by Scott Cramer
They set off in the cruiser, with Jordan driving and Colby in the back seat. Abby kept her eye on him in the side mirror. He glared out the window, gripping a baseball bat. Nobody spoke.
They stopped at the house which had two cars in the driveway and Toby’s Mustang parked out front. Abby remembered who had lived in the house before the night of the purple moon: an old man who mended fishing nets. Tiny yellow wild flowers sprouted in the trash-strewn front yard.
The three of them got out of the cruiser. Colby slammed the car door shut and walked up to the Mustang and smashed a headlight with the baseball bat. He would have done more damage to the car if Abby hadn’t stopped him.
“We’re different than they are!” she said.
“Maybe you are.”
Abby flashed a look at Jordan that pleaded, do something, say something, help! Her brother turned away.
They moved to the house. Colby pounded the head of the bat on the porch floor. “You’ll never steal from us again!” he shouted.
Abby knocked on the door. When no one came, she opened it a crack and peered inside. The rank odor of garbage and heaps of trash piled up reminded her of her last visit to their lair. “Toby?” she called. “Chad? Glen?”
“They’re probably still in bed,” Jordan said. After all, it was only ten-thirty in the morning.
Colby smirked. “They’re not out working, that’s for sure.”
Abby stepped into the entry hall with the other two following her. Then she entered the kitchen, immediately wishing she hadn’t. The evidence was before them: cracked shells on the countertop and a pan on the stove with the caked remains of scrambled eggs.
“Assholes,” Colby shouted.
Her heart skipped a beat in fright. She felt caught in a riptide. No matter how much she struggled, she couldn’t fight the current. The inevitable was about to happen. All of a sudden Abby heard a faint sound of weeping.
“Listen,” she whispered. “Someone’s crying.”
“They’re laughing,” Colby boomed. “They’re laughing at us.”
“It sounds like crying to me,” Jordan said.
Abby followed the sound up the stairs. She did not want to lead, but she knew that she must stay between Colby and whatever they were about to find. It would be her last chance to prevent violence.
Someone was crying. Abby reached the top of the stairs and started down the hallway. She glanced back. Colby was tip-toeing close behind, poised to smash someone with the bat.
There, in a bedroom at the end of the hall, Toby and Glen were standing beside a bed where Chad lay motionless under the covers. Glen was the one crying. Abby knew immediately that the space germs had claimed another victim, a boy her age.
Toby, his face wet, glanced their way briefly before returning his gaze to his dead friend.
Abby heard a soft clink, the sound of wood on wood. She saw by her feet that Colby had set the bat on the floor.
He jammed his hands in his pockets and rocked side to side. “I’m really sorry,” he said and lowered his eyes. There were tears in his voice.
MONTH 6 – TWO BURIALS
Jordan sailed thirty degrees into the wind, close hauled, tacking every fifteen minutes, zigzagging ever further from the island. Waves pounded the skiff’s bow in endless thuds, splattering icy droplets against his rain gear.
Seas this rough, with a strong northeast wind, usually spelled trouble. October was hurricane season. A Nor’easter, also common this time of year, was no picnic, either. Abby had pleaded with him to wait for better weather, but he had a job to do.
Toby and Glen had finally delivered Chad’s body to the mansion, and Zoe, too, needed a sea burial. Her skeletal frame lay along the port gunwale. Chad was at the bow, his face as gray as the clouds.
Half a mile at sea, Jordan baited a hook with the head of a smoked mackerel, threw it overboard, and looped the fishing line around his foot. The big schools of bluefish and striped bass had migrated to warmer waters, but still he stood a slim chance of snagging a straggler.
Ignore the odds, never give up—Jordan believed that was the secret of survival.
After only a few minutes he felt a tug on the line. A strike! He rammed the tiller forward, bringing the bow into the wind. The sail luffed and the boat bucked up and down. Jordan braced his right leg against the port side and hauled in the fishing line, hand over hand. Whatever he had hooked seemed to weigh a ton.
