by Lopez, Rob
Rick descended the ladder to check on Josh and Chuck. They had the side door covered – nothing was going to sneak in that way. Lizzy and Daniel were with Janice, barricaded behind a fort of tables in the ballroom, well away from the windows. Rick toured the building, checking every entry and looking outside for movement, but everything was clear. When he returned to Lauren’s position, he saw that Packy hadn’t moved. He took up his binoculars again.
“Maybe he does want to trade,” said Lauren, eye glued to the scope. “He’s waving.”
“So what’s he doing way out there? Why doesn’t he just knock?”
“Well, you know Packy.”
“That’s just it. I don’t, and neither do you. He robbed the hospital.”
“There is that.”
Rick lowered his binoculars. He wasn’t well enough acquainted with lunatics to guess their intentions. “We’ll wait. I don’t want to do anything until Scott gets back. Until then, the ball’s in Packy’s court. Let’s see what he serves.”
The morning drew on. The sun had been shining earlier, raising a mist from the wet, overgrown grass, but a thin layer of white cloud blotted out the blue sky now, leaving just the cold. Packy sat in a seemingly nonchalant gaze. As the time passed, he began to fidget, rubbing his arms. Eventually, he got up, stamping his feet and hugging himself. When that got boring, he began performing calisthenics. Lauren and Rick passed the time watching him do stretches, squats and a bizarre rotating leg kick, all in slow motion. By the time Scott returned, Packy decided he needed to urinate, and proceeded to do so. arching his back and sending his stream high into the air, wiggling his hips to create patterns like a little boy.
“What the hell am I watching?” said Scott as he took the binoculars.
“A grown man urinating in public,” said Rick. “You should be familiar with that.”
“Only after a crate of beer,” said Scott. “Jesus Christ, is he ever going to stop?”
“He’s been sitting there a while. And it’s cold. You know how that makes you want to go.”
“Who is this guy?”
“That’s Packy.”
“Holy crap, shoot him already. In fact, give me that rifle. I’ll do it myself.”
“He’s got two shooters behind him, though they must be getting pretty numb by now.”
“Then maybe they could shoot him. I know I would.”
“I want to go down there and see what he wants. You circle around behind the shooters.”
Scott looked at him. “You know this could be a trap, right?”
“It could be, but we’ve got him covered from here, and I haven’t seen anyone else. I say we give him the benefit of the doubt and find out what he wants.”
Scott rolled his eyes.
*
Rick crossed the footbridge over the creek. Packy, sitting down now, was in view at the top of the rise. Rick kept the slope between him and the shooters, just in case. Scott, keeping out of sight, was on his way to flank them and Rick walked slow to give him time to get into position.
He approached until he could just see over the rise, locating the shooters, then took two steps back until the rise covered him again. Packy was about ten yards away.
“My first customer,” said Packy enthusiastically. “I was getting a little worried no one would show up. It’s a real slow day for sales, but that’s the risk you take when you set up your own business, right?”
Rick looked him over. He couldn’t see any visible weapons. “So this is your business now?”
“That’s right. Sole trader.”
“What about the two guys behind you? Who are they?”
“Them? Well, we never got properly introduced. Bubba and Cleetus, probably. They’re nice guys. They kind of just tag along because, well, they recognize an entrepreneur at the beginning of his rise. I could be the next Google, you know? Call them early investors.”
“Your investors beat up a security guard and stole supplies from the hospital.”
Packy pulled a face. “That was an unfortunate altercation. He said one bad thing, they said another, there was pushing and shoving … you know how these things escalate. I’ve spoken to them about it.”
“You spoke to them?”
“It was the least I could do. I have a reputation to uphold.”
“A reputation?”
“A good one. The way I see it, there’s people around who need things. And I’m the kind of guy who can get them. It’s a quid pro quo thing.”
“You the kind of guy that can get grenades?”
“Absolutely.” Packy reached into a bag by his side and pulled out an M67 fragmentation grenade, which he laid on the table.
