Last Resort (11 page)

“Don’t…lea—”

“Shhh,” I calm him. “Save your strength. I’m not going anywhere.”

Conner tromps on the deck over our heads.

“Just one man on board,” Conner yells to Robby. I cannot make out Robby’s response, but Conner replies. “Horrible, man. Burned up—peeling skin. As good as dead. The boat’s sinking fast.”

Embarrassed by Conner’s bluntness regarding Dawson’s survival odds, and uncertain what to do, I look at Dawson. He gives a weak smile, as though appreciating a joke played at his expense, and closes his eyes. I hold his head out of the water, repulsed to touch him, but unwilling to turn my back on another human being. Anxious minutes pass as the boat slips further to the sea bottom. The water in the sleeping cabin rises to my chest. I listen to Conner stomping about on deck, to the waves slapping against the ship and objects clunking together in the water, and above all, I listen to the faint rattle of breath in Dawson’s lungs. Despite his blistered and burned skin, with his eyes closed and the faint smile still on his lips I get an idea what he must have looked like as an infant dozing dreamily in his mother’s arms.

His chest stops moving. The wheeze of his breath is gone. Only the curious smile remains on his cracked, bleeding lips. He is dead. I let him sink away.

I slosh through the water and debris to the deck just as Conner crawls from the sailboat to the hobie cat.

“Wait!” I yell.

“We’re not taking him,” Conner shakes his head. “Come with us now or stay here with him.”

“No, you fool,” I snap. “The ham radio. It still works. We cannot leave it. It’s the only thing we’ve got to communicate with the outside world.”

Conner groans with exasperation, but he knows I am right. He climbs back on the sailboat.

“The fucking thing is bolted down,” Conner grunts as he tries to move it.

“Watch out,” I wield a fire extinguisher and use it to smash the wooden counter apart. Together, we hand the ham radio to Robby on the hobie cat.

We sail back to the resort; I face the sailboat and watch it roll to the side.

“Dawson?” Conner asks.

I do not take my eyes from the sinking boat. “Dead. Like you said.”

Conner tells Robby all about the distinguished man who died in my arms. I watch the sailboat until it sinks from sight.

Chapter Eight

“This is Phillip Crane, Phillip Crane on 14352.6—anyone on this frequency, over?” I speak into the mic on the ham radio. The radio sits on a table in the restaurant.

“No luck getting anybody on that thing?” Bill asks. His white hair seems damp with sweat, and his face is ashen.

“No, but it’s definitely got power,” I point to the battery that comes attached to the radio. “So far as I know, this is the only working electrical device on the island and our best shot at getting help.”

The resort buzzes with news of the sunken sailboat. Many of the guests, especially the British ones, express shocked disbelief that Dawson Hartford is dead. I am probably the only person at the resort who did not know who he was.

A sizable crowd surrounds me: Jonas, Bill, Pamela, Don, Amy, Robby, Alexandra, Conner, and others. Gwen is here, too. We do not speak to each other. Sans make-up, her hair pulled into a low maintenance ponytail, she seems somehow more fragile, like a knight without a suit of armor. With each turn of the dial on the radio, Amy wrings her long, bony hands together and restlessly spins a diamond tennis bracelet about her wrist as though it were a magical talisman. Hunched on a chair, Don leans forward on his cane, closely observing what I am doing. From the radio speaker comes a low buzz.

I drop the mic to my lap and stare at the radio. “I don’t understand. I’ve been at it for two hours. We should have contacted somebody by now. Where is everyone?”

“The damn thing could be broken,” Don suggests.

“I don’t know. It appears to be working as it should, but if that were the case we should hear other chatter,” I stare befuddled at the gauges that show I am getting a good signal. “The internal antenna on this thing is weak, but even with a weak antenna we should hear something. We might not get a clear transmission, but we’d still hear voices… people talking back and forth. There’s nothing. Absolute silence.”

Robby pushes to the front of the crowd. “You’re probably doing it wrong.”

I step back from the radio and offer him the mic. “I’m no ham radio expert. My father had one when I was a boy, so I have a rough idea how it’s supposed to work, but you’re welcome to give it a shot.”

Suddenly uncertain of himself, he takes the mic. “Hello, hello, anyone out there?”

“I already checked on this frequency,” I advise, and turn the dial on the radio for him. “Here. Turn this to check a different frequency.”