It was a whopper all right; a whopping disappointment.
He hoisted a mesh bag of pale, waterlogged grapefruit into the boat. The label said, “Indian River, Florida.” Jordan imagined the grapefruit had drifted in the Gulf Stream, all the way up the coast. He decided to keep the bag to show Eddie— otherwise his friend would never believe him.
Later, he once more steered into the wind, putting the skiff in irons. Jordan maneuvered Chad’s right leg over the side and waited for the crest of a wave to roll the body overboard. Pushed by wind and wave, Chad floated away.
Jordan placed one hand behind Zoe’s neck and his other hand beneath her tiny waist and lifted her as easily as a bundle of twigs. Some of the kids blamed Zoe for her own death because she was anorexic. They said the space germs only provided a convenient excuse for her to stop eating. Jordan did not agree. Space dust had killed her, just not in the same way it killed the others. The germs had infected her with fear.
Zoe slipped beneath the surface when he released her.
MONTH 7 – RIGHT ON TIME!
Jordan served as a human crutch with Colby’s arm draped over his shoulder. Together they moved in starts and stops toward the bathroom. He felt the searing heat radiating off Colby. During the past three weeks, Jordan had seen Colby go from being the strongest kid on the island to the weakest.
He stopped to let him rest in the hallway. “How are you doing?” Jordan asked.
“Great,” Colby replied.
Jordan had expected him to say that. “No cramps?” Jordan added.
“Nope,” Colby said. “I feel fine.”
That was a lie. Before entering his room, he had seen Colby doubled over in bed, using his pillow to muffle his groans.
“How do your legs feel?”
Colby forced a grin, “Light as a feather.” He broke out in sweat straining to lift his right leg.
They continued to the bathroom. Colby leaned against Jordan to pee in the toilet. Jordan flushed, but the bowl did not refill. He turned on the sink tap, no water came out. Colby didn’t ask if there were a problem, and Jordan didn’t mention one.
He helped Colby limp back to bed and used his pillow to prop him on his side because of the painful rash oozing pus between his shoulder blades.
Jordan hoped the absence of running water was limited to the upstairs bathroom, but he wasn’t terribly worried, either. They’d been planning for this day for a long time. They had stored bottled water and cases of soft drinks in the basement. Their wisest move had been to fill fifty 55-gallon drums with fresh water from the hose. Eddie had found the drums inside a warehouse near the docks. They now sat in the back yard. Between the drums of fresh water and what was sitting in the basement, Jordan estimated they had a two-year—or longer—supply of drinkable liquid.
Downstairs, he checked the taps in the kitchen and in the three other bathrooms. None worked. Outside, not a drop came out of the hose. He raised Derek on the radio, who was conducting secondary searches of homes, looking for anything of value they might have missed earlier.
“The water’s not working here, either,” Derek told Jordan.
Jordan thought he should first test the water in several drums before he informed the other kids at council tonight. He pried off a cap and inserted a two-foot section of hose. To siphon the water, he pressed his lips against the end and gave a quick, hard suck, quickly inserting that end into an empty bottle.
He took a swig and immediately spit it out. The water tasted awful, like rancid fish oil. There must have been some mistake. Eddie had tested the wat
er in several drums before filling them all, and he’d said it was fine.
Jordan sampled the water in every drum. Only six drums were good. He calculated they had a two month-supply of fresh water. Because the antibiotic would not be available for nearly seven months, it meant they’d have to drink a lot of rancid water.
* * *
Abby boiled water on the wood stove, let it cool, skimmed off the layer of oil, poured the water through cheesecloth, and added a packet of lemonade powder. She took a sip and grimaced. The final concoction tasted like fishy lemonade.
She was ready to test it on the patient.
Colby had refused to drink bottled water and soda, and even the decent water from a drum, telling her to save the good stuff for the babies and younger kids. When Abby entered his room, Cat jumped off his bed. The cat had been spending her days and nights curled next to him, sleeping and grooming herself.
