Refuge: After the Collapse Read online

  It was sometime late the following afternoon when he heard something at his door, and at first he thought maybe she had come to her senses and decided to come back to him. But the knock at the door quickly became a fierce pounding that he knew was the effort of a much bigger person than Jessica. He leapt up from the sofa in a panic, certain the rampaging mob had finally arrived to ransack his house. In desperation, he opened the living room closet and fumbled through his golf bag, first grabbing his five iron and then putting it back for the three, feeling its solid heft as he prepared to wield it as a bludgeon against the first one to come through the door. He was shaking with adrenaline as he raised the club behind his shoulder, poised to strike with all the force he could muster. The pounding got harder until he was certain the door would be broken down, but then a voice from the other side brought an instant wave of relief. It was only Zach, his best friend, and the last person Joey expected to see that day. Zach had been away to play a weekend gig with his band at a club near LSU, and, though he was supposed to return on Sunday night, he never did. Joey had been certain that he had stayed longer for some reason and gotten stranded there when the pulse hit in the early hours of Tuesday morning. But there was no mistaking that voice; Zach had somehow made it back.

  He lowered the golf club and reached for the dead bolt. When he opened the door, he saw that his buddy was alone. He also looked like he’d been on the losing side of a recent barroom brawl. His left eye was bruised and swollen; dried blood from his nostrils was encrusted on his upper lip, and his black Pearl Drums T-shirt was so ripped and torn it could barely be considered a garment. But Joey was happy to see him. He hated being alone, and if Jessica wasn’t coming back, having Zach as company was the next best thing. At least he would have someone to talk to. Joey let him in, but not without a barrage of questions about where he had been, what had happened to his face and how he had managed to get back to the Garden District of New Orleans through all the chaos outside.

  Zach had pushed his way past him and pulled the door shut behind him, turning to lock it as he did. “Joey, we’ve got to get out of this city, man. We’ll be dead if we don’t.”

  “Where have you been, dude? I figured you had to be stuck in Baton Rouge with no way to get here. Who did that to your face?” Joey handed him a warm Bud Light in a can from the half-empty case on the floor by the sofa, opening one for himself as well.

  “Some punks on the Interstate,” Zach said, indicting his face. “Yeah, there was this girl named Lindsay at the club who kept hanging with me on all my breaks. She was really into our original stuff and said she dug drummers. I ended up at her place after the show and she was so cool I stayed Sunday and Monday night, too. I got up Tuesday morning and left before daylight to try and get back here for my eight o’clock class. I was on the bridge about five miles west of the airport when all this shit happened. I was probably doin’ eighty-five and I just about flipped my Pathfinder when the engine died and the power steering stopped working. A bunch of other people did wreck, some of them pretty bad. It was some crazy shit. I’ve never seen anything like it; everything on the road came to a halt. Like everybody else, I got out and opened the hood and stared at the engine, but I didn’t have a clue what could be wrong. Nobody else did, either. I stood around talking to a bunch of other drivers close by and we were just all wondering what the hell could have happened. On top of all the cars being fucked up, nobody had a cell phone that worked either. I mean, not just that there was no signal, but the phones were dead! But I know you know all about that. It’s the same everywhere, as far as I know.”

  “Yeah, it seems like it. I didn’t believe it at first, but I’m starting to think this is more than just New Orleans.”

  “It’s gotta be, or the power companies or someone would have been here by now. But anyway, I waited around for what must have been three hours. Nothing changed and it was getting really hot by late morning, so I decided the hell with that. I thought I was pretty lucky because I had this piece of crap old bike of Lindsay’s in the back. She had it in her apartment after finding it in a thrift store, and said she wanted to ride it but it needed new tires and it wouldn’t shift right. I was into her enough that I knew I wanted to see her again, so I told her I would fix it up for her and bring it back the next weekend. It did need work but I figured it was rideable enough to get me at least to the first exit off the Interstate, so I could get off that damned bridge, get something cold to drink, and try to find a phone that would work. The bike was way too small for me, but it sure beat walking, which was all that the other people stuck out there could do. I was clipping along fine and could see the exit just ahead when I ran into those assholes.

  “There were four of them, probably all still in high school or more likely dropouts. They saw me coming, and instead of moving out of the way like all the other people I passed, they blocked my path at the last minute and caused me to swerve into the guardrail and fall. Before I could get back up, one of them punched me right in the nose and another one grabbed the bike and hopped on it. I tried to stop him but then I got knocked down again with the punch that gave me this shiner,” Zach said, indicating his bruised left eye. By the time I got up, the bike was gone and the other three were running off behind the one riding it. And what really sucks is that no one would help me. There were several people around from all the stalled cars, but they just stood there and watched it happen.”

  As Joey listened to his friend’s story a flood of emotions from the events earlier that day overcame him. He smashed the golf club he was still holding into the useless TV sitting on a table against the nearest wall, much to Zach’s astonishment.

