Barren Waters, A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of Survival

Sometimes, the ocean floor is only a stop on the journey. And it is when you are at this lowest point, that you are faced with a choice. You can stay there at the bottom, until you drown. Or you can gather pearls and rise back up —stronger from the swim and richer from the jewels.

―Yasmin Mogahed

Chapter 19

10 Years Prior

“Keep to the shadows,” Jeremy’s father whispered softly. “We’re not alone in here.”

Jeremy found Susan’s hand and squeezed it tightly. In this drafty cold place, he was grateful for her warmth, though the depth of her stubbornness still rankled him. She shouldn’t be here. It was too dangerous a risk. Why had he allowed her to come in the first place? Suppressing a sigh, he answered his own question. Allowed her? Who was he kidding? When had Susan allowed people to manage her? She was persistent, headstrong, unrelenting when she’d set her mind to task. She was as obstinate as they came. Jeremy loved her for that. She was a partner to him in every sense of the word, so if danger were in the cards, she would demand to be cut in.

Like Jeremy, she believed knowledge and experience were akin to power. This excursion, she reasoned, was part of her training. She wanted to be sure she could handle things on her own, in case something happened to Jeremy. After Samantha was born, they agreed on this, on the importance of independence and shared responsibility. Mutual understanding was key. Both she and Jeremy should be equipped to accomplish every task without the other’s interference or aid. Though it might be a melancholic worldview, one couldn’t argue the pragmatism of it.

“It’s just sound planning,” Susan had reasoned one night. “As much as I don’t want to face the possibility, I can’t pretend it can’t happen one day. Something could happen to you, and if it did, I need to know how to survive. I need to be able to do everything you can do: aim and shoot a gun, properly forage for food and supplies, build a fire, live in the wild, defend our daughter, our home, and the ark.” She’d stated her case while lying in bed, her forehead gently touching his. “I need to come along tomorrow night, Jeremy. Don’t shut me out. Let me do this.” She shook her head, her hair tickling his shoulder. “This isn’t a want, Jeremy. It’s a need. Actually, in truth, it’s a must. It’s something I just have to do. Besides, I’ve mastered all the tasks around the here. It’s time I push past my comfort zone.”

Snuggling beneath the covers, he circled his legs around hers. “Mastered all the tasks? I’m not sure about that.” She shivered when he pressed his lips to her throat. “I can think of one task that could use a little work.”

She’d smiled against his mouth and slipped her arms around his neck. “That was corny as hell, Mr. Colt.”

Yeah. It was.

Standing in the dark, he considered what she’d said that night. In the end, of course, he’d relented. He didn’t like exposing her to danger, but she made a valid point. She should know how to do the things he did. Nothing in this world was promised them. At any given time they could lose everything. They were one catastrophe away from homelessness or starvation. He should be spending more time with her, honing her skills. So perhaps this mission was a good first test.

Earlier that evening, they’d discussed the idea. Jeremy, Susan, Liam, and Olivia had sat around the fire and planned this excursion, maps of the hospital spread on the table before them. The room had felt so cozy and secure, juxtaposed with the nature of the topic at hand. Orange flames had danced in the hearth, the reflections licking up the fluting of their glasses. The alcohol had pleasantly warmed Jeremy’s body, and for a moment, he’d almost felt normal. Everyone he loved was inside that cabin. It was almost like an evening from a child’s fairytale. In that moment, he’d wanted for nothing. No one.

But their lives weren’t a child’s fairytale. Theirs was a harsh reality. Over the past few weeks, as events had occurred, the truth about Sam became clear. She was a diabetic, which was a devastating discovery. The realization had been staggering at first, the diagnosis nearly impossible to believe. Understanding, when it dawned, came rushing at them, but acceptance had crawled a snail’s pace. After his initial shock and rejection of the theory, Jeremy went off on his own for a bit, and after considering the situation objectively, the unlikely coincidence had astounded him. It was quite a stretch of the imagination, a long shot if ever there were a long shot. What on earth were the odds of this happening? Jeremy wasn’t related to Liam, yet his own flesh and blood presented the same disease. Diabetes had killed Jeremy’s biological mother. What were the chances that the perfect surrogate parents had found him, taken him in, and cared for him? The synchronicity of it was awe-inspiring, and after the initial diagnosis, they’d discussed it at length.

