by Lopez, Rob
“This is Bethlehem,” said Lizzy, pointing to the buildings drawn on the paper, in case it wasn’t abundantly clear.
“And this is a star,” said Daniel.
“And this is the baby Jesus,” continued Lizzy.
“And this is another star,” added Daniel.
Janice made the effort to sit up. “So beautiful,” she said, her voice croaky and broken.
“That a dog or a reindeer?” said Rick.
“Daddy, you know it’s a donkey. It’s in a stable,” said Lizzy.
“This is a star,” exclaimed Daniel, pulling out a third sheet of paper.
Josh arrived to take his place at the table, a little flushed. Scott came behind, kissing April and patting her belly, and Harvey wandered in and solemnly sat down.
“Time to eat,” said Chuck, taking the pan off the stove.
Sally stayed at her post, helping Janice with her food, but the old woman didn’t have much of an appetite, in spite of Sally’s cajoling. The others had no such problem, clearing their plates in what seemed like seconds. With only one meal a day, they’d become accustomed to consuming it fast. Wiping his lips with a napkin, Scott slipped out of the room.
“Can we open presents now?” asked Lizzy.
“Patience,” said Lauren with a knowing smile.
“I’d like to give you my present now, if I can,” said Josh. Without waiting for permission, he pulled out a sprig of holly and presented it to Lizzy. “It’s not much, but it’s fresh and green. I admit I forgot to get you something.” Digging into his pocket, he pulled out a quarter. “I did find this by the lake this morning, though. You can call it your lucky coin.”
The coin was scuffed, dull and certainly worth nothing now, but Lizzy took it, admiring it in her palm. “Thank you, Josh,” she said, giving him a hug.
“And I’m sorry,” said Josh, returning the embrace.
That was when Santa made his entrance. In the red outfit he’d made, and carrying a sack, Scott approached the table. “Ho, ho, ho,” he said.
Daniel’s eyes were like saucers.
“Let’s see what I’ve got in my bag,” said Scott, reaching in. He pulled out a plastic truck. “This is for you, young man,” he said, giving it to Daniel.
To smiles from around the table, he pulled out more toys, all plastic on account of the fact they could be sterilized properly.
“Got anything for us?” teased April.
“That depends on whether you’ve been naughty or nice,” winked Scott.
Harvey cleared his throat. He wanted to make an announcement. “I just want to thank all the folks here for a fine meal.” A pained expression crossed his face. “I know I haven’t been the easiest of people to get along with, but don’t let my past ingratitude sour you none. You’re all good people. Now, back home, before all this, I was brought up in a tradition of singing songs at Christmas. I don’t have the voice for it, but I’d like to sing you a carol that’s been on my mind lately. Feel free to join in if you’ve a mind.”
In a baritone voice that belied his modesty, Harvey sang I Heard the Bells On Christmas Day. As his voice swelled to fill the room, all focus fell on the last verses:
It was as if an earthquake rent the hearthstones of a continent
And made forlorn the households born
And in despair, I bowed my head
'There is no peace on earth’ I said
For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, goodwill to all men
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep
'God is not dead, nor does He sleep
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, goodwill to men’
There was a moment of silence, accompanied by the fading of the tones Sally had added to the last line. Then Scott spoke.
“I ain’t much for religion,” he said. “But amen to that.”
*
Packy leaned forward in the passenger seat of the pickup. A sudden squall had blown up, throwing wet snow at the windshield that the wipers were struggling to keep up with. Patches of opaque mist simultaneously hung in the path of the rutted track the pickup was bouncing over.
“Can you believe this weather?” he remarked.
His henchman, who was driving, said nothing, changing gear with a crunch.
Packy winced. “Bubba, can you not do that? This is a classic vehicle you’re driving. You gotta caress the gear shifter, not ram it home like some high school kid on his first date.”
“I told you before, my name ain’t Bubba. It’s Jake. And it ain’t me, it’s the clutch. How about you fix it sometime?”
