Great. Just great, Martin thought, looking out the van’s windshield as he woke up.
It was 6:00 a.m., and, no bones about it, his Escape from New York bid with the kids had failed spectacularly.
He was on I-95, but not outside the city, as per the plan. No, he was heading the wrong way—back into the city—in the East Bronx, parked off the side of the road, pointing south.
How it had happened he couldn’t say. He had tried valiantly to get upstate, like Mike had told him, but everywhere they had gone the roads had been blocked by accidents or police. All night long he kept getting shunted this way and that. Bottom line, he’d been forced back in exactly the wrong direction.
It got worse. They were now on a concrete bridge above a body of water, an inlet of some sort. The last sign they had passed before he had gone to sleep said CITY ISLAND.
He didn’t know too much about the Bronx, but even an Irishman knew that City Island was a place where there were seafood restaurants and fishing boats you could charter. Things really couldn’t be more dire. They were now stuck in the Bronx right by the not-so-beautiful sea.
He looked in the rearview mirror at the sleeping kids. At least they had finally zonked out. They were fed and watered after a stop at a gas station around three. There was no gas at the station, of course, as all the tanks were empty, but he’d let them go to town on sweets in the store.
They’d come out with Pringles, Combos, sodas, every variety of M&M’s known to man. Anything to keep them blissfully unaware of—what? Coming disaster? Apocalypse?
“Unbe-shighting-lievable,” he mumbled as he stared out at the graying sky, then at the E on the gas gauge.
“What was that?” said Seamus, sitting up.
“Nothing, Father,” said Martin. “Go back to sleep. We’re good.”
“Actually, Father…,” he added as he glanced out the window to his right.
“What is it, son?” said Seamus, yawning.
“Father, I was just thinking. We weren’t able to make it upstate, right?”
“I’ll say,” Seamus said, looking around. “We didn’t even make it out of the Boogie Down.”
“Well, look over there,” said Martin, pointing out the window at a stand of high-rises a couple of miles west on the horizon.
“That’s Co-op City,” said Seamus. “What about it?”
“Well, you know how in the tsunami videos from Indonesia a lot of people on the beach didn’t do so hot? But you can see plenty of folks on the roofs of the hotels and what have you doing seemingly okay. What do you say we head over there to those buildings and see if we can’t gain some higher ground?”
“But I thought you said that we still had some gas,” Seamus said.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. The tank is dry, I’m sorry to report. We need to get off this bridge, at any rate. For all we know the wave could be heading toward us right now.”
Seamus turned to the rear of the van.
“Kids, kids! Wake up! Wake up now!”
“What now?” said Eddie with his eyes still closed. “Is the van on fire?”
“No,” said Seamus. “Grab your things. We’re all going for a walk.”
“A walk on the highway?” said Brian.
“In the Bronx?” Juliana joined in.
“Rise and shine, Bennetts. One and all,” said Seamus. “It’s time to abandon ship!”