The Long Summer

by Rod Rayborne

  He stood transfixed for a moment, not knowing if he should stay and wait for the source of the sounds to present themselves in a city he had thought vacant only seconds before or follow his instincts and run. He decided to wait a moment.

  Presently he saw an animal running towards him. A dog. As the dog approached, he recognized it as a Golden Retriever. He stood watching as the dog stopped some twenty or so feet from him, a much smaller dog in tow. A Scottie, he judged, oily fur spattered with mud. Apparently the dogs had been having a good time in the wake of their masters sudden demise. He was amused and waited to see what the dogs were going to do.

  "You're the pack of wild dogs I've read about in those end of the world books? A Golden Retriever and his side kick?" he asked.

  He bent down and offered his hand, palm up. The dogs didn't move, neither threatening him nor seemingly interested in a meeting. They appeared undecided what they should do next. Then Gordon, tiring of the standoff, stood and growled to scare them away. The Golden's answering growl was much more impressive, baring a yellow set of fangs in his direction. Gordon took a step back then, surprised at the animal's quick ferocity. Then angry, he stepped forward again and shouted, throwing up his arms as he did.

  Immediately he did so, the dog launched himself at him. Gordon stumbled backwards, the bags of food slipping from his fingers. Fear widened his eyes, twisting around and almost losing his balance, pushing off the pavement with one hand and lurching into the nearest open door. A small hardware store, the name of which was lying broken on the pavement where it had fallen along with the glass the windows once held.

  He cleared the counter before him in one easy jump, slamming into a display blocking the floor beyond. Catching his foot, he went down hard, smacking his head against something hard enough to daze him momentarily before he staggered up again. The sounds of pursuit closed on him, heavy panting accompanying them.

  His hand brushed something tall and he turned towards it, grabbing a thin plastic door and pulling it closed behind him. He had no sooner shut the flimsy door of what he now guessed was a plastic tool closet when the impact of the dog's body sent it backwards where it teetered at a terrifying angle before righting itself once again. Then came a cacophony of barking, excited yips and a furious scratching against the cheap door telling Gordon that naturally he faced a pair of psycho animals determined to reach him any way they could. The Scottie was a joke but he wasn't sure he could escape an encounter with the larger animal without some serious injuries.

  "Get out of here!" he shouted, to no effect. "You can't be hungry already. Not in two days."

  The dogs only scratched more furiously on the plastic, trying to dig their way inside.

  "What's wrong with the poor bastards on the sidewalks outside? Too well done?" He slammed his fist into the panel at his side. the Blow shook the thin sarcophagus.

  There was no handle on the inside of the door for him to hold and it swung open. He could see the Golden jumping towards him before he frantically noted a vent cut outhouse style through the top of the door. A sliver moon.

  He slipped his fingers through the opening and slammed it shut once again, much to the chagrin of the dogs without. They set up a veritable cacophony of barking and whining, digging all the more against the bargain-basement coffin he now considered his new home to be.

  He wondered how long it would take them to dig a hole through the plastic if they kept at it. But within a few minutes, the larger dog had quieted down while the infernal yapping from the Scottie went on nonstop, assuring Gordon the larger dog was still there. His fingers still grasping the vent, he pushed the door open an inch. On the floor before him, the yellow dog was lying with his head resting on his paws. He lifted it when the door opened but didn't bark. The Scottie, on the other hand, renewed his barking, digging at the small opening with surprising determination.

  "You want in here, you little rat? That'd be the last thing you ever did."

  The larger dog cocked his head, watching the scene with clear interest. Gordon looked at the dog, wondering how he might feel about another show of kindness.

  "Hey boy, you're a good dog. Why don't you eat your little friend there and let me out, hmm?"

  Gordon eased the door open another half inch and immediately the big dog was on his feet. Gordon slammed the door shut again. He contented himself by listening to the incessant yipping and scratching from the smaller dog.

  Perhaps a half hour later, to Gordon's surprise, the noise had ceased. Gordon pressed his ear to the plastic but no sound penetrated the thin PVC. Were the brutes that clever, he wondered, trying to fool him into opening the door while they waited just outside, prepared to spring? Not the little one, that was sure. Maybe the Golden had grown as tired of the racket as had he and eaten the mutt after all.

  He waited another minute and then pushed the door open slightly. In the wan light he could see no movement and he pushed the door open further. He stuck his head through the crack and looked around. As best he could see, the building appeared to be empty. Cautiously he stepped out of the tool closet and crept towards the front of the store. There he saw his answer, the dogs had found the food he had dropped in the street and were fast gulping the remains. He cursed quietly. Most of it was packaged, not canned, and when that was gone, they would be back he knew and in a hurry.

  He turned and made his way as quietly as he could manage towards the back of the store in hopes of finding a rear exit. Seeing a thin light outlining a double door, probably used for shipping, Gordon cautiously felt for the knob and turned it. His heart skipped a beat when nothing happened, skipped another when he heard a scrabbling at the front of the store. He felt under the knob and found the deadbolt. Throwing caution to the wind, he hastily unlocked the door and pushed it open, slamming it shut again behind him.