  “I told her something like that would happen!” Joey screamed. “She wouldn’t listen to me though; wouldn’t listen to reason at all! Just took off with Casey and that asshole on those bikes, just asking for something like that to happen!”

  “What are you talking about, man?”

  “Jessica! She left on a damned bike just yesterday morning! Left with Casey and some dipshit she knew from the Anthropology Department who talked them both into trying to ride bikes out of the city to some cabin in the woods he’s got up in Mississippi. I told her it was crazy, that they would never make it. I tried to get her to stay here, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  “Well, you got a better idea? I got on Lindsay’s bike because I was just trying to get off that damned bridge. I would have made it, too, if not for those punks.”

  “If they took your bike, what chance do you think Jessica and Casey had to make it ninety miles on bikes with just one skinny dude with them?”

  “Ninety miles! That’s a hell of a long way!”

  “I know. I tried to get her to just wait here. I thought we should all stick together. They wanted me to go with them, but I thought it was too dangerous. And besides, I didn’t want to leave my house to the looters.”

  “It’s too dangerous to stay here though,” Zach said. “You’re not going to stop the looters anyway. How many do you really think you can hold off with that fucking golf club?”

  “Yeah, I know, but what else can we do? How did you get here anyway, after they took the bike?”

  “I walked, how else?”

  “So what were you thinking? What do you plan to do next?”

  “I don’t know, it’s not like I’ve got a plan or anything. I just wanted to get back to my apartment first. I need to go through my stuff; see what I’ll need. I stopped by to see if you were here first because it’s on my way and I figured it would be better to stick together if you were.”

  “I don’t know, man. I still don’t like the idea of leaving the house. I’ve been hearing shooting ever since before Jessica and that jerk left.”

  “That’s all the more reason to leave, Joey. You can’t hold out here. We need to get some stuff together and figure out a way to get the hell out of this city. If I’d known it was this bad, I never would have come back in the first place. But it’ll be worth it to get to my apart
ment. I’m pretty sure my roommate, Brandon, did not make it back here after this pulse thing happened. He had gone to Fort Walton Beach with some friends and they weren’t planning on coming back until Tuesday night, anyway. And if he didn’t, he’s got some things at the apartment he won’t be needing but we will.”

  “What?” Joey asked, laughing. “An old antique diesel truck that will still run?”

  “No, his rifle, for one. He’s into deer hunting, if I didn’t mention it before. And he keeps his rifle under his bed. It’s some kind of high-powered big game rifle with a scope on it. I don’t know if he’s got bullets for it or not, but I’m pretty sure he does. I don’t know shit about guns, to be honest.”

  “I do,” Joey said. “It’s been a long time, but I went deer hunting a bunch of times when I was in high school. Used to go every season after Thanksgiving with my uncle. If you think that rifle’s there, we’d better get going and try to get it. Any gun is better than nothing, it doesn’t matter what kind it is. What else has he got that we can use?”

  “A ride out of here.”

  “A ride! Are you serious? I thought you said he didn’t have an old diesel truck!”

  “He doesn’t. He’s got something better. He just found it on Craigslist a few weeks ago—cheap!”

  “So what is it?”

  “A motorcycle. Not just any motorcycle—a Harley Davidson Sportster!”

  “So, what’s so special about that? How is all that shiny chrome going to help us? I’ll bet it won’t run.”

  “Sure it will. Here’s the thing about Harleys; they’re like 1940s technology. Those things are so primitive all they need to run is some gas and oil. It’s a 1993 XL1200 Custom, which means it’s got old-fashioned points and plugs and a carburetor! And believe me, it’s not shiny. It looks like shit, so it’s exactly what we need.”

  “Huh! I didn’t think about that. Maybe it will run then. Why the fuck did he want a Sportster though? I thought that was the smallest bike Harley made? Can we both fit on it?”

  “It might not be comfortable and we might look gay as hell, but would you rather walk? I don’t know where we’ll go, but if it’ll get us out of here, that’s all that matters.”

  “If it’ll run at least ninety miles, I know where we’ll go,” Joey said, or at least I will after we stop by Jessica and Casey’s apartment. I heard them talking about leaving a map to that cabin so Casey’s dad could find them if he made it back from wherever he had gone on vacation.”

  They had indeed found the rifle and the old Sportster that belonged to Zach’s roommate. The bike was rusty, with broken turn signals, missing mirrors and a torn seat held together with duct tape, but the engine had started right up, and they had left the city on it the next morning. The ride north had been harrowing, with several close encounters with people on foot attempting to stop them and steal the bike. Joey held them at bay by brandishing the rifle from the back while Zach drove.

  Once they reached the cabin and discovered that Jessica and her friends had not made it there first, they settled in and made themselves at home. The days came and went but Jessica and the others still did not arrive. Joey began to wonder if they ever would. There was plenty of food, and everything else that was essential for survival, in the cabin, but sitting around all day doing nothing was boring. Joey took to spending his days hunting, to break up the monotony and to have fresh meat for the fire pit grill out back behind the cabin. Most days Zach tagged along with him, but instead of sitting and waiting patiently for a deer to come along, they usually walked along the long gravel road leading through the woods to the cabin, hoping to see one. It was on one of those afternoons when they’d given up on yet another fruitless hunt that Joey stopped in his tracks in the middle of the road. They had wandered farther from the cabin than usual, on the road that roughly paralleled the river to the south.

