The Swarm Read online

  She stood for a long time, unable to move, and then decided to go the second floor. When she was on the second floor, she looked out the oval window in the hallway. It was the window that gave her the best view down the street. The house next door was close, and while she could catch a fleeting glimpse of the people in the distance, they were soon gone behind the closely built houses.

  She sat on the top of the stairs, looking down at the coffee and listening to the uneven, slow drip of it spilling onto the floor from the stairs. A pool was spreading out. If she sat and watched long enough, the coffee spill would grow until it touched Antonio’s blood splatter.

  Look at his tooth, it looks so funny!

  Don’t laugh, she told herself. Don’t laugh or you’ll be gone, okay?

  She thought again about her husband’s call. She had no idea how eerily accurate his dream was. Outside the sun rose higher in the summer sky.

  # # #

  Calvin Wrigley had begun something different, which his wife noticed the way all sharp wives notice things about their husbands: he was taking a thermos to work in the morning. Helena Wrigley had questioned him on it, and he had told a perfectly smooth lie; he filled it with coffee at Dunkin Donuts before heading to the bridge. Helena knew it wasn’t easy for Calvin to take a bathroom break, not at his job, but she didn’t press him on it, even with the alcohol she smelled on his breath. In time, when he was ready, he would tell her about the thermos and its contents.

  Calvin now had his thermos in hand, and he took a sip of the contents, which was Johnny Walker whiskey. It was pungent, strong, and as it carved a burning path down his throat and settled neatly in his stomach, he knew he was in trouble. He had to come to terms with the inevitable: in three months, Bay Isle’s new extension bridge would be completed, and Calvin would be unemployed.

  They’ll find something for you, Helena had said.

  And she was right: they probably would find something for him. But he didn’t want anything else. He had grown used to operating the bridge, collecting the toll, waving to the boats and the cars and listening to his radio for 8-hours a day. When he got home, his mind was fresh for reading, crossword puzzles and watching the grandchildren of which there were five. Helena told him that maybe it was time to retire.

  Retire, Calvin thought. He didn’t like that word. What did people do when they went to bed? They retired to sleep. What did people do when they died? They retired from life, didn’t they?

  Helena and Calvin had celebrated their fortieth-fifth wedding anniversary last year. They were married at 20. Helena took getting old very well. Sometimes there was a stab of jealous in the dark place of Calvin’s heart, where he thought: she’ll live forever. Then the thought would pass and he would think: I hope she does out live me. For the thought of not having Helena near him was…well, as far as he was concerned, it was the end of the game. After that, Calvin would be retired from it all.

  A car was coming up the bridge towards the toll booth. Calvin put his thermos cup down and leaned towards the booth’s window. The car was a Mercedes, black and shiny: one of the North Jersey yuppies coming down to their McMansions on the beachfront. It was a middle-aged man with black and gray hair.

  “Morning,” Calvin said.

  He took the dollar toll and wished the man well, pressing the button so that the barrier arm rose. The Mercedes drove past, and Calvin turned to watch it go. It was a sunny day, a gift, the sort of day where the sun cants at a perfect angle and watching the inlet water flutter endlessly was like watching God make gold. The seagulls were loitering on the bridge rails, where the paint was chipped and corroded away by the sea air. The extension bridge rose high above Calvin’s little bridge, which had been built in the 1940s. It was on the left, and in the late day, when the sun was going down, it cast its huge shadow across the small bridge and the water. Thankfully, that was near the end of Calvin’s shift. Still, he couldn’t argue with the automated tolls or the fact that a draw-bridge was no longer needed, for boats could pass easily under the new one. He had known for more than four years, even before the construction was started, that the bridge would be going up. He had known that his job would be over.

  They’ll give you something, Helena had said.

  And that wasn’t the problem. It just wasn’t. Calvin didn’t know exactly what the problem was, but knew it had to do with mortality: his, specifically. When Carol had Lily, his first granddaughter, he had panicked slightly. It was not for lack of joy; he was ecstatic. He thought Lily was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen. It was the concept of himself as a grandfather—staggering, terrifying, and as stone-heavy as the bridge on which he stood now. It meant that the inevitable was now even more inevitable, for youth holds the thought of death at a safe distance, but as years pass the thought of death inch closer and closer in your mind and the thought of one day being caught dead in the shower was not only possible but probable.

