Jam Read online

  We started moving along Brunswick Street towards X and Y. The roofs were basically the same height until we reached the last building on which they stood, which was slightly higher, but there were a couple of outcrops and ledges to aid climbing. Compared to how rooftop navigating had gone so far, the trek was almost restful.

  Y was standing at the far end of the roof, arms folded and gaze fixed upon the horizon as if daring the rising sun to say something about his trousers. X was sitting at the edge running along Ann Street with one leg dangling off, examining the building opposite, a bar that had been converted from an old bank. It was the nature of the district that any building older than fifty years was either promptly torn down or remodeled into an ironic drinking establishment.

  “. . . estimate the swarm has receded by between ten and fifteen inches since dawn,” we heard X say as we entered earshot.

  “What swarm?” said Tim, by way of greeting.

  It was a remarkable effect. All Y had to do was turn to face us and the entire dynamic of the scene changed, because suddenly he had the air of a nightclub bouncer. Behind him, X sat frozen for a few seconds before suddenly looking around with what she probably hoped looked like a neutral expression. “Good morning. I trust you all slept well.”

  “What are you doing?” said Tim.

  “Reconnaissance,” said Y.

  “Just getting some air,” said X, simultaneously. She jumped to her feet and got between us and Y before he could say anything else. “And we just stopped here to check on the, er, the substance.”

  “The jam,” said Tim.

  The bar was on Ann Street, near the entrance of the mall. The market stalls stood silently choked with jam, their cheerful displays torn apart by its relentless pursuit of fruit, vegetables, and Vietnamese fighting fish in little plastic bags.

  “Well, since we’re all up we should start making some distance,” said Don, jerking a thumb and half-turning in an attempt to spur the rest of the group into following, but Angela and X had now locked gazes—or at least, X had locked gazes with Angela’s camera lens—and neither moved.

  “You called it a swarm,” said Angela.

  “I . . . don’t think I did,” said X.

  “You so did! You all heard it!” She looked at me.

  “You said it was receding,” interjected Tim.

  “Did I?” said X weakly, but we were already clustering around the edge to see for ourselves.

  “Oh, for christ’s sake!” complained Angela, throwing up her hands. “Why is no one else calling her out on this?!”

  Don, Tim, and I weren’t calling her out because we were leaning over to peer at the bottom of the wall opposite. Sure enough, the jam was only coming about half a meter up, with a band of highly polished concrete on the wall above it to mark the previous level.

  “It was definitely deeper before,” I said.

  “Maybe it’s pissing off,” said Don. “Could it really just go away by itself?”

  “That would make sense, if it’s some kind of engineered antipersonnel weapon,” said Angela huffily. “You’d program it to go away after a while so you could move your troops in. Then you could do whatever you want. You could even go to Antarctica.” She watched X’s reaction intently, but X didn’t appear to be listening.

  “I wouldn’t get your hopes up,” said Tim.

  “Why not?” challenged Don. “There was a lot of jam, and now there’s less of it. I’m calling that a step in the right direction.”

  Tim snorted.

  “Yep, the jam could be all gone by the end of the day,” said Don, looking pleased. “They’ll be able to rescue everyone on a great big bus.”

  “You’re only setting yourself up for disappointment.”

  “Aw, what’s the matter? You upset because you might not get to start your new society?”

  “No!”

  “Never mind; maybe you could set yourself up in a nice treehouse and play The Floor Is Lava all day.”

  X didn’t seem to share Don’s optimism. She and Y were having an urgent, wordless conversation, backing and forthing a series of facial expressions ranging from concern to confusion to muted terror, punctuated by occasional worried looks at the jam, which continued to burble and fart to itself obliviously.

  Following their gazes, I noticed for the first time that the queues of abandoned traffic were becoming arranged more and more oddly the closer we moved to the city center. They weren’t in the neat rows we’d seen before. They were scattered and at strange angles, as if something big had swept through and shoved them out of the way. I turned to look northeast down Ann Street, away from the city center, and that’s when I saw the boat.