Packy rolled his eyes. “Eh. You probably dropped out of high school, anyway, so it was a bad analogy. My apologies.”
“This road could do with fixing too,” growled Jake, oblivious to the insult.
The road to the McGowan farm had always been bad, but the snow and ice had crumbled what was left of the asphalt and made the holes bigger. Packy put his hands together, intertwining the fingers and cracking the joints with a stretch. He was getting ready for Ma McGowan, the fierce matriarch of the farm community. She was a stubborn negotiator, but Packy relished the challenge. As far as he was concerned, it was one of the few things worth getting out of bed for. It didn’t matter how agitated the trading negotiations got, he always left the farm energized. For this reason, he liked Ma, even though she couldn’t stand the sight of him.
Arriving at the farm gates, they turned into the yard and into a particularly thick patch of fog. The wind blew, the snow smacked on the windshield, and the mists swirled and parted.
The first thing Packy saw was the body of Ma McGowan hanging from a rope tied to the overhang of a hayloft.
Jake hit the brakes. It occurred to Packy that he wouldn’t be negotiating with Ma McGowan no more. Then it occurred to him that maybe they shouldn’t hang around here. What he’d taken for fog was actually smoke from the burning farmhouse, and scattered around the yard and among the buildings were a lot of armed figures, none of whom he recognized.
“Uh, reverse,” he uttered.
Jake was trying to do precisely that, wrestling with the stick shift. A line of flashes in the smoke was immediately followed by the smashing of bullets into the cab. The windshield shattered, the engine shuddered to a halt and hot steam rose from the radiator. Jake baled out from his side of the cab, and Packy opened the door and slithered out, flinching as bullets pockmarked the vehicle shell and ricocheted off the yard. As he fled toward the back, he passed the flopped body of Cleetus, or whom he always thought of as Cleetus, who’d been riding in the truck bed and had taken a bullet through the eye. Packy skidded around to the tailgate, bumping into Jake.
“Well, get firing then,” he told Jake.
Jake glared at him, clutching his semi-auto AR copy. “Have you seen how many of them sons of bitches there are?” he said, incredulous.
Packy sighed. “I gotta change my hiring policy,” he muttered. From inside his coat he pulled out a Mac-10 submachine gun. Pulling on the cocking handle, he searched all over the little weapon for the safety catch.
“It’s that lever there, in front of the trigger,” pointed Jake.
“Oh yeah. Thanks.”
Packy leaned out and pulled the trigger. What exited from the jumping barrel was a ripping buzzsaw of bullets. Packy made a single sweep of the yard, and the weapon clicked empty.
“Damn, that didn’t take long,” he said.
Under the blistering assault of bullets, the assailants, none of whom looked to have been hit, all dived or ran for cover. Jake took advantage of the pause to sprint away in the opposite direction.
Packy rolled his eyes again, patting his pockets for another magazine. The goods he’d brought to trade remained lashed down on the truck bed, mostly covered in Cleetus’s blood. Packy found a grenade in his pocket and brought it out, looking to the goods, then back to the grenade.
“Oh, my supplies,”
he said sadly. Pulling the pin from the grenade, he tossed it onto the bed and dashed off in Jake’s wake. The truck, the goods and the spare cans of gas he kept in the back all went up in a hot and expanding mushroom cloud.
35
Rick found his inactivity excruciating. After six days, he was wild with frustration. In spite of his own desires, however, he still felt weak. Every coughing fit left him wheezing and exhausted. In the next cot, Janice had it worse. Sally never said it out loud, but Rick could tell from the sound of Janice’s labored breathing that she’d contracted pneumonia. She was getting worse day by day. If nothing else, he could see it on Chuck’s face every time he visited. With Janice unable to make it to the toilet any more, another curtain had been raised between the cots for her privacy. Rick lay isolated, hearing the death rattles of lungs that were filling with fluid. The sound of his own breathing wasn’t much cause for comfort. Sally had been forced to ration her dwindling supply of antibiotics. Never much to begin with, it was impossible to get more from Packy. He hadn’t been seen since Christmas Eve, and had missed his appointed visits. Nobody seemed to know what was going on, and Rick was certain they were keeping him out of the intel loop, which only frustrated him further. He needed to get out of here.