The process of diagnosing Sam had been tedious. It had put a strain on the entire family. She’d presented symptoms right after her fourth birthday. After naptime, for example, she’d awaken in a mood. She’d be groggy, uncommunicative, irritable as hell. Fuzzy, Jeremy liked to call it. She’d begun to urinate frequently, and at night, and demanded more water by day. But symptoms like these could be attributed to other things. It was her weight that had been the most telling. Despite the fact that her appetite was healthy, the numbers on the scale had continued to decline. At first, the weight loss was slow. It inched across her body like a slow sunset. Her clothing became slightly looser than it had been, which Susan ascribed to a growth spurt, at first. But soon after that, her face hollowed out. Her cheeks became drawn and mottled with gray, and after that, the situation snowballed. Her arms became frighteningly frail. Her legs became knobby at the knees and ankles. Jutting from her skin were hipbones, vertebrae, and the sharp angles of her shoulder blades and clavicles. Her hair became dull and brittle, before falling to the floor in small blond clouds. Fatigue had accompanied weight loss in equal measure, and soon she was spending most of her time in bed. Jeremy and Susan had been paralyzed with fear as they considered each gruesome possibility.

“It could be any number of things.” Susan had said, fear shining bright in her eyes. “It could be anything, Jeremy, anything at all! Cancer. Leukemia. Lupus. A virus. Dear God, what if it’s autoimmune? What if it’s something that requires a hospital stay? Or something that demands professional care and drugs?”

Jeremy had practically developed an ulcer from the stress of not knowing the answer. It was the unanswered questions that kept him up at night. Susan was right. It could be anything. Something could be eating their daughter alive, and they lacked the proper equipment to run tests. For hospitals didn’t exist anymore. They were the last facilities to crumble. When Jeremy was a boy, he could remember the military taking them over. He was born in a hospital, but Sam wasn’t as lucky, for it was shortly after Jeremy’s tenth birthday that the hospital in Sevierville was finally shut down. The authorities had done their best to keep the doors open, but had quickly given up and moved on. After that, a group of desperate citizens moved in, pillaged the space, and then fought to claim it. A mini-turf war was fought. Half the building was set ablaze. The new occupants killed the medical staff, unwittingly driving out anyone else who might start a new practice. What remained was nothing but a burnt-out shell. The patients’ wings were blackened and burned, and the rest was picked clean of anything useful.

Jeremy frowned at the senselessness of humans. The greediness of one small group of people had ensured the detriment of all. But that’s how things fell apart everywhere. Society hadn’t ended with a pop or a bang. It wasn’t one event, or several in synthesis, that sent people scurrying underground. Little by little, civilization had simply languished. It was a wasting away, a slow wilting with time, a slow starvation that became a widespread famine.

The four of them had agonized over Sam’s deteriorating health. Night after night, they’d sat up and argued, encyclopedias and medical journals spilled across their knees. They made notes, kept records, charts, and logs, all of which detailed her growing list of symptoms. The complicated nature of the work amazed Jeremy. Many different diseases could be characterized by similar—if not the same—symptoms, and with nothing but a few old books at hand, it was exceedingly difficult to diagnose the proper one.

Weight loss? Well! That could be any number of things. Was the person dying of cancer, or did he simply dislike his green vegetables? The process was maddening if not depressing, but they soon narrowed it down to a handful of suspects, each more frightening than the last. It was only after Sam awakened late one afternoon, screaming and crying, that they finally put the pieces together. Well, Jeremy corrected himself. It hadn’t been they. It was Liam who made the initial discovery. And what a discovery it was!

Sam had been groggy and crying, like normal. And who could blame her? She was withering away. Uncomfortable in her starving body, she liked to make it known to anyone who would listen. And as always, in times like these, chaos had ensued. They struggled to find something—anything—to bring her relief. Juice? Crackers? Powdered milk with water, heated over an open flame? Soup? A walk? Freddie the Frog? Coots the cat? At times like these, nothing ever seemed to help, and Jeremy and Susan were nearly driven to tears. It had been one day, after a particularly bitter tantrum, that Liam had crept behind Sam, silently. He’d trapped her tiny fist in his, and with speed and efficiency, and a frown across his face, popped a blood sugar tester into her finger. Lo and behold—five hundred. Five Hundred! The entire family had been stunned to silence. A blood sugar level as high as five hundred could have resulted in a permanent coma.

Things got better after that, for Sam, but Liam had sunk into a deep depression. And though Jeremy found the self-deprecation ridiculous, Liam wouldn’t be swayed. He was stalwart in his solitude, dogged in his isolation. To him the misdiagnosis was a personal failure. For more than a month, as he had explained it to the family, he had allowed a disease he suffered from personally to ravage the body of his granddaughter. He had allowed someone he loved to suffer needlessly, without even recognizing the signs. It was all bullshit, Jeremy explained a thousand times. Hindsight was always 20/20. But Liam never forgave himself. He struggled with that until the day he died.