The action caused Rick to lift and aim his rifle. When Packy’s fingers left the grenade, Rick relaxed somewhat. “Planning to blow up any more buildings with that?”
“Oh no, this one’s a keeper,” said Packy, tapping it proudly. “And for the right price, it could be yours.”
“What else you got?”
Packy delved into his bag again. “Saltines, M&M’s, matches, toilet paper.” He held up a pack of sanitary napkins. “One for the ladies. I also have perfume for those romantic moments, diarrhea tablets when it’s less so. And this.” He showed Rick a .223 round. “This should fit that rifle of yours. Always useful in times like these.”
Rick looked over the items on the table. “That all you’ve got?”
“Oh no, these are just samples. You tell me what you need and, nine times out of ten, I can get it for you.”
“And what will you take in exchange?”
“Ah, you know. Labor intensive stuff. Like firewood. Cherry pie.”
“Pie?”
“I love cherry pie, especially when it’s freshly baked. Or brownies.”
Rick wasn’t sure he could come up with those any time soon. And if he did, he doubted anyone in the clubhouse would trade it. “Anything else?”
“Well, there’s fresh meat. Especially … goose.”
Rick knew then that Packy had been spying on them. For quite some time. He understood, then. Packy was a hustler. Out in Afghanistan and Iraq, Rick had used men like him as fixers – people with the ability to acquire anything, thanks either to good connections or nimble fingers. Usually both. Packy didn’t seem so crazy to him, then. He was weird, that was a certainty, but it was clear he’d also thought ahead and had probably mapped out or collected anything that was useful in the city. Perhaps even beyond. And he wasn’t keen on doing physical work himself. Yeah, he was exactly like a lot of guys he’d known in Kabul or Baghdad.
“Okay, I’ve got a proposition,” said Rick. “You took a shotgun from a guy at the hospital. His name’s Harvey, by the way, and he took it pretty bad. You return that shotgun and the medical supplies you took, and I’ll consider doing business with you. Bring them here same time tomorrow, and we have a deal.”
“You mean, just hand them over? For nothing?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. Call it a primer for your reputation. If you don’t like it, go find someone else.”
Packy seemed impressed. “I like the way you deal. You’d be good at this. Tomorrow it is, then.”
25
He liked to be called 'Boss’. That much, Dee knew. Everybody in the camp called him Boss without a hint of irony. He wasn’t a physically intimidating character, unlike some of the thugs in his employ, and he didn’t look the average crime boss – though Dee had never met a crime boss, and only knew them from TV shows. The group was run with almost military precision, but Boss didn’t look army. Dee had spent enough time around soldiers to know that. Boss wasn’t even old enough to be an experienced officer. Dee used to sing with a small-time band, and Boss reminded her a little of the club owners she’d met. They tended to be older, with a permanently harassed look that suggested a thousand responsibilities. Boss transcended that, however, with a deep, calm silence that implied he was used to running multi-million dollar empires and had long since left the p
etty hassles of small clubs behind. The kind of limousine mogul that Dee used to dream of handing a CD to, in the hopes of getting a recording contract.
Boss looked like the kind of mogul who’d peer down his nose at her and order his driver to make sure he was never disturbed like that again.
Whatever, or whoever, he actually was, there was no doubting the efficiency of his gang. Once the prisoners were brought in on the boat, they broke camp and trekked on foot through the night, the roped prisoners carrying backpacks filled so high they looked like they were going to break their knees. Carrying only her baby, Dee found it hard going enough. A waxing moon illuminated the column as it snaked through fields and woods. In spite of the going, the gang avoided all travel by road, preferring to stay cross-country. Dee heard murmurs about army patrols, and it was clear the gang was anxious to avoid further confrontation. Flanked by guards, Dee felt the tension as she strove to keep going. Ahead, one of the 'mules’ stumbled and fell, saying out loud that he was tired and needed to stop. Two guards moved in on him and proceeded to punch and kick him until he got up, sobbing but walking. Behind Dee, a baby began to cry.
