Robert Duperre - The Gate 2 - 13 Tales of Isolation and Despair

“Shit. That’s higher than yesterday.”

A stout wind hit her from the rear, momentarily lifting her knees from the concrete. Her hair stood straight out, hovering over the angry sea below. With a yelp she gripped tight to the railing and spun around, wedging her butt in the crook between the partition and the floor. Tommy hurried over to her, eyes wide with panic.

“You okay?” he asked.

Angela nodded.

Tommy slumped beside her. The wind died down. He crawled to the center of the roof, rummaged through his backpack, and brought back a handful of snacks.

“You hungry?”

“Sure.”

They sat there together, munching on Nilla Wafers and staring at the gray and ominous sky. A few drops of rain began to fall.

They burned.

August 20 th

A helicopter soared overhead. It landed on the building three down from where Angela and Tommy had been trapped. The few people on the roof rushed it and men in fatigues ushered them aboard. The helicopter rose again and disappeared over the horizon.

“How many’s that now?” asked Angela.

“Fifteen over the last week,” Tommy replied. “Looks like they’re working their way toward us. Might only be a few days ’till it’s our turn.”

Angela grunted. “Good. I’m getting tired of sitting around doing nothing.”

She stood up and cracked her back. For the first time in a week the sun poked its warming face through the clouds. She bathed in its heat and spread out her arms. Lesions covered her skin, the result of not getting into the complex in time when the poisoned rains fell. Even their tent hadn’t been spared—its canvas hide was peppered with black marks and tiny holes. It was better than nothing, however. A headache spiked behind her eyes. She crawled inside.

The interior of the tent was hot, and she found it hard to breathe. She tried to get comfortable, flapping her sleeping bag in an attempt to alleviate the humid miasma that had gathered in its cloth cocoon. Nothing seemed to help. It was still hotter than hell.

With a sigh she crawled back out of the tent, towing the sleeping bag behind her, and spread it out on the roof. She lay down on it and curled into a ball, squeezing her eyes shut against the intense brightness of the outside world. She felt Tommy kneel beside her.

“You want some company?” he asked.

Angela grunted in affirmation.

Tommy slid in behind her and wrapped his arm around her midsection. He wedged his forearm into the underside of her breasts. She felt his breath against the back of her neck while her skin tingled with the sun’s rays.

For the first time since the whole mess started Angela smiled and allowed the sound of the crashing waves to usher her off to sleep.

August 25 th

It had been four days since the last chopper came around, and Angela started to get nervous. At least the sun had stayed out. It made the days scorching, especially on the roof’s harsh concrete, but by the middle of the night, when the air cooled to almost arctic temperatures, she wished for the heat to return. Damned either way , she thought.

She made her way to the edge of the roof and gazed across the watery landscape. Hartford had become one with the ocean. That ocean rose every day, approaching their sanctuary with ever-greedy fingers. Luckily for her and Tommy, they lived in one of the taller apartment complexes on the east end of the city. The water was still a good sixty feet from overtaking them. That gave them time, at least.

But that time was running out.

“Yo, Ang!” a faint voice called out to her.

She turned around. On the roof of the apartment building to the west stood Rachid and Roberta Freeman, surrounded by their four children and Dexter McCutchens. They waved at her and held up a handwritten sign. Want to play a game? it read.

Tommy chuckled from behind her. “Checkers again?” he asked.

Angela bent over, grabbed the wax board they’d been using to communicate with those stranded on the other roof for the last couple of weeks, and scribbled Sure thing, your move in large letters. She held it up and watched as little Jermaine Freeman smiled. Even from a distance, she could see the whites of his teeth.

They played for a few hours, until the sun began dipping over the horizon. When it became impossible to see, Angela and Tommy simply packed up their cheap checkerboard and tossed it into the tent. “See you tomorrow!” screamed Tommy. They could barely hear when their far-away friends returned the sentiment.

They crawled into their sleeping bag as the night began its assault of frigid air. Tommy’s body radiated heat, he smelled of sweet body odor, and for not the first time she wondered why it had taken an asteroid plummeting into the Pacific Ocean for them to so much as speak to each other.

August 30 th

At first when she heard the sound, Angela assumed it was her stomach rumbling again. She lifted her head and stared at the sky. The moon shone down on her with its bluish glow, but she noticed clouds beginning to roll in once more. Damn , she thought. Not more rain. They couldn’t afford to spend time indoors, not with the possibility of rescue. If the helicopters showed up again, they had to be out and ready.

The sound intensified, shaking her to the core, and she rose to her feet, nudging Tommy awake in the process. He stirred and sat up.

“What’s going on?”

“Helicopters, I think.”

“At night?”

“I know. Weird.”

A spotlight appeared in the distance. It was low, just barely skimming the surface of the water as it progressed from rooftop to rooftop. The tides had risen dramatically of late, and now was only ten feet from overtaking them.

The helicopter hovered over a building. She couldn’t tell exactly how far away they were in the dark, but it had to be close. She could hear muffled shouts and a bustle of activity. Soon more voices joined in. Their tone seemed joyous.

The Freemans yelled from their distant perch. “Is it another?” the father’s voice asked, small as a mouse’s.

“It is!” screamed Tommy.

Angela started jumping up and down, bellowing as loud as she could. “Over here! We’re over here! Don’t leave us!” Tommy joined in. Even together, their yells seemed to die inches in front of their faces.

The helicopter swerved around, its spinning blades beating a drumbeat of salvation. The spotlight pointed in their direction. It moved forward, approaching them, so close the wind from its rotors blew Angela’s hair from her face.

It drifted slowly across the rippling water. A strange, violet glow appeared beneath it, like millions of fireflies below the surface. Angela’s breath caught in her throat. The ocean rose up a giant hand that wrapped itself around the helicopter’s frame. The blades cut through the water, and it seemed to scream. Then, quick as a blink, it was forced into the water nose-first. The rotors snapped. Angela felt a rush of air against her cheek. Quick as she could she threw her arm around Tommy and forced him to the ground. Shrapnel rained around them. Frightened screams echoed over the waves. Angela squeezed her eyes shut. She felt Tommy shudder and cry out.

This was it. She knew it.

Tears ran down her cheeks in torrents.

September 1 st

Angela held Tommy close. A light drizzle started to fall, biting her flesh but not enough to make her move. She shivered in the cold breeze and held her breath. But for the waves, all was silent.

After a while she lifted her head. A gray haze dulled everything. She stood up and looked behind her. The Freemans were still huddled together on the roof of their building. None looked up at her, even when she called out to them. Dexter McCutchens was nowhere to be seen.