Abby helped Colby sit forward and brought the glass to his mouth. His attempt at a sip barely moistened the tip of his tongue.
He smacked his lips. “Mmm, sardines and lemons.”
“Wait until Kevin finishes building his still,” Abby said. “He claims we’ll be able to boil sea water and condense the steam to get fresh water.”
“Kevin’s smarter than he looks,” Colby said with a wink.
“In the meantime,” Abby added, “you know what he says we can drink?”
Colby shrugged. The tiny movement caused him to yelp in pain. Abby tensed and bit her lip. She had promised Colby she’d stop feeling bad for him, which, of course, was impossible, so she had to overlook moments such as these.
“Toilet water,” she continued. “Kevin says the water in the tank is clean. He figures there’s five-hundred gallons of clean toilet water on Castine Island.” Abby made a face. “Disgusting, huh?”
Colby raised his eyebrows. “How much of your fishy lemony water have you tried?”
Abby updated Colby on daily events to take his mind off his pain, and tragically, his imminent death.
“We’re getting a little tired of canned peas, corn, beets, and spinach,” she said, “but the good news is that Emily and Tim have become excellent rabbit trappers. So far they’ve caught two. They plan to raise them in the barn. Toucan calls them Mr. and Mrs. Bunny. This time next year… ” Abby’s voice trailed off. She couldn’t finish. Colby wouldn’t be around in a year, and maybe she, too, would have fallen victim to the germs.
“Yeah, go on,” Colby said, “this time next year… ”
Abby took a deep breath. “We’ll have hundreds of rabbits, as long as one of them is a girl and one is a boy—it’s impossible to tell.”
“Ask Kevin.”
Abby smiled. “The genius can’t figure it out.”
“You like him, don’t you?”
The comment surprised Abby. “Yeah. He’s kind of nerdy, but everyone puts up with Kevin.”
“I mean, you really like him.”
Were her feelings for Kevin that obvious?
“He’s okay, I guess,” she said, throwing in a shrug of indifference.
The corner of Colby’s mouth curled into a smile. “I’m jealous. You’re really pretty, Abby.”
Nobody had ever told her that, except for her mother. Abby felt her face flushing. She glanced in the mirror behind Colby’s nightstand. She was blushing.
“Do you like me?” he asked, his eyes red-rimmed.
Abby had always liked Colby as a friend. They were very similar. Since the earliest days of the purple moon, they had both understood the importance of everyone working together. Abby had thought many times that Colby’s hatred of Toby had nothing to do with Toby’s personality. He hated that Toby, Chad, and Glen weakened the group by choosing to live separately.
Abby kissed him lightly on the forehead. “I like you very much,” she said.
Colby closed his eyes and seemed, for the moment, to be at peace.
Abby peeked into the mirror again and this time saw fat tears streaming down her cheeks.
Colby’s condition worsened. During the daytime, he hardly made a peep, but he moaned throughout the night. Some of the kids had concluded his pain was greater at night until they realized he was crying out in his sleep, a time when he had no control over how he sounded.
He received a steady parade of visitors, while Abby remained by his side constantly. One night, six days after his rash had appeared, she allowed her heavy lids to droop.
“Abby!”
She startled. Sunlight flooded the room. Jordan was shaking her. It was mid-morning. She had slept for hours.
“He wants to take the ferry,” her brother stammered.
Colby was up and dressed, wearing a jacket. His eyes were bright. Derek, Kevin, and Emily stood in the doorway, as if to block his escape.
“Colby, the ferry isn’t running,” Emily said softly.
“He can’t go in his condition,” Kevin blurted.
“He’s burning up!” Jordan cried.
Abby turned to Colby, and he looked directly into her eyes. “Please,” he said. “We need to go now. I don’t want to miss the ferry.”
“Help me get him to the car,” she told the others.
Abby drove to the harbor and parked where tourists’ cars had once formed a long line to board the ferry. Beyond the jetty, white caps were forming. With the days growing shorter, puffy clouds soaked up the fading November light, and in this golden silence she and Colby watched gulls soaring above the slate grey water.
