He finally decided that he would drive downtown to make absolutely sure there weren’t any signs of life there. If it was as desolate and lifeless as everything else he’d seen thus far, he would turn back around and head for New York City.
But first he was going to have to gas up. The thirsty Jeep’s fuel gauge was resting precariously on “E.”
He already assumed that the fuel pumps weren’t going to work without any electricity so he would have to come up with an alternative method to get fuel into his tank. He pulled back onto Morse Road and headed for the Sunoco station a block away. He pulled up beside a pump, got out and gazed expectantly at the instrumentation. Not a single lit up numeral.
Tom strode over to the mini mart and entered, not surprised at the frigid air inside. He poked around the aisles in search of a hose of some kind but had no luck. He then located a maintenance closet across from the restrooms and spotted a length of garden hose hanging from a hook. Removing the hose, he headed outside and walked over to a massive Ford pickup parked off to the side. He was elated to find a gas can in the bed of the truck, suggesting that the driver had run out during the storm. He lifted out the can, which was empty, and placed it on the ground beside the truck.
Luckily, the truck’s fuel cap was not locked. He unscrewed the cap and stuck the garden hose in as far as it would go.
Tom brought the open end of the hose to his mouth. Taking a deep breath, he placed his lips around the hose and started sucking. It had been decades since he’d siphoned anything and the first time he’d ever siphoned gasoline. The smell nearly knocked him out by the time he got his first mouthful of the burning wet fuel. Nearly gagging, he quickly plunged the hose into the gas can, spilling several ounces along the way.
Tom siphoned enough gas to fill the two-gallon can a half dozen times. When he’d emptied the last of the gas into the Jeep, he tossed the can along with the hose into the cargo section and got back behind the wheel.
Tom backtracked to the I-71 south access road. Radiant sun was coming from the southeast as he drove along at a brisk speed. In another ten minutes, he pulled off onto the Broad Street exit and began his search for signs of life in downtown Columbus.
As expected, there were cars parked along the streets, no working traffic lights and not a glimmer of life. He swung by the Columbus Police Department, double-parked and ran up to the door. He went inside and glanced around the darkened reception area. Not a single soul. It looked just like the Worthington P.D. but a lot bigger.
Columbus, Ohio was absolutely shut down and totally evacuated-save for one solitary soul. And it looked like that soul would be abandoning the city as well.
With a shrug, Tom hopped back into the Jeep, drove east to the I-71 entrance ramp and headed north to New York City.
CHAPTER 7
By the time he reached Akron, Tom was totally lost in thought. He thought back to the last time he’d been in New York, which was nearly twenty years ago. He had lived in The Big Apple for over five years in search of his idea of the American Dream: becoming a self employed, successful artist.
After graduating cum laude from Ohio University with a B.F.A. to his credit, Tom had returned to his hometown of Smithtown long enough to realize that he was going to have to get out of there pronto if he had any aspirations of making a living at his chosen career. Not only was the tiny town economically challenged, as was the case of virtually every other Appalachian town in southern Ohio, it was absolutely depressing. He had enjoyed his childhood there but it was time to spread his wings and go somewhere that had a future.
After several weeks of serious deliberation, he opted for New York. After all, he figured, if you’re going to be serious about a career in art, you may as well go to the art capital of the country. And besides that, he knew of a friend living there who had offered to put him up until he was able to get on his feet.
So it was off to a new city and a new life. After several agonizing weeks of pounding the streets, he had finally found a job with a salary decent enough to allow him his own loft space in Soho. Although the nine-to-five gig as an archive photo intern at the Museum of Modern Art was interesting and fairly prestigious, Tom would much rather have been creating his own art instead of preserving others.’
But it was a job nonetheless. And in addition to a generous salary, it offered him a great opportunity for establishing connections in the art community. Tom had dove into his new job with a positive attitude and worked on his art in his spare time. Photography was his discipline of choice but he also spent time drawing and painting.
