Page 94 of The End of the World As We Know It
That left Tommy’s father, and while he was much more practical than the others and a whole lot easier to talk to, as sheriff he was also super busy. Tommy had listened in on a couple of his dad’s official phone calls and heard him talking about preliminary coordination plans with the hospital and where on Highway 9 they would set up roadblocks if such measures were to become necessary. During another call, Tommy heard him addressing the person on the other line as “Colonel Perkins” and carefully repeating a phone number as he wrote it down. One night, after his father had hung up the telephone, Tommy walked into the den and asked if he should be worried. Sheriff Harper assured his son that there was nothing at all to be concerned about. The government doctors and scientists were working around the clock on a cure, and before long everything would return to normal. And that was good enough for Tommy. After all, if you couldn’t trust your own dad, who just happened to also be law enforcement, who could you trust?
Tommy sat at the edge of the tower platform, his legs dangling over the side, and felt the sun hammering down on his shoulders. His knapsack was full of books from the library, but he was too damn hot to read. He had peeled off his T-shirt about an hour ago, tearing the bandage on his shoulder in the process, and rolled up his jeans to his knees. It hadn’t helped much; it felt like he was melting.
I could bring a tent up here, he thought, wiping the sweat out of his eyes.It would have to be a small one, but that’s all I’d need. And nothing too bright, so it blends in.
“Who the hell’s gonna notice it anyway?” he spoke aloud. “No one. That’s who.”
There was a time, not long after the soldiers had left, that a fairly constant parade of strangers had passed through town. A handful traveling alone, but most of them in groups. One solitary man arrived on horseback. A few others on motorcycles. But the majority were on foot.
On several occasions, Tommy had laid down on his stomach across the metal platform and peered over the edge, spying on the outsiders. Using his father’s binoculars, he’d watched as they searched the stores and houses for food and supplies, all of it long plundered by then and either consumed or squirreled away. One couple stopped and fished for a while in Hanson Creek, but then quickly moved on when they didn’t have any luck. An older man with gray hair down to the crack of his ass strolled down Main Street, stark naked and singing church hymns. Another time, Tommy saw two women emerge from the woods and make their way along the edge of town, stopping only to search a handful of cars that had been involved in a head-on collision. A moment later, he noticed a bearded man following maybe forty yards behind them, scuttling from tree to tree, car to car, house to house. Working that hard to hide his presence, the man was obviously up to no good. And the two women appeared completely unaware. Tommy scooted to the opposite side of the platform and watched this cat-and-mouse pursuit until all three of them disappeared. And he never onceuttered a word of warning to the unsuspecting women, something he still felt guilty about to this day.
But that wasn’t even the worst of it. On a cloudy afternoon in late May, a caravan of cars and trucks arrived in Bennington from the direction of Highway 9. Tommy, awakened from his nap by the roar of their engines, counted sixteen vehicles from his perch atop the water tower. The lead car, driving way too fast, made a wrong turn by the high school, and the whole group of them ended up bumper to bumper on the dead-end street where the tower was located. It took them nearly ten minutes of cussing and horn blowing to get out of each other’s way and turn around, plenty of time for Tommy to get a good look. Something he quickly regretted.
Several of the trucks had been rigged with what looked like machine-gun turrets on the reinforced roofs of their cabs. Others had makeshift cages in their flatbeds. They were crammed full of both male and female prisoners—all of them Black. A number of cars had swastikas spray-painted on their hoods. Holding his breath, Tommy watched as they drove out of town, looking like a wiry, metallic snake. Once they were gone and the road dust had settled, he’d climbed down as fast as he could and ran home to tell his father.
News kept coming of the flu—eventually even Tommy’s friends began to pay attention to the distressing stories being reported from around the country—and with each newspaper headline and breaking news television broadcast, it became more and more difficult for Tommy to believe his father’s words of reassurance. Yet, even with that creeping dread forming in the back of his mind, the fascination remained.
