Tim Washburn - The Day After Oblivion

A vice president at a Manhattan bank, Brad had scheduled this week off for family time. At six-two, Brad has been carrying an extra twenty pounds on his thin frame of late, despite regular visits to the gym. Now the pounds are melting off with very little effort. They cross to the other side of the street to avoid a downed tree, Brad thinking how lucky he is for not being in Manhattan on the day it happened. Or how lucky he was. The luck ran out yesterday, and thoughts of his wife and daughter crowd into his mind. A tear forms and drifts down Brad’s cheek—he, too, has a mountain of grief to work through. He wipes away the tear as they continue pressing forward. At Vista Drive, they make a right, now only a block from their home. The two-story house on the corner is listing badly while the house across the street shows little evidence of damage. Leaves and limbs lie scattered across the lawns and an uprooted pine tree blocks the road.

Two houses farther on they turn up the driveway to their home, a white two-story Federal-style house. The shutters Emma had insisted on hanging are catawampus, and all the glass at the front of the house is blown out. A section of the roof is gone and the large pine tree between their house and the neighbors’ caved in the roof on the east side of the house. With a balance of $450,000 remaining on the mortgage, the house will never be repaired—nor be paid off. Brad and Tanner step through one of the broken windows and Brad says, “Gather up what you want to take with you. Pack an assortment of clothes; both warm- and cool-weather stuff. I’d like to be out of here fairly quickly.”

Tanner nods and climbs the stairs to his room. First stop for Brad is the master bedroom. He pauses at the doorway, suddenly nauseous. The sight of the bed he shared with his wife for nearly fourteen years almost brings him to his knees. He grabs the doorframe for support as tears well up. In a watery haze, he shuffles toward the bed and sits. After several minutes of sobbing, Brad wipes his cheeks dry and stands, shuffling into the master closet. Turning his focus to what lies ahead, he picks out several articles of clothing, a pair of sandals, a pair of hiking boots, and underwear, tossing everything on the bed. From the back of the closet he retrieves an old lever-action .30-.30 rifle that once belonged to his father. Brad hasn’t shot it in years, but he does have a couple boxes of ammunition, which he pulls down from the top shelf of the closet. Placing the rifle and ammo next to his other items, he kneels and pulls a suitcase from under the bed. After loading everything but the rifle, Brad grabs a backpack from the closet and enters the bathroom to retrieve a few items.

He exits the master and enters the kitchen. He opens a cabinet door and pulls out the baskets of meds that Emma had organized. After spending a moment trying to predict what meds they’ll need in the future, he shrugs and dumps the entire contents into his backpack. He pulls down another basket and adds bandages, gauze, alcohol, and hydrogen peroxide to the backpack.

Next he ventures out to the garage. The sight of his daughter’s bicycle threatens another shower of tears, but he pauses, inhales a series of deep calming breaths, and tries to shake it off. For a week they knew Sophia’s prognosis wasn’t good, allowing the family some time to come to grips with what might happen. But still, her loss hurts like hell.

With his emotions in check, Brad ignores the two cars parked inside and steps beyond them to grab the wheelbarrow. He loads it up with a tackle box full of fishing gear, grabs his bag of tools from the workbench, and discovers a case of small green propane bottles he’d bought on sale last year. It all goes into the wheelbarrow, and Brad steers it inside and adds his suitcase and backpack, before stopping in front of the pantry. All the canned goods get tossed in the wheelbarrow as well as a few remaining bottles of wine. Pausing, Brad debates grabbing the five thousand in cash he keeps in the safe, but disregards the notion. The money isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. He opens a box of cartridges and feeds several into the rifle’s magazine and carries it out to the front porch where he takes a seat on a rocker, waiting for Tanner.

A few minutes later his son appears, wheeling a suitcase behind him. He’s wearing a heavy backpack that Brad knows is filled with books. “Put all your stuff in the wheelbarrow and we’ll take off.” Brad pushes to his feet and returns inside, grabbing the wheelbarrow and pushing it out the front door. They now must trek all the way to the other side of the island to reach their destination. They spend a moment discussing whether to search the surrounding houses for food and decide against it. Brad steers the wheelbarrow down the driveway and into the street.

Two houses down, their neighbor Don Mathis meanders out of his home. “Where you going, Brad?” Mathis is thin and has the ruddy complexion of an alcoholic, which he is. He’s also an asshole.

Brad continues walking. The last thing he needs now is a tagalong. “Hitting the road, Don. Don’t see any reason to stay here.”

Mathis follows them down the street. “Where you going? And where are Sophia and Emma?”

Brad winces at the names of his wife and daughter. “Don’t know where we’re going, Don.” Brad picks up his pace, eager to get away from their nosy neighbor.

“But what about your wife and daughter?”

Brad stops, puts the wheelbarrow down, and turns. “They’re dead. Now leave us the hell alone.” Brad turns, picks up the wheelbarrow, and continues down the road, Tanner loping along beside him.

Once they’re a block away, Brad slows his pace. They walk for four grueling hours before reaching their destination.

The Cedar Creek Marina is located on the south side of Long Island and fronts Island Creek, with access to South Oyster Bay. Brad steers the wheelbarrow up to the locked gate and parks it. His hands are cramping and he struggles to open the combination lock. After several attempts, he dials the correct combination and springs the lock, opening the gate to the docks. His palms blistered, he grimaces when he grabs the wheelbarrow handles again. He grits his teeth and steers it through the gate and down the dock. At the next intersection, they hang a left then a right and traverse another hundred yards to their new home, the EmmaSophia , a thirty-seven-foot Dufour Gib’Sea sailboat.

In anticipation of taking the boat out sometime this week while on vacation, Brad had filled the 120-gallon freshwater tank, the fuel tank, and had stocked up on groceries. His father, when he died of a heart attack at fifty-seven, left his older boat to his son and, when Brad made a little extra money, he traded up in model years. The EmmaSophia , a 2002 model, is capable of sailing the open seas. For now the plan is to sail south along the coast to see what they find.

After stowing all of their gear, Brad inserts the key into the ignition. Outfitted with a twenty-four-horsepower diesel engine, he has no idea if the engine will start. It appeared the EMP was hit-or-miss for some electronic devices, and Brad’s praying for a miss. He twists the key and the engine purrs to life. But it’s not all good news. None of the delicate electronics will power up. That means no navigation, fish finder, and more important, no radio. Brad shrugs off the bad news. They can always sail within sight of mainland and use the old mechanical compass to navigate. He asks Tanner to free and stow the dock lines before dropping the engine into gear. They motor down Island Creek, cut through the outer banks at Lookout Point, and venture into the North Atlantic Ocean.

Weatherford