Eighty-Sixed: Chapter 36 - Seascapes

PART III - PUSH AND PULL

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PART III - Push and Pull

It took nearly three days to reach the Georgia—Florida border and another twenty-four hours of stop-and-go traffic to reach Miami. The highways were jammed, and electricity was out in large sections, making it difficult to find places to fill the gas tank.

Just south of Miami, Gordon waited an additional three hours at a gas station in Florida City, hoping to fill his tank one last time before embarking upon the final leg through Key Largo, past Plantation Key and Islamorada, Marathon, and Sugarloaf Key. He finally emptied off Overseas Highway and navigated to a hauntingly empty Flagler Avenue.  

At multiple points throughout the trip from Pennsylvania to the Keys, Gordon pulled his car to the side of the road and seriously considered turning around and heading back to Burkett. The global upheaval and unrest along the way were more than he expected, and he longed for the comfort of familiar surroundings.  

“Those familiar surroundings held nothing for me before,” he told himself.  “They’ll hold even less going forward.”

The only thing that remained nearly twelve hundred miles behind him was a lifetime of grief and regret that he had already once lived.

He’d conjure his resolve again and merge back into the slowly moving traffic amongst the herds of frightened drivers and passengers locked behind the halting security within the thin windows of their air-conditioned vehicles.  Everyone avoided eye contact with drivers in other cars as each sought refuge in places other than where they’d found themselves that day with all the other vagabonds.

Averting significant intersections and exit ramps, Gordon felt safer along his trip whenever he sought out smaller towns. On more than one occasion, he gratefully found people more willing — though only slightly so — to sell him a tank of gas and a loaf of bread — for cash, of course.

“I’m not even sure a dollar is worth anything anymore,” one gas station owner said as he filled Gordon’s tank.  “But I’d rather have cash than nothing.”  

At another stop, he found an elderly man sitting on the tailgate of his pickup truck, a handwritten sign advertising “Cheap Tomatoes and Cucumbers.” 

“Business good?” Gordon asked as he approached the man’s truck.

“I don’t much care anymore,” the old man said.  “I just hate seeing good food rot.”

Gordon bought a basket full of both, which two days later led to a massive bout of diarrhea requiring even more frequent stops than Gordon had anticipated.

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Then he reached Miami, and the temptation to pull over and admire the ocean he’d only imagined but never seen was nearly overwhelming.  He forced himself to drive, his final destination so close, directing what little focus he had left as he traversed the miles-long expanse of bridges over the water of southern-most Florida until he finally found himself at the furthest tip of Key West, standing barefoot on the rock-hewn coastline at Fort Zachary Taylor.  

The sky was littered with puffs of cirrus clouds, and further west, a weak and darkened cloud was ominously sweeping his way.  Gordon figured that cloud would either build up strength or dissipate into nothingness.  He hoped for the latter as he stepped further down upon the rocks.  Finding a sizeable flat boulder upon which to stand, Gordon dipped his feet into the emerald water of the ocean for the first time in his life.  It was surprisingly warm as it lapped against his legs.

“It’s a site, ain’t it?” a voice asked behind him.  

Gordon spun, startled, and faced an older man, thin and bony.  He immediately thought of the man who’d sold him the produce that made him sick, but this older gentleman had a thick yet trim beard of bristly white hair nearly covering the entire lower part of his face.  His mouth was practically buried behind his long white whiskers.

“You scared me,” Gordon said, laughing.   

“Ayup,” the man said and chuckled.  “I can see.  Sorry about that.”

“I haven’t seen many people down this way,” Gordon said.  “Hardly a car since leaving Miami.”

“Ayup,” the man said again.  “That where you’re from?  Miami?”

“No, I’m down from Pennsylvania, right on the border of Ohio.  A small town there.”

“That’s a long drive,” the man said, stepping off the sandy beach and onto the rocks.  He pointed to a rock down near where Gordon sat.  “Join you?”

“Please,” Gordon said, scooting aside as if he expected the man to share the same rock with him.  “Plenty of room.”

“Plenty of room in the whole town,” the man said. He made his way down to Gordon, gingerly stepping from one rock to the next.  Finally, taking a seat next to Gordon, he extended his hand.  

“Charlie Clarke,” he introduced himself.

“Gordon Hewing,” Gordon answered, shaking his hand in return.  “You a resident here?”

“For about forty years now,” he said. “Retired from the Navy, and my wife left me a year after that, cheated on me with a kid twenty years younger than either of us. How do you compete with that, huh?  Said screw it, moved here, and started fishing.  Bought a boat.  Ran charters for tourists.  Even met Hemingway a couple times.  Didn’t like him much.  Caught fish for the local restaurants.  Not much of that going on now.”

“So, where is everyone?”

“Got scared and ran off.”

Gordon nodded.  

“I guess I did the same thing,” he said.

Charlie looked surprised, his bushy eyebrows dancing like caterpillars when he raised them, eyes wide.  “So the black hole things are happening in Pennsylvania, too?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“The black holes,” Charlie said, as if that explained everything.  “Those circles that keep appearing and then disappearing out over the water.  Some say they look like what started this whole thing.  I was told they’re just down here.”

Given his age, easily ten years older than Delores, Gordon assumed old Charlie most likely was not around when the incident occurred. He was most likely one of the befuddled many trying to understand how he’d suddenly come back to life. 

Still, Gordon stared at him blankly.

“I’m sorry,” Gordon said.  “I’ve been driving nonstop for several days and am a bit road-weary.  But I’m just not following you.”

“There!” Charlie suddenly exclaimed and pointed excitedly towards the distance.  “Right there! Do you see it?”

Gordon shielded his eyes with his hand, forming a bridge across his forehead, and squinted toward the horizon where he’d seen the dark clouds forming a few minutes before.  There, he noticed the water was a deeper shade of green. 

“Do you see it?” Charlie asked again.  “I’ve tried to sail out to one, but by the time I get there, it’s already gone.”

“I don’t…” Gordon said and then stopped.  He saw then what Charlie was getting excited about.

Nearly two hundred yards offshore, floating above the water’s surface, a perfectly circular black orb pulsed outward.  Then, it retracted again, opening and closing like a gaping maw of a mouth before suddenly closing back upon itself and disappearing entirely.

“That,” Charlie said.  “That right there is why everyone ran.”

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