In faraway cities and towns, still a safe distance from Bennington, Vermont, schools and businesses were shuttering their doors. Airline flights were being grounded, and trains and buses had ceased running. There were curfews and quarantines in place in many locations. In others, food and water was being rationed. For Tommy, it remindedhim of the forty-eight-hour power outage—caused by high winds and lightning strikes—that had occurred in Bennington when he was ten. The idea of a blackout had felt a little exciting to him, but also kind of unsettling. The entire town had gone dark and silent. Televisions and telephones didn’t work. Some radios were okay, as long as you had fresh batteries, but if you didn’t, you were shit out of luck because the stores were all closed. The same went for flashlights. Tommy’s father had reported for emergency duty and was busy the whole time, so that left Tommy, Mom, and Jennifer all alone in the house. He and his sister played Monopoly by candlelight and helped their mother move all the food from the refrigerator and freezer into Styrofoam coolers lined up on the kitchen floor. Even the grown-ups appeared wary and alert, the sudden loss of electricity a blunt reminder that civilization as we knew it existed upon a very fragile foundation. When it was time to go to bed that first night, Tommy watched his mother double-check the locks on the front door, and then walk a wide circle in the living room to check them for a third time. The three of them slept in the same bed both nights.
The fascination didn’t last. As soon as the national fatality statistics began pouring in—initially from Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, but soon followed by the entire East Coast—and news broke of flu outbreaks spreading from the larger metropolitan areas and making their way into suburban and rural regions, any hint of excitement drained away for Tommy Harper. Graphic images began appearing on nightly newscasts—naked corpses stacked up like cordwood outside of hospitals; dead bodies scattered across desolate streets and sidewalks in places like Baltimore and Philadelphia and now even Boston—horrifying millions of stunned viewers and sparking violent riots and mass evacuations.
But even at fourteen years old, Tommy Harper knew the hard truth: there was nowhere safe to go. By then, he’d realized that his father had been wrong. Dad hadn’t lied to him that night in the den—he’d simply been overconfident and mistaken. Captain Trips was onthe move and there was no stopping it now. People in Bennington had begun closing the curtains on their windows and locking their doors during the day. Martin’s Sporting Goods had sold out of rifles and ammunition. Sunday church services were standing room only, many parishioners wearing scarfs or bandannas over their mouths and refusing to make skin-to-skin contact.
Soon, the rumors began to spread. Evacuees from as far away as Albany and Boston were headed their way by the busloads. A deal had been struck with the mayor to set up a temporary encampment by the lake. Jason Stanwell, the hunky gym teacher at the middle school, was sick in bed with the flu. His girlfriend, who worked at the Radio Shack in the mall, had deserted him and gone home to Montpelier to stay with her mother. Hospital officials were lying to the public. The morgue located in the hospital basement was already overflowing with flu victims and there weren’t enough beds upstairs to take care of the dying. The governor was about to declare martial law, and the army and National Guard were arriving soon to take over the town.
None of the rumors proved deadlier than the truth.
Just before sundown, Tommy heard the growl of the motorcycle’s engine.
It was another thirty seconds before he actually saw it, and in that brief span of time he wondered if he might be dreaming. Or even imagining the sound. Lately, he’d given a lot of thought to what it might feel like to go crazy.Would I even know if it was happening?
Then he blinked and the black-and-chrome Harley-Davidson carrying a pair of helmeted riders made the wide turn onto Sycamore Lane. It continued at a leisurely pace through the intersection and eventually swung a hard right onto Park Drive. Once it reached the gravel shoulder in front of the grassy rise bordering the edge of the woods, the driver pulled over, engaged the kickstand, and switched off the engine.
The passenger dismounted first and removed her helmet. Long hair, either blond or gray, cascaded below her shoulders. It was hard to tell from this distance, but she looked to be in her forties or fifties. Slight in stature, she was dressed for a dinner party instead of a road trip. A frilly cream blouse and pleated pants. She was even carrying a pocketbook.