  Knowing the dogs would not be so easily put off, he began to run. He didn't stop until he had put several blocks behind him.

  Chapter Nine

  M ajor General of the Army, Lucas C. Owen, the senior ranking member of the New States of America (NSA) Armed Forces in the Los Angeles basin, stood in full regalia at the podium in the auditorium of Royce Hall, UCLA where they had chosen to base. An imposing figure, he stood 6'2" and came fully equipped with massive biceps, a bull neck and a thick shock of salt and pepper atop his enormous head. Now as he stood facing the audience, he was perspiring profusely in the stifling heat, his jacket splotched with smears of sweat that visibly expanded and joined as the seconds passed. He wore no mask.

  How hot it actually was no one really knew. Electronic thermometers had delicate computer chips in them and, of course, didn't work. Hospital variety glass thermometers, on the other hand, all topped out at 105°F. Over that and the patient was either newly dead or probably soon to be.

  Owen addressed some six hundred and twenty six men and women, also fully outfitted in the attire of their respective services as per orders and sweating just as profusely, some wearing respirators, some not. They represented the entire compliment of officers and enlisted soldiers in Owen's militia. Many of them, mostly officers who'd gotten advanced warning as did Owen of the impending strike, had been down in the fallout shelter with him when the bomb fell. These sat at the front third of the auditorium, the enlisted behind them. Not in the fallout shelters, the enlisted or 'these fortunates', as Owen referred to them, were members of the various services who had been rescued from the surrounding community and pressed into service in his newly commissioned army, many in understandably worse health than the former. The worst of them occupied the last rows at the back of the hall and we're being quietly tended by medical personnel.

  To be sure, these were not the only members of the NSA military in the Los Angeles area known to those gathered there to still be alive, but they were all that Owen and his officers thought wise to include as Assumed Trusted. At least for now.

  Major General Owen, nervous and physically uncomfortable to boot, straightened the notes in his right
hand for the forth time, then dabbed at his stern face with a handkerchief he held in his left. Clearing his throat, he began.

  "Good News! I bring you good news dear members of the US Armed Forces. Now, the Armed Forces of The New States of America! For indeed, that is what we are." He bellowed out the last few words. "I've made contact with elements of our military around the country. I've learned that, far from being destroyed, the New States of America is already back in business!"

  The audience erupted in applause, cheers and whistles resounding throughout the auditorium.

  "Yes, good news! Vice President Adam Lowry, on behalf of the President, is even now pulling together a new administration from the best and brightest of our military, the finest organization the world has ever known! Yes dear friends, the New States have risen again!"

  Again the cheers rang out in thunderous applause as the audience jumped to their feet. Wide smiles on happy faces that warmed Owen's heart.

  He waited while the crowd clapped and then held up his hands while they sat down once more. He paused a moment and then continued.

  "As a result of these extraordinary times, I have been asked by the Vice President and have agreed to accept the position of interim Governor of this region of the country. The fifty states as such, along with their borders and individual laws and regulations have been dissolved."

  Owen paused while the full import of what he said, sunk in. A murmur ran through the audience, people looking around, whispering in low tones, heads shaking and shrugs. When it grew silent again, Owen continued.

  "We are now one country of four states, thus the designation, 'New' States of America. These states are of roughly equal size. New California on the west, New Washington on the east, New Dakota on the north and New Texas to the south. The borders for the four states has been drawn thus."

  Owen walked to a black board behind him, picked up a piece of chalk and quickly drew a large X.

  "Thus each of the states claim all of the border for their side of the country. If New California, therefore wants access to the northern border, they must allow New Dakota access to the western border in return. And so on. This will guarantee free and unfettered access to every part of the country for all citizens.

  In addition to the above, there will no longer be separate laws or separate regulations for individual regions of the country but one law as set down and proscribed by the Federal Government for all regions. The four states agree to be governed by these laws. All persons living in any particular state will be fully subject to these laws."

  Owen waited while heads were bent and shoulders shrugged and then continued.

  "Now, it's true, things look dark at present. Our country has sustained incredible losses in the heinous and unprovoked attack upon us by our enemies. We've lost a substantial portion of our population to those unmerciful bombs from foreign lands. Much of our infrastructure has been decimated. And the suddenness of the strikes gutted the halls of Washington and left most of our top elected officials dead. Congress is no more, the corridors of politics abandoned.

  "Thus, in this time of hardship, we few who survive must stand together as one, one family held together by a single bond, to protect and defend this, still the greatest country on Earth!

  "Now, I've lost family too. Family and friends alike. As have you all. I feel that pain just as you do. The pain of loss. The pain of suffering. The pain of injustice. No one can go unmarked by an event such as this. A specter the possibly of which has haunted us for the last eighty plus years. It's sad fulfillment something we will carry with us for the remainder of our lives.