  “Listen! Do you hear that, Zach?”

  Zach did, and the sound spurred them to get back to the cabin as fast as they could. They had both recognized it as an outboard engine, and that could only mean one thing. Someone was coming up the river in the direction of the cabin. When the sound suddenly stopped, Joey wondered if the boat had already arrived. It took him and Zach another twenty minutes to cover the rest of the distance, as they slowed to a stealthy approach and left the roadway for the final two hundred yards.

  Leading the way through the concealment of the forest, Joey had just reached the edge of the clearing in which the cabin stood when he saw someone walking down the bank to the river. Whoever it was, the person was about to slide a canoe that was resting on the small sandbar below back into the water and step into it. Joey immediately raised his rifle to get a better look at the lone figure through the telescopic sight. A tremble of rage came over him as he saw who it was and his finger automatically moved to the trigger as the crosshairs of the scope centered on Grant Dyer’s head. Remembering the humiliation of that morning in New Orleans, it would have been all too easy to squeeze off a round, but he resisted the urge. Grant would know Jessica’s whereabouts, and Joey wasn’t about to let him paddle out of sight without asking him. He moved his aim a couple of feet to the right and fired, sending the bullet into the water just inches from the canoe and causing Grant to make a panicked dive to the muddy sandbar as the rifle blast rang out through the forest.

  SIX

  Casey Drager had been so happy just moments before, when they rounded a bend in the canoe and at last caught sight of the big catamaran her uncle had built with his own hands. It would have been enough just knowing they had made it to the boat that would be their ride out of this awful swamp, but to top it off, she had been shocked to see her own name painted on the side of her uncle’s pride and joy. She had expected him to momentarily come on deck and flash her a big grin when he saw her reaction to the name. Then she would have clambered aboard and given him a huge hug, not just because he named his boat after her, but because she had really missed him, because his lifestyle made it so difficult to spend time with him. That happiness had turned to icy fear a few seconds later as she and her dad and Jessica paddled closer and saw the smashed-in hull. Her dad’s worry that the men in the fishing boat had been up to no good had proved true. Seeing Uncle Larry’s kayak lashed to their deck had given them cause for concern, but now there could be no doubt.

  After looking in vain in both cabins, Artie had practically fallen into the canoe from the deck of the catamaran when Casey pointed to what she noticed at the water’s edge when the boat drifted away from the bank, swinging on its anchor. There was no doubt that the limp figure lying among the cypress roots at the water’s edge was any other than her uncle; the only question remaining was whether or not he was still alive. The three of them paddled over in stunned silence, letting the canoe drift the last few feet while all eyes were fixed on Larry’s motionless body. From this distance they could all see that his hands were tied behind his back and his feet were also bound together with what looked like a nylon mooring line from the boat.

  Before the canoe touched the bank, her dad was already splashing through the knee-deep water to reach his brother’s side, quickly tilting his head back to open his airway and then dropping an ear to his chest to listen for a heartbeat. Casey felt short of breath herself and felt her own heart racing while she waited for the verdict. She knew it would only take seconds; after all, her dad was a physician. But her fear was transformed to a flood of deep relief when he looked up with a tentative smile and announced: “He’s alive! Help me untie him.”

  She and Jessica were beside him in the mud immediately, working on the knots in the heavy rope around his ankles and legs while her dad washed Larry’s face with lake water dipped up in his hand and rolled him over far enough to get at the bindings on his wrists.

  “He’s taken a pretty good impact to the top of the head, Casey. It looks like they hit him with something hard and knocked him unconscious.”

  “Why did the bastards have to tie him up like this, too? W
asn’t beating him up enough? What’s wrong with people?”

  “They’re savages, that’s what. It’s a wonder they left him alive at all, but it looks like they left him like this so he would suffer first and then die, the low-life sons of bitches! But thank God he’s alive, Casey! We could have been too late. It’s not going to be easy, but we’re going to have to get him into the canoe and then somehow get him back on board the boat without making things worse.”

  After her dad completed a quick examination, shifting Larry’s limp body around and poking and prodding to check for signs of fractures or internal injury, he announced it was okay to move him. It took all three of them to lift him into the canoe; but with she and Jessica each taking a leg and her dad lifting from under his arms, they managed to gently set him down in the bottom between the seats and thwarts. With Larry taking up so much space, there was only room for her and Jessica in the boat. The two of them paddled while her dad swam, hanging on the stern, kicking with his legs to help out until they maneuvered back alongside the catamaran.

  “How are we ever going to get him up there?” Jessica wondered. The distance from the waterline to the decks, even in the lower stern sections, was nearly four feet.