Ray Gorham - 77 Days in September

San Angelo, Texas

Images of Jennifer and the children came to Kyle over and over again in his dreams. Some were of good times spent together; in others, all of his worst fears played out. When morning finally came, Kyle woke up poorly rested, but with a renewed determination to make it home to his family.

After a hearty breakfast celebrating the Davis family’s reunion, the four adults sat around the table avoiding difficult subjects. Kyle was the first to broach the topic they’d dodged all morning. “Donovan, thanks again for the breakfast. I haven’t eaten that well since I left Montana… and speaking of which,” Kyle smiled, putting on a brave face, “I’m going to start for home in the morning.”

Ed looked down at his feet. “Kyle, I was thinking about your plans, or lack thereof, last night. Let me drive you home. I can have you there in a week.”

“Ed,” Kyle watched and waited until Ed looked up. “I can’t let you do that.”

“But you saved my…” Ed began to protest before Kyle cut him off.

“Ed, please. I’ve thought long and hard about that. It’s too dangerous.”

“How is it dangerous?” Ed asked.

“Tell me you weren’t scared yesterday every time we drove past someone walking down the road.”

Ed half shrugged. “It’s just the whole situation. The world’s been flipped on its head.”

“I know, Ed. Yesterday was barely 48 hours since the event, and we were scared then. The longer this goes, the more desperate people are going to get. You think someone won’t try and kill you, or us, for your Jeep?”

“We’ll take a gun — for protection.”

“How many people are you willing to kill to keep your Jeep? And that’s not all, Ed. I know you’ve put a lot of work into it, but your Jeep’s old. What if we break down, or can’t get gas, or wreck, or have a flat tire or two. There’s no mechanic or tow truck to help us out.”

Ed was fighting to find a rebuttal to Kyle’s arguments, but Kyle pressed on. “You don’t know how much I’d like it to work, but I don’t think it will. It’s too big a risk to have you take me.”

Donovan had been listening in silence and spoke up when Kyle paused. “So you just going to walk?”

Kyle nodded. “I’ve got a pack. I think it’s the best option.”

“You’ll never be able to carry enough supplies, Kyle. Just carrying the water you’ll need to get through Texas will kill you.”

“It’s the only option I’ve got, unless you’ve got a second vehicle I can take. I’m in decent shape, and I can refill my water jug at the rivers.”

“This isn’t Montana, Kyle. A lot of our rivers are dry in the summertime. You’ll die before you get out of the state.”

“Well that’s a risk I’m going to have to take. I’d rather die on the road than go crazy doing nothing.”

Virgie reached out and squeezed Kyle’s arm. “Kyle, we can’t just let you walk off and die. Surely we can come up with a plan that will get you there in one piece. Donovan, don’t you have a suitcase with wheels or something?” She looked from her son to her husband and then back to her son again, her eyes pleading.

Donovan thought for a minute then smiled, his eyes lighting up. “Mom, you’ve given me an idea. I’m not sure if it’ll work, but it can’t hurt to try. How important is it for you to leave tomorrow, Kyle?”

Tuesday, September 6 th

Boston, Massachusetts

Senator Christine George lay on the floor outside the men’s room of the eighteenth floor common area. She was sure her right leg was broken. It was discolored and swollen, and every time she attempted to stand up, the pain was so intense that she nearly blacked out, making it impossible to do anything other than slide along the ground.

Two and a half days of lying in helpless solitude had followed Christine’s failed attempt to escape the high-rise perch from which she’d watched the chaos unfold below her days earlier. Early Saturday morning the streets had appeared safer and mostly clear, and so, still tired and sleepy after a fitful night on the reception area couch she’d attempted to exit down the unlit, emergency stairway.

After descending twenty floors using the light from her cell phone, it had finally faded to black, and her heel had caught on a step and sent her careening head over heels down the stairs in the inky black darkness. She’d only fallen a single flight, but, blind in the darkness, it had seemed like she’d tumbled all the way to the parking garage. As she lay on her back, winded, hurt, and groping for support, a deep burning sensation just above her right knee had impressed itself on her mind, to the exclusion of all her other injuries. She’d probed the area with her fingers and found, to her horror, an unfamiliar angle to the bone and shooting pains with any hint of movement.

It had taken her five hours; hours filled with pain so intense she almost blacked out, to get down to the next landing and the door to the 18 thfloor. By late Saturday afternoon, she was in too much pain to use a toilet and had soiled herself as she lay in the hallway fighting back tears, mortified, but confident then that no one would know what the always perfectly-coifed politician had been reduced to. A fever had set in sometime Monday, and now she noticed red streaks shooting out from the dark bruises around her knee.

As she lay on the floor, reeking of urine and feces, and reduced to drinking water out of the toilets, Christine thought long and deeply about her own mortality. Before her fall Saturday morning she hadn’t thought much about dying, but she was thinking about it now, and this certainly wasn’t how she would have hoped it would be. She would have liked to die in her own bed, surrounded by family and friends, certainly not crippled, helpless, and alone on the floor outside a public bathroom. She knew, however, that even under normal circumstances, her chances of dying that way were just a dream. Her husband was fifteen years her senior, and her only child, whose visits home rarely seemed to fit into his busy San Francisco schedule, had no plans to give her any grandchildren. So what family she had would hardly have made for a grand send-off. Even the people she represented might have paid their respects, but they certainly wouldn’t mourn her passing.

Christine had resigned herself to the fact that there would be no rescue and no grand funeral. Twice on Sunday she’d heard people going down the stairs and had even managed to get the attention of one of them, but that was more than forty-eight hours ago, and the frightened, Asian, cleaning lady who had heard her cries, but whose English consisted of only a dozen or so words, was an unlikely candidate for heading up a rescue effort. Now Christine just wished she could write a note, to leave some kind of farewell, but she couldn’t even do that since her purse was up one flight of stairs and impossible for her to retrieve in her condition.

She wondered how long it would be until the end came, and how long until someone found her body? Would they know who she was and that she had powerful friends and a burial plot already paid for? Her emotions tapped out, Senator Christine George, sixteen-year senator and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, lay her head on the floor and waited to die.

San Angelo, Texas

With dinner over, Kyle and the Davis family sat in the living room, their conversation uncomfortable and forced. Kyle was on the floor with the items he planned to take on his trip piled in front of him. As he inspected the meager stacks, he wondered if he was making the right decision but didn’t have a better plan and was much too anxious to delay his departure any longer.