The Survivor Chronicles: Book 1, The Upheaval (6 page)

There was another car a short ways ahead of them, a small Toyota with a bike rack attached to the back; the wheels of the bike spun leisurely in the wind. Carl pulled even with the vehicle; he briefly met the eyes of a frightened looking woman and her two young kids. The woman nodded to him before focusing her full attention on the road again.

He rounded a bend in the highway, keeping pace with the woman as they neared the approach to the bridge. A row of vehicles was lined up before the bridge. The cars gleamed in the beams of the sun that rose over top of the metal structure looming before them. People were huddled before the bridge; they stood shoulder to shoulder as they stared at the bridge.

“Do you think it’s safe?” John inquired.

“I don’t know.”

“That earthquake, or whatever it was, maybe it messed it up or something?”

“Maybe.”

Carl parked the truck behind a Jeep Cherokee and climbed out. The Toyota stopped beside him; the children remaining inside as the woman stepped outside. They walked in silence toward the others. It was impossible to see the other side of the bridge, impossible to know what damage may have been done to the structure. No vehicles were coming from the other direction. The people gathered around glanced at the three of them but said nothing.

Carl studied the bridge. He had never really liked the two bridges that connected the Cape to the mainland. He’d done a lot of traveling in his time, bounced from state to state and town to town, but for some inexplicable reason he’d always hated bridges, avoiding them whenever possible. But these bridges were impossible to avoid. And now they may be damaged, probably were damaged, and they were the only chance of escape he had.

Standing shoulder to shoulder with the others, staring at their possible demise, Carl began to feel an odd connection to the people around him that he hadn’t felt to a human in years. They were all in the same boat, all sharing somewhat different experiences of what he suspected was the end of the world. They had all been driven here, to this point, to this escape.

They were also all scared out of their minds.

“I’ll walk out there,” an older looking man with graying hair and a cane stated. “See if there’s any visible damage.”

“I’ll go with you.”

Carl hadn’t known what possessed him to volunteer. He could practically picture the metal and concrete structure crumbling from beneath him, but he wasn’t going to let the man go alone. No one should be alone now.

“I’ll go too,” said a woman with reddish-brown hair. “Three sets of eyes are better than one, and if we fan out we’ll be able to see more.”

Carl turned to John and grabbed hold of his arm. “Pull the other mower off the trailer, and get the trailer off the truck. It’s added weight and it’s only going to slow us down. Keep the gas cans, and do whatever you can to get the gas out of the mower tank. We may need it.”

Though John was pale and still seemed shaken, he nodded firmly and broke into a brisk jog toward the truck. Carl swallowed heavily as he turned back to the bridge. Putting one foot in front of the other he moved to the left side of the road, the woman took the center, and the older man stepped onto the sidewalk at the edge of the bridge. He moved cautiously forward, his eyes straining to see every detail of both the steel rafters above him and the pavement below. There were cracks running through the structure but he didn’t know if they were new, or if they had been there all along.

His lungs labored to breathe as every step made him feel more and more certain that the ground was going to crumple away. They made it to the middle of the bridge, but his tension didn’t ease as he looked out at the highway stretching before him. It looked almost as vacant as the one behind him, but smoke curled with far more intensity from the tree line and amongst the homes and businesses. The damage to the road seemed even worse over there, with holes and ruts, and giant blocks of asphalt tossed around. It was still drivable, but the going would be much more time-consuming on the mainland than it was on the Cape side.

He didn’t care, if this structure supported them he was getting off the Cape while the getting was good. He briefly contemplated just leaving the truck behind, but it was a good vehicle – solid, new, and full of gas. It was big enough to drive over or crash through certain obstacles if it became necessary, and there were no guarantees they would be able to find another automobile that was as convenient as the truck.

An ambulance screamed down the highway, its siren blared as it swerved around the potholes with the expertise of someone accustomed to dodging and avoiding obstacles. It was reassuring to see the vehicle, it was something normal and familiar in a world that no longer was.

He released a pent up breath as they finally made it to the other side of the bridge. Surprisingly, there were no cars there waiting to drive over. For once people weren’t trying to cram themselves onto the Cape on a hot summer day.

As one, they turned around and moved steadily back across the bridge.

“I saw nothing obvious,” the older man informed the waiting people when they returned. More people gathered, as well as more vehicles. John had rejoined the growing group. “I think it’ll be okay if we go across one vehicle at a time, at least in the beginning.”

“Who is going to go first?” another man inquired.

Silence descended over everyone as they stared expectantly at each other. When no one spoke, Carl volunteered. “We will.”

“Jesus,” John muttered.

CHAPTER 5

Albert (Al) Shandling

Newport, RI

7:45 a.m.

Al held the towel full of ice to his head as he watched Mary Ellen fiddle with the radio. It was still making the same awful sound that had been coming out of it for the past five minutes, but she seemed determined to try and find something on the airwaves. He quietly longed for her to turn the thing off; the noise was unnerving. She was obviously frightened and searching for some answer, some kind of communication with the outside world. The television had already proven useless; there was no power to run it.