He got his wish the morning that Scott pulled back his curtain. It wasn’t a casual visit. Scott was in full battle gear.
“There’s something you’re going to want to hear,” Scott said.
Behind him stood Packy.
Returning to the room with a bedpan, Sally threw Packy a hostile glance, remembering what he’d been responsible for. “What’s he doing here?” she hissed.
“He’s got important information,” stated Scott.
Packy stepped forward, then wrinkled his nose upon seeing Rick. “Are you, like, contagious?” he asked.
“Apparently not,” said Rick.
“No, but he might be bringing contagions from outside,” said Sally, pointing an accusing finger at Packy, “and you’re still weak and vulnerable to catching something else.”
“I’ll risk it,” said Rick, making the effort to sit up. He turned to Packy. “What have you got for me?”
“Uh, bad news, man,” said Packy. “There’s, like, a wave of bad hombres coming. I mean, it’s bad.”
“Could you be more specific?”
“He says there’s a group attacking settlements,” interjected Scott. “They’re overrunning them one by one, and they’re moving west, toward us. It fits the other intel we’ve been picking up.”
“How big is the group?”
“I didn’t want to stand around and count them,” reasoned Packy, “but I saw at least a dozen guys.”
“You saw them yourself?”
“Yeah, man. They did serious damage to my truck – and that was a classic truck.”
“I don’t care about your truck.”
“You should, man. That’s how I carry my supplies.”
Grudgingly, Rick realized he was right. “Any idea where the group is now?”
“No, but … I bumped into the group three days ago. And it’s taken me three days to get here. You can do the math.”
Rick dropped his feet over the side of the cot, looking for his clothes. “Get my gear,” he told Scott.
“You’re not ready for anything strenuous,” warned Sally.
Rick fell into a coughing fit. Wiping his mouth, he said, “There’s not a lot of choice.”
“She might be right,” said Scott, who hadn’t moved. “You’re not a hundred percent. Just need to consult with you, is all.”
“I need to see how things lie,” said Rick, “and I’m not going to see it from here.”
“Got something else,” said Packy.
“What?”
Packy screwed up his face. “Well, I was just thinking I could do with a place to, uh, hole up. And …” He looked around. “This place looks pretty good.”
“No,” said Sally immediately.
“You want to stay here?” said Rick.
“Yeah,” nodded Packy, like he’d just been invited. “And then there’s my mom, my dad. And Jake. I think he wants to bring his girlfriend too – you know how these attachments are. And, uh, well, I guess that’s about it.”
“What about the other fella you were with?”
“Oh, he didn’t make it. You don’t have to worry about him.”
Rick tried to think through the implications, but his mind was a fog. He looked up to Scott, and Scott nodded quietly in return.
“Okay,” said Rick. “When can you bring them?”
“I figure I can make all the necessary preparations and bring them tomorrow.”
“Fine. How much ammunition can you bring?”
Packy got cagey. “Well, that’s valuable stuff.”
“So’s this building,” said Rick, unimpressed. “If you want to get in, you’ll need to bring everything that will keep us alive. Otherwise you can stay outside.”
“That’s kind of a salient point,” conceded Packy. “There’s only so much I can carry, of course …”
“I don’t care. Bring it.”
*
“Glad you brought up that point about ammunition,” said Scott. “I was thinking about that myself.”
“You could have reminded me, instead of hanging back,” said Rick.
“I thought I’d let you get to that point yourself.”
“Brain’s not fully switched on yet. If you’ve got a thought, air it.”
Rick was touring the site, his body armor feeling heavier than it ever had. From the rooftop outpost, he looked east over the golf greens. “Got a good field of fire from here.”
