The Perseid Collapse (12 page)

“Are we hiding from cars now?” she snapped, grabbing Emily’s sleeve and pulling her toward the minivan.

“Maybe I’m being ridiculous,” he said, walking with them.

He barely spotted the white sedan rounding the bend on Highland before a clump of thick bushes blocked his view. He had managed to see that the driver had activated the left turn signal, which meant the car would turn north on Ocean Street, headed right into the police trap. He changed his mind about hiding and moved swiftly to the street, waving his hands over his head.

“What the fuck are you doing?” hissed Kate, holding her hands palms up in an annoyed gesture.

“Get behind the car!” he said over his shoulder.

The car slowed enough for him to yell at a blond woman through the open driver’s-side window.

“There’s a police roadblock at Broadway. They’re seizing cars!” yelled Alex.

The car screeched to a halt several feet before the intersection, and Alex jogged along the sidewalk, careful not to approach the car directly and possibly frighten the driver. The woman leaned her head out of the window. She had a laceration on her forehead above her right eyebrow, which had bled profusely at some point this morning given the amount of congealed blood plastered to the right side of her face. Her hair was matted to her head above the wound.

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

Alex caught up with her, staying on the sidewalk to keep at least a car’s length distance between them.

“The police have a cruiser set up in the middle of the intersection at Broadway and Ocean. I watched them stop a car and force the driver out. Emergency seizure,” he said.

“What about further down at Cottage and Broadway?” asked the driver.

“We just came from there. It was clear fifteen minutes ago,” said Alex.

“Good. Did you notice if any of the stores are open?” she asked, glancing around nervously.

“The variety store on the corner of Broadway and Mussey was open, but they didn’t have power. Cash only. We saw a slow but steady stream of people walking down Cottage toward the shopping complex. What’s the situation like down Highland? We’re headed to Scarborough.”

“I heard that the water reached Highland across from Wainright Field, but I haven’t confirmed that. We live by the high school. There’s all kinds of weird talk out there. EMP, Chinese invasion, volcano erupting in Boston…”

“What happened to your forehead?” Alex asked.

He suddenly felt slightly exposed standing on the side of the road. If the water hadn’t reached her house, why did she look like she had been in a knife fight? What else did they face walking down Highland Avenue?

“One of my—
neighbors
—decided that I wasn’t entitled to one of the few working cars on the street,” she said, staring blankly through the front windshield.

Alex didn’t care to press the question. He knew what had likely played out in her driveway, and that the neighbor had lost the fight.

“I’d stash this thing as far from the Hannaford parking lot as possible and walk the rest of the way. You might be able to handle one asshole on your own, but every eye in the parking lot will be on your car.”

“There were three of them,” she said, “and only one of them wanted the car. Fucking savages.”

“Sorry. I assume you…” he paused.

“I took care of them,” she said, touching the crusted wound on her forehead. “Keep a tight eye on your family,” she added, nodding toward the minivan to the left of Alex.

The sedan pulled away and stopped at the intersection momentarily, while the driver undoubtedly confirmed the information he had passed. She accelerated the car down Highland and disappeared behind the chain-link fence that bordered the middle school’s athletic field.

“All right. Let’s go,” he announced.

Kate rose from her dubious hiding spot near the rear bumper of the minivan and walked toward the sidewalk, joined by Ethan and Emily.

“Ethan, turn around and let Emily grab the knife out of your backpack. Outer left pocket, Emily. Then Ethan gets the one out of your pack, sweetie. Turn around, honey, and I’ll get yours,” he said.

“What did she say?” Kate asked. “She looked like she’d been attacked.”

“She fought off three guys trying to steal her car,” he replied quietly.

“Keep the knife in your front pocket, out of sight, and keep sipping water. That CamelBak should be empty by the time we reach the high school,” he announced, then whispered the rest of what the woman had told him about the attack into Kate’s ear.

Kate’s expression instantly sharpened to an angry grimace.

“I really wish that Coastie hadn’t tossed my pistol,” he said.