Robby tries to reach someone, switching the frequencies without success.

Finally, he puts the mic down. “It’s no use. This machine is broken. You probably damaged it when you removed it from the boat.”

“And if I left it on the boat it would be at the bottom of the sea by now,” I retort.

Robby rolls his eyes and stalks off. The crowd disperses; the excitement of a working ham radio replaced by sullen disappointment. Gwen walks in the direction of our bungalow—probably to change her clothes since she has not returned to our bungalow at all the previous day. I want to follow her there and tell her how fucked up she is for avoiding me as if I am toxic. However, there is no point in following Gwen back to our bungalow to blast her as she rightly deserves. Alexandra is with her. I do not need an audience.

I turn the dial on the radio, lift the mic, and try once more to reach anyone who can get me home.

It is late morning. A few people linger in the restaurant with me—more to be near the meager buffet than out of any expectation I will reach someone on the radio. I halfheartedly turn the dial, calling out into the ethereal void, but most of the time I stare at the stream of white butterflies flitting along the beach.

Suddenly, the unmistakable sound of a voice crackles from the radio speaker. I bolt upright in my chair. “This is Phillip Crane on 14352.6. I don’t know what my call letters are. This is not my radio. Can you hear me, over?”

The people within the restaurant, and even some nearby on the beach, surround me. The voice on the radio—a man’s—crackles and pops. A few words in English are clear: “medic,” “rescue,” and ominously “all gone.”

The crowd around me murmurs with excitement. I repeat my name and my frequency.

The man speaking to us stops suddenly, as though he is as astonished as I am to reach someone.

“Hello?” He asks.

“This is Phillip Crane on 14352.6 from Isla Fin de la Tierra. We have lost all power and need an emergency generator.”

Long pause and then, “This is Romeo Kappa Nancy Delta Mary. My name is Paul Morgan. You are unhurt?”

“Yes, we just lost power. We need a generator.”

“But no one is injured?” Paul asks.

I exchange a dubious glance with Jonas. Why does he think we are injured?

“Where are you, Paul?”

“Redstone, Australia. The storms haven’t hit you yet?”

“Storms?”

“Poison clouds. Radiation—” we lose contact beneath a wave of static. “—Major population centers—no survivors—dying.”

I grip the mic so tightly that my hand aches. The serene image of the nearby sea and surf contrasts with the adrenalin rushing through my veins.

“Paul, what happened?” I nearly shout. “What are you talking about?”

“The war!” He yells, and then chokes on a vicious coughing fit. When he finally returns to the mic, his voice is low and exhausted. “They finally did it. They killed us all.”

I am stunned, as is everyone around me. For several moments, no one speaks and the only sound is the lonely buzz of the radio. Then Paul continues, “Not sure who launched first. The Pakis or the Americans. Maybe the Chinese. Within an hour it was all over.”

“Nuclear war?” Dizziness sweeps over me.

“The big one. I’m in the middle of nowhere, halfway across the Outback. The missiles landed far from here, but it did not take long… The next day the storms came. We saw them on the horizon…red, boiling, blocked out the sun. Took cover. Everyone took cover…no use. Can’t keep out the radiation. All dead now…I’m the last…won’t be long…”

Wild with panic, Jonas takes the mic. “We need a generator! Tell someone to send help to Isla Fin de la Tierra.”

Paul gives a bitter laugh that immediately devolves to a hacking cough. An eternity passes until he has enough strength to say, “Everyone is dead. The whole world—dead. Watch the skies. Look for the storms…good luck.”

I take the mic from Jonas. “Paul? Paul, wait.”

Paul does not respond. I dropped the mic.

“Is this some kind of twisted joke?” an incredulous Brit asks. “That’s got to be it. It’s a hoax.”

I run my hand over my face and through my hair, still trying to grasp the enormity of what Paul Morgan said.

“He said ‘Everyone is dead’,” I say aloud to no one in particular.

“Get him back on the line. Have him explain himself,” Jonas orders.

I set the mic on my chair and back away from the radio. “I think he’s dead. It explains why no one has come to help us. They all died—if not from the initial detonation then from the nuclear storms that followed.”

Jonas surveys the horizon. “There are no storms.”

“They are out there. Dawson Hartford sailed into one,” I say as I pace the floor. “It could be that the storms just haven’t reached us yet.”

