Night of the Purple Moon

by Scott Cramer

  One boy who had long greasy hair sprinkled with some type of white powder casually took his knife out. “Is that her?” he asked, pointing the tip of the blade at Abby.

  Mandy nodded.

  “She won’t last much longer,” a skinny boy, with sticks for arms, said with a smirk. He looked to have on new clothes. In fact, they were all dressed in clothing free of rips and stains. Stick Boy then gestured at Jordan. “He looks even worse.”

  “Why are you taking our things?” Abby asked.

  Knife Boy grinned. “Because we outnumber you, and we’re stronger.” Several of his cohorts chuckled, leading Jordan to conclude that he was their leader.

  Knife Boy took a long swig of water and spit it out. “What’s in there, a dead fish?”

  “My brother and I are sick,” Abby said. “We sailed here to get the antibiotic. There’s medicine that will cure us. All of us.”

  “We don’t believe you,” Mandy said.

  Abby explained about the space germs and the efforts of the CDC. Jordan took note of what she didn’t mention, namely where, when, or how the antibiotic would be distributed.

  “How do you know about the CDC?” Knife Boy asked.

  “The internet,” Abby replied. “The CDC has a website which they update every day.”

  Abby was not a good liar, and Jordan saw that none of the gang members believed her.

  “The internet stopped working a year ago,” Mandy said. “Right, Kenny?”

  Knife Boy—Kenny—nodded. “Yeah, the power went out a long time ago.”

  Jordan stepped forward. “You’re right. But we have a generator. The government ran a marine biology lab on Castine Island. They had a direct internet connection to the CDC. We use one of our generators to power the computer in the lab.”

  “Bullshit,” Kenny said and spit. That apparently granted permission for the others to do the same. They all spit, with the exception of Sick Boy.

  “We use our other generator to power a soft-serve ice cream machine,” Jordan added.

  Kenny snorted. “More bullshit.”

  Jordan closed his eyes and pictured Kevin filling cone after cone with vanilla ice-cream in front of the bowling alley, and recalled the sensation of his first lick. “You can’t believe how good it tastes.”

  He had spoken with such sincerity and so convincingly that when he opened his eyes he faced expressions of envy.

  “What if they really can access the internet?” Mandy said.

  “Don’t be gullible,” Kenny scolded.

  Abby knelt beside Sick Boy. “Has the rash appeared on your back?” she asked him.

  The boy nodded. “It hurts like hell.”

  Kenny glared at the boy. “Shut up, Alex.”

  “The antibiotic can cure Alex,” Abby said. “The pills can cure all of us. Everyone will get sick when they enter puberty.”

  Kenny flipped his knife in the air and caught it by the handle. “So where do we get these pills?”

  “We’ll take you to the distribution point,” Abby said. “We’re all stronger as a group. You can help us. We’ll help you.”

  “Roll the boat,” Kenny said with a wave of his hand. “Snap the mast.”

  Now everything was happening in slow motion. Jordan saw eyes brighten and grins widen at the prospect of rolling over their boat. He saw the members of the gang turn toward the boat and take a step, and then another step. At the same time he watched Abby reach behind her back and remove the gun from her waistband. She took aim at Kenny.

  Kenny chuckled. “Nobody has bullets.”

  Abby raised the barrel and pulled the trigger. The huge explosion sent out a shockwave. Her arm jerked from the kickback, but she managed to hold onto the gun.

  Kenny dropped his knife.

  Now what? Jordan thought. Take two motorcycles? He had never ridden one and the same was true for Abby.

  Abby then walked up to Mandy and held out the gun to her, handle first. How incredibly stupid could his sister be? Jordan felt himself melt into a puddle and soak into the purple-specked sand. “Take it,” Abby told Mandy. “We want to live as much as you do. You don’t have to fear us. Let’s work together—we have to if we’re going to survive.”

  Mandy, as stunned as anyone, took the gun.

  Kenny lunged and grabbed it. “There aren’t any more bullets,” he said and aimed at the sun. When he pulled the trigger, the kickback sent the gun flying.

  Kenny eyed them, breathing fast and shallow. “Okay, so how do we get this antibiotic?”

