The Pulse Read online

  The first time I ever witnessed a breakdown in civilization, I’d traveled to Washington, D.C., for a protest during undergrad: that time when everyone is filled with ideals and everything mattered. Everything is a cause that can be fought for, or something that can be saved. I don’t even remember what this particular protest was about, to be perfectly honest. I just remember the feeling of being swept away by something much larger than myself.

  I’d never been in a crowd that large, and something about it made me uncomfortable, even frightened. I couldn’t explain why. But the crowd itself seemed alive somehow, like its own entity. Instead of a group of individuals, it was a monster within its own right. We were near a fence, and without warning the crowd swelled. Everyone in our section had for whatever reason determined they wanted to move closer to the fence and as a consequence, I found myself pressed against the chainlink, certain I would be smothered. My friend saw me struggling and intervened, plucking me from among the throng and lifting me up onto the base of the statue on which he was balanced.

  From higher up, the crowd was even more awe-inspiring and scary. There was something both profound and unsettling about it. I didn’t think of it as people, but a thing: with a very basic set of desires, will, and little thought to implementing them.

  The descent into chaos I now witnessed taking place around me reminded me of the frightful crowd I’d witnessed, all those years ago. As alarming as all of this was, there was something almost fascinating about seeing it in action. Of course I took my own lectures quite seriously; there was nothing exaggerated or hyperbolic about them. But still, to see my theories proved so thoroughly was quite disconcerting. I thought of Mary’s words in class and hoped that she was okay. But I doubted it.

  My mind shifted to thoughts of Ethan and Grace. My interest in the scene playing out around me gave way to worry and concern. I felt a surge of fear as I thought of them, trapped in all of this. I reminded myself that there was no one safer than Ethan to be with in a time like this. They were probably better off than I was.

  Ethan came as a surprise to me. After my tumultuous first marriage ended badly, I immersed myself in academia and did not expect to meet anyone again. Ethan had also recently ended a messy marriage followed by a messier divorce and now had sole custody of Grace, his only child. I was apprehensive about this as I had mistakenly assumed that I disliked children, viewing them as small, confused adults.

  But Grace was not at all my picture of what I thought a child was: a small screaming being drawing ludicrously literal drawings of the sun as a yellow circle in the sky over a square house and a green line of grass. Eating cherry popsicles on your antique furniture and destroying everything in your home. Screaming, crying, throwing up on you and pulling your hair. I’m not sure what led me to form such a broad and general stereotype, but Grace was none of these things.

  As an individual, she was captivating. In many ways, she was as stoic and independent as I was. I was apprehensive the first time Ethan left me alone with her, worried I would lose her or she would somehow climb into the dryer, turn it on from the inside, and suffocate and die. Instead, she spent hours drawing in a corner, elaborate sketches and maps of the house and her school that looked like floor plans. Curious, I asked her about them. She told me she was practicing to be an architect.

  I quickly grew to love her. I hadn’t previously suspected my own capacity to love someone before meeting Ethan and, in turn, Grace. My ex-husband and I were both academics, frequently accused of being cold, callous, and overly analytical. Ethan was the opposite of that. He loved his family with a boundless love that felt contagious.

  Grace was a remarkable human being and she was barely ten years old. Watching her discover the world was more intriguing than my often-thankless job of trying to reach dead-eyed students whose minds were perpetually elsewhere. She had an endless appetite for knowledge, excitement, and adventure.

  As I thought of them, I bit my nails, a habit I had long repressed. I was incredibly antsy, but I had to take back roads and take them at a crawl. Everywhere I looked, there was some wreckage in the street—overturned vehicles with no accompanying ambulances or roadblocks, people walking with backpacks or bicycling with crates strapped to the back. The paranoid, the prepared; whatever you would like to call them. The ones getting an early start.

  The fights were the most troubling. I had to force myself to turn my head and keep driving. It was a point in one of my own lectures that when you swim out to save a drowning person, that person in their panic will inevitably pull you under. So either you had better be stronger than they are or willing to give your life for them.

  Stopping and getting out of the Jeep to intervene on anyone’s behalf would be an obvious act of empathy and also a guaranteed way to lose my vehicle, my life, or both in the process. Mary might think that nothing is worthwhile if you lose your humanity, but I was of the opinion that nothing was worthwhile if you wind up dead on the side of the road, your family helpless and abandoned because you paused to help a stranger.

  The pharmacy was already looming large in my mind as I turned onto a narrow back road, which was thankfully unoccupied by any other human being or car. There were a number of people who somehow weren’t concerned at all yet, those people being unrelated to an Ethan or someone like him. There were also people who were already panicking, and their flight led them to food and water. I hoped I was ahead of the curve in realizing one of the essentials that would no longer be available was medicine.

  But if the people at the grocery store were any indication, everyone was already on the edge of looting. And most people wouldn’t be headed to the pharmacy to make sure they had enough heart medicine for Grandma Edith. It would be open season on OxyContin, Adderall, and every other controlled substance normally kept safeguarded behind the counter. I would likely not only encounter the folks who thought to think ahead, but the ones who planned to profit from this disaster.