The driver, tall and lean, took off his helmet and hung it from the handlebars. He got off the bike and stretched his muscular arms above his head. Much younger than his companion, he wore jeans and a black T-shirt and appeared to be in his mid- to late twenties. Chiseled face. Sandy-brown hair cut below his ears. An unkempt, tawny beard. He walked a short distance away, turned his back on the woman, and urinated in the grass. The woman said something Tommy couldn’t quite hear, and there was the sound of their muffled laughter. When he was finished, the driver zipped up his pants and sauntered back to the motorcycle. Something about the way he moved looked familiar to Tommy. It wassmooth, like he was an athlete or maybe an actor. Smooth, and cocky.
As Tommy watched from atop the water tower, the strangers went to work setting up a tent on the hillside overlooking town. It was bright orange and not very big. Just enough room for the two of them.They’re going to stay the night!Tommy thought with a glimmer of excitement.Maybe even longer than that!
The woman disappeared into the trees for a moment—no doubt relieving her bladder in private—and upon her return, immediately dropped to her knees and crawled inside the tent. The man followed right behind her.
Tommy changed positions on the metal platform and waited to see if either of them came out again. When it got too dark to see, he climbed down and went home to the shed in the backyard.
That night, he dreamt of the old woman in the cornfield again. For the first time, she spoke to him. But he couldn’t make out what shewas saying. In the dream, he was standing right in front of her. The woman’s lips were moving, but there was no sound.
Frustrated, he woke up shortly after one a.m. and couldn’t fall back asleep. He went outside and sat on the back stoop. His neck ached from a third restless night on the air mattress.Enough is enough, he thought. He would have to do something about that soon. What he really wanted was a cigarette. Even one would make him feel better. His mom would have a fit if she knew he felt that way… but his mom wasn’t there to lecture him. Tommy didn’t know where she was. Maybe nowhere.
He wasn’t sure if he believed in heaven or not. He used to, back when he’d gone to Sunday school, but that was a long time ago. Was she somewhere high above watching over him? Did she know that he was thinking of her right now? Or was she really just… gone, like a light bulb that had blinked out… rotting away in the ground with all the others at Henderson Park?
Jenn had gotten sick first. She’d complained of a headache on a Monday afternoon and laid down on the sofa with a wet washcloth on her forehead. Dad, who was home from the station for a quick lunch, whispered to his wife that the girl was probably just being dramatic. Jenn was still getting over her breakup with Herb and prone to extended periods of histrionics. But by Tuesday, her face a scarlet mask, she was bedridden with a fever of 103.7. Despite the dangers, Mom had insisted on taking care of Jennifer herself. She’d steadfastly refused to take her to the hospital. There were no open beds, and the last thing she was willing to do was abandon her daughter to a bunch of overworked doctors and nurses who may or may not have had time to render proper treatment in an overcrowded hallway.
The following morning, Jenn started vomiting blood, and within hours, her throat began to swell. By nightfall, she was dead.
A week later, Tommy woke up late one morning. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he walked down the hall toward the bathroom—but stopped when he realized how quiet the house was. By this time,his father was on emergency duty with the sheriff’s department and gone for an average of eighteen hours a day. With Jennifer gone, that left his mother. Usually, she was clanging around in the kitchen or running the washing machine and dryer or at the very least playing the news on the television set in the den. But today there was none of that.
A shiver of dread creeping along his spine, Tommy continued down the hallway to his parents’ bedroom. The door was cracked. He pushed it open.
In the far corner of the bed, Joanne Harper lay twisted on her side, one arm stretched past her head as if she were reaching for something on the floor. Her bulging eyes stared sightlessly at the wall and her cracked lips were parted in a sneer. Directly below her mouth, there was an enormous puddle of bloody vomit soaking into the mattress. Her neck was a swollen tube of blackened flesh.
