The Longest Night

WELCOME TO FORT McMURRAY: WE HAVE THE ENERGY

The sign still stood. Everything here was untouched by the earthquake. A line of cars continued down the road as it had stretched across the entire highway; some empty, some with occupants. Drifters-by pounded on the windows of some of the cars, yelling incoherently and frantically for help from the people inside. Some people in the cars didn’t move anymore.

She shivered as she walked, wrapping her arms around herself. She was so tired, so hungry, so lost…she had wandered on through the night with the others; if she had paused on the highway to fall asleep, she would have surely died from the cold.

As Catherine and the other stranded souls approached the city limits, the blockade was swarmed with survivors trying to get by.

“You see that?” a man said beside her. His voice was heavy with fatigue yet sharp with anger. “Fuckin’ nerve. Hundreds of stranded refugees, and they keep us clogged outside like a bunch of fuckin’ rats.” He was rugged, like he had just come from an oil rig; to bolster the image was a lined jean jacket with a plaid vest on top and a worn hoodie underneath, old black jeans, and scuffed steel boots. His face was scruffy, streaked with silvery grey, just as his hair was. Bags were under his eyes and wrinkles creased his face. He was older and angrier, but when he looked at her, he had a ghost of a friendly grin.

“Where’s your face mask?” she asked, furrowing her brow in concern.

“That’s all bullshit. The virus or whatever the fuck it is isn’t airborne – it’s all government shit. That stuff gets fed to you. Your mask actually looks torn to shit. You should probably take it off.”

She reached up to her face and groped at the mask. It had been torn and crumpled in various places. The airbag must have destroyed it. She gasped into her hand.

Her mask had been her security blanket. This virus infected other people, not her. She wore the face mask and became invincible. Now it was ruined, and she had no shield to protect herself. With a shaking hand, she slipped it off her face. It tore away without much effort. Her face crumpled.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he said as soothingly as his sandpaper voice would allow. Catherine shook her head, then stopped walking.

The man stopped with her while the weak stream of people passed them. “You’re not gonna get sick.”

“I can’t go.” No no no no no.

“Come on, kid, they’ve got more face masks for you, I bet. Hundreds. But you’re gonna starve and freeze if you stay back here.” He motioned forward. “Let’s go join the ranks and riot our way through.”

She peered down the road. A flood of stranded souls pressed against the barricade, their shouts stretching far.

The man shuffled his feet impatiently, while Catherine stared the mob in the near distance.

“I won’t bite, come on,” he said. He shuffled his feet again, then he stuck out his hand. “My name’s Dave.”

She locked eyes with him, but she didn’t reach for his hand. “Catherine,” she muttered weakly.

He stepped closer to her, then grabbed her shoulder, urging her along gently. She followed, her feet heavy on the road.

“Let us inside!”

“Fucking murderers!”

“Please!”

“You’d let us die out here?”

“Hey, what’s up?” Dave asked a man standing nearby.

“The bastards are keeping us out,” he replied. “Were you in that earthquake?”

“Of course I fucking was.” Dave cocked his head at the blockade. “You’d think they’d be tryin’ to save us at least.”

“I saw the last of ’em go up the road. As soon as people came up on foot saying there were a bunch more survivors, the Mounties set up a roadblock.”

Catherine looked over the barricade. Two patrol trucks were parked longways across the highway, and two off in the ditch. Standing about four feet apart from one another was a string of RCMP officers, hands hovering over their holstered guns. Cement medians were lined in front of them, and all the stranded people stood at the edges, barking madly into the faces of the police as they stood stony faced.

“So, what, we just gonna stand here until they change their minds?” Dave said. “Everyone too scared to just charge ’em? Screw these cops. Fuckin’ pigs.”

Among the chaos were people standing, huddling, shivering, sobbing, collapsing. There were so many of them just sitting there. She couldn’t help but think that this is what poor countries looked like.

“How’s your face?” Dave asked. Catherine turned to him stiffly with glossed eyes.

“What?”

“Your face,” he said, frowning with concern. “Looks like it was pretty banged up. Did that happen in the earthquake?”

She’d nearly forgotten. “Yes.”

Dave shook his head. “Unreal. This is just unreal.”

He stood by her looking furious beyond words for several moments more. Then he said, “Wait here a second, sweetheart. I’ll get these fuckers to do something.”

Catherine stood on the edge of the crowd as Dave dove in, shoving his way to the front. After a few feet, she lost sight of him, and stood alone at the foot of the mob a lost child. So many people, so much noise, yet so alone and silent.

She searched the group, looking at the back of rioters’ heads, glancing at the faces of the people sitting on the ground like scattered pebbles. Nearby, a woman sat with her two young children clutching her on either side, staring around with wide, fearful eyes. Their mother sat with her hands knotted in her hair, rocking back and forth gently with her eyes closed. Her neck pulsed with each heartbeat; Catherine could see it from where she stood.

Her own heart skipped a beat, her breath fell short.

Her face mask. She needed her face mask.

All the shouting had stopped. Buses were approaching the road block from the north. Yellow buses, something school children would ride in. A few officers hopped off of them, circling around to meet the other RCMP. A man with a slightly different uniform than the others approached one of the officers in the middle of the blockade and whispered something into his ear. It was deadly quiet, but Catherine nor anyone else could hear what was said between the two. The officer recoiled, then said something hushed and heated. The other shook his head, brandished his radio, then rebutted. The officer looked to the others, said a few words, and then one turned to the blockade almost reluctantly.

“We will file you onto these buses in an organized and civilized manner. Anyone butts out of line or acts out will be dealt with accordingly. When we open the blockade, wait patiently for an officer to guide you to a vehicle. Once again, anyone who steps out of line will be apprehended.”

A wave of murmurs broke out; hushed, frightened, outraged. She looked back to the woman. Her children still clutched her, craning their necks to try and see through the sea of legs, while Mother showed no sign of hearing the man speak at all.

The cement blocks were dragged aside. A few people danced subtly on their feet, eager to get into those buses, to find warmth, food, shelter. One officer motioned forward while another held his hand over his holster. The woman stepped forward tentatively, and as the officer waved to the man behind her, he followed suit. The crowd began to filter through slowly, cautiously, reduced to something like cattle. She saw Dave walk through the blockade, daring a glare at the police officer leading him through. He was ushered into the first bus by another.

It seemed about fifty people could fit in each bus, and by the time the third was being filled, the crowd was already dispersing. She darted her eyes back and forth between the exit and the mother sitting with her children, eager to widen the distance between her and the danger. The little ones kept coaxing their mother, but she did not move. Nobody else seemed to try and rouse her, either. It would have been the right thing to go to her and tell her to try and get to her feet. I know you must be in excruciating pain, but there are people here to make it better. Come on, your kids need you.

As the last of the crowd shuffled forward, Catherine moved with them, turning away from the mother and children with a sense of tragedy and guilt weighing on her. An officer waved her over to the last bus. All the officers that had dispersed through the crowd to herd people into the buses had also boarded, and engines were rumbling in the cold, preparing to take them somewhere safe. There was always someone in charge, someone to take care of things. Someone to fix it.

As she sat down, the last officer motioned to another by the first bus and sat down by the driver. They began to drive off. She looked out her window beyond the blockade. Everyone had been moved off the road and into the buses.

Including the woman and her children.

She clutched the bottom of her seat and held her breath. The man beside her sobbed silently into his shoulder.