Containment (42 page)

Jerry was the first to spy movement. At first he thought that it was just an optical illusion perhaps created by his taxed nerves partnering with the darkening and stretching shadows. When Claire saw it too, though, he knew what he was seeing.

“Neil, we got...”

His voice sounding defeated, Neil dryly finished for him, “A problem?”

“That too. But I was gonna say that we got movement over there.”

With everyone else gasping and facing about, Neil, remaining calm despite the alarm bells that were echoing in his skull, said, “Yeah and that’s a bit of a problem.”

Claire was starting to repeat over and over, “Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh...”

Dr. Caldwell tried to settle everyone with, “They may be moving but they’re not getting up. So long as they’re on the road and we aren’t, there’s no threat. Just keep moving and watch the ones over close to us.”

They moved in a single file line, careful not to get too close to anything along their path. At one point, they passed a soldier whose forehead was adorned with a dime-sized hole. His left arm had been partially gnawed and the right side of his neck was a brown and rust colored mess of torn folds of flesh. To Meghan though, all that caught her attention was that his nametag read: Taylor. That was her last name.

Surnames, such important concepts for so many people for so long, were now taking on completely different meaning. There was also the very real possibility that last names no longer had any meaning at all. Really, if there was only one Meghan, what difference was it whether her last name was Taylor or Burton or…she wasn’t sure what Neil’s last name was but that was certainly another possibility.

All at once, two things that stood out to her from her thoughts took her. The first was that she so readily and easily included Neil on the same list as her maiden name and the name of her fiancé, which was eventually going to be hers, had they married. The fact that she did it without hesitation was what struck her as so surprising because she was not typically so impulsive as to fall for a guy so completely and so quickly. And this despite the fact that she was had no idea of his last name. It started with a ‘J’, she thought.

The second surprise was the flood of memories that surged from behind the Taylor nametag. When Meghan was still a little girl, she became enamored with Elizabeth Taylor’s life and career. She was amazed with the glamour and the sense of uber-celebrity, and Elizabeth Taylor was a shining and graceful member of the American aristocracy. Meghan watched all the movies she was able to, catching them on cable channels, from video stores, and bought the occasional movie online for harder to find titles. As she grew, the obsession subsided, though her passion for Taylor’s films never dulled. When she moved to Anchorage, she decided that she was setting out on her own adventure like Taylor had done in countless Hollywood fantasies. And then she met Brian, who was so nice and handsome. She knew she had found her place when she learned that his last name was Burton. It just seemed like fate had happily smiled on her life. Taylor and Burton: one of Hollywood’s great romances. He was definitely the one.

That was more years ago than she cared to remember. She had accepted her fate to be denied matrimony and had even gotten cozy with the idea. She was alright with staying a Taylor. And seeing it on the uniform of a dead soldier gave her pause, like coming upon your own name on a random headstone in a cemetery. It was unsettling and sent an unpleasant chill up her spine that uncomfortably tickled the base of her skull and her buttocks at the same time. She visibly trembled, catching everyone’s attention.

Neil asked, “You okay?”

“Yeah, I just...I guess I kind of...Hey, what’s your last name?”

“What? I mean, Jordan. Can we do this somewhere else?”

She smiled. “No. All better now. Thanks.” She blew him a kiss and winked playfully. She walked on by, allowing Dr. Caldwell to move forward again.

Neil asked the doctor, “Doc, have you ever figured women out?”

Shaking his head, he answered, “Women to me are a lot like golf.”

“Huh?”

“Meant to be played and not won, or, in a woman’s case, not understood...just played.”

“Thanks, Doc. You weren’t, like, a specialist in advising patients or anything were you?”

“You’ll see one day. It’s not that far off.”

“Yeah. I get ya. Did you happen to spend any time with my Dad?”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

They moved around the pocket of death as quickly as possible. Just beyond, the rock walls to either side of the highway gave way to open land leading to the Knik Delta flood plain. To their right, on the south side, the mountains were still there, but several hundred yards off. On their left, there was nothing for miles.

Neil said confidently, “The Knik crossing is just ahead. From there...well, we can see where we can go from there. Maybe the military will still be there.”

Dr. Caldwell had his doubts, but he refused to give them voice. If the Army was there at the bridge, or even anywhere in the Mat-Su, they would have seen or heard helicopters. The Army would have birds in the sky all the time to keep an eye on any movement in the vicinity. Of course there was always that possibility that the circumstances of the military’s situation precluded that, but if that was the case then he wasn’t sure if heading toward them was the best idea. The reality was that it was the best idea any of them had and they were on the brink of seeing whether or not the idea was going to pan out.

Standing there on the bluff and having to face them was the hardest thing Neil had to endure since standing before the judge at the finale of his failed marriage. He, once again, was a disappointment to the ones who were relying on him most.

The hope had been that finding the Knik Bridge would somehow deliver them, as if the bridge itself contained some power to save. And like the Arthurian quest for the Grail or the conquistadors’ search for the Fountain of Youth or the Lost City of Gold, this journey ended in failure.

From this vantage point, they could see for miles in either direction. The unfortunate thing was that it appeared as if they were looking out onto the moon’s busiest highway during rush hour. There was, quite literally, nothing happening anywhere as far as the eye or a pair of binoculars could see. It would have been peaceful and inviting if they weren’t aware of the cause of such superficial tranquility.

Dr. Caldwell suggested, “Maybe we should stay up here for the night. Isolated. Plenty of wood. I think we’d be safe.”

Jules protested, “But it’s windy and cold.”

