The Perseid Collapse (25 page)

“Easy on the rifle,” said Ed.

“I’ll have to apologize to her later,” Alex said, winking at Charlie. “She did save my ass.”

“The rifle didn’t save your ass,” said Charlie.

“Thank you, Charlie,” said Ed.

“Will you sit back in your seat?” Alex grumped. “You’re like one of the kids.”

“I’m not giving up this front-row seat for anything. The only thing missing is a bag of popcorn. The two of you should keep me entertained all the way to Boston,” said Charlie.

“Wonderful. Can you at least breathe on Ed?” Alex complained. “I can smell the beef jerky stuck between your teeth.”

“See that, Charlie?” asked Ed.

“See what?”

“Alex goes right to the vegetarian digs when he feels threatened by you,” said Ed, grinning widely.

“I always suspected he was a foodist.”

“Two against one?” Alex said. “This is going to be a long ride.”

“Let’s hope not,” said Ed, the smile suddenly gone from his face.

Prior to the brief exchange seconds ago, Ed hadn’t spontaneously smiled since yesterday afternoon. Unlike Alex, who leaned on humor to mask and cope with stress, Ed became stolid and serious, creating an impenetrable brick wall to hide his emotions. The tactic didn’t work very well for Ed, because the impassive facade didn’t match his usual range of expressions. Alex could read him like a book, and right now, Ed was close to having a nervous breakdown.

“We’ll get the kids back, Ed.”

Ed nodded his head and looked like he wanted to say something. Alex didn’t push it. He glanced quickly at Charlie, who met his eyes and imperceptibly raised his eyebrows, acknowledging Alex’s silent message:
We need to keep an eye on him.

A few minutes later, they exited the turnpike at Wells and decelerated along the winding off ramp. They found the two-lane road blocked at the tollbooth station by a Wells Police cruiser and several orange traffic drums. A police officer and three armed men stood in front of the drums, signaling for them to pull into the right lane, directly perpendicular to the side of the cruiser. Alex examined the situation and made a quick decision to proceed.

“Get your Maine driver’s licenses out for the officer. Registration too. Make sure nothing has shifted back there. All windows down,” said Alex.

They had placed the licenses and registration in the front breast pockets of their shirts for quick access and to avoid reaching out of a police officer’s sight in case they were stopped. While Ed pulled the Jeep into an area of pavement designated by traffic cones, Alex and Ed unbuttoned their pockets and removed their identification. Alex kept his eye on the civilians that accompanied the officer, noting their weapons. One of them held a semiautomatic shotgun and the two others carried AR-style rifles without optics.

They wore a variety of commercial tactical equipment and pistol holsters, which told Alex that they were most likely volunteers from town. Only the police officer wore body armor, obvious underneath his gray uniform. He tipped his campaign hat and approached the driver’s-side window. One of the men with an AR walked across the front of their Jeep and took up a position on the passenger side. None of the men at the checkpoint pointed their weapons at the vehicle. He felt comfortable with the faces he saw. Serious. Solemn. Slightly nervous. If anyone had smiled or grinned at him, he would have felt threatened.

“Keep an eye on the guy to our right,” he said out of the side of his mouth to Charlie.

“Got it,” whispered Charlie.

The police officer stopped a few feet from Ed’s door and examined the interior of the cabin, sweeping his eyes over Ed and Alex.

“Morning, gentlemen. May I ask where you came from and where you’re headed?”

As agreed earlier, Ed led the conversation for the group. Alex thought it would appear strange if one of the passengers was the primary spokesperson. Possibly suspicious. If Ed faltered in any way, Alex would interject, but otherwise he’d leave the talking to the driver.

“Good morning, Officer. We’re headed to Boston to pick up our kids. My daughter is at Boston College, and his son is at Boston University. We left Scarborough about an hour ago and saw that the York tollbooth was blocked in both directions. We’re looking to take the back roads down into the city,” said Ed.

“Can I see your license and registration? If you don’t mind, gentlemen, I’d like to take a look at your licenses as well,” said the officer, nodding at Alex and Charlie.

The officer examined the Jeep’s registration and their licenses, handing everything back to Ed for redistribution.

“Not a great time to be out on the roads,” said the officer.

“We don’t have much of a choice,” said Ed.

