Grants Pass (23 page)

“
How long
were you by yourself?”

“
I wasn’t
alone. I had David. He took care of me.”

“
But,” Ethan
started, unable to settle on the least upsetting way to phrase his question.
“When did David stop taking care of you?”

“
When we
played the drinking game.”

“
What’s
that?”

“
One morning
when I woke up he said he might have the virus. He said that he might not be
able to take care of me anymore, and that made him sad.” She hesitated, stared
at her lap and rubbed her forehead with her right hand as she recalled the
event. “He said he had a special drink — he said it was magic, like a potion.
He said if we both drank it, he could still take care of me.” Theresa wept
openly now, her lower lip fluttering as she continued. “We picked up the
glasses. He drank his right away. I took a pretend sip, and I promised I would
finish it later, when I was thirsty.”

“
And then?”

“
When I came
back later, David was asleep.” Theresa smeared her tears on her sleeve. “He
never woke up.”

Ethan shuddered. He felt rage and
sympathy, resentment and compassion. That David had attempted to poison Theresa
sickened him. Still, her caregiver must have realized that alone she would fall
victim to either starvation or madness. Faced with this tragic decision, Ethan
believed that David had shown courage and strength of will by taking a course
of action that would otherwise have been considered criminal and immoral.

“
Where to,
guys?” Lamar called out, startling them both. He had walked up along side the
SUV, tapping on Ethan’s window. “Sun’s down, and it’s just gonna get darker.
Better find a place to rest our heads, right?”

“
Yeah,”
Ethan said, fiddling with the button panel on his door until the window sank.
Cold air rushed into the vehicle. Theresa shivered, pressed her head against
her window and stared at the ground. “Sign says there’re three or four motels
at the next exit. Let’s pull off and have a look.”

“
Sounds
good. Let me lead — I’ve got a searchlight on that thing. May as well put it to
use.”

“
I’ll
follow.”

As Lamar walked back to the
ambulance, Ethan rolled up his window. His eyes scanned the darkened metropolis
that had been Kansas City. It had outlived its builders and its most recent
residents. Its vacant streets no longer surged with streaming rush hour
traffic; its homes no longer lit up each evening as families gathered for meals
or seceded into various rooms to watch television, complete homework
assignments or surf the web. Church bells had been silenced. In libraries, the
collected wisdom of humanity gathered dust.

“
Why didn’t
you drink it,” Ethan abruptly asked. He doubted she realized what David had
attempted to do, even now. “Why didn’t you drink the magic potion, Theresa?”

“
Because
there’s no such thing as magic.”

JOURNAL ENTRY, FRIDAY, OCT. 27,
0001 AE:

Only the dead know what really
happened in Denver — but having spent the better part of a day searching the
ruins for survivors, I think we have a pretty good idea. Unlike other cities,
Denver appears to have somehow avoided the original outbreak. While most places
were failing, while the federal government was collapsing, at least a portion
of Denver continued to function and remained untouched by the pandemic.
Something happened, though, in late July, if the final newspaper accounts can
be trusted. Martial law had been declared. Paranoia ran rampant. A
self-appointed tyrant adopted a policy of “preservation through elimination,”
identifying prospective plague victims and targeting them for eradication. Death
squads swept the streets, rounding up those members of society perceived to be
a threat. When we went through the city, we saw hundreds of bodies strung up on
streetlamps, victims butchered by machine gun fire in their vehicles as they
tried to flee. We found the centre of operations in a shelter beneath the
airport, where a small
group of the elite apparently tried to find
sanctuary from the plague. They tried to create a buffer zone by commanding
paramilitary groups wearing biohazard gear to commit genocide on the
surrounding community. Their plan evidently failed. We found no survivors. If
we had, I cannot honestly say what we would have done with them.

****

Ethan sat in a secluded booth in
an abandoned Reno casino bar room plucking roasted peanuts from a bowl on the
table. One by one, he chucked the emptied shells onto the carpeted floor. With
no cleaning crew to sweep up after the establishment’s infrequent and
unexpected patrons, Ethan wondered if mice would pickup the slack.

Lamar stood behind the bar,
marveling at the variety of liquors. Like a kid in a candy store, he harvested
bottles from their shelves, lining them up neatly along the bar.