“We’ll be fine,” she said, snapping open the three-inch serrated blade to examine his choice for their bug-out packs. “Just fine.” She closed the knife and put it into her front cargo pocket.

Chapter 13

EVENT +08:15

Scarborough, Maine

Kate was starting to have irrational thoughts about ditching her backpack. They were less than a half mile from their neighborhood, and all she could think about was throwing the tan contraption into the bushes and coming back to get it later. The pack’s weight had nothing to do with the problem. She was in excellent physical condition and could hike for hours with one of the equally sized internal-frame backpacks they purchased from Eastern Mountain Sports. The pack Alex had chosen for the family bug-out bag simply sucked for walking long distances.

Unless you had grown accustomed to working with disgustingly uncomfortable gear, like most marines, the “three-day assault pack” was a killer. It lacked any kind of rigid frame, rendering proper weight distribution nearly impossible, which had the unfortunate effect of rubbing her shoulders raw. Mercifully, she had consumed most of her water by this point, which, according to Alex, had reduced the pack’s weight by more than ten pounds. Small consolation.

Of course, by the time she had significantly reduced the water weight, the damage to her shoulders and psyche had been done. She wanted to lay into him for defaulting to military equipment, but didn’t see any purpose to picking a fight. The kids weren’t complaining, and Alex wouldn’t admit the pack was uncomfortable if his shoulders were visibly bleeding. She didn’t want to be the only one to bitch about their predicament. They were almost home, where she could toss the pack in the house and lay on the floor for as long as she wanted. If they still had a house.

The first signs of tsunami damage appeared a few blocks from the Wainright athletic fields. The pattern of damage made sense based on what they had observed during their trek along Highland Avenue, which had ascended gradually from the center of South Portland near the middle school. Roughly a mile from the police roadblock, standing on the sidewalk overlooking South Portland High School’s football field, they could see the green of Portland’s Western Promenade, which towered above Portland’s inner harbor. They looked about even with Portland’s high ground, and Alex had guessed that they were at least a hundred feet above sea level.

She trusted his judgment when it came to navigation. Alex had an uncanny sense of direction and an infallible ability to get them to wherever they needed to go, often without the help of maps or GPS. After nearly twenty years of marriage, she was a believer. The man was never lost and could read terrain like the back of his hand.

Even the kids started to believe when another mapping prediction came true a half mile past the high school, near Fickett Street. Highland Avenue peaked and began a shallow descent into the neighborhoods along the South Portland/Scarborough border. Alex estimated that their house sat somewhere between thirty to forty feet above sea level. A fact he leveraged when everyone began to feel the effects of the two-mile uphill hike on their quads. Incredibly, none of them recalled Highland Avenue descending into Scarborough, but Alex insisted that they were very likely approaching the downhill portion of their trip. True to his word, the street leveled off and began to slope downward, ever so slightly. The difference was barely noticeable on their bodies, but mentally, it rejuvenated them. The temperature had climbed well into the high eighties by that point, and any factor working in their favor was entirely welcome.

When the mud and debris appeared on the streets and in the yards, they figured they had reached the bottom of the hill. Aside from the ever-present layer of muddy silt, it hadn’t looked nearly as bad as she had expected. Most of the wooden fences had been knocked down, but the high water mark hadn’t reached the first-floor windows. People they encountered along the road reported basement flooding as their worst damage from the tsunami, which had rolled through without any warning at around six in the morning. Roadside watersheds and ditches overflowed with dirty, foamy water, giving a good indication that the area’s natural water runoff system had been completely overwhelmed. No surprise there, along with the observation that all of the sewer grates visible from Highland gushed muddy water.

Alex had found this to be more alarming than the surface damage. With their sump pump out of commission due to the power outage and the town sewer system flooded past maximum capacity, the water in their basement wouldn’t drain. They still kept most of their supplies and equipment in the basement. As they continued along Highland Avenue, closing the distance to the shoreline, the high-water mark on the trees flanking the road rose significantly, along with the layer of mud covering the road and ground.