“I suppose not. You should be good to go until you reach the border,” said the officer. “Rumor has it that the locals have shut down all of the crossings. Not sure if that means both ways. Nobody wants a repeat of what happened during the crisis a few years ago.”

Alex didn’t want to drag out their time at the checkpoint, but he needed more information about the general situation.

“Officer, what’s happening at the York tollbooth? It looked like a parking lot,” he asked.

“Maine Guard units have secured the far end of the Piscataqua River Bridge. They’re letting Maine residents or family of residents through for further processing at the tollbooth. They’re being thorough, from what I hear. The governor ordered it,” said the officer.

“I’m surprised they can get past Kittery. We drove through nearly a foot of mud between here and York.”

“Plows cleared a path from York to the bridge for the guard units mobilized out of Sanford. From what we heard, it took them forever.”

Ed asked the officer, “Has anyone heard anything from Boston?”

“Coastal areas from Boston on up were hit hard by tsunami and wind damage. A windblast hit us here, but the damage was mostly superficial. Broken windows and branches on the ground. The tsunami did the real damage. Wiped out everything east of Route 1 in Wells and Ogunquit,” he said and paused before continuing. “People are saying it was a lot worse in Boston.”

“I’m sorry to have brought it up, Officer. I hope your family is safe,” said Alex.

“Thank you. We live west of the turnpike, but a lot of the people we know weren’t so lucky. It’s…uh…I don’t know what to say. I’ve never seen anything like this. How was it up in Portland?”

“The same. We live two miles from Higgins Beach and saw definitive signs of wreckage from the houses in that area. I think anyone living within a half mile of the water is gone,” said Alex.

Officer Jenkins shook his head, fighting to keep his eyes from overflowing with tears. Alex couldn’t imagine the impact a disaster of this magnitude might have on a police officer who patrolled the streets of a small, coastal town. Jenkins probably knew most of the year-round residents by name.

“Any official word on what exactly happened?” Alex asked. “I assume we got hit by an EMP.”

“People report seeing a massive meteorite streak through the sky south of Boston, heading east. They think it hit somewhere out past Cape Cod,” said Jenkins.

“Did they see it hit?” asked Ed.

“Reports are sketchy. Keep in mind that I’m getting most of this information third hand from the York and state police. Apparently there was a massive flash to the east, but nobody they’ve talked to from the cars actually saw the explosion. There’s some talk of fires in Boston and people taken to the hospitals with third-degree burns from the flash.”

“Sounds like the effects of a nuclear detonation. Add the EMP thing—I’m not convinced this is a natural event,” said Alex.

“They think the meteorites or asteroid fragments might have disrupted the ionosphere and caused an EMP. Something like that. Nobody knows shit, basically,” the officer admitted.

“That’s the real problem. Everybody is guessing.” They needed to get moving. “Keep your family safe, Officer. This is going to get a lot worse. You probably know that better than anyone.”

“Yeah. Unfortunately, I know it all too well. I hope you get those kids back,” said the officer.

The police officer moved his volunteers back and pulled his cruiser forward, clearing a path for their Jeep.

“Stay frosty!” yelled Alex from his window, earning a few nods from the roadblock crew. “Take a right up here on 109,” he directed.

“That was easy enough. He barely looked in the car,” said Ed.

“He didn’t care. Our paperwork backed up our story, so he had no real reason to dig any further,” Alex explained.

“I’m glad the two of you had fun. I was shitting my pants back here wondering what our plan might be if that little interaction had gone fucking south for the winter,” said Charlie.

“Our best play is to avoid the police or any kind of checkpoint. If there’s no way around it, like back there, we give them our story, identification, and hope for the best. If the police decide to search the car, we can always flee.”

“With two AR-15s and a shotgun working us over, I don’t think we would have gotten very far,” said Charlie.

“I didn’t get the sense that his crew would have pushed the issue if we had put the Jeep in reverse and left the way we came,” said Alex.

“What about the next crew? What about the group that decides their town needs a four-wheel-drive vehicle more than two dads trying to rescue their Ivy League kids—and I mean nothing by that. Just saying what others might be thinking. We need to come up with a better plan for these checkpoints. This won’t be our last,” said Charlie.

