Ping - From the Apocalypse (6 page)

Chapter
Eleven

A
n Amazing Lesson

(February
6th, Year One, PA)

Kate could put her guilt to rest — at least over that particular incident; it seemed that she hadn’t killed Buddy after all. Snowy had withstood the cold, therefore, she surmised, Buddy — within that timeframe — would probably have been able to do so as well. It was far more likely the plague had done him in — as it had the other pets she’d found. All the wild animals too, so far.

Yet, to her
great dismay, Snowy turned out to be in worse shape than she’d originally thought. When he wasn’t breathless and puffing for air, his head was tucked tight against his trembling chest, feathers piling up at the bottom of the cage. His food was left in the feeder untouched and water barely moistened his beak.

B
esides keeping him warm by the fire with her constant, encouraging company, there wasn’t much else she could do for him. She stayed by his side hoping for the best and on the third morning, woke to the sound of cracking seeds. When she removed his cover he whistled. “Good for you Snowy! You know I need your company when I head south, don’t you?”

She realized she was losing track of time. Opening her calendar to February, she
scratched out the year with a red marker and wrote: YEAR ONE, POST APOCALYPSE! Then she marked the day that Snowy recovered as February the ninth.

Even
though he was eating, she didn’t leave the house until thoroughly convinced he would be okay. Only then, did she begin her regular walks, wondering what she might find closer to the center of town, and then daring to contemplate what the cities were like elsewhere.

One day
, she continued on past her regular route. She walked by the convenience store which appeared to be empty. But glancing inside the medical clinic directly beside it there were at least a dozen bodies and the parking lot was scattered with cars.

S
ome of the vehicles had frozen corpses inside — one unfortunately, in which she recognized an entire family. After checking every single vehicle, wondering why she was torturing herself, she tripped over the nice pharmacist she’d known, who was hidden under the snow. It was enough to shake her up quite a bit, but having gone so far she decided to continue on to the supermarket.

The
previous thaw had been enough to start things rotting exuberantly, with several kinds of funky molds spreading across the vegetable section and liquefied foods that were dripping onto the floor. She stuck to the center aisles, putting a few cans and several bags of chips in a cart, which she then pushed over to the pet section. She was holding a stuffed parrot but suddenly let it drop to the floor.

The boy who
had called her on her cellphone weeks ago seemed to be with her so strongly all of a sudden. She had slowly, over the last few weeks, begun to wonder if her dreams about him were actually his attempts to contact her in her sleep; and if her constant thinking about him was, in reality, him trying to speak to her. But now, those thoughts were being confirmed — as if the boy was telling her to believe her instincts.

Kate
was suddenly convinced he was communicating with her from far away, insisting that he needed her to rescue him and that he wanted her to try to respond. After such solitude she was ready to try anything, craving information from another human being desperately. She needed it to be true and wanted to reply.

T
he boy seemed to be teaching her with rewards. Each time her thoughts went in the right direction a positive feeling flowed through her — like a warm hug while a piece of chocolate melted in her mouth. He carefully guided, showing her how to focus on him in just the right way. Suddenly, it dawned on her that she was actually communicating. She had responded telepathically and formulated a kind of question.

His answer was to show her
his unique characteristics and current state — which was understandably terrible. He seemed so very young and — though sick, in pain, and frightened — was empowered by his trust that once skilled enough, Kate would find him. They both acknowledged her motivation to do so was strong.

It was miraculous that she was able to send back
her love, comfort, and reassurance but — while she hadn’t a clue how to convey factual information — feelings were not difficult, not after receiving them from him. She immediately sensed his uplifting spirit, feeling it in the depths of her soul. He was real; and the boy on the phone had survived.

Shaking
her head to clear it, she fumbled for her phone and pressed redial.

“
Answer this time!”

T
he world had become so quiet. Interference from radio, television, internet, and all the electro-magnetic signals that had been bouncing everywhere — they had all virtually stopped. Kate wondered if this unprecedented silence was the reason she was suddenly capable of picking up the boy’s thoughts — or maybe, she just hadn’t been listening.

Frustrated
when she heard the familiar answer from his mother, she hung up and was about to call back when the boy made himself perfectly clear. He could not talk over his phone! Something was preventing him from doing so. She wondered what it could be, and then, it was suddenly clear to her — telepathy was the only form of communication of which he was capable.

Chapter Twelve

The
Journey Begins

(
March 20th, Year One, PA)

Kate stood at the front door gazing around the neighbourhood for a moment, taking it in for the last time. Patches of snow lingered beneath the trees but the roads were finally clear.

“
I hope we know what we’re doing Snowy,” she muttered. “If our luck holds out we should make it far enough before the next storm. I sure miss the weather channel.”

He
stopped nibbling on the framed painting above the dining-room table and chirped loudly. She didn’t care about the frame, couldn’t bring it with her anyway. If ever she did return, it probably wouldn’t be for a very long while. She sighed and gently shut the door.

Her future could not be more unpredictable
than it was at that moment. Her nerves were frayed. She nudged her index finger against Snowy’s chest and he obediently hopped on, allowing her to put him back in his cage which she had already placed by the entranceway ready to take him out to the car.

“It’s going to be a long drive
,” she said, draping a small blanket over the cage. She went out to the car to make a final check of all the things she’d stuffed in the trunk and piled in the back: some casual clothes, blankets, candles, matches, flashlights, food, water and a first-aid kit.

S
till in the house was her large shoulder bag, stuffed with items she would probably never use, but, there was no telling what might come in handy in an emergency and she figured it was better to be safe than sorry. In it she had also put Wendy’s gun, which she’d finally found beneath the woman’s pillow.

She carried the cage outside and put it on the seat.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” she told Snowy, gently shutting the passenger door.

Then, back in
the house, she walked slowly through each room, opening cupboards and drawers, visiting everything for the last time. Eventually she found herself in Jon’s office by their books, running her fingers along the spines and reading the titles. She finally flipped through some of his papers, sighed, and stepped through the door.

It was time. S
he walked through the living room to the back of the house, pushed the patio door open and gazed into the yard. The ground had been too frozen to dig a grave for Jon — though she’d given it a valiant try; waiting around for it to thaw made no sense at all. She gazed over to his coffin of blankets where the snow was indented with muddy boot-prints — her shovel still leaning against the maple tree.

It had been a
warm spring day when they’d first met in the coffee-shop downtown. She’d been on her way inside, and just leaving, he’d held the door for her. Sitting down with her biscotti and tea she’d noticed him peering in through the window while supposedly waiting for the bus — the stop was just outside. After a few minutes he’d come back in and sat down at the table beside her, sipping his coffee and flirting with her. Six months later they were married.

“Goodbye Jon,
” she whispered and then sadly slid the door shut, pushing down the latch. She stared at the handle for a moment, shook her head at her silliness for locking it, and turned away.

T
he scent of pine needles drifted in the warm air as she closed the front door, stood on her porch, and finally continued down the steps to the car. Snowy perched quietly in his covered cage beside her as they backed down the driveway. There was nothing left here for her, but, somewhere in Texas — determined by his area code — a boy needed to be found.

S
he drove past the super-center slowing at the intersection by a familiar-looking van, but stopping herself from peering inside. It wasn’t going to do her any good or help her get out of town she decided, turning the corner onto the main strip where she passed the familiar restaurants, ice-cream parlours, scuba-diving shops, tattoo salons and pawnbrokers, the cars becoming more numerous as she approached the center of town.

Ahead
, the route was blocked by a jumble of vehicles, some that had crashed into others. “This is what happens when you turn off the TV to get some work done, Snowy — you miss out on the mass-hysteria.”

Weaving around the
cars onto the shoulder and then up on the curb to get past a collision involving vehicles full of children and a German Shepherd, she came to a stop beneath the sign
Kate Avery’s Studios
. Her paintings were visible through the window along with some pottery and other crafts, created by her associates.

The
adjacent pizzeria always closed for the winter; last summer she had sat beneath the canopy with her friends, drinking beer, laughing, enjoying the hot summer evenings. She slowly crawled ahead and then paused again, gazing down the side-street at the whitecaps crashing onto the icy shore in the distance. She adjusted the heat and continued weaving her way through the unbelievable chaos, toward the highway. Just before the exit she pulled off and drove over to the hardware store, shifting to park by the main doors.

“Don’t go away Snowy.”

She headed straight to the automotive section relieved to find pumps for syphoning fuel, gas cans and a battery charger. Then browsing through the items for anything else she might not have thought about she finally wheeled the cart out to her car.

“
Are we having fun yet Snowy?”

She threw everything in the backseat
, slid behind the wheel and drove over to the gas station. Finding fuel had worried her, but the gas flowed easily from the nozzle into her tank and sighing with relief she wondered if she’d be as lucky elsewhere.

S
he filled four gas cans and tucked them safely in the trunk, determined to be prepared for anything. Jon had probably left their Honda in decent shape and if anything went wrong she would likely find another usable vehicle easily enough — though it might be a bit of a walk; she wouldn’t want to be dragging Snowy and all her stuff around in the cold.

“Here we go,” she said, taking the southbound ramp to the highway. She noticed her white knuckles.
Negative thinking had never seemed to help in the past. It might be superstition but in her case it had also been fact.

