“No, you’re not,” Joel replied, and before I could open the door and begin my walk to the tailgate, where my plan was to retrieve the shotgun from beneath the lode of bags and fire off a few warning shots to draw the White Ones away, Joel had a .9mm Beretta aimed at the back of Emerson’s head.
Charlotte screamed, and, reflexively, I put my hand on the back of her head and shushed her, fearing that escalating the situation could trigger Joel to shoot. And then shoot again. Continuing until there was nothing but my family’s massacred bodies strewn across the leather of the Explorer.
I didn’t really believe that my best friend, whom I had known since our first year of middle school, would shoot my only daughter from point blank range; but fear—desperate fear—was the one emotion upon which I was not willing to gamble. I knew in my heart that I would have killed Joel to save Emerson—or anyone in my family—if I truly believed in the sincerity of my actions. And there was no reason to believe that Joel didn’t feel the same way about his own life, irrational though it may have been.
Ryan had begun to cry and was now pushing his shoulder against Nelson, trying to move as far away from Emerson as he possibly could. Nelson, who was now smooshed against the door, was also crying, but, thankfully, his asthma was held at bay.
“Okay, Joel, I’m going. I’m going. Please put the gun down.”
Joel shook his head, as if irritated that we had now reached this point in the relationship, one which we could never recover. “Dammit, Dave. Why couldn’t...why do you have to be like this? Why can’t you just do what the fuck everybody else would do?”
I looked back to the scene unfolding by the roadside, where two of the creatures had begun to move in on the Ryder truck, with one already scaling the grill, making its way to the hood. “Joel, please, let me at least fire off a couple of shots. We have to give them a chance.”
“No!” He pulled the hammer on the nine, the click of the metal sounding like a rocket through the car. “Let’s go.”
I shifted the car into park and began to ease the Explorer forward, now pulling even with the truck, where the first creature had reached the bottom of the windshield. The woman began to scream feverishly, bending at the waist as she unleashed her wails, covering the helpless infant with her bosom as she did. The man dropped his hands to his sides in defeat as we rolled past him, and as I checked the side mirror one last time, the White One, which had been sliding down the glass with each climbing attempt, finally found a grip on the glass with its raw feet, and was atop the truck a second later.
10: The Bridge
By the time we reached the Helena-West Bridge sign—Distance: 2 miles—and had yet to see another moving car on the road, I knew something was very wrong. Once Joel told of the entrance to the Safe Region, I had visions that a serpentine cluster of cars would be backed up all along the interstate for miles—five at least—before the toll booth bank, and that at various points along the route there would be military outposts to guide us through, navigating us into increasingly secure zones, perhaps inspecting our cars and IDs until finally ushering us through, making the crossing of the bridge a mere formality.
But there was nothing to suggest the military, or any law enforcement for that matter, had ever been there. No tanks or cruisers, no signs or cones or cordoned off areas, and soon the seeds of doubt were embedded in my brain about whether the Safe Regions existed at all.
“Stop the car,” Joel instructed, his voice cracking and nervous. They were the first words anyone had spoken in forty minutes. The gun at the back of Emerson’s head was now lowered, but presumably it was in Joel’s lap, ready to re-engage; there was no way I could risk making a play for the magnum beneath my seat.
“Where?” I answered.
“Just...here. I don’t care. Just stop the car.”
I did as I was told and brought the SUV to a stop, parking the Explorer in the middle of the street.
“Now we’re going to do a couple of things very slowly, and at the end of the process, no one is going to be hurt. First, Dave, I need you to leave the car running and unlock the doors. And put your right hand in the air while you do it.”
I raised my right hand and then pressed the button on the door rest, firing the locks up from their tiny caves.
Joel lifted the pistol again and held it eye-high, again a few inches from the back of Emerson’s head, and then he climbed from the back of the Explorer and squeezed in between Emerson and the boys in the middle row. Charlotte began to cry again.
“Joel, don’t—”
“Shut up!” Joel screamed, cutting off my plea. “The only way people will get hurt is if they do what you’re doing now. No one asked you to say a word, did they?”
