The Pulse: A Novel of Surviving the Collapse of the Grid (14 page)

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Authors: Scott B. Williams

BOOK: The Pulse: A Novel of Surviving the Collapse of the Grid
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“LET HER GO AND BACK OFF!” he yelled as he leveled the long target barrel of the .22 at the head of the one holding Jessica’s bike.
Both of them turned to look in his direction, the leader quickly pushing Jessica aside and turning to face him, with no intention of backing down. Grant raised his point of aim ever so slightly and pulled the trigger, sending a bullet whizzing right over the hooded guy’s head to strike the side of a brick-walled house across the street, where it ricocheted skyward with a high-pitched whine.
“I won’t miss next time; that was your warning! NOW BACK OFF!
The attackers didn’t argue. Grant figured that if they had been carrying weapons, it must have been only knives rather than handguns, as neither made a move to reach for anything. Seeing that Grant was willing to use his weapon gave them reason enough to move on to easier prey. They both backed away with their hands up while still facing him, and Jessica picked up her fallen bike and rolled it behind Grant to where he’d dropped his on the curb. He covered the two retreating assailants with the pistol until they reached the other side of the street and turned to walk quickly out of sight.
“Are you all right?” he asked Jessica.
She was shaking and had started to cry. “I wasn’t expecting anything like this,” she said as Grant put his free arm around her, still holding the pistol in his right hand. “Why are some people so mean?”
“It’s just human nature, I’m afraid. Something like this often brings out the worst in some people. That’s why I’ve been saying it’s better to get away from the majority of people as much as possible. No crowded city anywhere will be safe as long as the power remains off.”
“I can see that now,” Jessica said. “I can’t believe you have a gun, though. Why didn’t you say something about it? Where did you learn how to shoot guns?”
“I
didn’t
have it until this morning. It belongs to Casey’s dad. I got it out of his car when I rode my bike to the airport to leave her note in it.”
“I didn’t know he had guns either. Casey never said anything about her dad owning guns.”
“Maybe she didn’t even know herself. Anyway, it’s just a target pistol, and only a .22 at that, but still, it may save our lives—and maybe it already has. I don’t think he’ll mind that I borrowed it. I’m going to tell Casey about it when we get back to my place.”
“But won’t it get us in trouble with the police if they find out we have it?”
“It could, but I’d rather take my chances than not have a weapon. Where were the police just now? They obviously have their hands full, and they can’t be everywhere all the time. After Katrina, they confiscated all the guns they could find in New Orleans from citizens who had them, but this is so much bigger than a hurricane, I think they have a lot more to worry about than going around door to door collecting guns. And when we get north of the city, there will be even fewer police. I’ll keep it hidden unless we need it.” Grant put the pistol back in his handlebar bag before they remounted the bikes, but this time he kept the zipper partly open for quick access and left the weapon ready to fire, with a round still chambered in the barrel and the safety on.
The ride back to Grant’s apartment seemed to him to take forever, nervous as he was about the possibility of another attack at any point along the way. They passed through areas where lots of pedestrians were crowding the streets, but no one else threatened them, and when they reached the apartment, they found Casey locked inside and waiting.
“I’m glad you’re back,” she said, hugging each of them in turn. “It’s been scary being here alone. I heard something that sounded like gunshots a couple of times, and lots of cursing and screaming. I couldn’t tell what was going on out there and didn’t want to go find out.”
“Some people are starting to go nuts already,” Grant said. Then Jessica filled her roommate in on what had happened at Joey’s and on the street on the way back.
“I don’t know why I didn’t think about it,” Casey said when Grant showed her the pistol. “Of course I remember it. It’s probably older than I am. He took me to a shooting range a couple of times when I was probably 10 or 11. I forgot that he kept it in his car.”
“I just thought we might need it more than he will, especially since he’s unlikely be able to get back to the airport until all this mess is straightened out anyway.”
“It’s okay. You’re right; he would want us to take it. I’m glad you had it today.”
