IT WAS TIME FOR Peter to run.
He leapt over the body of the man whose hand he had just dismembered, then flew down the stairs. On his way, he noticed most of the condo units’ doors were ajar, swinging back and forth in the wind. The units had either emptied voluntarily or been emptied by force. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, he swept as fast as he could through the guarded gate, its white and black wooden arm swaying listlessly in the wind, snapped by someone’s quick exit from the lot.
Peter knew that running through the city’s parks might be his safest bet. Scavengers searching for shelter, food, or weapons would most likely be hanging in and around the neighborhoods. His biggest challenges, he anticipated, would be major roads and intersections.
The planned path would not be easy. Ears’ condo was in Northwest Cambridge, and Peter’s house was three miles to the southwest between Harvard and MIT. He paced faster than he thought was possible, reaching Danehy Park in a minute without incident. On the way, he avoided the many contorted bodies on the streets and walkways. Some were killed by obvious violence. Others were frozen in rigor mortis, much like the pictures of New York City he viewed in the morning. The plague had hit Boston with full force, no doubt.
He decided to parallel Garden Street, the most direct route through the parks. At the intersection of Sherman and Walden, he noticed some movement. A few people were struggling on the street, fighting each other for plastic bags of unknown goods. Detouring to the smaller streets, he first darted through Corcoran playground, then down Raymond and Walker Streets past Radcliffe.
Cutting through yards and alleys and jumping over fences, he arrived at Waterhouse Street. There he spotted four heavily clothed men, neatly interspersed along the street, appearing to be sentries of a sort. If they were chippers to any degree, they would be able to readily intercommunicate and overcome him.
“Damn mechanized scum,” he whispered, breathing rapidly.
He crouched between two parked cars on the street, hoping he was not spotted and cognizant that the moisture from his breath might give him away.
“You’ve got a choice, dude,” he considered. “Hope these mechs are only upper body augments. If so, you’re fast and can likely outrun them. If any are in vehicles, you’re near Flagstaff Park and Harvard Yard, and they won’t get a car through there. But dodging bullets? I have no choice.”
Peter waited for his moment, then shot across the street to the snow-covered grass field of Cambridge Common, past the Civil War monument.
“Don’t look back,” he sensed. “You did that once in high school and lost the race.”
He kept at it, darting through Flagstaff Park and General MacArthur Square. Intending to avoid Harvard Square and the risk of encountering unfriendlies hanging around the subway stop, he was relieved to find Johnston Gate to the campus was open.
It was a bet, but he’d either die there if someone was lying in wait or make it through the gate and hope to find an exit from campus that was also open.
Slipping past the gate without incident, he glanced down to ensure his saber was glued between his arm and elbow. The grounds appeared empty.
“Students and faculty must have left long ago,” he thought as he crossed the Old Yard and shifted to the right toward Wigglesworth Hall.
He abruptly heard a snap of a tree branch and felt something hit his backpack with force. Spinning his head around, he spied two men in hot pursuit forty yards behind him.
Peter was physically and emotionally spent. He could run no faster. As he reached Morgan Gate, he found it was closed and locked.
“Shit! One more like this, and I’m toast.”
Seconds later, he’d made it to Bacon Gate. It was open. Peter could sense them gaining ground, and his mind was racing for a place to hide.
He made a split-second decision to run openly in the street, thinking they couldn’t follow his footsteps because the snow was melting on Massachusetts Avenue. As he coursed forward, he desperately searched for a temporary hiding place, finally finding tall shrubs in front of the Old Church.
Taking cover behind them, he hunched over and attempted to slow his breathing. This didn’t work, so he lifted his shirt collar to breathe down his chest. Peering through the shrubs, he saw the two men run past him a few steps. They then turned to check out the church and other buildings in the vicinity.
“Peter,” a voice whispered.
Startled to hear his name, he glanced to his right. It was Dirksen, only a few feet from him in a concealed corner of the church. He was covered in old sleeping bags and wet cardboard.
“Take this,” he demanded, offering him a small pistol.
“Dirksen! Thanks.”
One of the mechs approached the bushes. Just when he was getting close enough to spot Peter and Dirksen in their lair, the second man whistled to head back. Peter held the gun in his hand, shaking from fear and uncertain he could pull the trigger.