Over the next few months, they slowly coaxed baby Sam back to health. Grandpa Liam put her on a strict diet. He decreased her sugars and dosed her with the proper amounts of insulin, and the effects were nothing short of dramatic. She put on weight almost immediately. She was happier, inquisitive, more alert, more attentive. She regained vitality, energy, and happiness. The family reveled in the success of the treatments and relished the fact that they’d solved it alone, without the intervention of a medical professional.

But the elation had been short lived, for after stabilizing Sam, they were forced to face several difficult truths. It was Liam—of course—who had first brought it up. With brows furrowed, he explained their dilemma. When he and Olivia had stocked the ark, they had only planned to medicate one sick person. While many others in the outside world succumbed to various diseases and afflictions, Liam enjoyed the security of health, delivered by boxes of insulin pills. But there was only enough for one person. There was only enough to keep a middle-aged man alive to a ripe old age.

“Jeremy,” he’d said, a haunted look in his eye, “we need to venture out for more pills. My supply won’t last us forever.” His gaze had fallen to his hands, guiltily. “Not for the two of us, at least.”

“Alright. That can’t be difficult. Let’s start with the hospital. What do you think we’ll find there?”

“I don’t know. I have no idea. I haven’t been there in years. But we need to try, and we need to face the truth. With Sam and I both suffering from this, we no longer have enough pills.”

He had seemed to blame himself when he said that, Jeremy remembered, which had bothered the hell out of him, at the time. So here they were, searching for pills. Having first vetted the mission from the comforts of their cabin, they’d developed a plan and then set out at dusk. They’d crept soundlessly through the broken half of the hospital, which had been open to the elements for decades. They edged through the burnt sections first, eager to find solid walls to hide behind. Soil, rich in fertilizing ash, had spawned ferns and tiny plants in the cracks of the linoleum. Like tufts of wiry hair they were. And the place had an odd sort of smell, Jeremy thought, a nausea-inducing blend of burnt materials and mildew.

They crouched in the darkness like cats poised to pounce, darkened hallways spidering before them. Liam had chosen his path already, which he steered them down at a careful pace. He selected a corridor, which Jeremy knew led to emergency rooms and intensive care units. Liam had said the medications—if any were left—would likely be there, but Jeremy wasn’t so sure. They proceeded in an awed sort of silence, their footfalls echoing strangely in the drafty halls. They’d attempted this mission at night, and thus, needed flashlights to guide their path. Dry leaves, propelled by the circulating winds, chased one another in annular paths. Shadows weaved with their passing, like ghosts.

Jeremy and Susan followed close behind Liam, to what had once been the nurses’ central station, and in response to his outstretched hand, they stopped. His voice was low, his warning severe.

“We’re not alone here. There are others nearby.”

Jeremy didn’t doubt that. He figured many people would seek shelter in a hospital. It was the main reason he hadn’t wanted Susan to come. One of Liam’s most important lessons pertained to the nature of humans. In times of need, he had said, humans were the most dangerous species on earth.

Jeremy leaned forward. “How many can you see?”

Liam answered by pulling his gun from his waistband and holding it in front of his body, barrel down. Jeremy tried to see, but couldn’t. They waited for what seemed like an eternity. Dropping his gaze to their feet, he flinched when he noticed Susan standing too close to the wall. As pulled her from it, he pointed to her feet. “One foot away from the wall,” he reminded her. “Bullets ricochet. Remember that.” As if a snake had bitten her, she jumped. Her eyes went suddenly wide with fear.

They circled the nurse’s station, slipped inside, and then quietly nosed through remaining wreckage that had been repeatedly pillaged by others. After finding nothing of value, they moved on, following signs toward operating rooms and supplies. The supply rooms had been badly plundered, the contents strewn about in careless piles. Most of the equipment they found was useless to them, or to anyone else for that matter. High tech equipment, now obsolete, made ghostly shapes beneath dirt-smeared tarps. Test tubes, lengths of rubber, and piping littered the floor like eels. And if the supply closets were bad, the hospital pharmacy was worse. The destruction here was total. It was as if a battle had been waged within. Bullet holes peppered the walls in strange patterns. Empty shell casings littered the floor. But if something could be found, Jeremy figured, it was here, and so they spent hours searching its depths. They each chose a corner, separate from each other, and sifted through the rubble with meticulous care.