  “Is that a boat?” said Tim.

  “Don’t change the subject,” replied Don. “Yes, it’s a boat.”

  It was quite a big boat with big sails, and quite expensive looking. It was painted uniformly white, except for the name Everlong written in neat, serifed black letters along the side.

  The Everlong was floating freely in the middle of a ring formed by the shifted traffic—floating being the most intriguing aspect of its description. There was no trace of red goo in the interior and it didn’t look like the keel was having any difficulty gliding across the stuff, judging by the brief, strangled snatches of car alarms as it slowly bumped into partially submerged vehicles.

  “How’d that get there?” I asked, voicing everyone’s mutual thought.

  “Maybe it was on the river,” thought Angela aloud.

  “No one sails on the river,” said Don. “It’s full of public ferries and condoms. It’d be from the marina if anywhere.”

  “Who cares? It’d help us pick up speed,” said Tim, moving to the northeast corner of our current perch. “Look. We climb down onto the next building, drop onto the overhang, jump off that SUV there, then right into the thing. Sail it straight up Ann to the central business district. Couldn’t be more perfect.”

  “You can’t,” said X suddenly. Everyone turned to look at her and her shoulders immediately hunched up with regret for her hasty statement.

  “And why not?” said Angela, with the wheedling voice of a prosecuting counsel.

  “Because. It . . . doesn’t belong to us.”

  Don allowed the silence to go on for a few seconds so that everyone could drink it in. “Erm,” he began. “Where exactly was this respect for property when you were landing your helicopter yesterday?”

  X moved subtly closer to Y in the way she always did under pressure. “We just strongly feel that . . . employing the boat would not be an ideal course of action.”

  “You so know something about the jam!” barked Angela, camera quivering. “Just admit it! What do you want this country for? Is it the opals?!”

  “Hey!” said Don suddenly. “Hey hey hey hey! Who’s that?”

  He was pointing across the street. On the roof of the former bank was a small cluster of shapes, silhouetted against the morning sun. I shielded my eyes, and it became abundantly clear that they were people. Two men. They were obscured by shadow, but I could tell that the slightly bulkier of the pair was wearing a baseball cap, which I’ve never found to be a good first impression. He was also holding something indistinct but vaguely weaponlike in both hands, which was even worse.

  Tim raised his arm to shout a greeting, to welcome some new additions to the eventual gene pool of his new society, but thought better of it. The strangers had probably been watching us since we’d arrived, and hadn’t made any effort to draw attention to themselves. That was not the behavior of stalwart fellow survivors looking for friends—more like vultures perched on the rocks above a dying explorer.

  The peak of the larger man’s baseball cap was rotating nervously back and forth, towards us, then the Everlong, then back to us. As he scrutinized our party, it became clear that the same two thoughts were going through every head present. Firstly, that a jam-proof sailboat would be an unmixed benefit, and secondly, that eight would be a needlessly large crew
.

  As the delicate politics of the situation settled on our shoulders, we all stood in silence, gazing at each other from across the chasm of the street, wordlessly trying to ascertain each other’s character, wondering who was going to make the first move.

  Then Tim and the man in the baseball cap both broke into a run.

  Baseball Cap Man’s route took him across a few progressively lower roofs, then down a covered balcony; then a hop, skip, and a jump over two vans and a postbox and he’d be in the boat. Tim, meanwhile, first had to contend with a rather savage drop onto the next building.

  He landed with an uncertain roll and rose up into an awkward limp. Baseball Cap was already level with the Everlong, and it was clear now that even a direction as straightforward as “drop down onto the overhang” acquires no end of complications the longer one looks at it, especially with an already complaining ankle.

  Pausing the slightest moment to think—a moment that would probably have gone on much longer if he’d been thinking clearly—Tim opted to dangle down from the roof as far as he could, then let go.

