Fools' Apocalypse

by Anderson Atlas

  Ian had never really thought about how a radio works. Now, surrounded by burned out electronics, silent silhouetted buildings, and darkened streetlamps, it seems like magic. An ever shrinking percentage of the population understands how a radio works, let alone how to build one. Ian marvels at the radios guts and how Hana is moving the pin across simple wire that catches the frequency.

  The static breaks around 97.1. The signal is weak but audible. “Need survives. Greed dies. There is an Eden,” says a somber monotone voice. “You have been chosen.”

  “What the hell?” Isabella’s brow tightens as her eyes fixate on the radio.

  “Let me recheck the rest of the dial,” Hana says, but the rest of the dial is nothing but static. She tunes it back to 97.1.

  “Twenty-one degrees, forty-eight minutes, north. Eighty degrees, zero minutes, west,” the voice on the radio says. Then it repeats the earlier message. “Need survives. Greed dies.”

  “It’s an invitation. There are survivors gathering at those coordinates,” Ian says, looking away from the radio. “That means the virus has circled the world.” His voice cracks.

  “How is that possible?” Rice asks.

  “Everyone is sick now?” Andy mumbles. It’s the first time Ian has heard him make a peep. His shock must be wearing off. His mouse voice is small and powerless. He must be eight or nine years old. Ian’s sadness peaks, a high tide this time. He squeezes his eyes shut and grips the oars.

  “Shhh, Andy. Not everyone is sick. We’ll find the survivors and your parents. I promise,” Rice says.

  “The virus works so unbelievably fast. Three days from death to rebirth. The same sickness has crossed oceans? Continents? Islands? How can it?” Ian says.

  Josh adds groggily, “There are over eighteen million flights a year. That translates to roughly forty-nine thousand flights per day.” He does a bit more math in his head. “Average is two hundred passengers per flight,”

  “That’s over nine million passengers a day,” Markus calculates. He’s clearly good at math.

  “Doesn’t take a genius to see how fast a virus could jump continents,” comments Isabella.

  “Especially for an airborne virus that has no symptoms in the first twenty-four hours of infection,” Josh says.

  “So, the world is dead,” mutters Hana.

  Ian pulls on his oar again, pointing the boat back to the middle of the Hudson.

  There’s a long silence other than the lapping of the waves on the hull. A scream spears the dark night. Then another. The darkness seems to press against Ian’s back as the whole world gets a lot more threatening.

  “I suggest we get a bigger boat,” Ian says, feeling like the water is the only real safe space.

  “We must find Eden,” Rice suggests, covering Andy’s ears. “Anyone know how to read longitude and latitude?” She looks at Josh who seems to have the biggest brain in the boat.

  But it is Markus that answers, “Those coordinates say that Eden is in Cuba.”

  Ian doesn’t know how Markus knows that without a map, and doesn’t care. “I guess we’re going to Cuba.”

  Time passes as slow as sap drips from a wounded tree. And like the sap that heals, Ian feels more relaxed. It’s as though the worst is behind them. Hana touches his shoulder and points to the sky. “Manhattan hasn’t seen such stars in over a century.”

  The clouds are moving away, exposing the stars. They’re as numerous as sand on a beach. Are we special here? On Earth? Did I just fuck up the one grand thing in the entire universe? Though Ian tries to hide it, he cries, letting his tears collect on his lids and blur the starlight into obscurity.

  Something bumps into the hull. Then another bump. Ian sits up. It’s too dark to see anything, so he grabs his flashlight and holds it over the edge. There’s a face in the dark water. Ian exhales like he’d been hit in the stomach with a tire iron. He’s about to scream out when he notices there are no roots in the eyes.

  “Ian,” Isabella whispers. “Over here.”

  Ian stands and leans past Hana to look over the other side of the boat. The boat tips under his weight, just a little. There’s a mass of dead bodies in the water. None are moving. None are infected.

  Josh speaks first. “The bodies are floating in a tight formation. It would seem there’s a surface current pushing everyone together.”