  Helena, who had more faith than Calvin, relished growing old and seeing the grandchildren and teaching them things. Calvin understood that she believed you didn’t die, couldn’t die, when what you were, what you thought, is carried on in your children and their children. Besides, can’t you still remember your grandparents and don’t you still have parts of them in you? Calvin agreed, but still it was too inevitable. He liked games of chance, with at least a probability of winning. But when it came to death and growing old, you couldn’t win. Calvin supposed it was those who made peace with it, like Helena, who won. Calvin sipped his whiskey and tried to find his peace.

  It was a slow morning for traffic, and he came out of the booth to stretch his legs. The smell of fish came to him with putrid resplendence. It was like coming home. It was real, alive. Anyone who didn’t understand that couldn’t understand it.

  He turned and looked down the bridge and towards the main part of Bay Isle. Bay Isle was effectively an island, but most people didn’t realize it. It was surrounded on the east by the Atlantic Ocean and the west by a collection of wetlands, water, and inlet waters. On the south side and north sides, the Atlantic Ocean carved narrow channels through the land and thus created the inlets. There were two ways onto the island: his bridge on the southern tip of the island and the main bridge (already automated) on the west side, which spanned a staggering seven miles across the wetlands and waterways. The south side of the island was protected wetlands, a bird sanctuary and State park. His bridge had a nice view of glimmering grasses, flocks of birds rising and dipping in the trees, and the main drag, Bay Avenue, which transverse the entire island from north to south. There were no houses, buildings or developments for at least half a mile. He could see them at the end of the wetlands, somehow this like a bully towering over the bullied. The developments were in a neat line east to west.

  He had seen this for ten years, when he had taken this job after taking an offer from AT&T to retire early.

  Then he saw something that was completely and utterly new—

  A man walking—walking—through the wetlands on the left. For a moment Calvin thought the drink was making him hallucinate.

  I’m not that far gone, he told himself.

  He blinked and looked again. There was definitely a man moving through the wetlands. He was moving at a good clip, but once in a while his foot lodged in the muck and he fell forward, hands splayed out. He got up quickly each time, determined, and began to move again across the wetlands.

  Calvin, fascinated, watched him. He then wondered where he had come from. Calvin looked to the left across the marshy landscape. He saw it then: a white shape in the reeds. This was where the inlet water grew deeper. Calvin new that people took boats and wave-runners through the inlet out towards the ocean. It looked like this nut had abandoned his wave-runner and started walking across the inlet.

  Calvin turned back towards the struggling, laboring man. He saw the car coming up the road, heading towards the bridge. It didn’t take him long to realize what was going to happen, for the car was movi
ng at a good speed, and from the road, the marsh grasses would obscure the walker, who was approaching the road.

  “Oh, shit,” he said.

  He took a few steps along the bridge, forgetting his responsibilities. The car was going fast. It wasn’t supposed to be driving so fast. Why was it driving so fast? The man was pushing forward.

  They’re going to hit, he thought. Do something. Now!

  He started to wave his hands. He was wearing an orange jacket, as was the requirement on the bridge to be fully visible even in full daylight. Neither the man nor the car slowed or made indication that they saw him.

  “I’m too far,” he said.

  For the first time in several months, he wished that he hadn’t drunk the whiskey. He started to run as best he could, half-limping, half-falling down the bridge. His bones had gotten old somehow and he couldn’t move well. Fuck. He wasn’t going to make it. He could make out a little bit of details on the man’s face now, but the details did not interest him—it was the vacancy of the man’s face that interested him.

  “AAAAAAYOOOOOO!” He bellowed.