I shook my head, keeping my mouth shut.
“Now, Emerson, when I tell you, I need you to step out of the car. Everyone else stays put. Got it?”
Reluctantly, Charlotte, Emerson and I nodded. The boys were frozen with fear and apparently given a pass on agreeing.
“Okay, ready? In three...two...one. Open the door, Em.”
Emerson wasted no time and snapped the handle toward her, releasing the door. She immediately stepped from the car in a panic, and as she stood outside the car, I could hear her taking huge gaping breaths, crying in disbelief. Joel followed Emerson outside and quickly corralled her several feet from the car, and then he maneuvered himself so that he was standing behind my daughter, who was now facing the car, her hands by her sides away from her body.
Joel maintained his position directly behind Emerson, and it was clear he was using her as a shield, in the event I went cowboy and bolted from the SUV with guns blazing. But in my heart, I knew Joel wouldn’t hurt us—at least not directly or intentionally—and I hadn’t yet reached the point where I was going to wager on my daughter’s life.
“Now the rest of you,” Joel shouted from outside. “Lauren, stay put.”
I turned to my boys in the backseat, both of whom wore masks of anguish upon their faces. Behind them I caught Lauren’s gaze for a flash, but she quickly looked away in disgrace. I looked at the Ryan and Nelson again. “It’s going to be okay,” I said sternly. “We’re just going to do as Uncle Joel says and get out quietly.”
“He’s not our uncle!” Ryan snapped, and I could see a rage in my middle child that I knew one day would make him someone’s formidable foe.
“That’s right, Ryan, he’s not, and after today, we won’t ever have to see him again. But right now, we have to listen to him. I’m going to get out now, and you both are going to follow me.”
Before any protests could be lobbed in my direction, I turned and opened the driver’s door and then waited until the rest of my family followed suit. In moments, we were standing on the street, with Joel still holding the gun at the middle of Emerson’s back.
“Where did you get the gun, Joel?” I asked, already assuming the answer.
Joel gave a snap of his shoulder. “Shouldn’t leave guns lying around in the driveway, buddy. People get hurt that way.” He waved the gun toward the middle of the street, directing Charlotte, the boys, and me there, separating us from the car. “Go,” he said, nodding for Emerson to join us, and as she walked toward our huddle, Joel took his position by the driver’s door.
“I assume you’re taking the car,” I said. I was looking in Joel’s direction but not meeting his eyes, instead casting my stare across his shoulder. “But let me have my stuff, please. At least some of it. Nelson’s meds are in there. And leave me my cat.” I knew Charlotte had stuffed an inhaler in her purse, which, thankfully, she had been permitted to take with her from the car, but we had gone through too much in Sprague for me not to try to get the rest of our bounty.
Joel stared at me for several seconds and then looked down the road in the direction of the bridge, as if considering the danger of my request. Finally, he shook his head and said, “I can’t risk it, Dave. Sorry, man, I really am.”
“Joel!”
Joel ignored m
e and hopped inside the Explorer, and the moment the door slammed, the chorus of my children’s tears began as they stood crying in the middle of Interstate 49, two miles short of the Helena-West bridge, the access point that crossed over the Mississippi River into the state of Mississippi. I felt like crying too as I watched Joel speed off toward the salvation of the toll booths, leaving his former best friend and his family stranded.
I felt helpless, doomed, and for a moment, I wanted nothing more than just to sit on the pavement and give up, to wait in place for either some miraculous rescue to come from above or for death to arrive, likely in the form of the Corrupted, the creatures that had appeared from seemingly nowhere to ruin the world.
“David? Hey? What do you think? It’s only two miles to the bridge.” Charlotte’s voice was low and muted, unhurried and rational, as if sensing I was reeling and that balance from her in that moment was what was needed. “I think we should follow them on foot. We can walk it easily as long as...as long as there are no problems.”
