Steven Konkoly - The Perseid Collapse

Amazingly, neither Emily nor Ethan had grumbled about the hike. He hadn’t heard much from them at all, which left him puzzled. They whispered back and forth, but beyond that, they had both gone silent early in the trip. He’d tried to get them talking, but it seemed futile. They appeared slightly catatonic, and their responses were delayed. He was worried that they might be dehydrated, but they’d both consumed nearly three liters of water before reaching the top of Highland Avenue. Kate was convinced they were in some mild form of shock from the morning’s events, which served to intensify their “teen distancing” syndrome. Whatever it was, they kept going, which was all he could ask from them at this point.

“Nobody at the fire station?” he asked.

“I guess not,” mumbled Kate. “How much water damage do you think we have?”

“Based on the high-water mark here and the fact that most small trees have been knocked down, I’d guess that our basement is completely flooded—and our first floor has been wiped clean.”

“There’s a lot more standing water here—and mud. It didn’t look this bad back up Highland,” she said.

“We’re almost a mile closer to the beach at this point,” he said.

“Everything’s been stripped away. This is unbelievable.”

He stared down Harrison Road and saw the proverbial “forest for the trees.” Aside from the houses, larger trees and utility poles, the landscape had been completely denuded by the tsunami, replaced by a foot and a half deep layer of mud and ubiquitous, randomly scattered piles of debris.

Across the street, he spotted another gray, Town of Scarborough trash bin. They’d seen several along Highland Ave over the past thirty minutes, where evidence of a stronger wave surge became evident. He knew the bins hadn’t originated from any of the neighborhoods in Harrison Hill. Trash day was Thursday for this part of town. He’d also seen roofing tiles and splintered sections of cedar siding buried in the mud or stuck in the lower branches of the trees of the forest preserve. A tattered lobster trap lay on the left side of the street, half buried in silt a few feet away from an overturned neon green plastic bucket. The entire landscape was littered with these bizarrely juxtaposed confirmations that humanity had been violently upended further down the line. The tsunami must have obliterated the beach communities.

Fifteen excruciating minutes later, they had reached Everett Lane, one street from Durham Road. Everett ran parallel to Durham and led to a small park nestled into the forest preserve abutting the neighborhoods. Alex wondered if a less conspicuous approach to their house might be a better idea under the circumstances. He didn’t feel like parading down the street, attracting everyone’s attention. Most of the neighbors would look to him for advice, and he couldn’t afford to get bogged down.

If his suspicions were correct, he faced an extremely tight timeframe to rescue his son. In less than a microsecond, this morning’s EMP burst had permanently disabled the United States’ essential services infrastructure, far exceeding the damage and impact caused by the slow burn of the Jakarta Pandemic. In 2013, it took several weeks of food and water shortages before the riots spiraled out of control, and most people still had electricity! Cities burned, and hundreds of thousands of deaths were attributed to the violence and chaos that ensued. For New England, the extreme winter weather had been a blessing and a curse. The cold undoubtedly killed thousands, but it drove all but the most hardcore to seek shelter, extinguishing the civil rampage that burned entire cities to the ground in the south.

He predicted a forty-eight to seventy-two hour lull in the tightly packed urban and city areas. The pandemic of 2013 had taught the population a thing or two about survival, which would delay the chaos long enough for him to execute a search-and-rescue mission deep into the heart of Boston. “Prepping” took off on an epic scale in the wake of the Jakarta Pandemic, but like every other morning-show-fueled craze, it faded from the greater public consciousness and vanished from the everyday lexicon of most Americans. Thirty-day food and water stashes were slowly incorporated into the household grocery regimen, and sealed buckets of dehydrated food were raided for family camping trips or backyard tenting adventures. Even with this erosion, nobody could deny the fact that the nation was collectively better prepared today than in 2013. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be enough to weather the storm gathering on the immediate horizon.

The “grab and go” survival buckets and two-week stockpiles were designed to alleviate the pressing demands on the food supply system. To bridge the gap, giving the government and food supply distributors time to reallocate current inventories and direct the release of strategic food reserves. Based on the fact that Alex had seen a grand total of five cars on the road in three hours, he wasn’t optimistic about the immediate future.

He gave it two days until the collective masses realized that nobody could flip the switch and turn America back on. When this realization took hold, memories of the suffering and misery endured during the darkest hours of the Jakarta Pandemic would flood to the surface, fueling the greatest breakdown in United States history. He wanted to be far from Boston, or any urban area, when that started.

“Honey, let’s turn on Everett and sneak in through backyards. We’ll pass fewer houses that way.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Kate said, taking a step forward and stopping.

“Mother ffffffuuuuh,” she hissed.

Alex saw that her left foot had emerged from the mud without the shoe. At least she couldn’t blame him for the shoe selection. He’d suggested packing waterproof hiking boots for the sailing trip, but she’d overruled his decision, opting for more comfortable running or cross-training shoes. Her choice made sense, if you didn’t have to fight through knee-high mud. He took her right arm and steadied her while she dug through the muck for her shoe.

“These things are useless at this point,” she said, leaning against him to use both hands to retie the shoe.

“They’re protecting our feet from a puncture or cut. That’s about it. We’re almost there, my love. Twenty minutes,” he said.

“More like thirty at this rate,” she said, finishing with her shoe.

He kissed the back of her moist neck, tasting her salty sweat. “You’re doing an amazing job. If it weren’t for you, the kids would be sitting in the mud on the side of the road a mile back,” he whispered.

She turned and kissed him briefly on the lips. “That’s all I needed to hear to keep me going for the rest of the day,” she said, flashing the first genuine smile he’d seen from her all morning.

“All right then, let’s bring this crazy train home. Kids, I want you guys up here,” said Alex, motioning with his hands for them to fill the gap between him and Kate.

“Why?” said Emily.

“So I can watch over you. Come on. Let’s go.”

“It’s just our neighborhood,” she said, with a hint of teen condescension.

Alex faked a smile and mumbled under his breath, “Yeah. That’s what I’m worried about.”

EVENT +08:37 Hours

Scarborough, Maine

Alex held the rucksack over his head with both hands and pushed through the chest-high mess that filled the water runoff ditch. A similar ditch ran parallel to his backyard on the other side of the neighborhood, emptying into the same retention pond east of the loop. He could only assume that the retention pond had been instantaneously filled by the initial tsunami wave, rendering the entire runoff system useless. He climbed out of the soupy mud, trailing thick strands of seaweed. Neither Kate nor the kids looked eager to step down into the light brown slush. He dropped his pack in the mud at his feet and slid down to the edge of the water.