  The man didn’t hear, but Calvin was pretty sure that he should have. He was within sound distance, and there was no other noise save for the approaching car. He yelled again, waving. He was half-way down the bridge. The man was nearly upon the road. The car was not slowing…

  Now he ran, frantic, pulling his arms through the arm like those absurd blow-up balloons outside car dealerships. He was at the bottom of the bridge. He couldn’t understand why the driver, a woman, didn’t see him. Finally, her eyes appeared to register him. Her car was probably 100 yards away from him.

  Stop! Stop lady! Why isn’t she stopping!

  Then the man, who had made a valiant effort coming across the marsh land, burst through the reeds. The car struck him at full speed, the woman slamming on her brakes at the moment of impact. Her tires screeched, propelling smoke out from underneath. The man whom she struck went into a pin-wheeling somersault, going up and over her car. Calvin was still walking forward, as if to watch the man’s trajectory in disbelief, and when the man struck the ground behind the car (the noise of which Calvin, gratefully, did not hear), Calvin somehow found the strength to run. The woman leapt out of the car, somehow reminded him of a cat that had just fallen into water by accident. Her hands were up by her face, her whole body shivering and constricted to a size not representative of a person, strange meowing noises pouring from her mouth. She must have seen the person, for she backed away, shaking her head, and then she fell.

  Oh, Jesus…

  Calvin huffed his way toward the accident. He wished he had taken his cell phone from the booth. When he got there, there was a sharp pain in his shoulder. He told himself that it was just a charley-horse, and that it would pass, though a secret voice that resided in the dark of his mind that never slept told him otherwise. He went first to the man whom he knew was probably dead. He came around the car and stopped.

  The man was dead. He didn’t have to look. There was gore on the street, the man’s skull was obliterated, and he lay in a tangled heap like so much silly-string sprayed haphazardly by a child. There was no surprise the woman had gone down. There was no surprise at all. Calvin backed away and went to the car. He put his hand on the hood, bent at the waist, closed his and breathed. He had never seen anything quite like that. He hoped he never would again. He wasn’t sure for how long he stayed there, but what brought him to attention was a car horn.

  The toll, he thought, opening his eyes. No one’s at the toll. Then he thought: doesn’t matter. No one’s coming down anytime soon.

  The ground below him looked clear and his vision was not fuzzy. There was a dull ache in his shoulder, the last traces of his charley-horse (or blockage).

  “You’re okay,” he said. “You’re okay.”

  He took a deep breath and pulled himself up. He went carefully towards the woman, who was lying on her back. Her face was bone white. Calvin knelt down, feeling along her neck for a pulse. He found it, and then tried to give her a shake. She wasn’t moving. He knew that he needed smelling salts, but didn’t have any.

  I have to call an ambulance, he thought.

  The car horn blared in rapid succession.

  Get out, you sonovabitch, get out and look down the bridge.

  His cell phone was all the way back into the bridge. Christ, he wished that stupid bastard honking the horn would just look! Come running down to help, do something useful. He was about to start up the bridge when he saw the police cruiser coming towards him. It was coming from the town, lights flashing. There was no siren, but it was moving quickly, very quickly. The relief that Calvin felt was almost powerful enough to collapse him to the ground. He managed to keep standing, and he moved towards the cruiser. As he got closer, he saw that it was Chief Ruggiero’s car.

  Calvin’s relief was short-lived.

  The Chief’s dark-skinned, Italian face looked unfamiliar. When he rolled down the window and gave the order to raise the bridge and not put it down, Calvin knew what the problem was: the Chief was scared.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” the Chief said. “Everyone…everyone I’ve seen’s heading towards the beach. They’re not even aware, Calvin. There’s nothing to them, they’re like damn crabs just trying to reach water.”

  Calvin remembered how the man had pushed his way through the wetlands. He turned and pointed towards the dead body, careful not to look at it too close. The Chief looked at the body, then back at Calvin.

  “He dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s not the only one. He’ll have to stay there. Now put the bridge up and don’t let anyone onto the island, not till we have this under control.”

  Calvin looked back up the bridge. He could see someone walking down it. When the person saw Calvin turn his way, the person raised his arms as if to say what the fuck?

  “What about him?” Calvin asked.

  “Send him back,” the Chief said. “Orders of mine. If he don’t listen, tell him it’s jail time.”

