Michael Bunker - WICK

The crashing noise could not have been more than half a mile away. Veronica could have sworn that she felt the ground rumble under her feet before they heard the awful explosive clatter of the plane crashing into the city. Her thoughtful eyes scanned down to the street and noticed the cars clogging up the main artery of the street down the block, and the people running toward the sound of the crash. Images and fragmented memories of 9/11 flashed through her head. Veronica pushed her son back into the house, and the young man looked at her his eyes full of fright, and he asked her what was happening.

Veronica answered with a single sentence. “Stephen, you see de animal, but you don’t see de beast.” And with that, she sprang into action.

The mother directed her son to go down to the basement and grab two black bags she’d packed with survival gear for a journey. Without hesitation, she ran into their rooms and pulled out warm clothing, changing her own clothes at the same time, all in a flash.

Coming up from the basement with the bags, Stephen asked what was in them. “Don’t ask questions, child,” Veronica said. “Act.” She directed Stephen to change into the clothes that she’d just pulled out for him—hiking gear in layers and warm boots—as she went into the kitchen to gather food and water. Within fifteen minutes, they’d left their house and were setting out on foot through the city… toward Brooklyn.

At the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge was an almost unknown cold war era nuclear fallout bunker. Veronica had come across it while working at the Brooklyn Bridge Park because it was adjacent to a storage facility where she kept all of her tools. She remembered reading about the discovery of the bunker in 2006, when city workers had stumbled upon it during the course of routine inspections. It had been long forgotten, and as soon as it was discovered, it was forgotten again, but Veronica had not forgotten about the bunker at all. She’d previously wheedled her way into getting a key to the bunker from a city clerk who was easily confused by the numbers on a blueprint. Now, the two of them, mother and son, wound their way through the city toward the stone enclosure in the hopes that they would find it still functional.

Having a goal and a plan has a huge impact on the mental state when things fall apart. As they walked, she saw people moving in circles, running heedlessly, or sometimes just standing and gaping with their mouths open and their eyes blank in horror, confusion, or indecision.

The city had been wreaked by havoc in the past week, and now havoc had turned into a conflagration. Fires and destruction were everywhere around them, and Veronica and Stephen took advantage of the mayhem to move silently and purposefully through the city. They moved along the side streets, dipping into Central Park, and then back along the thoroughfares that would lead them downtown, making their way so that they avoided as many people as possible. Before leaving the house, Veronica had slipped a small pistol into her waistband, a gift from her husband on the Christmas before he died, and she hoped that she would not have to use it.

As Stephen followed her, he tried to ask her questions about why they were leaving so quickly, and where they were going, but Veronica simply kept his mind occupied by telling him stories of his father.

“You know, your grandfather was a man who was admired by everyone who knew him. He was an engineer, and he built buildings in Trinidad that were not as tall as these you see here…” she motioned to a building that was ablaze in the distance, its giant face perforated by the wings of a second aircraft that had fallen from the sky only moments before, “…but they were impressive nonetheless.” She focused on blocking out the horror, and directed her mind towards that which she had to do to eliminate panic in herself and her son. There was no shaking in her voice, only calm and certainty.

“When he met your father, he asked him what he’d do if he ever found himself in trouble. You know — what he’d do if things fell apart. He was a cantankerous man, your grandfather, and I was his baby, and he wanted to say a little something that might scare John a little, to see what he was made of. Well, if that is what he wanted to do, he failed. Your father answered with an old Trini proverb that immediately won over your grandfather. Your father said, ‘When yuh neighbor’s house on fire, throw water on yours.’

“Do you understand, Stephen?” She looked over at her son as they hustled through the city, reading his thoughts as they passed people who seemed to be crying out for help.

“There are times when we need to be good citizens and help others out. But in moments when it is life and death, we should take care of our own. Do you see what I’m saying?” She paused and saw in his eyes that he was doing the best he could to follow. “There is something terribly wrong here, son. I’m not sure what it is, but I have an idea. Now is not the time to question and fret. Just move your feet and keep your head down. We have to make our way to safety.”

Stephen nodded and tried to keep pace as they wound their way through the city. They passed through the crowds and around the puddling of slushy ice water that was beginning to pour into the streets from the numerous fires that sprang up around them. They headed as straight as they could manage past the infernal turbulence that was the city, toward the safety of the bunker in the bridge.

By evening, they had reached it.

From a distance, one could hear the faraway strums of the guitars slowing growing. The distinctive clattering echo of the twang-twicka-twang was matched by the chunky percussion. As the man on the bicycle came closer to the small group of people gathered by the entrance of a parking lot on the Lincoln Highway in Trenton, New Jersey, the group looked up and heard the wailing urgency of the opening lines of a U2 song.

Although they had only moments before been wondering aloud when this waking nightmare would end, when the government would get its act together and deliver food, where the police were in all of this, they happily stopped their grousing for a moment and watched as the bearded, red-haired specter rode up into their midst, and asked if they knew where he could buy some balloons.

“Balloons?!” asked one of the loudest complainers in the group, incredulously. “Have you flipped your gourd, bro? What in the world do you want balloons for? You should be worrying about finding a new coat to replace that nasty thing you’re wearing. And food… you should be worrying about food. And safety. You do know that we’re in the middle of a national emergency, right?”

Looking at the man, they thought they’d sized him up. Perhaps he was a lunatic, flittering along the highway on a bicycle in the snow, heading who knows where. Maybe he didn’t even know, they thought. The red bearded man just smiled and did nothing to dispel this notion.

“Oh, it’s ok,” he said. “I’m not worried about safety. I know how to make myself invisible. But I need some balloons. I’m going to build a rocket ship and float on out of here.” He reached down and turned down his boom box just as U2 was singing about a place where the streets have no name, as if in answer to where he was going. He changed the subject off of himself. “How bad is it out here, anyway?”

They stood together for a moment and talked about the conditions around them, how the grocery stores had been stripped bare since the blizzard, and how the streets had become dangerous in the last few days, and not only at night. One trucker who’d just driven up from Mississippi before the storm told him how he’d run out of gas and his rig had been stranded for a week.