“I’m not drawing down on the police or National Guard. We either flee or surrender to a search if it comes to that,” said Alex.

“What if they start shooting?”

“Then we shoot back. We’re well within our rights to refuse a search and turn around without being shot at,” said Ed.

“I’m with Ed on that one,” said Charlie.

Alex agreed, but he needed Ed and Charlie to come to this decision on their own. He’d already reached this verdict when they turned around at the York tollbooth. The last thing he wanted to do was engage the police in a firefight, but they had every right to defend themselves, especially with so much riding on the success of their journey. Avoidance was their best strategy, but eventually they would find themselves facing another checkpoint—and another. They needed more than a general agreement.

“All right. It sounds like we’re all on the same sheet of music. Let’s game plan more scenarios and establish rules of engagement. We should have done this last night. That’s my bust. I should have known better. I wanted to get a better feel for what we’d be up against out here. We really got lucky back there,” said Alex.

“I was ready to rock and roll if that went the way of the taco,” said Charlie.

They both laughed at his reference.

“There’s more where that came from,” said Charlie.

“I don’t doubt it. Why don’t you chamber a round in both of the ARs and put them on safe. We’ll need every fraction of a second possible if things…”

“Rapidly devolve into a clusterfuck?” Charlie said helpfully.

“Exactly,” said Alex.

Chapter 24

EVENT +29:15 Hours

South Berwick, Maine

Alex scanned the road ahead for the inevitable roadblock. They quickly approached the Overlook Golf Course, which marked the edge of town and the most logical place to stop cars headed into South Berwick’s downtown area. He risked a glance at the parking lot, seeing several cars parked in the far corner of the spacious lot. The cars probably belonged to the golfers with the first tee times yesterday morning. He remembered driving through this area during the summer for Biosphere Pharmaceuticals. The Overlook had always teemed with golfers and summer events in the white tent next to the eighteenth green. As they passed the clubhouse and raised barn, Alex saw the tent standing empty next to the green.

He imagined a massive, outdoor wedding reception on Sunday afternoon and wondered if the newlywed couple was stuck somewhere between here and Logan International Airport, their honeymoon a long-vanished afterthought. Alex envisioned millions of scenarios like this playing out across the nation, each one consuming the focus of those involved, creating a desperate tunnel vision to survive. The sudden introduction of this desperate focus to millions of people would create a dangerous world.

“Look at those crazy assholes!” said Charlie, pointing out of the left passenger window.

In the middle of a distant fairway, on a rise past a small pond, two men hopped out of a green golf cart. One of them grabbed a golf club from a bag in the back, while the other opened the red cooler that had been stashed between the two men on the front seat. Alex couldn’t see what he pulled out of the cooler, but given the fact that these two were golfing little more than twenty-four hours after a tsunami wiped out the coast and the power grid was taken down, he imagined they weren’t messing around with cans of soda. He felt surprisingly ambivalent toward two men golfing at ten in the morning. They obviously didn’t have any pressing matters—yet.

“Ignorance is bliss,” said Alex.

“Yeah,” Charlie said, “until they come knocking on your door looking for shit.”

“Fucking idiots,” mumbled Ed, concentrating on the road.

“The town starts just past that taller tree line. You should slow down a bit,” said Alex.

Ed had just started to decelerate the jeep when Alex spotted the roadblock outside of South Berwick’s downtown area. The road curved, gently revealing the distinctive shape and style of a police cruiser perpendicular to the road, blocking the inbound lane and most of the asphalt shoulder. A blue minivan blocked the outbound lanes.

“Slowly stop the car and turn us around. Damn it. I thought we might be able to slip through the outskirts of town. We’ll backtrack to one of the local roads a mile or two behind us. Figure out how to break through to Route 9,” said Alex, fumbling with the map book between the seats.

“They’re flashing us!” said Ed, slamming on the brakes.

Alex braced his hands on the dashboard to keep his head from striking the glove box, feeling the binoculars slide from his lap onto the floor. The police car’s red and blue LED strobes ominously pierced the distance between them. He estimated that Ed had stopped the Jeep roughly five hundred feet from the blockade, which put them at a relatively safe distance from immediate gunfire. Ed had unknowingly done them a favor with his panicked stop. Possibly a bigger favor than any of them had counted on.