Each booth in the lounge featured a
high-resolution plasma screen and surround sound system. When the place had
been crowded, Ethan imagined music videos ran nonstop while guests frittered
away their modest winnings on exotic drinks. He prodded the controls
unsuccessfully, not expecting a response.

Ethan had sent Theresa off with
Alice, a 62-year-old widow they discovered in Cheyenne. The casino boasted
several clothing stores, and Theresa only had the clothes she had been wearing
when they found her. She needed a new wardrobe, and Ethan thought Alice could
help her make the appropriate selections.

“
Not far now,
my friend.” Lamar sat down across from Ethan, cradling a bottle of whisky and
two shot glasses. “We’ll be in Sacramento tomorrow night. Only another half day
from there.”

“
It will be
weird to stop; we’ve been going for so long.” Ethan downed his first shot
solemnly, winced as the whisky burned the back of his throat and settled in his
gut. “So many desolate cities behind us, so many nightmares. I’ve been so
focused on reaching Grants Pass; everything else seems like a blur.”

“
Keep
drinking this and things will get even blurrier.”

“
I’m
serious, Lamar,” Ethan said, running his finger along the rim of the glass.
“We’ve been so preoccupied with getting there; we haven’t stopped to ask if
it’s what we really want.”

“
Of course
it’s what we want.” Lamar lit a cigarette, pushed the pack across the table
toward Ethan. Ethan shook his head. “If there’s only a handful of people left,
don’t you think that it’s to their benefit to band together? There’s safety in
numbers, right?”

“
Sure,”
Ethan agreed, pouring himself a second shot. “But what if these people are
something other than we expect?”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
I don’t
know.” Ethan rubbed his eyes. In his head, a dull ache that had taken root days
earlier now burgeoned. “What if they have expectations…beliefs that differ from
ours?”

“
You’ve just
gotten use to being alone, kid. When you see all those smiling faces welcoming
us home for the first time, I’m sure all your worries will evaporate.” Lamar
waved, his gaze redirected to the far side of the room where Theresa and Alice
had appeared. The two of them had evidently cleaned out every sales floor in
the place. They each carried bulging bags overflowing with designer clothes.
“Leave the stuff there and join us for a drink,” Lamar said, howling across the
sprawling nightclub.

“
We’ll be
right there,” Alice said. Brimming with maternal instincts, she had taken an
instant liking to Theresa, and Theresa seemed to enjoy the attention. “We need
to make a pit stop, first.”

“
We’ll be
here.” Lamar’s broad smile momentarily displaced Ethan’s anxiety. To possess
such blind optimism in the face of catastrophic adversity and terrifying
uncertainty seemed an enviable gift. If ignorance substituted for bliss,
Lamar’s unsubstantiated confidence and childlike hopefulness might well bring them
all much-deserved peace and security. “Don’t you worry about Grants Pass,”
Lamar said, reassuring his companion. He poured two more shots and held up his
glass to Ethan. “I’m sure they’ll take us in, especially you young folks. If
we’re going to rebuild society, there’ll have to be plenty of young women able
to bear children.”

As Ethan’s fleeting delusion of
contentment faded, he downed one last shot of whisky.

JOURNAL ENTRY, TUESDAY, OCT. 31,
0001 AE:

Civilization is winding down. The
species has survived previous bottlenecks, but from what I’ve seen, there’s far
too few of us left now to reorganize, to rebuild and to repopulate the planet.
Even if pockets of survivors manage to establish small colonies, they probably
won’t last for more than a few generations. Too much has been lost, too much
sacrificed. Some of those left behind will assign spiritual significance to
this event, chalk it up to God’s will. Some may believe earth and the
environment conspired to eliminate humanity before humanity managed to destroy
the planet. Maybe mankind simply outstayed its moment in the spotlight. No
matter what, whether our endangered species manages to avoid extinction or not,
one this is certain: Life will go on.

****

“
Do you
want to stay with us while Lamar and the boys go check things out?” Ethan sat
perched on the edge of a picnic table at a rest stop along Interstate 5 south
of Grants Pass. Lamar and the two teenage boys who had joined their convoy in
Sacramento busied themselves ransacking a vending machine. Theresa sat next to
Ethan and Alice paced back and forth beneath a sycamore. “You’re welcome to
wait here until we see what they find.”

