Barren Waters, A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of Survival

At the press conference for the film he impressed everyone with his complete sincerity and innocence. he said he had come to see the sea for the first time and marveled at how clean it was. someone told him that, in fact, it wasn’t clean. ‘when the world is emptied of human beings’ he said, ’it will become so again.

—Werner Herzog

Chapter 4

Present Day

As always, they arose with the dawning of the sun. Of late, mornings had become his favorite time of day, even more so now that they had the bikes. He’d come to cherish these brief moments of comfort before the sun beat down on their backs. With the wind in his face, and the satisfying burn of physical exertion in his muscles, and the radiance and solitude of a world that belonged only to them, Jeremy found a strange sort of peace. Wasn’t it remarkable, he thought, in awe, that the soul could find beauty in the worst of circumstances?

Cupping a hand to his brow, he scanned the strip of highway that had once been US-64. It was nothing but a stretch of black pavement now, with washed-out lines and faded oil stains: remnants of decades of road traffic. The blotches and smears of car lubricants and old grease felt like a crime scene to Jeremy, like the cadaverous remains of a large-scale mass murder, the likes of which hadn’t happened for millions of years. The world, he considered as he peered at the fungi-covered foliage, had effectively been delivered back to the plants. It was as if the plants moved with purpose now, as if they deliberately pushed at manmade structures in an effort to extinguish humanity from their home. For Earth, humans were a hiccup in time, a setback or hindrance, a brief nightmare. The planet was recovering from years of abuse. It was trying to move on. But could it?

Jeremy wondered if that was even possible. Humans were resilient. He’d seen it firsthand. What he’d seen over the past decade—what little contact he’d had with others, of course—was nothing if not dichotomous. He’d seen the best and worst of his species. There were moments of brilliance, ingenuity, and compassion, but also of savagery and unspeakable brutality. And what of himself? What of his own actions?

What of the boy, his inner voice sneered.

Yes. What of the boy? What about all of that? Was he better than anyone else? Than those who had torn his family apart? Sam didn’t know the details of his cruelty. His actions had been unbelievably dark, yet he hadn’t been man enough to own them yet. Shrugging off the debilitating thoughts, he refocused his attention on the bright new day, and realized suddenly how much he missed the birds. Only the music of their whistles and warbles could further enrich this glorious morning. But like most wildlife, they too, had died.

Pedaling faster, he caught up to Sam.

“How goes it up here?”

“Not bad,” she yelled back.

Lately, she had wanted to take the lead, and lately, he’d seen no reason not to let her. The risk seemed minimal. After all, they hadn’t seen another living soul for weeks. Not since after the fire, he thought. Not since the mother and her boy. His thoughts dared to linger on that innocent face, which made his skin prickle and his neck begin to itch. Shaking his head, he attempted to scatter the ominous memories.

“How many more miles on this road?” Sam called out.

“A little over seventy. We won’t make it tonight, so I’ve planned a short stop along the way.”

“Where to?”

“Scottsboro.”

“Scottsboro? What’s in Scottsboro?”

“A Walmart.”

Though she rolled her eyes, Jeremy wasn’t fooled. Sam loved foraging a Walmart—though most were completely ransacked by now. The shelves would most likely be empty, but he’d learned long ago that it was always wise to check.

“The population of Scottsboro, at its peak, was only around seventeen thousand people. So I’m hoping we’ll find something useful,” he said. She didn’t respond to that so he enticed her further. “Scottsboro also had a public library.”

She lifted a brow at that. “Is that so? There’s a book I want to read. Perfect timing.”

“Yeah? You’re finally tired of Harry Potter? What about Twilight? What are we today? Team Edward or Team Jacob? I need to know where I stand.”

“Don’t make fun,” she scowled over her shoulder. “You liked it, too. Admit it. It’s good.”

“Never!” He yelled out. “So what’s the book?”

She swerved around a hollowed-out tire. “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.”

“Jules Verne.” He nodded appreciatively. “A classic. I’m impressed. We’ll find it.” Eying the shapes of rusted cars in their path, he pulled in front of her to take the lead. “Sam,” he said gently, “While we’re in Scottsboro, I’d also like to locate a nursery.”

“A nursery?” He heard her front tire skid against a patch of sand. “Oh, no, Carp. I’m not stepping foot inside a nursery. What do you expect to find in there? I’m a bit too old for diapers and binkies.”

“Not a baby nursery, Pike. A garden nursery. A place where plants and seeds were once sold. I was thinking, once we get to San Diego, we could choose a large home in the hills of Point Loma, something that overlooks the bay. What do you think? And I was thinking we could plant a new garden there, too.”

He awaited her reply while holding his breath. When she spoke, her voice was thick with emotion. “I think Mom would have liked that.”

“Me too. So I’m thinking, first, we find a nursery, if we can, stock up on seeds, things like that. Anything grows in San Diego, Pike.”

“Anything grew in Sevierville, too.”

Yeah. It did. She had a point.