She picked
up speed as she took the middle lane. So far, the route ahead of her was clear. The Honda hadn’t had a single problem since they’d purchased it four years ago. That worried her though and she couldn’t bear to be stuck another day. They had to get south before the next storm.

The clock
on the dash said it was just past noon. There were dark clouds off in the distance but that was east of her and the highway was heading south. She pressed the button to the CD player. The music was recorded by a local rock band and it helped for a while.

T
here were a few cars scattered here and there at the side of the expressway, and several in the lanes facing the wrong way. But it got worse the further south she drove, and became increasingly unnerving; blank stares pressed against the windows, mouths hanging wide open in frozen screams, children and pets included. The visions toyed with her peripheral vision though she struggled not to see them, pretending they didn’t exist as she drove on, an unexplainable fear of getting off the highway rising inside her.

A b
us had skidded sideways, then a truck had rolled; collisions were disturbingly more frequent, but so far, the highway had been accessible. That was not going to be the case fairly soon, she finally accepted, as the congestion grew thicker.

Approximately o
ne hour north of Toronto she came to a stop, removed the map from the side-pocket in her door and with trembling hands spread it out in front of her. “This is bad news. We’re going to be doing some detours Snowy,” she mumbled. She had begun weaving in and out of cars and trucks, the gaps becoming tight in places.

Heading on towards the next exit, s
he was in the midst of a graveyard, bodies everywhere, even on the pavement. In their hysteria, people had staggered from their vehicles delirious with pain and fear. If her car broke down now, in the core of it, she was going to go to pieces.

Her exit was less than a kilometer away.
Even with each of the three lanes filling up, there had been space in-between the vehicles to weave through. Now she squeezed by a dozen vehicles and then swung around several massive trucks only to come to a complete stop.

The pile-up before her stretched the entire
three lanes and onto the shoulders. A bus filled with passengers had overturned, and several dozen cars had crashed into each other trying to avoid it. There were limbs hanging out of windows, and bloodied bodies stretched out on the road. She opened her car door and threw up.

Wiping her face
, she gazed ahead of her trying to calm herself. There was no possible chance of getting through that. The only option was to go back to the last exit. But there was no room to turn around, the two trucks she’d squeezed between blocking her view, or she never would have tried. “I don’t like this,” she whimpered, putting the car in reverse.

She backed up until she came to the rear of the second truck. Flanking her now were several cars and she needed to swing her rear to get around them. She turned the wheel
, creeping backwards inch by inch until she was in the clear. Reversing several more yards, she then swung around and began driving against traffic.

“
How could I have been so stupid?” she panted as she made her way north again. The nightmare was returning — her positive thoughts in which she hoped to find survivors were sunk; this was the reality of life on earth. It would be this way near every major city.

Somehow in the back of her mind she had
thought there was a logical explanation for not having been rescued. She had no idea what it would have been, but that hope had been the reason she’d had the courage to make her way south in the first place. She had been in complete and utter denial over what was facing her.

Even after what she’d seen in her own town, she had never envisioned a disaster close to the likes of this. Stupid of her, she realized now. But not thinking about such things had kept her calm and motivated. Now she had reached the last exit and it felt surreal going in the opposite direction around the access ramp.

Of course none of the
vehicles were moving, nor would they likely be doing so again, but visions of cars approaching head-on had been popping into her head all the way there; the fact that it was next to impossible didn’t seem to matter. The ramp was congested too; an unbelievable number of people had been wedged in there, trying to reach the highway with the hope of fleeing a plague that was already deep inside them.

She crept along the
shoulder until about the half-way point, where a man lay on his face, and a woman stared up at the sky, one arm over his back and the other straight out on the pavement. They stole the entire width of the shoulder.

“
Where are my gloves?” She found them, and stepped outside, where the substantial wind was colder and damper than she’d thought, chilling her to the bone as it blew through her coat. Those storm clouds were still on the horizon heading west too, but maybe they would pass over before she reached them. She walked over to the corpses, her gaze darting around nervously in every direction — like a bird ready to take flight at the slightest sound or movement.

T
he man was huge, but she grabbed him above the ankles and pulled him into the ditch, then slid the woman down beside him. Climbing back up onto the road, she stood for a moment catching her breath, still gazing around suspiciously and feeling even more vulnerable outside her car. Those were obviously the couple’s kids straight ahead in the SUV with the open doors and no-one in the front seat — poor things.

She put her gloves in a plastic bag and
stored them away for later use — not intended for protection against the cold anymore. Continuing on to the end of the ramp and then swinging west, she drove by one horror after another, slowly desensitizing — the ghastliness fading and the details gradually reducing to white noise.