The Long Summer

by Rod Rayborne

  Rabbit moaned low, barely audible to him. He was breathing hard, heart pounding, sweat running down his face, anointing Rabbit. Unintentionally, it helped to cool her slightly.

  After he had been running for an hour, his right arm began to lose its feeling from carrying her for so long. Rabbit had gone limp in his arms, her head rocking back and forth across his shoulder. Her arms fell from around his neck to dangle at her side. Hershel pulled her away then, looking hard at her. She appeared lifeless. He shook her gently, pushing his face against her forehead. There was no reaction.

  "No, no, no little one," he said, tears welling in his eyes. He slowed long enough to place an ear against her chest. He could hear her heart, still beating, but it was gentle, her breathing shallow.

  "No," he said again. His voice sounded strange to him. Not his own. "You don't get to do that. I promised you I'm gonna take care of you and I ain't never broke a promise. Not in my life. I'll get you well but you got to hang on. You got to be helping me. I can't do it by myself. I can't."

  He looked around anxiously, slowing to catch his breath, his heart pounding painfully. Six miles to the south he'd gone, though he imagined he had only gone a mile, maybe two. As darkness closed in on him, he quickened his pace again.

  Rabbit started to fall backwards, he grabbing her, pulling her back against his chest. His breathing became ragged as the hour he had been running became two, then three. The tendons in his legs were on fire. They wanted to rip through his skin, slow him down, force him to stop and rest. He ignored the pain, limping. He would keep his promise.

  Then, as he ran, he did something he had not done since he had been a boy, so long ago. Running, he shouted into the sky, shouted at God, furious, pleading, demanding that he be heard. He stumbled over objects in the road, things thrown in the blast. He thought about the possessions he had loved from the old world. Stuff. None of it mattered anymore. Saving this one little girl was his world now.

  "You can hear me. I know you can. You, maker. You made this little girl. Please. You have to help her. Ain't she been through enough already? What kind of God are you? You want me to beg? I'm not a man to beg, but I'm begging you now.

  I made my mistakes. Don't need to say them now, you know all. Please don't take Rabbit. She ain't even had a life yet. It ain't right! I don't need to tell you that. You're not looking for praise. They ain't no ego in the Almighty. You want people to care. Well, I care. Now I'm asking you to. I'm begging you, don't take Rabbit. Let her live a life. Let her live."

  At that moment, a slow roll of thunder lacerated the sky from south to north. Hershel looked up, seeing a vapor of light touch the hills to his right, holding there, an angry reproach at his impudence that also pointed out a direction to go, if he were gullible or desperate enough to believe it. Take Rabbit there. A seething, angry God, go there! And so he did.

  A pale shaft of light shone through the smoke and haze. It illuminated a section of the city beyond his sight, moving away from them towards the south. He knew he was imagining it but turned in that direction, holding Rabbit tightly, protectively.

  He pushed forward, running as fast as his exhausted body could manage. The streets had become dark, a quiet glow from the sky highlighting the edges of houses, cars, mailboxes. It occurred to him that he saw less damage here, less destruction. Cars were right side up. Buildings whole, mostly, a few windows still glassed. It was better here, to the south.

  Several miles from his destination, he saw other people, walking. They were alone and in twos and threes. They joined with others, families, groups, crowds of people pointing towards the light, moving south. He joined them. They looked tiredly at him, at Rabbit. They asked nothing and he offered nothing. A throng moving together in the dark. Joined by a river of others coming from the east, the north.

  They walked for most of the night together. Some of them moved away from him hugging the I10. Maybe they didn't see the light after all. Still he moved towards the hills. A few walked with him in a kind of stunned silence.

  When an hour later he saw the hospital, he wept. He walked weakly towards the artificial glow, floodlights flickering in the ink of night, gasoline powered generators loudly running to one side, venting their fumes and noise into the rim of the night sky to mingle with the nuclear apocalypse boiling there.

  A heavy aroma of diesel floated through the crowd waiting patiently somehow despite the hour beneath a huge canopy that had been erected for them.