  “They’re all dead!” Andy yells and becomes silent again. Ian wants to cover his eyes, but he needs to see it. He’ll grow up in this dead world. So look, kid. Really see this. It will help you survive.

  Rice hugs Andy hard.

  “It smells bad,” Hana mumbles.

  Isabella holds the light high to see as far as she can.

  Josh says, “We’re caught in the same current. We’ll be floating with the corpses until we hit the lower bay and the current breaks up.”

  Ian got into politics in order to help people. He wanted to make everyone’s lives better. Punishing the rich, the powerful, and the greedy seemed like the only way to do that. He was wrong. His internal tide of sadness rises again as he stares at the results of his ignorance.

  Chapter 1.22

  Hana

  Broken Liberty

  The survivors are floating down the Hudson River, surrounded by dead and bloated bodies. The smell is terrible. Hana would throw up if she had anything in her stomach. Flies bombard her, swarming everyone.

  On multiple occasions Hana screams, though only in her head. Squeezing her eyes shut helps drown out the world, but she can’t keep them shut. Inevitably, they open. The lantern-lit bodies float in the same current, cradling the boat like they’re ushering the survivors to the afterlife.

  Ben stands. The boat rocks.

  “What did I say about sitting down?” Isabella hisses.

  “I have to piss. Geeze, lady.”

  “I’m gonna rip that thing off.” She looks ready to launch over everyone and fulfill her threat.

  “Fine, then get piss in your face. I’m going with or without a dick.”

  Ben unzips then pees. Hana covers her ears. Not because of the sound of urine splashing on the water but because it’s pattering on the body of some poor soul. Maybe they weren’t poor. Maybe they had the more humane end than the walkers do. None of these bodies have roots growing out of them so they died in the beginning. They never chased, never tried to bite or tear, never had to starve to death.

  All the men take turns peeing over the side of the boat. Even Isabella somehow squats over the edge enough not to pee down her leg. Hana holds it. The pressure in her bladder distracts her. Rice does the same. Ian passes around his water bottle. Hana drinks because her throat is filled with razor blades, though she knows it’ll stress her bladder further.

  Isabella stayed at the front of the boat all night, mostly in silence. Everyone else had managed to get some sleep. Hana did, too, but for only small intervals brought on by exhaustion. Ian let her have his shoulder for a time.

  Eventually, the sky brightens as the sun rises. It’s the same sun as always. The same ball of warm light, same slow-motion revival. Hana’s glad the day has come. She pulls her ponytail out and runs her fingers through her hair. It makes her scalp feel good. Though she realizes her hands are shaking. As a cop, she’s seen and experienced many scary things: perps with guns and no brains, AIDS patients cut and bleeding after downing a ton of pills, and her favorite, stampedes in the subways from terrorist threats. But nothing compares to last night. Alien things have taken over the world, and they look too human to ignore.

  Now that the Hudson has opened up and headed out to sea, the flotilla of the dead has broken up, though a few bodies remain to remind them what will happen if they don’t get out of this tiny boat.

  It’s slow going. Hana’s moved faster following parades. As the sun illuminates the landscape, she notices the Statue of Liberty on the horizon. Her arm is broken off, and the wreckage of an Apache helicopter burns on the island’s edge. She’s broken, just like her country, just like hu
manity.

  Tears fill Hana’s eyes and spill down her face. She became a cop because of how proud Lady Liberty made her feel. The statues purpose inspired a world to go down the road of tolerance, equal justice for all. In America everyone is free: free to thrive, free to fail, and free to learn from mistakes. The idea that anyone could control an entire population of free thinkers is laughable! The true consequence of overwhelming fascism is revolution and temporary anarchy. And the nature of a large government or a large corporation is the same, repression. They are two heads of the same beast. That must be why Zilla did this to everyone. He must have wanted to rule the world, though the idea seems childish. Zilla couldn’t tolerate those that differ, so he obliterated them. Hana’s not a religious person, but it seems like pure evil. Too bad she helped. What does that make me?

  She wipes her tears. The last thing this boat needs is the resident cop sobbing with regret and fear.