  I could tell the awning was slightly lower and harder than Tim had been anticipating. He slammed onto it back first like a wrestler being thrown onto canvas, bounced towards the edge, and realized just an instant too late that the SUV he’d pointed out was nowhere near close enough for him to reach. The jam flexed in delighted surprise.

  He corrected himself in midair, flailing his arms and legs, and managed to grab the overhang again. The corner slammed into his chest and knocked the wind out of him, but two of his arms and one of his legs found purchase, and he ended up clinging to the top like a quivering limpet.

  Then there was a thump, and the man in the baseball cap bounced off the Everlong’s extended mainsail and fell back onto the small deck like a sack of potatoes. “Ha!” he exclaimed, holding up two victory signs. “Safe!” Now he was out of silhouette, I could see he was a short man in early middle age, with the kind of deep tan and muscular build that comes from a lifetime working on building sites and beating wives. The indistinct weapon he had been holding throughout was now quite distinctly identifiable as a crossbow, a sporting model with a cold efficiency to its design. He pulled himself to his feet and gestured to his friend on the opposite roof. “Toby! Get down here!”

  By then Tim had managed to climb fully onto the bus shelter and was now standing upright, clutching his side. He moved uncertainly towards the boat, but its new occupant hefted the crossbow and aimed it directly at Tim’s stomach.

  “Don’t think so, mate,” he said menacingly.

  “Don’t be stupid!” called Don from the rooftops. “There’s six of us and two of you!”

  “Well, why don’t you all come down and try it, then?” said Baseball Cap, nervously shaking the point of his crossbow in Don’s general direction. “I’ve got enough bolts for everyone. Toby! Hurry up!” Toby, a pudgy teenager, was still struggling his way down the first two rooftops.

  “Look, we can work something out,” said Tim in a reassuring if rather winded voice. “There aren’t many of us left in the city. We need to be able to trust each other.”

  “All right then,” said Baseball Cap agreeably. “Toss over all your supplies.”

  “Oh my god, he is doomed,” whispered Angela to me, keeping her camera on the scene.

  “Sod off!” said Don.

  “Be serious,” said Tim, the diplomat.

  I heard X make a sharp intake of breath, and turned to see her looking concernedly down the street with her hands over her mouth. I followed her gaze and didn’t see anything unusual—besides all the jam, of course—but I could hear a low rumble, just on the edge of earshot.

  “I’m totally serious,” said Baseball Cap, breathing heavily down his sight. “Trust starts with you. Anyone wants to ride, it’ll cost you food. Or blankets. The chicks can get in free.”

  Then I noticed something odd about the view to the south. The jam still stretched to the horizon, but the horizon seemed to be higher up than it had been a moment ago. The rumble was becoming a roar. Like the roar of the ocean, but . . . slower.

  “TIM!” I yelled, leaning forward as several of my thoughts suddenly came together. “GET TO HIGHER GROUND!”

  He took one look at the misbehaving horizon and immediately threw himself at a nearby lamppost. A tidal wave of jam was rolling its way up Ann towards the city center. It was a merciless fifteen-foot steamroller of God and it was coming fast, shoving cars aside in its wake like an ocean liner cutting through the foam.

  The man in the baseball cap was concentrating on keeping his crossbow trained on Tim, and by the time he noticed the incoming red wall he was far beyond saving. The boat stayed upright as the massive wave passed by underneath, carrying it another fifty yards down the street, but the jolt threw the man right off the deck and into the jam. Moments later a polished skeleton broke surface, its dissolving arm bones waving in desperate greeting as the wave swept it along.

  The rumble gradually faded into silence as the wave left us behind, continuing into the city. The jam in the street was back to its original depth, and the cars and buildings had the glimmering sheen of a recent polish. Tim clung like a sloth to the very top of his sparkling-clean lamppost, which had just barely escaped submersion.

  “Uh,” said the boy on the opposite rooftop who had answered to Toby. “Boat’s all yours.” Then he ran.

  “Oh no, after you,” yelled Don after him. “We insist!”