  Jordan thought his sister was a genius.

  * * *

  Abby instructed the kids to drag the skiff onto the beach. If all went well, she hoped that she and Jordan would return here within a week, healthy and with an ample stock of pills, and then sail home to Castine Island.

  They had to be careful around Kenny, though. Abby didn’t trust him, fearing that he’d abandon them if he knew the timing and location of the pill distribution. They had to keep it a secret until they arrived at Logan Airport. Abby hated the fact that Kenny had the gun, but she felt her dramatic action had been necessary to capture their attention.

  Strangely, Abby trusted Mandy.

  Once the kids had secured the boat, Abby told Kenny that she and Jordan would travel with them the following day to get the antibiotic. She didn’t ask him. She told him. Several factors influenced her decision. She and Jordan were weak, hungry, and dehydrated, and a full day and night of rest and nibbling might help to increase their strength. Although several of the kids were quite thin, she assumed they had a safe place to stay and plenty of food and water. Abby also worried about arriving in Boston too early. The CDC had announced that the pills would be available in four days. It was impossible to know what they’d find at the airport in Boston: tens of thousands of survivors shoving and pushing, or lining up peacefully, or hardly any kids at all. The trip to Boston from Maine should take no more than several hours, and she would be pleased to get there three days early. Abby considered that abandoned vehicles might clog the roads. But what better way to navigate around obstacles than by motorcycle?

  “Tomorrow, huh?” Kenny said in an agitated tone, apparently not accustomed to taking orders.

  Abby ignored him and turned to Mandy. “Will you take us to your place? We need food and water.”

  Mandy fidgeted, apparently not accustomed to making decisions in Kenny’s presence.

  Kenny stepped forward, asserting his authority. “Let’s go,” he said. They all moved to the motorcycles parked in the driveway, except for Alex, who remained on the beach.

  Abby looked back at the boy suffering from the advanced stages of the illness—only slightly worse off than she and Jordan— and wondered who was going to help him.

  “Don’t worry,” Mandy said, reading the concern in Abby’s eyes. “We’ll send someone back for Alex’s motorcycle.”

  “His motorcycle! What about him?”

  Mandy shrugged. “Once the rash appears on your back, you don’t live long.”

  Kenny butted into the conversation. “Now what’s the problem?”

  “You can’t leave Alex,” Abby said.

  “Sure we can. He’ll wash away in the tide.”

  Abby felt the urge to punch Kenny, but even if she had all her strength, what good would that do? Instead, she had to outthink and outsmart him. She shrugged to feign indifference. “Jordan and I will stay with him.” Abby’s saw Jordan’s jaw drop. She knew the risk she was taking, but she couldn’t leave Alex.

  “How will you get the pills?” Kenny asked.

  “We’ll find a way,” Abby said with a smile and gestured to Jordan to return with her to Alex’s side.

  “Get Alex,” Kenny barked to an underling.

  Abby had figured correctly. Kenny wanted the antibiotic as badly as they did.

  Kenny paired Abby with Mandy, and Jordan with a sour-faced girl named Jerry. They mounted the motorcycles.

  Kenny led the procession north on Route 1,
a road the Leigh family had taken many times on their way from Cambridge to the ferry terminal in Portland. The wheels in front of her kicked up grit and grime that stung Abby’s face. She prayed Jordan had enough strength to keep his arms wrapped around Jerry’s waist. It would be tragic for her brother to survive crossing the strait, half way to their goal, only to fall off the back of a motorcycle.

  On both sides of Route 1 store windows were broken. Some buildings had burned to the ground. Abby saw a pack of dogs trotting across the charred remains of a gas station. Cars sat at various angles in every lane. Most contained the corpses of drivers and passengers, undisturbed since the night of the purple moon. A mummified driver sat tall and erect behind the wheel at one intersection as if he were waiting for the light to change.

  Here the convoy turned left and then took the first right, approaching a barricade constructed of washing machines, refrigerators, tires, and cinderblocks. The motorcycles formed a line and passed through the opening.

  The gang occupied two neighboring houses on a tree-lined side street. The kids dismounted, and Mandy led Abby and Jordan into the house on the left. Curious faces peered at them from the shadows.