“We would still be walking on the way back here if I didn’t,” Grant said, “if they had left us in any shape to walk at all. I’m going to feel a lot better armed on our trip to the Bogue Chitto. Besides that, this kind of pistol is accurate enough that we may be able to use it to supplement our food supply if this goes on long enough that we need to.”
Jessica look puzzled. “How can we get food with a gun? You’re not thinking about robbing a grocery store or something, are you?”
Casey laughed. “I think he’s talking about hunting with it, Jessica.”
A look of disgust crossed Jessica’s face. The idea of having to hunt and kill for food had not even crossed her mind. “I’m not eating any animals, no matter what happens!” she said.
Grant said nothing. He knew that both of the girls were overwhelmed by the events unfolding around them and he figured that both, even Jessica, would adapt to the changing circumstances as necessary. All they could handle right now was one challenge at a time, and for now, they had enough food to travel on if there were no unexpected delays in the journey to the cabin.
He set to work immediately, completing their preparations to leave. As his bike was the only one set up to carry luggage, there was no way to carry all the gear and equipment he owned, so he had to leave behind many items that would have been nice to have but were not essential. This included the French press, his expensive North Face tent (which was too small to accommodate all three of them), and the battery-powered lanterns. He did pack the propane stove and one extra bottle of fuel, along with a single cook pot that would serve for everything from making coffee, to cooking rice, to purifying questionable water. In place of the tent, he packed a lightweight nylon tarp that could be rigged as a lean-to or an A-frame shelter, and he carried his two sleeping bags for the girls and a lightweight wool blanket for himself. Other essentials included his machete, a couple of flashlights, matches and butane lighters for starting the stove and making fires, a pocketknife and multi-tool, his bike pump and tool kit for roadside repairs, and their clothing. With the food and water bottles they would also have to carry, there was no room for anything else. The cabin contained most of what they needed anyway, and they would be roughing it only during the journey there. By keeping their loads as light as possible, that journey could be shortened and, he hoped, not be too unpleasant.
Even with their luggage pared down to the minimum, their loads were awkward. Grant lashed the heaviest items on the rear rack of his bike. All three of them wore the backpacks that had been used as book bags in their previous lives as college students. In addition, Grant had lashed the stuffed sleeping bags and rolled-up items of clothing to the handlebars and seat posts of Casey’s and Jessica’s bikes. In the end he was carrying at least twice as much as either of them, but that was only fair, he thought, as he was in better shape for riding, and his bike had a stronger frame and wheelset that could stand up to the load. A brief stop by Casey’s apartment gave her a minute to leave her second note for her father in her bedroom nightstand, where he would find it on the slim chance he made it back to the city and happened to come there first instead of to his car.
“I sure hope it won’t be too long before we can come back home,” Casey said as she locked the deadbolt on the door and walked back down the steps to the street. Grant led the way as the three of them pedaled north, making their way past the university campus and towards the elevated expressway of Interstate 10. He wanted to avoid the narrow streets and crowded residential areas along the river, and figured there would be little foot traffic on the expressway. This route would take them directly west to Causeway Boulevard. From there, it was just a couple of miles of wide four-lane to the start of the 24-mile-long bridge spanning Lake Pontchartrain. Before nightfall Grant hoped to get well onto the bridge, where he felt the three would be far removed from the gangs of looters in the city and would likely be sharing the route only with others who were wise enough to try to get out while they could.
He set an easy pace, spinning in one of his lowest gears to stay beside Casey and Jessica, who were having a hard time controlling their bikes with the unaccustomed weight of gear tied on the handlebars as well as in their backpacks. Jessica’s bike, with its cheap components, wouldn’t stay in the gear she selected and made grinding noises as she pedaled, adding to the work she had to do to keep the pedals spinning. Grant knew her rear derailleur wouldn’t last long, but could only hope the bike would hold together long enough to get them to their destination. It was just something else to worry about along with the vulnerability he felt at such a slow pace and the fear that they wouldn’t be able to travel far enough before dark. These thoughts fed his urge to occasionally reach inside his handlebar bag as he pedaled, simply to feel the cold polished steel of the Ruger for reassurance that it was still there. It had proved its worth already, but he still felt suspicious of just about every pedestrian they passed, especially any groups of more than two males, and he imagined them sizing him up and feasting their eyes on his pretty companions and the three laden bicycles that, although slow, would be enticing prizes to many who had no better option than to walk.