  "A universal disaster. For surely I tell you, our enemies are suffering as well. Far worse than are we. I have that on good authority. They began this conflict, but we shall end it, and end it we shall. You have my word on that!" He paused for effect and then continued somberly.

  "But now is not the time to speak of revenge. Others are taking care of that. No, we must seek out community amongst our brothers and sisters who live in this the greatest city on Earth, Los Angeles."

  Another round of applause met his words. These were locals. Owen smiled and stopped again to soak in the approval. He needed it, he knew. The hard part was coming.

  "Now we must rebuild. We will turn this darkened land bright again. With the coordinated efforts of all factions of our armed forces operating in unison across the country, we will make the New States better than it was before. And we will do it together. Even now we continue to project our might around the world, just as before. But we must also look inwardly. Evil lives not just in foreign lands. It still lives in our own!

  "We were allowed to live and given a choice by our Creator; a singular and unique opportunity like none other in the history of humankind. To prove that we are up to the task that God has so graciously bestowed upon us, we must do his work by cleansing away the evil that has infested our once fair country. God began the work when the bombs fell but he has left it for us to finish."

  There was a low murmur of disapproval from the back of the room at the suggestion that God had brought the disaster on the world. The general consensus among the raised voices was that God had nothing to do with it. That it was the doing of individuals, foreign nationals, people.

  "And I agree with you entirely," Owen quickly backtracked. "That's just precisely what I've been coming to all along. What grand purpose has the Almighty given to us? Of what do I speak, brothers and sisters? Why, none other than a New Covenant delivered to Vice President Lowry by the hand of Providence. What is this New Covenant of which I speak? A new direction for our country. A new task to make this, the New States of America, even greater than it once was. And we can do it, friends. No, I don't say we can do it. I say we will do it!

  "The task of sweeping the rats from our streets, dragging the vermin from their hiding places, those who brought such misery into our lives before the bombs fell and who, they who yet live, are even now preparing to begin again the transgressions that brought wrath down upon us all in the first place. And not just here, no. Everywhere. For we have been given the singular honor of working to reassert right not just here, but over the world itself.

  "But first we must begin here, in our own fair land. The work entrusted to us friends is this. To sweep from our country the murderers, the fraudsters, the perverts, the resistors, the foreigners. In other words my friends, I speak of criminals!"

  At this, several voices among the enlisted simultaneously broke out in anger at the back of the auditorium. Questions about the broad scope of the new directive. Concerns that it was going to herald a new intolerance from the government. And the part about foreigners, what was that about? But they were shouted down by the majority who maintained that discipline and respect for the office of Major General must supercede any disagreement about his politics. Owen waited while the argument raged on, eager to know the general mood of the soldiers to what he was saying.

  "Now I realize some of you may not understand the wisdom of what I'm saying as yet, but you will. You'll see, with time, that the New States of America will be a generous and merciful country. We have no wish to visit the same harm on our enemies here that their countrymen in foreign lands have so cruelly visited upon us. We are not unreasonable.

  "Under the New Covenant, only persons of foreign heritage with criminal records, those who contribute nothing to our great society and worse, those who actively resist the rightful authority of the New States either by action or inaction or as agents of foreign powers, will be removed from our society in the most efficient ways possible.

  "Look, are there not persons of foreign descent here among us right now? Serving our great country as patriotic members of our armed forces? Deserving of the highest honor and respect that any other soldier in our family enjoys. That's what you'll continue to receive under the New Covenant."

  There was applause from the officers in the front of the auditorium. Behind them, silence. Owen stared out at them, his face darkening.


  Then straightening he said, "And remember, you're still soldiers in this man's army and in this small section of God's half acre, I'm the ranking officer. As the designated authority here, my word is law. The military isn't a democracy and there's a reason for that."

  He paused, staring down at his notes, then looked out again at his audience.

  "Thank you all for your time. May God bless you and bless the New States of America!"

  With that, he folder his notes and strolled from the hall.

  Chapter Ten

  R ising out of the gloom of the downtown district was the Wilshire Grand Center. Parked at the nexus of some of Los Angeles's most iconic attractions, it was a seventy three story, eight hundred and ninety five room monument to unfettered extravagance. The tallest building in California, it reared skyward, a seemingly endless tower of gleaming glass and steel. Or it did until it didn't, Gordon thought. Now he supposed it looked more like a set from a post apocalyptic doomsday thriller. Colorless, listing to the north, windows blown out and a healthy chunk of the north side missing, he could almost see the scene unfolding on the big screen.

  One man, the last man, come to that, standing on a quiet top floor balcony overlooking a brown city under a brown sky, covered in a thick layer of greasy brine. Everywhere brown hillocks of dead and empty buildings, no lights to be seen anywhere, no sounds save that of collapsing walls, no life but his own. A man desperate and alone, devoid of hope, wondering what the point of it all was. Should he struggle on or take a final bow? The top of a seventy three story glass behemoth would be just the place to do that. Would God forgive him, this little indiscretion, he wondered? How could he not?