When his eyes grew tired, Jeremy rested them on Susan. She had formed a pile of trash to one side, and on the other, a tiny collection of items she wanted to keep. His let his gaze travel the room, as he mentally performed the safety rituals he’d been taught as a boy. It was important to locate any nearby exits and choose a few places that would offer concealment, should any strangers come calling. It was a ritual that was now instinctual to him, and one he still needed to instill in his wife. He returned his gaze to the crap in front of him, which he’d heaped into piles less orderly than Susan’s. His search had yielded nothing of use, and he was beginning to feel the sharp edges of anxiety. Susan stood up, dusted her khakis, and moved across the room to join him, her mouth grim. She’d been no more fortunate than he, or so it seemed.

Liam, having also found nothing of use, motioned them into the next set of rooms, where they repeated the same daunting task with less passion. Wash, rinse, repeat, ad nauseam. Leave this building and then try the next. They searched three separate care centers that night, but in the end, had little to show for it. They had amassed a collection of decent enough wares: clean needles, towels, two bottles of antiseptic, a bottle of antibiotics Susan had found in a patient’s overnight bag. And the coup de grace, of course: three bottles of insulin pills. The booty was small, but at least they’d found something. It was more than they’d had before.

Just as the sun was brightening the eastern sky, the three gave up and headed for home. The sky bled purple, blackness giving way to indigo and eggplant, like a growing bruise that mirrored their sentiments. Jeremy was the first to break the silence. There was no denying the failure of this mission, and he worried about his father’s state of mind. Liam was taking things much too personally, lately, and lacking in his characteristic determination and exuberance. He was bordering on obsessive-compulsive behaviors. Jeremy peered at the rigidity of his body, taut as the high E-string of a guitar. He was alert with wiry energy, it seemed, but his hands were balled into fists at his sides. Jeremy hated to see him like this, though seeing his perspective wasn’t difficult. Liam had spent years planning for every eventuality. He’d been meticulous with it. It had been a second job. But he’d never conceived of something like this, and Jeremy sensed a seething anger within him, boiling over like steam from a pot. It was an emotion Jeremy feared he’d turn inward, for the depth of Liam’s love for Sam knew no bounds. If she ran out of insulin before living a full life, Liam would never forgive himself. So only one question remained, and it was one that kept Jeremy awake most nights: how far would Liam go to save Sam? What was he willing to sacrifice?

“Didn’t find much tonight, did we, Dad?” Jeremy asked, and then winced at the absurdity of the question.

Liam’s mouth was grim. “No, son. It wasn’t a good night. We’ll just keep looking tomorrow, I suppose.”

“That’s right. We’ll try again tomorrow,” Susan said quietly. She seemed determined to see things positively. “There are plenty of hospitals in the area,” she went on. “Plenty of hospices and care facilities, too, not to mention Urgent Cares and after-hours clinics. We can expand our search grid to Knoxville and Pigeon Forge. We can pack overnight bags, if we have to, and try Nashville, Mississippi, Georgia, and beyond.”

“I think we’ll probably have to,” Liam said, his eyes fixed on the ground. “Whether we like it or not, this is now our fulltime job. But we need to think of a better way to do it, and when we do, we’ll—”

“Freeze, old man.”

The voice had been hissed from Jeremy’s left, somewhere in the dark, from behind an old building, the raspy sound intruding on the burgeoning dawn. Susan instinctively stepped in front of Jeremy, a selfless act that would later amaze him.

“Drop your weapons,” a male voice ordered them. “Raise your hands where I can see ’em. Do it now.”

Jeremy eyed his father sidelong, and then mimicked his three-quarter turn toward the man. Two shadows emerged from the darkness.

Only two, Jeremy thought. Just two. Not bad.

“I said drop your weapons.” The man’s command was soft and insistent, which was more effective than a yell would have been. Jeremy immediately complied. Lowering to a crouch, he set his gun on the pavement, but curiously his father didn’t move. Liam turned and addressed the men confidently.

“There’s nothing at the hospital worth taking. I assure you. I know you were there. I heard you, too. But unlike you, I had the decency to move on. I only ask for the same in return.” Jeremy’s heart threatened to leap from his chest. “I’m not putting down my weapon, so make your choice.”

The response seemed to surprise the smaller gunman. “Why don’t you show me what you found old man, and I might be willing to broker a trade.”

Liam shook his head. “I don’t broker trades.”

With a sharp click, the man cocked his weapon, lowered it, and aimed it at Liam’s chest. Jeremy’s panic threatened to overcome him. His mouth went dry. Sweat bubbled from his pores. His father was acting like an idiot. Was he too depressed to reason properly? Give these men what they wanted, Jeremy thought. It wasn’t as if they’d discovered a treasure. None of what they’d found was worth their lives.

Jeremy’s gaze tunneled on the gun. Without thinking, he dared a step forward.

