They move slowly between the beach and small bushy islands in Jamaica Bay. Tanis had never gone to the beaches out here. The water is too cold, and there are always a bunch of hippies running around. At least, that’s what his dad said.
Josh says the tide is high so the islands are at their smallest. Ian steers around them like a pro. He stops the boat at the end of the bay and as close to the shore as he can. He bitches about how the radar and the depth meters were fried by the EMP.
A small wooden dock juts from the beach, but it’s way too small for the one-hundred-foot Pioneer. To the east is another blown up bridge, Cross Bay.
“This is it,” Ian declares. “I’m starting to get nervous that we’ll hit bottom.” He kills the engine and runs to the front of the boat and hits the release lever that drops the anchor. “I don’t know much about anchors, so I hope this works.”
They all climb down the ladder on the back and one by one get into the familiar wooden rowboat. Ben, Rice, and Andy stay behind. It doesn’t take too long before the rowboat bumps into the kiddy dock probably used for fishing. Ian ties the boat to a post and they disembark. Tanis follows Isabella and Ian.
The shore is pretty quiet. They move quickly down a sandy path that cuts through a bunch of thick bushes. Beyond the bushes is a line of trees that conceals homes. Black smoke chokes the air, but other than that, it’s a nice day. Tanis is sure his ma and Kat are hiding in the house waiting for him. He’s feeling jazzed.
Ian stops and shakes sand from his shoes. “Let’s split up, three and three,” Ian says. “Isabella, help Josh and Markus get food and water. Hana and I will go with you to get your mom. We’ve got four hours. The tide will be moving out after that, and we don’t need to get stuck in the bay.”
Isabella hands Ian her shotgun.
“I thought you didn’t lend out your guns,” Ian says with a smile.
“I don’t,” she says, her expression flat. Tanis wonders if she ever smiles.
They move fast. This is his neighborhood so he knows exactly how to get home. He heads up Cross Bay and passes businesses and houses until the road turns into Woodhaven Boulevard. It’s a major street, lined with shops and trees. Tanis is surprised at the lack of cars on the road or in the parking lots. “Did the EMP hit out here? Ian, should we see if a car works?”
“Good idea.” Ian run to an old grey sedan. The door opens easily. He gets in and finds the keys still in the ignition. He tries the starter, nothing. After a few more tries he gives up. “Dead.”
They move out. There are houses to their right and more shops to the left. They’re getting close to the park. They run into a cluster of cars that have jammed up the road. In between the cars are puppets. A fat old lady with white hair and a yellow dress startles Tanis as he runs by a car. She grabs him! Tanis screams and pushes her away. His hands sink into her huge boobs, feeling like the rolls of fat are trying to pull him in. She stumbles back, and he slips away. She didn’t feel real. It was like pushing on a sack of water, not a person.
At this point he’s not too worried about the puppets. There aren’t many, and they’re slow as snails. Maybe they can hear or smell them, maybe both, but either way Tanis knows they’re coming.
A puppet in a baseball uniform lunges from between two cars. Tanis smacks him across the face. Hands off, fool! He says to himself.
Ian isn’t wasting any bullets. He’s getting good at taking them down by hammering their knees like Isabella did at the seaport. Hana avoids them all. Every moment brings more of them. Dozens now.
They get to Forest Park in no time. Must have only been, like, four miles from the bay. Tanis slows down as he approaches the park– it’s dangerous with its trees and narrow walking trails. Puppets could be anywhere. Beyond the trails are tennis courts and a golf course.
Tanis, Ian and Hana pass big apartment towers to the right. There are puppets in the parking lot and coming out of the buildings. One building, away from the road, is burning. It’s all familiar, and not at the same time.
Ian stops ahead and watches a group of puppets at the intersection. Hundreds of them.
“Gotta cut into the park,” Tanis suggests.
“Looks like we don’t have a choice,” Ian comments.
The three cross the parking lot for the baseball and soccer fields. It, too, has puppets stumbling around like drunk assholes on a Saturday night after a game.