  “Tony died last week,” Mandy said matter-of-factly to explain the filthy bed and heaps of dirty laundry piled high in the bedroom where Abby and Jordan would stay.

  A strong odor of urine permeated the room, and some type of white powder dusted the floor. Abby opened the window for fresh air. Newly unfurled spring leaves, close enough to touch, twisted in the wind. Now the breeze picks up, she thought.

  Abby planned to remove the dirty sheet, but Jordan had already collapsed on the bed and was fast asleep.

  She was bone tired and ached for sleep herself, but she went downstairs, wanting to learn more about these kids. She feared that she and Jordan were in grave danger and the more she knew about them the better.

  “How about a tour?” Abby asked Mandy.

  Mandy agreed and led her into the kitchen. The mysterious white powder was on this floor, too. They were alone, standing next to the greasy countertop.

  “Kenny says you can’t access the internet.” Mandy said. “But I believe you.”

  Abby stepped closer, ready to do something far riskier than handing over the gun. She was about to bet her life that truth and honesty would forge a bond of trust and friendship. “We don’t have internet access—I mean we used to, but we haven’t for a long time. The CDC gives reports on the radio. The FM station is 98.5. We didn’t tell you because if Kenny finds out where to get the antibiotic, we’re afraid he won’t take us.”

  Mandy eyed her for several long seconds. “You’re right,” she said with a nod. “Be careful around him.”

  The conversation ended when a scrawny girl with ratty hair and a new pair of jeans entered the kitchen.

  Mandy escorted Abby throughout the downstairs. “Twenty of us are still alive,” she began. “We started out with twenty-eight. Most of us were in the same seventh-grade class. A couple of sixth-graders joined us.”

  Several empty cans with sharp lids were on the floor, making it a dangerous place to crawl. “How many babies live here?” Abby asked.

  “Kenny says they’re too hard to take care of.”

  Had she heard Mandy correctly?

  “There are twenty-seven of us on Castine Island,” Abby said. “Chloe is fourteen months old. Clive is a month older.” She told Mandy all about the mansion and their nightly meetings and how they shared duties. “Even my three-year old sister has a job. Her name’s Toucan.”

  Mandy pointed to a portable propane stove. “We use it to melt snow,” she said.

  Abby thought it strange that Mandy showed no interest in how they lived on Castine Island.

  “During the summer,” Mandy continued, “we bathe in the harbor. Once the ocean gets too cold, we switch to cornstarch. If you sprinkle it over your body, it absorbs the odors and oil from your skin.”

  So the white powder on the floors was corn starch.

  “How come everyone seems to be wearing new clothes?” Abby asked.

  Mandy paused. “Oh, there’s a Target store close by.”

  They stepped outside and Mandy gestured across the street. “We go to the bathroom over there.”

  “We use our backyard,” Abby said. “We built a fence to keep the coyotes away.”

  “Coyotes?” Mandy’s eyes widened, finally interested in something about the island. “We have to worry about other gangs. If they catch you, they’ll take the clothes off your back.”

  Abby felt her eyebrows lifting. “Like you wanted to do to me,” she said to herself.

  The gang’s most prized possessions were their motorcycles. “Kenny’s older brother sold motorcycles,” Mandy said. “Kenny taught all of us how to ride.”

  The question had been on the tip of Abby’s tongue and now she asked it. “If Kenny says babies are too hard to take care of, what happened to them? Some of you must have had younger brothers and sisters who survived.”

  Mandy gave her a cold stare. “You live on a little island. All you have to worry about are a few coyotes. We had riots. Thousands of kids starved. It was kill or be killed. It’s great that you have your nurseries and your nightly meetings, but we couldn’t have done that kind of thing here.”

  “What happened to the babies, Mandy?”

  Mandy’s expression of anger briefly gave way to sadness. She narrowed her eyes again and stared at Abby with hatred. About to speak, she shook her head and stormed away.

  Abby stood alone on the porch for a while, the strong breeze ruffling her hair. She finally went inside and trudged up the stairs, furious at Mandy but even angrier with herself. Why couldn’t she have kept her big mouth shut?

