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Authors: Scott B. Williams

The Pulse: A Novel of Surviving the Collapse of the Grid (37 page)

BOOK: The Pulse: A Novel of Surviving the Collapse of the Grid
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He talked about the solar flare and how everybody in modern America was so dependent upon electric power that they didn’t know how to do anything else but go apeshit crazy when the lights went out. He said they were all so stupid they would just sit and wait for the government to bail them out and only a few would take any initiative to do anything, and then, if they did, it would be the wrong thing.
“I may have hated school,” he said, “but I’m not some ignorant dumbass backwoods hick like most people around here. I didn’t like somebody else telling me what to read and having to take a test on it, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t like to read. I studied what I wanted to learn about on my own and one thing that always interested me was the history of various cultures and especially the decline of ancient civilizations. I was into a lot of philosophy too, especially Thoreau and the ancient Chinese Taoist teachings. Do you know who Lao Tzu was? Have you ever read the Tao Te Ching? Would you like to hear what my favorite quote of his was? “Water flows in the places men reject.” You can see now how true this is. Look at this river, for instance. It winds and twists for more than a hundred miles through some of the finest woods and wild lands left anywhere in these parts, and what do all those ‘civilized’ idiots do? They sit in those square boxes they call houses or take off down the road, stuck in their way of thinking that nature has to be shaped and conformed to their needs, and not the other way around. All the while, this river flows nearby, twisting quietly and unnoticed through these forgotten ‘places that men reject,’ offering a route of travel, a refuge, food to eat and water to drink. Yet they’re just too blind to see it. That’s why they will die, and that’s why they deserve to. We’re entering a new era now, and those who can’t figure out fast that they’ve got to give up on their technology are not going to be a part of it. It might be hard for a while until the die-off is complete, but give it a good year or so and we won’t have to lie low in one area anymore. There’ll be so few people around that there will be room enough for everyone who is smart enough to still be here. Then we can live the way we were meant to—free—as nomadic hunter-gatherers roaming whenever and wherever we please. There will be others like us too, and it will take time to reconnect, but someday we will eventually join together and form new tribes. By then, we will be fully adapted to the old ways, and this transition period will be a distant memory.”
Casey had to listen to this for hour upon hour as Derek paddled. The longer they were together, the more he talked, but he wasn’t really trying to engage her in conversation. For the most part she didn’t bother trying to argue with him, and had given up on asking him to let her go. They traveled through the rest of the afternoon and another night, and the farther downriver they went, the lower and swampier the terrain surrounding the river became. By now, the wide sandbars that were in nearly every bend upstream were non-existent, replaced by low, muddy banks where the forest reached right to the river’s edge and the understory was a green wall of head-high palmettos. The current in this lower part of the Bogue Chitto was much slower, but Derek’s tireless stroke kept the canoe slicing through the nearly still water at the same relentless pace. Before dawn they passed a man-made canal extending north and south, and the Bogue Chitto reached the end of its course, becoming less defined as a separate river as it joined a maze of channels and bayous of a much larger river system flowing south to the Gulf.
“This is the Pearl,” he said. “We’re home free now. There are miles and miles of winding little bayous in this swamp that are so small a canoe can barely pass through them. I’ve been coming here for years, and I’ve found one of the most remote spots in the entire basin that I always figured would be my go-to place when the shit finally hit the fan. You couldn’t find a better hideout anywhere in the state, you’ll see. There’s no way in and no way out except by canoe or pirogue, but everything we need is already there.”
Casey saw nothing but woods and water. She found it hard to believe, but the entire time they had been in the canoe she had seen little else but woods and water, save for the occasional cabin built on the riverbank, and a couple of highway bridges they had passed under. If she had not seen all this for herself, she would have never believed there could possibly be so many endless miles of woods and water along a river course so close to the huge urban sprawl of New Orleans.
