Luke Rhinehart - Long Voyage Back

As they neared Point Lookout it struck Jeanne as strange that she could see other drivers, like herself reacting to the largest crisis of their lives, yet say nothing to them. Each vehicle was its own separate island, its occupants shipwrecked alone.

And something else was strange: there didn’t seem to be anyone at home along the road. The area was deserted. Then she realized: there was no electric power. The lights were out. Forever.

The word forever chilled her even as she recognized it as melodrama; she shook her head to get rid of it. But she felt her anger rising again at the sight of the dark houses on either side of the road, as if already everyone inside them were dead. The stupid, thoughtless life-haters were doing it: they were blowing up the world.

When she entered the village of Point Lookout, it too was dark. By the time she arrived at the waterfront, it was a little after eleven. The only light came from the cars and the glow to the northwest.

She drove past a place called Kelly’s Marina, but turned in when she saw a sign saying Municipal Marina.

The parking lot was not crowded, and she chose a spot off at the end next to a small saltwater creek and parked. For a moment she sat there staring down at the barely visible black waters of the creek and ignoring Lisa’s question—“What are we going to do now?” Then, after watching someone running through the yard carrying a kerosene lantern, she turned to her daughter.

“I want you to stay here with Skippy,” she said quietly. “Lock the car doors. Don’t let anyone in. I’m going to see if Frank is here yet.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“If he’s not here,” she went on, “we’ll have to wait. Maybe we’ll go to the motel or perhaps we’ll stay here. But you stay here no matter how long it takes me to get back.”

“I will, Mother,” Lisa answered. “You be careful.”

When Jeanne leaned over to give Lisa a kiss, she found herself being hugged by Lisa’s long arms.

“It’s going to be all right, honey,” she said softly as she loosened herself from the embrace. “The bastards haven’t killed us yet.”

After she got out of the car, Jeanne waited until Lisa had locked the doors and then hurried through the parking lot toward the docks. In the darkness she noticed clusters of people gathered quietly in the lot and along the dock. She felt alone and vulnerable, then frightened whenever a car’s headlights swept over her like a memory of the nuclear blast. She knew what a trimaran looked like—thank God Frank had such a strange-looking boat—but in the darkness it was difficult to tell if three hulls together belonged to three separate boats or one large trimaran. Several boats were lit up, and most people hurrying along the waterfront had flashlights.

How she wished she could talk to someone. There was a war, a war, and everyone just hurried past, ignoring her.

The dock was a giant T, but after searching along both its arms, she had not found Vagabond. Finally she stopped someone hurrying toward the shore.

“Excuse me, do you know if there’s a trimaran—”

“Can’t help you, lady,” the man replied, not even slowing his pace.

Closing her eyes, Jeanne moved over to a piling and held on to it to steady herself. She noticed several boats riding at anchor that were barely visible from the dock, and she wondered if Vagabond was among them. She could feel her arms trembling again and thought of Skippy and Lisa in the car, depending on her.

Okay. Eleven twenty and the trimaran’s not at the municipal dock. It might not get here until dawn. She’d check with the dockmaster and the motel desk for messages; she’d take a look at any other marinas here in the heart of town; and then all she could do was wait.

There was no dockmaster on duty, and when she finally got someone to listen to her, he said he didn’t know anything about any trimaran. She returned wearily to her car.

Lisa, wide-eyed, lowered the window on the passenger’s side.

“Frank’s not here yet,” Jeanne said with exaggerated nonchalance. “He may not arrive until dawn. I’m going to check the motel down the street to see if maybe he got a message through to us before… I’ll be gone another half-hour,” she concluded. “Why don’t you climb in back beside Skippy and try to get some sleep.”

“I’m not sleepy.”

“You need some rest.”

“I’ve been keeping an eye out for Frank.”

Jeanne examined her frightened, eager-eyed daughter.

“I’ll be back,” she said, and walked away.

In the darkness the motel was difficult to locate. Lit only by the glow from the northwest, the place seemed like a deserted set for some horror film, the main street like a path through a dark canyon.

There was no message at the motel, and they had no room reserved for her, having given it to some “personal friends.” Sorry.

She searched Porter’s and Kelly’s and then the municipal docks again, but there was no trimaran. As she returned to her car she realized that in an hour and a half she hadn’t heard a friendly word.

Lisa was still in the front seat, slumped to one side, asleep. When Jeanne unlocked the driver’s door, she stirred but slept on. Jeanne decided that she herself should sleep. If Frank arrived now, he’d certainly wait until morning before leaving again. She relocked the driver’s door and climbed over the seat to settle down on the sleeping bag beside Skippy and Banjo. After pulling the light blanket up over herself and Skip, she stared up at the dark ceiling of her station wagon. A strong sense of unreality flowed through her. Was she really lying in her car three hours after the start of a nuclear war? The warm softness of Skippy’s body beside her seemed so human, so nice, so reassuring. She lifted her head to look out the window: figures with lanterns and flashlights were moving in the darkness along the dock. Someone shouted. The war was real.

After a while she slept. She was awakened once in the night by a scream, but when she sat up saw nothing. There was only one light moving in the darkness. Near dawn she was awakened again by someone shaking her foot and then pulling her bodily out the back of the station wagon. When she sat up, she banged her head on the car roof and, wide awake now, saw two men, one of whom had hold of her feet and was dragging her out the back of her own car. Banjo was growling.

“Stop it!” she shouted, but the man dragged her up to the rear door and then took hold of her arm and pulled her roughly out.

“Give us the car keys,” he said, his fingers digging into her upper arm, his face, tensely expressionless in the early predawn light, only a foot away from hers. Fully alert, but still groping for reality, she looked speechlessly back at him.

“Yes… yes, of course,” she finally said. “But let us get our stuff out.”

When she tried to turn back to the car, the man held her fast.

“I found them,” she heard the other man say, and saw he had her handbag and now the keys.

The first man flung her off to the side, sending her stumbling over the small embankment, and down onto her face, rolling toward the shallow creek. The cold water struck her legs like a slap.

“Let’s go,” she heard a voice say.

Vagabond was moving toward Point Lookout with agonizing slowness. The nightmare of the war was compounded for Neil by the more personal and immediate nightmare of running in place, being unable to move forward no matter how hard he tried. It had seemed like an endless crawl toward Crisfield with Frank in the wee hours of the morning, and since they had put him ashore just before dawn an endless crawl in light winds across the bay.

And as they struggled the horror of the unfolding nuclear destruction was becoming more real. At the dock in Crisfield Frank had tried to telephone his wife and reported back dully to Neil and Jim: