Page 34 of The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand

THE HOPE BOAT

Gabino Iglesias

Sandra knows the way to the beach, but she has no clue how long it will take her to get there on foot.

It’s probably only ten or twelve miles from her house.

Puerto Rico is only a hundred miles long by thirty-five miles wide, so everyone is somewhat close to the beach.

But ten or twelve miles on foot is still a lot of miles.

Sandra used to walk almost four miles in just under an hour, but that was before she got pregnant, back when her friend Margaret was all about power walking and salads.

It might take her more than fifteen minutes to complete a mile now.

Maybe twenty? A little longer? That would make it a three-hour walk, give or take.

But that would be under normal circumstances, and circumstances haven’t been normal for a while now.

Make it four hours, then, but go. Go now. You have time.

The thought scares her. Going anywhere now is like venturing out into a jungle full of predators.

Psychos. Scavengers. Sick people who have lost their minds.

They’re all out there. Still, it could be worth a shot if the information she received is true.

It’s early now, but she must be at the beach by midday if she wants to hop on the rescue boat.

Although rescue is too big a word. It feels like an impossible word, something that should be cut from the dictionary.

Rescue boat sounds like someone is in control.

Tell them you have hope. That’s what Mercedes said.

Hope is a good word here. Hope boat sounds more accurate than rescue boat .

It could also be desperate boat. Last chance boat. Boat to freedom. Those are better.

The voice in Sandra’s head sounds a lot like her mother. It’s been there all her life, but it’s been much more present lately. It’s her only companion, and Sandra is glad for its presence, but she often wonders if she’s losing her mind. The way things have gone, it wouldn’t surprise her.

The trip from Sandra’s house to the beach was always a joyful one, but thinking about it now hurts.

Baby Angie usually wore her favorite bathing suit, a bright pink one that was the cutest thing Sandra had ever seen.

It had a circle of tiny blue fish on the chest that always made Sandra think of her beautiful daughter as a minuscule superhero.

Super Baby, devourer of cookies. Her superpower?

A natural aversion to naps, a million-watt smile, and more energy than the Energizer Bunny.

This trip won’t have any of that, but the idea of staying in a house with two bodies, no food, no water, no electricity, and no chance of being rescued is even less appealing.

So, four hours. That’s a long walk, but she can do it. A long walk is nothing if what Mercedes told her is true.

Mercedes, Sandra’s neighbor from three doors down, had knocked on her door the night before. Sandra had panicked for a second before Mercedes identified herself.

Sandra had been convinced Mercedes was immune to the disease, just like her.

Their entire neighborhood had succumbed in a matter of days, but they hadn’t.

The more people died, the more they talked, checked on each other, and shared news and food.

Mercedes was a very positive person, and she had helped a lot when Miguel died.

Mercedes’s own husband, Roberto, died two days later.

She had dragged him out and buried him in their yard.

“I don’t want his angry spirit haunting my dreams,” she said to Sandra afterward while scraping dirt from under her nails.

“Men are moody, and dead men are no different.” She’d tried to smile through the tears then, a bit of gallows humor, but all she managed was a strange twitch of her lips that spoke more of devastation than mirth.

Now it was just the two of them, Sandra and Mercedes, a few doors from each other, surviving alone, but together.

The moment Sandra opened the door, she knew she was wrong.

Mercedes—in her early forties, short and stocky, with dark skin and a beautiful mane of black curls framing a pretty face—looked like the ghost of her former self.

Her face was bloated and strangely pale.

She had dark bags under her eyes that seemed ready to pop.

Her face and neck were slick with that shiny, oily sweat that the sick were always covered in.

Mercedes had knocked on the door in the early afternoon and called out her name, but by the time Sandra reached the door, her friend had stepped back almost ten feet.

She was shivering from the fever and had a glistening line of snot covering her upper lip.

“I… I got it,” said Mercedes. It was obvious, but the words still felt like a gut punch to Sandra.

“Oh, Mercedes…”

Mercedes looked at Sandra’s arms and then at her legs. Sandra knew what she was looking for. It filled her eyes with tears again.

“Baby Angie?” Mercedes asked, her voice low, like she was afraid of waking her up.

Sandra couldn’t answer. She shook her head, the tears now running down her face.

“I’m so sorry,” said Mercedes. The last word had been buried under so much emotion that it sounded like something else, a small animal drowning instead of a word.

For a moment, both women stood there, looking at each other.

All the things they wanted to say were left unsaid.

And maybe that was for the better. Nothing reveals the uselessness of words quite like the presence of Death, riding its black horse silently down your street with its scythe at the ready.

Mercedes was dying. Sandra was surrounded by death.

The enormity of their pain silenced them. Looking at each other was enough.

“I came to tell you something,” said Mercedes.

She sniffled and wiped her face with her hands before continuing.

“I got a call three days ago. From my mom back home. She said whole families survived in the Dominican Republic. She told me they all moved to Punta Cana and they’ve…

built a place there. A refuge. There’s a lot of food and stuff from all the hotels there.

They’ve been sending fishing boats over to pick up survivors from the beaches in Rincón, Joyuda, and a few other places.

For a price, obviously. My mom, she… she got me a ticket. For tomorrow at midday. You should go.”

“No, I can’t do that,” said Sandra. “That’s your…

” She wanted to say that was Mercedes’s ticket, her opportunity to get out, but the woman would probably be dead before she reached the coast, even if she found a car to get her there.

They both knew it. Turning down the opportunity was an instinct from a time when the world still worked.

There, standing in front of each other with tears running down their faces and a decomposing world around them, turning it down made no sense.

The social contract was no longer in place.

“I won’t make it,” said Mercedes. “We both know it. Just… go. You can walk to there from here. Leave early tomorrow. When the boat comes, someone will come to the beach. Tell them you have hope. That’s the password.

They’ll take your temperature. If you’re still fine, they’ll take you to Punta Cana. ”

Sandra nodded. More tears came, and she didn’t know who they were for. They could be for Mercedes because she was dying, but they could also be for Baby Angie. Or for Miguel. Or for the countless dead neighbors in all the dark houses up and down the street that had turned into graves.

Or for herself.

“Thank you,” said Sandra. She didn’t believe it. Whole families? Food? It had to be a rumor. But she couldn’t tell Mercedes that. You don’t snatch a dying woman’s last dream from her.

“I’m… I’m so sorry about Baby Angie,” said Mercedes, her voice cracking again.

There could be no hug and saying goodbye would hurt too much, so Sandra was relieved when Mercedes turned and walked away, grabbing her head and grunting as she went.

Sandra closed the door and stood there a minute, thinking about what Mercedes had told her. It couldn’t be, but what if it was?

Tell them you have hope.

The smell smacked her in the face a few moments after she closed the door. Decay. Rotting flesh. Bodily fluids soaking into her bed, through her mattress, dripping onto the floor. Like every other house out there, Sandra’s house contained dead bodies.

In her bedroom was her husband, Miguel. He had gone out one morning a few days ago to see if he could find some food.

He’d come back a few hours later, tired and complaining of a headache.

The fever started soon after. That night, he started talking about his brother Tomás, who died ten years ago in a car crash.

The sweating and the headaches were horrible, but they didn’t last long.

He died in the middle of the night, calling for his brother.

Sandra had been sitting right outside their bedroom, listening to him through the door and praying Baby Angie wouldn’t catch the sickness from her own father.

After Miguel went quiet, she checked in on him.

He looked bloated and shiny. Liquid was coming from his mouth and nose.

He wasn’t breathing or complaining. He wasn’t talking to his dead brother.

He would never do any of those things—or anything else—ever again.

Sandra’s heart cracked in half and she fell to her knees a few feet from the bed she had shared with Miguel for nine years.

After a while, Baby Angie cried. Sandra got up and went to her. She held her daughter and caressed her head, wanting to apologize for the way things had turned out.