“Or it could be that help will arrive at any moment,” an older guest counters.

“Maybe. I hope you are right, but I don’t think so,” I reply.

“Where are they going?” One of the guests points to the few remaining staff members, including Lorenzo, who walk towards the bridge spanning the lagoon.

Jonas hustles after them and practically begs them not to leave.

Clearly unnerved by the news over the radio, Lorenzo speaks for all of the staff when he says, “I need to be with my family in Rio Galera.”

Unable to dissuade them, Jonas nods that he understands and watches them leave. In a daze, I stumble from the restaurant and onto the beach, dropping to the base of a swaying palm. Resting my back against the trunk of the tree, I close my eyes and listen to the sea, breathing slowly, trying to still the thoughts that collide within my head.

News of the nuclear devastation travels through the resort with the speed of a highly contagious virus. Those who learned the news firsthand pass it on to those who were absent when I made contact with the dying Australian. People gather in raucous groups, some wailing in misery and needing several people to calm them down, while others ridicule the news and demand more information. Unfortunately, I am the person from which they demand that additional information.

“What’s this nonsense that you’re telling everyone about a nuclear war?”

The interrogation comes from a bald headed Connecticut doctor who looms over me where I still sit, eyes closed, by the palm tree. I open my eyes. The doctor is not alone. Two other anxious guests stand beside him to form a ring around me.

“I only know what the dying Australian told me,” I reply.

The bald headed doctor scrunches his face into a frustrated knot. “Maybe you heard him wrong.”

“I heard him right.”

I should be indignant, but I am oddly unperturbed. Wrestling with the likelihood nearly everyone I know just died leaves little emotion for an angry stranger. Rising, I dust sand off my backside. The bald headed doctor yells something about “Just because the lights don’t work doesn’t mean the world came to an end.” Ignoring him, I walk away. As I walk up the wooden steps from the beach, a woman shouts in the restaurant.

“No, don’t say that! Nothing has happened to my family.”

Alexandra grips the ham radio mic and points an accusing finger at Jonas and a few other people who warily try to approach her. Jonas steps forward and gently pries the mic from her grasp.

Lip trembling, eyes brimming with tears, she looks into Jonas’s eyes. “My family is waiting for me. They’re going to take me home. I know it.”

Undoubtedly, suffering from his own familial losses, Jonas summons the compassion to nod tenderly, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. Alexandra spies me standing at the back of the room and her face lights up as if she were a drowning woman tossed a life preserver.

“Phil! Phil, please help me reach my family. I need to get back home. The others tried using the radio after you did, but they couldn’t get hold of anybody.”

I do not want to encourage her false hopes.

“Where’s Conner?” I ask.

She snatches the mic from Jonas. “I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. The people we love—they are not dead. I’ll show you, then you’ll see…you’ll see.”

With one hand outstretched, warding us off, she speaks into the mic. “Hello? I am trying to reach my family in Scarsdale, New York. Is anyone out there? My name is Alexandra Gilroy. Al-ex-an-dra.”

There is no reply save for the eerie buzz of deserted frequencies.

Jonas whispers in my ear, “Someone is fetching her husband now. We’ve got to keep her from damaging the radio.”

“Alexandra, hey, look,” I hold up my hand mimicking the shape of the mic. “You’ve got to press this button here…on the side…for anyone to hear you.”

She follows my example and repeats her plea into the mic with the same disheartening result. Her shoulders sag and a heaving sob wracks her body, but she tamps it down, swats a tear from her cheeks, starts punching random buttons on the radio, and repeats her plea over the airwaves.

Conner dashes up the steps from the beach. Sweat lines his brow. It seems he sprinted here.

“Baby, what’s going on?” He walks toward her and she crumbles into his arms.

“I’m not giving up, Conner,” she sobs. “I’m going to keep trying. I’ll get hold of my family, and then they’ll get us out of here.”

He takes the mic from her and places it on the table. “I know, baby, I know. C’mon, let’s go lie down.”

She squirms in his arms. “I don’t want to lie down. We’ve got to reach my family.”

He grips both her arms and looks earnestly into her eyes. “And we will, but now we need to rest. Look,” he taps the radio. “The radio’s not going anywhere. We can try again later, or maybe even let someone else try for you, huh? Now c’mon.”