  With that the Chief did a quick K-turn and zipped back to town. Calvin wished he hadn’t drunk that whiskey, and wished for the first time in a long time that he had retired. He could then be home with Helena, God—Helena, he hoped she was safe. He had to get up to the booth and call her. And he was going to have to tell this guy to turn around. He hitched his chest up with a deep breath and started towards the bridge.

  # # #

  Rex Torres was coming down the bridge towards the old man, who looked as if he’d just seen a ghost. He checked his watch again. It was almost nine. He had an appointment at nine. But half-way down the bridge he had seen the woman lying on the ground. The old man was within talking distance.

  “You have to go back!” The old man said.

  “Excuse me?”

  Rex was a small man with a thin-frame. He biked often, sometimes riding for 15-20 miles along the coast when he wasn’t doctoring. In school he had been called T-Rex, which was a nickname that he hadn’t minded. He was well aware of the misnomer and comedy of his name and size, so why not roll with it? He could remember talking to him mom about it when he was in seventh grade—just about the time when the mockery started and upset him a bit—and his mom had told him that if you made the joke your own, embraced it, then people couldn’t mock you anymore: you owned the rights to it. So that’s what he did. In high school, the older kids used to chant, “T-Rex, T-Rex” as he walked into a cafeteria or room. He would stop in the open, so everyone could see him, and he would do a sort of foot shuffle and arch his back, then put his palms together near his mouth and flap and close his hands to mimic jaws. One day, he decided to start biting people with that mock mouth. He tried to be careful on whom he pretended to bite with his T-Rex jaws, but one day he went towards a junior who was standing with a brown-bag lunch and PowerAde bottle. He went to make the bite, and the junior said, “You fucking touch me and you’re dead.” He knew t
he junior was not high up on the social chain, though he had some friends. He was a jack-ass hockey player with a blotchy red face who was slightly over-weight with little round man-boobs flattened in his tight shirt. There was little thought: Rex just opened his hands and clamped his mock mouth on the kid’s man-tit, squeezing. The kid swung the hand holding the PowerAde bottle at Rex instinctually. Rex sensed it—can you believe he somehow sensed it?—coming and ducked. The arm whizzed over his head. He had never been in a fight before, but if he had chosen right, he knew this would be his first and last fight. While the kid was exposed, Rex flung his right fist up. It collided painfully on the kid’s jaw. There was an audible click. Stunned, the kid’s face contorted into rage. He swung wildly at Rex, determined to pulverize his arrogant, shit-face person. Rex danced away from each swing nimbly. The kid moved towards Rex now, his arms like the spinning wires of a weed-trimmer. There was no way Rex could get within their rotation area and not get hit. Still he danced back, heart pounding, barely aware of what was around him. He moved down an aisle between the tables. Then something happened, which Rex thought about for years after: the kid tripped over someone’s foot. Rex would later wonder if that foot had been sticking out, or if someone had stuck it out. His spinning arms hesitated, and Rex jumped in, pulling his arm back and driving it forward. It smashed the kid right on the nose. There was blood then, which came in a slow seep from the kid’s nose. The kid got up: but he was going slow now and less determined. Rex didn’t swing again. He had his hands ready, balled into fists, a small Pilipino kid squat besides his mountainous peer—it should have been comedic but it wasn’t. Rex knew he had gotten lucky, and when the kid decided to come at him again, Rex’s luck stretched just a little further, amazingly: the same upper-class guys who had started the “T-Rex chant” in the cafeteria stepped in front of the attacker. They grabbed him and held him back, telling him to let it go. A teacher came in later and Rex got detention along with the other kid but the chanting of his name stopped, instead now the older kids just called him T-Rex in the hallway, clapping his hand, and he got a girl, a fucking girl, named Danielle (Danni for short) who was six inches taller than he but who gave him his first handjob outside his parent’s house during a warm summer night and his anxious sexual energy exploding forth and she laughing because the stuff (what she called it) had gotten all over the ground and he not caring because (happy, I am happy) he was T-Rex, not Rex but T-Fucking-Rex, bitch.