Between his full time job at the museum and spending the rest of his time in his loft studio, Tom had enjoyed his life in New York for the most part. His social life, however, was nearly non-existent. He preferred to pursue his art with as little distraction from outside influences as was humanly possible. That isn’t to say he was a self-ordained monk by any means, but the sum total of his socializing was limited mostly to the occasional night out bar hopping with a small circle of coworkers from the museum and the even rarer one night stand with some girl he’d meet at a bar. Tom adamantly refused to get involved in any serious relationships. He had a career to think of first.
But his life seemed lackluster and he still wasn’t making a living at what he wanted to do. He had amassed a considerable body of work after living five years in the city but had found very few galleries interested in displaying any of it. In fact, he had only sold one piece of art in all the time he’d been there-a black and white portrait of one of his coworkers from the museum.
The job at the museum became less and less challenging and more of a grind than anything else as time passed by. But at least one good thing came out of his employment there: he had made up his mind to become an art teacher – perhaps to specialize in art history. He decided to move back to Smithtown and eventually enrolled at Ohio State University to pursue his MFA. OSU had an excellent art program and was located only a couple of hours away in Ohio’s capital and largest city A deer suddenly darted out into the road and Tom swerved hard to the right to avoid plowing into it. The sudden move caused the Jeep to spin a full 360 degrees. He watched the white tail bound into the woods and felt his heart race wildly as he finally managed to bring the car under control.
This abrupt reality check made Tom snap out of his reverie. He had driven over three hours and still hadn’t seen a single vehicle or a single soul. It had started snowing again and was becoming more and more difficult to see the road. He decided he would stop off in Youngstown long enough to eat and wait to see if the snow was going to let up any.
Tom pulled off onto the first exit for downtown Youngstown. Five minutes later, he was driving down one of the main streets in search of a place with something substantial to eat. He finally opted for a gas station with a mini mart. He pulled up beside the entrance, got out and went inside.
It was at that moment that Tom nearly lost it completely. He took one look at the deserted store and realized that it looked just like the one he had been at in Columbus. In a single sickening moment, he considered the notion of being the last man on earth. The proverbial Omega Man. Feeling weak in the knees and beaten down, he leaned over and rested his head on the counter, feeling tears come to his eyes.
His family had vanished into thin air along with the rest of mankind and now here he was in this goddamn deserted mini mart in Youngstown searching for a decent meal.
It was as daunting as it was absurd.
Why had this happened? he thought. And when was it going to end? Would he ever see Peg and the kids again? As he thought back to the whole unreal scenario he had left behind in Columbus, he now found it difficult to believe it had ever happened.
But the ten thousand dollar question came down to this: had he made the right decision traveling to NYC while his family could at this moment be in harm’s way somewhere back in Columbus?
Tom shivered and dashed the impending urge to break down totally. What sobered him up was the innate
desire to live and a compulsion to find out what was happening. He was only human-what other options did he have? He could either continue standing there bawling like a baby until he froze to death or be grateful that he was still alive and go where his heart told him to go.
Smiling faintly, looked around and snagged a candy bar off the shelf. He unwrapped it, took a bite of the frozen rock hard Milky Way and nearly chipped a tooth in the process. Perhaps something a bit more palatable? he thought.
He browsed the aisles and picked out a large bag of potato chips, some Planters whole cashews and a semi-hard giant Slim Jim. Tom wondered why the latter wasn’t frozen solid then considered the salt and preservatives that prevented the leathery junk from crystallizing totally. And to think of what it would be doing to his body…
Tom returned to the warm Jeep and settled down to eat his lunch. He reached over for one of the three bottled waters he’d packed and began munching on his junk food as the snow continued falling hard against the windshield. It didn’t look like the storm was going to let up anytime soon so he took his time eating. When he was finished, he had the overpowering urge for a cup of hot coffee. He recalled seeing canned fuel in the mini mart and made the easiest decision he’d made all day: to brew a cup of hot coffee.