“I have a handheld CB downstairs; perhaps it will be of more use.”

Mary Ellen’s dark brown eyes were wide as she stared at him with blossoming hope. “Do you think?”

“It can’t hurt.”

He pulled the towel away from the gash in his forehead. His wife would have been upset that he had used the good towels for such a thing, but Nellie wasn’t here to be upset anymore, she’d been gone for five years now. There were times when it seemed like it was only yesterday that she had passed, and other days when it seemed as if lifetimes had slid by. Mainly his. He missed her every day. He still sensed her displeasure when he did something she wouldn’t have approved of, such as ruining one of the good hand towels by bleeding all over it.

He tossed the bloody towel aside as Mary Ellen rose to her feet. Though he thought she was going to go running to his basement, she came toward him instead. “That’s really deep. I think it might require a stitch or two.”

“You have medical training?”

A faint red arose on the freckled cheeks of her broad boned face. “I planned to be a nurse or doctor when I was younger, but I’m afraid the only training I have is the school of motherhood.”

“Well, that’s just as brutal as medical school, sometimes,” he said, smiling.

Her eyebrows rose and then she let out a loud bark of laughter that briefly lit her face, causing the lines around her eyes to crinkle. She’d been tense, aggravated, and desperate ever since she’d entered the house. It was good to see her relax, if only just for an instant as her smile and laughter slipped away again. Al didn’t kid himself into thinking she was upset because of the loss of her husband. He was very aware of the fact that his neighbors had not shared the same kind of relationship he’d had with his Nellie.

In fact, he’d begun to suspect that the relationship was abusive. He wasn’t sure if it was physical or not, but he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Larry hit her. He also wasn’t surprised that Mary Ellen wasn’t showing much grief right now. No, her only concern was trying to find out what had happened, what areas had been affected, and how to find her daughter.

“If you have band aids I can butterfly it; that should hold it over for a little while, at least,” she told him.

“I have a first-aid kit.”

They left their neighbor standing by the picture window, staring out at the street with a gaping mouth. Mary Ellen followed him into the bathroom where he pulled the kit out from under the sink. She opened it with deft hands and began to pull out the contents. She set aside the butterfly bandages and antiseptic cream before pulling out the hydrogen bottle.

“I’m sorry about your husband,” he told her as she bandaged and cleaned the deep gash in her hand before turning her attention to his wound. He thought he should be a little warier about the fact that she was also wounded and recently bleeding, but truth be told, he simply didn’t think it mattered right then.

“It’s okay,” she muttered.

He looked at her as she gently pressed cotton balls of peroxide to his forehead. It stung slightly as the medicine fizzed but he kept his face impassive. “How long were you together?”

“Too long,” she murmured.

It saddened him to think of how unhappy she’d been. He had come to like Mary Ellen over the years. They’d grown closer since he’d retired, and though they had never really gotten personal before, he had a feeling all of that was about to change. “Do you know the woman out there?”

Mary Ellen frowned as she gently placed the small band-aids on his forehead. “I’ve seen her around before, but not really, no.” She sat back and smiled. “You’re all set Mr. Shandling.”

“I’ve told you before Mary Ellen, call me Al.”

She smiled wanly at him as she tossed the wrappers into the trash. “Well Al, you’re all set.” She hefted the medium sized kit up and enfolded it against her chest. “We should probably keep this close by.”

He walked beside her as they made their way back toward the living room. “Where is your daughter?” he inquired. The woman was still standing by the window. She glanced at them as they entered the room, but her attention was immediately drawn back outside.

“She’s at a riding camp in Middleboro, Mass. She loves horses,” Mary Ellen said fondly.

“I’m sure she’s enjoying it.”

“She was…” Mary Ellen whispered. “Do… do you think this is everywhere?”

“I don’t really know what to think.”

“Maybe we should try to go to the police station. It’s only a couple miles away.”

“Let’s try the CB first.”

“I’ll get it for you.”

He shook his head. He barely recalled where the thing was, and he sure wasn’t going to make her go tromping through the dusty old basement to find it. “It’s alright. I’ll be right back.”

Leaving Mary Ellen by his couch, he hurried to the basement stairs. He flicked the switch three times before recalling that there was no power. Feeling silly and a little annoyed with himself, he retrieved a flashlight from the junk drawer and clicked it on. Normally he would have been amazed to find it working, but when a hurricane had nearly made landfall last year he’d actually stocked up on supplies like flashlights, batteries, and first-aid kits for a change. He usually blew off the weather people – they were never right anyway – but this time he’d decided not to take the chance. The hurricane had missed, but he was glad he had the supplies now.

He found the handheld CB at the bottom of a box marked hunting supplies. It actually could have been marked garbage for as often as he’d gone into the woods these past ten years. Once Nellie had been diagnosed with cancer, he’d spent all his free time striving to find some answer, some miracle that would save her. There had been none, at least not for Nellie, but he’d donated a fair amount of his money in the possibility that there might be a miracle for someone else someday.