He never told the others what happened.

They remembered what fear felt like as they passed Miami. The city looked just as decayed and haunted as Atlanta had, and they kept their distance.

If they’d tried to make Key West on foot or by car, they’d never have made it. Half the bridges were out, and Mortimer strongly suspected they’d been destroyed on purpose to keep away outsiders.

Too bad. Here we come.

They put down in a parking lot, several onlookers marveling at the sight of a blimp suddenly among them.

A man in his late fifties with a pierced ear, a gaudy Hawaiian shirt and a braided white beard introduced himself as the unofficial “sort of leader spokesperson guy” and asked for news of the outside world.

Mortimer said, “You don’t want to know.”

They were made welcome, and the locals showed them the ropes. They all got together about once every three months (give or take) to vote on whatever issues anyone wanted to raise, but nobody was obligated to abide by the outcome, so there wasn’t a lot of stress about it.

Mortimer was told to find any old abandoned dwelling and help himself. He found a small, three-room place forty feet from the beach and moved in. Sheila moved in with him by unspoken agreement.

Reverend Jake set up a church. People came occasionally for a little fire and brimstone, the closest thing the community had to theater.

The public library had been set up on the honor system. You signed out a book and brought it back whenever. If you kept a book too long, somebody might occasionally show up on your doorstep and say something along the lines of “Hey, man, you done with Potty Training for Dummies yet?”

It amused Mortimer to check out Milton’s Paradise Lost, but he quit reading halfway through and started checking out all the Harry Potter books instead.

They fished. They lounged in the sand and got tan. Mortimer made love to Sheila every night, often on the beach, sometimes in their lazy porch hammock. The Key West folks were easygoing, polite, helpful. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Mortimer knew that there was an ugly world out there waiting to crash down on these people. Sooner or later somebody would notice the island wasn’t getting its fair share of misery, and they’d swoop in with pain and sorrow.

But not today. Maybe never. Mortimer planned to forget, to make himself as blissfully ignorant as the rest.

Six months went by like nothing at all.

He was lounging in the shade of his porch one day when he saw a figure walking up the beach toward his little house. Sheila swung in the hammock next to him, snoring lightly. It was late afternoon and hot.

The figure took shape as he got closer. Bill. His long Buffalo Bill/George Custer hair bleached almost white, long braids on either side, as was the style on the island. He carried his boots in his hands and walked barefoot in the sand.

Mortimer waved and waited. Bill stepped onto the porch, nodded hello. Mortimer put his finger to his lips in a shhhhh gesture.

“Go ahead and talk,” Sheila said. “I’m awake.”

“I’m getting a little restless,” Bill said. “Thought I’d take off. Wanted to see if you’d come with me.”

“Sounds needlessly hazardous,” Mortimer said.

“One of the guys I know has been working on a boat at the old navy base. It’s rigged for steam. We’ve been on the shortwave radio to a lot of folks willing to trade. Thought we might get some commerce going.”

Mortimer shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t really think of anything I need.”

They had plenty of fish to eat, and mild weather, and fish, and people in Bermuda shorts who wanted to talk about how good or bad the fishing was on any particular day, and Jimmy Buffett music, and fish, and lots of swimming in the warm ocean, and fish, and plenty of goddamn fish.

“We’re heading for South America. Thought we might swing by Colombia, pick up some coffee.”

Mortimer stood, stretched lazily. “Guess I’d better get packed.”

“Me too,” Sheila said. “Don’t leave me stuck in paradise.”

About the Author

Victor Gischler lives in the wilds of Skiatook, Oklahoma -a long, long way from a Starbucks. His wife, Jackie, thinks he is a silly individual. He drinks black, black coffee all day long and sleeps about seven minutes a night. Victor’s first novel, Gun Monkeys, was nominated for the Edgar Award.