“The blade,” whispered Dirksen as the men went out of view. “Too noticeable. I hear it’s Toxo in the water. Shiny, moving things irritate them. Some combination of geedee tech from trout, of all the crazy shit, integrated with Toxo. What happens? Well, these bastards hate movement, but they hate shiny movement even more.”
Still breathing into his shirt, Peter put his hand in the air, motioning to Dirksen to wait a few minutes before saying anything else. Then he lowered it.
Relieved for a moment, he gave Dirksen a half-smile. The man’s third eye was shifting aimlessly, to-and-fro.
“This is my home, dude, at least when the shelters aren’t open. Got any food?”
Peter carefully placed the gun on the ground and removed his backpack, handing Dirksen three of his six ramen packages.
“Split what I got with you,” Peter offered. “Heading back to my house. Heard anything?”
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“You live around Kendall Square, right?” Dirksen whispered hoarsely. “No news there. Lots of bodies, though. Stay away from them. Don’t know what this rolling death is, but it travels then takes, travels then takes. Touch or breath is my guess.”
“Saw many dead in the streets. Ran from the Northwest side of town,” he continued panting. “Do you want to come with me?”
Dirksen shook his head. “Can’t make it, brother.”
He stretched out his left leg, revealing a black, swollen foot. “Gangrene. One good one left under my butt. This is either my safe place or final place.”
“Damn! I should have given you those boots. If I make it home and can come back, I’ll do what I can to help.”
“You were always a help to me, Peter, one of the best. Never taunted me. I just wanted to see things other people didn’t see. Guess that didn’t work out. None of this fucking tech worked out, by the looks of it. Geez, trout DNA and Toxo. Who comes up with this crap?”
“Those who fear, I guess. Like I said, if I can, I’ll find you.”
Dirksen held out his rough, dirty hand to shake. “Get going. Your sweat will freeze you soon enough, and your body will blacken like my foot. Good luck, brother. God bless, and make it home safely.”
Peter stood in a half-crouch, just below the line of the shrubs. He picked up the saber.
“Leave your sword here,” Dirksen demanded. “Those Toxo trout crazies will spot you like a lure dancing in clear spring water on a sunny day.”
He pulled a bottle of liquor from his tattered green jacket. “Care for any? It’s the only liquid I trust now.”
Peter winked, then raised his head just above the shrub line.
“You can outfox them. Just don’t display your shiny teeth,” Dirksen chuckled, “and hide really good when they chase.”
Standing-up half height, Peter waved goodbye to Dirksen, then started his final segment of the journey using Harvard Street as his guide. He ran across lawns and between cars, avoiding the dead bodies sprawled everywhere.
“Run fast and don’t touch,” he repeated to himself.
A few people were visible in the distance as he crossed Prospect. He ducked behind a mailbox and waited for them to move out of sight. Looking around for clear passage, he continued sprinting and was soon relieved by a familiar sight.
“Washington Street. Home.”
Peter quickly sprinted to the back of his house and found a temporary hiding place between his garbage cans.
“Made it. But God, what will I face inside?”
Hidden between the two cans, he waited in silence for any sound coming from inside the house. After an hour of shivering in his sweat-soaked clothing, he slipped to the entry way and raised his head above the windowsill, slowly peering inside.
“No lights. Good sign. The key, Peter. You’d better hope the key remains where you hid it.”
Kneeling on the concrete and partially camouflaged by his porch bushes, he dug into the hard ground by the flower bed. It had been too long since he had hidden the key in the dirt near the front door. His cold hands burned with pain at each clawing grasp. Finally, a flash of metal gleamed.
“Beautiful key. Wondered if I’d ever need it.”
His hands were shaking so much that he had to use both of them to push the key into the slot. Just at that moment, he heard tires from an approaching car sloshing on the street.
“Damn electrics!” he muttered as he flattened his body on the porch, face turned downward.
The car stopped.
“I’m just another body. Just another body. Be deadly still, dude.”
Footsteps approached, and he held his breath, waiting for a gunshot or baseball bat strike to his back. The few seconds seemed like minutes.
“Hmm,” he heard the visitor mumble.
The footsteps then moved away, back to the car. The door slammed, and the car drove away. Peter remained in place, however, shaking from the cold on the snow-covered porch.
“How could they not have seen my tracks or the dirt I removed to get the key?” he wondered.
