Endangered Species

“Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream,” Mike started to sing.

“Be quiet,” I ordered in a low voice. “Voices carry for a long distance over water, and we don’t know who is out there.”

“Afraid I’ll wake the dead? That one doesn’t mind.”

He wasn’t kidding about that. The smell of death was everywhere. I’d tried the trick from TV cop shows, putting Vick’s Vapo Rub I got from the Corpsman under my nose. The smell of the ointment helped ease the overpowering stench only a little. I was breathing through my mouth as I paddled on the right side of the small raft. I spotted a bloated body floating past Mike’s side. It was the fourth we’d seen in the ten minutes since the submarine left us near the entrance to Puget Sound. Like the others, the skin was burned deep red to black.

“Keep an eye out for a boat that might still work,” I told him.

“Like what?”

“A yacht or sailboat might have a dinghy with a small engine that isn’t fuel-injected and computer-controlled. Hell, I’d take a rowboat over this thing.”

The raft was designed to float, not to paddle. With almost no draft and wide-spaced paddles, it spun in place if only one side paddled. We had to work together to keep it moving forward. It wasn’t easy to figure out where we were going, either. The moon was still low, and the well-lit shoreline of a week ago was gone. There were a few points of fire visible in the distance, plus one fire to the southeast.

It was a big fire, and it was in the general direction of Port Townsend. Was the town burning? Probably. It wasn’t the only fire we’d seen on the cruise to our drop point. Lacking power and light, any survivors would have built fires to cook on and banish the darkness. Those fires could get out of control, and nothing was left to fight them.

I suspected the orange glow on the horizon was the city of Seattle.

I glanced down at the compass I wore on my wrist. My phone was useless for anything but playing music and a flashlight; there were no cell towers, no 5G data links, and no working charging stations. When it died, I’d probably toss it to save weight. The fire was moving more to our south, meaning the tide was doing a better job of moving us than the paddles were. “We need to get to shore before we pass the fire,” I reminded him.

I had a nautical chart folded up in another ziplock bag, tucked into a pocket of my overalls. We’d studied our route on the way, planning to land west of Port Townsend and head overland south to the submarine base. I’d asked the Navigator about boating there instead. “The tide can be so strong heading to Seattle and the Lower Sound that it will sweep you right past your landing spots. You can’t wait for the outgoing tide without risking getting caught in the sun or swept out to sea. Better to land west of town, find a place to hide for the night, then make your way down the roads. You’re looking at about forty miles of road, give or take, so you should be able to get there in two nights.”

“That’s going to suck.”

“Well, if you can find something with a working motor, you could get there on the water. It’s not going to be easy at night without lights, but if you keep the land on your right, you’ll get close.”

“Yeah,” I’d thought. “I could use a sailboat, but that wouldn’t be fun at night.” We were more likely to crash into something than make it safely. I snapped myself out of the memory and went back to paddling.

“Is there anything better out here,” Mike asked?

“I don’t know. Anything drifting around would eventually wash out to sea or ground itself.”

We kept paddling towards the south as the tide carried us east. Hours passed, and the fire got closer. Finally, I could now hear waves crashing on the shore. “We’re getting close to shore.”

“Just in time. My back is aching,” Mike replied.

I smirked, unwilling to let him know how much my back was protesting. He was bigger than me, but I was a better athlete. “Suck it up and go with it, Newman. It’s time for the final sprint.” I started paddling harder, forcing him to speed up to match me. I could see the tops of the waves in the moonlight as they broke over the rocks and mud. “Stroke, Stroke, Stroke,” I whispered. My arms burned, and my back ached as I paddled hard for shore. Two minutes later, I felt the raft scraping bottom.

Mike jumped out, immediately sinking into the muck. “Dammit,” he said.

“Don’t lose your boondockers in the mud,” I warned him. “It will suck those boots right off.”

“Get out and help me then,” he said.

I swung my leg over the side, sinking about four inches into the muck. We pulled the raft out of the water, beaching it above the high water mark. Grabbing our gear bags, I guided us up through the rocks and scrub until we reached the top of the beach. There was a four-foot-high ledge we could rest our backs against while we recovered, so we did. Sitting on the broken rocks, the two of us caught our breaths as the Northern Lights danced in the sky above us. “Any idea where we are?”

“Not exactly. We need to find some roads.” I hit the button on my watch, illuminating the time. “It’s three-twenty. Sunrise is in just under two hours. We had to determine our position and find a place to hole up for the day.

Five minutes later, we scrambled over the rise and further up the shore to find a much higher cliff above us. The sheer rock face went about fifteen feet above our heads, with some broken portions spilling down towards the beach. We made our way along the base to the east, using low-powered red-lensed LED flashlights to illuminate the path. The red lens filters kept us from losing our night vision. “I hate to waste battery power on this,” I said.