This is Tanis’s park. He learned how to play baseball on that field and flew his first rocket over there. It crashed into those trees. His eyes start to burn. He’s gotta get home, but even that idea is fleeting.
Suddenly, the puppets turn toward them all at the same time. Not before they get to the trees. This part of Forest Park is dense with trails everywhere. It’s huge. You could get lost. Tanis would take his dog here almost every weekend.
A car had pulled off the road and driven down the trail before crashing into a tree; a charred body hangs out the window. The three keep running, passing a small group of women, children, and guys, old and young, all sightless corpses, rotting in the midday sun.
Ian heads right at one of them and bashes the butt of his shotgun into its face. The crack of bone makes Tanis’s skin crawl.
Tanis takes the lead and cuts through the park. Ian and Hana follow. He’s running fast like a cheetah, sliding to a stop on the slick leaves. His shortcut is blocked. He’d wanted to run over a small hill and cut across Myrtle Avenue, but there’re too many of those damn things.
“Where do we go, Tanis? Quick!” Hana blurts out.
Tanis turns around. Retreat is a bad idea. The puppets they’ve passed haven’t stopped, taken a break, or were diverted by distraction. No, Tanis and the others are collecting them as they pass, like iron trailing a powerful magnet.
“We have to make a big half circle, cut around most of them.”
“Let’s do it,” Ian pushes.
Tanis jumps into a thicket of ferns and runs. They bushwhack as fast as they can. Finally, the bushes clear, replaced by tall, thin trees which are easier to see and run through. Tanis picks up the pace and finds a decent crossing at Myrtle. Ian only has to take down two puppets.
He finds a clear path all the way to the railroad tracks. Man, he used to love this area. He stops, letting his hands fall to his knees. The dark steel train tracks stand out because they’re surrounded with white stones. Tanis picks up a stone and puts it in his pocket. It’s as good as any photograph.
Finally, they get out of the forest. It’s weird to transition from forest to city, like flipping through TV channels. They fly by some puppets that stumble around a café, knocking over tables, and cross Metropolitan Avenue. Tanis flies down one street then another. “Here’s my street,” He says, finally.
A wreck of four cars block the intersection. Tanis recognizes his neighbor’s car. She steps out from behind her door and reaches for him. It’s Mrs. Garfield. Her hands and forearms are covered in black splatters like she’d just finished making a blackberry pie and, of course, beat the blackberries to death.
His mother said she whittled her days away peeking into neighbor’s windows and criticizing front yard flower arrangements. Tanis liked her because she’d pay him twenty bucks to shovel her sidewalk after snowstorms. He approaches her slowly. She looks like she always does, except for the pits where her eyes should be and her tissue-thin, pale skin. It was morning when she’d died. He could tell because her hair is rolled up in plastic tubes and she has on the same orange flower-pattern dress she always wore in the mornings.
Ian makes a move to cripple her knees.
“Wait!” Tanis yells. Ian stops. “I know her,” He mumbles. Her mouth opens and her hands reach out. A smell that is worse than rotted flesh comes from her mouth. A sticky foam clings to her stained teeth and the corners of her lips. He pushes her away, not wanting to hurt her. Tanis wants her to rest, to have a proper funeral. He doesn’t want to bash her up and break her bones.
He pushes away her hands. She stu
mbles but comes back. She screams like she’s frustrated. He wishes he could see her eyes. Then he would know if any of her is still alive.
Nope, she’s totally gone. Tanis bolts, leaving her to her horde, her kind, her new brothers and sisters. He looks back once. A dark feeling slides down his spine and fills his veins like a corrupt server spewing malware throughout the net. He can’t stop it. He’s got no control, but he can run harder. Even though he’s never run this much in his life, he practically flies. He can’t feel his feet anymore as his lungs suck in the warm wet air. I don’t want to die, to be one of them.
There’s his house. He slows down and stops. Ma’s crappy white Honda sits in the driveway. She’s had that ride since she was pregnant with him. Her first baby, she’d called it. Tanis likes his house. It’s narrow but tall and has a pointed roof. The walls are white, and the window trim is a dark brown. He’d painted them that color a few summers ago. The house had four floors: a single attic room, two top floors and a basement.