Emma agreed. She knew they had a tent in one of the backpacks but they couldn’t all fit in it and, besides, it could barely be expected to provide much cover with its nylon walls. “Jules may be right. It’s already cool up here and it’s still early. Too big of a fire is just going to draw more of them to us. Maybe we should find somewhere else.”

Jerry said, “That’s gonna be tough before night falls. We can build a barrier and use the tent to contain the light and the heat. I think we should make do. Neil?”

Neil had barely heard any of the discussion. He was still distracted with their failed attempt at finding the end of the rainbow. He had placed all his faith and all of his focus on the bridge. He took the easy way out and sided with Jerry and Doc Caldwell.

“We’re here. Let’s make the most of it. We’ll work in teams: some gather wood, some dig a fire pit, and some find the tent. Let’s make the most of the daylight we’ve got left.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Claire said, “but why is it up to you? Why is it always you deciding what, where, and who?”

Neil shared a look that evinced no ego and no guile, completely disarming Claire. He said without the slightest emotion, “It doesn’t always have to be me. Anyone can have this job...gladly, I might add. Up to now, nobody seemed to be interested.” He paused and looked at everyone else this time. It wasn’t a machismo challenge to the others, as his expression clearly communicated. It was a mantle that he hadn’t sought nor would he miss. To prove it to himself and the others, he asked, “Claire, what do you think we should do? Keep in mind that the sun isn’t just going to fade. It’s going to go out almost as fast as flipping a switch. So we’ve gotta get somewhere quickly or risk wandering around blindly in the dark. You saw how dark it gets without streetlights. Where should we go? You lead and I’ll follow for a change.”

“I wasn’t saying that. I guess maybe I’d just like to have a little say in this is all. I mean, it’s all of our lives that are at risk here.”

Dr. Caldwell said to all of them, “Sometimes committee decisions are good and sometimes we just need someone willing to step up and take charge. So far, that someone has been Neil, and I for one am thankful that he has because I don’t think I would have been the best at getting us out of the jams that we’ve had.”

Gerald, typically quiet and merely a spectator, interjected, “When Evelyn, Dave, and the rest of us first set out, there were dozens of us. We started out at the Public Safety building on Tudor, at the Trooper Station. Someone heard on the radio that it was safe there. We all came there individually or in twos and threes. At first, it was quiet. We all thought that maybe whatever was happening elsewhere in the city might not reach us. We had a bunch of cops there and thought that maybe they’d keep us all out of harm’s way. In hindsight, that was pretty ignorant of us, but who could blame us for thinking that the police could keep us safe? That was their job after all. And who was better prepared to do it than them?

“When the mobs of those twisted souls started to arrive, we knew that the handful of police officers, even with their guns and their training, would never be able to hold those numbers off. They came at us from the direction of the hospitals just up the road.

“So we left. Remember, there were bunches of us and people from all walks of life. We went north up Boniface. It was everything we could do just to get away. I don’t think any of those policemen were so lucky. They stood their ground and held them off so that we had a few seconds’ start. We didn’t know where we were going; we were just going. And those…things, they just stayed after us. They just kept running and running. They never get tired. Of course, you all know this by now but on that first day, we didn’t know what to think.

“We ran up the road and came to the grocery store. Some of the folks thought that we should go in there and lock the doors and hide. Others wanted to keep running. Others just wanted to be safe and didn’t care how or where that would happen. Nobody was willing to make a decision, so we stood there in the middle of the road with only minutes...maybe only seconds separating us from those things. We stood there and took a vote. Can you imagine that? Someone threw out the options and people stood there raising their hands like they were voting for class president or what snacks they should have in the afternoon after recess.

“A bunch of us didn’t wait around to see the election results. We just decided to keep moving north. We hoped to maybe run into folks with cars or trucks who’d be willing to help. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if those other folks were still debating what to do when they were overtaken. When we got to the northern end of the city but not quite up to the highway, we didn’t know for sure which way to go. There was a ruckus out on the highway, so we decided to head into town. But it felt like we were a boat without a rudder, just drifting on the waves. We went from a democracy to anarchy in just so many minutes. It took Daniel to finally take the reins and steer us toward a safe haven. Actually, it was a series of what we thought were safe havens until we finally ended up on that damned bus where you found us. If it wasn’t for him being willing to make what he thought were sound decisions, I don’t think any of us would have made it.

“Things have settled down since then, but I think having a single person in charge when all is said and done has its merits. Neil, that’s not to say that I don’t think that we all shouldn’t have a say in things, because, like Claire was suggesting, it’s all our lives that we’re talking about here. And Neil, whether you like it or not, you are that man, and I think it would just be in all our better interests if you got cozy with that fact, because every time you doubt yourself or your decisions you put us all in jeopardy. We can’t afford you being all down on yourself because someone gets killed.”

Emma said playfully, “Unless that someone is me. Because I gotta tell ya that I’ll be super pissed if that happens.”

Everyone smiled at her but looked back at Neil and nodded in total agreement with Gerald’s summation. The older black man then zipped up his coat to close his collar around his neck and said, “I guess I can start looking for firewood if someone is willing to come along and help me out a bit. Claire?”

Realizing that all that was said was right, Claire nodded and repositioned her Seawolves hat on her head. All of them set about their tasks, preparing for the cold, dark night that was bearing down on them.

Electing to use a blue tarp instead of opening the tent, they were able to fashion a large roof over an area enclosed by stones and pieces of sod. They built a fire in the middle, which kept them all warm. It was a quiet night for all of them but it was restful.