The smell of these desperate and displaced humans was overpowering, the ripe body odor and simmering pools of unseen piss and clouds of flies swarming around little brown mounds of shit. Near the center of the median, a grim family sat near a bed of coals, two boys and a girl with their parents, nibbling on bones that may have belonged to the family dog.
No amount of theoretical discussion could have prepared Seth for the reality of this many refugees. Cognitively, you could know how many people lived in a city, but a number like seven million was abstract until you were immersed in the reality of it. What had been so difficult to believe over the past several days, while Seth feasted on snacks and played games with the boys, was abundantly clear now: Most of these people were going to die, and sooner rather than later. There was no easy way to feed them. The only sources of water were streams and small ponds, but with so many people clustered around these, the water would be drained or contaminated quickly.
Still, these problems might conceivably have been solved except for one missing ingredient: organization.
Seth imagined all the minutes he’d lost sitting at traffic lights that were poorly timed or couldn’t measure the flow of cars. He remembered the frustration of standing in long lines on election day or being bumped from an overbooked flight to New Orleans or being denied access to his bank account when the Web site was down for maintenance. At least three times a month he stood over the meat counter at The Fresh Market and examined cut after cut of perfect ribeye steaks, hoping to discern a difference between them. As if any cut would taste better than another after he had cooked it to an exact internal temperature on his three-thousand-dollar infrared grill. Seth could see now, when it was too late, that what appeared to be an inelegant and disordered culture had actually been a kind of genius, thousands of years of accumulated knowledge that allowed millions of humans to live nearly on top of each other. His daily frustrations and disappointments with life had been misguided. He’d been spoiled by living in the most advanced civilization in human history.
Enduring a hangover in the midday heat was bad enough without his misery being aggravated by fear, but it couldn’t be helped. Seeing thousands of homeless citizens terrified Seth. Until Friday these people had been quietly living their lives, raising families and working jobs they hated or maybe loved, eating hamburgers and French fries and barbecue and tacos. Until Friday they had been safe. Now they were eating nothing or possibly their own pets and they were anything but safe. All because of a cosmic event that most had never considered.
Eventually the eight of them emerged from the eastern river of walkers. Natalie rubbed her head and stared at the sky like someone hoping for salvation.
“We should probably rest again,” Blaise said.
“I don’t think we should rest,” said Seth. “We don’t have anything to eat and have a long way to go still.”
“I need to sit down.”
“You said we shouldn’t be on the road after dark,” Skylar reminded Blaise.
“I’m going to sit down. I suggest you folks do the same.”
Blaise angled toward the road shoulder and wandered into the grass. His arm was wrapped around his midsection. His face was pale and tinted green. He lowered himself to the ground and bowed his head.
“I don’t know if I’m going to make it.”
Finally, Larry walked over to where Blaise was sitting.
“What’s going on, man? You thought the children would slow us down and now you want to pull up lame?”
“Watch that mouth,” said Blaise.
“We’re not even halfway there. What happens if we show up without you? Will your friends even help us?”
“Bring those guns and they will. That’s what they need.”
“They’re expecting you,” said Larry.
“Look,” Blaise said. “I got cancer in the pancreas. Doctor told me I didn’t have but a couple a months. I’ve been on pain meds but those ran out, don’t you know.”
“Shit,” said Larry. “I had no idea. Maybe you should drink more water.”
“We barely got enough to go around. If anyone gets more it should be the kids.”
“But we need you.”
“And I’m telling you it’s not worth it.”
Seth glanced at Natalie. She looked lost. Horrified. Ben saw her face and opened his mouth as if to speak, but he didn’t speak. Thomas and Skylar exchanged glances. No one seemed to know what to do.
“Listen to me,” Blaise said to them, and to Thomas specifically. “I’ll show you on the map where the warehouse is, where Tim lives.”
“Come on,” said Larry. “Get up.”
“Explain to him what happened. He’ll understand.”
“Blaise, seriously.”
“And one more thing,” said Blaise. Now he motioned for Seth to come closer, as if he wanted to share a secret.
But Seth was afraid to approach, as if cancer might be catching.
“Please.”
Reluctantly, Seth stepped off the road and into the grass. He knelt near Blaise. Larry had moved out of the way but was trying to hear whatever was said.
“If I can’t make it,” Blaise whispered, “I want you to take me out.”
Seth stood up. He looked at Blaise and then Natalie and then all of them. Why wouldn’t he ask Larry to do this?
“You can’t be serious,” he finally said.
“I’m dead serious.”
Blaise rocked forward and gingerly pushed himself to his feet. Even standing he wasn’t fully upright.
“When people are hungry enough, they’ll do what they have to do. And I like how you’ve handled yourself so far. You turned out to have balls. You got to promise me.”
Everyone was looking at Seth as if they expected him to explain what Blaise was asking for.
“That’s not going to happen,” was all he would say.
“I’ll do it myself if I can. But I’m afraid I won’t have the energy. Or the nerve.”
Seth was horrified to see Blaise on the verge of tears.
“Let’s just go,” he finally said. “You’re gonna be fine.”
But Blaise wasn’t going to be fine. It was possible he wouldn’t make it another twenty steps, let alone twenty miles. And the idea that someone in this group might die today, involuntarily, made Seth realize just how foolish he was. His pathetic attempts at self-destruction seemed absurd next to the authentic pain of a man suffering from a life-threatening disease. Why would any healthy human being take his own life? What the fuck had he been thinking?
“Can I at least carry your bag? Maybe you’ll have a better chance of making it?”
“Any way you want it,” said Blaise.
Thomas didn’t need to hear Blaise’s voice to know what he had asked Seth. The clue was in his follow-up: When people are hungry enough, they’ll do what they have to do.
During his research for The Pulse, as he browsed subreddits like /Preppers and /Survival, Thomas had run across several threads about cannibalism. That’s going too far, most seemed to believe. I don’t want to think about eating Grandma. This was one of the many reasons why Thomas had considered their movement more like entertainment than preparation and why his own safe room had been little more than hubris. If he’d really believed the shit could hit the fan, he would have developed an actual strategy to deal with it. And once the shit did, in fact, hit the fan, he could have treated that shit with the proper respect and deference. He could have kept the shades drawn and the candles out of sight and he should never have let Skylar talk him into driving to Tulsa. If a single action had sealed their fate, it was bringing six more people into their lives. Even if his neighborhood had been overrun by refugees, two people could have lived in the safe room for days or even weeks if it meant the difference between life or death. But he had wanted to impress her. He wanted her to like him.