“Shut that baby up,” growled an uncompromising voice.
Dee thought it was directed at her and expected a beating. Fortunately, the baby immediately fell quiet, probably smothered by a breast. Shaking, Dee concentrated on putting one foot before the other, praying for this night to end. The rhythm of her walking kept Jacob quiet, which was a blessing, but the hours dragged on until she felt ready to collapse.
The column stopped abruptly, and from up ahead came the sound of a voice calling out a challenge. They were in woods, the ground was boggy, and the air had the fetid smell of a swamp. Dazed and tired, Dee wondered if they’d met an army patrol. It was possible they were going to be rescued, but then it occurred to her that if there was a shoot-out, she could be caught in the crossfire. Dropping down to her haunches, she listened carefully, waiting for the opening shots, but the column began to move again and she had to scramble quickly up. They passed the rusting shell of an old pickup that had no wheels, and a trio of armed men who greeted each raider as they passed. An overgrown stone path appeared underfoot and took them in a rising curve through the trees until they reached a clearing, where a stone house without roof or windows stood. A campfire burned in a pit.
They’d reached the raiders’ hideout. The challenge hadn’t been an army patrol, but the hideout guards. The prisoners carrying their loads were allowed to collapse. The raiders relaxed. Dee and the other mothers were herded into a narrow space between two stone walls that was furred with moss, and there they were left till the morning.
*
“You’re a very stupid person,” he said.
Boss was looking at Dee with what she could only describe as dead eyes. She’d slept uncomfortably on a floor littered with stones and other debris, worrying about Jacob in the cold. Several times she’d woken to the sound of scratching, and she feared rats would attack her baby. The other mothers moaned, sighed or sobbed, and the sound of a baby’s cry woke them all with a start, wondering if it was their own. Dee dreaded falling asleep in case she lost her grip on Jacob, and dreaded waking up to discover this wasn’t all a bad dream. In the morning, when she was summoned to an audience with the boss, she was in a foul mood and told him it was only a matter of time before the army found them.
“There is no army,” he continued. “They’re scattered. Some are foraging for themselves. See that man over there? He’s a soldier. That one by the fire? He’s national guard. They’re the same as everyone else now – hungry and thinking only of their own survival. But you wouldn’t know that, would you, ensconced in your Shangri La and thinking there are still authorities to look after you. Because you’ve always been looked after.”
“That’s not true,” she said, tight lipped.
“It is, but you’re too dumb to realize it. With your pretty face and svelte body, you’re used to doors opening for you. Cry some tears and you get sympathy. Open your legs and they form a line. Don’t want to walk home in the rain? That’s okay, some idiot jock will be happy to give you a ride in his car. Find one you like, give birth to a brat, and you think the world’s your oyster, pouting when you don’t get your way. So who was he? Some soldier boy? Were you a Fort Bragg harpy, happy with the attention? Or did he leave you so that you had to run back to your mommy while you waited for your welfare check, and the next jock to come along?”
Dee thought of Walt, and tears pricked her eyes, but she blinked them away. She was damned if she was going to cry in front of this lizard.
“You make me sick,” he said. “You and all the other leaches. One natural event and everything falls apart. You’d think they could have at least prepared. You’d think one of those dumbasses in the Senate would have at least considered the possibility that things might break down. I mean, it’s not like that they didn’t have five thousand years of civilization to learn from, is it? But no, they were too busy filling out expense forms and fingering their interns, and everybody else was happily polluting the planet and getting fatter and stupider. So here I am looking for scraps when I could be fishing on some Malibu beach, and you can’t get it into your head that it’s all over and the cavalry isn’t going to come rescue you.”
Sitting in his camping chair in front of his tent, one of the few lucky to have one, he stared into the distance, ruminating on his ill fortune.