He knew this wound was still fresh and tender. It would likely fester for the rest of her life, just as it would for him. He frowned. There were times when he feared she might never recover. Leaving home had been the most difficult thing they’d ever had to do. They’d had it all in Sevierville. Everything they’d needed, anything they’d desired—thanks to Jeremy’s father, of course.

But Jeremy had become too comfortable there, and comfort can lead to complacency. He’d begun to believe them invincible, untouchable in a world that was dead and decaying. His confidence was their undoing. He’d thought they were safe, that they lived inside some impenetrable bubble that could keep the claws of extinction from reaching them. Despite the thin air and the foulness of the rain, despite the spoiling food and the failing power grids, their family had remained and flourished for years, defiant in the face of annihilation. It was the type of confidence that accumulated over time, solidified by years and years of routine.

But he’d been wrong, dead wrong, and they’d paid a steep price.

That cabin was the only place Sam had ever called home. She was born there. She’d lived and thrived there. It was the place that connected her to her mother. Perhaps he was hoping to recreate those feelings in San Diego, in a home on a cliff, by the sea. And maybe the garden would be the first step. Planting it had brought their family closer together. It was one thing to read books beside a warm fire, but another to work alongside another person, shoulder-to-shoulder, bringing life back to the earth. Those memories were treasures Jeremy kept close to his heart, riches that were more valuable to him than money ever had been.

“Not like that,” Susan corrected him gently, after he scattered spinach seeds across the rich, black soil.

In his memories, Sam’s laugh had the resonance of a finely crafted wood chime. It was a sound he hadn’t heard in a long time. “Dad, don’t do that. If you throw them across the soil like that, they won’t settle in and grow roots. They’ll just blow away in the wind, right, Mom? He’s doing it wrong.”

In his mind’s eye, he watched his daughter correct his mistake. She gathered the tiny seedlings and crouched beside small mounds of earth to press each one beneath the top layer of soil.

He crossed his arms and appraised her with pride, a small smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Yep. You’re way’s better, kiddo. I stand corrected.”

He and Susan had overturned the soil and trenched long rows down the side of the hill, but Sam had done all the planting. She’d planted each seed on her own, while they watched.

“Now,” Susan said. “All we have to do is wait for it to rain.”

“Wait for it to rain? But what if it doesn’t rain? What happens then?”

“If it doesn’t rain, pumpkin, then nothing will grow. Sorry to say, but that’s just how it works.”

Jeremy remembered Sam running out the door, morning after morning, bare feet scampering across the warm earth. She’d drop to her hands and knees, inspect the soil, clap her hands if she saw any sprouts. “Look,” she’d call out, “We’ve got baby broccoli!” They’d follow her, point, ooh and aah, and then smile. Against all odds, their garden had grown. The delicate buds had pushed through the soil, struggling to thrive in a dying environment and bathe in the sun’s morning light.

It had been one of those bright fresh mornings when Jeremy first mentioned the laundry cart to Susan. They’d been standing shoulder-to-shoulder, coffee cups in hands, watching Sam dart between the rows and prop up tomato plants with sticks.

That particular morning, smoke curled on the horizon, from an explosion that had happened the night before. It was still visible over the peaks of the mountain, a reminder that people were uncomfortably close. He hadn’t meant to scare Susan, but true to form, had done it.

“I’ve been thinking about the cart,” he had mumbled to her. “We’re not using it for anything specific right now, and I have an idea. Let’s fill it with supplies, wheel it to the base of the mountain and leave it there.”

“Whatever for?” she queried softly, her eyes tracking her child.

“I don’t know. A security measure, I guess.” He shrugged. “After what happened last night, it just seems—”

“But we don’t know what happened last night.”

“True,” he allowed, “but we can certainly guess. That wasn’t a natural fire, Suse. It was an explosion. Nature doesn’t create explosions. There are people on that hill. People who—in my opinion—are uncomfortably close to our home.”

“What does any of that have to do with the cart?”

He swallowed. She wouldn’t like this. “I think we should fill it with a ration of supplies and leave it somewhere in the woods. We should hide it somewhere where nobody else can find it, where no one knows where to look but us. And I think we should camouflage it with big green tarps, weatherize it inside a thick casing of plastic.”

Her brows knit together as she connected the dots. “You mean like a get-away cart, Jeremy? You think we’ll be driven from our home?”

He shrugged non-committedly, in an effort to take the edge off her alarm. “I don’t know. I mean, I guess that could happen. The way I see it, it’s just sound planning. What could it hurt? We’ve got plenty of supplies, and the cart’s just sitting there. I think it’s sound planning. Don’t you?”

“Perhaps. But if we do it,” she said slowly, “we do it late at night, after Sam goes to bed. I don’t want her thinking that could happen to us. I don’t want her thinking such a thing is even possible.”

And thank heavens they’d eventually done it. Because soon enough they had needed it, and it had ended up saving their lives. Like so many others, they became vagabonds, refugees who were thrust from their home. They eventually lost their perfect life in the mountains, the one they’d grown to love and cherish, and were forced to brave the discomforts of a new one.