Then he would gas up and continue his journey after the storm broke.
CHAPTER 8
Tom’s anxiety grew more the closer he got to Manhattan. Night had fallen about halfway through Pennsylvania and that was intimidating enough. But as he approached the Lincoln Tunnel and got his first glimpse of the Manhattan skyline in over twenty years, he nearly came undone The famous skyline he had known so well was all but invisible in the misty darkness. Missing were the countless rectangles of light in the towering skyscrapers, the lights tracing the spans of the Hudson and East River bridges, the familiar gleaming stainless steel apex of the Chrysler Building, the illuminated tiers of the Empire State building and most apparent of all-the World Trade Center altogether. He hadn’t been back since the 9/11 tragedy.
In fact, had the skies not just cleared up enough to reveal an amber quarter moon hanging low in the southwest sky, Tom would be unable to make out anything distinguishable from his present perspective. But the weak light afforded by the moon revealed the eerie silhouetted forms of the towering buildings on Manhattan Island.
“Christ,” he breathed aloud into the silent interior of the Jeep. “It’s even worse than I imagined.”
The skyline disappeared abruptly as Tom made a wide turn and drove past the deserted tollbooths. He entered the Lincoln Tunnel and slowed down to a near crawl, still overwhelmed by the scene he’d just seen a moment ago.
This was simply too much for him to grasp right now.
Tom continued letting up on the accelerator until he had almost coasted to a dead stop, trying to ascertain what he might find on the other side of this tunnel. He had just driven ten hours alone on an abandoned highway in search of the only two living souls he’d seen since arriving home from the supermarket the day before. And now that he had finally arrived at his questionable destination he found himself clueless as to what he should do next.
He was absolutely terrified.
He stared out at the headlights as they sliced through the blackness of the tunnel and took a deep breath. What difference did it make? He was here, what had happened had happened and now he had to do what he had to do to survive. It was as simple as that.
This simple rationale rekindled his spirits a bit as he inched his speed up to forty-five and focused on the road ahead. Maybe, he thought, he would see the usual throngs of people on the streets. After all, with a population of over eight million, the odds were certainly greater than anywhere else he’d been thus far. Surely there would at least be some signs of life-the odds had it if nothing else.
Surely.
He spotted the exit looming in the near distance. Impulsively, he let off the gas and slowed down to a glorified crawl. By the time he actually emerged from the tunnel, he felt as though he were driving in wet cement.
His first observation when he suddenly thrust into the manmade canyons of midtown Manhattan was the near total darkness and mind-boggling silence. He had never known the city to be dead silent. This, along with the absence of any working lights whatsoever, made it all the more foreboding. Columbus, Ohio was one thing. The desolate mountain highways of Pennsylvania were another thing.
But to be in the city that never sleeps and experiencing this was absolutely paralyzing.
Tom puttered east along Thirty-fourth Street with no destination in mind, numbed by the silent darkness. He spotted the occasional abandoned taxi or truck parked along the curb but didn’t see nearly as many vehicles as he had expected to see. This made the enormous cityscape seem all the more desolate.
Nervously, he turned up the volume on his CD player and continued driving east. Ironically, the song playing was Omega Man by the Police. When he reached Herald Square, he slowed down to a complete stop directly across from Macy’s.
It just wasn’t possible, he thought. To be sitting there in one of the most congested pedestrian venues in the country and not seeing a single soul. He turned down the volume, tentatively rolled down his window a few inches and listened intently. Not a sound. He turned off the engine. Nothing but dead silence, except for the clicking of the Jeep’s hot engine manifold.
Tom sighed and turned the key. The engine turned for a moment but didn’t catch. He switched off the headlights and tried again. The starter whined a couple of times and stopped dead.
“Shit!” he spat.