Tanis runs up the steps to the front door. He still has his house keys in his pocket and his backpack on. It’s like he’s just coming home from school. Except that he’s scared of what’s on the other side.
He opens the door slowly, feeling the subtle creak in the tips of his fingers. The house is dark, cold. “Ma!” Tanis yells. Nothing. “Kat!” Nothing. He leaps upstairs, two steps at a time. His parents’ room is at the end of the hall. He bursts through the door but no one there. The bed is a tangle of sheets, which isn’t like Ma. Her cell and car keys rest on the bedside table, a calling card of the damned. He sits in the doorway and cries. He sobs harder than he ever has.
Hana hugs him and he squeezes her until he can’t breathe.
“Guys!” Ian yells from downstairs. “We have to go!”
Hana helps Tanis off the carpet. “Your mother would want you to stay alive. You know that, right? That’s what all mothers want.” She ducks into the hall bathroom and rips off a strand of toilet paper and hands it to Tanis. He feels embarrassed, but he knows he shouldn’t.
“Everyone I know is dead. My friends. My parents,” Tanis says, the simple act of opening his mouth and pushing sound through his larynx releases more sobs of tears and a stream of snot.
“Maybe they got out. Maybe they are on their way to a safe zone, just like us. Gotta keep going.”
He nods knowing she was trying to make him feel hope, to have a reason to go on. It works. Tanis feels like she could be alive and waiting for him, wanting him to do all he can to survive.
Tanis sees the door to his room. His posters are dingy and childish. One says, ‘Trespassers will be shot and survivors, shot again.’ The other sign says, ‘Due to the increasing cost of ammo, warning shots will not be fired.’
He kicks the door open and steps in. Clothes are strewn about along with a baseball, books, and an old computer he’d ripped apart and was turning into a Linux server.
An ornate broadsword sits on the wall, gleaming like a precious stone. It was a Christmas gift a while back, an authentic, handmade re-creation of a Middle Ages broadsword from a blacksmith in West Pennsylvania. It isn’t very sharp, but it’s the only weapon he has besides his .22 rifle.
Hana laughs, “You’re planning on chopping them up, huh?”
Tanis swings the sword around. It’s heavy and almost as tall as he is. “I guess not.” He doesn’t want to mess with his rifle. Those puppet things need a flamethrower not a peashooter. Tanis snaps his fingers then pulls his camping box from the closet. Inside the box is a hatchet and flashlight. He also grabs a poncho and first aid kit.
On his way out of the room he pours half the bottle of fish food into the tank while saying bye to Birdy.
“One more thing.” He pulls a photo of Ma and Dad from a picture frame and puts it in his pack. “I’ll betcha she’s holding up somewhere.”
“I agree. Your mother couldn’t have raised a kid with as much brains as you without some smarts herself,” Hana says.
The two run back downstairs. Ian’s still in the entry, watching the street through the front door window. “We need to go out the back,” Ian says. “They’ve followed us here.”
“Of course they have. How the hell can they do that?” Tanis complains, feeling pissed. “We ran out of their sight!” He peeks through the window. “They’re like hound dogs or somethin’.”
“Yeah, it’s strange,” Hana replies, looking over her shoulder.
Ian runs to the back door. “Let’s hop some fences.”
The breakfast table still has Tanis’s bowl of cereal sitting on it, along with his copy of Wired Magazine. His Ma usually picked up after him. He sees a phone on the counter and her date book. It’s open to a list of numbers for her doctor’s office. The edge of her book is covered in dark, dried mucus. Tanis bites his lip and turns away.
Ian slides the glass door open.
Hana puts her hand on Tanis’s shoulder, the pressure makes him close his eyes.
Ian steps onto the back porch. “Sorry, man. I know this is hard.”
Tanis opens his eyes. “My ma would want me to go on.” He looks at Hana. “Right?”