  As I drove the remaining distance to the pharmacy, I thought of the three groups who emerge during an emergency: the strong, who are able not only to survive but to ensure the survival of others; the weak, who perish; and the profiteers. The third might be anyone from criminals to vigilantes to rebels who were waiting all along, in the backs of their brains, for order to fall and chaos to rise. No one benefits more from a disaster than the lawless: the population left exposed and vulnerable, and the most violent and insane now free to wreak whatever havoc they please.

  Of course it isn’t all black and white: there is corruption among the strong, who will sometimes dominate others and make the wrong decisions, imposing them on a group. The weakest-seeming person might survive the longest, riding on the coattails of the strong, or by simply hiding.

  But it was the third group that I was most concerned about. Ordinary people might sacrifice their morals in the wake of an emergency. But even they can sometimes be reasoned with. Someone who already banished ethics before the dissolution of law and order, on the other hand, would be made ruthless by the chaos that ensued. And that was primarily who I wished to avoid.

  I drove the Jeep up a small hill behind the pharmacy and into a copse of trees. I got out and eyed it critically, ensuring that it was concealed as thoroughly as possible. Then I made my way down the hill toward the loading dock that led to the back door.

  There was no one behind the pharmacy. I felt hopeful that maybe the same would hold true of the inside, but realistically speaking I knew better. All that meant was that people were still walking through the front door.

  The door was unlocked. I moved quickly and quietly down a long hallway lined with storage rooms and restrooms. The sun had nearly set and the store was dark. I emerged at the end of an aisle selling flip-flops and beach towels.

  It was one of those locally owned mom-and-pop type of places that has not only the standard drugstore staples but a lot of other stuff besides: novelty tins of flavored popcorn, As Seen On TV gadgets, books to read on the beach, seashell-decorat
ed picture frames, wind chimes, and about a hundred other things behind, all in row after row of perfectly arranged, endlessly useless displays of inessential decorative nonsense.

  The pharmacy counter was at the back. I was surprised to see that the gate had yet to be pulled down. That was an unexpected bonus. As I approached the counter, I heard voices from the front of the store. I crouched in a greeting card aisle and paused, listening to two men argue at the front register.

  “But if I could use my card—”

  “Sir, did you not hear me? I cannot swipe your card. There’s nothing to swipe. Do you see the blank screen?”

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m a child! I can see it perfectly fine. But I don’t have any cash, and I need to get this stuff home, right now. Can’t you just give it to me?”

  “Sir, we have no idea how long this will last. We hope to have our power back on and running soon, and in the meantime, we can’t just give away our merchandise.”

  I shook my head, amazed. The very nature of their conversation was mind-boggling to me. They had yet to adapt to our new economy, which would be strictly trade-based from here on out.

  They were so immersed in their argument, they didn’t hear the side door open. There was no customary whoosh like the one that accompanied the automatic doors at the front, which I could only assume were now nonfunctional. But there was the jingling of a bell, rather antiquated and quaint, but therefore functional, that went off over the door.

  I peered around the end cap display of giant stuffed bears. Three very large men who clearly fit my third category of survivor were clustered around the front register, looming over the first man. The man behind the counter looked alarmed. The man who wanted free goods took no heed of the newcomers and continued arguing, monotonously and fruitlessly.

  “If I could just give you some sort of IOU—” he was saying as the biggest of the three men nudged him aside and leaned over the counter.

  “Excuse me,” he said courteously to the clerk. He sounded like he was chewing gum—or more likely, tobacco. “I don’t mean to interrupt you folks, but do y’all have an ATM around these parts?” I had the strange sensation of watching a Western.

  “We have one, sir, but I highly doubt that it works,” the clerk said dubiously.

  “Well, that’s too bad,” said the man. He pulled out a massive pistol which put the Governor to shame. “Cause I’m gonna need to make a withdrawal.”

  3

  The man cocked his pistol as his friends chuckled heartily at the joke. I thought darkly that he’d probably been waiting all his life for a chance to use it.

  I immediately turned from the scene and fairly flew to the back counter of the pharmacy, letting myself through the swinging door and dropping to my hands and knees. I was startled to find myself face-to-face with a young woman no more than twenty, also on the ground. She looked back at me, wide-eyed. I put my finger to my lips. We glanced up, listening as the clerk opened the register and the disgruntled customer squawked in fear.

  “That’s it, nice and slow. Nothing to be alarmed about. We’ll just take what we need and leave. No harm, no foul.”

  I could hear heavy boots fan out around the store. It would only be a matter of time before they made their way to the pharmacy. I took a small pad from the back pocket of my jeans and quickly scrawled: ATROVENT?

  The pharmacist gave a quick nod and crawled efficiently down the next aisle. I crawled after her. It had the feel of a typical transaction made strange only by the fact that we were crawling around on the floor.

  She pulled the inhalers from the shelf and I shoved them as quickly and as quietly as I could into the messenger bag over my shoulder. I pointed at her, then to myself, then towards the back exit. Let’s go, I mouthed. She gave a brisk little nod. I crawled back toward the swinging door. It was then that I heard the footsteps make their way into the hallway that led to the back door. I froze.