  THREE DAYS LEFT

  Abby’s eyes shot open when Jordan groaned in pain. He was on the other side of the mattress. She watched him, but he made no further sounds.

  The sky had lightened but she couldn’t tell if the sun had risen because of the cloud cover. The leaves on the tree outside the window rustled in a strong breeze. Abby imagined them harnessing the wind in the skiff and sailing into Boston Harbor, right up to the end of the airport runway, where doctors met them with bags of pills.

  “I’m so cold,” Jordan said through chattering teeth.

  Abby quickly dismissed her fantasy to care for her brother. She had awoken earlier in the night to find him shivering and covered him with a blanket. He had screamed when it brushed against his back, letting Abby know how far his rash had advanced. Now she pulled the blanket just over his legs.

  Abby recalled her heated exchange with Mandy. She did not regret what she had said but how she had said it. What Mandy had said was true. Abby had no idea of the horrors the mainland kids faced in the days and weeks after the purple moon. No matter what they had faced, though, Abby would always believe they should have cared for the babies.

  Abby also wondered if Mandy had betrayed her trust, telling Kenny about the CDC radio station. Kenny would dump them in a second. If the gang traveled to Boston without them, perhaps she and Jordan could resume sailing. Prepare for anything and everything, Abby told herself.

  She got out of bed and tried to get Jordan up. Feverish and glassy-eyed, he rolled over and closed his eyes. She asked him nicely and then ordered him in her bossiest tone and then finally pleaded. Words weren’t working. She dragged his legs and arms closer to the edge, but he always pulled them back. She considered poking his back. She’d do anything to save her brother’s life, even if meant inflicting pain.

  Abby first decided to try one more thing and spoke one of her brother’s popular refrains. “Never give up, right?”

  These words worked! They inspired him to not only rise, but to make it all the way to the first floor.

  The residents were eating granola bars and cereal with soda. They poured the soda over the cereal. When the Leigh children received no offers of food, Abby looked around and found a can half-filled with cherry soda. She took a smal
l sip and tried to get Jordan to drink some but he turned his head away.

  Kenny announced that they would leave at nine o’clock and ordered Mandy and Jerry and Sam to accompany him. “Watch her,” he said to Mandy, referring to Abby. Abby thought that it would be difficult for Mandy to watch her since she had yet to make eye contact with her. Sam was the skinny kid who Jordan had nicknamed ‘Stick Boy.’ Stick Boy, sour-faced Jerry, angry Mandy, and King Kenny—some crew, Abby thought.

  At nine o’clock Abby, Jordan, Mandy, Jerry, and Sam assembled outside. A heavy mist was bleeding from the overcast sky. Abby guessed the temperature was in the fifties. Tiny droplets clung to her like wet feathers and chilled her. Nobody offered jackets to her or Jordan, even though she suspected they had a huge pile of them, likely taken off the backs of weaker kids.

  No one from either of the neighboring houses ventured out to wish them luck. Abby didn’t understand these kids.

  “Where’s Kenny?” she asked the trio at ten o’clock. “We’ve already wasted an hour.”

  They ignored her.

  Kenny was making a point of who was in charge by making them wait. Agitated, Abby labored inside to confront him. A girl with sad eyes, moaning in pain, sat on the stairs. Abby felt her forehead and then gave her three Advil tablets. There was more than enough cherry soda still in the can for the girl to swallow them.

  She gently touched the girl’s arm. “What’s your name?”

  “Alison. Thank you.”

  “I’m Abby. You’re going to be fine, Alison. You’ll get the antibiotic in a few days. Try to rest up.”

  She wrinkled her brow. “The what?”

  “The pills that kill space germs,” Abby said. “Did anyone tell you about the medicine?”

  She shook her head.

  Just then Kenny walked up to them and gestured dismissively to Alison. “Go up to your room.”

  Alison slunk away like a frightened dog.

  “She’s dying,” Abby said, stunned. “Knowing about the medicine would have given her hope.”

  Kenny smiled slyly. “Information is power.” He bent down to tie his shoelace. “I’m not stupid. I know we’re going to Boston.”