Chapter 10

When we came to a stop in Chicago at the Civic Center, there were four people waiting for us there. That was a new way of finding new people, and surprisingly disconcerting.

All of us ran from the two RVs and, in the shadow of the great Picasso statue, greeted the newcomers.

There were two boys — African-American siblings, the older twelve years old, his brother only four. There was a young woman, about 25, and her father, a wheelchair-bound man of around 50.

The boys were Edward (the older) and Shawn Wilson, orphaned by the Virus, residents of Chicago.

The man was Martin Kazner, of Milwaukee, and his daughter, Emily Kazner. Only the Kazners had heard my radio broadcast. The adults had found the boys, right there in Chicago, during their drive through the city, heading for the rendezvous point.

It was a joyous reunion for all. The boys had just about given up hope of rescue. They were in good physical condition, because the older boy had been an efficient forager, but they had nevertheless been close to panic by the time the Kazners had found them.

The father and daughter had heard my broadcast from their home in Milwaukee (where they were the only survivors they knew about). They had driven directly to Chicago and had gotten there — and run across the two boys — five hours before we had.

I wondered about the significance of the fact that so many people we were finding were related on one another. The three men from Manitoba; the boys from Chicago; and the Kazners, father and daughter. How peculiar that with so few survivors, most of those we had found appeared to have been related by blood.

So far, at least, only Brigitte and I were lone survivors.

The newcomers had no objection to our plan to travel southward. It was decided that the two boys would share our RV, and the Kazners would travel with Ingmar and family.

The next morning, at 8 a.m., we left for Indianapolis. I had indicated, on the previous evening's radio broadcast, that we expected to be in that city by 3 p.m. and would stay there overnight. Not knowing the city, I just identified "city hall" as our rendezvous point.

Nobody showed up to meet us in Indianapolis, and we went on to Louisville (where we waited, as announced via radio) for a three-hour period for people to join us). We got to Nashville by nightfall, and (again, as we had announced to our hoped-for radio audience) we parked in front of the Grand Ole' Opry for the night.

The following day, we told the world we would stop in Birmingham under the "Vulcan" statue, and, later the same day, in Montgomery, in front of the State Capitol Building, where we would stop for the night.

After those stops, we would arrive the following day at our destination — Mobile Bay.

All the way to the coast, we got no takers.

We arrived in Mobile around noon. It was one day short of three weeks since The Virus had killed the vast majority of our fellow citizens.

As I had announced by radio, we waited for the remainder of that day in front of the Battleship Alabama, in a memorial park on the city's waterfront. While the rest of us waited, Roald and Ingmar helped themselves to a local minivan and drove around the waterfront, looking for our new home.

Roald came back before dark, invited the two boys and the Kazners to join him, and took them back with him to the large yacht they had chosen for our use. "It's a beauty" he said, his eyes glowing. "You'll really like it!"

Bridgett and Harry stayed behind with me. We'd wait overnight, near the Battleship Park, in case anyone came there to find us. We would get escorted to our yacht the next morning, after 8 a.m., when Roald came back for us.

I felt happier — and more secure — than I had at any time since this involuntary adventure had begun. We now were nine in number. We had seven men and boys, and two women. There was at least the prospect that more people might join us. We were going to be living in comfortable surroundings, on a large yacht that three of my fellow refugees knew how to manage efficiently. We would have access to hot showers, and adequate (albeit canned) food, cooked on a real stove.

There would be small but clean and efficient staterooms in which to sleep. The yacht idea was a real winner. I was weary of the RVs and the open road.

I hoped that Ingmar and Roald had managed to find all the dead bodies on board, and had disposed of them. I hoped that the odor of death wasn't too bad. Maybe they had found a boat without any passengers aboard. I hoped they had. The smell of death was familiar now, but it was no more easily borne now than it had been, at the beginning.

We were nine, now. A great range of ages. Three men from Canada — fishermen now far, far from home. A housewife from St. Cloud, Minnesota. A 17-year-old boy from Atlanta — by way of Cripple Creek, Colorado. Two young black boys from Chicago. A disabled 50-year-old man and his 25-year-old daughter from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

A motley crew, perhaps, but better, somehow, than I had anticipated. The old were taking care of the young. Neither of the women, as yet, had encountered any threat of sexual assault. One drawback was that we were, by and large, unskilled except for the considerable aptitude for sailing shared by our Canadians. But I was optimistic. There was plenty of work to be done, stocking the ship with provisions and assuring a steady fuel supply, and continuing our attempts to attract newcomers through the radio transmissions.

But everyone, it seemed, was willing to work and ready to cooperate, and to contribute to the success of our joint enterprise. You couldn't ask for a lot more than that.

At nightfall, we fixed up the RV's back bedroom as a temporary sleeping place for Uncle Harry. So far at least, Bridgett and I hadn't confessed to having been lovers, so both bedrooms in the RV were spoken for. Since Chicago, I had turned over the back bedroom to the two boys, and Bridgett had been sleeping alone in the other, smaller one. I had been sleeping out in the open on one of the RV's several utility mattresses — the biggest one — alongside the dining room table.