  “Check the stock room and the bathrooms,” ordered one of the other men who’d entered with the cowboy at the front. “Take whatever you can. We need to get this stuff out to the wagons before this place gets hit.”

  “What am I getting from the bathroom?” asked his partner in crime, sounding perplexed.

  “Toilet paper, you moron,” said the first voice, sounding exasperated. “Shelf’s already clear.”

  I turned back to the pharmacist, wide-eyed. She gave her head a little jerk and crawled down the aisle behind us. I followed her again.

  The aisle ended at the drive-through window. I saw that she had already wedged it open and watched as she carefully rose, glancing quickly over her shoulder before crawling out, feet briefly dangling in the air. There was an ensuing thump as she tumbled to the ground outside.

  “What else y’all got in here?” I could hear the cowboy making his way to the back of the store towards the pharmacy. I had no doubt on my mind he had OxyContin on the brain.

  I dove through the window, arching my back like a dolphin. I was thankful for the years I spent in yoga, all of which seemed to lead up to this very moment. I nearly landed on the pharmacist, who I now saw was surrounded by little white paper bags.

  “It’s not what it looks like,” she said sheepishly. “I just thought it better to be prepared.”

  “I do not think you’re stealing prescriptions to go on a bender,” I said. “Not that my opinion matters. But we should get out of here immediately.”

  I headed for the small hill and up into the copse of trees and she followed. I chanced a brief look back and saw a head of stringy hair, wraparound shades, and a set of yellow teeth pop through the window. The frightening face glanced back and forth, just as we disappeared safely into the shrubbery and out of sight.

  “Get in,” I told the pharmacist. Whatever my policies on helping the drowning, I was entirely unwilling to leave another woman alone, on foot, as night fell in a dangerous situation that would only get worse with each passing minute. I went around to the driver’s side. She climbed in the passenger side and closed the door.

  “Thanks,” she said. “My name is Bea.”

  “Charlotte,” I said, starting the engine and coasting down the hill. “But everyone calls me Charlie.”

  “Well, Charlotte-known-as-Charlie, I definitely feel lucky that you came along when you did,” she said. “Where are you headed?”

  “I need to get to my family,” I said. “My husband and daughter are stranded across town.” I surprised myself with the word. It was the first time it felt natural to say, as if it was a given. “She’s asthmatic. Grace.”

  Bea nodded. “I take care of my grandmother. She’s frail and in not very good of health. The drugs I took were for her.”

  “Where does she live?” I asked.

  “Parkside Avenue, just off the beltway,” she said.

  “That’s right near the shopping center where Ethan took Grace,” I said.

  “The one with the Halloween store?”

  “That’s exactly the one,” I said.

  “If you don’t mind me riding with you, I’m sure I can make it the rest of the way there,” she said.

  “I don’t mind,” I said, but I thought darkly that even going a few blocks on foot wasn’t the safest plan. I looked out the window at the road: there was nobody on it. The city was quickly becoming a ghost town, marred by random pockets of violence. I turned down a side street only to see a pair of men on the sidewalk, guns trained on one another. I didn’t look to see what their dispute was over, but sped up without looking back.

  Bea looked out the window, appalled. “What was that about?”

  I shook my head. “Food, water, medicine. Or even some minor dispute about something else that everyone is now incapable of settling without violence.”

  “This is serious, isn’t it,” she said.

  Her question seemed rhetorical. Even if it hadn’t been, I didn’t relish being the one to answer it.

  “How about I just drop you off on my way?” I said. “It’s
only a few blocks.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  Outside, I heard the boom of gunshots. I weighed thoughts of a five-minute detour against what Ethan and Grace might be facing, and against my ability to live with myself or look either of them in the eye if I left this woman who saved me to die.

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  Darkness had fallen by the time we reached Bea’s neighborhood. The darkness was complete and total: no street lights illuminated, no light pollution from the surrounding buildings and houses. I’d never seen the night sky so clearly defined. Under another, happier circumstance, I might have considered it beautiful. But now, all I could think about was what hid in the dark.

  I pulled into the driveway, looking around nervously to see if anyone had seen that I had a functioning vehicle. The neighborhood was silent, seemingly abandoned. I wondered if everyone else was already migrating out of the city.

  “Do you have candles inside?” I asked. “Something to see by?” I handed her one of the flashlights.

  “We keep a ton of candles and matches on hand,” she replied. “It’s an old house, the power goes out all the time.”

  I felt slightly relieved. I didn’t like the idea of leaving her in the dark, but my priority was to get to my family and vastly outweighed helping a relative stranger. There was ultimately only so much I could do. They would be on their own from here on out and would have to fend for themselves. The same would go for everyone. I would have liked nothing more than to bring them with me, but we didn’t have the resources to take care of an invalid where we were going.

  Ethan owned a ranch upstate where he went to get his writing done, during the summer when both Grace and I had off of school and we could afford to take a vacation. Ethan being Ethan, the ranch was remote and well-stocked with every type of canned and dried good imaginable, not to mention water and guns.