and reached down to take the bags.
I was reminded of the times Sam would jump out and try to scare me when we were kids, but Powell was not laughing, or smiling. He was paper white, as though I had startled him.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He nodded and asked if I was ready to go. I took one of the road-map books from the display at the counter and a few felt markers before rejoining him at the door.
“Did you get what we need?” I asked.
“Enough for now,” he said.
We stowed the supplies in the bed of the truck without either of us saying another word. Powell drove while I marked the map with each major obstruction, clinics that had succumbed to the flames, and the one we had found still intact. I shaded the areas that had been completely lost to fire, and circled other locations that we, or another of the other search parties, could return to later.
I glanced over at Powell. His mouth moved, silently forming words spoken only in his head, while his brow flickered a frown between each thought.
“Is everything okay?” I asked. “I mean, did something happen in the clinic?”
He shot a look my way and let out a breath. “Was there anyone else in the corner store?”
It took a second to register his question. “What? No. It was empty. Why do you ask?”
“I must have walked right past it—him.”
“Who?”
“There was a guy in the clinic. I had my arms full of meds, coming out of the back room, and when I looked up, he was standing there, plain as day. I fell back over a display stand, and the pills went everywhere,” he said.
“Who was it?” I asked.
“It was one of them. He stood over top of me, held out his hand to help me up, and I tried to take his hand, but there was nothing to grab. He looked as confused as I was. I’m okay; it just startled me. I’ve been hearing the ghost stories for days, but seeing it with my own eyes ...” he trailed off. “I’ve never been religious, but you have to wonder if anyone got it right. Is there a God? A Heaven? Hell?”
“I don’t know, but maybe we’re closer to finding out.”
09 | Sign language
The sounds were muffled by the heavy double doors at the back of the church hall, but loud enough to warn us of the chaotic scene inside. Powell opened the door, and as we passed beyond the wall of sound, we saw the wall of people pushing, shoving, and writhing in the corner of the room. The preacher stood on the stage behind the crowd, waving his arms and going red in the face as his mouth moved—but his words were unheard, lost amid the collective yell.
We moved to the stage, and I followed Powell up the stairs at the side. From our elevated position, we could see the calm epicenter surrounded by the chaotic, clambering crowd. Behind the piano, and centered in the quarter-ring of people, a young girl sat cross-legged facing a woman who was not one of us.
> As we neared the preacher, we heard him trying to calm the congregation, saying they were in the house of The Lord. We stood and stared down as two men tried to hold back the pushing crowd while the young girl and the distorted translucent woman conversed in what appeared to be sign language.
“Looks like we may get some of our questions answered,” I said, but my words fell short of Powell’s ears, unable to cut through the swelling noise.
Powell joined the preacher, and both stood at the edge of the stage, calling out to the crowd, trying and failing to steal their attention away from the girl.
An air horn blared from the back of the hall, leaving my ears ringing in the following silence. We all turned to see Gary and his party at the double doors holding bags and boxes and a raised air horn. “We got booze, cigarettes, chocolate, and all kinds of good shit that’s bad for you,” Gary said.
He left his party to hand out the crowd pleasers and made his way toward us. “What the Hell’s going on in here?” Gary asked.
Powell gestured to the girl, still signing to the translucent woman.
“Who is she?” Gary asked.
“I don’t know; we got back about twenty minutes ago. They’ve been shouting and shoving since we got here,” I said.
Gary nodded. “We figured things would heat up in here pretty soon; they’re getting restless. Thought we could lighten the mood a little, bring some creature comforts to calm everyone down while we try and figure this all out.”
“They all seem a lot more interested in the booze than in the medicine and food we brought back,” Powell said.
“Do you think they know each other, knew each other?” I asked, without taking my eyes off the girl and woman.
“Sure seems like it.” Powell dropped down from the stage, and the rest of us followed.
“Who is she?” Powell asked of the broad man, who had been trying to hold back the crowd.
“My wife,” he said, through a reddened, tear-streaked face.
“Is she your daughter?” I asked, looking down at the girl.
The man nodded.
“What are they saying?” Powell asked.
The man’s eyes welled up with fresh tears. “I don’t know. I understand a little bit, basic stuff to get by, but Haley reads lips too. Since Sarah—” He cleared his throat and wiped a thick hand across his face. “Since it’s been just us, I’ve had her write everything down. It’s hard for me to follow her hands, I get things wrong, or it just takes too long for me to understand something she could write in one shorthand sentence. You’d think I’d be an expert after so many years, but ...”
Haley’s father turned to the back of the church where most of the crowd now jostled for Gary’s creature comforts. “They were all pushing her around, trying to get her to ask questions; they’re animals, all of them.”
“There’s nothing more frightening than a frightened mob,” Gary said.
“What are we going to do?” I asked.
Gary turned to the preacher. “Seems like this is more your area of expertise than mine.”
The preacher breathed a sigh. “There’s a box in the corner with paper and stationary. If we can get everyone to calm down and take a seat, then we can hand them out with food and water, and ask everyone to write down any questions they have for Haley and her mother.”
