only son, Chris, was in Kuwait now. Years ago he had landed a high-paid job as an oil engineer and stayed there for the money. He used to come to visit them twice a year, and invited them to visit him in Kuwait, but they never got to go. What’s in Kuwait, anyway? Drinking illegal booze in the desert? Their boy was safe, and that was the most important thing now. As long as the virus didn’t cross the ocean.
They stayed at a motel and enjoyed the view of the Falls every day. They didn’t know that in a couple of weeks the border would be closed, and military helicopters, combat drones, and mile-long barbed wire fences would be added to the scenery.
When fall came, they closed Rainbow Bridge and set a roadblock on it. The Wattses couldn’t go any farther north. The Canadian border had been sealed off. No one in. No one out. Canada was being overcrowded with evacuees from the States. First, the Canadian side had accepted only families with kids, then only skilled workers and useful professionals, like medical doctors, electrical engineers, and welders. Bad news for stock brokers, theoretical physicists, and weak retired people with poor health like Ross and Karen Watts.
Going back south wasn’t an option either. With no gas and slow legs, it was virtually a death warrant. Meanwhile, the plague was already raging in the Big Apple.
Lots of people were being evacuated to Alaska, but the quantity of military and commercial ships available for transporting the evacuees was not enough. The Washington big bosses, sitting in Quebec, finally came to the decision that the American nation should have a chance to survive and agreed to let the Russian and Chinese ships enter the US territorial waters. Hundreds of thousands of people would step aboard the Russian and Chinese ships, to be detained in quarantine, before going ashore in Vladivostok or Shanghai.
All the hotels and motels for fifty miles around were filled. Most of the people would go west soon. And meanwhile, Ross and Karen had to share their room with a young Puerto Rican man and his toddler son, who slept on a futon. The man was not much of a talker. The kid, on the other hand, was an untiring chatterbox, but everything the boy said sounded like gibberish to Ross and Karen, as all of the words were in Spanish.
«What’s your name?» Ross asked the young man.
«Pablo Rubio,» he said. The question was easy. Must be the easiest question in English.
«I’m Ross,» the old man said, pointing at himself. Then he pointed at Karen. «And this here is Karen, my wife.»
Pablo nodded and looked at his son, who was sleeping quietly at the end of a restless day.
«Alberto Carlos,» he said with pride and smiled.
«Nice kid,» Ross said and smiled, too.
«Where’s your wife, Pablo?» Karen asked.
He looked at her and shook his head. «No espeak ingles.»
«Mrs. Rubio? Where’s she?» Karen asked.
Pablo looked at the floor for a spell. «No Mrs. Rubio… Maria… Maria esta muerta.»
Muerta. Dead.
Karen shook her head with sympathy and went quiet. That evening they didn’t ask Pablo any further questions.
Ross walked out of the room to the porch to catch some fresh evening air. He strolled along the sidewalk to the parking lot. Pablo had a panel van parked in the parking lot behind the bathroom block. It was a navy blue Volkswagen Transporter Kasten. Good choice. Less cargo space. Good maneuverability. Particularly suited for heavy traffic. He looked at the front plate. Seven digits. The vehicle was from Texas, for sure. The Lone Star State. The guy and his kid had made a very long trip. The terrible things they must have seen!
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