  Hershel brushed past them, past their cries, the piles of vomit, the people laying nearby on cots, blankets or the hard ground, some never to rise again. He carried his tiny parcel into the blinding light. He was unwilling to be fair, to stand and wait his turn with everyone else. His size discouraged argument. The shotgun he had strapped to his back didn't hurt either. Throngs, seeing him, the child he carried in his arms, parted. He walked into the hospital, blinking against the light. Inside, the brightness extended only seventy feet or so from the entrance. Beyond, the halls lay in darkness. Though the hospital was at capacity, that was all the fuel on hand for the generators.

  Hershel pushed his way to the front of the line. Here, an intern, a young man, exhausted, staggering, moved along the line. He blinked, fought to stay awake, writing on his clipboard. Hershel said nothing, holding out the limp body of the girl. The intern looked at Rabbit and then up at the giant carrying her. He glanced at the shotgun. Saying nothing, he took him by his arm towards a room down the hall, pushed the door open and directed him inside. Turning, he closed the door. He had not spoken at all. He didn't have the strength.

  Hershel stood in the artificial glare, looking down at Rabbit. She lay there, eyes closed, unresponsive, hanging in his arms like a wet towel. The door opened then, another exhausted man in a blood smeared smock walking in. He looked at Hershel then at Rabbit with acquiescence in his eyes. He knew what Hershel wanted. Staring at Rabbit, her head lolling backwards, he put his stethoscope in his ears and placed it against her hollow chest. He swayed, his blinking eyes telling of days without sleep. He listened, moving the chest piece around. Then he looked at Herschel.

  "It's radiation. Like the rest. She's not going to make it. I'm sorry."

  Hershel grabbed the man's arm in a steel grip.

  "Do something," he said low.

  "There's nothing I can do. She's too small. Too weak."

  "Do something," Hershel repeated threateningly.

  The doctor looked at him and sighed.

  "Take her south. As far as you can go. Farther."

  He reached into a pocket on his smock, pulling out a small plastic and foil sleeve. It held six white tablets, three empty. He popped one of the tablets out and handed it to Hershel. Pentobarbital.

  "Take it," he said, pressing it into Hershel's hand.

  "What is it?" he asked.

  The doctor looked at him a moment before responding.

  "It'll help. It's painless. It's all I can offer." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the sleeve again. "For you." He held one hand under Hershel's, dropping the tablet into it with the other. "Again, I'm sorry."

  "No," Hershel said, pushing them back towards the doctor. She's a little girl."

  "It's all I can do. She has advanced radiation sickness. We all do to some degree. But she's smaller, more frail."

  Hershel stared at him.

  The doctor frowned angrily.

  "Get south. Maybe..." He stopped, looking down, unwilling to meet Hershel eyes.

  Hershel looked at the tablets in his hand and then pushed them into his shirt pocket. He nodded at the man in the bloody smock, turned and walked out of the room.

  Chapter Fifty Four

  6 :30 in the a.m. Deenie stood by silently. She hovered behind the wall of the abandoned 19th century wood frame house, surrounded by a flurry of pepper and tall oak trees, aged appropriately, having been planted when the house was built in 1888. In her arms she held an AK-47, pointing up, safety off.

  Standing opposite her was C
onrad near a decrepit wood shed, shotgun cradled in his arms, also pointed towards the sky, finger on trigger. Between them, the view opened out onto a wide street leading to Oxford Avenue. Deenie and Conrad nudged a looked around their respective corners. On the broad avenue beyond, a hundred soldiers marched by. With the increasing coolness, the temperature now below one hundred, the soldiers were ordered into full combat gear.

  They were camouflaged, helmeted, M-4's carried in both hands. And they were wary. Dozens of soldiers had been killed in the last three days, thus the large patrol. Now they avoided the choke points, tight corners, narrow streets, overhanging windows, blind alleys. They marched four abreast, lines ten feet apart to be less susceptible to being mowed down in one go. They stayed off the sidewalks, walked around the stalled cars on the streets that hadn't yet been cleared. Those in the rear kept watch behind them. They were told to open up on any resistance no matter how minor. Order would be reestablished at any price.

  Deenie looked at Conrad and smirked. Rusty wanted her to take him out to the Nethers, what they called the outside periphery of their immediate neighborhood to work reconnaissance. He trusted Deenie to go unseen. He also trusted her to keep a jaundiced eye on Conrad and report back to him anything out of the ordinary. The men had already made up their minds about him and Mika had her own reasons for disliking him.

  But Deenie was respected for being both tough and fair. She'd made a reputation for herself as a no nonsense parole officer in the last eight years, twice decorated before that in Iraq for valor. Standing five/five, all muscle. Her mohawk ended down the back of her head in a skinny braid. Shirtless, she had body paint smeared in two stripes across her prodigious breasts and two smaller stripes on her cheeks. Her square face, heavy jaw and masculine demeanor discouraged male attention. Which was exactly as she liked it.

  Conrad sensing Deenie's gaze looked back at her contemptuously. He stared at her breasts and shook his head. Such a waste, he thought, to have a rack like that on a dike.

  He looked up again and saw a sneer in her eyes. Then he noticed her gun had leveled with his chest. He swallowed hard and looked back toward the passing soldiers.

  Deenie spat in the dirt between them and turned back to look at the soldiers. Watching them, she addressed him, her voice low, full of disgust.

  "Where's your wife, Conrad? Why isn't she here with you?"

  "What's it to you?"

  "I'm just asking. You have a problem with that?"

  "I have a problem with you."

  "Yeah, and what's that? Not woman enough for you?"

  He looked at her and then back towards the soldiers.

  "You were saying?" Deenie asked.

  "Said nothing. Mind your own business."

  "See, you say your wife was killed in the blast, but I don't know."

  "What don't you know?" he said evenly, looking back at her.

  "Just seems a little strange to me that you told us your wife was killed in the Blow just days ago and you haven't mentioned it once more since then. Not a peep. That don't seem strange to you?"

  "We weren't exactly close. Was planning on a divorce when the bombs hit. People do that, you know. Divorce. She was seeing other people. I was seeing other people. Wasn't even living together last six months or so. Anything else you want to know?"

  "Yeah, yeah. I get that. Must be why you was hitting on Mika then, hey? You were free, your wife was free. Why not?"

  "Yeah, that's right. Like I said, what's it to you?"

  "Oh nothing." She fell silent. She looked back towards the street. The soldiers were still passing in the half-light. Then she spoke up again.

  "Haven't been together six months, you say? Been doing some dating?"

  Conrad looked hard at Deenie. "What're you driving at, lady," he asked, emphasizing the last word.

  Deenie said nothing. She continued to watch the soldiers.

  "I said what's your point? Why are you asking me all these questions? You a cop or something?"

  She looked at him smilingly.

  "Something. And I got to say, something don't quiet add up in your story."

  Conrad grimaced.

  "Not a story. You got a lot of nerve."

  Ignoring his remark, Deenie looked at his hands, his left hand specifically.

  "Interesting you say you and your wife been split for six months."

  Conrad stared at her.

  "You got any Irish in you?"

  "German. That a crime too?"

  "Cause if you had some Irish, I'd have understood why you still have a white band where your wedding ring used to be. Even after six months. Mika saw it on your finger just a few weeks ago. Honestly. if I didn't know better, I'd say you shucked that ring not three days ago. Like, just before you showed up on Mika's doorstep, maybe."

  Conrad stared at her. Then before she realized what was happening, he brought the butt of his rifle up, slamming it into her nose, a loud crack resounding in the quiet. She staggered back, dropping her rifle, her hands flying to her face. Then she slipped and went down, rolling over onto her back, blood spurting from between her fingers. She looked up at Conrad standing over her. The last thing she saw was the heel of his boot rising over her head. Fade to black.