“I’ll do it; they all know me well enough by now,” I said and made my way to the crowd.
***
Reluctantly, the people settled around the room with the promise of food, water, or the appeasing of requests for the cigarettes and alcohol Gary’s group had brought back. I took it upon myself to limit the distribution of alcohol to avoid what would surely lead to trouble later on—if the drinking got out of control, so too would the drunks soon after.
The preacher called from the stage, “For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in distress, a refuge from the storm ...”
“What does your bible say about the dead coming back to life?” a voice shouted from somewhere at the back.
Most of those in the hall stared not at the preacher, but at the girl in the corner, and at the ghost of her mother.
The preacher followed their gaze to the girl. “This poor girl lost her mother and has been reunited with her in this life. How can this be a bad thing? Let’s forget about what we think we know and look at her as an example. She is unafraid, let us spend our energy and time helping the living instead of worrying about the dead. There will be time enough to worry about spirits. We need to concentrate on ourselves, on each other, on helping each other through this. Some of you are members of this church, and I expect more from you, and from myself. If Haley’s mother has come back to us, then it is by the grace of God, and we should be thankful. We should be thanking God, and thanking the medical staff who have been patching people up, and thanking the people who have been out searching for survivors and scavenging for supplies, instead of giving into fear and panic and turning on each other.”
The crowd fell silent. Some still looked annoyed and some looked ashamed, but all were calm enough, the wind having died down from their sails.
At the preacher’s request, Gary stepped up onto the stage and addressed the crowd. “The little girl’s name is Haley, and her dad’s name is Sean. The woman is Haley’s mom, Sean’s wife, Sarah. She died a few years ago, and for whatever reason, she’s back, along with many others, as most of us have seen with our own eyes. Right now, the only way we’re going to get any answers is through Haley. There's no point shouting at her, she’s deaf, she can’t hear you no matter how loud you shout, and it doesn’t seem like the ghosts can hear us or talk to us either. If you’ve got something that you want to ask, write it on the paper you’ve been given, then we’ll collect your questions up and work through them. It’s going to take some time for Haley to write down all of what her mom says, so we need to be patient and stay calm.”
Powell passed a note to Gary. “For any of you that haven’t met him, this is Powell, he’s been treating the wounded. If any of you have a condition that requires medication, diabetics and such, then talk to him or one of the other medical staff, and they’ll see what they have or make a note of what we have to go and get. That’s it for now.”
The preacher called softly to an elderly woman in the hall, and she stepped forward. He met her at the base of the stage steps and took her hand in both of his as he spoke to her through a smile. She walked slowly and took a seat at the piano. Coupled with the hall’s ambient echo, the sound of instrumental hymns worked to soothe the mood.
Gary and his team left the hall and returned minutes later with sleeping bags, camping stoves, and various items they had brought back from their supply run. They set up a makeshift kitchen, and Gary set to work, cooking up enough food to feed everyone. Between the music, the smell of cooking stew, and the promise of a hot meal, the remaining tension about the room softened even giving way to the odd smile.
I found Powell taking inventory of the medical supplies.
“Want to join me?” I asked, gesturing to the bottle of cheap red wine in my hands.
He turned and stared for a second, let out a breath, and smiled.
10 | Survey
There remained a slight coffee taste, or smell, from the paper cup with every sip even after the second pour of wine. I had given Powell the cleanest one from behind the seat of the truck, but it was probably no better than my own. I put my feet up on the dash of the truck and closed my eyes.
“It’s been a long day,” Powell said.
“It’s been a long week,” I added and breathed a sigh. “Part of me wants to head back to the corner store, grab what I need for myself, and head back to the house. It’s not that I’m ungrateful for everything you’ve done, I just—after seeing Haley’s mom, I’m wondering if my dad will come back, if I should be home in case he does.”
“Don’t you want to hear what Haley’s mom says?” he asked.
“I do, but what if my
dad is there at home, waiting for me, I don’t want him to be alone.” I sipped from the cup and looked out through the passenger window, down the hill, to the subtle orange glow still lingering over parts of the town. Without knowledge of what was causing the subdued night lights, the scene would have been serene and beautiful, but in amongst the warm glow were the skeletal remains of buildings and bodies.
“Stay for the night, we’ll go find fuel for the truck in the morning, so you can get back if you need to,” Powell said.
“Okay. Do you want the rest of this? It’s giving me a headache.” I held out the bottle, and Powell took it and screwed the cap back on.
“We’ll save it for if, or when, you come back.” He finished what was in his cup. “Do you want to go back in?”
***
In the hall, the people were calmer than I had expected. Over by the piano, Gary handed notes to Sean, who then passed them one at a time to Haley, who then signed the messages, wrote down her mother’s response to each, and handed them back to Sean. The process was slow; hours had passed before the last note cycled through and found its way back to the stage.
The preacher leaned from the stage into the piano player’s view and signaled for her to stop. Gary waited for the last note to ring out, straightened the stack of paper in his hands, and then asked for quiet.
“I’m going to read these out exactly as they’re written, question and answer. If you’ve got something to say, wait until they’re all read out; otherwise, we’re never going to get through it.”