“I was a business analyst,” he continued. “I had it all planned. I was going to be CEO by the time I was thirty-five, then cash in my shares. It was all lined up. Because I was good. Even the jealous assholes in the office could see that. I wasn’t prepared to wait like they were. I mean, who wants to do that crap for the rest of their life? No. You make a killing when you can and then you get out. All I needed was the rest of the idiots to hold the system together until I got what I wanted, then they could do what the hell they liked. Chimpanzees could have run the show better than they did.”
Dee couldn’t understand his reasoning. “It wasn’t anybody’s fault,” she said.
“Spoken like a true sheep,” he retorted. “Pay attention. It’s always somebody’s fault. Ship sinks in the middle of the ocean with a thousand lives lost, do you think people sit around saying, 'Oh well, it couldn’t be helped’? No. Somebody opens an inquiry to find out who’s to blame. Because everything happens for a reason. Well, guess what? The good ship Earth just got sunk. I don’t see why I should pay for everyone else’s incompetence.”
“What do you want with me?” said Dee, suppressing a sob.
“It’s always you, you, you, isn’t it?” he said mockingly. “Don’t worry, because I can tell you now, today’s your lucky day. You’re going to find out how to be useful to this community. You and all the other useless baby feeders. In the next few days, we’re going to be coming across little communities and holdouts at farms. We’ll be on the move, because we’ve exhausted this area, and we’re going to need supplies. You’re going to make sure we get them in the most efficient way possible. Quite simply, we’re going to send you out to approach the first farm we find. Your pretty face is going to open doors, your pathetic crying will garner sympathy, and you’re going to record every detail you see, from how many people there are, to how many weapons they have and how well defended they’re likely to be. And then you’re going to come back straight to us. Because while you’re away, I’ll be keeping your baby. That will guarantee your compliance.”
Dee listened in horror. Of all the fates she could have imagined, none could be worse than having her baby taken from her.
“You don’t have to do that,” she stuttered.
“I think I do.”
Dee softened her tone. “No, really you don’t.” She was thinking on her feet. The man had twice mentioned she was pretty. He had to be attracted to her. If she could convince him that maybe it was mutual, she might be able to engineer a more accommodating arrangement. The thought of being with him mad
e her sick to her stomach, but for her baby’s sake, she could give herself to him, no matter how dirty it felt. She took two steps forward into his personal space, posing provocatively like she’d learned to do on stage. “There’s no reason why I can’t be useful to you in … other ways,” she said, dropping a little huskiness into her voice.
The man’s lifeless eyes bored into her. “There are no other ways for you. I find you repulsive.”
Dee was taken aback by the depth of his contempt. Inside Boss’s tent, something stirred, then Axel stepped out, completely naked. She saw immediately that he did indeed have tattoos – in some very personal places. Axel gave her a lewd grin, and Dee finally put two and two together.
“You really are stupid, aren’t you?” Boss told her.
26
“He knows where we are, how many of us are here and what our defenses are like,” said Scott. “He’s dangerous.”
“He could well be,” conceded Rick. He sorted through the items Packy had brought in their first trade deal: Sanitary napkins, dried yeast, bread flour, a fishing rod and hooks, a box of canned peaches, another air rifle and a roll of barbed wire. All in exchange for a pile of firewood, two rabbits, four squirrels and a goose. Rick had scoured nearby Home Depot stores, looking for barbed wire, but noticed it had already been taken. Now he knew who’d taken it. When Packy arrived with the goods, he was driving a '79 Ford pickup that looked too shiny for the Apocalypse. Packy deflected any questions as to how he might have acquired it or kept it running.
“He could sell information, as well as goods. Information about us, to the wrong people,” continued Scott.
“I know,” said Rick.
Apart from being cagey about where he got his stuff, Packy was also evasive about who else might be in the city or its surroundings, but Rick gleaned enough to discern that there were other survivor groups out there. Packy wasn’t about to divulge their whereabouts because he wanted to remain the middle man between them all. That much was clear.