He tried a few more times to start the Jeep but without success. The battery finally became so weak that and all he got was the clicking of the solenoid.
The Jeep was dead.
Excellent.
In a semi-panic, he looked around for another mode of transportation. He spotted a couple of cabs parked up ahead near the corner of Sixth Avenue. He could only pray that the keys were still in one of them.
Tom cursed to himself once more as he fumbled for the flashlight in his duffel bag. He switched it on and stepped out onto the street, thankful it had stopped snowing by the time he’d entered New Jersey a few hours ago.
Training the flashlight’s pinpoint beam along the sidewalk, Tom walked briskly toward the first cab. He heard the sound of his footsteps echo crisply as he glanced at the storefronts along the way. He suddenly stopped dead in his tracks when he noticed the smashed window of an upscale clothing store. Looters? he wondered. If that were the case, it was the first sign of looting he’d seen since this nightmare had begun-which seemed a little odd, he now realized. But at the same time, it was an encouraging sign. It meant that perhaps someone other than himself was alive and kicking in Gotham City.
Tom walked up to the shattered glass window and shone his flashlight into the store. Nothing seemed to be out of place as far as he could see in the weak light. He wasn’t about to go inside to look any further.
He continued walking until he came upon the first cab. He tried the door but it was locked. He shone the light into the front compartment. No keys.
Frowning, he ran up to the next cab and discovered that it too was locked and keyless. He trained the light up the street and spotted a panel truck parked on the corner of Broadway. He ran over and peered expectantly through the passenger window as he tried the door handle. It worked. He opened the door just as he noticed that the driver side window was bashed in, shards of safety glass lying all over the front seat.
Another looting?
Tom stepped back to read the sign on the side of the white panel truck: Tri-State Heating and Air Conditioning. The address showed a Union City, New Jersey address. Tom hopped into the truck.
He shone the flashlight into the glove compartment, which was wide open. Nothing much there but it was clear that someone had rifled through it. He moved in between the seats and shone the light into the rear compartment. He saw a few Freon gas cylinders, an empty tool bel
t, what looked like a couple of small air compressors and a few odds and ends. All of the items had been cased out and shuffled around hastily, or so it appeared. Whatever the thieves had chosen to take was anyone’s guess. If they had taken anything at all.
But the significant thing was what the broken store window and truck break-in implied: someone was stalking the streets of New York and had most likely done so since all of this lunacy had begun. Which to Tom was a good thing.
Could this have been the work of Kyle and Erin? he thought. Or someone else? Tom had a feeling the answer was the latter. It just didn’t seem likely that Kyle and Erin would blow into town only hours ago and randomly elect to break into a store and a truck right from the get-go. This had to be the work of someone else. And whoever that was, he hoped to discover.
Or did he?
Tom realized that the mere presence of other life forms here might not be a good thing after all. In fact, it could make his finding Kyle and Erin that much more difficult. Maybe even dangerous-especially if the unknown city stalkers weren’t particularly in a hospitable mindset.
What he didn’t need now was someone standing in the way of his finding Erin and Kyle. His plan was to save the girl and get the holy hell out of here pronto. His desire to stick around in this skeleton of a city had evaporated a long time ago…
Tom hopped out of the truck and pointed his light down Broadway in either direction. He couldn’t see any more vehicles within the limited range of the tiny flashlight. He retraced his steps to Sixth Avenue and looked north and south, but it was the same story there.
Decision time again.
He walked back to the Jeep, got in and stared out at the darkness. Should he continue looking for a vehicle or stay here and wait until daylight? The prospect of wandering too far from his only sense of security-his faithful but flawed Jeep-wasn’t particularly inviting. In fact, it would be foolish to even attempt it. He was dead tired from the drive in spite of the inert adrenalin coursing through his veins, it was dark as pitch, and his only source of light was a piddling two-AA cell mini Mag-Lite that was about as effective as a fart in a windstorm.
See Tom Run Page 6