  The shore of the island is only a couple hundred feet to the left. Movement surrounds the downed chopper; walkers cover the small island. They stop and stare, desiring the survivors in their simplistic frenzy.

  Josh wakes up as they near the statue. “We made good time,” he says, yawning. “Must have been going just over two miles per hour on this thing.” Josh’s brain never quits calculating.

  “We’ve been on this boat for thirteen hours,” Hana mentions.

  “Yup. And from Swindler’s Cove to here is about twenty-two miles. So that’s about right. Two miles an hour,” he confirms.

  Ian wakes up, hearing their conversation. “Have you guys seen any boats we can use?”

  “No. We passed a dock about an hour ago. From what I could see, the handful of yachts were full of holes or half sunk. There were a bunch of sailboat masts sticking out of the water, too.”

  “Government had to shoot them up so no one could escape,” Josh replies.

  He’s right. “While I was guarding the Queensboro Bridge, I heard the radio chatter about boats making a break for New Jersey. The National Guard had to fire on then, dozens of them, killing everyone on board. Image being that gunner.”

  “We have no idea how much area the EMP affected, but I think it’s safe to say there’s probably a three- to four-hundred-mile area that is burned out. We won’t find any usable boats until we hit Atlantic City,” Ian reasons. “Even then we may find that in the panic there was a rush to get off land. Finding a useable boat might be extremely difficult.”

  “I know where there’s a useable boat,” Josh says. He’s about to explode with excitement.

  “Spit it out,” Isabella snaps.

  “Back toward the city, on the East River side of downtown, there’s the New York Seaport Museum. They’ve got old boats not affected by the EMP. Big sailboats.”

  “Don’t you think someone would have taken those boats or they would have been sunk?” Tanis asks, with worry in his eyes.

  Josh shakes his head. “Those boats are difficult to maneuver. Most date back to the early nineteen hundreds. Not great getaway vehicles.”

  “What are you, a fucking pirate?” Ben snips.

  “If they aren’t great getaway vehicles then how do you expect us to get away?” Markus asks.

  Josh shrugs. “Different situation now. The main event is already behind us, and the puppets are slow.” Josh pushes up his dark-rimmed, thick glasses. “All we have to do is get off the dock.”

  “Worth a shot,” Hana says and looks at Ian. He nods and cranks his oar through the water. The two turn the boat back to New York and pull hard through the current.

  Rice starts crying. “I’m not going back there!” she exclaims. “Let me off first!” She stands, rocking the boat.

  “Jesus! Can everyone just keep their ass on the seat?” Isabella orders. “Where the fuck are you gonna go?”

  “I’m not going back there!” Rice cries and points toward downtown. “You can’t make me! It’s just death! Death!”

  Isabella grabs Rice’s wrist and forces her to sit down with a twist of her hand.

  “Yeah, hold your shit a sec.” Ben stands up to protest. The boat rocks his way.

  “If you don’t sit down, chubby, I’ll throw you in the river myself.” The intensity in Isabella’s stare forces Ben to sit. He raises his hands in silent protest.

  Isabella turns to Rice then releases her wrist. “I want off this boat and on a bigger boat. You’re not gonna get in my way. You rock this boat again, I’ll throw you over, no doubt.”

  Ian mediates. “Wait, hold on. Josh, is there another boat you know of that might be easier to get to? Maybe one that’s not on Manhattan Island?”

  “Yeah, but it’s in Virginia Beach,” Josh answers. “That’s four, maybe five days south.”

  Hana shakes her head. “I cannot stay on this small boat that long. We have no food, little water, we’re shoulder to shoulder and I’m already cramping.”

  Ian nods. “Sorry, Rice. We’ve got to get a bigger boat.” Hana and Ian row harder. Rice closes her eyes and slumps down, whispering to Andy and running her fingers through his hair.

  After a half hour it seems they’ve hardly moved. But Josh assures everyone they’re making good time despite rowing against the current. Isabella and Josh take the oars and row for a while. Hana sees the tall downtown buildings getting closer. Ben and Markus take a turn. They don’t last long.