“Yes, above all else.” Hana raises her hands. “I need a weapon other than my pistol, something that can chop them in half. Do you have anything?”
Tanis nods, sniffling, and runs out the back door to the side shed. Inside are a variety of sharp and useful yard tools. He looks at his tiny hatchet and decides it is too small for a primary weapon. He’ll keep it for backup and clips it to his belt.
Hana grabs a shovel with a pointy tip. “Too weird,” she says and decides on taking the stiff, metal rake off the wall.
Tanis grabs a short pitchfork that Ma had used to spread straw over the back yard when spring finally came.
Ian pulls off a drop cloth that’s covering Tanis’s mountain bike. He smiles. “This might just be our way out.” His bike is a Razorback, red with black swooshes. Next to it are Ma’s and Dad’s bikes, older models, dust covered and draped in spider webs.
Chapter 1.24
Markus
The Stone of Allah
One more balmy night in Tunisia then it will be time to escape. It feels too soon. Markus feels unprepared. Mitchell and Markus dress in stolen robes, Mitchell tying a turban around Markus head so he looks more like a local. Markus has no idea how long Mitchell has been in the CIA, but he’s good at this, very good.
The two wait for the people to start heading to the stadium to hear their great scholar. Markus is nervous but excited. He feels like a different man like it’s his purpose that gives him all his strength.
As Markus imagines the danger that lies ahead, he comments, “I think God would have me carry a gun.”
“God’s Will, right?” Mitchell replies as he peeks out the front doorway, which is covered by the stolen tapestry.
“Yes, God would want his humble servant armed to the teeth,” He says. Oh, if only Marian could see him now. He laughs a little. She’d slap him upside the head.
Mitchell hands him the small revolver he keeps in his boot. “You’re right. You need this. These guys aren’t hippies. They believe in killing for what they want.”
“I had a run-in with a gang that extorted money for the Genovese family of New York, or what was left of it anyway.”
“These guys are ideologues, not thugs,” Mitchell clarifies.
“Not sure I understand the difference,” Markus continues, with or without Mitchell’s attention. It calms his nerves to speak while they wait. Could be why he became a preacher. “I moved to New York to fill the shoes of a dear friend who died of colon cancer. His shoes were tough to fill. I’d come from the South and a small congregation. His church held up a huge community I never knew existed in New York.”
“Anyhow, I stumbled upon a devious scheme plaguing my parishioners. I rolled a large black cart up and down the streets while the younger kids ran around picking up trash. The older ones trimmed trees and raked leaves. I was three street
s from the church when I noticed a trend. All the cars had little envelopes on the windows. They were about half the size of a business card. No one knew or wanted to discuss what they were until I asked little Becka. She was reluctant but confessed. If her mother didn’t put twenty dollars in one of those envelopes something bad would happen to her car.
“I gathered a group of neighbors together and confronted them. At first no one said a word. Then the truth came spillin’ out. Gang bribes. They’d pay off the gang so their cars wouldn’t get keyed, stolen, or smashed up in the night. I was horrified. I told the police, and a month later four men were arrested while collecting the money.
“Then my house was broken into. I was sleeping like the dead when two men burst into my room. Jesus, they scared me and my wife to death.
“They wore masks, of course, and brandished big blades of the devil. They bound my hands behind me and took me to meet their boss. I was forced to kneel, blindfolded. The man I saw stayed in the shadows. He’d lost over five thousand dollars because of me. He told me he was going to kill me. I believed him, so I pleaded for my life. They let me go with a warning to stay out of their business, and I did.
“The next month I saw the little envelopes on all the cars again. I lost some parishioners. They were probably scared to come to church. But, even worse, I’d lost their trust and respect because I caved. Eventually, we didn’t have enough people to run the mid-week services.”
“Sounds like the Mafia to me,” Mitchell says. “They were scared of you though. You were in America. We’re not now.”
“I know that.” Markus clear his throat.
“So what’s your point?” Mitchell asks.
“I’m not a coward anymore. I’ve grown into what my wife calls bullheaded stupidity.”
Fools' Apocalypse Page 21