At first the sludge had been a minor inconvenience, preventing them from simply shuffling along the sidewalk and forcing them to step more deliberately to avoid filling their shoes with the slimy concoction of sand, dirt and sea foam. A few blocks into the tsunami zone, they quickly sank to their ankles, removing dry feet from the very short list of remaining comforts. Upon exiting the neighborhood and reaching the stretch of Highland Avenue flanked by the forest preserve, the mud had reached the middle of Kate’s shins, turning the hike into a nightmare.

With the midday sun beating down on her, the past three-quarters of a mile had been difficult physically and mentally. The stagnant sheet of thickening muck had grown deeper, sometimes reaching their knees. The closer they got to their neighborhood, the slower they moved toward their goal of getting to Ryan. Every mud-encrusted, strained footstep stood between Kate and her son.

Standing at the corner of Harrison Road and Highland Avenue, she was thankful to see that all of the houses in the Harrison Hill area appeared intact. With this positive thought in mind, she mentally shelved her grudge against the backpack and trudged forward through the knee-high slop toward their house a few blocks away.

***

Alex watched Kate stop and exhale at the intersection. She stepped off in the direction of their neighborhood, without bothering to glance at the lifeless fire station on the opposite side of the street. He knew what was bothering her, aside from the fact that their son was alone and over a hundred miles away in a heavily populated urban center. She was singly focused on throwing her backpack to the ground on their front steps. He should have known better, especially since he’d humped similar packs for hundreds of miles after 9/11. The assault pack had taken a toll on him as well. The pack he’d chosen had a reputation for extreme discomfort, which he had conveniently forgotten until heaving the contraption on his back at the Coast Guard station.

His shoulders had started to chafe several minutes into the hike, when his sweat-soaked cotton T-shirt ceased to provide any kind of useful barrier between his skin and the thick nylon shoulder straps. Three and a half hours later, he wouldn’t be surprised to see bone protruding from his shoulders, but he didn’t dare show the first sign of wincing or whining. Kate hadn’t complained at all, despite the fact that she looked utterly miserable. For her first “forced” road march, she’d exceeded all expectations, leaving Alex humbled. Kate was living proof that the Department of Defense’s decision to lift the Combat Exclusion Rules had been long overdue.

Amazingly, neither Emily nor Ethan had grumbled about the hike. He hadn’t heard much from them at all, which left him puzzled. They whispered back and forth, but beyond that, they had both gone silent early in the trip. He’d tried to get them talking, but it seemed futile. They appeared slightly catatonic, and their responses were delayed. He was worried that they might be dehydrated, but they’d both consumed nearly three liters of water before reaching the top of Highland Avenue. Kate was convinced they were in some mild form of shock from the morning’s events, which served to intensify their “teen distancing” syndrome. Whatever it was, they kept going, which was all he could ask from them at this point.

“Nobody at the fire station?” he asked.

“I guess not,” mumbled Kate. “How much water damage do you think we have?”

“Based on the high-water mark here and the fact that most small trees have been knocked down, I’d guess that our basement is completely flooded—and our first floor has been wiped clean.”

“There’s a lot more standing water here—and mud. It didn’t look this bad back up Highland,” she said.

“We’re almost a mile closer to the beach at this point,” he said.

“Everything’s been stripped away. This is unbelievable.”

He stared down Harrison Road and saw the proverbial “forest for the trees.” Aside from the houses, larger trees and utility poles, the landscape had been completely denuded by the tsunami, replaced by a foot and a half deep layer of mud and ubiquitous, randomly scattered piles of debris.

Across the street, he spotted another gray, Town of Scarborough trash bin. They’d seen several along Highland Ave over the past thirty minutes, where evidence of a stronger wave surge became evident. He knew the bins hadn’t originated from any of the neighborhoods in Harrison Hill. Trash day was Thursday for this part of town. He’d also seen roofing tiles and splintered sections of cedar siding buried in the mud or stuck in the lower branches of the trees of the forest preserve. A tattered lobster trap lay on the left side of the street, half buried in silt a few feet away from an overturned neon green plastic bucket. The entire landscape was littered with these bizarrely juxtaposed confirmations that humanity had been violently upended further down the line. The tsunami must have obliterated the beach communities.