‘Problems’ was an obvious euphemism for the White Ones, but, in fact, we had seen very few of them during our travels from the cabin to the bridge. And she was right: following the Explorer to the bridge was really the only choice we had. We certainly couldn’t head back to the cabin—not on foot anyway. I cleared my throat. “Yeah, okay, I think that’s right.”
“What about Newton?” Nelson asked.
“We’ll get him once we cross the bridge,” Charlotte answered. “Unc...Joel will make sure to leave him somewhere safe.”
I had no reason to believe Joel wouldn’t do that, so, despite Charlotte’s goal to cushion the villainy of Joel, the sentiment from her didn’t feel like a lie. And even if it was, it didn’t matter. At that point, Newton was the least of our worries.
“But we have to get ourselves across first,” Charlotte continued. “So, we’re going to stiffen that upper lip and follow the road until we reach the bridge.”
Nelson began to prim his lips, presumably trying to stiffen his lip per his mother’s instruction, and without delay, we began our strides toward the river, with me in the back to ensure everyone kept up the pace. In just under twenty minutes, we reached the one-mile sign, and there I got the sinking feeling that the Helena-West Bridge was no longer a crossing point to safety, if ever it had been at all. The multitude of cars that I had expected to see queued up miles earlier suddenly began to populate the landscape, thickening with each eighth mile we traversed toward the bridge. The cars all looked to be empty, most with at least one door open as if they had been abandoned.
“What happened here?” Charlotte asked.
“I don’t know. Let’s just...let’s just keep going.”
We continued down the interstate for another half-mile or so until another sign appeared, this time warning of the toll booths ahead and preparing drivers to reduce their speed. But behind the toll booth sign, another sign came into view, this one erected only a few yards beyond. It had been made recently, by hand, painted with white letters on a wooden slat, the dried drips giving the message an ominous appearance.
Danger! Helena-West Bridge No Longer Accessible. Ferry Travel only beginning September 26th. The Last Crossing to the East Safe Region Will Occur on September 27th at Noon.
September 27th. I wasn’t a hundred percent certain in that moment, but I was pretty sure that was today’s date.
“Oh my god,” Charlotte blurted, affirming what I had suspected. She turned to me, her stare focused on my wrist. “What time is it?”
I hesitated to look at my watch, knowing in my heart we were too late. Finally, I flicked my wrist to the sky and nearly vomited at the obtuse hands of the watch positioned at 12:25.
“No! No, no, no! Shit!”
I ran toward the bridge now, barely able to breathe as I thought of the consequences of missing the last ferry, praying that when I reached the edge of the embankment that led to the water I would see the boat docked, perhaps a line of ferries waiting, along with armed soldiers standing on the docks, hustling people aboard, barking orders as the scared families quickly embarked.
And as I cleared the trees and signage blocking my view of the water from the road, I, indeed saw a boat, halfway across the mile-long span of the Mississippi. The ferry was too far out to see how many occupants were aboard, but I imagined, based on the Explorer parked at the base of the bridge with its tailgate up (Newton in his cage meowing in protest), that there were only two—Joel and Lauren.
I put my hands to my head in disbelief, staring at my SUV and then back to the water and the boat drifting cruelly away with each second. I panicked, but I quickly found the access road beside the bridge that led down to the old ferry station where the boat had surely departed. I sprinted toward it, reaching it in seconds, following it down to the water while screaming and waving my arms furiously. In the back of my mind I envisioned the young couple I’d been forced to abandon only hours earlier, abstractly imagining the pain and anguish they’d felt when the White Ones finally reached them.
I reached the clearing at the bottom of the road, but from there I still had another hundred yards to the river. I hung my head for just a moment and spat, and then I raced toward the water, finally reaching it as I gasped for oxygen on the shore. But the uncaring stern of the ferry was relentless in its advancement toward the opposite shores of the Mississippi, and nothing I did now was going to bring it back.