“Yeah, if they’re dumb enough to attack this way. If they’re smart and they come at night, though, then this field of fire don’t mean nothing.”
“We need to find out how smart they are. Did Packy tell you any more about how they operate?”
“Nah. Sounds like he just drove into them and then hightailed it. Said he talked to some refugees on the road, and they were making out there was a horde of unstoppable barbarians eating people alive. Bogeyman stories, basically.”
Rick wheezed. He still hadn’t caught his breath from climbing the ladder. “We need more intel.” He coughed into his sleeve. “Show me the other outpost you’ve built.”
On the west side of the building, over the sloping roof, there was another flat area that overlooked the parking lot. A circle of improvised sandbags had been built there. Rick looked across at the apartment blocks and hotels on the other side of the street. Most of the buildings offered shooting points higher than the clubhouse roof. Harvey’s demolition of the trees had cleared the field of fire, but abandoned vehicles remained in the parking lot. “This is the area that worries me,” he said. “There’s too many points to cover. And we need to get those vehicles out.”
“Me and Harvey can roll them out. We’ll slash the tires, so they can’t be rolled back. It’s the fitness building and those apartments there that worry me more, though.”
The fitness building was about half the size of the clubhouse and flanked the north side of the parking lot. Like the clubhouse it was a grand, and solid, neo-classical structure that stood as high as the clubhouse. To the south, just a stone’s throw away and separated by a wall, was an apartment complex with balconies.
“Can we hold those buildings?” asked Rick.
“Who with? We’ve barely got enough to hold this one. Realistically, we’ve only got three shooters with rifles that can make a difference. Chuck’s too old, Sally don’t look like she’s fired a gun in her life, Harvey didn’t do so good against Packy’s goons, Josh is too young, and April …” He left it unfinished, but it was obvious he was thinking about the fact she was pregnant. Unsaid went the obvious need to safeguard Janice and the two children.
“We’ll have to see who Packy brings.”
“If they’re all nuts like him, I wouldn’t trust them on any perimeter.”
Rick sl
owly pondered the issue. “We’re going to have to see if we can get the Hatfields to join us.”
Scott pulled a face. “Them I trust even less.”
“They might be the best chance we’ve got.”
*
Pa Hatfield looked to have lost weight. Maybe it was because of rationing. Maybe it was the strain of living constantly in a bunker. Either way, he didn’t look too good. He looked almost as sick as Rick. What he hadn’t lost, however, was his belligerence.
“What’s that got to do with us?” he shouted from his upper floor window.
Rick stood wearily in the street, exhausted already from having come this far. “If those raiders reach the city, you won’t be safe here,” he said.
“I’ll take on anybody who threatens my family,” came the reply. “Just let them come. You’ll see.”
Rick sighed, stifling a coughing fit. “I don’t doubt your intent,” he said in an effort to be diplomatic, “but you have to understand you’re isolated. Once these people find you, they’ll surround you and smoke you out.”
“How do I know you’re not trying to blow smoke up my ass? We got solid defenses here. You’re just trying to get us to come out.”
“Your defenses are non-existent. I don’t care how much money you’ve spent on your bunker. It’s useless against the kind of threat we’ve got coming.”
“Go to hell.”
Realizing he wasn’t being very persuasive, Rick paused, trying to outline his thoughts. “The raiders have already hit several settlements. They must know what they’re doing, and they’re ruthless. The only chance for both of us is to join together. It’s about numbers now. Nothing else matters.”
“Oh, I see,” said Pa Hatfield scornfully. “You’re afraid of them and you want us to come save your ass.”
“Yeah, I’m afraid,” lamented Rick. “I wouldn’t be here if the danger wasn’t so big. If you’re not afraid too, you’re a fool.”
Pa Hatfield shook his head. “Not as big a fool as you take me for. I got my freedom and I got my guns. I don’t need nothing else. You wasted your time coming here.”
“I think I did,” murmured Rick. “What the hell. You’ve been warned. Good luck.”