  Ian and Hana take the oars again. Together they churn the peaceful waters of the bay.

  As they near Battery Park, Hana can’t see any puppets. Trees fill the small park overshadowed by the huge buildings. They block the view to the streets, which is why they were planted in the first place. Beyond the park is a dock that holds the large warehouse-like ferry terminals bound for Staten Island and Governors Island.

  They’re quiet now, usually filled with tourists and workers and school kids on field trips. There are no ferries. Where did they go? Hana has to look at the water for a while. The silence of the city is so unnatural it gives her waves of shivers that come from somewhere deep in her soul. The water, on the other hand, is soothing and orderly in its shifting current, so she spaces out on the ripples and reflections. She rows harder so she doesn’t think about the stress of her muscles or the roar of her tainted blood.

  As they move around the end of Manhattan she sees the heliport and the tall ship masts way behind it. She’d seen these boats hundreds of times but had forgotten they were there because of how important the heliport was. Presidents, heads of state, and other important people landed there. She’d been assigned as watchdog on more than one occasion when she was a rookie.

  As they get closer they see crowds of puppets. Many of them take notice of the rowboat. Others gather on South Street. No one speaks, but they’re all thinking this might be a bad idea. Hana notices Rice hiding her face behind her palms and shaking. Poor woman is totally unprepared for these horrors. Even Ben is chewing on his dry lips, trying to keep calm.

  Isabella and Josh take over rowing. It’s brutally slow. More and more puppets gather along the water front. Once the boat had reached the Hudson, Hana couldn’t see them. The river was too wide. But now it’s daylight, and they’re going to test their fate by trying to steal a wooden boat from a museum. Thousands of puppets are spreading the word.

  “The huge boat with the black hull. . . over there. . . is the Peking,” Josh says proudly while rowing. “The Peking is called a barque. It’s fast and stable. . . and used to fly around Cape Horn, you know, the tip of South America.” Josh is out of breath so he hands the oar to Ian so he can talk.

  “At over three hundred and seventy feet, she’s too big for us. And I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her on the bay anyway. I think she’s permanently tied to the dock. Now, in front of her is the Wavertree, but that’s not an option either. Non-operational. But right beyond both of them is the Pioneer.”

  The Pioneer has a black hull with a white painted deck. Its masts are black, but her bowsprit is white. It’s a stunning vessel, but Hana w
ould feel nervous about trying to sail it. There are ropes and lines everywhere. All of which she knows nothing about.

  “That puny one?” says Ben.

  “It’s over one hundred feet long,” Josh replies. “She just looks small because the Peking is so gargantuan. The Pioneer is a merchant vehicle, a schooner rig with an eighty-foot mast.”

  “Keep it simple,” Isabella says as she pulls the oar with every muscle in her body. She and Ian work them hard. The faster they get there the fewer puppets they’ll have to deal with.

  “The Pioneer is like a freight truck on the sea. She delivered anything and everything from sand to tea. She’s strong, has an iron hull, is over twenty feet wide, and with her centerboard up, only 4.5 feet deep. She’ll get us anywhere we want. . . and fast,” Josh concludes.

  “How do you know it’ll still work?” Markus asks.

  “Well, she has a diesel engine that was added in the thirties. That type of engine would have survived the EMP.”

  “Those things are following us again,” Rice mutters. “They’re going to be all over those boats soon.”

  “Let’s hurry and sail away to some deserted island,” Tanis’s voice is shaky. He’s a trooper, that’s for sure. Hana puts her arm around him and hugs him from behind.

  “This is all nice, but does anyone know how to drive that shit on the ocean?” Ben asks.

  “I’ve sailed dinghies.” Ian replies. “I was twelve, so I’m not a captain or anything. Plus, my father had a Sunray 501. He was overprotective and never let me take it out, but I’ve been on it with him a bunch of times.”

  “I’ve been on the Pioneer,” Josh states, to no one’s surprise. “She’s got lots of room. Plus, a couple of years ago her rooms were totally decked out. You could even charter her with a five-star chef on board.”