Stranger

Fourth of July

“Call me crazy,” I told them. They did call me crazy. They tried to persuade me not to do it. Only I am crazy. Or at least half crazy, I guess. Only when they saw that I’d go alone if need be did they come, too. On the morning of the Fourth of July I loaded the Jeep with fireworks. I’d found them in a warehouse in the weeks after the hornets had died by the thousand outside our cabins.

Now we lived in a different place, of course. In houses by a lake. We’re alone. No hornets bother us now. We all agreed that they’d simply starved or frozen to death during the winter. We didn’t see any human beings either. Most of us believed we were the last people on the planet.

Me? I thought different. That was the reason I drove out that morning with fireworks piled in the open-top Jeep. Ben, Zak, Tony and Michaela came, too. Partly to see what I did, partly to stop me doing anything too crazy. I drove all day, heading for the highest mountain on the map possessing a road to the top. The little Jee p that was a veteran of Vietnam climbed steadily all the way to the top. From there I could see a hundre d miles of forest in every direction. Michaela and the rest watched me as if maybe even more craziness was running through my blood. But it was something I had to do. If this didn’t work I’d go back down the mountainside with Michaela. I’d agree that we were alone in the world. And we’d live the rest of our lives as well as we could with that understanding. But I had to give it one last shot.

First we had to wait for the sun to go down. I sat on the hood of the Jeep gazing out over a hundred miles of America. She’d gone through hell during the last eighteen months, but she still looked as beautiful as she’d always done. Beneath perfect blue July skies I allowed my eyes to roam over forests, rivers and lakes. From here I could even see Lake Coben, with Sullivan showing as a pale speck on the shoreline. Of course the town was finished now. I’d been back there to walk through the deserted streets. The courthouse lay in ashes. Even my old cabin had been burned to the ground. Everyone had gone. Or were dead. I’d seen old man Crowther and that son of his decomposing on their own driveway. Their bodies were lying with their hands ’round each other’s throats. What drove them to kill each other I’ll never know. Nor do I care. They deserved each other.

After that I left the ghost town to visit the white block of stones where I’d buried Mom and Chelle. Maybe I’d buried secrets with them, too. More than I dare spec-ulate about. I picked up a football-sized piece of rock and stood it on the mound of stones. “There,” I told them as they lay together in the ground. “It’s finished now.”

Then I drove out of the place without looking back. Now I sat and I waited. No one said anything as the sun slipped out of the sky to sink into the horizon. As the stars came out I fired the first rocket. It climbed, leaving a trail of fire. A thousand feet above the mountaintop it burst, sending out red and silver balls of light.

In a near whisper Tony said, “Happy Fourth of July.” I fired another. A huge chrysanthemum of purple sparks expanded to cover half the sky. The explosion rolled down the mountainside and out across the face of a darkened America. I gazed outward, too, searching for the light of a house or even a campfire in the distance.

There was nothing.

I fired another rocket. It roared upward to break open, spilling streams of gold and silver. For the next two hours I fired a rocket every fifteen minutes. By midnight I’d reached the last one.

Michaela slipped her arms ’round me. “Don’t let it bother you, Greg. Even if we are alone we can make this work.”

The last rocket rose upward. It seemed to ascend right into the canopy of stars. Even when the powder had burned out it still floated upward, as if gravity could no longer restrain it. Then, at last, it burst without a sound. A waterfall of colored lights cascaded gently earthward-vivid blues, reds, silvers, yellows, greens-that seemed for a moment to become part of the night sky.

“That’s the last one, Greg.” Zak spoke gently. “There’s beer in the Jeep. I know I could do with one right now.”

The road where the Jeep sat lay just a few yards down the slope. In a moment I’d have to return to it, then head home, knowing I’d failed.

Ben slapped me on the back. “You gave it a good shot, Greg. Even if there’s no one else out there we’re going to stick together. We can live on the food in the bunker for years. There’s enough gas there to

…”

His voice faded. Way, way to the north, just on the edge of visibility, a spark flickered on the horizon, then slowly faded.

Ben breathed out. “Oh, my…”

Zak turned to the south. “Greg, Michaela, look.”

Tony grabbed my arm. “And over there, behind you.”

Slowly, without fuss, without sound, skyrockets burst one after another on the far horizons. The nearest couldn’t have been any less than fifty miles away. But that didn’t matter. They were there. They were fired by human hands. And as dozens of rockets rose upward to burst in the sky on that Fourth of July night I knew without question that I was witnessing one of the most beautiful sights I’d ever seen.

And that can’t be a bad way to bring this account of what happened to me to an end, can it?

So just keep smiling. Keep hanging on in there. Because together we’re going to make it.