“Wait!” said Susan, lowering her pack to the ground. “We found a few things you might want.” She rummaged her bag with trembling fingers then held up the bottle of antibiotics. She shook it, gently, like a baby’s shiny rattle. “Antibiotics. See? A rare find. It’s yours. I’ll give it to you if you let us move on.”

The smaller man advanced half a step. “And?” he asked, his eyes probing the open flap of her pack.

Jeremy flinched as the man moved closer. What on earth was wrong with him tonight? Had he lost his nerve? He was suddenly so frightened he wasn’t able to move. Like fingers scrabbling at the edge of a cliff, his mind clawed for a way out of this. Each idea was sillier than the last, each scenario worse for his family. Susan’s generosity would matter little to these men, who would likely strip them of their possessions and clothing, shoot them, and leave them for dead, anyway.

His father must have agreed, for in a flurry of movement, Liam raised his weapon, and without offering a word or explanation, buried two bullets in the would-be thieves’ heads. The echoes from the blasts were concussive forces, and in a heap of arms and legs, the men fell to the pavement. Their scalps gleamed wet in the pale morning light, their blood black, and glistening like oil.

“Dad?” Jeremy asked, astonished at the act. As far as he knew, Liam had never hurt a man, much less shot or killed him. He hadn’t thought his father was capable of that.

“Let’s go, Jeremy.”

“Dad! Wait! What the hell?”

Liam turned quickly, catching Jeremy off-guard. “We don’t have time for this.” When he turned to Susan, his eyes narrowed. “And we can’t spare anything for anyone anymore. Not antibiotics or anything else. Given the way our lives have changed, we can’t spare a bottle of damn Tic-Tacs. It’s every man for himself out here, and from what I’ve seen tonight, to find the things we need, we’ll have to venture farther from our home—as everyone else has been doing for decades.”

Jeremy peered at bits of bone and brain that had splattered unceremoniously onto the road. He tried to swallow but couldn’t. “But did you have to kill them, Dad?”

“Yes, Jeremy. I did.” Liam moved closer and grasped Jeremy’s hand. “It is only when we hesitate, Son, that we fail. We must act boldly, without fear. This dangerous world doesn’t reward the meek, or the ones who sit and do nothing. Be strong. Be decisive. Do what needs to be done.”

Jeremy squeezed his father’s hand and frowned. He flipped it over to massage the weathered palm. The aftermath of his waning adrenaline threatened to manifest itself as tears. What would he have done if his father had been shot? What would any of them have done? Drawing a ragged breath, he smoothed his father’s hand in his. Jeremy had always considered his father’s hands beautiful. Though he’d spent his profession life inside a lab, Liam’s hands told a very different story. Maybe they were lab hands once, Jeremy thought, but they became the hands that created this life, the hands that shaped Jeremy’s childhood home. They were beautiful, calloused, weathered, yet soft.

They were also shaking, and had thinned noticeably.

“Dad, your hands. You’re shaking.”

Peering into his father’s eyes, he allowed his suspicions to rise to the surface. For several weeks, he had denied the truth, though the truth was as plain as the nose on his face. People often fooled themselves; saw what they wanted to see. Funny, he thought absently. People believe what they wish to believe, while ignoring what truly is.

As he held his father’s hand, Jeremy’s fears spread wings and took flight. The truth was standing in front of him, now, and the scattered pieces came shifting into place. Many times, over the past few weeks, Jeremy had seen his father standing in the kitchen, still and stoic, frowning as he stared at a bottle of pills. He would gaze through the large picture window in the living room, remove the cap, shake the pills into his palm, roll them in his fist like dice. He would peer at the pills for a moment, then at Sam, playing in a square of sunlight on the floor.

Liam didn’t blink, but stared at his son. “I just shot two men,” he said carefully. “I suppose I’m a bit shaken up, is all.”

Beneath the pale light, Jeremy stared at his father, whom he hadn’t really seen for some time. His father’s face seemed drawn, almost pinched, not gaunt, though he’d lost a bit of weight. His cheeks had hollowed. His jawline was distinct. The flesh beneath his eyes had puffed and deepened with color.

No, Jeremy thought. Not this. This was something he just couldn’t face. This sort of thing happened out there, to other people. Not to people who had planned. Not to them. Liam was nothing if not a stubborn man. He was deeply devoted to his family and life. But was he too devoted, Jeremy wondered suddenly. So devoted as to martyr himself?

Jeremy somehow found his voice, which cracked. Susan stepped forward and laid a hand on his back. “Dad,” he whispered. “You don’t have to do this. Please tell me you’re still taking the pills. We can figure this out. We’ll find another way. Please don’t sacrifice yourself for Sam.”