Still, I put my hands to my mouth and called out with all my voice could offer; but the words were tired and impotent, and they were snatched by the wind almost instantly, swept away into the oblivion of the ether. I felt the sting of tears in my eyes as I turned to my left, then to my right, studying the length of the riverbank in both directions, focusing on the dozen or so piers that occupied the expanse of land, searching for any sign of a boat that we could use ourselves to cross. But there was nothing to be seen, only the gray of the waves lapping against the shoreline or the pilings of the various piers.
And then a breeze broke forth from the atmosphere, and for the first time since we’d arrived, I felt the chill of fall.
I looked up to the toll booth, at the base of the bridge, and found the Explorer once again, parked just in front of the barrier arm. Charlotte and the kids were there now, and I could see Ryan holding Newton in his arms. Well, I thought, at least we had the cat back. And the car. Whether or not Joel had left the keys, I couldn’t be sure, but, since he’d left the trunk open for us to see Newton, I guessed he had. He was scared, not evil, I reminded myself, though little difference it made at that point.
Twenty-five minutes late. If Joel hadn’t shown up at the cabin, we likely would have made it. Then again, if not for Joel, we would have stopped to help the family on the Ryder truck, and who knew how that would have gone down. Or perhaps we would have been the family on top of the truck, having swerved to avoid a horde of White Ones and ending up stranded in the same ditch. There was no use playing the ‘What-if’ game—that was a contest for fools.
I watched the boat for several more seconds, squinting in disbelief at the cruel crawl of the ferry as it made its way across the river, and when it was nearly to the other side, I walked back to the access road and ascended it toward the bridge, where I finally joined my family at the tailgate of the SUV.
“Dad, it’s Newton!” Nelson cried.
I smiled and rubbed the cat’s head. “Hey buddy.” I turned to Charlotte. “Keys?”
She nodded, dangling them in front of me. She shrugged. “I guess he could have thrown them in the river.”
“Yeah, and he could have lobbied the ferry operator to wait twenty minutes.”
Charlotte shrugged again. “Who says he didn’t?”
I was tempted to keep the discussion going, to ask my wife why she was defending the man that had held a gun to her daughter’s head, but Charlotte had a way of keeping perspective at the proper moment, and perhaps this was a time when such depth was needed.
I nodded, concedin
g the point, and as I did, my eyes automatically drifted again toward the bridge, where the foot of the crossing came into view. I changed the subject on a dime. “Hey, what’s to stop us from crossing the bridge?” The question was more suspicious than anything, as I noted that the only barriers in place were a single row of plastic orange barricades from one side of the bridge to the other, the kind road crews set up to separate traffic from their worksites.
“What do you mean?” Charlotte asked.
“The sign says the bridge is closed, and they have these plastic orange barrier walls, but what’s to stop us from just moving them aside and driving across?”
Charlotte shrugged again. “I would imagine a line of tanks on the other side, maybe? Big guys with big guns?”
“Okay, great. What are they gonna do? Beat us up? Fire off a grenade launcher at an SUV full of kids? And a cat?”
“We might not get close enough for them to see who’s inside. I think that’s the point.”
I considered Charlotte’s reasoning, but the deeper I took it, the more it didn’t make sense. If we were driving, we obviously weren’t the monsters they were trying to keep out, and if their intentions were to blow us up before we got too close, certainly they would issue several warnings first, give us a chance to turn back.
She continued. “I mean, they must have closed the bridge for a reason, right?”
That was right; Charlotte’s skepticism was sound, but I assumed that reason was to keep tighter controls of the crossing, which a ferry was able to do. “I suppose so, but we don’t really have much of a choice.”
Charlotte nodded nervously, reluctantly agreeing to the idea, and she, Emerson, and I moved aside the barrier walls while Ryan pushed up the arm of the toll booth, and soon we were back in the Explorer and crossing the Helena-West bridge, heading into the state of Mississippi.
No one spoke as we drove toward the apex, which was as daunting as any stretch of road I had ever driven, reminiscent of the climb of a roller coaster, where the opposite side is invisible until the last moment, with the promise of adventure and excitement on the way down.
The Ghosts of Winter Page 11