“I used to love to take the ferry with my dad,” he said. “He sold lobsters to six restaurants in Portland. He’d wake me up at three o’clock in the morning and by the time I got dressed, he’d have the truck warmed up. Abby, can you believe I drove his truck when I was eleven years old!”
“I believe you, Colby.”
“We were always first in line. That’s when we switched and my dad got behind the wheel. They would never have let a kid drive the truck onto the ferry. Look!” he cried, eyes widening. “Here it comes!”
Abby saw only a boy giddy with excitement. But the ferry was real to him. Perhaps he saw his mom and dad waiting for him on the deck, and they’d cross the strait together.
Abby placed her hand on top of his. “It’s right on time.”
* * *
The space germs had so far claimed three survivors on Castine Island since the night of the purple moon, KK, Zoe, and Chad, and the germs were about to claim a fourth victim.
Abby had just left Colby’s room. He was running a high fever, but it was impossible to know how much pain he felt because Colby never complained.
She stared out her bedroom window, silently cursing the CDC scientists, the smartest in the world, according to Kevin. How about ‘the most inept scientists in the world’? Why was it taking them another seven months—or longer— to distribute the antibiotic? Unless a miracle happened, Colby would be dead in weeks. How many others would die because of the failings of the CDC?
Abby saw the speck on the glass and remembered her improbable fantasy that a ship would rescue them and take them to a land where no adults had died. Now she’d settle for going to a place ravaged by space germs, but where they would cure Colby and commute the rest of them from the death sentence of puberty.
The speck looked somehow different today. Her speck, the smudge of salt that she had left on the window, appeared more like a dot. Abby realized it was different. Her pulse quickened. She thought the dot might actually be a ship in the distance. She wiped the window clean and blinked. A ship was on the horizon.
Worried that she might be hallucinating, Abby grabbed a thermometer. With a shaky hand, she checked her temperature.
Ninety-eight point two. Normal.
Abby ran downstairs, all the time resisting the urge to shout out her discovery. If she were wrong, she didn’t care what the others would think about her, but she didn’t want to raise false hopes. She returned to her room with binoculars and trained them on the horizon. It was a ship, a
freighter, perhaps.
Now she raced throughout the house, shouting the news. Word spread quickly and soon everyone had gathered below the mansion by the water’s edge.
“It’s an aircraft carrier,” Eddie said and handed the binoculars to Jordan.
“I think it’s a cruise ship,” Jordan replied to his friend.
“Yeah, the passengers are on vacation,” Derek said sarcastically. “They don’t know they’re supposed to be dead.”
Nobody laughed.
As the kids shared the binoculars, Abby glanced back at the mansion. Colby was in the window. Sadly, in her excitement, she had failed to alert him. She had forgotten to tell the one person who needed the most help. Abby waved and Colby gave her thumbs up. His positive attitude in the face of death constantly amazed her.
“We have to go out there in Sea Ray,” Eddie said.
Jordan shook his head. “I don’t think it has a crew,” he said. “They all died months ago. It’s literally a ghost ship, drifting.”
“We have to try,” Eddie said.
“Try what,” Jordan responded quickly, “wasting our last fuel to chase a ghost ship? We need the fuel to go to the mainland when the antibiotic becomes available. The scientists aren’t going to deliver anything to a dinky island.”
“The chance might never come again,” Eddie said.
Jordan glanced at the weather vane. “If it’s drifting, the wind will blow it to the south.”
Eddie lay on his belly, eye level with the pebbles, and aimed a stick at the ship. They’d soon know its direction.
As the kids waited, they put forth wild theories.
“What if the captain and crew are twelve years old?” Jimmy said.
“What if they’re pirates,” Emily said.
“Have you ever seen a hospital ship?” Tim began. “When there’s a natural disaster, they bring doctors to the area. Hospital ships looks like cruise ships.”
