Part 1, Chapter 6

Quick update and a short chapter. This is the last chapter in Part 1. I'll begin posting Part 2 on Saturday, May 23rd. Any comments? Drop me an email. Enjoy.

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6

The sun rises again and Hank, James, and I sit on the porch to eat breakfast. We’ve been eating bacon sandwiches for the past three days. Prior to meeting James and I, Hank found four packets of bacon and kept them chilled outside his apartment window, in a Tupperware box. This bacon, with stale, buttered bread and a protein bar, forms our morning breakfast routine. We eat on the porch if the weather isn’t windy, discussing our theories on the G9 plague, and then telling old stories to cheer each other up.

After the fourth day of bacon and protein bars, the morning after witnessing the fireworks, the three of us make our trip to the Southside, sat in a row along Hank’s snowmobile. Ben, the dog, stays at home again.

On a clear day, the drive would take no more than fifteen minutes, but on a snowmobile, with the terrible weather and piles of junk cluttering the streets, we are still ambling along an hour later. When we arrive at the Birmingham Bridge, the remains of a police roadblock means abandoned cars tail back on both lanes, across most of the bridge’s span. Hundred’s of vehicles sit empty and buried in the snow, stretching all the way from Forbes, where Soho, Oakland, and the Hill District join, to East Carson Street and beyond.

We have no choice but to leave the snowmobile behind the impossible cluster of cars, motorbikes, SUVs, and trucks, and climb on foot through the assemblage of dead steel. Southside is only a few hundred meters away, where it stretches for several miles along the river to the west until it joins the upscale Station Square.

Anxiety permeates the cold air. The three of us came to the consensus that the fireworks were an attempt at communication, but we’re nervous about what we may find. The nervous attitude makes the Birmingham Bridge appear to stretch for miles – filled with millions of anxious footsteps. We walk past what looks like a military transport vehicle with its canvas covering torn off. Black birds perch on the vehicle’s frame and look down upon us. The birds shuffle as we pass and bits of snow fall from their feet. They’re black and silent.

None of us have been to the Southside in weeks and the level of destruction it has endured comes as a shock. This place was once full of life. Now buildings are burnt out and the streets are trashed. We see a body hanging from a lamppost, with a noose around its neck. The corpse is white from the cold and snow gathers on its head and shoulders. Its eyes are missing. I feel ill. James turns away, hunches over, and pukes.

“What the fuck happened?” Hank asks.

“Who could do a thing like this?”

James continues to gag while Hank silently stares at the body. A minute passes and James stops retching, stoops and looks at the vomit he’s produced. No one utters a word. Then one of the silent black birds flies over our heads, lands on the body’s shoulder, shuffles around, and pecks at the frozen flesh on the neck.

“You fucker!” Hank screams, and his face turns beetroot red. He bends over, picks up a ceramic bowl that lays half buried at his feet, and throws it, intending anger, but finds, instead, a gesture of impotence. The bowl misses and smashes on the ground below while the bird watches, ever silent. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the creature flaps its wings and takes to the sky again. As the weight shifts, the body rocks back and forth on its noose. These days, even the dead have no dignity. The body on the plaza opposite my former apartment stands as further testament to that simple fact.

“Let’s go,” Hank says with control as he walks past the body, further into the Southside. I follow, after a brief pause, and James trails farther behind me.

We pass clothes stores, drug stores, and tobacconists, all destroyed. Bus stops are smashed up and bins emptied with their contents scattered across the road, which leaves glassy shards concealed beneath the snow. We see the occasional body, but none as gruesome as the first.

After a mile of walking, with no warning, a man leans out of a window above an upscale bar and yells at us. “Hey! Hey, over here!”

We all jump.

“You’re the guy firing off the fireworks?” Hank yells.

The stranger beams a broad smile. “That’s right. Welcome to Mecca!”

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Part 2 starts here.