  —

  The Everlong had been pushed right up to the junction of Ann and Brunswick by the wave, and we could now climb down the side of the clothes shop and drop in at our convenience, which was something Tim apparently still wanted to do, once he was back with us and had stopped hyperventilating.

  “Hey,” said Don. “Gamble with your own life all you like. I insist. But don’t start adding us to the pot.”

  “There will be more ripples,” warned X.

  “How do you know?” said Angela instantly.

  “I said, there may be more ripples,” corrected X.

  Angela appealed to Don and me, waving her free hand as if prompting. “Am I the only one who notices when she does that?!”

  “It didn’t capsize,” said Tim. “Not then, and presumably not after however many waves there’ve been since this all started.”

  “That guy died,” I said.

  “We’d be fine if we were below decks. We know what to look for before a wave, now. That douche only died because he was taken by surprise.”

  “About that,” said Don. “I want to point out that we just watched a fellow human being die. I want it noted that I’m a little bit freaked out. Especially by how we’re all taking it in our stride at this point.”

  “You want to hold a requiem mass or something?” said Tim, clearly impatient. “Let’s go.”

  Debate concluded, Tim and Don climbed down, followed by Angela, sliding one handed down a drainpipe. As I lowered myself onto the first window ledge I saw that X and Y weren’t following. They were standing stiffly a few yards back from the edge of the roof as if suddenly acrophobic. Y was back in his folded-arms nightclub bouncer stance.

  “Are you coming?” I asked.

  X put on her diplomatic smile and shook her head a little too fast. “It’s our opinion that six is too many for a boat of that size. We’ll make our own way and rendezvous with you at the Hibatsu building.”

  I glanced towards the city. Ann Street ran straight to the central business district and there were plenty of islands and telegraph wires all the way. And they were probably right; the Everlong would be crowded enough with four. All in all her reasons were perfectly valid. But she was looking at me like a schoolgirl silently praying that her teacher would believe her hastily fabricated excuse for absence.

  “If you want,” I said, carefully stepping down onto a window ledge, tupperware box balanced on my shoulder. I resolved not to worry about it, but Mary was watching X and Y carefully, legs tensed with
suspicion.

  Tim was already on the overhang, clinging to another convenient lamppost and testing the Everlong with one foot. The jam seemed to actively repel whatever it wasn’t interested in eating, and the fiberglass keel was bobbing on the surface like a weight on a stretched rubber sheet. Tim sucked in a deep breath and stepped onto the deck. Don counted to ten, then, seeing Tim was still alive, joined him.

  “There you go,” said Tim, crouching by the hatch that led below decks. “Big heavy trapdoor. Good seal. Should be safe.”

  “Where’re X and Y?” said Don.

  “Er,” I said, accurately predicting his response at the very moment I opened my mouth. “They’re making their own way. They’ll meet us there.”

  “What did you say?” said Don in a low voice.

  “I—”

  “I heard what you said; I was being aghast. You just let them go?!”

  “Don’t yell at me,” I requested, staring at my hands. “What was I supposed to do?”

  “They could be doing anything!” said Angela, shoving me in the shoulder. “They’re probably giving away our position right now!” She immediately started scanning the sky for stealth bombers.

  “Look, it’s not that big a boat,” I protested. “They said they’d meet us at Hibatsu. There’s no reason they wouldn’t go there.”

  Don strode over and started jabbing his fingertips into my forehead to punctuate his words. “But what! If! They! Get picked up while we’re not around! Genius! You think they’re gonna say, ‘Oh no, we’d better remain in mortal danger for a bit longer while that random group of thick survivors catches up!’?”

  “Who’d want to leave us behind?” said Tim jovially, patting the Everlong’s mast. “We’ve got a boat! We’re officially the new ruling class!”

  Don loudly smacked himself full in the face with his palm. “Why is every survivor in this city an idiot or an arsehole?”

  “The whole working population got wiped out at rush hour,” suggested Tim. “Most of the people left would be whoever was still in bed. Students, the unemployed . . .”