“We brought lots of extras, and we can’t sprain an ankle right now,” Mike replied. He was right, dammit. The going was slow and careful on the broken rocks. Ten minutes later, we made our way to the flat land and trees on top. The moon was higher in the sky, illuminating the fields and the homes along the water. “Think anyone is home?”

“We should check,” I said. Waterfront was expensive, so the lots were narrow and set well back from the road. I didn’t see any lights or fires as we walked to the back of the closest one. I left my bag on the table by the hot tub, then walked to the patio door. I knocked loudly. “Anyone home?”

“You think anyone would answer,” Mike said as he joined me.

I tried the handle for the French door. Locked. “Probably not. Look for a way inside. I’ll join you in the front.”

I worked along the back, checking the doors to the living room and kitchen from the large deck overlooking the water. I checked the kitchen with a flashlight through the window; the expansive kitchen had cherry cabinets, granite counters, stainless steel appliances, and two dead bodies face-down on the tile floor. “Shit.”

I was checking the windows when I saw a flash of light inside. I froze, then relaxed when I saw it was Newman. He came to the kitchen door and unlocked it. “We need to open some damn windows if we’re going to stay here,” he said.

“No shit. Let’s get the bodies outside first.” A quick check of the house showed no one but the middle-aged couple was left. I grabbed a blanket off the living room couch, and we rolled the woman up in it. We took her outside and carried her to the small garden before doing the same for her husband. “We should bury them,” I said.

“Where? This raised bed is only eighteen inches deep. Below that is solid rock,” Michael replied. “Millions are dead, Summers. We can’t bury them all.”

“I know that.” I said a quick prayer over them before turning towards the house again. “Search the house for anything that might be helpful for us. We can either stay here or find a better place to wait out the day quickly.”

We spent ten minutes walking through the home. There was plenty of food and drink in the kitchen and walk-in pantry, though I didn’t even try to open the refrigerator or freezer. I found a closet full of sporting goods; the couple must have been avid outdoors types. I grabbed a pair of Camelback backpacks, two heavily-tinted pairs of ski goggles, and two sleeping bags. The backpacks were much better for our travels than the waterproof bags we’d brought from the submarine. I carried the stuff back to the kitchen counters just as Mike came in from the garage carrying a flat of Gatorade. “What did you find?”

“I tried starting the cars, and they are dead as hell. There is a two-person sea kayak and a couple of mountain bikes out there,” he replied. “We’ll make far better time on those, even limiting our speed to the range of our flashlights.”

It was a good idea. Bikes were quiet, maneuverable, and could carry us farther with less effort than walking. Even if cars clogged the roadways, we could get around them. Kayaks were a decent option as well; light, maneuverable, and easier to paddle than the damn raft. We’d have to watch for tides and other hazards, though. “Any good places to hide?”

He shook his head, no. “Houses around here are built on solid bedrock. Digging basements is expensive, so they have crawlspaces,” he told me. “They will keep us out of direct sunlight, but gamma rays go right through the frames. Staying inside will get us killed. We need to get underground.”

I thought about what I’d seen. “Or get a lot of rock between us and the sun,” I replied. “The cliffs we came up. They face north. We’ll find a notch or an overhang, somewhere we can tuck in for the day. That will shield us from the worst.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He checked his watch. “It’s forty minutes to sunrise.”

“I found these backpacks. Let’s transfer our gear and pack what we need. What do you think, land or sea?”

He thought for a minute. “Biking would be simpler, but we’re more likely to run into trouble on the way. Forty miles in a kayak isn’t bad, and we can approach the base from the water.”

“I agree. Let’s take the kayak with us and load it up before the sun rises. We can be ready to go as soon as the sun is down.”

We finished inside, filling the water bladders in the backpacks and taking more food and water. We put the packs in the waterproof storage area and the sleeping bags in the seats. We scouted out a spot with an overhang two hundred yards farther down from where we’d come up earlier. We pulled it along the grass before lowering it to our hiding place. I moved the big rocks out of the way and laid my sleeping bags on the loose rock and gravel. “This is going to be cozy,” he said.

“We should do watches,” I replied. “We don’t know what is out there. If someone is moving around, I want to know. I’ll take the first six hours.”

“I’m getting some rack time in, then. I’ll sleep on this one. You might want to use the rolled-up one to sit on.”

He was asleep as soon as he laid his head down. I HATED people like that. I would toss and turn before finally dropping off.

I put on the goggles and sat down to watch the sunrise over the Strait. The stench of death was pervasive, but I was getting used to it. I kept count of the derelict boats and bodies I saw drifting past as the tide went out.

How could anything have survived?