“
No,
sweetie, I think I’ll tag along with Lamar,” Alice said. She stopped, leaned
forward and kissed Ethan’s cheek. “Thank you for the offer though. You’re a
good man.”

“
I just want
to do what’s best.”

“
I know,
sweetie. Lamar is doing what he thinks is best, too.” The terminally gray skies
overhead and the arctic winds left little doubt that rain would soon be
falling. By this evening, snow would dust the mountains. “He wants to find
utopia down there, you know.”

“
Maybe
that’s just what you’ll find.”

“
Maybe. But
one person’s paradise might be another’s prison. He doesn’t see that.” Alice
opened her arms and Theresa hugged her tightly. “You be a good girl, now, all
right?”

“
Yes ma’am,”
Theresa nodded.

“
You take
good care of her Ethan.”

Lamar and the boys wandered up with
armfuls of snack chips and pretzels and candy bars.

“
Let’s move
out,” Lamar said, beaming. “We’ll have a look around and be back for you before
sunset.”

“
We’ll be
waiting,” Ethan said, lying. Alice knew his intentions. Deep down, Lamar
probably did, too. Ethan stood, extended his arm and shook hands with the first
man he had met after the end of the world. “You be careful.”

“
We will,”
Lamar said. He hesitated, and then embraced Ethan. “Thanks for getting me this
far. I think we can manage from here.”

Minutes later the caravan pulled out
of the rest stop on the last leg of its journey, leaving Ethan and Theresa
sitting beneath the sycamore.

“
We won’t
see them again, will we?”

“
No.”

“
Where will
we go now?”

“
Well,”
Ethan said, watching the icy breeze tease her hair. “We can go just about
anywhere. Have you ever heard of the Appalachians?”

JOURNAL ENTRY, SUNDAY, JUNE 10,
0002 AE:

Alice and Lamar left this morning,
heading north toward Chicago. It was their third visit since they brought
Hannah back to Newfound Gap from Grants Pass. Lamar helped put the finishing
touches on the new cabin near Oconaluftee. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay
him. Theresa decided to join them on their trip to Canada looking for lone
survivors and settlements. They’ll all be swinging back this way in October,
when Hannah is due. Alice promised to stay until the baby comes, and hinted she
might spend the winter here. Hannah would like that. Between our weekly runs to
Cherokee, my hunting and Hannah’s garden, we have plenty of food. Still, we
live day to day, knowing we’re both on borrowed time. Everyone is on borrowed
time, now. Civilization may be extinct, but humanity might yet endure if it can
learn to face hardships and harsh conditions as it struggles to persevere.
Paradise is neither Grants Pass nor Newfound Gap; but living either place is
far better than the alternative.

Biography

Lee Clark Zumpe

Lee Clark Zumpe is prone to fits
of creativity between 2 and 6 a.m. During these seizures, he locks himself in a
room in a remote corner of the house and writes. His work has appeared in
Weird
Tales
,
Book of Dark Wisdom
and
Horror Express
as well as the
anthologies
Horrors Beyond
and
Corpse Blossoms
. As a reviewer for
Tampa Bay Newspapers
, Lee was honored with a Florida Press Award in 0001
AE. Lee and wife Tracey enjoy scouring antique festivals for vintage toys,
Victorian ephemera and linens. Contact Lee at
[email protected]
.

Afterword

The latter half of the 20
^th
century is rife with post-apocalyptic fiction. One of my favorite selections in
this subgenre is George R. Stewart’s
Earth Abides
; it paints what I
believe to be an accurate picture of what might happen should humanity suffer a
population bottleneck due to some form of natural or manmade catastrophe. While
archaeologists and paleontologists have shown that the species has managed to
claw its way back from the brink of extinction several times, one must wonder
if an advanced civilization, ill-equipped to face the day-to-day tribulations
of survival, could replicate past recoveries.

Post-apocalyptic fiction often asks
whether humanity — in its quest for technology — has sacrificed the very
survival instincts that allowed it to flourish. In “Newfound Gap,” I strived to
portray Ethan as pragmatic, but cautiously optimistic as he observes the
transformation of an advanced society into a more primitive one.