We’d arranged with the funeral folks for a return to ashes and dust,
imagining our souls rising in pale smoke
to mingle with the clouds and reunite with each other.
But the fearsome mass-killer thing came calling,
and the body I loved so much — yours — ended up
not wafting to the heavens as cinders and grit but here,
decaying in this crowded restless resting place.
We plan in comfort. We learn in sorrow.
— EPITAPH FOR BRANCH CARROLL
(NOVEMBER 23, 1992–AUGUST 9, 2067),
BY KIMBERLY CARROLL, HIS WIFE,
DECEMBER 22, 2068
The surface lost most of its chop as Dad steered Mr. Lucky around the breakwater and into the harbor. From a quarter mile away, Afterlight looked like a ghost town. But as we approached the refueling dock, I saw, through the morning fog and drizzle, a wispy column of gray smoke rising into the sky from the back edge of town. And then I saw people — all females — on their feet, shuffling along, carting stuff from shore to dock to boat.
Dad aimed us at a berthing space. “Half the boats are gone,” he yelled from the wheel as he maneuvered us close and I threw a line to a woman standing near the stern of an ancient wreck of a boat. “And I don’t think they’ve gone fishing.”
The woman glanced at Tia but saved most of her attention for me, then Dad, as he stepped onto the deck. “Where you been?” she asked him as two girls — nine or ten years old, maybe — emerged from the cabin of the old tub, staring.
“At sea,” Dad said. “Up north. What happened here?”
“The Bear,” the woman said, blank-faced. She eyed the name on our boat. “You got lucky. Missed the Bear, missed the Coast Patrol.”
I leaped over the side, caught an aft line from Tia, and half-hitched it to a dock cleat. Tia, then Dad, followed me over. “The men?” I asked her. “They’re all dead?”
“A few took off for the hills once they figured out what was happening. They haven’t returned. All the rest are dead, my man included.”
“Sorry,” we said in unison.
Glassy-eyed, the woman shrugged. “Never should’ve come here. People said it wasn’t safe.”
“You buried them already?” I asked, wondering about traces of the Bear still hanging around. I pictured the mass grave at Epitaph Road, even though I estimated the entire population of Brighter Day to be less than a thousand. Much less now. Dad handed me the nozzle end of a fueling hose. I stuck it in Mr. Lucky’s filler pipe and started the flow.
“Cremated,” she said, and Tia’s hand went to her mouth. The breeze picked up. From Mr. Lucky’s hold, overwhelming the smell of diesel, came the stench of rotting salmon. As soon as we’d gotten on board we’d dumped the carcasses and cleaned up as best we could, but the stink hung on.
“Is that the smoke?” Tia murmured, nodding toward the distant plume.
The woman nodded. “The co-op. Old wood. Good for burning. We moved all the stores out, all the bodies in. Then we torched it. If you need food or anything, some women are rationing out supplies near the marina entrance. They’ll be surprised to see you, but they’ll be generous. Everyone’s leaving, heading back to so-called civilization, so there’s no reason to be stingy. The stuff wasn’t exactly ours anyway.”
“You’re going to Seattle?” Dad said.
“Soon.”
“In that?” I said, gesturing toward her boat.
“It floats,” she said. “It runs.”
“Anyone else leaving soon?” Dad said.
“A couple of other boats.”
“Same shape as yours?”
“About.”
“We’ll join you,” Dad said. “Just to make sure everyone arrives safely.”
The woman gave Dad a look, as if she wasn’t quite sure about the idea or him. “That okay?” Dad said.
“It’s fine,” she said. “It’s good.”
“Elisha’s Bear,” Tia said. “When did it hit?”
“Going on three weeks, probably. A day, or maybe two days, after all those cops showed up in town. And the other two.”
“You see planes?” Dad asked. “Helicopters?”
She shook her head. “Thought we heard some. Didn’t see any.”
“Other two?” I said. “What other two?”
“City women, nosing around, acting like they were interested in being here. I think they were just interested in slumming, looking down their noses at us.”
“What did they do?” Tia asked, and I got this empty feeling in my chest, recalling the junkyarddog items about women planting the deadly test versions of Elisha’s Bear.
“Drove around, walked around, stopped at the co-op, ate at the café, went on a hike.”
“To where?” Dad said.
“Rainbow Falls.”
Dad shook his head. “More likely the reservoir. The trail passes right by Afterlight’s water source. You were drinking it. Showering in it.”
“What?” the woman said.
“We’ll tell you,” Dad said. “Let’s all go take a look at those supplies.”