Rising slowly, he scanned the visitor’s footprints.
“Odd. Looks like a child or young teen. Even a small woman.”
It didn’t matter. He was home.
Once inside, he grabbed a broom for protection and went through each room to check for unwanted visitors. The house had been ransacked, with an entry made through a jimmied window. Cupboard doors were open and flour, non-edible goods, and kitchen utensils were strewn about. The beds in both rooms were made, indicating nobody had slept there. He felt lucky.
Peter was talking to himself. “Damn, it’s been so cold lately. I mean, freezing like this in late October? What the hell is going on with the weather? I can’t live inside the house. It’s too big and difficult to keep warm, even if the electricity stays on. Much less, lights would give me away. I have no choice but to stay in the garage since it’s smaller, insulated and I’m less obvious there. Just another dark, abandoned house in Cambridge.”
The electricity was currently off, so it was not possible to heat the garage. He’d need to depend on body heat. Peter shed his sweaty clothes, double-layered his favorite long underwear shirts and pants, then donned his Patriots cuff knit cap.
Next, he checked for any remaining food or fluids in the house, scouring both basements. Unfortunately, the door to the basement at the back entry was wide open and cleared of food, just like the pantry.
Whoever ransacked the place had not found Peter’s second small basement in the garage. A check of that showed his soda stash was intact, as well as a full case of cream of mushroom soup.
He did a quick mental calculation. “Six cases of soda, a case of bottled water, and then there’s snow melt, assuming that’s not dangerous. Add three packages of ramen and the mushroom soup. Gives me a month before foraging. By then, very few are likely to be alive, leaving lots of food to scavenge afterwards. God, I could sure use Molli to help me through this. I’m lousy at self-defense. If anyone comes inside, I’m dead.”
He knew his end would either come as death from the plague or in hand-to-hand combat with a mech. Searching the house for suitable weapons, he hid a few four-foot sections of two-by-four boards in the bedrooms and quietly sharpened two metal broom handles on the concrete floor of his basement.
Finally exhausted by the stress, Peter covered himself with blankets and comforters and prepared for a freezing night in his leather swivel chair. At one time, his studio was a place of creativity and fun, and now it was likely the last place he’d ever know.
As he closed his eyes to rest, he could only recall a repeated vision of his feet pacing wildly through the snow, past dead bodies of people young and old, frozen in place.
“It was not supposed to turn out like this,” he mouthed. “This is not a good conclusion for humanity.”
An image of a smelly petri dish suddenly came to mind from a college biology class experiment. The bacteria he seeded into the agar started growing in small blotches, then advanced to a healthy state. He was so proud of it, feeling like a parent to these little creatures. As it reached the edge of the dish, however, it blackened and died within hours.
At the time, he didn’t understand the teacher’s purpose of the experiment and thought it as a waste of bacteria, agar, and plastic. But he finally understood now, whispering, “When a species becomes too successful, too entitled, too consumptive, and incapable of planning for its future, it self-annihilates.”
Around 9 p.m., Peter heard the familiar sound of his water heater buzzing as it kicked back on. Thrilled that he might now have heat, he turned the thermostat to high. Then he remembered that the pipes were likely frozen and would leak everywhere when thawed, so he ran around to shut off the inside water valves.
“Why did the electricity come back on? Who’s around to feed and run the generators?” he wondered.
He recalled that his house was in the path of certain MIT and Harvard science facilities. Power company personnel had previously told him he was one of the lucky ones whose homes were fed from the main power and internet lines between those buildings.
“Must be it, though it’s hard to conceive anyone is at these schools. Not when people are dropping dead in their tracks.”
Peter threw his blankets and gloves off and snatched his backpack, extracting his laptop and power cables. He turned it on and logged-in, finding the Wi-Fi bars active.
“Fat chance,” he mumbled, assuming Internet access was impossible. But he had a live link, so he quickly accessed the messaging app.
His only text message was from earlier in the day.
Molli: “By parent’s house. What street? Turn on Washington? Waening you, I’m not the best with directions out here.”
“Shit!” he cried. “Both code words in one text? She may be alive, but I know she’s in critical trouble. How do I answer?”
They had only gotten so far with their code word plans. He responded.
Peter: “Electricity intermittent. How can I help?"