Now that they were in this swamp where even the boundaries of the river disappeared in walls of flooded forest on either side, Casey felt more lost than ever. When Derek turned the canoe off of the broad waterway they had been following and into a narrow bayou barely two canoe-widths wide, she knew that she was utterly and thoroughly hidden away from the outside world and completely out of reach of anyone who might save her from this man who was determined to keep her that way.
The canopy was completely interlocked overhead on this route, so it was so dark Casey could barely see a few feet beyond the bow of the canoe. Derek slowed down to a drifting pace, using his paddle only to keep them from banging against trees as the current flowing beneath the boat carried it deeper into the forest. When dawn finally came, Casey saw that they were gliding among hardwood and cypress trees of tremendous, primeval proportions. It was a place like no other she had ever seen, with long, wispy curtains of Spanish moss hanging from almost every branch and limb, creating a mysterious, haunting atmosphere that was both beautiful and foreboding.
The waterway they were following lost all definition in a labyrinth of narrow swift sections interspersed with lagoons where it spread out and surrounded the boles of the giant trees, making it impossible for her to understand how anyone could find their way through it. Derek paddled as if he knew exactly where he was going, though, and here in the hush of early morning in this cathedral-like forest, he remained silent once again, much to her relief, after having heard hours of his indictment of modern civilization the afternoon and evening before. In places the canoe was swept by low-hanging branches, forcing her to duck even from where she was seated in the bottom of the boat, propped up against a duffel bag. When this had happened several times, Derek stopped and cut her hands loose so she could fend off branches before they hit her in the face. She knew he wasn’t worried about her escaping now, as there was absolutely nowhere to go in a place like this without a boat.
They had been traveling in this manner for a good two hours since they left the main river, when Derek turned off to their left onto yet another branch of the bayou they had been following. This one was even narrower, but to Casey’s surprise, the water was clear and the bottom was white sand instead of mud. Small sandbars, miniature versions of the huge beaches in the bends of the Bogue Chitto, lined the banks intermittently, and at last Derek stopped and pulled the canoe onto one that had a flat shelf at the top just wide enough to accommodate it.
“We’re here,” he said. “Welcome to my little piece of paradise.”
Casey said nothing as Derek untied the ropes holding her ankles together and began taking his duffel bags and packs out of the canoe. She climbed out, grateful for the opportunity to stretch her stiff joints, but when she looked around, she saw no sign of a camp. There was a narrow path leading off through the palmettos, though, and she could see that somebody had made it by cutting their way through there. Derek stepped into the path and motioned for her to follow.
Not wanting him to grab her arm and lead her or touch her in any way, she complied. The terrain rose slightly and the vegetation in the understory changed from the tropical-looking fronds of the dwarf palmettos to a dense thicket of sweet bay bushes, their waxy emerald-green leaves screening from view what might lie ahead at the other end of the path until they pushed their way through.
“There it is,” Derek said. “My perfect bug-out hideaway.”
Casey had not expected anything quite like this. When she looked where Derek was pointing, she saw a shelter that blended in so well with its surroundings that it would be easy to miss even from a short distance unless you were specifically looking for it. It was the primitive construction of mostly natural materials that made it blend in so well, though the camouflage tarps that made up the roof and one side certainly did their part to help.
The most unexpected thing about it was that it was built about 10 feet off the ground, on a platform of poles cut from small trees, lashed horizontally between four much larger hardwood trees, like a much bigger version of a child’s tree house. As they walked closer, she saw a crude ladder going up to it, also made from lashed poles, and then saw that the floor was made up of very old and weathered-looking planks of wood. Rolled up mosquito netting was hung from the edges of the roof all the way around and a tarp formed a single wall at the back, but otherwise the structure was open-sided. She could see that that the only things in there were some camo-colored five-gallon plastic pails with lids on them and a stack of large, square metal boxes, the olive-drab green kind that Casey knew were Army surplus ammo cans.
Beneath the platform, a heavy wire was stretched on a diagonal between two of the supporting trees. Suspended from it hung several skillets, cooking pots and utensils, and an axe and shovel. A fire pit was dug in the sand nearby, framed on both sides by chunks of heavy logs that obviously had been chopped to length by the axe.