When they reached I-10, Jessica and Casey had to get off their bikes and push them up the steep entrance ramp to reach the elevated freeway. At the top of the ramp they remounted and wound their way among the cars, SUVs, pickups, and tractor-trailer rigs frozen in place in the lanes or parked against the retaining walls, where their drivers had coasted them to a stop when the pulse hit and killed all the engines. All of them were abandoned now, with no one in sight on this shadeless concrete bridge two stories above the offices and stores where people had worked until the power went off. It was obvious that everyone stranded on the expressway the morning before had long since given up on getting their vehicles started and had walked to the nearest exit to get relief from the heat and find food and water. Depending on where they were along the way when their vehicles stopped, getting off the elevated sections could involve a bit of a hike.
As Grant and his companions pedaled along one of these long stretches between exits, several large black birds hopped to the top of the retaining wall while others took flight at their approach. There was no mistaking what they were—vultures—and they had been crowded around something lying along the shoulder of the right lane, which took shape as they drew nearer.
“Oh my God!” Jessica said, turning her eyes away as soon as she saw the figure clearly. It was the body of a very obese man, with graying hair, sprawled belly down on the hot pavement. He was dressed in business clothes, a tie around his neck, but his jacket was missing, probably discarded somewhere along the way as he walked in the sweltering heat. His sweat-stained Oxford shirt was untucked at the waist; one leather shoe was lying a few feet behind him, the other still on his right foot. His head was turned so that his missing eyes were unavoidable as they passed, as were the flies that swarmed around his open mouth. Grant felt a wave of nausea and dizziness sweep over him, and he got off the bike to push it to the far side of the left-hand lane and past the horrid sight. Casey and Jessica did the same; then Jessica turned pale, bent over, and puked. Seeing this, Casey couldn’t hold it back either. Three of the vultures still sat on the low concrete wall just a few feet from the body, watching them with beady black eyes, reluctant to fly away from their newfound meal unless seriously threatened.
“What do you think happened to him?” Casey asked Grant as she spit and coughed, trying to get the awful taste of vomit out of her mouth.
“Probably a heart attack or stroke,” Grant said. “It looks like he was trying to get to the exit like everyone else, but he was in no shape for that kind of exertion in this heat.”
“His eyes…did the…?”
“Yes, the vultures,” Grant finished for her. “They fight over them, from what I’ve seen of dead cows and such.”
Casey pushed her bike faster. She just wanted to get away from the scene as quickly as possible.
“Why did they just leave him to lie here like that?” Jessica asked.
“Who would have moved him? It’s not like anyone could call for an ambulance. The other people stuck here on this bridge would have been concerned with their own safety. He might have died before he even hit the ground. He’s too heavy for anyone to carry or drag very far, so where he fell is where he stayed.”
“That poor man,” Casey said, trying to visualize him as a living, breathing human being rather than the gruesome thing that she knew would be an image forever burned in her memory. “He probably has a family somewhere in the city, wondering when he’s coming home.”
“I’m afraid we’re going to see more of this,” Grant said. “The Causeway will probably be worse. There’ll likely be a lot of live people still stranded there too. Some of them will be too old, too young, too out of shape, or too disabled in some way to walk the long distance back to either end, especially if they were unlucky enough to be caught in the middle when the pulse hit. Others will probably already be dead. I wish we didn’t have to see that, but be ready for it. Just try to remember, we have to focus on our own survival. We probably can’t help them, and there’s probably not anyone who can really help us either.”

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