  Conrad looked out again at the passing soldiers. Then he pointed his gun out towards them, taking aim. Pulling the trigger, he watched as the bullet sheered off a portion of a soldier's jaw, propelling him backwards into the street, ducking back behind the shed before they could see who'd taken the shot. They'd come, take the body, he hoped. Immediately the other soldiers scattered, sending a fusillade of bullets in his direction. He threw his rifle into some nearby shrubs, turned and ran.

  Chapter Fifty Five

  T hey jogged en masse, rifles at the ready. They kept to a slow but steady pace, one hundred soldiers spread out in a triangle formation a city block long. There were similar groups of soldiers deployed in other high-risk areas of the city. They moved behind tanks that rumbled over the debris like it wasn't even there, turrets rotating back and forth threateningly.

  When a driver saw an obstruction, often put there by angry people wanting to keep the army out of their neighborhood, he would simply smash through them. If people had gathered on the other side, usually holding weapons of their own, they were ordered to drop them immediately or face the consequences. Sometimes they did drop them, soldiers moving in to push them onto their faces, kneeling with their knees on the necks of the protestors, securing their arms behind their backs with thick plastic zip ties. Then they were roughly yanked to their feet again, made to form a line and marched off under guard to a detainment camp sometimes miles away.

  Other times the resistors were less inclined to surrender. Then the soldiers would fan out on either side of the tank, aim their rifles and offer them one more chance to comply, depending on the mood of the CO onsite. If that didn't happen, they would be mowed down. Confrontations like these grew steadily over the city. The country. People tired of living under threat of attack were taking the fight back to the soldiers. They'd grown weary of living under the threat of annihilation. They'd heard the warnings nightly when they turned on their TV's. Wars and rumors of war. They'd had enough.

  Peaceful resistance in some cases, less so in others. In every incidence of non peaceful resistance, the outcome was always the same. Slaughter after massacre. Grenades and tear gas. They didn't stand a chance. Somehow word of the protests spread and ever more people joined the cause.

  They wanted to take another path. They disagreed on where the path was. They just knew this wasn't it. They weren't interested in a rinse and repeat. They shouted the same slogan again and again. "Don't make the same mistake twice."

  As the resistance grew, the army took tougher measures to try to stamp it out. They saw this as an insurrection, though they stopped short of calling it a civil war. Through some kind of providence, the military had been spared the worst of the catastrophe and they had the means and the manpower to prosecute lon
g and protracted counter measures to the uprising. They spread leaflets everywhere demanding that people turn in their weapons as per the Domestic Weapons Act.

  On the flyers, they also promised a substantial reward for anyone who could identify the person and location of one Colonel Beckman whom they identified as a high level traitor wanted in connection with a number of heinous crimes, including but not limited to treason, murder, gun running, and dealing in illegal substances.

  They withheld food and drink from neighborhoods where the fighting was fiercest, laying siege to whole swaths of the city miles wide, hoping to eventually starve the protestors into submission. In communities around the country known to be substantially pro gun, they began a blitzkrieg style campaign, a lightening war that took red state survivors by surprise. They fought back as best they could but these were brutal, one-sided affairs.

  The army having long ago anticipated the possibility of such a revolt, came prepared, the other side not as much. Hopelessly outnumbered, suffering one demoralizing defeat after another, some of the citizen armies relented. For them, it was a fait accompli in mere days.

  Still, as other rebel groups became more organized, more sophisticated in their ability to repel the government's forces, the military became more desperate. They began to plant mines and then coax the other side into engaging with them. The bloodletting was horrific.

  Some soldiers refused to take part in the killing. These were sent back to the camps for reeducation. Others went AWOL, disappearing into the dusty cracks and crevices of the surrounding cities. Some succeeded in making it to safety. Most did not. The army was relentless. If a soldier went missing, the area was surrounded and combed until the offender was found hiding in some destroyed basement or fallen substructure. Those who were found were executed on the spot and strung up as traitors to set an example for the rest.