“It’s built above the forest floor like this to stay above high water in times of flooding,” Derek said. “This is an island we’re on here, though you can’t tell because of all the trees. It’s one of the highest elevations in the area, and it’s rare that the bayou gets over the bank, though I have seen it happen in the years I’ve been coming here. But regardless of floods, there are always plenty of big cottonmouth snakes in these palmetto thickets, and everywhere else in the swamp. It’s a lot better sleeping off the ground, and a lot cooler in the summer too. This is the way the Indians that lived in these parts built their houses, and it makes sense to do the same.”
“How can you plan to
live
in a place like this?” Casey asked, tears starting to roll down her face as she slapped at the mosquitoes that were buzzing around her head and neck. “There is nothing here but
trees.
You can’t even see the canoe from where we’re standing, and it’s just a few yards away. I feel like I’m going to suffocate.” She slumped to the ground and sat with her head in her hands, gripping her hair with both hands and trying to resist the urge to yank it out as hard as she could. She was so frustrated, terrified, and exhausted. Every day since her alarm had failed to go off that morning that now seemed so very long ago, her life had gotten harder and scarier with each new passing day. Now that she saw this place that Derek had been planning to take her, the prospect of coming up with an idea for escaping his clutches and finding her way out of this nightmare seemed truly hopeless. And here at his camp, their journey on the river done, she feared time was running out before he would try and force his way on her.
TWELVE
 
ARTIE’S MIND WAS RACING with worry as he and Scully quietly paddled the kayak out of the dark canal to the open waters of Lake Pontchartrain. Had Casey and her friends left New Orleans early enough to avoid the horrors they’d had a vivid glimpse of today? If they had left in time to get ahead of the worst of the panicked exodus from the city, what would they have faced on the other side of the lake, and along the highways leading north? Was the cabin really in a safe enough location, or would they be in danger there too? Most of all, he wondered how he was going to get there and how long that would take. If they had to walk, traveling 90 miles would take days. And if things had deteriorated a lot more in the days since Casey and her friends made the trip, what dangers would they face trying to follow their route now? Artie had lots of questions; what he didn’t have was answers to any of them.
The map Grant had drawn was just a simple sketch, with highway numbers and turning directions. It was hard for Artie to grasp what the journey would really entail without seeing a real map, and he was anxious to get back aboard the catamaran so he and Larry could study the Louisiana state road map that Craig had given them. He was unfamiliar with the towns along the north shore of the lake, and especially with the countryside north of that. His route in and out of New Orleans had always been Interstate 10, which crossed over to the north shore at Slidell, but then continued east through the Gulf coast cities of Gulfport and Biloxi and on to Mobile. He hoped Larry might have some ideas, but doubted he knew the area to the north either because his only visits to New Orleans in decades had been a couple of yacht delivery trips in and out by the route they’d just sailed on the
Casey Nicole.
Larry was waiting anxiously on deck for them when they paddled back alongside the boat. “Did you get your pistol?” he asked.
“She left,” Artie said, as he climbed aboard. “She and Jessica and their friend Grant. Grant left a note from her in my car. He borrowed my gun as well, and I’m glad he did, I just hope he hasn’t needed it and hope he never does.” Artie helped Scully pull the kayak back on deck, and when they’d secured it, he sat down with Larry to tell him about Casey and her friends’ plan to ride their bicycles to a cabin in Mississippi.
“Wow!” Larry said. “That’s quite a trip, but you know, it also sounds pretty smart to me. If this kid Grant had enough sense to lead them out of here that soon after the grid went down, I’ll bet they made it just fine. You know most people would just be confused and disoriented, not knowing what to do or where to turn in the first few days after an event like this. Chances are all the real problems and violence didn’t crop up until about four or five days into it. They probably got across the Causeway ahead of all that and made it to that camp with no problem. I’ve never heard of that river, the Bogue Chitto, but let’s check it out on the map….”
BOOK: The Pulse: A Novel of Surviving the Collapse of the Grid
4.19Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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